022

Sitting on the bed with a huge grin on my face, I placed the two skill scrolls in front of me. I also pulled out the lamp from underneath the bed, I left it like this when I left yesterday.

Opening up one of the scrolls without waiting a single second more, I read through the contents rapidly and my eyes were immediately greeted with a prompt.

[Blood Skill: Stone Skin Lv.1, do you wish to learn it? Y/N]

“Yes!”

What happened next, I really didn’t expect. As if jumping out of the paper itself, the letters came off and slowly hurled themselves into my head, my head darted back in shock but I didn’t get to react as very quickly, information starting forcing itself into my head.

My mind was filled with the precise method of using my Qi that would make my skin as hard as a rock.

Unknown to me, the surface of my skin began to harden, as my entire body that was sitting cross-legged on the bed became similar to a statue, unmoving and sturdy.

I could feel the Qi moving in a uniform manner towards my skin, almost forming a layer over it.

As I began to feel the effects of scroll lessen, I slowly opened my eyes, even my eyelids felt like they had some weight to them.

I slowly got up from my bed, my body completely stiff as a rock.

“It’s very hard to move like this…”

I tried doing the basic moves and such, after being a little comfortable making simple movements.

[Skill: Stone Skin Lv.1 has been acquired.]

[Qi increased by 20.]

[DEF increased by 10.]

I opened up my status and inspected the skill.

[Stone Skin Lv.1]

[Turns the skin as hard as stone. Hardness and weight is increased by two-fold for each level up. Activation Cost: 50 Qi, Maintenance Cost: 10 Qi/min]

“That’s interesting…”

So, not only does it increase my hardness but also my weight. If I were to compare it to something then it would be like a boulder that is just doubling in size with each level.

All in all, it’s a very good skill and I am very happy with it. Currently, I can only use the skill for about 6 times and then I’ll have to wait for my Qi to recover.

But if I just activate it once, then keep it going without cancelling it, it can go on indefinitely. With my current regeneration, I recover about 18 Qi every minute, that’s more than enough to keep it going.

“Onto the next one!!”

[Blood Skill: Weight Control Lv.1, do you wish to learn it? Y/N]

“Yes!”

The same situation of the letters jumping into my head happened again. This time my Qi did something different.

Rather than going towards my skin like the previous skill, it instead started going through the pattern of regeneration, where it would reach each and every part of my body, my bones, muscles, tissues, everywhere and it started seeping into it.

Each part of the body it entered, it started becoming heavier, and heavier, before I knew it, the bed I was sitting on started creaking and…

Thud! Crash!

I was still in the middle of assimilating with my skill, I couldn’t be bothered to check the broken bed, so just keeping my concentration, I continued.

It was only now that I was realizing how much Qi can do. I always thought that all it did was strengthen every body part that it entered, that’s it.

I mean that’s what I was using Qi Manipulation for. I still didn’t know how much or what I could do with it. Maybe that’s why it was stuck at level 5.

The weight had increased too much, by the time I opened my eyes to scan my surrounding. I was sitting in the broken remains of my bed. I quickly checked my status and inspected this skill.

[Skill: Weight Control Lv.1 has been acquired.]

[Qi increased by 20.]

[Weight Control Lv.1]

[Uses Qi to control the weight of the person’s body. 10 Qi -> +/- 1 Kg. Weight cannot be decreased below 0 Kg. Each level up increases the weight that can be added or removed.]

Another great skill, I was curious so I checked my Qi.

QI: 203/393 [0.3/sec]

I immediately used the skill to increase my weight by 20 Kg. I instantly regretted it.

Creak! Crash!

The old wooden floor below couldn’t handle the sudden weight change so, with the feeling of suddenly weighing a hundred kilos because I had forgotten to cancel [Stone Skin] as well, so with the combined weight of the two, I dropped down to the floor below me, right in the middle of the dining hall.

Thankfully they don’t serve anything other than dinner, or else this place might’ve been full of people.

I tried to remove the weight on my body and I successfully cancelled [Stone Skin], but I instantly noticed a problem with [Weight Control].

I can’t!

I was panicking, but I suddenly remembered that increasing and decreasing weight costs Qi, I can only wait till I recover my Qi.

“It’s very hard to move…”

“What happened!?”

Came the receptionist lady running after hearing the crash, I could only awkwardly laugh after seeing her worried face. I removed myself from the rubble and waited for her as she went back to get something from the reception.

She came back with a small green pill.

“Here, take this.”

She said as she handed me the green pill. I was curious as to what it was. I had always been unconscious whenever I was healed so this was my first time voluntarily taking medicine.

I listened to her and swallowed the pill whole.

A warm prickly sensation went throughout my body. I didn’t actually receive any damage as both of the new skills were activated so I can only guess that this pill is used to recover HP. The warm sensation only lasted for a few more seconds, and then it went away as if it wasn’t even there.

I guess this green one is on the cheaper side of the medicine.

I was transferred to another room because, fortunately for me, she thought that the floor and bed broke because they were old.

Roughly half an hour later, my Qi had completely recovered, I instantly removed the weight and my body felt a lot better.

“Let’s practice new skills outside from now on…”

I moved my stuff that only included a bag to the new room and went out. I was still not done with the testing of my skills.

I decided to head towards the east gate, the gate I entered from. The reason for it was simple, it was the closest gate to the hotel I was staying at. Even though the southern gate might’ve been more appropriate for this as I was a lot more familiar with the terrain having been gone there with Rachael.

But I had to reject that as from what I’ve heard, the curfew had been enforced a lot harsher from before, now unless you’re back during the light, you wouldn’t be let in.

The brawler incident had warned the guards enough and they were still waiting on the swarm. After all that has happened recently, even I’m waiting for it.

It would be a great opportunity to raise my level. I don’t think I’ve purposefully raised my level after the one time with the rabbits.

I guess it’s time I do this.

So, since East Green is pretty big and the threat of the swarm is on the south side, I’m think I’m relatively safer on this side of the town.

Going out of the gate, I head directly towards the forest on the north-east. The forest is pretty thin closer to the town but as I make my way in a little deeper, I’m brought back to my days of sleeping in the wild.

I feel a certain sense of calm after entering the forest. I immediately perk my [Awareness] up by a notch. Although it is a passive skill, I can get better results from it if I try to focus consciously.

I think that’s important otherwise it is never going to increase in level.

I immediately feel multiple different presences in my surroundings. From the way they’re moving, I can tell that they’ve sensed me too.

Previously, I used to avoid coming into contact with them, I used to focus to try and get away from them, but now I see, if I try to make my presence known for even a second, these beasts here would eat me alive.

I activated [Stone Skin].

I didn’t want to use [Sprint], first reason being it is one of the most useful skills I have and I’ve noticed that every time I need to run away from something life threatening, it is never readily available for use. It was my fault for using it as a combat skill too, but now that I have more options it is time I use [Sprint] only for emergencies.

The second and the most important reason for ditching it is because the penalty for constant use is too much.

So, for combat I’m going to be focusing on [Qi Manipulation] and the two skills I got today.

With [Stone Skin] activated, I suddenly feel heavier and my feet sink into the cold ground a little too.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to fight like this, so with a lot of Qi still remaining and a lot still regenerating, I started removing the weight on my body.

I removed enough, so that raising my hand was as natural as ever. I had to remove 25kg to do that.

With more than half of the Qi gone and regenerating, I moved my body, that despite being light was still as stiff as ever from using [Stone Skin], and moved towards one of the weaker presences.

“It is going to take some time to get used to…”

But now that I had activated it, I had no intention of stopping it, I mean literally not stopping it.

I wanted to keep this skill going as long as I could, and sure it was going to eat away a lot of points from regeneration as the eighteen points I recovered every minute were now reduced to just eight, but getting myself a protective shield was clearly an acceptable trade-off.

While walking for a few minutes with careful and forceful movements of my feet, I was able to get myself into a rhythm.

Very quickly, I reached the presence, it was a weird little creature. It was humanoid, around four feet tall, muscular (because why not), had white fur covering everything except the face, front torso and groin area where the skin was a murky grey.

It was chewing on one of the smaller beasts, the dog-like creature that I saw when I crossed the lake.

These dogs don’t look much like a threat, first they were hunted by the creepy sloth creature and now this monstrosity. I almost feel bad for them.

I didn’t need to grab its attention as its face that was deep inside the dog creature’s body was raised and I got a pretty good look of the ugly fucker’s face.

It had widely spaced apart black beady eyes, a highly raised up nose and sharp pointed teeth that were now covered with the dark and almost black blood of the dog-creature.

Grrrrr!!

It growled at me, I first thought it wanted to scare me away as I was disturbing its lunch time, but I was quickly proven wrong as the hideous creature threw away the body it was holding to the side like it had just found the most delicious replacement food ever and it ran towards me.

I was expecting this kind of response however, when you’ve spent living among things, even for a short time, that are out to get you, you develop a habit of staying vigilant against things like these.

I wanted to check the durability and the strength of [Stone Skin] by itself. So, with the creature just barely two steps away from me, I move my right leg back, get myself in position and give the creature a shoulder push.

With my DEF of 120, and the effects of [Stone Skin] I barely felt the attack.

The creature on the other hand was pushed back. Roughly.

It fell on its ass and was pretty angry, but I wasn’t going to give it a chance to strike back, while it was still trying to get itself up, I move Qi in my feet and use the strength to power my push forward as I reach the creature in one step.

With my right fist full of Qi, I move as I ram it into the creature’s face. It couldn’t struggle.

[860 EXP awarded.]

Lv.7 [2350/6000]

[Stone Skin is now level 2.]

[Qi has increased by 20.]

[Qi Regeneration is now level 4.]

[Qi has increased by 20.]

I guess I don’t have to worry about my Qi anymore. I’m worried though, is it going to stop increasing in level after reaching level 5 as well?

I’ve used [Qi Manipulation] and [Sprint] the most, so I can’t understand why they’ve not shown any progress as of late. Even the though the condition to level may increase, but it shouldn’t increase by this much. Looks like I need to give it a lot more thought.

[Stone Skin] levelling up surprised me more, not because it levelled up, but because my weight had suddenly doubled, all the Qi that I had used to remove 25Kg from my body didn’t help as much as before.

QI: 126/433 [0.4/sec]

Using the remaining Qi, I removed 10 more kilos from my body, it didn’t help much as I knew that my weight had at least doubled, I considered cancelling the skill for now, but I was immediately interrupted by a dialog box.

[Max HP increased by 1.]

I was suddenly hit with this message when I was thinking about all of this.

Why did my HP increase suddenly? I was shocked but then a thought suddenly sprouted within me.

“Is it because I’ve been training my body?”

Although I’ve reduced my weight significantly it was still tough moving my body with all that weight, so I guess forcing myself to move with all that weight behind was meaningful after all.

This was a very welcome surprise as I was just hoping to increase the skill’s level at best. But if this skill can help me increase my HP in the long run then I’m all for it.

I decided to not remove the weigh I had remaining now, I was still reasonably heavy, around 150kg considering my feet sunk a little in the ground as I walked towards my next prey. Thankfully with my HP almost reaching 300, my physical body is a lot stronger than it was before, so moving around the 150kg is nothing more than an inconvenience that I could easily get used to.