Once the children had all learned the ‘Skip-Step’ skill, they had begun practicing it ceaselessly. Their training had once again become monotonous, repeating the motions of things until they became second nature. Picking someone’s pocket was like putting on your pants. Stabbing something and fighting in general was as common as breakfast. The ‘Skip-Step’ would soon become like this for the children.

Skill: Skip-Step

Use stamina to quickly cover distances in a single step. The amount of stamina used is affected by the distance traveled. Skip-Step is limited to eyesight. Can NOT phase through solid objects using this skill.

Everyone learned at different speeds, so progress amongst the children also varied considerably. Seventeen had been the first of the recruits to perform the skill, and this reflected in his performance. Other than Asher, Seventeen was the best at using the ‘Skip-Step’ skill. At first, he was only able to move a few paces worth of distance in an instant, but soon he was able to cover a distance that was approximately ten paces, in a single bound. He could perform this technique a few times before needing to take a break. The skilled used up stamina if the attempts were successful or not. Successful attempts seemed to use up more stamina than failures. It was a common sight to see all of the children sweating profusely after only a few uses of the ability. They were given enough time to rest and regain their spent stamina, but immediately got back to training once the assistants deemed that their recovery had been sufficient.

Since the children had started their ‘skills’ regimen, Asher was learning something quite different in private. The morning after Master Revenant had informed Asher of the difficulty of his task, they began their training. His training consisted of mastering the ‘Skip-Step’ skill until it was like breathing and sneaking around trying to hide presence and go unnoticed. The use of the skill would be woven in with the hand-to-hand sparring they did. Each time he used the skill, his Jack of Everything feat would be there working its magic in the background.

FEAT: Jack of Everything

-Lifelong Student

You have spent your life trying to learn from people of all skills and all walks of life.Your thirst for knowledge has turned you into a lifelong student. Bypass restrictions on learning new skills and abilities. Learn skills and abilities at an increased rate.

He could feel each use of the skill increasing his innate understanding of it. The feat coupled with the near non-stop usage of the skill had increased his proficiency with the ability in the weeks they had begun training. Asher felt he was safe in assuming that his mastery of the skill was close to rivaling that of Master Revenant’s. By the time a month had passed since they’d begun their secret training away from the group, their sparring sessions looked like something out of a Dragon Ball Z episode. The two would flicker out of sight, only for them to suddenly be seen clashing into one another exchanging a flurry of blows. Something of interest, which Asher noted in the back of his mind, was that Master Revenant would get tired in their sparring sessions before him. The order to take a break was never out of necessity for Asher, but to give Master Revenant a chance to recover his stamina. Then, one day, it finally happened.

The two of them had been sparring fiercely. Blows were being exchanged left and right. Asher would land a punch, elbow, or a kick and receive a palm strike to his jaw, a punch to his solar plexus, or a punch to his temple. The two would then flicker to a different part of the room continuing their volley of blows. They had clashed once again and Asher threw a feint, leaving his ribs exposed. Master Revenant had taken the bait, his fatigue had been building up during the fight, and wanted to end things quickly. Master Revenant sent a kick into Asher’s ribs, just as Asher had hoped he would. Asher caught the kick, quickly shifted the man’s leg to the other side of his body, and pulled him in. Completely off-balance, there wasn’t much Master Revenant could do except clench his teeth, and hope to survive the hit. Asher did a spinning elbow, landing the hit right behind Master Revenant’s ear, knocking the man unconscious. As the man laid there, Asher jumped up and kicked his feet like Mario.

“Woohoo! I finally did it!”

Asher was impressed with Master Revenant, the man’s fighting style was one that protected his hands, but still aimed for vital points in the body to completely incapacitate someone. They had spoken candidly about their techniques in the weeks prior and Master Revenant’s reasoning was that ‘a thief’s most important tools are their hands...can’t risk hurting them too badly.’ Something else of note was that once a person learned to use the ‘Skip-Step’ technique the damage you felt from receiving blows lessened considerably, even if you couldn’t just outright dodge something. He assumed it was because once you learned how to use stamina, your physical prowess evolved. He also hypothesized that if you were being hit by someone using ‘Skip-Step’, moving at the same speed as them would take away the brunt of the potential damage.

Asher poked the unconscious Master Revenant in the face a few times until the man began stirring awake. Master Revenant’s eyes popped open only to see a menacing grin spread across Asher’s face.

“Lucky hit.” He mumbled as he rubbed the part of his head that had met with Asher’s elbow.

“LUCKY?! You’ve been kicking my ass for weeks, non-stop, you think I wouldn’t pick up on a few things to finally beat you?” Asher rebutted.

“Yep,” Master Revenant said as he stood up, “Pure luck. Either way…you’re ready.

“Ready for what?” Asher asked.

“The next couple of skills you’ll need to learn.”

Master Revenant began brushing off all of his clothes and took a small jar from out of a bag hanging off of his belt. The bag was curious, seeing as how it looked empty, it was able to produce a jar which should’ve obviously been noticeable to Asher’s eyes.

“What’s that?” Asher asked.

“This?” Master Revenant said, holding up the little jar.

“Well, that too, but the bag. Is it magic or something?”

“Well this, a jar or healing ointment,” Master Revenant said as he applied some to his head where the elbow landed. “And this,” he said pointing to the bag hanging off his belt, “Is a Bag of Holding. Pretty expensive, but no super uncommon. They come in different designs, but this is the one I prefer while working.”

Once the healing ointment was applied, Asher took a fighting stance. Master Revenant simply raised a hand.

“Enough of that, now it’s time for you to learn another skill,” he said as he pulled up two chairs for them to sit in. “Skills are things that people will accumulate throughout their lives. For example, a lumberjack may eventually learn some type of skill that helps with his axe swinging. They aren’t things that are only available to people with classes, but they do require a certain amount of time to train up. Skills can evolve if certain criteria are met, or through various other reasons, but training is a more effective way than hoping for some god to bless you, or some crazy magical phenomenon to forcibly switch things up.”

“Well I only know one ‘skill’ as of now so I’m assuming it’ll be ‘Skip-Step’ that’s getting the upgrade.” Asher said candidly.

“Indeed it is. Sometimes skills are evolved at random, due to using them out in the field, other times the evolution can be nudged in a certain direction. This evolution of ‘Skip-Step’ is one that is typically only taught to our…eyes.”

“Eyes?”

“They’re a division in the Syndicate. You can think of them as enforcers. They keep watch over Syndicate members, dish out punishment as necessary, as well as taking on contracts that require a bit of finesse.”

“Well, no sense on asking too many questions let’s get to it.”

“Good,” Master Revenant snapped his fingers and magical torches lining the room sparked to life. Shadows dancing around the room as the torches would brighten and soften with its light’s intensity. Master Revenant then walked out of the room and dragged in what appeared to be a standalone wall with a window built in the center of it. He nodded towards the wall then looked at Asher.

“One, this will be your training partner.”

“How is a wall going to help me evolve ‘Skip-Step’?” Asher said in a disbelieving tone.

“It’s what the wall does that’ll help you. As I’m sure you are aware, ‘Skip-Step’ does not allow a person to travel through solid objects,” Master Revenant walked in front of Asher, he then appeared on the other side of the barrier, “This skill does.”

Confused, Asher just looked at Master Revenant. “Couldn’t you just use ‘Skip-Step’ to go around the thing and end up in the same spot?” he thought to himself. Master Revenant caught this slight confusion in Asher’s face and simply sighed.

“You seem like the type to learn by doing. Go ahead, look straight through the window where I am, and use ‘Skip-Step.’ “

Without hesitating, Asher did as he was instructed. He went through the motions and sensation of using the skill as he focused on his destination point through the window. He felt his body rush forward and he proceeded to slam face first into the wall, crashing halfway through the window.

“See?” Master Revenant said with a grin. “Plus that’s for knocking me out.”

“Ha. Ha.” Asher said as he pulled himself out of the window, blood running down his face.

“This skill requires a high proficiency in ‘Skip-Step’ and stealth. Both of which we have been working on for the better part of nearly two months. Seeing as how you can keep up with me in our sparring, your ‘Skip-Step’ is at the appropriate level. Your stealth is also at a high level. Even though anyone can be sneaky, stealth is an actual skill that diminishes your presence.”

Asher quickly sifted through the menus in his mind and sure enough, it was there.

Skill: Stealth

This skill enhances the ability of the caster to hide. Upon increasing proficiency in stealth, this ability allows one to: reduce noise output, get rid of scent, and diminish the user’s presence altogether. *Level requirement not met to reveal further information*

“Well that’s interesting,” Asher thought to himself. He hadn’t run into an issue where he didn’t meet the required level for anything yet. This simply meant that the ‘Stealth’ skill had a lot more to offer him later on. He had never taken notice of the ability because most of his training was centered around using ‘Skip-Step’ during their sparring sessions. His stealth training was more or less sneaking around and trying to hide from Master Revenant, it was basically Hide-and-Seek, except you got a beating when you were caught.

“What you want to do is still do your image training with ‘Skip-Step’ but at the same time focus on diminishing your presence completely while you attempt to do it.”

Asher stood there, focusing on the spot through the shattered window where Master Revenant was standing. He could feel the urge to jump forward, but he wasn’t “ready” yet. Something inside himself was telling him that he was still too “there”, he hadn’t diminished his presence enough. He began fixing the issue. Sweat was dripping down his forehead, his heart was thumping due to the stamina being built up, waiting to be used. He started there first, he slowed his breathing down, his heartbeat soon followed and relaxed. The tension in his legs began to dissipate, no longer straining to be let loose. He even lowered how loud he was breathing until the room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. He began focusing on every signal his body was emitting and reined them all in one by one. He focused on the spot, and felt himself sinking into the ground, more specifically, his own shadow. He kept his destination in mind as everything faded to black briefly and he appeared next to Master Revenant. Creeping out of the shadow cast by the wall itself.

“Show off..” Master Revenant grumbled.

Asher stood there panting as a notification popped into his field of view. He mentally opened it up to see that it was a new skill. Seeing as how the skill was an evolved form of ‘Skip-Step’, the descriptions were very similar with one big exception.

— Skill Learned! —

Skill: Shadow Step

Use stamina to quickly cover distances in a single step. The amount of stamina used is affected by the distance traveled. Shadow Step is limited to eyesight. This skill can be used to phase through solid objects using this skill. A shadow MUST be present in order to “step” into it.

“Well, looks like you’re almost done preparing,” Master Revenant said while he patted Asher on the back, “One more skill and you’ll be ready for your task.”

“That one was a bit of a doozy,” Asher said as he took a deep breath.

“I’m glad to hear it, you’ll be practicing it until it’s as easy as walking.” Master Revenant said, with the look of a sadistic drill sergeant anxious to beat down his new recruit.

“Fuck..”