Stanis was back in his room, legs crossed on his bed. Opened wide in front of him was the skill scroll he had tried to gift Zelgard and Yils with. His eyes hadn't been far from popping out when he had heard Yils's request, well technically Zelgard's, but not that changed the amount of shock he had felt. Stanis didn't know how strong Zelgard was but Yils was clearly powerful, and thus staying here meant a carefree life. How could he ever decline such an offer? It was true that they would eventually kick him out, back to the cruel world, but he needed some time to heal after all that had happened in the tunnels.

His hand moved towards the scroll, a system notification popping up as he touched it:

Ice shot

Use mana to create an icicle that you can shoot out. Using more mana will create a larger icicle or a faster icicle, depending on your choice.

Upgraded: You can call back shot icicles towards you. This requires half the total mana used to create all the icicles you want to call back.

It was an upgraded skill… The face of distaste and contempt Zelgard had made when checking the scroll had made his view on it clear. Stanis was inwardly very happy Zelgard had thrown it back, after all what he was missing was offensive skills. Layman's Rush and Destructive mana recharge both had 6-hour cooldowns and were best used as clutch skills instead of casual offensive ones. He had lost his veils of darkness in the tunnels which meant he only had his left arm to effectively do damage, which made his addition to intelligence and wisdom almost redundant.

Stanis instantly accepted the skill and it came up in his status. He was now set for when they would kick him out. Satisfied, Stanis lied across his bed until Zelgard eventually called him for lunch.

The next two days passed quickly as Stanis got used to living with them. At first, Stanis had thought that Yils was Zelgard's carer from the way those two acted. It was after a bit of time that he realised that they were actually a couple, something that surprised him for very obvious reasons. Yils would very rarely leave the house, instead choosing to read books inside all day. They had a large library filled to the brim with books which Yils would voraciously devour every day. More interesting was Zelgard's life, since Yils was busy reading all the time, he would spend his time doing the menial tasks.

Not that he was bad at any of them, instead he was the best cook, cleaner and househusband Stanis had ever seen. He wasn't that good at fashion, but that mattered little in the grand scheme of things. When Zelgard wasn't looking after the house, he would either talk to Stanis/ Yils or stand outside and watch the Sun. In all honesty, Stanis found it difficult to make sense of the young man, he was as eccentric as they came.

One day Yils had gone out to do something and had left her book lying open across the table. Stanis had always wanted to see what she was reading but had also valued his life and thus hadn't pushed his luck. Now that she was gone, he walked over and looked at the open pages. They were blank…

He began to feel a bit light-headed and stepped back. A second later he was rolling across the floor, convulsing as if someone had forced his mind to shut down. A few moments after that, Stanis was no longer convulsing but lying perfectly still, his mind without a single thought.

Yils was the first one to find him, her hands full of food as she casually walked over. She shook her head and sighed as she saw the still body, before clicking her fingers in front of him. She then went back to her book, reading a few more pages before she got up again.

In the time she had been reading, his body had been slowly turning back on, thought very slowly coming back to his mind. This time she picked him up by his shaggy hair and viciously slapped him across the face. Thundering noise filled his head as he came to, Yils's impassive but beautiful face the first thing he saw. She sighed once more before placing him in a chair as a mother would do to a child, before going back to her book.

It would be minutes later that his mind finally caught up with his senses, his memories very quickly coming back. His mind had been in shock: whatever he had read on that page had clearly been far too much for it to handle and thus it had just shut down, then and there with no warning. He turned around and looked at where he was, only to notice he was in the hall. Yils was long gone and Zelgard sat next to him, chattering about clouds…

"----- and that one looked like a Veloid with their nasty claws. I was laughing so much when I saw it, but then I started to miss home as I kept looking at it."

Stanis waited awhile for Zelgard to finish but he had far underestimated the pale man's powers as Zelgard went on, Stanis himself eventually having to break Zelgard's speech as he realised he was never going to stop.

"Zelgard" said Stanis in a respectful tone as he got down to his knees, prostrating as he put his hands in a begging gesture, "can you teach me how to be strong?"

To Stanis's surprise, Zelgard didn't seem fazed or surprised in the least as he thoughtfully massaged his chin, as if wondering what Stanis's potential could get him to.

"Sure, that would make life a bit more fun!" responded Zelgard after a pause, laughing as he lifted Stanis up. "Come with me now, let your master train you."

Stanis followed him outside, where he proceeded to lay across the ground cloud-watching. Stanis copied his actions and also laid on the ground, for the first time in a while noticing how large the clouds looked from the top of the mountain.

"Now use your ice skill to shoot into the cloud. You have to make it part" stated Zelgard as he pointed to the closest, largest cloud.

And thus the following hours were filled with Stanis trying to shoot an icicle into the cloud. He did this the next day, and the day after that as Zelgard still demanded of the same thing. It wasn't as if he hadn't made progress as he could now shoot the icicle much further after lots of practice, but he still wasn't close to splitting or even parting the cloud with his icicle.

It was two days into his practice that Stanis asked Zelgard the point of this. His intelligence had naturally increased by 1 point, but that had been the extent of his progress as he had gotten stuck thereafter. It was clear as day that Zelgard was caught off guard by this question as he looked confused, thoughtfully rubbing his chin as he tried to articulate a response. It was fair to say that Stanis had gotten his answer after ten minutes of silence and thus decided to ask another question.

"Can you train me in some other manner?" pleaded Stanis, a hint of exasperation within his voice. He wasn't angry at Zelgard as he didn't have the right to be at the man who had saved his life and had now made it easy, but he was irritated by the fact that this exercise seemed to be pointless. Zelgard went deep into his thoughts again at this, this time actually coming out with a response.

"I don't know, this was the first thing I always started with. Let's go and ask if Yils can teach you, she knows a lot more than me."

Stanis's emotions wavered for a second as he heard this and thus was too slow to stop Zelgard from shouting out her name, fear and anguish rapidly building up in his heart. Yils was not at all hurried as she ambled out, her eyes still stuck to the pages of her book.

"Yils, can you teach Stanis? I don't really know how to do it…"

Her eyes finally left her book as Zelgard said this, a hint of amusement on her lips as she stared at Stanis. It wasn't as scary as last time but it was still pretty fucking scary nonetheless as Stanis felt stuck to the spot, his heart silent as if it didn't want to irritate her anymore.

"Sure. I was waiting to see how long it would take you." said Yils, this time her amusement clear as day as she started chuckling after that. Zelgard was clearly offended by this as he began egging her to tell him what she meant by that, although to no avail as she kept mum.

"We'll start training tomorrow, make sure to be in tip-top condition by then."