Chapter 5 - Hardship or Blessing

¨SPLASH!¨

The sound of something solid crashing into the water could be heard. This something was Niko and he had just fallen inside of a deep pond from the darkness above. Niko struggled to swim upwards with panic as he moved wildly and barely made his way towards the top.

¨Swoosh! Swoosh!¨

Niko struggled to move as he wasn't skilled in swimming, therefore, just managing to stay afloat was extremely challenging. Luckily, the dry ground was close by as while flapping his arms around panicking he managed to grab the sides of the pond and move out of it.

¨Argh!¨ He pulled his body from the pond, as it felt like it was twice its normal weight inside of the water. After getting back onto the ground, Niko laid on his back breathing hard calming himself down. Everything around him began to become wet as the water dropped to the dark gray stone ground.

¨A trap!?¨ He thought to himself relieved it wasn't a deadly trap, as he looked upwards and saw nothing but darkness. 'It appears I am inside of another cave...'

Niko sat up and began to look at his surrounding. He was unable to see too far away from where he currently was as all he could see was a wide pond, and something else much more interesting. His surrounding was completely dark, however, a small light could be seen not too far away from him. The light wasn't too bright, but just enough to allow Niko to spot it.

Picking himself up, Niko slowly moved towards the small shining light. He was as cautious as ever, especially since he had already fallen into a trap, and wouldn't want to fall into another one. Luckily he kept his life, he wouldn't want to find out about the next time.

Slowly, he approached the light source and when he was finally able to get close enough to have a look, his face changed. Bones. There were several bones on top of another and just next to these bones was a glowing gem. The gem was spherical and completely blue. Unlike the green gem he had seen before, the blue gem didn't have anything inside of it, just a vast sea of blue. The gem possessed an aura that glowed with a faint white light that stayed the same brightness no matter how close one had gotten.

What made Niko´s face change was the skull on the other side of the gem. The dark eye sockets looked lonely and old with spider webs covering every crevice of it as if it had been here for a long time. An ancient and eerie feeling was emitting from the skull.

"This was someone's bones…" Niko murmured in fear, but then shook his head with a serious look, 'No! The orb said that only the strong would live… He was able to kill someone without even caring… I need to find my sister… I need to be strong! If I'm weak, death in this world will be inevitable and I need to power through!'

Niko approached the gem with caution. Seeing that there were no problems with it, he extended his right hand to get a closer look and grabbed it.

He picked up the gem which felt weightless and said, ¨Analyze!¨

[Skill: Celestial Probe I]

Level: 1(3)

Description: This skill allows the user to gain deeper information of something else. The analysis skill only gives around 30% of the information of something, while this skill possesses the capability of showing 100%. This skill will also allow the user to know the ability of their enemy, giving them an advantage in battle.

[Activate?]

Yes/No

Niko´s eyes lit up. ¨This should be just like analyze, but much better! Anyone would quickly accept this! But...¨ Niko's' brows furrowed as he thought about what was written in the booklet.

Humans were only allowed to have a maximum of seven skills. There might be some exceptions as certain rare Items might possess a skill, however, seven was the maximum amount of skills a human was allowed by the system. Therefore, Niko needed to think carefully about the skills he acquired.

'Analysis has its limits… Knowing an enemy better would be extremely helpful in addition to having extra information on other things. 'Having a complete understanding of things can save my life… If I level it up I will be able to know and understand more and more. I accept this. Activate, yes!'

Besides, learning a skill would be better than not, as skills were not easy to come by. The booklet said that someone´s first monster kill would have a 50% chance of dropping a skill. Then it decreases to 25% if the first monster doesn't drop any skills, and then to 10% if the first and second monster didn't drop anything. The percentage keeps on decreasing, the more monsters you kill. However, if you do receive a skill, your chances will go from 50% to 0.1% chance, which is the normal percentage everyone who already dropped a skill have. Of course, there are other chances of receiving skills, however, It really shows how rare and difficult approaching skill gems were.

¨Ding!¨

A sound echoed throughout his mind, just like the first time he was summoned and a screen appeared.

[Skill: Celestial Probe: Learned]

Particles of shining white light began to surround his body as the blue gem disappeared, Niko then said, ¨Status!¨

[Name: Niko Lazar]

Level: 1

Exp: 0%

[Status]

Strength: 1

Constitution: 1

Agility: 1

Intelligence: 1

Mana: 1

Mana Power: 2/2

[Unique Title]

None

[Skills]

Celestial Probe I

+1 mana power

Detail: A skill similar to Analyse but more complex and more useful.

When the level of the skill increases, so will its capabilities.

¨My mana power increased!¨ Niko was delighted, however still slightly disappointed that everything was progressing so slow. The faint light was still surrounding his body, lighting things around him to a certain extent and as he looked around he noticed a thinly opened rusted gate, on the cave wall near the bones.

The gate looked ancient as it had been sitting in that same position for millions of years with the rust covering the gate completely. Niko knew that time was short and it was going down each second. The small cave he was inside of right now, lacked objects. Other than the bones, there was nothing else that caught his eyes, therefore. He knew where he needed to go next, this place had to have other treasures.