Alex slowly opened his eyes, almost immediately regretting his decision when a bright blue screen appeared in front of them.

“Fucking blue screens.”

He closed his eyes, and with a thought, made the notifications show up later. At the very least, the system was intuitive to use.

Besides the burning bright blue screen, he felt exhausted. The kind of bone deep weariness that you got when you spent far too much time at work and only manage to sleep a couple of hours the following day.

It brought back quite a few bad memories.

Slowly, he sat down, and looked around, seeing that he was back in the same house that he had spent the last days in. At this point, it was clearly night outside, which meant that he had been unconscious for most of the day. Slowly, he thought back about what happened.

“The hell did I do?”

With a though, he made the notifications appear again.

Your willpower has increased by 1

A skill had been created: Bridging the gap.

Bridging the gap40/120)

Can be activated when fighting a higher level opponent, for a short amount of time, lessens the effect of the difference between attributes. The bigger the gap, the bigger the effect, but the bigger the stamina cost.

Synergizes with willpower.

Very high stamina use

Warning, your stamina has reached negative levels! Emergency shutdown.

Bridging the gap skill level has increased! X2

It was rather obvious.

“That…explains quite a bit.”

The door of the room opened, and Sky walked in, holding a cup with a green liquid in their hands.

“How are you?”

“Alive. And very tired.”

“Result of negative stamina. You unlocked a skill, right?”

As Sky talked, they handed Alex the cup, which he drank eagerly. It had a taste of…invigoration, like he was drinking a good night of sleep, with vegetables on top.

For a second afterwards, he felt like he tasted green. It was this kind of stuff that made him like this world this much.

“So, stamina potion, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Let me guess, mana potions are blue and health are red?”

“Correct. Your knowledge of random trivia continues to be baffling.”

Alex snorted. “Anyway, it was a skill. The costs scale with the difference in power between us.”

“That explains a whole lot.”

“Just how freaking strong are you?”

“Can’t tell you exactly. But to put it into perspective, I’m over 200.”

Considering that Sky for whatever reason didn’t want him to know their exact level, he figured that it was a whole lot more than 200.

“Just how high do levels go?”

“Most people aren’t going to be advertising their levels around. A whole lot of people say that they reached 800, but that’s…unlikely. I’d say the most powerful people are around level 600, at best. But that kind of people are very, very rare.”

“Interesting.”

He had a feeling that Sky was near the top. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had something stupid like 10 times his attributes.”

“Why is it so rare? Does it get that hard to level?”

“Not really. It’s more that, once you reach that level, the only way you will grow is by taking risks, but at that point, you should be already fairly wealthy, influential and powerful.”

“Basically, people just…want to enjoy their lives, at that point?”

“Correct. The ones that become stronger are the crazy ones, the ones that have a purpose and the ones that have far too much wander-lust.”

“Which one are you?”

“A mix of all of them, I think.” Sky said. “Anyway, enough of that off-topic, how are you holding up?”

Slowly, he stood up, he still felt tired as hell…but he could walk, at the very least.

“Let’s eat something.”

“Now that I stop and think about it, shouldn’t I be a whole lot hungrier?”

“Wind force-fed you earlier.”

He decided that he didn’t want to know how, and followed after Sky, sitting down on the kitchen table as Sky grabbed the meals. It was a mix and match of exotic vegetables. All of them were tasty, really, but…he missed meat.

“So, put any thoughts in what you want to do?” Sky asked.

“This came out of nowhere.” Alex said. “And I wanted to ask about skills.”

“You can ask me about them later, so, can you answer me?”

Alex nodded, but chewed on something that looked like a carrot as he thought about the answer. He…wasn’t entirely sure himself, but as he stared at Sky, he felt like they were expecting…something from him. What did he want to do? He didn’t really have long term goals, hell, he didn’t know enough about the world to make long term goals, but…that in itself was an answer.

“No offense, but…I have been in this world for what, two weeks? I don’t know enough of the world yet, so, for now, i want to know more about the world, I think. Explore it, discover it’s wonders, and maybe in the way, I can find a bigger goal to strive towards.”

Sky nodded a ponderous look in their face. “All right. it’s not a bad goal. I certainly have listened to much worse ones.”

“Now I’m kind of curious, what silly goals have you heard?”

“There is one gal that made her goal in life to bed me.” Sky said, a mix of amusement and annoyance in their voice.

“I take you aren’t interested?”

“Not for the foreseeable future. Then there was one knight whom wanted to bed a woman from every race, as long as they weren’t monstrous, that is.”

“I can somewhat relate to the guy.” Alex replied, jokingly.

“It was a woman.” Sky said, shooting him a deadpan look.

“Do you attract perverted woman?”

“According to Alice, I attract perverted people in general.”

Alex snorted.

“I suppose you attract the opposite of what you want.” Alex said, then thought for a second. “You didn’t tell me yours.”

“Make the world a better place.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised.” Alex said. “How do you think that has gone?”

Sky didn’t say anything for a while, seemingly deep in thought. “I made a difference. Not as much as I would like, but…I made one.”

Alex pondered on the subject for a bit, while he respected Sky even more, he couldn’t help but feel a tad…worried. Especially when Sky themselves said that they were a bit crazy, it did help explain Alice and Wind’s attitude towards them by quite a bit.

Sky sighed, closed their eyes, put their hands behind their back, then, put them in the table, this time, however, holding a dagger. If there was one word that Alex could use to describe the dagger, it would be…evil. It was made from a pitch black material, seemed to exhale malice, and had a odd shape.

“The hell is that? Why do you have an evil dagger?” Alex almost jumped from his chair due to how scary the weapon looked.

“It’s…quite a long history.” Sky said. “It’s a dagger made out of black mithril with a curse laid on it. It is nothing that can harm the wilder, mind you. I say that from personal experience.”

“Why are you showing me this, exactly?” Alex asked, eying the weapon suspiciously.

“I want you to have it.”

“What?”

“It’s quite an good weapon, it served me well, and I think it can work quite well with you.” Sky said. “And if you have a good weapon…sometimes all it takes Is one good blow.”

Sky said, and let go of the weapon, leaving it lying on the table. Slowly, Alex moved his hand towards it, he hesitated, but eventually held it’s hilt and raised the weapon. It felt…heavy. Not physically, but he felt odd holding it.

“It’s…a very good dagger. It’s main weakness is that you need to actually hit someone with it, but with that skill of yours, I thought it would fit quite well.”

Alex nodded.

“One good hit from it can kill people of very high level, but keep in mind that you can’t wield other enchanted equipment while you wield it.”

“Why is that?”

“Limitation due to your level. It won’t be a big issue, but ask Alice when she gets back.”

Alex nodded. “All right. Thank you, really.” Alex said, then kept staring at the dagger. “How will I carry this thing around?”

“I almost forgot.” Sky said, putting a hand behind their back, then raised it again, this time with a sheath in it.

“How do I get a pocket dimension?”

“How do you know that it was a pocket dimension?”

“I’m pretty sure that it wouldn’t fit in your ass.”

Sky sighed. “I can’t tell you.”

“It’s from the same place that you armor and sword show up from, isn’t it?”

“Can’t tell you.”

Alex couldn’t help but feel like he hit the nail in the head, especially due to the annoyance that was obvious in their eyes.

“Can I get one too?”

Sky rolled their eyes. “Maybe. Can’t help you with that.”

“So…either it’s an rare artifact, a skill, or a perk…my bet is one the last two, since you would be capable of helping me if it was an artifact…”

Sky gave him a scowl, and then pointed towards the sheath. “Take the thing already.”

Alex meekly nodded, grabbing it. The sheath was a lot like the dagger, entirely pitch dark, albeit it wasn’t metallic and didn’t emit malice, he strapped it to his pants…with a bit of help, then put the dagger inside it, the feeling of malice fading as he did so.

“Neat.”

“I can understand being curious, but there is a reason that I don’t go around telling people about my capabilities. I have many enemies, and they would be really interested on my capabilities.”

“Sorry, it’s just…my curiosity has a grip over my common sense sometimes.” Alex said, then paused. “But I already have an insane bounty on me, how much worse can it get?”

Admittedly, that kind of behavior had bitten him in the ass in the past, and he probably should put a grip on it before he went mad due to finding out about something men was not meant to know.

“A lot. As I said before, there reaches a point that adventurers stop taking risks, but quite a few of them are willing to take action due to holding grudges. Plus…there are other things that might take notice, and I definitively won’t tell you about them.

“Now I’m really curious.”

“I figured. Next thing I know you will start being like Alice…”

“I don’t think I would look good on her clothes, shows too much skin, I think.”

“Stop being a smart-ass. Don’t need another one of those.” The saint said without any real heat in their voice.

“The more the merrier” Alex said, then took a deep breath. “This dagger…it’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“You could say that. It helped me a lot, caused a whole lot of trouble, and killed the most powerful enemy that I have faced in my life.” Sky said. “Nowadays, I don’t really use it, and I think it’s fitting to give it to you.”

Alex was suddenly reminded about when Sky talked about their first weapon. He drew the dagger, and gave it a long stare. It was the exact opposite of what Sky was, in just about every way possible.

“I will try and use it well.”