Feran and the old man were checking his “skills”. The boy was excited at the sight of what seemed to be his regeneration ability that the old man mentioned before, on the side of the man, he was just speechless at the sight of such skills.

- “wow, so that’s my auto-healing skill… and I also have another skill, which I suppose is the one that let me get in front of Liger the day we met, that’s how I was able to appear in front of him in an instant” the boy was just thinking out loud while checking his skills, but after a few seconds of silence, he looked at the old man who had a surprised and impressed look on his face at the sight of his skills.

- “… impressive! Even though you are just a level 1 with a basic stage title, you already have 2 skills” the man said with excitement but still a little of surprise in his tone.

- “… isn’t normal?”.

- “not at all, usually people start with either one skill or no skills at all, it depends of your title really, although some people claim that the real reason is the talent that people is born with, so if you are a talented person, in theory, you get 1 skill by level 1, and although a level 0 skill is not that strong, it’s way better than having no skills at all. On the other hand, as one of the “world heroes” and for being summoned to this world, you should receive 1 skill just for that… hmm… also, “Cover” is actually a skill you get once you reach level 15, and about your passive ability, I don’t really know which level it belongs to, since is an auto-healing ability, it might be obtained around level 50 of a Shieldman or higher, although I’m not completely sure about it… honestly, I’ve never heard of this passive skill, but I know from a book a passive skill called “Improved Regeneration” which now I think about it, it’s probably the “evolved” or “stronger” version of this same skill” the old man was explaining with a serious expression while Feran nodded his head with the same expression.

- “hmm... I suppose I can consider myself lucky then since I have 2 skills to start” the boy then answered with a slight smile.

- “hehe, you can say that again, kid. Honestly, so far you have been quite the interesting guy”.

- “Thanks… I think. Hey! I just noticed that skills have levels as well… how do they work?”.

- “oh, they work by uses” simply answered the man without the intention to continue explaining.

- “uses? What do you mean? Can you explain in more detail?” asked the boy with a tired tone and a chastising look.

- “… fuuu… it’s simple, just use your skills, the more you use it the stronger it grows, it’s actually pretty easy to level up your skill the first few levels, well, most of them since passive skills actually need certain requirements to activate on their own, unless is one of those passives that’s always working, those are easier to level up, however, you need to consider that once you reached a skill to the level 3, it will get incredibly complicated to keep leveling it up, also, take in consideration that for it to work skills must be used successfully, so if you use a skill and this one is blocked or interrupted, then your skill won’t be improved” the man explained simply yet carefully so Feran could understand the idea. The boy immediately understood, having already seen a similar system in video games from his world, it wasn’t as hard to grasp.

- “so, for example, if I use a skill 100 times, I could level it up”.

- “exactly, but you need to consider that some people need years before successfully increase one of their skills to level 5, which is the top skill level. Actually, skill usually are around level 2 or even 3, 4 at most, the reason behind this is that you can obtain more skills by leveling up, and sometimes people forget to use certain skills or just stop using them by choice, maybe due to them being too weak or because they got a stronger skill with a similar effect, but the funny thing about skills, is that if for some reason you are able to level up a skill to level 5 before reaching level 100 of any stage, then when reaching certain levels your skill will evolve. Now, evolving a skill is not easy, not only because is quite hard to get a level 5 skill, but because almost no one gets to level 100 with a base stage title, I myself never reached it with my main title, and also, strictly speaking you could still obtain certain skills without the need to evolve another one, of course, their effect would get reduced…” the old man this time spoke with excitement filling his voice. For the old man, skills were an interesting topic, and he was able to evolve a few skills of his own, yet it was quite difficult even for him.

- “fuuu… I get it. Alright! I have decided to train my skills first and only later focus on my level” the boy replied with a decisive tone.

- “hahahaha, I think is a good plan, I mean, as I said before, the first few levels aren’t that hard to level up, and people usually take their time before leveling up their skills because they focus too much on their own level but strictly speaking, leveling up your skills at least to level 2 would make leveling up your title way easier” a wide smile appeared in the man’s face.

- “hmm… if I had to recommend you a training method, I would tell you to start with the “Basic combat training”, it’s a kind of training that I could give you as your master, it will give you only 1% of experience per combat, and the good part is that it doesn’t really matter if you lose or win, you will still get the experience”.

- “so… for example, if I need 100 experience to level up, then I will receive 1 experience point, right?” the man only nodded his head.

- “and the best part is that since you don’t need to win to earn the experience, even though you are a Shieldman, you will still have chances of leveling up even on your own, I mean, after all, Shieldman can’t really fight on their own, unless they fight with their bare hands but that’s not recommendable” Feran just smiled at the old man words.

- “no problem, it only makes things more interesting… besides, my grandfather trained me in different kinds of fighting styles, so I’m kind of confident about what I can do” stated the boy with a confident smirk that only makes the old man smile with excitement.

Just at that moment, little Sakura came out from the Guild building to the training field.

- “master! I found the objects you asked for” the girl indicated with a kind smile while being followed by Veno who was helping her to move the things. Once they reached the master and Feran, they give the young man a pair of black and silver wrist gauntlets, a round silver shield only big enough to cover, for example, Feran’s head and nothing else, the shield had some kind of cross in the center and a star inside it with some kind of white gem, and finally, Feran also received a bluish ring with the image of a rhombus shield and a circle in the middle of it.

- “hahaha, perfect! Now, equip all these objects” indicated the man to Feran who just complied and started to check to objects before equipping them.

Equipment.

Alpha Shield: +50 V. / +25D. / +25MD.

Exp: 100%

Growth: 2 extra stat points.

Shieldman Wrist Gauntlets: +25 St. / +15 Sp.

Defender Ring (Sealed): +20 D.

Growth: 1 extra stat point.

- “hmm… hey, old man… I think there’s a problem here, you see, the stats that the Alpha Shield gives me is too low, I mean, it’s higher compared to my other 2 objects, but… isn’t this supposed to be a Mystical Quality Equipment?” the old man only watched Feran for a few seconds before giving him a quick hit on the head.

- “AAAGH! What was that for?” asked the kid while rubbing his head.

- “do you have any idea how good those stats actually are? Not only in the Alpha Shield, but every object you received, for example, those Shieldman Wrist Gauntlets gave you a total of 40 extra stats, even tough is considered a “Normal Quality Equipment”, it still gave you stats that will help you practically for most of the levels you will spend as a Shieldman, on the other hand, the Defender Ring only can show its true power once you become a “Defender” and even then, for someone with your level and in the base stage title, 20 extra stats points and an increase in your growth even if only by 1 point is quite valuable, and don’t even make me start with the Alpha Shield which stat bonus will increase each time you level up, plus the other bonus effects it has like receiving 100% extra experience and even more growth” replied the man with a serious and a little irritated tone due to Feran’s comment. Once the man stopped talking Feran kick the old man crotch with all his might yet he only got to break his own leg.

- “ugh… how was I… suppose to know that? I’m still learning… tch… and you didn’t tell me about how the equipment bonus work” Feran fave a glare to the old man while firmly gripping his broken leg which started to heal after a few seconds.

- “… oh, that’s right! I forgot about it for a moment” the old man calmly replied as if nothing happened, he, of course, earned killer instinct from Feran, yet for someone as strong as the old man, Feran’s killer instinct was nothing more than a breeze.

- “Alright! let’s get serious for a moment. Now that you are equipped, it’s time to fight. I think that you should face Sakura for this training, although she’s so little, she’s already a Beastiale level 17, but, since she’s a Beastiale, right now she’s approximately 4 times stronger than you, and considering that in your current state you are already stronger than a human level 17, you can guess just how powerful this little one really is” the old man said while rubbing the little girl’s head, she had a smile at the praise about her strength.

- “… master! If you could accept it, I would like to take miss Sakura place in the training” Veno said while slightly bowing to the old man.

- “hmm… well, is not really a bad idea, I could let you if you want, but… right now your level is 32, and as a Beastiale that means that your power is at least 5 times the one of this kid, with your current power, fighting someone of the Advance Stage Title is not impossible…” the old man indicated with surprise and a little of hesitation in his tone.

- “don’t worry old man, the stronger the better! A pleasure to work with you!” Feran smiled with excitement before stretching his hand to Veno, however, Veno’s hand reached Feran chest, and with just the tiniest of movements, he was able to send Feran flying across the training field.

- “you need to be always on guard, human… in a real fight, the enemy won’t show mercy, so be thankful that I’m actually holding back this much” Veno indicated with a serious expression before he disappeared in a blur. Feran body hit the floor, which sent pain on his whole body, yet, after a few seconds, he tried to stand up, just to see the figure of Veno right at his side, and then a hand who took his face and slammed it against the ground while releasing a powerful killing instinct.

Several minutes later.

Feran’s body was flying through the air, he has been Veno’s hitting bag for the last several minutes. Veno, even with his bare hands, was incredibly strong in comparison to Feran which was why he needed to control himself so much during training so he wouldn’t kill the boy.

- “what’s wrong human? Is this little too much for you?” asked Veno while he breaks the ground by hitting the young man face against it with one punch… again.

- “… not… yet… I… I still can… UGH!” Feran barely could talk properly.

Veno waited a few seconds, just enough for the boy’s passive skill to recover his Vitality, and then Veno proceeded to continue to wildly hitting him.

- “hmm… master? I think we should stop this training, we can’t let Veno use that boy as his toy… isn’t it?” the little Sakura had a worried expression while watching the other Herber beat the human boy continuously. The old man didn’t say anything to her words, he just stayed there watching everything happen.

The girl didn’t know what to do, and after a little hesitation, she moved forward to stop the fight, yet a hand reached her shoulder stopping her from moving.

- “don’t worry about the kid. That kid is happy with this kind of training, it may sound weird, but because the training is this hard, his fighting spirit hasn’t diminished in the slightest this whole time, if anything it seems to increase” the man said while pointing at the boy, who was struggling to stand up, with erratic breathing, but even in that situation, he had a huge smile on his face and a defiant look. The boy finally completely stands up, he sends a challenging look to Veno, before spitting some blood, and proceeded to indicate Veno to continue.

The little girl only realized Feran smile and defying eyes after the old man pointed them out, he definitely looked as if he was enjoying what was happening. As the fight continued, Veno once again disappeared, and the boy then moved to the right, there’s where Veno appeared punching Feran straight to his face.

- “did you get it now? I noticed it once I saw his stats, and even more after watching him being beaten down by Veno, this boy does have fighting instincts and training, which is helping him to detect and predict where will he be attacked from and to get used to Veno attack patterns” the man indicated with an excited smile, he was expectant of how things would develop from here on.

Feran was once again thrown through the air, and then he was falling, Veno appeared just below him, ready to hit him one more time, however, Feran disappeared by using his skill “Cover” and then appeared behind Veno. Feran move surprised everyone, and then the boy tried to kick Veno’s stomach, but the hit was too weak to make any kind of damage, which gave Veno the chance to take Feran by the leg and then he started to viciously slam the young human’s body against the ground repeatedly.

- “aaagh… damn… it… he’s… ugh… too… strong… UGH!” he thought out loud while being constantly slammed against the ground, once he stops talking, Veno threw him once again through the air.

- “hahahaha! that boy has been flying across the airway more than he has been touching the field… on the other hand, I’m impressed, to use the skill “Cover” to “evade” and enemy attack and create the opportunity to fight back, what a shame the difference between both is so big, in case both of them had similar levels, that movement would have absolutely work… interesting!” the man said out loud while stroking his beard. He was certainly enjoying this fight.

While Feran was training with Veno, Liger was just getting back from a mission. The moment Liger gets to the training field, he sees how Feran was once again hit by Veno and his body flew across the air falling at the other end of the field, while the old man and Sakura were just watching the scene.

- “you can’t survive in this world with just that strength, human… in your current state, you will definitely die!” then Veno threw a punch to the boy’s face, yet a fireball was thrown on his direction making him jump back to dodge the attack.

- “what the hell do you think you are doing?” the angry voice of Liger reached the ears of the ones present in the field. Liger stepped forward and got himself in front of Feran who was now on the ground struggling to get up. Liger was releasing an incredibly powerful aura, and his eyes started to glow yellow while looking almost feline and wild, even his fangs grew slightly in comparison to his normal look, yet, that presence didn’t even affect Veno.

- “move out of my way, Liger, I have a job to do with that human, a job given to me by the master… move…” Veno stated with a serious expression while getting ready to keep “fighting”.

- “really? Well, not like it matter, I won’t let you continue hurting this human” Liger replied with a challenging look while giving a glare with his bright yellow eyes and showing his fangs. Liger’s body started to slowly grow and his hair color started to change from blue to gray, as well as growing longer.

Before Veno can even move, Liger made appeared a huge orange-scarlet broadsword, and then with just a slight swing of the sword, it releases a huge amount of power towards Veno.

- “don’t do it!!! Liger!” the old man yelled at the sight, then he moved in the blink of an eye, getting in front of Veno and making his halberd appear, a simple move of it eliminates Liger attack.

- “what do you think you are doing? Stupid lion!” the man in an instant gets beside Liger and starts to pull his feline ears, this makes Liger get back to is normal form.

- “aaagh… I was just… trying to stop Veno from attacking Feran… ugh, that hurts…” the young blue-haired guy said with wet eyes while the old man continues to pull his feline ears.

- “tch, problematic cat, didn’t you hear when Veno told you that he was doing it by my orders? Or did you just dismissed what he said? Besides, is that any excuse to use your “Beastiale form”? Even if you are not as strong as Veno even with that form, you can use a legendary sword and you still have Fire elements attacks, you could have made quite the damage to Veno” the man chastised the boy, now not pulling his ears anymore, but his cheeks.

- “plea… please, stop it…” the young man said with obvious embarrassment.

- “hey, old man, don’t worry about it, he was just looking out for me, just don’t be too harsh on him” Feran said to the old man with a smile on his face. The old man looked over the guy who talked to him, and he saw that Feran was already better, all thanks to the interruption that gave his passive skill time to activate and fully recover his Vitality. The young human walked to the hybrid and put his arm around the other boy’s neck, and then wink his eye to him.

Liger, at the sight of Feran attitude towards him, got nervous but also irritated for some reason, so he released himself and then hit Feran in the back of the head, knocking him down face first hitting the ground.

- “don’t be so arrogant and touchy, you idiot. I wasn’t worried about you, not even in the slightest, but I’m still responsible for your death, besides, if you die because Veno doesn’t hold back enough, then my efforts to keep you alive would go to waste. Fuuu… I’m out of here, I’m too tired after transforming, besides, if a magician like me can knock you down so easily with such weak physique, it means you seriously need some training” and with those last words, Liger turned around and walked away from the place with a serious and frustrated expression on his face.

- “… hahahaha! Even though I knew that Veno is way more sociable than Liger, I’ve never seen Liger behave in that way, usually he’s either quiet or just plain insolent, but this is way funnier, HAHAHAHA!!!” at the words of the old man, Feran only could send a slight glare to the man, but he was just too tired to even try to put some real anger on his glare.

- “I don’t get that guy… anyway, old man! What was all that? Is Liger stronger than Veno? He did seem pretty powerful”.

- “well, technically Veno is stronger than Liger, it doesn’t matter if Liger transforms or not, Veno still is stronger than him, but… when Liger transforms, he’s able to use swords and other equipment that regular magicians can’t, and one of those is a legendary sword that his father left him, it doesn’t matter how strong Veno is, facing a legendary sword is still too much for someone of that low level, also, Liger has fire magic, if he used it he could have hurt Veno pretty badly since Herber are usually weak against fire, most of them at least”.

- “hmm… and about that “transformation”, what it is exactly?”.

- “oh, that’s quite simple. you see, some hybrids, mainly the half Beastiale half human ones, have the weird capacity to transform, when they do this, their shape, size, and power changes, their stats go up, they can use some new skills in some cases, and also new equipment, but only for as long as they are transformed. Now, this is not a specific characteristic of hybrid half beastiale half-human, some half beast half human also can transform, but depends of the kind of beast gene they have, of course, hybrids half human half beast is way more difficult to be born” that information was rather interesting and left Feran both curious and excited.

- “I see, and… how stronger can they get after transforming?” asked the boy with a new light in his eyes, a light that the old man noticed and he also had.

- “oh, that’s not exact for every creature, for example, in his current state, when Liger transforms he can get over 3 times more powerful than his total power, however, that could change with time”.

- “Awesome!” the eyes of Feran shine with interest and excitement.

- “yeah! it’s really awesome, and take it from the man who has been taking care and training that boy since he was a kid, I’ve seen him do pretty incredible stuff when he transforms, sadly, he still can’t control his transformation, which can create a lot of troubles in case he loses control or push himself too much to use his transformation” the smile in the old’s man face change to a serious expression with a little scowl. Feran saw the change in the expression of the old man and only stayed silent, thinking about how difficult it must be for the other guy.

- “hey human! We need to continue the training, you have already rested more than enough” Veno indicated in a calm tone while walking to the human boy.

Feran nods his head with a smile, and suddenly, Veno becomes just a blur before once again getting beside Feran. Just as Veno was about to grab Feran by the neck, the boy catches Veno’s hand, to the surprise of the old man, Sakura, and Veno.

- “is that… is that the skill “interception” from Shieldman and Soldiers? It can’t be… that’s a skill to be learned at level 25… and even though it can be learned by a master, I don’t recall showing him or teaching him that skill… could it be he did it by instinct? Or maybe he knew it before getting to this world?… tch, what kind of person trained this kid before he came to this world?” the old man had his eyes wide open and was frozen in place, only watching both kids in front of him.

Feran releases Veno from his grip, and as the Herber gives a jump back to gain some distance with his eyes still locked on the human boy, the body of Feran suddenly disappears from Veno’s view. The old man was more than surprised by the black-haired kid sudden disappearance, and was even more shocked when Feran appeared behind Veno, with his body slightly inclined forward, letting his body collide with Veno’s lower body, whose body was still flying back due to his previous jump, making the Herber lost balance and making him fall to the ground.

- “hehe… hahahaha, this kid is just too interesting, a level 1 knocking down a Herber level 32? AWESOME!!! HAHAHAHA!!!” the man started to laugh out loud at the sight in front of him, something he hasn’t ever seen before, it was quite obvious that in his current state, this kid Feran would never beat Veno in a full fight, but maybe, just maybe, if their levels weren’t that far apart, Feran might have a chance against Veno in case both had the same level, even if one was a human and the other a Beastiale.

Veno on his side was still laying on the ground, a confused expression on his face, everything just happened so fast, in a few seconds, he couldn’t understand how, how did a level 1 human knock him down? And just like that, Veno stayed looking up at the sky for a few seconds while trapped in his thoughts. After a few seconds, 2 shadows came closer to the body of the Herber still laying there, one shadow belonged to Feran, who stretched his hand to help Veno to stand up, and the other one was Sakura, who was giggling at the sight of Veno.

- “come on Veno! don’t give up yet, get up!” the little girl said in a cheerful tone trying to make the other Herber get up already.

- “what’s the matter? You fell once and you gave up already? Tch… I’m getting disappointed with you, you know? Come on, get up and let’s keep training, you have already rested more than enough” Feran said with a mocking tone and his hand still stretched to help Veno. Veno reacted to the mocking tone of Feran, then he looked the human guy eyes, full of challenge and excitement, this was more than enough to ignite a deep fire inside of Veno, changing his eyes from confusion to ones full of energy, a smile appeared on his face and then he accepted the hand of Feran, getting up to continue training.

Several hours later.

It was already late, the sky was dark, only illuminated by the moon and the stars. Feran and the old man were in the library, having a chat about today’s improvement.

- “HAHAHAHA!!! you seemed so tough during training, and look at you now, barely breathing while sitting on a couch” the old man mocked the boy who was sat down in front of him, breathing erratically and looking up.

Feran tried to send a glare to the man but he was too tired to even do it correctly.

- “UGH!!!… I’m really tired, I’m really hungry and today I barely improved at all… ugh… I’m done for the day” the youngster whined while stretching his hurt body.

- “even if you say that you did good today boy, most people wouldn’t have lasted that much, especially against someone far superior, I mean, you did face a Beastiale in your training, and Veno is not exactly weak”.

- “Hmm... that seems about right, still, I feel like I could have done more”.

- “HAHAHAHA, Why don’t we check your stats?”.

Status.

Name: Feran.

Level: 2. (22.85/150)

Race: Human.

Title: Shieldman.

- Vitality: 54 (+52)

- Magic E: 11

- Strength: 18 (+25)

- Magic P: 5

- Defense: 27 (+46)

- Magic D: 21 (+26)

- Speed: 16 (+15)

- critical: 0%

The old guild master looked at the stats of the boy and couldn’t help to feel a little frustrated, he also thought about Feran as a little greedy, after all, his stats are already way higher than an average level 2.

- “Fuuu... this is all I got today” the boy said lamenting himself for what he thought was poor growth.

- “Fuuu… you stupid kid, don’t talk nonsense. Maybe this seems like little to you, but you actually grew a lot. 48 fights... thanks to the experience bonus from the Alpha Shield and the bonus of the “Master-Discipline agreement”, it took you 48 to level up instead of the 100 that usually take to level up with the method we used, then you only fought 7 more times, but that is a great start for someone in your level using this training method, best case scenario it would take 100 fights a day to level up one level per day to anyone trying this training method the first few levels, yet, because you are practically receiving 210% of the original experience, you only need about half of the normal for the day, so at this rate, if you manage to do over 50 fights each day, you will reach level 5 in about 3 days or so… the only ones who level up faster than that are the people who join teams and start hunting and making mission with stronger teammates, but that is still way more dangerous than this method” the guild master stated with a tired tone, and a little irritated at the same time, while Feran started to calm down and relax watching the old man talk.