With 1900 skill points to spend, Kurushimi now had to decide which skills she would buy. The only problem was, “What skills do I buy…” She pondered as she looked over the vast list of skills available to her. Many skills were locked behind hidden requirements and others were available without her having to do anything; like the ‘storage magic’ skill.

“The first thing to do would be looking over the categories I guess!” Kurushimi said. Luckily, searching for skills wasn’t too much of a hassle due to one feature. The ability to look at certain categories. When she had initially learnt shadow magic, she had been searching for offensive magic. If it weren’t labeled as offensive magic, she probably wouldn’t have guessed it could be used to attack.

The very first category she looked at was ‘stat enhancers’. The name was fairly self-explanatory, meaning it would show skills that increased her stats. She had been complaining about being behind on stats and could definitely use the increased stats. Actually, she already had a stat enhancing skill. One of the skills she had gotten at the very beginning, nightwalker.

Nightwalker increased her stats by 20% at night, although the skill had passively leveled up to Lvl. 3 over time so now the increase had risen to 25%. The skill’s percentage increase went up 2.5% per level on estimate. Kurushimi felt that it was a little stingy to only get 2.5% per level when compared to a 20% base increase but it made sense it didn’t go up by a lot. The highest skill level she had seen was Karshak’s ‘body transformation stage 1’ at Lvl. 17 and at that level, she would have a 60% increase by night. Even Kurushimi could tell that would be a lot with the only condition of the time having to be at night.

“Hmmm…” Kurushimi mulled over the various stat enhancer skills but there was one problem, they were all pretty much locked behind hidden requirements! But having many stat enhancer skills would indeed be powerful. Imagine how broken five 20% stat enhancements for the price of a few skill points would be? Even so, it was a little disappointing. She kept scrolling until one skill caught her eye.

“Isn’t that-!” Kurushimi shouted before stopping herself. She had managed to find one without a hidden requirement but that wasn’t the only thing. She had seen this skill before. More notably, it was in the list of available offensive magic skills that she had picked shadow magic from.

“Why is spectral magic in this list?” Kurushimi asked as she looked over the skill and its description. Spectral magic was one of the offensive magics, but it was also a stat enhancer apparently. She originally didn’t choose this skill because she didn’t understand it. But now that she had discovered this, she understood it even less! The basic description of ‘Allows the user to manipulate and weaponize spectral energy’ didn’t help in the slightest bit either.

As Kurushimi read over the description once more with furrowed brows, a voice suddenly spoke up, “How about you try using appraisal on it?” Voice-san suggested. Listening to this suggestion, Kurushimi’s face lit up as she nodded. Perhaps appraisal would work on the skill and tell her more? It wasn’t guaranteed but it was worth a try.

Kurushimi’s eyes glowed with mana as she focused on the skill. After a brief second, she actually got a response. Although, it didn’t give her a more in-depth description like she was looking for. Instead, it showed all the categories the skill fit into. However, the result surprised her much more than whatever she had imagined.

“Offensive magic, stat enhancer, defensive magic, body transformation, sense manipulation, sense enhancement…” Kurushimi listed many of the categories before stopping herself from saying anymore. There was an extensive amount of categories that the skill was listed in. Much more than just offensive magic and stat enhancer like she had thought.

《Skill: 『Appraisal Lvl. 2』has reached Lvl. 3!》A message notifying her of appraisal leveling up popped up in front of her but she quickly wafted it away before going back to spectral magic. “It looks like spectral magic can do just about anything… I want to know what it does but I wont see unless I learn it! Should I learn it?” Kurushimi agonized over what to do. The skill wasn’t too expensive, costing 400 skill points. Although compared to the 100 skill point shadow magic it was a big investment, she had 1900 to spend so it wasn’t a big deal…

“I suggest you learn it.” Voice-san said. Kurushimi stopped agonizing over what to do as she let Voice-san explain her thinking. “The skill can do just about anything apparently, including stat enhancement. There aren’t any other skills you can learn at the moment for enhancing your stats so I'd say it is a good investment.” Kurushimi nodded along as she listened to Voice-san’s monotone, analytical response. It made sense to her. Thinking about it, there really was no downside.

Kurushimi felt a little dumb for agonizing over it. In the end, she spent the 400 skill points and bought spectral magic. As she looked back at the list of skills, she briefly looked at the list before closing it. “I’m too curious…” She was going to continue on and look for more skills but her curiosity overtook her. “...Let’s test out spectral magic!” Kurushimi threw her fist out as she shouted out with determination.

Just as she cast any other skill, Kurushimi attempted to cast the skill… and nothing happened. Although, she wasn’t too surprised. These types of skills didn’t pull things out of nowhere, the substance needed to exist prior to manipulation or weaponization. The only problem was, what exactly is spectral energy?

“Spectral… Spectre… Ghost, spirit, soul?” Kurushimi muttered out words until she came up with something. Looking down at herself, she thought about it for a second. Did spectral energy mean the energy of her soul perhaps? Does the soul even exist? That was a question mankind had asked for a long time in her world and it is still debated. However, if the soul didn’t exist, how did she end up in this world? To be in a new world and in a new body, the logical thing to think of is that her soul was transferred. As she thought about it, her head slowly started to hurt so she decided to do the better option, testing it out for herself!

Now she actually had a method to test if there was a soul. If spectral magic manipulated that, she would know. And if Voice-san is a ghost of some kind, perhaps she could use spectral magic on her too? “Oi, don’t even think about it.” Voice-san suddenly spoke with a stern and slightly angry voice. Was this the most energy she had ever put into speaking? “Can you read my mind?!” Kurushimi questioned.

“No, but it is obvious what you were thinking.” Voice-san replied.

“Ah…” Kurushimi chose not to say anymore and return to her testing. Although, she still felt that it was quite impressive Voice-san could tell what she was thinking. Focusing on herself, she casted spectral magic and searched around for her own soul. After searching around for a while, nothing came back.

Kurushimi was confused. Did she not have a soul after all? Or was spectral magic unable to manipulate her soul? Or maybe it just wasn’t a high enough level to do that yet? Many questions and very little answers ran through her mind. What she knew now was that manipulating her soul didn’t work for now. “How abou-” Opening her mouth, Kurushimi spoke before being cut off.

“No. I’m not a ghost or spectre so it won’t work on me.” Voice-san said. The reply was instant and cold. She seemed adamant that she wasn’t a ghost or spectre and refused to be a test subject.

“But I thought you didn’t know what you were? How would you know you’re not a ghost?” Kurushimi continued asking. According to what Voice-san had told Kurushimi, she didn’t know who or what she was. It was very plausible that she was some kind of ghost attached to Kurushimi. In fact, using spectral magic would help her learn more about herself and find out who she is!

“No, don’t you dare.” Voice-san once again refused without any room for compromise. Kurushimi, although sad she didn’t get to test it out, decided to respect her wishes. After all, they were stuck together. So it would be better to get along and avoid pissing her off. Now that two options were out, Kurushimi had one more idea.

“Now we test with other life. Monsters!” She exclaimed. She could try it on a living target to begin with. However, since it didn’t work on herself, that may not work. So perhaps she needed to ‘free their spirits from their fleshy cages’. Attempting to use spectral magic at the time of their deaths seemed plausible to Kurushimi. If that didn’t work… Perhaps she would have to find a real ghost?

“Alright, monsters here I come!” She shouted energetically. She was determined to find the way this new skill worked. If it truly could do anything like her appraisal had shown her, discovering how to use it would be a huge help! As for learning new skills, she would do that after her testing period. As long as she didn’t go too far into the scorched land, she could easily fight the monsters before then with her current level and stats. Sword in hand, polearm stashed away, Kurushimi set off on the left path to meet with a certain someone for the third time.

. . .

In the trees by the path, Kurushimi crouched down whilst a thin veil surrounded her. The veil of camouflage blended her into the tree she was sitting in as she watched the group of canisfangs below her. These canisfangs used the left path as a way to ambush and hunt prey, but quite ironically, two predators watched over them. Her, and the living armour, who should approach them soon.

Information truly was useful in battle. With the information of the future, Kurushimi knew that the living armour would always come to this spot and fight the canisfangs. If she fought them first, the living armour would attack her. However, it would be the opposite in this run.

Sitting in the tree, she relaxed as she leaned against it. Camouflage wouldn’t disable as long as she had something to blend into and she didn’t mind waiting for a little bit. Time was one of the things she had too much of. And, from her position, she could tell it would be night soon. Kurushimi hoped to see the difference between daytime and nighttime when the nightwalker skill was active.

After some time passed, a sudden ear-piercing roar woke Kurushimi from her half-asleep state. Readying herself, she stood up and watched the canisfangs. They too had become alert and were looking around for the source of the sound. Although they didn’t know what it was, she knew that a monster with such a spine-chilling roar had to be the living armour.

“It’s finally here~” Kurushimi said in a hushed voice. It didn’t take long for the slow-moving, 7 feet tall, armoured man to walk out of the trees. In its current state, it really did look deceiving. Not only did it look human but it also carried a civilized tempo with its elegant walk. No one in their right mind would assume it was the origin of the roar.

But in the end, the living armour’s demeanor didn’t mean much to the cansifangs. Their reaction was about the same towards any living being. Awareness, caution and a new source of food. Other than those, Kurushimi had only seen fear after being outmatched.

The canisfangs growled and moved about as they surrounded the living armour, yet the living armour made little to no reactions. It only continued to walk forward as it held the massive greatsword in its hand. After a few seconds passed, a canisfang ran forward at the living armour. This seemed to be a habit of the canisfangs. One seemed to run forward and test the enemy before the rest attacked it.

It wasn’t a bad tactic, they had even used it on her in the very beginning. It just usually ended in one being sacrificed… As the canisfang leapt at the living armour, the heavy greatsword swung at incredible speed and the blade slashed the canisfang. It couldn’t even get close before being cleaved. As it fell back, the living armour suddenly thrusted forward with an outstretched arm and grabbed it by the neck.

The living armour then twisted its body and threw the canisfang at the others, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. The four remaining cansifangs avoided the thrown canisfang and ran off. It seemed that they had decided they couldn’t handle the living armour alone after all and retreated further down the path where there were more canisfangs.

The living armour watched them run but didn’t hurry to chase. Instead, it approached the canisfang that had crashed into the ground. Its steps were slow and intimidating as it got closer and closer to the canisfang.

Eventually, the living armour stood directly above it. With its signature horrendous screaming and roaring, its mouth opened up. Its back bent back as it looked up and the fleshy insides of its mouth were revealed. Kurushimi had seen this scene a few times and always felt that it looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

The living armour then bent down and mauled the side of the canisfang, rapidly consuming its flesh as it held onto the canisfang with its hands. Blood and guts spilled out everywhere in the process. It continued to bite down and eat until it was finished. Its mouth closed up again and its movements became elegant once again.

“A lovely sight as ever…” Kurushimi commented with a slight look of disbelief as she followed the living armour in her camouflage.