“Hey, I just realised something…”

“What is it?”

“Well… I said that the reason for my lack of stats was due to not having any stat enhancers, right?”

“Indeed, you said that.”

Kurushimi bent down, looking at the living armour. Its body was still lying on the ground and she still needed to bite into it for the free stats. However, she was going to do that later. At this moment, when thinking about the living armour and all the other monsters in the scorched land, she found that all of them had one thing in common. They all had better stats than her!

This wasn’t something she didn’t know before, but she had assumed the reason for the difference between her and them is that she lacked stat enhancers. But that was assuming one thing.

“What are the chances that all of those monsters have stat enhancers?” As she thought about it, it would be weird if all the monsters happened to have skill enhancers. Sure, maybe a few managed to get them but there was a low chance that they all would have them. So, for the reason of her being behind in stats to be because she lacked stat enhancers, wouldn’t that mean all of the monsters would have to have stat enhancers? Kurushimi sincerely doubted that!

“The theory was total bullsh*t! Vampires are just weak after all!” Kurushimi held her head, cursing her luck. The only possible explanation was her race. It makes sense that different races have different stat growths. Canisfangs for example were just naturally weak. The only strong one Kurushimi knew she had encountered was Karshak, who couldn’t even count as a canisfang.

“Wait… Karshak was a greater canisfang, wasn’t he? Since I am a lesser vampire, maybe that’s why?” Kurushimi pondered and came up with another possible reason for her inherent weakness. Her race wasn’t simply a ‘Vampire’, it was ‘Lesser Vampire’! Which was even worse!

So far, she had only come upon regular monsters except for Karshak who had the adjective of greater. So if Karshak, who was a greater canisfang, had that much of a difference compared to regular canisfangs, what would happen when the lesser adjective was given? They would become a lot weaker.

“So I need to somehow become a regular vampire… But how does one do that? Voice-san, any ideas?” With no clue on how one could evolve themselves, Kurushimi did the only thing she could do other than guess. Ask the only other person in the vicinity who may be able to provide an answer.

“I do not know either.” Voice-san bluntly replied. Kurushimi didn’t blame her for not knowing. It makes sense after that she wouldn’t. But now she was back to zero and had to make assumptions on the method.

“How about I use appraisal on the ‘race’ text?” Throwing out a random thing she could think of, her skill appraisal was the first suggestion. Previously she had used appraisal on the text for spectral magic and achieved results, so it wouldn’t be strange if it worked on other text in the system. With a hint of mana in her eyes, she used appraisal and… nothing happened.

“Well, that was my last hope and it’s gone! I can now only rely on two things; A ton of skills and my own superior intellect!” Left with no hope for finding a method to evolve, Kurushimi decided to rely on the other methods that she had relied upon to get this far.

“What superior intellect?” With a voice full of sincere, unembroidered doubt, Voice-san was immediately there to deny her bullsh*t. Superior intellect? Was that some kind of joke? Voice-san felt like she had heard some absurd things from her in the past, but this was crossing a line…

“I will admit I am not the smartest but that kind of hurts, you know? I was talking about how I still have a human mind and am naturally smarter than monsters! ...And the fact I have information from past runs to help me. But that’s besides the point!” Kurushimi rebutted Voice-san’s comment. She wasn’t ignorant and knew that she wasn’t the smartest of all, but her comment hadn’t been wrong. She, at the very least, was smarter than the monsters who had similar intelligence to an animal you would find on earth.

“So what are you planning on doing now? You still need to figure out what skills you are going to buy with your skill points.” With the living armour defeated and spectre magic figured out, it was back to the question, what skills would she buy with her points?

“Mhm. I have a goal in mind… I call it, Operation: Kill the rock golem!” With a bold declaration, Kurushimi announced her intentions. The rock golem was a fearsome enemy she had only encountered twice but had ended up dying both times. Yet, to that enemy, she has declared intent to kill it.

“And how are you going to go about doing that?” Voice-san questioned. It was strange that someone who had been crushed to death twice would wish to have another go. But as she thought about it, Kurushimi was indeed very revenge-driven.

Her long grudge against the canisfangs started with them killing her twice in the beginning and even though she said the reason she wanted to stay in the forest instead of trying to escape was to get stronger and avoid death, wasn’t it just because she wished to defeat Karshak? Although Voice-san had come to this conclusion, she refrained from mentioning this to Kurushimi.

“Well, I have a few steps in mind for my plan. First, buy skills that I could use to fight against it. Second, level up those skills and raise my own level by fighting monsters until I’m strong enough to challenge the rock golem. And finally, challenge the rock golem.” Kurushimi explained her current plan to Voice-san. Although the plan was rather straightforward, it also made a fair bit of sense. The plan was essentially to prepare enough and challenge the rock golems when she was ready. However, there was one problem with the plan.

“What if a rock golem sneaks up on you again? There are too many rocks to appraise every single one and make sure they aren’t rock golems.” In order for the plan to work, she would have to be able to prepare enough before fighting the rock golem. But, as shown in the last run, they seemed to be hiding about everywhere. That was how she ended up dying after all.

“Ah, it’s simple.” But to Voice-san’s concerns, Kurushimi brushed them off like there wasn’t any need for said concerns. Before Voice-san could ask what she meant, Kurushimi asked, “Who said I was going back to the scorched land?”

. . .

[You have gained +10 HP, +10 STR, +10 END, +10 SP, +10 AGI, +10 MP!] After finally drinking its blood, Kurushimi gained the bonus stats from the living armour. However, when she had killed it, she hadn’t gained any levels from doing so. It seemed that even the Lvl. 26 living armour was too low of a level for her to really gain a lot of XP.

She was Lvl. 37 after all. She could gain stats all the same from lower level monsters, but the XP gains were getting lower. Meaning, she needed to kill higher level monsters for that. A place Kurushimi knew of that had higher level monsters was the scorched land. Having levels generally going between 25 at the lowest and 50 at the highest.

Other than the scorched land, there was one other possible place that could contain higher level monsters and that was where she was headed. “It’s going to be so nostalgic! I haven’t been there since my second run after all.” Kurushimi commented, thinking about her destination.

Hearing this, Voice-san furrowed her non-existent brows and asked, “Is that really how you should be talking about the place you died…?”

The large crystal area. Or so Kurushimi had been calling it, since she didn’t know if the place actually had a name. Located on the path to the right of the split, it was where she had gone in her second run and ended up swarmed by a huge pack of canisfangs. Large numbers, deeper in the forest so a good chance of higher levels, and a lot of XP and stats to steal. It was a perfect training ground to level herself up, her skills up and gain stats.

The large versions of the crystals commonly found around the forest were a beautiful sight to see. The only thing was, she was too busy getting eaten alive to really take in the scenery. “It’s fine. The best thing to do is try to make the best out of a bad situation. Aren't beautiful sights that you wouldn’t normally see one of the biggest appeals of a fantasy world?”

“Ah, is that so… Have you decided on what skills you are learning yet?” Unable to relate with Kurushimi’s thought process, Voice-san changed the subject to a more suitable one. On the way to the large crystal area, Kurushimi had been looking through the various skills, planning out which ones would be useful against the rock golem.

“Hm... The rock golem looks pretty sturdy, so I’m not sure whether normal attacks would be super effective. He’s a big bastard and probably wouldn’t sit still and allow me to just chip away at him so I need some new kind of attack method. Other than that, I want some more mobility so I don’t end up squished to death again.”

“So an offensive skill and a mobility skill?” Voice-san summarised her evaluation. Put in simple terms, Kurushimi needed a new offensive skill and a new mobility skill.

“Yep, but I’m not learning another magic! I’m not getting any more of those!” Kurushimi quickly added in. She had already learned three magic-based skills and learnt that just because it said ‘offensive skill’ didn’t mean it would have the usage she thought of. Rather than guessing what another type of magic does, it would be better to learn something more straightforward.

“Then how about some kind of skill that makes your weapons stronger? If you are worried about your weapons not being enough, you could try learning something like ‘sword aura’ for example.” Voice-san suggested to look for skills that could enhance her weapons. She did, after all, have the polearm and katana on her, so it made sense to look for something related to them.

Kurushimi searched for a ‘sword aura’ as Voice-san had suggested. She hadn’t seen the skill before, but if she went on common fantasy tropes, she had an idea of what it would be. Pulling up the description, it stated:

[‘Allows the user to imbue mana into their sword and create an aura, empowering it. Can also be used on similar bladed weapons.

This skill does not have a level. Mastery of sword aura is to be achieved through other means.]

“Mhm, it’s exactly as I expected it to be… or not?” The first part of the description, she had expected fully. It was like some kind of cultivation novel thing. Where one could use ki, or in this case mana, to strengthen their weapons. However, the second part was too much like cultivation. It didn’t level up, instead she had to achieve mastery through other means? Was this skill made by a fan of cultivation novels?

“Well, it looks like a good skill so I’ll learn it. I’ve had to figure out everything on my own so far, so what’s one more thing to figure out?” With that, Kurushimi learned the skill. Or, she didn’t. Because she had yet to notice, the skill had a hidden requirement to learn it.