From then on, Kurushimi officially began training to level up her skills. Atelier had pointed out to her how she had been neglecting many of them, and she was able to see that after having a good look over the list. A lot of her skills still remained at Lvl. 1, due to being used so infrequently compared to others. This included even some of her oldest skills, a prime example being ‘farsight’ which miraculously was still at Lvl. 1.

For lower level skills, Atelier advised simple repetitive use. There wasn’t anything much more efficient for that current stage of level. Trying to innovate and unlock new usages was only effective for higher level skills.

A main focus of hers now was neglected skills, but that didn’t mean she was going to suddenly start ignoring her main skills. That would only lead to a loop and put her in the same situation as before. So, Kurushimi was always looking out for possible new ways of advancing them.

Overall, it was a tedious process and she had spent most of her first night in training just doing that. However, it never got too boring. Why was that exactly? Well, it turned out to be a hell of a lot more grueling than Kurushimi had first expected it to be. As the sun rose, signaling the end of a very long session, she was sprawled out on the floor and not looking so great.

“Ahhh… I’m gonna die!!” Kurushimi laid on the ground with her arms and legs spread out. Her current appearance resembled a frail Victorian child moments before the consumption took hold. This kind of pain was completely different to her previous experiences. Pale and feeling like crap, she was genuinely beginning to consider that her next death would be in such a ridiculous way.

“It’s not that bad.” Kurono lightly kicked her side. Kurushimi looked at her and frowned. She was happy that Kurono had gained a body and the ability to touch, but if this was how she was going to use it, it would’ve been better if she’d stayed incorporeal...

“And how would you know??” Kurushimi whimpered back.

“I am able to feel what you feel. Out of anyone in this world, I am the most likely to know what you’re going through right now.” Kurono replied.

Kurushimi couldn’t argue with that.

“You’re just unsympathetic then…” Kurushimi sighed. “I’ve never had a hangover, but I can bet this is probably how it feels like!”

“You could say mana sickness is just a glorified hangover.” Atelier said.

Despite living for a full 18 years in her life on Earth, she had never been given the pleasure of drinking alcohol. Her parents would have killed her in the event she tried to get some before reaching the drinking age. Not wanting to incur their wrath, she had abided by the rules up to this very point. If she had known what was to come, let alone drinking alcohol, there would’ve been a damn few things Kurushimi would have tried and experimented with. But alas, it was too late. Although, the possibility of alcohol existing in this world was at least likely.

As Kurushimi continued to lay incapacitated on the ground, Atelier took the time to give another lesson on the science of this world. Particularly, mana. “When you run out of mana, your body desperately craves more. The symptoms are comparable to that of a hangover, but it is more like going through withdrawal I suppose. Your body just isn’t used to being completely depleted.”

Kurushimi was interested in the conversation, however, she also had a banging headache. Regardless, she didn’t want to spoil Atelier’s good mood. Atelier seemed to enjoy explaining things, trivial or not. Thus, she was just going to have to sacrifice her own comfort for others. ‘What a selfless person I am!’ she thought.

“I’ve never had mana before, why is it like this now…?” Kurushimi asked. According to Atelier, it was some kind of mana dependency that was the cause of her sorry state. If that was the case, shouldn’t she be immune? She did come from a place where mana didn’t even exist after all.

“Your body changed upon arrival, right? After all, vampires don’t exist where you come from.” Atelier said.

“That’s right.” Kurushimi agreed.

“Your new body is one that is accustomed to this world. Made for it, even. Your old body may be used to being manaless, but this one isn’t. It’s like the difference between a person who has never tried a drug versus an addict.”

“I don’t like that mana is being compared to a drug…”

“Don’t worry, it’s more similar to the need for oxygen than a drug. In that, you'll die if you don’t get mana back quick enough.”

“What was that last part???” Kurushimi shouted, getting an abnormal adrenaline burst during her state of inactivity. Atelier had lowered her voice on that last sentence so it was hard to hear exactly, but she definitely mentioned death. She did, right??

“Anyway, just rest up and you’ll be fine.” Atelier said.

Kurushimi wasn’t happy about her dodging the question, but her head was hurting too much to push further. Especially from her sudden outburst just now. She continued to lay there like a fish out of water for a while as she waited for her energy to come back.

The training process had been made slightly easier by the ‘mana conservation’ skill she had bought, and it had gained levels at an incredibly high rate that even Kurushimi had been shocked by. But… She didn’t feel like it made much difference to her state in the end. She was slightly regretting choosing to go along with this programme, however, she was satisfied with her progress. It felt… rewarding. At the very least.

Her overall results for the day mostly were shown in her lower level skills. None of her skills remained at Lvl. 1 now, however, that was only the very beginning. Sure, Kurushimi was happy to look at her list and not see a single 1 in there. But she knew this would be the easiest part, since Lvl. 1 skills were the easiest to level up after all.

As for innovating new techniques and finding alternate usages for other skills, there sadly had been no fruit beared in that department. Still, Kurushimi wasn’t too worried. She didn’t expect to be getting anything of the like on the first day anyway.

“I’m just gonna sleep again till my mana is back.” Kurushimi said dully. She couldn’t do much besides talk anyway and using too much mana seemed to make her sleepy. She didn’t even bother to climb a tree this time. Not because she was being careless, but because every monster in the immediate area had already been killed by her. They had been attracted to the noise and destruction during her training. Recounting their number, she mumbled: “I think it was about 17 canisfangs? Eh, I dunno. I’ve been so tired lately…”

Kurushimi fell asleep and woke up again in the morning. When she rose, she looked over her status one more time. She had seen it yesterday, but she was arguably not in a state of proper consciousness. So when she checked her stats…

Lvl. 57

HP: 953

STR: 992

END: 788

SP: 972

AGI: 1004

MP: 767

Kurushimi was surprised to say the least. Her level hadn’t increased much recently, implying that each level was harder than the last. On the other hand, the difference between what she gained from ‘What’s your is mine’ then and now was too huge. Normally, this wouldn’t be the case. Level ups alone wouldn’t be enough to warrant such an increase. Even she was able to tell that. However, that wasn’t all that was contributing here. Whilst the skill was giving her higher percentages of enemy stats, the enemies were also increasing in level as she progressed. Thus, they had more stats for her to steal.

Kurushimi had always thought of her unique skill as a scaling skill. A skill that wouldn’t show an immediate effect but would shine later on. However, she hadn’t been expecting it to scale this much already. But she wasn’t complaining. Now it was her time to shine! After farming all the canisfangs in the area, she would hunt down those damn rock golems! And then… Take their stats too! But firstly, she had to get back to training. She still had a long way ahead of her in the skill department.

Kurushimi’s energetic mood dulled down a little. She was all for strengthening up, but mana depletion felt seriously bad you know? She really didn’t like it. She let out a big sigh and started her training again. Like that, she would repeat the same things for the next few days. She trained her heart out, tempering her skills and straining usage of them to the limit.

After having finished another exhausting day of training, Kurushimi woke up as usual and noticed she had gained a skill.

“Passive resource regeneration?” Was the name of the skill she had gotten. Looking at her status, Kurushimi confirmed the skill indeed hadn’t taken any skill points.

“So I got it for free?” Kurushimi asked. She hadn’t received a free skill in a while. One of her best skills, Evade, was one of those skills that hadn’t cost her any skill points. She liked this feature; it made her happy when she received useful skills as a homage to her efforts. The skill restored health, mana and stamina over time. It worked during battle but not as effectively out of it. Nothing else of interest happened that particular day.

Throughout her training, all of her skills steadily continued to level up. Since the higher level skills needed more effort to level up, they had increased at a lower rate. However, this allowed her skills to perfectly balance out and erase major differences in level. Including her newest skills, not a single skill was below Lvl. 5 now.

Among the increases in levels, she had reached major breakthroughs with many of her best skills. She had even managed to create some new skills in the process by combining some of them.

Blood magic could now execute low health targets. When a target becomes low enough, Kurushimi can activate blood magic to instantly kill them. It has the ability to ignore resistances and shields, meaning that no matter what, if she got them low enough, they were as good as dead.

Shadow magic could now create clones of herself, which can activate skills separately from herself at her command. She had a lot of fun experimenting with them, testing combinations. Some good examples of successful moves were: Giving the shadow clone her glaive, letting it use as she attacked with the katana or bow. And, using dimensional magic’s ‘rip’ from two polar opposite sides, tearing the target apart. However, that last move didn’t seem to work on bigger targets as it proved ineffective when used against a large boulder.

Finally, taking inspiration from her common usage of fleet footwork and blink for a dash, she combined the two into a skill that allowed her to instantaneously dash from one point to another. The skill had a short cooldown and allowed her to be very nimble, although it wasn’t quite as instant as blink and couldn’t pass through objects or walls either. She named this skill ‘Shunpo’.

Kurushimi was excited to perform them in proper battle settings. But even then, she wasn’t finished yet. There was one last thing she was working on. Something big.

“She’s taking a very long time.” Kurono said.

“Must be a powerful skill.” Atelier added.

The two had been cast aside as Kurushimi worked on something. It had been increasingly common lately that these two were left alone to interact with each other. However, they still hadn’t reached a point of good familiarity with each other yet. The scenario was very similar to when two people meet because of a friend they both know, but then that friend leaves and they are left to awkwardly interact.

Atelier seemed less worried than Kurono. However, Kurono had good cause to feel different about what was happening. With her ability to share major emotions with Kurushimi, she had a much greater clue of what was going on.

While working on the skill, Kurushimi had strangely asked to be left alone. She had told them it was to concentrate. It was a reasonable excuse. One that most wouldn’t expect there to be anything beyond that. However, Kurono knew something was off. Kurushimi was experiencing an unusual amount of pain. What could she possibly be working on to evoke such emotions? Kurono was getting more and more restless as time passed by.

Her health bar was constantly regenerating over and over. She probably had a canisfang by her side of which she was repeatedly healing from, like the time she was crafting her bow. This presented some possible clues on what was going on. Was it something to do with blood magic? A new item? Kurono sighed. She decided it was best to trust that Kurushimi knew what she was doing. Although, she wished Kurushimi had at least been a little more transparent and told the truth about what she was doing.

Soon enough, Kurushimi came back from her task. It was unknown whether she had been successful or not, but there was something different about her. No, that was wrong. It wasn’t her that was different. Something… looming behind her, there was some kind of entity. Alive or not, it held a tense aura that could only be described as terrifying. Kurono was uneasy, and she could tell Atelier was apprehensive of this change too. What in the hell had she been doing up to this point?

Kurono was wary and felt uneasy by the sudden change. However, she had a bigger concern as of that moment. Kurushimi looked tired and appeared to be staggering as she walked closer. Running forward, she caught Kurushimi who was looking very faint. It was obvious she had accumulated a lot of stress from whatever she had taken on.