Congratulations! The host's active skill [Meditation] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 10. The host has developed the passive skill [Puzzle Locked Mind]. Passive Skill: Puzzle Locked Mind

A skill that makes the host's mind akin to a dwarven puzzle box.

Creates 5 puzzles that must be defeated sequentially for an adversary to attack your mind. The puzzles restore themselves automatically over a 4 hour period.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 1

'Thinking on this a bit, didn't the credit slate say it was impossible to bypass this skill? That means I can't use Mental Destruction on someone who has it, right? Or would a usage of that skill defeat one puzzle? The slate also said brute force didn't work... Hmm...' Lone's mind, as usual, was on full blast while he finished up reading his recent notifications.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Architecture Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 4. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Architecture Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 5. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Architecture Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 6.

'I'm happy Architecture Mastery levelled but it's a shame Meditation didn't rank up. Then again, I haven't done anything special with that skill except work on my stress levels and try to emotionally overcome my own nightmares so it'll probably not gain a new effect even if it did rank up. I would assume that's a pretty standard way to use the skill. I should pay for info on, if not for all of my skills right now, then at least for the ones that are close to ranking up,' Lone thought as he approached a counter.

"How can I help you?" the employee asked of him.

"I'm Lone Immortus. Here to pick up my new silver plate?" Lone replied.

The dwarf nodded and said, "I'll be right back in a moment to go get it for you. Do you have five to ten minutes for me to explain what you can do with the plate?"

Lone answered, "Sure."

He was in a hurry to get back to the hotel to relax with Soph and Breena as well as to earn the Blood Clone skill, but he could wait a bit longer.

As soon as the employee entered the third floor's back room, Lone's mind spun into action. 'Then again, I haven't exactly confirmed that ranking up is the only way to earn new effects. Sure, Ungrounded got its newly created effect on a rank-up. Tail Spear and Aura Pressure Resistance too. However, a few examples does not mean it's impossible to earn new effects outside of rank-ups. I got Bone Armour outside of a rank up, but that's a subskill.'

He held his chin as an idea struck him. "Are subskills just more advanced additional effects?"

Now that was an interesting theory.

Before long the employee had returned and carefully handed the new plate to Lone. "Please use this to drop some of your blood onto it to bind it to you," the man requested as he offered him a sharp needle.

Lone nodded. 'It seems it's not all that uncommon for blood to be needed for magic than I'd first assumed. I guess True Contract Magic isn't all that weird.'

Once he was done, the plate flashed dimly for a moment and immediately Lone could feel a connection to the plate.

"You should have felt that now," the employee stated. "It's your bond with it. It's a weak bond, but it makes it unusable by anyone who isn't you. It'll also give you a faint sense of its location should you ever be separated from it."

Lone whistled. "Useful."

"Now, Guildmaster Oror already showed you that you need the plate to enter the third floor, but you'll also need it to access any funds you choose to leave in the guild's protection. It's to my understanding that a, uh... fairly substantial amount of money has already been deposited into your account."

Nodding Lone replied, "My reward for getting credible info on Guildmaster Gilbert's location to the guild. Is that all, or is there anything else I should know?"

The dwarven man shook his head. "No, that's everything of importance. Ah, well, if the plate ever gets destroyed, you will be liable to pay ten gold coins for its replacement. The enchantments on it are worth far more than the silver it is made of."

'Only way it'll get destroyed is if I fuck with the enchantments myself when studying them. It's handy having a fully protected dimension of my own to store shit in.' Lone though as he replied, "Gotcha. Thanks for the help."

And with that, he left the counter, the guild's third floor, and then the guild itself.

Waiting outside for him was the fully armoured Sophie. Her helmet's visor was up, showing her beautiful if bored face. She yawned a little and smiled at his approach.

"You were taking so long we had enough time to do our day job, check in on Breena at the tailor's, buy a meal, polish our swords, practice some Barrier Magic, and wait here for you for an entire hour," Sophie said in a teasing tone.

Lone smiled wryly. "The skill list Hamish mentioned was too much fun. Lost my sense of time while I played around with it. Then I slipped into a three-hour-long coma to earn a new skill."

"We assumed as much." Soph stretched as she turned and stared at the guild building. "We never knew there were more floors. How we could not see it before, we do not know. We still cannot see it with our Mana Sensing. We could still feel our connection to you, however, when that large thing pulled you upstairs."

Lone raised an eyebrow. "Guildmaster Oror, not thing. But really? You can't see it? That's interesting. Makes sense since you would have mentioned it in Ranton when we lived in the guild had you noticed. I can't really talk about it though thanks to the contract I signed, but we can discuss it when you become silver plated?"

Sophie nodded. "You and Soph can. Our interest is minimal, at best, though we suspect some sort of enchantment that is specifically designed to ward against skills and abilities to perceive its existence. Knowing how the guild has a lot of experience with heroes and unique skills, that seems likely. Soph will try to see if she can ever pierce through these enchantments so they do not catch us off guard in a less peaceful setting. One god-possessed Taker is enough."

"Not the same thing, but I'm all about personal projects. Speaking of, I need to head back to the inn to play with my blood. Wanna watch?" Lone asked with a smirk.

Sophie gave him a hard stare before she sighed. "Very well. This should be interesting if nothing else. Breena should be back at The Rusty Sprocket already anyway."

Lone left Sophie in their room before he quickly knocked on the door of Breena's room to make sure she was okay.

Thankfully, she seemed to be just fine and was spending her evening practising her Darkness-given Primal skill, Shadow Walker, while also reading a book on Western Stone Dwarfish.

Seeing that, Lone wished her good luck in her training and then returned to his and Sophie's room.

When he got in, Sophie had finished taking off her armour and was lounging on their bed's end with her feet aimlessly kicking back and forth. In her hand was a book that Lone recognised to be about dwarven history.

"Didn't you hate reading? Too boring for your liking, right?" Lone asked.

He quickly occupied the desk chair at the side of the room and reached into his Dimensional Storage to withdraw an empty bucket, a dagger, and a washcloth.

Sophie replied, "We wish to earn your Historical and Cultural Appreciation skill."

The cogs immediately turned in Lone's head. "Sounds like a wise enough move. To improve your physical stats, right?"

She nodded as she yawned and put the book down. She then sat up and stared at Lone with mirth in her eyes. "So, play with your blood, yes?"

Lone slit his wrist as hard as he could to draw some of the lovely red liquid as he smiled back at her. "Yup. Trying to get a skill called Blood Clone. It'll automatically absorb attacks for me if I unlock the correct additional effect. It-"

He got cut off by his contract when he tried to explain the skill any further. 'So the name and my reason for wanting it are fine, but anything more that the slate told me is off limits?'

Sophie frowned but moved the conversation along regardless. "We have still yet to earn an additional effect on any of our skills."

"Use 'em in unique ways. I'm pretty damn sure you and Soph are close on that front with Barrier Magic. Well, maybe subskills there, but it's the same principle," Lone said.

Quickly, his gushing wrist wound closed up while both he and Sophie groaned in displeasure at the noise of Basic Regeneration doing its job.

"We shall see though we hardly have an X-ranker to practise on," Sophie replied.

Lone shrugged. "I can read through anything, even enchantments designed to stop you from reading, say, a magical tome, purely because I read in the dark with a blindfold on for a couple of days. The same with Ungrounded. Stubbornly tried to walk up walls and upsidedown, now I can do both with ease."

"That is fair. We are trying. Regardless, this Blood Clone skill. How does one obtain it? It clearly involves your blood," Sophie pointed out.

"There a few wa-" A stinging pain in Lone's soul shut his mouth for him. "Huh. Can't tell you that either, apparently. I must be able to when I get the skill, but without that, It'd violate my new contract to spill the details."

Sophie furrowed her brow while Lone tried to exert his will onto the blood sitting at the bottom of the bucket. "Try telepathy?"

Lone nodded. "Why not."

'I need to-' he tried conveying through the mental link The Summoning Room used to connect the two mentally.

Something forced him to stop though. He tried again, and again, and again, and then he gave up. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he said, "I don't wanna break the contract on day one of getting it, so let's just assume it works by intent. I clearly intend to tell you what I paid to learn, and the contract doesn't like that."

Sophie sighed. "What a shame. Well, we can at least watch. If it is a useful skill, we see no reason not to try to earn it ourself."

"Do you have 5,000 SP?" Lone asked, alluding to the skill's cost at beginner rank without explicitly stating that.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. "No. We do not have even 2,000. Well, get on with it then. We assume once you own the skill you can tell us all about it."

"That's the hope," Lone replied before he activated Meditation and began trying to infuse his will into his blood.

A few minutes passed as both he and Sophie remained perfectly still, one of them staring at a bucket of blood, the other staring at Lone.

More time passed until Lone felt something click. It was straining on his mind but he got an inkling that the blood he was concentrating on would move if he so willed it to.

Hesitantly, Lone moved his arm as he imagined using the Force. It was as good a mental image as any other in his mind.

With a shaky wobble, a drop of blood separated from the pool at the bottom of the bucket before Lone gasped for air, losing his concentration, sending the drop back into the puddle of blood.

"Was I holding my breath?" Lone asked Sophie as some notification flashed across his vision.

Sophie nodded. "For about ten minutes, yes. We were waiting for you to pass out, but seeing as a sliver of your golden mana flowed from you into that drop of blood before it moved, we assume you succeeded?"

"Ten minutes? Shit. Either ranking up means you need less oxygen, or Basic Regen kept me going longer than I should have been able to. My lung capacity was never great before," Lone mumbled before he replied, "I think I succeeded, yeah. Gonna check now."

The host has developed the active skill [Blood Clone]. Active Skill: Blood Clone

A skill popular amongst blood mages who have above average Vigour than the usual mage.

The host may create a connection between their blood and their mind, allowing them to control the blood to do their bidding.

The limits of the Blood Clone are defined by the host and the skill's rank in equal measure.

Maximum size: 114 drops of blood.

Maximum density: Each drop is equal in hardness to a drop of blood.

Maximum speed: 1cm per second.

Cost: 5,000 SP Mastery: Beginner Level 1

'So... super slow, not strong enough to block anything, but a decent amount of drops? What's the average starting amount of drops? 1? 10? 100?' Lone wondered as he activated the skill. "Blood Clone."

Both he and Sophie watched in awe as about a shot glass's worth of blood rose from the bucket and hovered in front of Lone's face.

Lone willed it to move left, and move left it did. He then willed it to move right, and move right it did.

"Direct it to splatter against our hand," Sophie said as she extended her palm. "We wish to see if it will explode into individual drops or if it shall maintain its current form."

Lone nodded, seeing the logic in her request. He willed the blob of blood forward as fast as he was able to. A good couple of minutes later it finally impacted Sophie's palm.

Nothing happened. It just harmlessly bounced off. Sophie frowned. "It is too slow. We wonder..."

She curled up her digits then flicked the Blood Clone. Her finger disappeared into the roughly 30 millilitres of blood before coming back out again, completely clean and free of blood.

"What an utterly useless skill at its current strength," she surmised.

"You weren't able to move it," Lone noted. "And from its skill description, it seems to have no theoretical ceiling for its power. It can grow in the amount of blood drops, thickness, and speed."

He willed the blob back to the side of his head and as it was moving, it shook a little and got a lot faster than it was mere seconds ago.

Congratulations! The host's active skill [Blood Clone] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.

"A rank up? So soon?" Sophie asked only to get a shake of the head in return. "Well? tell us what changed."

"It didn't rank up, it levelled up. This is the first time I've seen a skill get stronger on a level up... Maybe that's why it was so expensive." Lone pulled up the skill's information again.

Active Skill: Blood Clone

A skill popular amongst blood mages who have above average Vigour than the usual mage.

The host may create a connection between their blood and their mind, allowing them to control the blood to do their bidding.

The limits of the Blood Clone are defined by the host's ability and by the skill's rank in equal measure.

Maximum size: 128 [+14] drops of blood.

Maximum density: Each drop is equal in hardness to a drop of blood.

Maximum speed: 3cm [+2cm] per second.

Cost: 5,000 SP Mastery: Beginner Level 2

"I can add 14 more drops of blood, it's the same hardness, and it can move three times as fast as before," Lone explained.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. "And you can make it stronger outside of levelling it?"

Lone nodded. "That's what the skill implies."

"How incredible. How does one earn this skill? Can you tell me now?" Sophie inquired.

"By exerting your will onto your own blood," Lone explained.

Sophie sighed. "We can probably accomplish that, though we need 500 Vigour first... Well, Soph and we know you. Have fun playing with your new skill for the next day and a half. We shall try to improve our Barrier Magic. We admit this new skill of yours has given us some ideas."

Lone grinned. "You know me too well."

"That we do," Sophie replied with a chuckle.

"I'm gonna do it at the guild though," Lone said. 'I'll get tonnes of credits if I report each and every level up as soon as they happen.'

"Why?" Sophie asked.

Lone pursed his lips in thought. "I can't explain it in detail because of my contract, but I'll benefit the most if I do it at the guild."

Sophie nodded. "Very well. Have fun. We shall contact you telepathically at meal times and when we go to bed, assuming you wish to sleep. And if you lose track of time, we shall also let you know when you are due to return to your prison cell."

Lone laughed. "You really do know me too well."