"SS-ranker at the higher stage?" Lone raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

Hilda shrugged dismissively. "SS-rank spans fae level 1,000 tae level 2,499. 'At's ah lotta levels, aye? Folks 'ave decided it's wise tae split each rank above S into lower, middle, an' 'igher stages tae get ah vague sense ah level. Not like level means much beyond identifyin' 'ow close ya are tae needin' enlightenment, but borin' people dae borin' things wae their free time."

'Ah, so S-rank ends at level 999. I'm a quarter of the way there on just the level basis. No clue how I'm doing enlightenment-wise,' Lone thought before asking, "You're pretty close to being a triple-S-ranker then if you're at the higher stage, right?"

"Ah'd feckin' 'ope so considerin' ma 4,320th birthday is comin' up soon," Hilda barked out a laugh which earned her a hearty chuckle from the crowd.

Lone smiled at that. This was perhaps the oldest and strongest person he'd ever had the chance to fight. Well, excluding Xer'rava of course since he didn't know that man's age nor did he really fight him.

"Well, rules then... I'd honestly not mind losing to you at all, so how about this? We fight until you can knock me unconscious. You're not allowed to hit my head or go for the kill, obviously, but everything else is fair game. I can attack you as much as I want, also not going for the kill, though I doubt I'd get the chance even if I wanted to end your life. If I last... hmm... Five minutes? If I last five minutes without passing out, it's my win. Win or lose, you still attack my Blood Clone at least once. We also try to use Teaching Mastery on each other if you're fine with that. Sound agreeable?" Lone proposed.

"Hmm..." Hilda stroked her chin in thought. "Gonna use those scary tails ah yers?"

'I'd rather not use Tail Spear on someone outside of its effective range until I have a significant amount more Luck. It'd suck so bad if the 0.1% chance triggered and I only learned how to apply one stat instead of the potential two or three,' Lone thought as he shook his head. "Nope."

"'Kay, then ah willnae apply any ah ma stats. Doin' so fae half ah 'em would ah likely killed ya outright, but Agility coulda been fun," she said.

Lone raised an unseen eyebrow beneath his helmet of bone. 'How many can she apply and how would any help her kill me beyond Strength and maybe Dexterity? Luck? Hmm... food for thought.'

Hilda reached into the adventurer's pouch at her waist and pulled out a warhammer easily twice as large as she was, though she wielded it like it weighed not even a single kilogram. "Doubt ah'll need mah armour, so nae point wastin' time putting Armour Preparation Mastery tae use."

'That's actually a skill?' Lone's interest was piqued. 'Sophie is so going to earn that soon if that's the case. She's so fast at getting in and out of her armour these days. It must need conventional armour to be earned considering I don't have it. Well, gotta spend some time trying to learn that skill then. Who knows? It might be able to boost my Bone Armour somehow.'

He turned his head to face the group of nine adventurers who were busy working away on his Blood Clone while listening in on the conversation.

"I'll need my concentration for this, I'd suspect, so why don't you guys take a break? If I get knocked upside the head and black out, you're all free to go about the rest of what little evening we still have left instead of continuing to run yourselves ragged," Lone told them.

They grinned at him thankfully when one of them replied, "Aye, 'at sounds nice, though makin' this blob burst over'n'over again is oddly cathartic."

And with that, they all wiped off their sweat, sheathed or put away their axes and other weapons, and then merged into the crowd that was hugging the wall.

Hilda cracked her neck as she rolled her shoulders with her free hand. "Ah'll be holdin' back ah good fair bit considerin' ah dinnae wan' this place tae be destroyed, but dinnae think me an ol' Gurt 'ere won't pack ah punch still."

'Her hammer is called Gurt? Charming. Those etchings all over it... enchantments? They remind me of the runes on Hamish's daggers that let me farm Curse Resistance,' Lone observed. 'Wonder what these ones do? I'd assume decreased weight from how she's casually holding that boulder on a flagpole pretending its a hammer, but then again, she could just be strong enough for it to feel weightless to her.'

He lowered his stance, held his steel swordspear tightly, and then replied, "Only a fool would ever underestimate his opponent, no matter how strong they are nor how much of their power they choose to fight with."

"Wiser words 'ave never been spoken," Guildmaster Hilda said. "Well then, three, two, one, 'ere ah come!"

Lone thought his eyes were fast. He thought his senses were far beyond those of your typical D-ranker. That may even be true, but nothing could have prepared him for the speed of the guildmaster.

One moment he was in a defensive posture ready to brace and hopefully block whatever attack the guildmaster would throw his way, the next, he was sliding down the back wall of the training area with a gaping rectangular hole in his chest that was about the size of a baking tray.

Blood, shattered bones, organs, and scattered viscera, covered Lone, the spectating adventurers, and the training area alike. At the same time, Lone's vision was obscured by numerous system notifications which he barely had the mental capacity to dismiss for now.

The pain he was feeling was so overwhelming and... invigorating. It had been a while since he'd felt so physically alive.

'Tell us you are in no mortal peril. Because should this woman be trying to kill you, we will stuff her so far and so fast into a dormant volcano we discovered when exploring the subterranean cave system buried beneath us that she'll be burned alive before she can even so much as blink,' Sophie threatened.

Lone struggled up onto his feet as he violently vomited his own... everything. His Basic Regeneration was going to work as best as it could, but if Hilda chose to attack him one or two more times like that, then he'd be dead.

Thankfully, the old woman was just scowling like everyone else who was present at the disgusting noises his self-healing produced. Well, that and the fact he was standing despite his new... wound, if it could be called as such.

'It's a... duel. I may... have underestimated... the power of... a strong physical-focused SS-ranker. I'd... be dead if she wanted me to... be. You found a... volcano?' Lone asked as he felt his knees go weak but he refused to fall over.

Hilda had this much raw power without even applying any of her stats, and instead of frightening him, all that information did for Lone was make him want her help increasing Blood Clone's hardness even more.

'We see. Since we have forbidden you from actively seeking death, now you actively seek near-death. Ha-ah... progress is progress, we suppose. And yes, we did. Well, Soph did. We do not enjoy books like you and before we decided to start reading up on history to earn that skill of yours, Soph spent our free time exploring. This was mostly done while you were awaiting your trial,' Sophie explained.

She paused for a moment before speaking more hesitantly, 'Before what you did, Soph had never seen the world through physical eyes. She did not exist for the first 400 or so years of our life, so she was born into blindness in an empty pocket dimension. She has not expressed it to you, but she greatly enjoys seeing new things with the eyes you temporarily sacrificed your mana to create. Exploring was a byproduct of her new sense of wonder. Anyway, we shall leave you to focus, but be aware, we are watching,' Sophie warned.

'She's fond of exploring?' Lone thought as his body finished healing, his skin having closed up completely and his Bone Armour having repaired itself, it now being stronger than before thanks to the blow that ruined it.

Lone smiled a little bit. "We have more in common than I thought..." he mumbled.

Shaking his head a little, Lone did something he had only done a handful of times to test before: he willed his Bone Armour to create a shield.

He'd never seen the point before, but considering Hilda could slam an entire chunk of his body so hard it was basically vaporised on impact, he felt trying to rely on the shield now could be a stroke of genius.

He willed his Bone Armour to make the shield as tall as he was and a little bit wider, making it cover his entire body. Lone tried to make it as tough as possible, but it seemed to be fixed at a maximum thickness of about ten centimetres.

Hilda whistled. "Ye can make whatev'r ya wan' outta those creepy bones o' yers?"

Lone chuckled. "Sadly not. I'm limited to the armour and a shield, though I can make either take whatever form I choose, within limits. This is as big and beefy of a shield as I can manage. Want to try hitting me again? We must be close to five minutes by now. I can heal fast, but not that fast."

"We passed five minutes aboot three minutes ago," she casually replied. "It woulda been wrong ah me tae kick ya while ye were ya doon, so ta speak. Was interestin' as feck tae watch ya heal though even if the noise left me wantin' tae rip ma ears off. Ah didnae expect 'at. Was expectin' ya tae be near-dead an' comatose, tae be 'onest wae ya."

'So even though she was aware of my super healing from my fight with Hamish, she wanted to see if I could have survived her own attack but she wasn't sure that I even could? How much shit would she have gotten into if I'd have keeled over? Ignoring what Sophie would have done, I wonder what the guild itself would do to a master that killed a silver plate with no good reason...' Lone thought.

"That's a shame, and I'm far sturdier than my rank would suggest," he replied, shaking his head. "Why not hit me again anyway? I've already gone and expended the effort needed to make the shield. Would be a fuckin' shame to see its official debut not be somethin' spectacular."

"... That willnae kill ya? Ye've energy tae spare tae heal yerself again?" Hilda asked, her scepticism clear in her voice with just a trace of annoyance leaking into her words.

Lone laughed. "I'm practically immortal. Go for it. Hell, at this point, I'd be willin' to pay you just for the honour."

From behind his massive bone shield, he heard the guildmaster sigh, "Thought ah could learn somethin' 'ere, nae teach a pup humility..."

Regardless of her mumblings, Lone's foxkin ears did inform him of the woman hefting her hammer into a threatening position once more.

'Good! The sheer amount of skill level-ups I'll get from this will be insan-' Lone's internal musing was cut short as a scream unintentionally bellowed out from his lungs as every bone from the point of his fingers to the tip of his toes shattered instantaneously and simultaneously.

He slid back so far and so fast that he was, once again, pushed right into the training area's walls.

His head was ringing and the sudden and overwhelming pain was all he knew as he felt his Basic Regeneration struggle to rebuild his burst organs, dissolve the shattered bone fragments that impaled his entire body, and create new bones with which to support his skeleton once more all at once.

Minutes passed. Soon, those minutes turned into tens of minutes. Brief flashes of the system flickered in Lone's eyes but his mind was fuzzy.

He knew he was getting skill notifications and the like, but he didn't recall what that meant. It was like there was a fog in his mind.

It was only when his Basic Regeneration had finished restoring his brain to its peak physical condition did Lone realise his skull has turned into mince meat when the vibrations of Hilda's attack had made his entire skeletal structure explode.

'So it's best to strike cutting my own head off to test Basic Regeneration's limits from my to-do list, then,' Lone managed his first cognisant thought in what felt like a lifetime.

Finally, a short while later, Lone could feel the mind-breaking pain that covered his entire being recede into being a dull buzzing sound at the back of his mind instead of the raging storm it was mere moments ago.

He heard mutterings from the crowd of awestruck adventurers as he struggled to regain his bearings.

"Bastard's movin'."

"'E survived Hilda the Hammersworn's 'ammer twice... at D-rank."

Many more voices of simple and pure amazement expressing similar statements of fact spread through the room, all as shocked as the last that Lone hadn't died the instant the force of Hilda's attack had spread throughout his whole body instead of a singular point like in her first hit.

Then it happened. Just like how the guildmaster was apparently nicknamed 'Hilda the Hammersworn', a title sprung up amongst the dwarves to honour Lone's incredible feat.

"Like 'e said... If a D-ranker who can survive such ah blow isnae unkillable, then who or what is?"

"Aye... Nae small amount o' 'onour tae be foond in 'at... Fae now on, at least tae me, he'll fae'ever be known as Immortus the Immortal."

"Immortus the Immortal... It rolls off the tongue surprisingly well..."

Lone chuckled in his mind a bit. 'In Western Stone Dwarfish, doesn't 'immortal' more closely translate to 'sturdy as the Stone'? What an honour.'

"A fittin' name. Immortus the Immortal!"

Lone's body was still wracked in pain but somehow, a smile crept onto his broken expression, a creepy sight given his eyes had burst from the pressure of the attack.

'Really, Soph and Sophie deserve to be known as the immortal more than I do given that one of her sealed unique skills is literally true immortality, but eh, I'll take it,' he thought as he dismissed what little was left of his Bone Armour and then wobbled up to his feet, surprisingly getting a hand from two dwarven adventurers despite his public image as a skill thief.

Perhaps he'd earned more honour here than just the adventuring title as he had first assumed.

He thanked the men who'd assisted him in leaning his back against the wall before he pulled up his notification log. He had a lot to check while his body finished repairing itself.