He didn't give them time to vote.
One slash—clean, efficient—and the slime burst apart with a wet splat.
Klaus repeated the process and acquired Mirror Image.
He straightened, breathing out slowly.
When he looked up, the clearing was empty.
The remaining slimes had fled into the forest, wobbling as fast as their amorphous bodies would allow.
Klaus stared after them for a second.
Then sighed.
"…There goes my monthly due," he muttered. "Ten gold coins in one night." He shook his head. "Hope you're worth it."
He opened his status.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Basic Skills (Free Skill Points +22)
Trap Master (Lv.10) >>
Phantom Jump (Lv.10) >>
Echolocation (Lv.10) >>
Primal Roar (Lv.5 +) >>
Exhausting Hunger (Lv.5 +) >>
Mucus Armor (Lv.1 +) >>
Mirror Image (Lv.1 +) >>
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Unique Skill
Reaver Graver – Permanently copy one basic skill of choice from a defeated foe.
The level of the basic skill copied scales with the caster's intelligence.
Cost: 50 Mana, 5 Gold
Passive Skill
Mindforger – Manifest any weapon based on the user's perception and understanding.
Weapon form, stability, and effectiveness scale with mental clarity and combat experience.
Ultimate Skill
Power of Gold(Ultimate) –
Convert gold directly into raw power.
For every 1 Gold coin spent, all attributes increase by +1.
Effect last for 30 minutes.
Gold consumed cannot be recovered.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Klaus tapped the + beside Mucus Armor.
The numbers shifted.
Lv.2.
Physical Damage Negation: 35%.
His eyebrows rose.
"Five percent per level," he murmured. "So it's an ascending skill."
That explained a lot.
He didn't stop there.
Point after point flowed in until the skill reached level ten. The description settled.
Mucus Armor (Lv.10 +):
Negates 75% of physical damage.
Klaus let out a low whistle.
"Not bad," he said approvingly. "Not bad at all."
He moved on to Mirror Image.
Four points first—carefully.
The description rewrote itself.
Mirror Image (Lv.5 +)<<
The caster can turn into a perfect visual copy, voice, and posture of any creature the caster has seen.
The caster may deactivate and reactivate the skill.
Duration: 300 minutes.
His eyes widened.
"…Jackpot."
That wasn't ascending. That was something better.
"A transcending skill," he said, grinning.
He didn't hesitate.
By the time he reached level ten, his grin had gone slack.
Mirror Image (Lv.10 +)<<
The caster can turn into a perfect visual copy, voice, posture, and masteries of any creature they have seen.
The caster may deactivate and reactivate the skill.
Duration: 24 hours.
Klaus stared.
Mastery. A normal person needed years, decades and even a lifetime to learn a single mastery. But this skill—All he needed was to see them to gain what they trained.
"…This is cheating," he breathed.
He activated the skill immediately.
Without thinking, he pictured Maddy.
The world rippled.
His body reshaped itself smoothly, effortlessly. When it settled, Klaus—no, Maddy—stood in the clearing. Not the dress from earlier, but her usual mission attire: black cotton bodysuit, leather jacket, low-heeled boots hiding wickedly long needles. Daggers rested comfortably at his hips.
He glanced down, staring at the massive bulge in his chest. Temptation wanted him to touch it.
Paused.
"…Focus," he told himself firmly, slapping his own wrist away. "Training."
He inhaled slowly
The world shifted again—not visually, but internally. A shadow training as they called it.
Posture adjusted on its own. His feet spread a fraction wider. Knees loosened. Shoulders relaxed while remaining coiled. His breathing changed, slower and quieter, settling into a rhythm he hadn't consciously chosen.
He reached for the daggers.
The moment his fingers closed around the hilts, something clicked.
Knowledge surged—not like memories being recalled, but like instincts snapping into place. Angles. Reach. Weight distribution. The subtle difference between a killing thrust and a disabling cut. His wrists rotated automatically, blades flashing in a smooth, controlled arc.
Klaus blinked.
"…Oh."
He stepped forward.
The first strike came out too hard.
The blade sliced cleanly through the air—whff—overextended by a hair. His body corrected instantly, hips twisting, elbow tightening, the follow-up strike snapping back with precise economy.
He frowned.
"That would've gotten me stabbed," he said aloud.
The next sequence flowed better.
Step. Pivot. Slash. Reverse grip. Low cut. Withdraw.
Shff—shhk—tap.
His boots whispered against the grass. The daggers moved like extensions of his arms, not tools but answers to imagined threats. When he visualized an opponent, his body responded before his thoughts finished forming.
A goblin lunging left—
He sidestepped without thinking, blade snapping up to sever an imaginary wrist, the other dagger sliding toward a throat that wasn't there.
An armored soldier—
He shifted angles, abandoned the neck entirely, and drove for gaps that only experience would know existed.
Klaus stopped abruptly.
His heart wasn't racing.
His breathing wasn't strained.
"…This is ridiculous," he said, half awed, half unsettled.
He resumed anyway.
Faster this time.
He sprinted, then cut—rolling forward, daggers flashing in a spinning pattern that left no opening. He practiced throwing motions without releasing the blades, measuring distance by instinct alone. When he jumped, his landing was silent, knees bending just enough to absorb impact without sound.
At one point, he deliberately made a mistake.
He overcommitted on a thrust.
Before he could even register it, his body corrected—torso twisting sharply, blade retracting, his other hand snapping up as if deflecting a counterstrike that existed only in his imagination.
Klaus froze.
"…That wasn't me," he whispered.
That was Maddy.
Her habits. Her experience. Her scars, translated into motion.
He swallowed, then laughed softly.
"Gods," he said, shaking his head. "If she knew I was borrowing this, she'd stab me just on principle."
The training continued.
Sweat beaded on his skin—not from exhaustion, but from repetition. He practiced until the motions stopped feeling borrowed and started feeling understood. Even knowing the mastery would fade in a day, he absorbed everything he could—timing, rhythm, awareness.
By the time he stopped, an hour had passed without him noticing.
Klaus stood in the clearing, chest rising slowly, daggers resting loosely in his hands.
Klaus deactivated the skill and breathed out, calm and sharp all at once.
He smiled, "Time to head back home. Tomorrow will be a busy day."