Moving my hand, I took out a rhombus-shaped red crystal from its body.
Blood was dripping from its surface.
Clearing the blood, I looked at this fabulous natural crystal.
‘If I’m a reader of some novel, I would say this is a work of plot armor. But this… unbelievable.’
I was holding my first ever [Skill stone]. A rare (Red) ranked skill stone.
“My 28 luck was this powerful? Am… I in fact a really lucky person?” I smiled greedily as I looked at the stone.
I didn’t know what type of skill the stone held but I knew the skill in this stone was indeed a special skill.
These black ear rabbits didn’t have any other skill than [Quickstep] and [Hyper scence].
They were quiet, friendly, and lovely creatures.
They only ate grass with a little bit of Mana and played around with other rabbits.
There wasn’t a large number of them in this area but they were quite common and had a large population overall.
What could be the chances of finding a skill stone from my very first hunt from hundreds of thousands of rabbits?
“Man… am I actually some story’s protagonist?” I thought as I played with the shining red crystal.
Maybe I actually was a protagonist of a story.
Like, my story until now was the best and most common cliché in the fantasy genre.
Well, that was a totally baseless and laughable thought which oddly sounded possible.
But, this wasn’t the time to think about it.
I put the skill stone in my storage device and returned it to the rabbit.
Food comes first, the skill could wait until nightfall.
The night was now my practice time; I mostly rested during the day.
I only had time until sunset to prepare the meat and store it.
I quickly chopped the bunny, skinned it, and separated its inside and soft meat.
The organs would make great oil and the soup would be good too.
Putting the meat inside the pot, I slowly cooked them.
On the slow heat, the soup slowly boiled and a unique aroma started filling the cave.
‘Hmm… it’s been a long time. This aroma… it’s good.’
This was the first time I was cooking something like this.
I had prepared for this for days and that wasn’t in vain.
Now, the soup was getting ready and the other half was safely dehydrating.
I was using sunlight reflected from the mirror made from ice.
It was tough coming up with a large system of reflection and then magnification but it was done.
It was almost a solar dehydrator.
I also had my special apple-like fruit from the great tree.
In a hell-like forest, I was surprisingly eating well.
‘Mom, dad, be healthy and eat well too. I’m also having a feast in this forest-like hell,’ I prayed and walked forward.
As soon as I opened the lid of the pot, a mouth-watering aroma blasted from it.
The soup had a strong fragrance and more earthly and natural ingredients.
It wasn’t my usual style as I had limited ingredients from my nearby surroundings. 𝐞𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺
It was spicy, salty, and a bit sour.
Picking up a big wooden spoon, I took out some of it in a metal bowl.
I poked my spoon in a big chunk of meat.
It sliced through it like butter.
“Looks like I cooked it a bit too much,” I mumbled as I tasted my heard-earned food, but… my mouth stopped after some bites.
A crystal-like tear escaped my eye as a wide smile spread out on my face.
It… tasted strangely like dad’s cooking.
I knew I was still miles away from actually making something like dad but the soup had somewhat the same emotions as him.
It wasn’t something negative but… the joy of being alive.
Was I can somewhat better cook now that I had been through some life-threatening situations?
On the ridiculous thought, I sighed with a smile.
“Dad… please be safe,” I prayed again.
Slowly and delightfully, I finished my meal.
Storing the prepared part wasn’t a big deal so everything was cleaned up before sunset.
Clearing up the front area, I took out the fine red crystal.
‘Now, shell I check what kind of skill I got as my first ever skill stone~?’
*
In a clear area inside the cave, I looked at the red skill stone.
The surface of the stone was smooth and the stone itself was translucent.
Even after being a natural material, it looked like a fine piece of craftsmanship.
I would need an apprising skill to know what skill it actually contained, but I didn’t have one.
I can’t just learn any skill I get my hands on carelessly.
There were many factors that played a part in learning and using a skill.
Though it wasn’t needed this time, I had to be careful in the future.
I channeled some Mana into the crystal and crushed it.
It broke easily and shattered into pieces.
The red pieces from the crystal flowed inside my body and I started feeling weird.
It was like every part of my body was being touched at the same time.
Though it was a strange thing, it wasn’t uncomfortable.
It lasted for a minute and vanished like it wasn’t even there.
It was fast and I didn’t feel much strange about this.
It was as natural as being on a mountain facing a strong breeze of wind~.
‘Status window.’
============
Name: Axion Kromet
Age: 6
Strength: 29
Dexterity: 29
Stamina: 31
Magic Power: 35
Intelligence: 36
Luck: 28
Charm: 21
[Skill: Energy Circulation, Quickstep]
[Origin Skill: Sun’s Blessing: Beginner Mastery
-Mystic Eyes (Stage-1)
-Dynamic Heart (Stage-1) ]
============
There was something new in my status window and… I was happy to see it.
“Good! It looks like a skill similar to dad’s [Backstep].”
I knew how that worked so I immediately tried it.
I was impatient and excited to use this one.
“Quickstep!”
I was excited to use a different skill for the first time, but…
-Swish!
With a swift sound… I crashed into a wall.
“Aow! Ouch~! What the hell~!? This was unexpected!” I cussed and rubbed the back of my head.
I was upside-down right now and I had just banged my head on this wall.
But, I was happy with a bright smile on my face.
This skill is more fascinating than I thought!
I stood up and tried the skill again.
This skill didn’t just move me to a distanced place, it could move me anywhere within the near area.
Well, I had to try and experiment some more to find out more about this skill.
‘Let’s do some experiment~!’
I cheerfully shouted and prepared to use it another time.
Skills were preprogrammed, constructed, refined, and simplified spells.
It cost a fixed amount of M.P. to activate it and in cases of physical skills, they cost much less than magic skills.
This [Quickstep] was especially useful for me as I already had the skill to detect my death.
[Dynamic Heart] was an all-rounder skill for survival in this hell.
[Quickstep] used wind, light, and electricity Mana particles in a small quantity to execute the spell in a very small time.
I instinctively knew this skill could not be used in quick successions.
The M.P. consumption was not that high for a higher mage but for me… it was a lot.
M.P. was not only the Mana in the nucleus but the overall concentration, willpower, and Mana.
If calculated, this physical skill consumed nearly 9 M.P. for only one use.
If only a physical type, lowest rank skill cost this much, how much M.P. did dad use back when attacking the demon?
It was a (Green) ranked skill and on top of that… it was a magical skill.
The level of backslash he might have suffered was defiantly no joke.
With a deep, sad sigh, I focused my attention on my back.
The skill worked by itself.
It wasn’t like the blink spell of (tier-4) where the user could just teleport to whenever they wanted within a certain range.
It moved my body physically but it was fast enough to not get noticed by others.
‘Quickstep’
With the triggering of my spell, I was thrown backward.
I was prepared to crash this time too but I managed to stabilize myself.
‘Almost 30 meters…’ I nodded with an exhausted smile.
It was the estimated limit of this skill.
And I was definitely happy about this.
“Now I have a life-saving skill! It’s actually the best!”
I sat down and ate a blade of Mana grass to recover my M.P. a little faster.
‘I should find the things for the purification of demotic core faster,’ I smiled at this thought.
I will be able to achieve my deadline of six months only if I can use that core’s energy.
And for that… I had to find a large number of things.
As well as find some rare herbs in this hell-like treasure trove.