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“Phew… That’s amazing… truly.”
“Ain’t it?”

Rir and I had made another round through the dungeon. The magic beasts were the same as during the first time and I was able to instakill almost all of them with my magic. Currently, we were taking a break in the room where the beautiful horse used to be.

“Master, will we go for another round?”
“Nah… We should go over our stat screens. And after that, let’s have lunch. Right, I’ll take care of your stat screen, too.”
“Mh, please do.”

Since we were finally in a situation that allowed us to rest, I wanted to take care of that.
I wonder how much our levels have increased…

“Woof~~!? Master… this is…!”
“Everything shot up like crazy…”

We looked at each other’s faces. Obviously, I didn’t expect our levels and stats to get this high. That five times multiplier on exp was insane. Moreover, we had also gotten more titles.
Well, I can look at what they do later¹.

“Master… These stats are that of an S-Ranker… No, probably even higher than that!!”
“Yep… you’re not wrong. Let’s allocate all our points. Just give me some time.”
“Y-Yeah!!”

Now, seein’ it turned out like this, it’ll probably be easier to take care of STP first. From our experience up till now, I won’t need to allocate much into D and HP².

…Also, I’ll put 150 points into A before I start for real. With that, there’s exactly 500 points allocated to it.
So… how to invest those 23’000 STP…?

First is obviously S. The stat allows me to deal with many things, it makes sure I won’t react too late… and there’s various other benefits, too, ain’t there? If I had been able to react more quickly, that huge eagle might not have blown us off the cliff. Speed is important. If I were to take it to the extreme, I could allocate 10’000 points into it.

Still, this is probably too bold, lemme think ’bout it a bit more. The stats I absolutely should invest points into are MP, A, C, W, and S. To put these in order of importance, S places first, W and A are second, MP and C rank third.

Just for the sake of caution, though I likely won’t need it, let’s invest just a tiny bit into D and HP. Well, 500 points each should be enough.

Then 1000 points each into MP and C, 2000 each into A and W… and 3000 into S. That leaves me with 13’000… Lookin’ at it, might as well raise S by another 6000. That leaves exactly 7000 STP, so… let’s another 1500 points each into MP and C, and 2000 each to A and W.

Great, that’s a fine stat distribution, ain’t it?

Next are Rir’s stats.

There’s no need for her to allocate even a single point into W. And for MP, she has almost 4000³, so she should be fine without adding anythin’ to that. What she should invest points into is A, S, and then a bit into C. As for D and HP… if there’s some left over at the end…

Of the 5800 points… let’s use 200 to bring the bonus of the stats that have already 50 invested into ’em to 100. Then, of those 5600 left, use 3000 for S and 2000 for A.

Nah, speed is Rir’s weapon. I should increase that further. Let’s add another 500⁴ to S, and move 500 points from A to C. Finally, invest the remainin’ 100 into D.

Great, this should do it.

“That’s ’bout it for our stats.”
“Woof~. I’m glad that you always explain to me how to allocate my points!”
“Is that so? You’re welcome. Next is SKP.”

Now to begin with… there’s a mountain of skills that need evolvin’, ain’t there?

First, I got Water Magic to the Extreme stage and maxed it out. Then I evolved Stealth, turning it into Great Stealth. Swordsmanship evolved into Great Swordsmanship.

Since it bugged me, I evolved and maxed out Martial Arts, too. Then, I also turned Cooking into True Cooking. Furthermore, I maxed out Harvesting and Appraisal, evolved them into Master versions and maxed those out.

By doing that, I was able to suddenly learn a ton of new skills. Through derivation, I created four skills from Harvest Master and five from Appraisal Master. Each of them required two D-Rank magic cores, so I didn’t even use up two C-Rank magic cores to obtain all of them. They only required a mere 30 SKP to max out each, so I did that for all.

And that’s when I realized something. What would happen if I tried synthesizing all those derived skills? I tried it, but then I hit a wall.

We didn’t have all the needed magic cores. It required five A-, B-, and C-Rank magic cores each. The hurdle to get from 3-star to 4-star skills was steep indeed. Still, we should obtain the needed amount if we went through the dungeon another 10 times. For now, I had to be patient.

Now… that leaves me with SK1 skills, but… oh, that’s right, it kinda hurts not havin’ a single healin’ skill. Investin’ in Restoration Magic probably won’t be a bad idea. Then, there’s Enhancement Magic… I should be able to use that skill to temporarily increase my speed.

I maxed out both skills at the Extreme stage.

There was also Psychic magic. In the books I had bought, it said “that skill is convenient to use in synthesis.” I maxed it out at the Extreme stage and obtained Illusion Magic in the process. Psychic Magic, also known as telekinesis, was apparently mainly used to levitate objects and freely manipulate their movements.

I allocated points in a ton of skills, but… my SKP hasn’t really gone down, has it? What should I do? I could max out all the SK1 skills I currently have and there’d still be some left, y’know? For the sake of synthesis… I think it’d be useful, apart from Enfeeblement Magic, to max out Wind and Earth Magic.

In the process, I obtained Stone Magic and did the same for that.

I still had more than 15’000 points left.
Seriously, what am I to do with all that? Even wastin’ 6000 of those wouldn’t cause any issues, y’know?

In that case, I’ll use synthesis again to get more skills with an X mark attached to ’em… I guess? I should be able to collect all those skills. Since I’ve got some proper recipes for ’em. Alright, let’s do that.

Via synthesis, I created Wood, Sand, Iron, and Thunder Magic and maxed them out at the Extreme stage. Next, I also completely maxed out Ice, Illusion, Abnormal Dispel, and Enfeeblement Magic. Furthermore, I then derived and maxed out Abnormal Condition Magic from Enfeeblement Magic. Finally, I created Light and Darkness Magic and did the same for those.

By maxing out those 11 skills, I finally managed to get my SKP below 11’000

Is there anythin’ left I can do…? Gotta be more synthesis stuff! Especially with fire type skills.
Now I’m gettin’ excited.

Thanks to God of Fire, the cost for synthesizin’ those is super low. I think back then, I needed five B-Rank magic cores to create that S-Rank skill? I should be able to make it now.

So… How should I go about synthesizin’ it? Things have changed since the time when I did a full-blown synthesis session back then. All the skills I used as materials have gone stronger.

For the time bein’, let’s go with improvin’ my Blaze Sword.

I tried synthesizing Blaze Sword Summoning Magic, Great Swordsmanship, Extreme Fire Magic, and God of Fire. It looked as if I was able to create an S-Rank skill called “Crimson Magic Sword of the Fire God Summoning Magic” with those four skills. The synthesis demanded seven B-, nine C-, eight D-, and five E-Rank magic cores, which was a much higher cost than the synthesis I had tried back then, but it couldn’t be helped.

What’s important is that I’m able to create it. On closer look, its sub-rank is two points higher than the skill back then, so it’s likely stronger.

I created the skill “Crimson Magic Sword of the Fire God Summoning Magic”. Maxing it out required 750 SKP, which obviously wasn’t an issue.

So… That should be about it, for me. I need to leave some magic cores for Rir.

I should have her max out Great Detection and… turn Stealth into Great Stealth and max that one out, too. Then evolve Axemanship into Great Axemanship and max it out.

…Huh? What should I have her do apart from that? I wonder, what would be best for her? I can use both Appraisal and Harvesting, so… Well, might be a good idea to improve her Harvesting skill, but… that’d still leave her with over 5000 SKP.

“Hey, Rir…”
“What is it, Master, are you done?”
“Well… no, I’m still in the middle of it, but…”
“Erm… Master. If you don’t mind… I would like to improve my Cooking Skill. Would you consider that?”
“Sure, gotcha.”

For now, I had her allocate points to the skills I had thought of. In accordance with her request, she also evolved Cooking into True Cooking and maxed it out.

Still, it’d be a waste to stop with that much SKP left. Then, should we use synthesis so she can learn more skills…? Guess I’ll rely on those books once again.

There were many synthesis methods for E- and D-Rank and 1- and 2-star skills listed in there, though some of them were also for A-Rank and 4-star skills. It was apparently written due to various adventurers constantly asking, “How do I obtain this skill?”, so it was somewhat disjointed.

In there, I discovered a skill that seemed to be tailor made for Rir. It was called “Nimble Foot”.

It apparently increased the user’s quickness stat when doing actions that were affected by S. There were also other skills of the same type, called “Stout Arm”, “Firm Body”, “Sharp Mind”, and “Deft Hand”⁵. All of them were 2-star skills.

I wanted to have Rir learn both “Nimble Foot” and “Stout Arm”, which raised A, at any price. Also, I wanted “Sharp Mind”, which raised W, and “Nimble Foot” for myself.

As for how to synthesize them… “Nimble Foot” required you to combine Wind Magic and all four standard weapon Art skills. For “Stout Arm”, you used Fire in place of Wind magic, and for “Sharp Mind” you needed Psychic Magic… that’s how it seemed to work.

Since you could synthesize SK2 skills without allocating any points to them, we could leave those as they were, so I only told Rir to max out Fire and Wind Magic without evolving them to the Improved stage.

So… Time for synthesizin’. Wait, won’t it be better to directly create all of ’em?

For that reason, I also had her do the same for Earth, Water, and Psychic Magic as she had done for Fire and Wind. Then, I told her create those skills, only omitting “Sharp Mind”⁶. She performed the synthesis and obtained the four skills. I also created those skills, this time with “Sharp Mind” included.

We maxed out all of them, but it looked like you could evolve them further, with each of them requiring two C-Rank magic cores. By using a B-Rank magic core each, Rir and I evolved all of them and then maxed them out again.

We used up a fair amount of resources for this. Probably fine to leave the rest for another time. On second thought, it’s not like we’re in a rush to allocate all those points.

“Rir, that’s about it for this time. Let’s eat lunch.”
“Woof~, thank you, Master. On that note, will we be having the soup for lunch?”
“Nah, I just got my hands on that True Cooking skill, so I thought I’d cook something. The soup won’t go bad, so we can have it for breakfast.”
“In… in that case, couldn’t I make lunch?”
“Hm…? Sure, that’s fine.”
“Thank you! I will put my all into it!”

I see… so she’s finally healed up enough to want to cook her own food⁷… That’s good, very good.

I mean, I’ll get to eat the home cooking of a modest girl.
I think I never had that except for the chocolate Mika made… Were there any other occasions? Oh, I also ate Ayumu’s cooking at some point.

Once we’re done eatin’, guess I’ll take those newly learned skills for a spin…

Author’s note:
Shuu and Rir’s status screens at the end of the chapter.

TL notes:
Whew… this chapter was way too long, with all the usual calculation errors and other things that made no sense. I did some fixes for stats I knew were wrong, but all the errors from past chapters just keep adding up. I am perfectly aware that these stats don’t matter in the end, but it’s kind of a pet peeve for me that this stuff should be calculated correctly and make sense.

Anyway, those new stat-modifying SK2 skills sound interesting. I wonder if they raise stats by a percentage or a flat amount. If it’s the former, they might be quite powerful. Also, the skills Appraisal Master derived into are different from the ones mentioned in chapter 23; there it was “Plant Appraisal”, “Stone Appraisal”, “Arms Appraisal”, “Dismantling Appraisal”, and “Tool Appraisal”.

1. He never does, at least not on-screen. I assume all of them are cosmetic since Alim also never commented on them.
2. I don’t think oneshotting everything and never getting hit is a good indicator of how much HP/defense you need.
3. The original is “more than 4000” since the author miscalculated her MP for the current level (remember, she has a 20% reduction due to being a beastfolk).
4. This is 400 in the original, but then there’d be 100 unused points left.
5. The originals are 俊敏, 剛腕, 強固, 賢明, and 器用, which, except for 剛腕 are all adjectives. I modified them slightly, so they’d work better as skill names and make their evolved version sound a bit more natural.
6. So it says. In the original, she actually has Sharp Mind in her final stat screen, but I assume that’s an error.
7. I think it’s more that she finally has something she can do for him, after feeling useless for days.
8. Shuu is missing this and Illusion Magic in the original. He uses Wood Magic at a later point, so the author likely forgot them.
9. The original is 斧の道 (“way of the axe”), the 2-star version, but she evolved the skill.