Later that night, I finally got around to checking my notifications and found I only had a few, which was welcome considering how bushed I was. With eyes half lidded, I pulled up the first one, which was actually a combination of a few as I’d adjusted my settings to streamline the process.

  [Wind Control, Grand Plan, and Process Optimization Acquired with Skill Dominance…Error, two non-System approved Skills detected, Grand Plan and Process Optimization. Proposed Solution: Grant access to two Skills at random.]

  A red window appeared beneath the borderline offensive offer from the System.

  [Do you accept this solution? If not, provide a counterproposal. Beware, only two counterproposals will be considered before nothing is granted and the opportunity is lost. You have until dawn before this offer is null and void.]

  Yeah, not going to happen. What do I want though? I’m not exactly hurting for Skills, but if I could cherry pick two, what would I even pick? I sat there for the better part of an hour, letting my mind wander when I slapped my forehead. Why not ask Mom, Dad, and Grandpa for one Skill each? I’m willing to bet each of them have a Skill they think would be perfect for me!

  Marshalling my thoughts, I used [Sending] to send each of them a personalized variant of the following message:

  [Mom, if you could give me one Skill what would it be? Unique or not, or one of each. Using Sending, twenty-five words. Meow.]

  Unsurprisingly, Mom was the first to reply and she actually listened this time, keeping her reply within the required amount of words.

  [Unique: Foresight, knowing what’s coming three seconds ahead.

  Standard: Deflect, not something I know and it will save your life.

  I love you my dear.]

  Before I could really consider what she sent, Grandpa’s response came in and he had a pair of radically different options, though his daughter obviously learned her formatting from him.

  [Unique: Stellar Dance, most flexible Skill I know of.

  Standard: Summon Celestial, angels make powerful, versatile, allies.

  Apologies for my earlier outburst, please forgive me.]

  I ended up asking Glyph for more details on [Stellar Dance] and [Foresight] and, after apologizing for calling him for a glorified librarian earlier, he was happy to answer me.

  “[Stellar Dance] is the titular Unique Skill tied to the Unique Legendary Class [Stellar Dancer]. Though not as broadly applicable as [Skill Dominance], it has a myriad of uses and would fit squarely in with your mixed melee and magical combat tendencies. It allows the user to suffuse themself with the light of different stellar bodies, be they stars, the moon, or even the nearest planets within the system. Each of those celestial bodies will provide a different effect, but you will have to choose what to attune to before any of them will come into effect.

  “[Foresight] is far more simple to explain, but much harder to use well. Despite the name, it is a Passive Skill that runs at a minimal level at all times. By pushing Mana into it you can stretch out how far you can see, up to a limit set by your combined [Divine] and [Wits], but doing so is difficult to master and can be potentially harmful to your sanity if not your body.”

  He left me, when I didn’t ask any more questions, to go and talk with Mindy once more. As I sat there, Dad’s response came in nearly five minutes later, shaking up my already shaky decision.

  [Chameleon’s Gambit or Nightstalker’s Grace, both are stealth focused, but the latter is a Unique only gained by killing a Level three-fifty plus Nightstalker.]

  The real question is what do I want out of this pair of Skills? I’m not struggling with combat, that much is obvious given how every monster since the [Wraith King] has kind of felt like a pushover with my existing Skills. I’m not exactly hurting for versatility either with [Elemental Mastery], [Elemental Pactlord], and [Elemental Surge] though all of those are tied to the elements and there’s a chance I’ll run into something limiting that source of power moving forward so maybe I should try and expand a bit? I laid out my options and got down to deciding what to do.

  [Unique Options:

  Nightstalker’s Grace

  Stellar Dance

  Foresight

  Standard Options:

  Chameleon’s Gambit

  Summon Celestial

  Deflect]

  Upon further deliberation, as much as I wanted [Stellar Dance], I knew I could just hunt a [Stellar Dancer] down in the future and pick it up from them then. Plus, it was another freaking hyper-versatile Skill I’d have to figure out and I didn’t exactly have a lot of room on my plate when it came to training considering the rest of the Skills I had yet to even use that I’d dominated.

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  As much as Dad obviously wanted me to focus on stealth, I knew that wasn’t the path I was on anymore. My place on the battlefield was up in the air, visible from all around, controlling the flow of combat with my powerful Skills and Spells until I saw the need to engage in melee. I made a mental note to talk to him the next time Mom called with [Illusory Communication] since then we could have a real conversation instead of sending messages back and forth. Putting those Skills aside, I was left with three choices but only two of them caught my eye.

  Focusing on the blinking red light in the corner of my vision, I pulled up the window to negotiate with the System on my replacement Skills and decided to go for the throat right off the bat. It didn’t hurt to try and get more, it meant you could settle for what you really wanted. In this case, [Summon Celestial] and [Foresight].

  [Proposed Offer: Grant access to Nightstalker’s Grace, Foresight, Summon Celestial, and Deflect. This is to represent the Unique nature of the Skills I am not being granted access to despite Skill Dominance triggering for them.]

  Less than a second later, an even angrier red window snapped into my vision.

  [Proposal Denied. Counter Offer: Gain access to three random Skills, one of which will be Unique, with Skill Dominance and one random Skill will be granted to you fully.]

  Leaning back on the [Cloud Carpet], I snorted to myself. ‘Glyph, can you come back over here for a few minutes?’ I messaged him to avoid interrupting Mindy’s train of thought as she worked through a complex calculation on a System window between her and the young [Voxel].

  Nearly two minutes later, he extricated himself from his conversation after leaving her with an even more complex equation to solve.

  “That should take her a few weeks.” He was chuckling when he arrived next to me. “It is a basic Voxomantic calculation, but this world’s mastery of magiomathematics is far inferior to my home.” Seeing my frown, he explained a bit more. “If she can solve it, it will increase her shield’s efficiency by sixteen percent for no increased material cost. A worthy goal, if not an easy one.”

  “I can’t argue with your logic.” I shot him a grin. “Want to help me bully the Genovian System?”

  His eyes lit up like a field of stars. “I thought you’d never ask!”

  Over the next few minutes I mentally explained my whole plan of attack and my eventual goal. However, Glyph was sure his plan was better and when I heard it? I agreed wholeheartedly.

  “This should be good.” I rubbed my hands together as I drafted what I considered Glyph’s masterwork of System fuckery.

  [Second Proposal: Grant Arthur Bajbub Neilson full access to the Foresight Unique Skill and add Summon Celestial to his list of Dominated Skills. As both removed Skills were Unique as well as predictive, Foresight fills their role fittingly. Summon Celestial was added to balance the scales, due to its flexibility as a non-Unique Skill.]

  Everything in the world seemed to hang for a tenth of a second before a new, far smaller, red and black window appeared in front of me.

  [Leave balancing the scales to the System. Regardless, your second Proposal has been accepted.]

  The first line of the message burned as I felt it sear into my soul straight through my eyes. Somewhere, out beyond the world of Genovia, I felt Dominus wince through our connection as the reproachful message reached her as well.

  Looking over my shoulder to look at the window I’d been presented, Glyph’s eyes were wide as I looked up at him. “This is most unusual. Your System is–” His wings locked up as red lightning cascaded over his diminutive form, eliciting a horrified screech that sounded somewhere between a cat in heat and the scream of a dying goat.

  Mindy was on him moments after he hit the ground, so I pulled up the Party Interface to see what was wrong with him. The thing is, his HP was full and he didn’t have any conditions on him besides the beneficial ones from a good meal of [Moonsilver Stew].

  She frantically tried to get him to respond, but all she could get from him were more screams. She looked up at me with eyes wet with tears. “What happened to him?!”

  “I don’t know!” I ran my fingers through my hair nervously. “He was reading a System prompt over my shoulder and was just about to tell me something about it,” I hesitated before continuing, “when that happened.”

  “What does it–” She stopped herself before placing a glowing blue hand on his forehead as water flowed from a pouch on her hip. “[Healing Waters].” She glared at me. “Figure out how to get him to stop seizing or he’ll die, [Voxel] or not, his body likely can’t take this kind of strain for long.”

  Looking into his eyes, I saw what looked like an ‘F’ in each eye. Wracking my brain, I realized what he likely meant. Putting aside the fact that I’d already hurt myself with it earlier in the day, I activated [Flash Focus] and watched in wonder as the lightning on Glyph slowed down until it was no faster than a common snake slithering across the ground.

  ‘Knock me out!’ He hissed into my head before one of the coils of lightning snapped at him once more. Nearly a minute of accelerated time later, he panted. ‘Two quintinos of [Lunar Tears], I’m highly–’ I watched in horror as the lightning covering his form failed to fade, in fact it seemed to be intensifying as I watched.

  Canceling the Skill, I yelled out to the camp. “We need [Lunar Tears]! Two quintinos of it, yesterday!”

  Around the campfire, Ylsa, Raiju, and Volta all looked at me with horror on their faces as they reviewed the contents of their spatial rings and bags frantically. Turning back to Mindy, I found her staring at me with a tiny bottle of blue-silver liquid.

  “[Lunar Tears] is a powerful magical catalyst, but…what’s a quintino?!”

  She panicked to pass the bottle to me and dropped it. Before it could hit the ground, I triggered [Haste] and dove to catch it just in the nick of time. Laying there, I wracked my brain thinking of all the times Glyph had tried to sound superior with words I didn’t know from home, but I couldn’t remember him ever using the term ‘quintino’ when doing so.

  Panning my gaze over the campsite, I considered reaching out to Dominus, but then my eyes locked onto the board of Voxomantic calculations and spotted it.

  “The equation!” I lunged toward it at [Hasted] speed and slammed a finger to point at the bottom corner. “The legend he gave you has quintinos in it.”

  Looking over the board, I was overwhelmed at first, but then I began to see patterns in the calculations. “This section in the top right, it’s a conversion calculation to convert points of Mana into quintinos.” I whirled back to look at Mindy, but found her slumped over Glyph’s body, sobbing.

  “No. Not again! I won’t lose another friend because I was too weak!” White and blue light formed on her hand where it laid against Glyph’s forehead. “[Leviathan’s B–].” She gagged as I hurled a small stone into the side of her neck, narrowly avoiding her windpipe.

  “That much pain at once would kill you!” I bellowed back at her as she clutched her neck with both hands. “I’m not trading you for him, I’ll dismiss him before I let that happen.”

  Her eyes went wide and a second later Raiju was there helping her up. The [Storm-Runner] hauled her charge over to stand next to me at the board. “Do your math, I’ll try and slow the lightning down.” She left me with Mindy as she flipped back to where Glyph lay writhing in agony. Putting her hands out, she beckoned to the red lightning and, notably, was able to channel a bit of it away from the young [Voxel] and into the ground where it disintegrated the dirt it struck.

  Hand on Mindy’s shoulder, I pressed my forehead to hers. “Now’s the time to think, no matter what happens I’ll send Glyph back home before he can die, so now you’re just trying to keep him here.” I pulled back to find her face red with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Glyph was sure you’d be able to figure this whole thing out in time, but we only need the one conversion so you need to focus on that.”

  I let her go and her eyes went hard. She whirled back to look at the board of calculations and her eyes unfocused as they flicked all over the board.

  Taking a step back to give her the space she needed, I continued to try and parse the conversion formula, but for some reason it had a dozen inputs instead of just two like most conversions.

  Over by Glyph, Raiju howled excitedly. “I got most of the lightning, but he’s still not opening his eyes.” She panted at the effort of redirecting System Lightning, as I later coined it. “I can only keep this up for–” Volta appeared next to her in a flash of her own lightning and began to assist. “Strike that, I can keep this up as long as Volta and I can stay awake. Do it right, we only get one shot at this.”