As I worked, Jana would occasionally throw out a comment, such as advice on how to channel my skill to get better results. For instance, she suggested making a firm, pulling motion with my arms, as if dragging the material where I wanted it to go. When I put this into practice, I found that the speed of the construction increased, but it became rougher, at which point she suggested I mimic the action of smoothing it out with my hand.

It was good to see that she was serious about training, and not just trying to seduce me or anything like that. With her assistance, I spent an hour and a half working on the third iteration of the small building. As if waiting, I received the notification that the skill was ready to evolve right as I was finishing the construction process. At the same time, I was notified that I had received another skill, Architect.

The Architect skill was a basic Utility skill, which allowed me to create and save blueprints for buildings. I shrugged my shoulders, not incredibly interested in the skill, but it wasn't exactly like I would just get rid of it. Even if I could.

"You ready to evolve that new skill of yours, I take it?" Jana asked when she saw me staring at the window. I nodded my head in confirmation, and also mentioned the new Architect skill. Jana thought about it for a moment, before shaking her head. "A skill like that would take ages to level up, even for you. Given your objective, it's best to go ahead and evolve this one."

I had already planned to do so, since I didn't intend to spend weeks drafting up various building plans. With the press of a button, Material Manipulation was upgraded into Martial Construction. For the most part, the description didn't change, aside from the mention that the skill now allowed for both the understanding and processing of available materials.

"So? Did it get any better?" Jana asked curiously, seeming just as interested in the skill as I was. I could somewhat understand why, since a construction skill would help in city development.

"Let's find out." I muttered, activating Martial Construction and aiming my hand at the newly constructed building. Originally, stone simply came across as a dense, rough sensation through my skill. Now, however, I saw a system window highlighting the material and labeling it as 'stone'.

When I attempted to manipulate the stone in order to demolish the house, I found it moving at roughly five times the speed it had before the recent evolution. In other words, before leveling up this new skill, I should have been able to construct this small stone hut within twenty minutes. Still not entirely ideal, but it was sure to get faster as I leveled up. If I could get it down to ten minutes, or even less, that would be perfect.

Jana similarly nodded her head at the improved speed. Once I was done, she made a suggestion. "Try it again. But this time, I want you to channel your new Architect skill with it at the same time. Make a simple blueprint for your little shack, and then try to project your skill through that."

I blinked at the suggestion, before nodding my head and working on the blueprint. It was an incredibly simple design, one that I had already made repeatedly, so I had the blueprint done and saved in just a couple minutes. After which, I focused my skill through the blueprint, targeting the same stone spike as before.

The result was… rather surprising. Without me needing to manually focus on each step of the process, the stone was expanding to fill the blueprint that I had set on its own. This meant that all of the walls were completed at the same time, as if being printed, rather than me having to do each one individually.

Because of this, not only did it not take ten minutes, the entire small building was completed in only four minutes. Jana grinned broadly, as if she had solved a puzzle. "Thought so. You've got to pair a construction skill with the Architect skill to get the best results. It's like the difference between writing an essay and just copying what was already written. Naturally, it'll take longer to write it yourself."

I nodded my head a bit hesitantly, crouching down and placing my hand on the ground before using my skill again. Although I hadn't tested it out, I suspected that the benefit from this new evolution would allow me to more easily find the materials I needed to build.

Immediately, my vision was filled with highlighted images. First was the grass on the surface, which I dismissed with a thought. Next was general soil, which I also dismissed. Then, I saw pockets of stone, including the spike piercing upwards, as well as an underground water vein, dozens of meters below the surface, beneath a thick layer of bedrock.

Nodding my head, I didn't immediately try to put this knowledge to use. Instead, I deconstructed the house once again, having no need for the building at this time. Once I was done, I turned towards Jana. "Is it alright if I ask you a few questions about skills?"

Jana nodded her head. "'Course, kid! That's what I'm here for!"

After organizing my thoughts, I looked at her curiously. "At what level would it be 'normal' for players to start getting master or grandmaster level skills?"

Jana blinked at my question, letting out a soft hmm. "Well, it honestly depends on a few factors. Like you know, some skills are simply easier to train than others. Under the conditions where a player has a talent in a particular skill, regularly trains it, and the skill does not have a high difficulty level, I'd say it's common for master level skills to appear around one hundred."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"However, if the player has no exceptional talent, it could take up to one hundred and twenty for their most commonly used skill to reach that rank. Also, this is assuming that they train it from the basics. Master level skills can appear earlier if they start from the intermediate rank."

"For less commonly used skills, I'd say level one hundred and fifty, maybe all the way to two hundred depending on how often they train. Maybe even later for tricky skills like your Martial Intent. Yes, I heard about your barrier stunt on the boat. If that wasn't Martial Intent, I'll eat my boots." She said in a confident tone. "For a skill like that, the mana cost is variable, but generally higher than using a specialized skill. Normally, the earliest a skill like Martial Intent-X should appear is around two hundred and fifty, even if it is regularly trained by a talented individual."

"Now, grandmaster skills… those are an entirely different beast. I've never seen an active player with a skill that strong. Even for a Fallen like myself, it would take us years, maybe decades to train that skill if we fell around level four hundred. I myself only have a single grandmaster skill that I trained from the basics."

My eyes widened in surprise, unable to hold back my curiosity. "What's your skill?" I asked, and she grinned.

"Hero King's Strike. It's the ultimate form of Power Attack. Probably one of the easiest skills to level all the way to the end. I'm guessing that you fused Power Attack with something to get your ki manipulation skill, right? It's the common formula for people aiming for the higher path."

I nodded my head in confirmation, about to speak up again when Diane sent me a message, saying she had logged on. I wiped the smile from my face, making my brand light up. My gaze was unfocused for a moment, before I looked around at my surroundings and opened my skill list. As if going through the motions of a player that had just logged on and was checking their progress.

Jana seemed startled by the shift, but quickly regained her composure. By the time I returned my gaze to hers with a calm expression, she had regained her confident grin. "You're… Jana, correct?" I asked, as if we were meeting for the first time.

"That's right, kid." She chuckled. "I was just answering some questions for your Chosen. Do you need me to fetch one of the other trainers, too?"

I shook my head, glad that I no longer had to put a constant smile on my face. "That's fine. Training with you would probably be the most effective." Her grin widened at that, clearly pleased by the statement.

"In that case…" She focused, and a message appeared in front of me.

Jana has activated the skill Dueling Ground.

Any fatal injuries sustained within the Dueling Ground will be nullified for the next ten minutes.

My eyes widened in surprise as I saw the message, looking up at Jana. The elven teacher chuckled, nodding her head. "It's the evolved form of the Instructor skill, which you can only learn by teaching a large number of players skills. As long as this skill is active, you won't have to worry about being killed while training."

Listening to this, I silently cursed Kelly in the back of my head. Thinking back to all the times she killed me in our training, I couldn't help but imagine how different it would have been if she used this skill. Of course, I was also aware that she killed me repeatedly in the hopes that my negative trait would eventually drop, thus relieving me of my greatest burden.

"How long does it take to recast this skill?" I asked, noticing the large outline of the area around us, which formed a circle over twenty meters in radius.

"I'll need a few minutes between sparring sessions." She admitted readily. "We can discuss ways to improve while I wait for my mana to recover."

"As long as I'm not keeping you from your other students." I said, activating my dragon transformation with the ki element. Jana's eyes widened in shock at my dragon form, having to look up to meet my eyes now.

"...Oh, this is going to be fun." She said with a broad grin, smacking her fists together. "Show me how you usually fight, kid!"

With her invitation, I didn't hesitate, activating Ghost-X to slip into stealth and move behind her. Then, I created a sword of condensed ki in my hand, slashing it down towards her. To my surprise, she twisted her body, the blade brushing past her by a hair's breadth. Her eyes were closed, but she deftly flipped, kicking out at my wrist hard enough for me to feel the bones snap beneath my armored scales.

I had to suppress the hiss of pain as I jumped back, quickly healing my damaged wrist. Jana, meanwhile, easily landed on a single foot, facing me while I was in stealth. "Sorry, my Tremorsense-X can see through your stealth skill. Try again."

If that was the case, I had to rethink my approach. I could try an airborne energy projection? No, her other senses should have been enhanced as well. Stealth wasn't going to save me this time. With that in mind, I took a deep breath, gathering energy in my throat.

With a loud roar, I released a glowing yellow breath attack towards Jana, who rotated her arms, creating a circular barrier in front of herself. "This is Ki Barrier. I'd offer to teach it to you, but you can already do the same thing with your current skills." She said, my attack crashing into her shield.

I growled, deciding to try a new approach. I activated Martial Construction, clenching my fists. Around Jana's feet, grass rapidly grew and wove together in thick braids, tying her foot to the ground. She seemed momentarily taken aback, and I used the opening to grab her with a giant projected hand.

Jana let out a brief grunt as the hand grabbed her, and I tried to squeeze her like I had the party of players I encountered before. However, I felt that the projected hand was not able to fully close. In fact, I felt it being forcibly pried open, the fingers loosening as Jana stretched her arms out to the side. "Not bad, kid. You're learning how to use your skills well. But you've never fought an opponent much higher level than yourself before."

…Oh, if she only knew.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.