His emerald hair brightened as he walked towards the border entrance of the forest. His dignified posture and calm demeanor were truly extravagant sights to behold. His silver-plate armor shone when struck by sunlight, while his golden, luxurious sword was beautifully placed on his waist inside a blemish-free scabbard.
Every step he took was filled with utmost awareness and unwavering confidence as they entered the Forest of Eldia."Duke!" A messenger appeared while gasping for air."What is it, Halmuth?" Damian asked."The message you've ordered has finally been delivered. The duchess and the young master are waiting for your triumphant return."The seriousness in Damian's eyes, the composed demeanor he had, and his dignified posture instantly disappeared after hearing the messenger's delightful words."Really? Well, it can't be helped then~ all men! We shall finish this task quickly and return victorious!" Damian yelled out loud.The knights who saw their Duke's change of personality stood in awe and said, "U-Umm, yes, by your command!" They responded in a loud tone.Then they continued venturing and entered the Forest of Eldia, which was known to be the land of the Accursed Monster Beasts.Meanwhile, in the Echevalier householdAxel excitedly got out of the bathroom and fidgeted a bit, saying, "I can't believe it. I now have a subskill! Is this for real!? Is my skill really unique and special!?" Is what he thought..............But after asking Nanny, I found out that every awakened skill has subskills added once it grows stronger and users learn a bit about their skill's capabilities.But the number of subskills being acquired depends on the rank of the individual's skill.As for me... as an E-rank skill user, I can only acquire at least 1 subskill, I guess?""Fuck!!!! Just when I thought that my E-Rank skill could be special! I'm truly going to live forever as an E-rank weak-assed skill user." As Axel scribbled on his wet hair and frowned, his eyebrows began bumping against each other.While Axel slowly got dressed, his thoughts wandered.My subskill is string absorption. Do I just absorb strings...? What the heck... Is my skill really just for production work!?"While I still have time, I might try and do some research on it."Axel immediately got dressed and went outside of his room. Helena quickly noticed, as she wanted to bring some snacks to Axel's room."Young master? Where are you going?" She asked.Axel then turned around and replied, "I'm just going to the garden, nanny.""Okay, I'll bring your snacks there, young master.""Okay nanny, thanks!" Axel replied with a big smile on his face while he hurriedly ran, heading towards the garden.Why is the young master so cute~" Helena mumbled in her head as she felt pleasured just by seeing Axel's bright smile.In the flower garden of the Echevalier household.Different types of flowers bloomed around the vicinity of the garden, while trees were scattered around and gave off shaded areas in the broad daylight.Axel, who usually practices his skill, used the flower garden as his training ground since it was peaceful and quiet.Axel raised his arms and waved them all over the place."How do I use my subskill?"Using the String Manipulator Skill was a bit weird at first since there's a keyword needed for it to be activated.""String release" was the keyword for releasing strings on my palm. Depending on how many I wanted, I could release a lot of strings simultaneously. But it consumes a bit more mana, since skills are powered by mana after all."Now let's see, "String Absorption!".....Silence occurred, and nothing happened.....Huh? Why isn't something happening? Let me try again, "String Absorb!"Nothing happened.*Beep!* As a skill status message appeared in front of Axel.*Keyword for Sub Skill: String Absorption is "Absorb"*Oh, so the skill status also gives advice now, huh? This is a first...""Young master, your snacks are here." Helena said as she placed the delightful sweets on a small round table with two chairs placed beside it."Nanny, can I ask you something?""Sure, ask me anything that worries you, young master." She replied in an instant, with a gentle tone.........There, we both sat on the chairs while I ate some of the sweets she brought, while the tree gave us shade against the sunlight and the calming breeze enveloped us, exuding a relaxing ambience to breathe."Nanny, Does your skill status also send you some messages that you can consider as advice?""Oh, you mean this? Skill Description." She uttered while a skill status window popped out in front of me.*Skill Description**Skill: Elementalist, Skill Rank: A, Skill Affinity: Wind, Subskills Acquired: Piercing Wind, Typhoon, Wind Arrow Reformation, Wind Leap.**Skill Elementalist: Able to conjure and emit based on the skill's affinity.**Sub-Skill Description**Piercing Wind: Conjuring the Wind around the Caster and sharpening it into a long-ranged transparent spear that can be thrown.**Typhoon: Gathering a mass amount of wind around the caster's surroundings and releasing a large tornado that can obliterate anything the caster desires.* (A large amount of mana is required.)*Wind Arrow Reformation: The caster is able to grasp the wind surrounding him/her and reform it into a transparent arrow.**Wind Leap: The caster can quietly move around and be one with the wind.*Huh? Was that even possible? Based on Nanny's sub skills, I can say her specialty is Archery...""Young master? Why are you staring so intensively?" Helena asked."Oh, it's just that I'm a bit surprised. I didn't know that these descriptions existed. It wasn't written in the books I've read about skills." Axel replied."Oh, did the Duke and Duchess not tell you, perhaps?" Helena said while she gasped slightly.Well, I didn't give them the chance to, since I was totally unsatisfied after obtaining my skill, which I considered useless. But to think that skill descriptions existed, I never once knew my skill's real capability.""Thankyou nanny! You're truly a blessing in disguise!" As Axel happily said with a bright smile and ran towards the garden.Helena instantly became flustered after seeing Axel's cute side once more. "As long as it can help you, young master!" She said happily.Axel immediately stood beside a tree and uttered, "Skill description!"*Skill Description**Skill: String Manipulator, Skill Rank: E, Skill Type: Growth, Subskill Acquired: String Absorption**Skill String Manipulator: Able to Control, Release Strings.*"What the heck?"*Subskills Description**String Absorption: Able to absorb "anything" and materialize it to the user's strings.*"Anything!? Is this for real?" Axel shockingly spoke in a loud tone.So basically, the growth type means I can upgrade my string? Not my rank? Now I get the gist of it..."So if I try this...."Axel then placed a rock in front of him and pointed his palm towards it. "Absorb!" he uttered loudly.His palm instantly released a massive amount of string that devoured the rock and slowly disappeared.*Skill Materialization: Solid String Acquired*Yes! Finally! This is what I've been waiting for!" As Axel felt excited, he was finally able to experience something truly worth it.The despair he suffered and the anxiety that weighed on him instantly vanished after he truly knew his skill's capabilities.Now let's try it. "Solid String Release!" He said loudly.Then a single string came out of his hand, and he noticed that it was totally hard as a rock and was a bit thicker than the usual string he released.Finally... my soft string had evolved into something useful...."Maybe I can release my strings through thought. Let's try it out. Solid string release!" Axel mumbled in his head.The skill still activated and released a solid string from his palm.This is much better than saying it out loud. Just thinking about expressing it out loud makes me feel embarrassed." He pondered, wearing an embarrassed expression."Now that I've finally known my skill's capabilities, I must absorb everything I can to make my skill more powerful! Kuhahaha!" Axel murmured to himself while grinning in a scary way.Nanny Helena, who secretly sneaked behind Axel and watched him from afar, could not understand why Axel was laughing all by himself and had an arrogant expression on his face."Maybe this is how kids act at their age when no other adults see them." She mumbled in secrecy.Chapter End.I immediately got dressed after my mother called for me. As for the research of my skill absorption, I put it on halt since I'm about to head out with my mother and attend a ball within our dukedom's territory.My mother wore a bright emerald dress with several gems intact in it, while I wore a red long-sleeved tunic coat with a black linear-layered undervest.The white carriage was awaiting our arrival outside the gate of our household. A man wearing a gray flat hat and decently dressed in white classic attire held the horse's ropes tightly in front of the carriage.Several servants from our household formed two straight lines on both sides as they all greeted us, "Safe travels, Duchess, Young Master." When we passed through them at the gate.My mother and I elegantly went inside the carriage, and the door was gently closed by one of the servants.Then our departure gradually occurred after the carriage slowly left our household............"Mother, where's the ball being held?" Ax
A young boy was standing in front of me with an arrogant expression. While it got me thinking...Who is this blatantly ignorant side character?""What are you looking at?" The young boy spoke in an arrogant tone, gazing at Axel."Well, I just wanted to apologize for bumping into you. And I got quite intrigued by your hair color." Axel responded."What? My hair color? You also see me as a weirdo?" The young boy spoke with an angry demeanor."What? I didn't mean it in a bad way. I'll be taking my leave." Axel slowly turned around and took a few steps away from the weird young boy.Before Axel could get further away, the young boy suddenly grabbed Axel's shoulder and uttered in a demanding tone, "Wait."Axel immediately turned around and asked, "What is it?""Your hair is also weird. You know that, right?" He said with a disgusted look in his face.What the hell is wrong with this kid!?""Okay, thanks." Axel said and frowned in front of him.Ugh, this is why I don't like meeting other peo
"Why does she keep pestering us?""I don't even want to talk to you, Ellie.""Yeah, no one among us likes you. With your pitiful personality, always looking like you're asking for sympathy makes me want to hurl.""Just leave us alone and don't ever approach us anymore, Ellie."Several noble kids then left after spouting rude words at the trembling girl.Ellie Glaus, the girl who was being ridiculed so badly.She was also the younger sibling of Emmanuel Glaus, who was undoubtedly the center of attention.Due to Ellie's E-rank skill, her family solely focused their attention on their eldest son and slowly forgot about their youngest daughter."Why does everyone hate me?" Ellie mumbled in her head.Her eyes started shaking, slowly tearing up due to the hurtful words she received from the Noble kids.In spite of her excellent facial features and rose-colored silky long hair, her personality was a bit broken.Due to the influence that surrounded her, being mistreated repeatedly, and being c
It has already been several days since we returned from the ball we attended.I've been continuously doing some research about my skill's potential.Once thought to be an utterly useless skill, it is now starting to bloom in a more positive way..........I've done several experiments in the past few days, and I finally learned that I could not materialize living organisms. And the word "anything" only works on non-living things.But there's a new subskill I learned that lets me control living beings with less mana than me, based on my presumptions.It is the subskill I recently acquired called "String Marionette," which grants me control over living beings that have less mana than me.The string becomes invisible after the string marionette is successfully attached to the specific target.But it also consumes my mana rapidly; I can only manage to use it for less than ten minutes in my current state. And the control over the string marionette skill was totally tiring since it requires
Time flew by quickly, and winter was fast approaching.In the vicinity of Turk, several men were gathering firewood, while some people were seen all over the place, chattering nonchalantly.People were already buying mana stones for their daily necessities. Since stores would always be closed after winter came due to the strong blizzard that the winter season brought along.The daily atmosphere started getting colder and colder as days passed by, while there were some rumors going around the city that several monster beasts were seen near the eastern borders of Turk. Slowly after that, the security around Turk began to increase.Meanwhile, I was still immersed in cultivating my mana core while being assisted by Nanny Helena.The more I found my skill interesting, the more I got motivated to increase the level of my mana core.Since my skill's duration relies on mana consumption.Therefore, mana training was my top priority.But as expected, the large mana consumption only worked on me.
The long, sunny atmosphere had finally vanished after the winter season came.We continued our daily activities at our household: breakfast, mana training, lunch, mana training, afternoon snack, skill training, dinner, and once again, mana training.This had become my daily routine. Then, in the evening, I'd secretly help Nanny Helena and Father with their mana training through mana tethering.But after my father brought me to his underground training facility, I started doing nightly training.An object called Mana Defense Intermediate, or M.D.I., was properly placed on the center wall of the underground training area.The M.D.I. is also powered by mana and has the ability to form an array of barriers that can defend and withstand even an S-Rank skill.Which is basically similar to a punching bag."Son, you can use that MDI to hone your control over your skill." Damian pointed at the Mana Defense Intermediate.I felt pretty glad since there was no place in the garden that I could use
After the knight called for me, I ran as fast as I could after hearing that monster beasts were seen in front of the forest's entrance.I've always known that monster beasts tend to be aggressive when the winter season arrives, since we've been handling such disturbances for the past several years.But after we saw that thing...That thing that slaughtered my knights viciously is what truly terrifies me.My old friend, Kai Heinz If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have been able to return home safely.But right now, that same vicious thing, which Kai forcibly dragged away further deep in the forest of Eldia, is currently standing in front of me."A Monster Beast Salamander!""How in the world did it get here on the eastern side!?""It's an A-Rank monster beast! Get away!"A monster beast Salamander, Was a huge beast, taller than the trees, completely concealed in flames as it blazed through its body continuously.Threat level: A"Formation everyone! Water Elementalists, shoot that thing!
The ferocious glare of that huge monster beast gave me goosebumps. His blazing, fiery appearance emitted an overwhelming pressure that fazed me. I was unable to tilt my body."The Adventurers are here!"Before I realized it, silhouettes of several individuals appeared above me in an instant, similar to those of the Assassins I've watched in movies back on earth.Three of them were dressed in auburn protective hooded cloaks and equipped with different types of weaponry."Enhance physical strength!" As one of them instantly threw a spear directly towards the salamander.One of them crouched on the ground while placing both of his hands on the cold floor. "Earth Bind!" While the ground surrounding the salamander shook and entangled its legs, preventing the salamander's movements.The salamander was unable to move, while the spear flew towards it with extreme speed.The salamander tried resisting the spell that bound its movements. Upon noticing the approaching spear, it immediately raised