While they walked Matheus lost himself in his thoughts, deciding on the best path forward.

  Their quest was simple.

  Kill the Cave Guardian

  Reward: +1 Basic Spell

  Until he knew how the hell he could get a Soul ability, he needed to increase his magic arsenal. He had 15 mana now, and it was about time for him to find more uses for it.

  The city master had mentioned this region was weirder than normal, so they walked slower than normal, paying more attention to everything.

  Matheus had been doubting himself a lot the last couple days.

  It seemed like every few days there was a big decision to make, and he wasn’t confident he’d been making the correct ones.

  Was he even getting higher on the Champions ranking? He wanted to believe he was, but how could he know?

  It didn’t matter how he looked at it, he still was moving too slow. He needed to make himself stronger.

  The quest was important, of course. But more than going after new skills, the priority should be working on the ones he already had.

  That meant taking everything he could up to level 5.

  Both his Skull Collector and his Stab skill had been at level 4 for some time, and his Bubble Ball had just reached it. One more, and another big upgrade would happen.

  His Procrastination was also at level 4 but no point in leveling that thing.

  Then Slash, Cooking and Echo Clap were at level 3, followed by Sneaking, Death Hug and Parkour at 2.

  His only level 1 skill was his For Honor ability, but he hadn’t had the chance to practice with it yet. To be honest, he’d almost forgotten about it. He doubted a boosted Rick would be of any great help, anyway.

  But it was time for him to begin practicing more strategically.

  He was beginning to suspect that merely repeating the same thing wasn’t enough to level up a skill.

  Maybe there were some hidden thresholds he needed to reach?

  He’d been carrying heads around for weeks, but the skill had only got to level 3 after he used skulls from monsters he didn’t kill, and then to 4 when he stored dozens of skulls at the same time.

  What would be necessary to take it to 5? He would have to do some tests, see if keeping more heads of the same monster would give him more experience. But what would he do with all the other heads in the meanwhile? He couldn’t just leave them anywhere.

  Stab, thankfully, should be more straightforward. He only needed to put holes into things.

  A fine art indeed.

  Matheus and Rick walked in silence, Captain comfortable on his hood.

  It was nice having time to think, but Rick's discomfort with him was obvious. Matheus really hadn’t thought about the implications of a king title. He’d completely fixed on the ‘losers’ part, and wasn’t expecting people to actually think he was royalty.

  Well, he couldn’t know for sure how others would react. Maybe Rick was just too naive.

  “Radar,” Matheus said again, as he routinely did as they advanced.

  There’s 1 monster on a fifty meter radius of your position.

  Finally, an opportunity to grind.

  “C’mon. I want us to try something.”

  –/–

  Slothman - Level 11

  Half sloth. Half man.

  Health: 16/16, Mana: 0/0

  Slow, dumb, and furry. It’ll still eat your face if it gets to you.

  Matheus approached slowly, hoping the monster wouldn’t notice him. He positioned himself right behind it, and waited.

  He already had two heads of those creatures on his inventory, from when he collected all those skulls below the Blue lake, but he wouldn’t be careless again. He’d always attack with a plan.

  Rick appeared from the trees, sword on his hand.

  “Get ready to die, monster!” he bellowed.

  The slothman turned to him, growling. It stretched its hands, showing sharp long nails.

  “For honor!” Matheus yelled, activating his skill and stabbing the monster on the back at the same time.

  It roared in pain and fury, slashing blindly as Matheus got away.

  Before it could react further, Rick advanced and hit it with his sword right with a powerful lunge.

  Instead of cutting its head off, the sword failed to meet its target with the sharp edge, and the flat of the blade struck the head of the monster with a dull thud, throwing it off balance.

  Thankfully, that was enough to let Matheus stab the monster a few more times, and the slothman wasn’t strong enough to survive all the new holes on his body.

  You’ve leveled up!

  Captain has leveled up!

  Sneaking has reached level 3!

  Stab has reached level 5!

  A sub-skill has been unlocked.

  You have three options!

  Poisoned Stab

  One cut will be enough to greatly slow, or even kill your enemies, give it enough time. 5 minutes cooldown

  Electrical Stab

  Add lightning to your attack. Possibility to stun your enemies. The electricity may hit other foes. 5 minutes cooldown

  Astral Stab

  Create an astral projection of your blade, greatly increasing its range and piercing. 5 minutes cooldown.

  A sub-skill? That was the first time he was hearing of something like this. Apparently, he would still have the stab skill, with the option to unleash a powerful attack every once in a while.

  This was freaking awesome. Now that was a proper upgrade! And all options could be very useful, depending on the style he was looking for.

  Which begged the question, what was his style going forward? He felt inclined to go with the poisoned stab. But something about it bothered him.

  If he was confident he would stab his enemy more times, the poison wasn’t needed.

  Adding electricity was probably the coolest of the choices, would help with crowd control and had a lot of potential. Creating an astral projection was the obvious path if he decided to rely on his knife skills. It would increase his general attack considerably.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Matheus smiled. When had the choices changed from stupid and random to actually useful?

  He would need to do some thinking before deciding this one.

  He got on his knees, knife in hand, and started cutting the slothman’s head off.

  “Do you really have to do it? Your highness.” Rick asked, uncomfortable.

  “How did you manage to hit it with the flat part?” Matheus asked back, trying to avoid the question.

  “It slipped at the last moment,” Rick admitted.

  Amazing, Matheus thought. He had to admit, it was impressive. It was not so easy to be this bad at something.

  “Why do you carry that sword around if you don’t know how to use it?”

  “I know how to use it,” Rick protested, “I just can’t use it in any useful way. It’s different.”

  “Ok…” was all Matheus said.

  “I…I’ve always wanted to be a swordsman,” Rick started, apparently deciding to explain himself. “It was my dream, ever since I can remember. My parents had been lethal with a blade, both of them. They’d promised to teach me when I was old enough.”

  “They died before they had the chance. Then, shortly after, there was an…incident. And I got cursed afterwards. No more new skills.”

  “I convinced myself I didn’t need a thrusting or slashing skill, I would still be a great swordsman if I practiced hard and long enough. But there’s some kind of block I am unable to get through, an invisible barrier that doesn’t let me get better.”

  “Wait. You don’t have any sword skill?”

  “I’ll still become a swordsman,” he replied immediately.

  That explained how he’d been disarmed so easily.

  “What skill do you have?”

  Rick winced. Apparently, that was another sore spot for him.

  “It’s stupid. Useless.”

  “C’mon,” Matheus said. “If we are going to be in a party, I need to know it.”

  Rick glanced at his head again and gulped. Did he feel obligated to tell him because he was a king?

  “It’s a slap skill.”

  “A slap skill?” Matheus said incredulously.

  “It was a game I used to play with friends. It just popped up one day after we’ve been playing. What was the first skill you got?”

  “Cooking.”

  “Cooking?” Rick asked. “How did you get cooking as your first? Either way, it doesn’t really count. Anyone can have a cooking skill.”

  “Anyone except me,” he added in a whisper, then quickly asked, “what else did you get?”

  “Well, there was a hiding skill, a climbing skill and…”

  Matheus stopped. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share with him. He had some weird skills he wasn’t exactly proud of.

  “See? Those are very typical first skills. When people are being integrated into the system, almost anything they do could potentially become a skill. I had a friend get a fart skill,” Rick said, laughing.

  “Really? I wonder how that would be like at level 10,” Matheus said with a chuckle.

  “Unfortunately, he died a long time ago,” Rick replied with a sad smile.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway, my point was that everyone's first skills are stupid. It’s not my fault I was in the middle of a game when puberty hit.”

  “Shouldn’t you focus on leveling it up? Since it’s the only thing you got.”

  “That’s not what a real swordsman would do. Rick, the Endless Cut, can’t lower himself to rely on such barbarous tactics. Your highness.”

  “Sometimes, we don’t get a say in what the world offers us. We just have to do the best with the cards that are given,” Matheus said, not really sure if he was quoting someone.

  Rick said nothing.

  “And did you get anything else besides those two? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Matheus really didn’t want to talk about the procrastination skill. It was a stupid ability and no way in hell he would be advertising to people he had it.

  It would be like putting a giant sign pointing at his head saying ‘here we have a lazy and disorganized person who never completes his goals.’

  Death Hug? That didn’t really pass the image of a fearless king. Luckily, he’d another skill with a much cooler ring to it.

  “I also have a skull collector skill.”

  “Skull collector?” Rick said, gaping. “That's why you keep storing all those heads. How the hell did you get that?” he asked, then added quickly, “I’m sorry. I know you must have your reasons. It’s not important.”

  Apparently, he was afraid of angering him. Was this whole treatment because of his title?

  Matheus wasn’t sure he was liking it.

  “I’ve never heard about a skull collector skill, but it makes sense you’d have a conditional skill. They say all the great heroes have it,” Rick continued.

  “A conditional skill?”

  “You know, usually more specific abilities only granted in very specific conditions. I’ve always dreamt of getting one.”

  Actually, Matheus had 3 conditional skills. Procrastination, death hug and skull collector. Were they really that rare? Did that mean he should focus more on leveling them up?

  Well, leveling his procrastination meant stopping doing his quests and getting stronger, which he wouldn’t do since it made no sense.

  Death hug had a similar problem, because leveling it up meant getting close enough to crush monsters to death with his bare arms, which was beyond stupid and dangerous.

  And he would love to improve his Skull collector, but it stubbornly refused to get to level 5.

  Oh well. One step at a time. He would get them all there eventually.

  For now, he would enjoy his new fresh ability.

  A sub-skill has been unlocked. You have three options!