The next three days were some of the most boring days Chronos had ever experienced. Not only did the rain not let up it became worse until it was practically a monsoon. With rain this severe it wasn't safe to go on patrol or search for the priests, even walking through the grove was difficult.
"I'm so bored, Gregory, can't you suggest something for me to do?" Chronos complained.
"If you're that bored, why don't you go check out that hidden bunker you found? Travelling through this storm will give you a real challenge." Gregory offered.
"I already did that two days ago."
Gregory, who was reading a book, froze. Closing his book, he looked at Chronos with exasperation.
"And why wasn't I informed of this." Anger lanced through his voice.
Now it was Chronos's turn to freeze.
They had an agreement between them that even if he ran off somewhere alone, he was to tell Gregory where he was going so Gregory could pull him out of whatever trouble he got himself into later on.
Heading to a dangerous location without informing Gregory had been a mistake and now he was going to pay for it.
Slowly he knelt down on the ground waiting for the inevitable lecture he was sure to get, he already knew that trying to escape was pointless.
Two hours later Lyla walked in to find Gregory glaring at Chronos who now had several large blocks of wood on his legs as he knelt and was holding two boiling pots of water.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Chronos ran off on his own without informing me. This is his punishment." Gregory stated.
"Does it need to be this harsh?"
"He's pulled this stunt several times now, and I'm done going easy on him."
He hadn't done this since she had known him, so she assumed he had done this before they met.
"Um, it's been two hours now, can I at least put the boiling pots down?" Chronos asked.
Gregory ignored his request, "What did you find in the bunker?"
Sighing Chronos realized he wasn't getting up anytime soon, "It was empty. There was only one hallway with three rooms, the room on the left had bunkbeds and personal chests but there was nothing in them. I think the knights slept there.
The room on the right had several single beds and the priest's holy symbol. I burned it, but I couldn't find anything else in that room. The room at the end of the hallway was a storage room and from the scratch marks on the floor they kept the abominations there.
There was nothing of note to bring back and I couldn't find any secret rooms or concealing magic other than the illusion at the door." Chronos reported.
"I see, are you still bored?" Gregory asked.
"Yes! Sitting here holding pots is very boring!" Chronos stated.
"Good, sit there for another two hours." Gregory said.
"Gah." Chronos's mouth dropped open in shock.
"So, this all started because he was bored?" Lyla asked.
"Yes, he's always been active in the past, but he's gotten worse lately. He can't sit still at all." Gregory complained.
Lyla considered what she knew about Chronos, "Maybe his bloodline is giving him more energy than usual? He has achieved a first level bloodline now."
Gregory thought about it and came to the conclusion that she might be right. A more powerful bloodline meant more energy coursing through your body, for someone who wasn't used to that it would be like eating an energizing meal made of magic ingredients constantly and having nowhere to use that energy.
It might just drive them or anybody around them insane.
Sighing, Gregory said, "You might be right, we need to find something for him to do or he'll run off again."
"What about practicing with your weapons? You could reach a higher level of mastery." Lyla offered.
"I already did that yesterday. Now I'm an advanced rank with axes and I'm having trouble advancing with my hammer and bow at the moment." Chronos said.
"What about studying languages? You recently learned nereic right?" Gregory asked.
"I've reached the limit of what I can do alone, without a partner to practice with, my understanding won't improve. And I've already practiced thurganic with Gorvak, he says I'm fluent enough to live in their tribe without worry."
If Chronos had been bored enough to master another language when he only liked learning how to challenge or curse at his enemies then they were going to have a problem keeping him busy.
They overlooked the fact that he had only studied the thurganic language in the past so he could challenge strong ogres to a fight.
Getting desperate Gregory started going over techniques, "What about your skills? Can you practice those?"
"I've advanced all of my basic skills to the master rank including [Adhesion]. Apparently trying to climb trees in the rain is a superb way to train that skill.
As for the Fangbound arts, I've mastered all of the individual ones and can't train the ones used on groups without endangering the kids or affecting my surroundings. This war has been great for advancing my skills. Hehe." Chronos chuckled.
Sariah walked in as she heard them discussing skills. She was also interested in this discussion as she had a question.
"It's not just his skills that have advanced. A bunch of my skills have advanced as well but I can't tell if it's from constantly using them in battle or if the system is giving our comprehension some kind of boost. Have the two of you checked your status recently?" She asked Lyla and Gregory.
They glanced at each other before opening their status and sure enough everyone had skills that had advanced.
"This is interesting. I've trained my skills in combat, but I've never seen this type of rapid advancement before." Lyla said.
"Me too, just fighting in combat shouldn't give these sorts of results." Gregory commented.
The more they looked at their status the more convinced they were that the system was helping them.
"Well, Hrólmir did say that he would support everyone using the system. It could also be that just having our skills organized like this helps us study their intricacies better." Chronos said.
"Right, how did this discussion start anyway?" Sariah asked.
"Chronos is bored and needs something to do." Gregory said wearily.
"Is that all?" Sariah looked confused at why they seemed to think this was so important.
"If we don't give him something to do, he might run off into the storm searching for something to fight." Lyla said while thinking it might not be a bad idea to do that herself.
Looking at them, Sariah realized they didn't understand what she meant, "You're misunderstanding. I'm not saying to let him deal with his boredom alone, what I meant is we have the skill library, if we need something to do we can just purchase a skill to study."
All three of them showed shocked expressions at the simplicity of her suggestion. It had slipped their mind that they could just purchase new skills from the skill library.
"Did all of you really forget we could do that?" Saraih asked in exasperation.
They looked away in embarrassment, "Yes."
Sighing she continued, "Review your skills and look through the library there are a ton of useful skills in it. And don't hesitate to buy what you want, gaining system points at the early levels isn't too difficult, it's just the skills that aren't very powerful and can be pretty weird at times." Sariah explained.
They stared at her for a minute then Chronos said, "You know, somehow it just feels wrong for the most airheaded one to be lecturing us."
"Hey, that's rude!" Sariah said.
"He's right." Lyla agreed.
"Oi!" Sariah exclaimed.
Turning to Gregory, she watched him reach out and pet her head.
"Being airheaded is cute."
"Even you Gregory! Calling me cute doesn't make it any better and is totally unfair." She shouted while blushing.
"Oh, they're being more open about their relationship. They're cute." Lyla happily watched them blush.
"A-Anyways just check the library." Sariah exclaimed as she ran out of the room Gregory followed her while chuckling.
Ignoring their flirting Chronos began looking through the skill library. He decided to focus on the spatial skills instead of branching out right now.
There were a lot to look through, just the movement skills that looked interesting and didn't do anything weird numbered more than a dozen. The skill lists for offense, defense, utility, and control had just as many skills in them.
But many of them seemed to have certain requirements to practice them. Like the [Threadwalk] or [Gatewalk] skills one of them required you to walk a path as thin as a thread without falling while the other required some kind of connection with other layers or even realms of existence.
These two weren't unique in this either. Many of the movement skills required special circumstances or understanding to use them. Looking over the other skills lists he saw similar requirements, but they weren't nearly as harsh.
It seemed the movement spatial skills were special in that way.