Chapter 2: Gaining Skills and Magic
I couldn't help but drool slightly after reading the end of the description of the Subtle Shift Skill. The thought of some MILF Queen sitting in her office giving a speech or something while her panties suddenly grew a tongue and started licking her clit sent a shudder of delight through me. However, before I could make something like that a reality, I had to figure out where the hell I was and what to do with my Stats. "I'll place those attribute points somewhere later, right now it's time for some exploration," I murmured as I started walking toward the mansion.
The front doors had been blown completely off their hinges and were lying across the stairs leading up to the foyer. Mostly for shits and giggles, I decided to use Inspect on one of them, and I'm glad I did.
| Entrance Doors to the Ancestral Mansion of the Phire Family: Rank-B |
| Material: Wyrmwood Core with Vipersteel Inlay |
| Information: These heavy double doors were once a grand symbol of the Phire family's strength and reputation. Crafted from Wyrmwood, a rare and highly magical darkwood harvested from trees that only grow in cursed forests and are resistant to natural decay and most elemental magics. The shimmering silver-blue metal forming the trim and decoration is Vipersteel, a magically conductive alloy infused with venom from the extinct Iron-Fanged Serpent. When the doors are closed, the inlays form the image of a massive snake devouring its own tail. |
"Damn, well, I'll definitely be taking those. I'm sure they'll be useful later." Unfortunately, like a lot of gamers, I had the slight flaw of collecting damn near everything I found in games, even when I had absolutely no idea what I would ever use it for. For a few seconds, I seriously considered dismantling the entire mansion and stuffing it into my inventory piece by piece, but unfortunately, I had limited inventory space and no cheat codes for unlimited storage. "Sigh... Oh well, let's see what this mansion-sized loot box gives me." A smirk appeared on my face as I stepped through the entrance, and the instant my foot crossed into the mansion, my vision was flooded with notifications.
| Congratulations, Ms. Ashborn, you are the first player to find the abandoned ancestral home of the Phire Family, one of the Ten Forgotten Noble Houses. |
| +1,000 XP |
| +1 Random S-Rank Phire Family Magic Skill Book |
| +10 Attribute Points |
| You have Leveled Up! +10 AP |
| You have Leveled Up! +10 AP |
| Congratulations, you are the first player to discover a Forgotten Noble House! |
| As the first player to discover a Forgotten Noble House, you will receive a random S-SSS Ranked Talent, 500 Platinum Coins, and the deed to the Phire Family Manor in the Kingdom of Helria. |
| Congratulations! Player Scarlett Ashborn, you have gained the Deed to the Ancestral Home of the Phire Family and all surrounding areas. You now own one quarter of the A-Ranked Tiger Woods, a forest containing many monsters ranging from A-F Rank, as well as rare herbs and other natural resources. |
"Wow, only one step through the door and I'm already a homeowner. A crappy home, but a home nonetheless." A smirk remained on my face as I continued farther into the dim mansion. My heels clicked against the dark marble floor, which was covered in dead leaves, dirt, and twigs that had blown inside over the years. To my left was a beautiful stairwell leading toward the second floor, and despite how damaged the rest of the mansion looked, there were only some light cracks running through the stairs themselves. Curious, I used Inspect again.
| Stairwell to the 2nd Floor of the Phire Family Mansion. Information: (1) The stairs and most of the wood throughout this mansion were made from Jackal Wood, a B-Ranked material. Jackal Trees commonly grow around active volcanic regions and get their name from the Jackal Beastmen who cultivate and sell the wood. The Jackal Tribes currently control nearly all known trade of Jackal Wood. (2) Most of the wood within the mansion was carved, polished, and placed by Master or Grandmaster-rated craftsmen. (3) The estimated original construction cost of this mansion exceeds 9,000,000 Platinum Coins. |
| Note: The last recorded maintenance performed on these stairs occurred 213 years ago. |
"Damn... all that info from inspecting some stairs? Well, I'd better keep wandering around this mansion." I decided to clear it floor by floor, and walking around the first floor didn't give me much besides repeatedly proving that whoever built this place had been absolutely fucking loaded. Almost everything I inspected was made from rare or expensive materials. Hell, the normal spoiled young-master saying about being born with a silver spoon shoved up your ass would have to be replaced with having an A-Ranked Quartz Wyvern bone spoon shoved up there instead. The first floor mostly contained what I assumed were the dining room, servants' quarters, a massive ballroom, several bathrooms, and a few other rooms whose original purposes I couldn't figure out. Nothing attacked me, nothing exploded, and no ancient family ghost came screaming out of the walls, which was honestly a little disappointing.
While walking up to the second floor, I suddenly remembered the rewards I'd gotten from discovering the mansion. I'd been so distracted by apparently becoming a homeowner that I'd completely forgotten about them.
| Would you like to receive 1 Random S-Rank Phire Family Magic Skill as well as 1 Random S-SSS Ranked Talent for discovering a Forgotten Noble House? |
| Yes / No |
"Yes, obviously," I said while clicking the floating Yes in front of me.
| Congratulations! You have received the S-Ranked Magic Skill: Firestorm. Firestorm is a large-scale AOE Skill typically used to annihilate armies or extremely large monsters. It has an effective radius of approximately 300 meters. At your current level, it is impossible to use, as a single cast requires 10,000 MP. However, because you now possess this Skill, your Threat Level has increased from Medium to High. You may also alter the type of fire produced by this Skill if you acquire Fire Seeds. Information: Fire Seeds change the type of fire magic a person can wield. There is no confirmed limit to the number of Fire Seeds one person may possess, though it is recommended that an individual cultivate no more than three at a time. |
"...Damn." I let out a slow breath while staring at the notification. Honestly, I'd been hoping it wouldn't be an attack spell. I really didn't understand how people could go from living a normal life to casually killing goblins, monsters, bandits, or whatever else a game threw at them, especially when everything in Sanctuary looked and felt completely real. Maybe I'd feel differently if something attacked me first, but running around looking for things to kill just because they gave XP? Yeah, I didn't know about that. A somewhat forlorn expression crossed my face as I realized I'd just received an S-Ranked Magic Skill that might never actually get used. ".....Oh well, System, what Talent did I get?"
| Notice: Generating S-SSS Ranked Talent |
| Talent Found: You have gained the SS-Ranked Talent: Kinetic Manipulation. Information: You possess innate authority over kinetic force, allowing you to absorb, store, redirect, and release motion-based energy at will. Limitations: Your kinetic storage is limited but increases as you level up, and going beyond it risks serious strain or an uncontrolled release. All absorption and release requires direct physical contact, and taking in or outputting high levels of kinetic force can cause damage to your body if not carefully managed. |
"...."
"....."
"Holy fuck, that's OP! If that is SS-Ranked, I dread to think what an SSS-Ranked Talent is."
I had already reached the top of the stairs at this point and had been standing there for probably three minutes in silence, going through all the scenarios where I could use this talent. Obviously there were combat applications, and anyone actually interested in fighting could probably think of a hundred of them. I had thought about punching someone while releasing stored energy, absorbing the force from attacks, catching weapons and removing their momentum, and all sorts of other things, but the idea that kept popping into my head was travel. If I found a raging waterfall, could I just stand under it and absorb kinetic energy from the water? What about waves, landslides, trains, or earthquakes? Maybe... maybe if the game allowed me to siphon off some of the planet's kinetic force, if that even counted, then someday I could store an ungodly amount of energy. Trying that at Level 3 was probably a great way to explode myself, but it was definitely something I wanted to test later. If I could store enough kinetic force, I might eventually be able to launch myself across huge distances, and because I was a Stillkin, I could just turn myself into a cannonball, arrow, or something more aerodynamic so my skin didn't get ripped off by the windshear.
'I can't wait to try this out, but first I have to finish looking around this mansion.' With that thought, I finally started moving again. Looking around, I headed to the left, and just like on the first floor, I mainly found bedrooms filled with very expensive-looking furniture and accessories. Beds made from rare woods, mirrors framed with magical metals, B-Ranked cabinets, and at one point I inspected a fucking nightstand and discovered it had been made by a Master Craftsman. Who the hell hires a Master Craftsman to build a nightstand? Apparently, the Phire Family. However, in the last room at the end of the hallway, when I tried to open the door, it was locked, and no matter how much I pulled or pushed, it wouldn't open.
'Well, I may as well try my new racial abilities here.' I thought with a smile as I also pictured all the degenerate things I would be doing with them later in the game. With some concentration, I pictured myself becoming a thin sheet of silver. Immediately, my body started to morph and compact in on itself while my clothes were stored in my inventory. Within a second, the hallway became enormous, and a paper-thin sheet of shiny silver was lying on the ground in front of the door. 'Odd, this doesn't actually feel any different than when I was walking around on two legs, although I guess the System and I designed it that way. It wouldn't really be fun to play the game if I didn't feel comfortable in the body I created.' After that thought passed through my skull, I pictured hundreds of tiny leg-like things appearing along the bottom of the silver sheet, and they appeared immediately. Just like moving when I was human, there wasn't any complicated process of figuring out how to control hundreds of tiny legs; I simply thought about walking forward and they started moving, carrying me toward the door until I slid right underneath the tiny gap that had been blocking me only seconds before.
Canceling False Form was just as easy as activating it, and my humanoid body expanded upward while my clothes began weaving themselves back onto my voluptuous, beautiful body. 'Well, that was a good test run, and it also gives me a great idea if I ever want to become a bank robber or something. Hell, maybe I could transform into a gold bar and somehow get taken into a vault. Undetectable Presence would make anyone using Inspect or appraisal on me think I was literally just a gold bar, then once I was inside I could turn back, put everything I could into my inventory, and slip out again as a sheet of paper or a sliver of wood or something.' A grin appeared on my face as I thought about it, although bank robbery definitely wasn't the main reason I'd created this race. 'I can't forget my actual goal. I want to be worn by hopefully a beautiful princess or queen as a pair of panties or a bra. Ohh, or maybe be a dildo. Who knows what those royals get up to?'
A thoughtful and then very perverted grin remained on my face as I finally looked around the locked room. It was small, well, small compared to the rooms I had already been in, maybe twenty by thirtyish feet. However, unlike the rest of the mansion so far, this room was in pristine condition. It was an office, with a beautiful desk sitting at the end of the room and two large bookcases filled with pristine yet ancient-looking books covering one wall. On the other side of the room was another door, but unlike the one I'd just crawled beneath, this one was already cracked open, and there was a soft glistening glow coming from somewhere behind it.