The Skill That Changed Everything

I swallowed hard. Slowly, I turned my head. Aisha was still clinging tightly to me as she spoke.

“It is our solemn duty to preserve our superior genes and pass them on to future generations!”

When I turned to look at her, I understood. Despite her calm tone, her face was flushed bright red.

“If you allow our child’s blood to be tainted by the inferior genes that flood this world, that would constitute a dereliction of your sacred duties as my Constellation.”

She was clearly babbling whatever came to mind just to hide her embarrassment.

“Consider this: a child who inherits our exceptional genes would guide the ordinary masses onto the right path, repel the monsters, and save the world… Huh? Wait, what?”

Suddenly, Aisha’s body began ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to glow with a pure white light.

“M-My Constellation? Constellation-nim!”

Oh right. Five minutes.

I hid my panic and spoke in a deliberately composed voice.

“Ahem, Aisha. Unfortunately, the duration of my power has come to an end. Let us continue this conversation… next time.”

Aisha opened her mouth to say something, but the light swallowed her face as well. And just like that, she vanished.

“Phew…”

With a thud, I collapsed onto the floor.

What the hell was that? More importantly, the skill only lasted five minutes?

If the duration of Incarnation Summon had been longer than five minutes, what would have happened?

I shook my head vigorously to clear away the stray thoughts and stood up. I checked the notification window to see the rewards for clearing the first floor.

“Hmm… This is huge?”

First, the Mana Stones. Their value had skyrocketed recently after various applications were discovered. They normally dropped from monsters. Since Mana Stones were crystallized mana, they formed inside the bodies of monsters that held mana within them. There were apparently mana stone mines on the higher floors of the Tower, but anyway.

The Mana Stones that dropped from the first floor were fixed. Two lowest-grade Mana Stones from the two basic goblins, and one low-grade Mana Stone from the magic-using goblin—that is, the Goblin Shaman.

But thanks to Aisha, I had discovered the hidden route and defeated the Goblin Warrior. Since it looked like a boss monster, I had expected at least a mid-low grade Mana Stone, one step above the Goblin Shaman’s. But…

A mid-grade Mana Stone? How much is this worth?

Anyway, that was the reward from defeating the monsters: two lowest-grade Mana Stones, one low-grade, and one mid-grade.

Next came the first-floor clear reward. The clear rewards for each floor varied depending on the rank with which you cleared it. And I already knew what would come from an S-rank clear.

There weren’t many people who had done it before me, but there had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠definitely been some who cleared the first floor with S-rank. And they had all received the exact same reward.

It was a Skill Upgrade Stone. A precious item that let you select and upgrade one of your skills.

I held the upgrade stone and activated it.

I thought for a moment. I was curious what would happen if I upgraded Constellation Status, but honestly, that skill hadn’t been all that helpful to me so far. Of course, as more believers worshipped the Constellation and faith accumulated, the Constellation’s main body grew stronger. Thanks to the last incident, my name—or rather, my notoriety—had spread quite a bit in that world. As a result, my mana had increased slightly, and my stamina and strength had gone up a tiny bit. So tiny that at first I’d wondered if it was just a placebo effect.

It must still be too little.

Unlike that, the skill that actually helped me in this world was Incarnation Summon. Thanks to it, I had cleared the first floor with S-rank this time too. So the skill I needed to upgrade was obvious.

I agonized again. The cooldown for Incarnation Summon was a whopping thirty days. Since I had just used it, I would have to wait another full month. Logically—no, by common sense—I should obviously pick the first option.

Yet for some reason, my eyes kept drifting to the second choice.

No, it’s definitely not because of what just happened…

Swallowing my regret, I selected the first option.

“Whoa.”

I let out a sigh of admiration at the notification floating before my eyes. Honestly, if this was going to happen, there had been no need to agonize in the first place. But anyway.

“It got cut in half right away?”

The cooldown had been reduced to fifteen days. It still felt a bit long, but there was nothing I could do about that. The duration had doubled too, but since it had only been five minutes to begin with, it didn’t feel like that massive of an increase.

And that wasn’t the end of it.

I marveled at the barrage of notifications flying at me. Just how many rewards had I gotten thanks to Aisha? Even a single supreme-grade Mana Stone was worth an unimaginable amount of money, but the real prize was the skill.

I pushed the notification windows aside and checked my skills.

I tapped on the new skill.

“Tsk… I don’t need this.”

It seemed like a skill tailored to the first floor’s theme, but it was pretty much useless to me. Goblins were the most common and frequently appearing monsters, so it would be useful to most awakeners. But…

I don’t fight directly anyway.

Still, it was good that I now had a skill I could bestow upon my incarnations as a blessing. Constellations could originally grant their own abilities—that is, skills—to their incarnations as divine favor. Though granting high-rank skills required an absurd amount of credits, making it nearly impossible, and sometimes the incarnation’s body simply couldn’t handle it.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

For reference, when I had tried to grant my Constellation Status and Incarnation Summon skills, the system had notified me that it was impossible. Maybe because they were EX-grade, or perhaps because the idea of an incarnation having an incarnation didn’t make sense.

Anyway, until now I had possessed no skills I could give away. The only ones I could offer were the basic low-grade skills I bought from the system shop. Those were mostly F or E-rank, ridiculously expensive, and required additional credits to transfer to an incarnation.

Now I finally had a proper skill to pass on. Since goblins were the most common monsters in that world too, it should prove somewhat useful.

I first converted one of the Mana Stones I had received as a reward into credits. Credits could not be added using this world’s currency; only universally accepted resources like Mana Stones or precious metals from every dimension were accepted.

After that, I bestowed the skill Goblin Slayer upon Aisha. After all, I had obtained it thanks to her, and she was my only incarnation. I had to spoil her a little.

C-rank was a fairly high skill. The moment I granted it, I felt a signal in my head—Aisha must have been trying to say something to me. I deliberately ignored the signal and stepped out of the Tower.

*****

Meanwhile, at the bar.

After the group of awakeners had entered the Tower together, everyone was buzzing about how things would turn out. Right in the middle of it, a notification suddenly appeared for all the awakeners in the bar.

“Huh?”

“What is this?”

“Hidden?”

The awakeners each fiddled with their system windows to check the rankings.

“What?”

The people fell into shocked silence. Then, a moment later, an explosive reaction erupted.

“What the hell is this!”

“One second? Is it a bug? And what the hell is ‘Hidden’?”

“Where is he? America? Russia?”

“Maybe it’s someone from our country?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. How many S-rank awakeners do we even have?”

Even as they said that, the event was so unbelievable that none of them imagined the S-rank could be among the awakeners who had just entered the Tower.