Chapter 217 (1/2)

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New Year, New Ability

In this world, the first day of the year wasn't a holiday. It simply felt like something special happened last night.

Hikaru, Lavia, and Paula were on a carriage leaving Hopestadt. They planned to use the Drakon Pa.s.sage to return to Scholarzard, but the entrance to the pa.s.sage wasn't exactly walking distance.

「What's this?」

Hikaru noticed a change on his Soul Board.

【Soul Board】Hikaru

Age:16  Rank:42

3

【Vitality】

【Magical Power】

【Physical Strength】

..【Strength】1

..【Weapon Mastery】

….【Throwing】10 (MAX)

……【Heaven Shot】0

【Agility】

..【Power Burst】5

..【Stealth】

….【Life Obfuscation】4

….【Mana Obfuscation】4

….【Imperceptibility】5 (MAX)

……【a.s.sa.s.sination】3 (MAX)

……【Sniping】3 (MAX)

……【Group Obfuscation】4

【Intuition】

..【Instinct】1

..【Detection】

….【Life Detection】1

….【Mana Detection】3

……【Detection Expansion】3 (MAX)

His age had gone up. He checked Lavia's and Paula's Soul Boards and their ages had increased by one as well.

So we age a year every new year, and not on our birthdays, which makes it uniform for everyone. That's pretty convenient.

The carriage rocked down the road. Sitting beside him was Lavia, who was already starting to doze off. Paula was beside her, telling stories of the Church to a kid, another pa.s.senger. The tiger-eared boy listened attentively, his eyes filled with excitement.

How peaceful.

It had been a while since Hikaru studied his board carefully, and he sensed something odd.

Now that I think about it, I felt something strange while looking at Johann's Soul Board. Like I saw things differently, or something…

Hikaru stared at the board for a while. Just watching made him want to spend his three marvelous points. I think using them now is all right. But how do I allocate them?

「Heaven Shot」— This one's a no-go. Hikaru knew it was a higher level Weapon Mastery stat, but the description read “lose part of what makes one human.” Losing one's humanity is no joke.

「Stealth」— It might be a good idea. But since he already had four points on both Life and Mana Obfuscation, he needed two points to max them both.

「Instinct」— A very handy Skill. One point already proved really useful, so he wanted to add more points to it. But since it maxed out at 20, an increase from 1 to 2 might not make much of a difference. The description read “heighten ones' senses to achieve great foresight similar to clairvoyance.” Perhaps putting more points would eventually turn it into a precognition kind of Skill. At least ten points is probably needed for that, though.

「Detection」— With three points on Mana Detection and maxed out Detection Expansion, he could already gather more than enough information.

「Hmm…」

Hikaru mulled his options over. In the end, he added one point to Instinct. His “Instinct” told him that it would come in handy. He was surprised that his Instinct worked in these cases too. But it also felt like his Instinct was begging to be levelled up.

Yeah, right… That can't be it. It's not like Soul Board stats have minds.

As he moved his finger around, adding a point to Instinct, his eyes widened in astonishment. It wasn't as though he developed some sort of a new sensation. But there was something different. What it was exactly, though, he couldn't quite explain.

He then realized it had nothing to do with his senses, but his Soul Board.

There's a + sign beside my name…

The symbol wasn't there before, and he hadn't seen it in others' boards either, including Lavia and Paula's.

Hikaru focused on his Soul Board and tapped the plus sign.