The party continued their march across the mountain pass for a few days following the battle with the wyvern. Their original schedule resumed without delay, and everyone started to make gains on their classes.

  Thanks to an attack of mountain bats, Kumo finally broke through to level 22 once again putting Synexus behind. Her final skill to get her over the wall was Chain Lightning of course. Fortunately, the bats decided to swarm them by the hundreds from a cave hidden on the side of the mountain. It was perfect training for the skill.

  Zuls had levelled up twice due to her new bonded. Everything she did while training Ren was counted as brand new and innovative by System which granted her a boost in her experience.

  The hydragon herself was getting stronger by the day and was being trained by Sovereign for the most part. Little beads of color could start being seen underneath her scales as her mana affinities were being decided.

  Vorin hadn’t made any level gains, but he did manage to make several potent plagues as well as level up a few of his skills. His progress would be boosted once more when they were in a civilized environment.

  Prith had digested the tome he was given as a reward by the king and was continuing to practice the ancient forms and methods of swordsmanship every day. This actually resulted in him learning a new skill which turned out to be a powerful sword style. When he took the stance and started using the style, all his physical stats would double until he sheathed his blade. Synexus studied the will pathways for hours seeing how it worked and how he could perhaps use the feature in the future.

  Shell worked on a few new songs but mostly worked on her water skills. She had evolved her skill once more to allow her to pull water from the atmosphere. This breakthrough increased her lethality in combat greatly. Surprisingly, she had gotten the idea by practicing against Element.

  As for her music, she was able to level up a few of her music skills while also recording more. Her Progress Credits were in the 80,000’s now and still continuing to go up daily. People loved her music.

  Gene scribbled down everything they could and recorded the adventure they were on as well as work on something that they wouldn’t disclose to the rest of the party yet. They were all curious. The owl was normally forthcoming. When they were alone, empty pages would come out, and they would have the pen get to work writing down the tale of their life. Gene would become an author.

  Yu worked diligently on her fire and wind magic. At this point all her skills were incredibly high for her level. Her flight skill was the only thing keeping her main class from gaining levels. A great sadness that she knew Synexus was busy working on.

  And he was.

  Any training time or free time the party had, he was inside his Progress Garden working on his projects. Mainly, reversing what happened to Yu’s skill.

  It frustrated him greatly that he couldn’t figure it out. He could create new forms of life, new materials that would help the universe, and help people in ways others couldn’t even fathom, yet this one problem mocked him.

  Each day he would continue to grab a boulder and try different methods on how to fix her skill. Most times it would result in the boulder shattering due to a buildup of mana. Sometimes it wouldn’t do anything at all. Other times it would start to work before turning towards one of the other two outcomes.

  One method that technically would work to give her access to the skill would be to duplicate the will pathway on her soul. It worked on the boulder after all, but there was no guarantee that System would allow multiple instances of the same skill. Besides that, it would be like putting a patch over a hole. She would be stuck at her current main class level until they fixed her skill.

  Gene was training her and everyone else to become a Mana Weaver like him in hopes that she could fix her own skill. Thanks to her high intelligence and the mountain of knowledge she was able to collect over the years for her secondary class, she picked up enchanting easily. She was the only one that moved onto the second phase of interacting with her soul. It would still take her years for complete mastery, however.

  In between attempts, Synexus would clear his mind by walking over to his personal river where the trout and the chickens were. Each one had been a success, and he was still attempting to buy more from the nexus to continue filling the potential gene pool of altered animals. Two of the animals had stood out the most.

  One was the high intelligence trout. To his surprise it started talking to him one day. At first it was just a word here and there, but after a few lessons, it had started to become quite the conversationalist.

  “Other trout still ignore me.”

  “I told you. They don’t have your intelligence and won’t ever respond.”

  “Why different?”

  “That is my fault, Splash. I changed each of you and directed you down a different path. Would you like me to create more trout like you?”

  “Yes. So bored. Better food too.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about the food. If one of your sisters produces some roe, I’ll create more intelligent trout for you to teach and interact with. Any more demands?” Synexus said with a chuckle.

  “Yes. Chickens also too stupid.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  That got a full laugh out of the Progress Architect.

  “Maybe I should make some intelligent chickens. Then you and the other intelligent animals can rule my Progress Garden when I’m not here. Maybe I can teach you to craft or garden to help out.”

  “How with no arms?”

  “Hmm, you’re right. We will figure it out. Alright I have to get back to figuring out this problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “My friend on the outside has her flight skill locked somehow, and I need to unlock it. I can’t seem to figure it out, however.”

  “Big chicken can fly. Wings disturb water.”

  “That’s because of its wings.”

  “Friend no have wings?”

  “She does, but her flight comes from a skill…wait, you’re right.”

  “Of course, Splash intelligent.”

  Synexus looked from the fish to the newest addition to his flock of chickens.

  The chick that he had altered with hydragon genes was growing incredibly fast and had beautiful shadow black feathers that matched the scales underneath. It had grown to five feet tall already and its wings were massively powerful just as the dragons had been.

  Due to the high concentration of plant, creation, life, and spatial mana, an eerie green was starting to be seen that almost looked ethereal. Synexus was excited to see what the mana affinity of the Hychicken would be and how it would utilize the strange combination.

  Focusing in using his ability, he got the answer he was looking for.

  Name: Hychicken

  Title: Queen of chickens

  Mana Affinity: 83% obtained

  Skills: Mighty Peck, Strong Gust, Leading, Flight

  He laughed at the title. System was obviously one for jokes every now and then. Still his eyes looked at the will pathways on the Hychicken’s soul and saw what he wanted to see. The same flight skill.

  Even with wings the skill was etched into the soul. What should be a physical ability was a skill. It would be the same if walking or running was a skill, yet they weren’t.

  Was it because they used a small amount of wind mana or their own mana to generate lift? Or perhaps it was just because flight took much more skill that walking and running and System rewarded that? Maybe the lock simply locked the knowledge of how it worked.

  Synexus started to beat himself up over not realizing what was so obvious. He immediately turned his attention back to the real world and ran over to Yu.

  “Yu, you have wings!”

  “Yes, I do. So?”

  “So, you should be able to fly without your skill, correct?”

  “I never have before. The moment I took to the sky as a young sphinx, I obtained the flight skill.”

  “But, for a brief second, you took to the sky without it. I want you to try and fly with your skill being locked.”

  “I can’t, Synexus.”

  “You can’t or is your locked skill telling you that you can’t?”

  “No, I mean I don’t know how. My knowledge comes up blank.”

  “Exactly. If I’m right, I believe the way they blocked your skill was by cutting you off from the knowledge on how to use your skill.”

  At the mention of them taking away knowledge, her mana flared. Her eyes closed tightly and she yelled.

  “Fine! I will try!”

  “Good! Kumo, mind standing by for support in case this take a few tries?”

  “Of course.”

  The party came to a halt and watched the sphinx in interest.

  Her wings unfurled and started to kick up dust as they beat with power.

  Confusion washed over her face as she beat them harder and faster.

  Suddenly her cat-like feet left the ground.

  Synexus instantly focused in and could see the will pathway being activated. Her own mana was flowing through it. When it got to the part that they clogged with foreign mana, Yu screamed and fell back to the ground but was cushioned by Kumo’s wind.

  “I flew!”

  “You did!”

  “What was the pain?”

  “That was your mana interacting with the locked part of your skill, but I think we can use this to fix it. Gene has been teaching you how to manipulate your soul with will to open pathways for skills, correct?”

  She nodded.

  “Normally, it would take you a few years to master, but I know you don’t want to waste that much time. I’ll start to gather my mana and I want you to do the same. You lack the precision to make will pathways, so normally this wouldn’t work, however, I do have the precision. My plan is for you to take flight to activate the skill. You’ll direct your mana inwards towards your center, and I’ll follow behind with a push of my mana. My hope is that it’ll use your mana to slam into the locked or clogged part of the skill. If it’s enough then I believe we can force it to unlock. It might be painful.”

  “I’ll do it!” She performed her happy hop.

  An hour later, Yu had gathered enough mana and started to direct it towards the center of herself. While attempting to keep the concentration, she took to the air. As soon as she left the ground, she lost control of the mana and grunted in pain.

  “Just a little longer next time. You can do it, Yu!”

  Another hour later they tried again. Yu grunted after taking flight and struggled to keep all the mana in place, but for their purposes it was enough.

  Synexus directed the wind mana with his own will towards her soul. It clashed with the mana she had gathered and her own will. His won out as it pushed her mana forward into the skill’s will pathway.

  Yu screamed in agony as the mana reached the locked part but stayed in the air.

  Synexus focused as hard as he could on the will pathway and started to see the foreign mana budge ever so slightly.

  He pushed harder and she screamed louder than before, but then he smiled.

  Her will pathway widened, and the foreign mana perished under the assault of the wave of mana she had gathered.

  Then she smiled, shaking off the unbearable pain she had felt seconds prior.

  “You did it! It’s unlocked!”

  She started flying quickly through the air and doing loops above them before she passed out and Kumo had to catch her.

  Synexus knew that her soul was probably taxed from the wave of mana hitting against it. She would need her rest, but she would be okay. Better than okay now that she had her flight back.

  He immediately purchased the best trout appropriate food he could find on the nexus and placed it in his Progress Garden.

  “Here you go, Splash. We solved it.”

  “Splash intelligent. Big chicken broke some bamboo.”

  Synexus turned to find several bamboo plants ripped from the ground. He sighed and used his mana to replant them.

  Progress Garden has levelled up!

  You have levelled up!

  You are now level 22!

  He chuckled at how such a little use of his Progress Garden skill led to the breakthrough he needed.