The chest contained a roughly baseball sized sphere that weighed about twice as much as a baseball would. It looked to be made of polished white stone, and was engraved with a lattice of triangles across its entire surface.

  “Well it’s another usable item.” Lucian offered the sphere to Annabelle, who took it.

  “Oh it has a bit of weight to it.” She lightly tossed it up once and let it fall back into her palm, “Looks like some kind of grenade.”

  “Could very well be one.” Lucian took a step away and chuckled, “Don’t blow us up. Let’s take a breather real quick? I want to check my skill offers, then I can try that thing I wanted to do with the unidentified potions, and maybe the sphere too if it works.”

  “Fine by me!” Annabelle nodded. The pair made their way back through the chambers, out to the central room of the dungeon. Annabelle set the new item down beside the others they had left there, and Lucian sat down against a wall before pulling up his skill choices.

  Lucian grinned as he examined his options. [Cloak of Wind] was certainly better for him than [Cloak of Lightning] was. [Empowered Advance] was undoubtedly good, but it would be better suited to someone more focused on tanking or deflecting than dodging, since his instincts told him that moving out of the way of an attack could count as halting his advance. [Heightened Manifestation] seemed to Lucian like the objectively correct choice. Like before, his instincts told him that it was very much possible to channel two skills at once, only that it was more difficult, but he also figured he could do it, and for [Heightened Manifestation] it would be worth the extra effort, whatever form it took.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Usually there were arguments to be made for the other skills, but not this time. Lucian selected [Heightened Manifestation] and felt a surge of knowledge and potential disperse throughout him. He contemplated testing it immediately, but ultimately decided that he would wait.

  He got up and walked over to their collection of loot. Annabelle gave him a quizzical look but didn’t say anything, simply curious what he would do. He crouched down and moved into a sitting position beside the items, picking up one of the bottles of unknown red liquid.

  “Do you remember how I told you about my dash skill, [Quickstep]?” Lucian glanced over to Annabelle.

  “Yeah I remember that. Why?” She replied.

  “Right, well. Presumably, there is some kind of [Identify] skill, since the system says we can either use or identify them to figure out what they do.” Lucian started, “And I want to see if I can get it, the same way I got [Quickstep]. Or at least get something similar. If I can figure out how, then I might also be able to teach you to do it too.”

  “That makes sense.” Annabelle moved closer to watch him.

  Lucian let out a breath, and felt for the well of energy within him, the current that powered all his skills. He reached for it with his intent. He had manipulated his Spirit entirely outside the confines of any skill when he had created [Quickstep], and he frequently manipulated it within the confines of [Manifest Weapon], and had even used it to push that same skill to level up during the fight with the corrupted tree knight.

  He took a breath as he grabbed onto the energy in his chest, focusing his attention between the potion in his hand and the Spirit within him, “Now how should I go about doing this…”

  His first two attempts did nothing, he channeled his Spirit through his arm and tried to force it out around the item. He felt his energy levels drop, but nothing happened. He tried again, and again nothing happened.

  He moved to a different approach. He channeled his Spirit through his eyes, and tried to release it outwards. He was met with a dull throbbing pain that spread outwards from behind his eyes. He groaned at the pain but smiled, he felt an impression of the potion in his mind’s eye. He was on the right track.

  It took several more attempts to get it correct, which mainly consisted of gradually reducing the amount of Spirit used and trying to reign in its spread, but eventually he succeeded. He focused all his attention on the potion, and released a pulse of Spirit from his eyes focused as tightly as he could manage on the bottle he held.

  The information bloomed in his mind and he grinned. He had a headache from several failed attempts, but it was nowhere near as bad as the initial pain he had felt when he tried to use his eyes as the medium for the skill.

  Lucian looked up at Annabelle and grinned, “Got it.”