“Let’s not go any further than that.” Lucas huffed. “This thing could cause some serious damage.” He stole a side-long glance at the ivory lance. If he didn’t take risks, he wouldn’t be able to do meaningful damage to King Spikey.

  “We’ll both have plenty of time to sharpen ourselves tomorrow.” I agreed. The little bit of anxiety I was feeling evolved into excitement. Tomorrow would be a bountiful harvest.

  “Is this just a skill level thing or is your grimoire at play?” He mused. “Can I see it again?”

  It wasn’t a problem to show him the grimoire again. Turns out there was a problem though, “I can’t seem to pull it out…” I said. I was physically able to read the text before, and suddenly I couldn’t pull out a hard copy of the grimoire.

  “You’ve absorbed it?” He asked as if that string of words made perfect sense.

  “How should I know? The only difference is I can’t pull it out now.” Which would have been extremely concerning, but as soon as I thought of the grimoire I could pull it up and read it mentally. There was no need for any physical copy now. “I really can’t…” I said.

  Lucas was the type to get fixated on something, so hopefully this didn’t pull too much of his attention. “It’s fine, I just wanted to see if I could also learn it.” He paused, “Like if it even gave me the option like it did you.”

  “Oh, I’d not thought about that.” And it was probably for good reason. Common sense dictated that I couldn’t just pass such a powerful tool around for everyone to learn willy nilly. To be fair to Lucas though… common sense had sort of left the building. Was it possible that everyone could have learned it? Or was this absorption the guarantee only one could learn it? It was similar to skill books in a way then.

  I hadn’t tried to pull it out since before fighting the Behemoth, which lent credence to the idea only one person could truly learn it. Learning one of the inside skills must have been the trigger for it ‘absorbing’ as Lucas called it. Even if the others could technically learn it, it didn’t lend itself well to their classes.

  I looked towards Lidya, “How was she?” Turning his focus away from my grimoire and back to the bigger picture at hand.

  “Definitely has potential.” He said as we both watched my skeleton minion terrorize her. “I’m gonna stick around for a while and see if I can get anything out of her.”

  “I wish you luck.” I said, “I’m gonna go do… I don’t know what.” I confessed. I realized that I didn’t have anything I could do, or at least nothing that felt productive to do. Bone manipulation was a no go, and with the demon wave coming tomorrow I was concerned about pushing it too far just yet.

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  Practicing for tomorrow was out of the question then, and it didn’t seem like the new group, outside of Lidya, was even concerned for tomorrow. Which definitely had me questioning why. None of them were particularly strong, and a Demon wave should pose some serious threat to any of them.

  Even Marcus and the newly formed group were outside and running some drills. A simple nod of my head from a distance let me know they were practicing and taking it seriously. I wanted to let it go, but it nagged at me. “Lucas!” I yelled from a bit of a distance, sending him racing to me between his sparring with Lidya. “None of her group members are even getting ready for tomorrow, see if you can find out why.”

  I left it at that though, and returned back inside my abode, nearly running into Glenn who seemed to be rushing outside as I entered. “Everything good?” I asked him.

  “Good? More than good.” His face was jubilant, “That material you gave me, that was Star Cluster!” He said. Which didn’t set off any connections in my brain immediately, but Glenn continued. “This is what let’s me make those rare structures I mentioned. There’s a few of them that use it, but listen to this.” He caught his breath, “There’s one that lets us set up a save point, sort of like a respawn but we can teleport to it.”

  “Respawn point, as in we can die?” I asked. If that was the case this entire world just took a shift. Excitement was welling up rapidly.

  “No no, but like… that’s where it would take us.” He clarified. Glenn wasn’t with us when we used the random transport ticket from the secret shop. Teleportation was a double-edged sword if you couldn’t control it. Which left me feeling slightly biased in its application, and the budding excitement dwindled.

  What about the others then?” I asked. If star cluster was so fantastical, the other structures would need to be as useful as something that let you teleport to it. Surely they were glorious in their own ways.

  “N-Not important." He spit out, "The reason why I mention this one is the alternate materials all come from demons!” Which was good news for us.

  “Make a list of the materials needed, we’ll make sure any that drop go to you.” I said. It was easy enough to do, and if it worked how he said, might be useful in a pinch.

  “I’ll know the limitations after it’s made, but it should be good. I’m gonna go find Lucas, have you seen him?” He asked, still giddy with excitement.

  “Just around the back.” He shuffled by me to the outside.

  It was still early morning, so others were only now just waking up and having something to eat for breakfast. Jessica was coincidentally coming down the stairs with a nasty case of bed head.

  “How’d you sleep?” my eyes tracing the bird nest on her head.

  “Good as ever.” She yawned. “Tomorrow’s a big day probably won’t be much time for sleeping in.” There was no arguing with that logic.

  I wrapped my arms around her, “We’ll be getting new skill slots tomorrow, might be useful to start thinking what’s best as our next abilities. Hungry?” I asked. Most everyone else was sitting at the dining table having breakfast, something I nostalgically missed. I could sit, but there was no point in eating anything. She gave a nod and we sat down with everyone.

  “Are you two feeling good about tomorrow?” I looked to Richard and Alan.

  “Better than ever.” Alan boasted. Richard gave a nod as if he agreed with him.

  “And the rest of you?” I glanced over the others. Mostly Maria and Anna, the scaredy-cats of the group.

  “As long as there’s loot.” Anna mumbled out through a biscuit.

  “Good.” I nodded, “Just remember that we have some new faces. There’s a chance Demons won’t be the only thing you’re fighting.” My voice grew stern. “Be vigilant.”