karami92

 Author's Corner: Sorry for the delay all, had to get the fanmail taken care of! You can find it here 

Naturally, the people of Deckan were not the only ones that were able to unlock the skill system. All of the Keeper’s ‘elevated’ races had done so as well, including the very golems that were on their way to Deckan. The Lord Sovereign, the former Head of Research for the golems, sat in his massive throne, his dual personalities conversing within his mind.

“A new system has been installed into the world..? Intriguing… However, who is this Keeper individual that made the announcement?” The blue wisp asked in a gentle tone, hovering around the empty space. Already, they had registered over a hundred of their most powerful skills, including several fourth-tier spells. Thus, they were fully aware of the practicality of the system.

“Bah! It is likely the spirit of the system which governs the world. Now that this new system has been added, it is clear that it is meant to help us conquer this pitiful civilization!” If the red wisp had a face, it would be grinning wildly at that comment.

It had not been long since the system had appeared in the world, barely a few days. Just long enough for the massive golem to have learned several key points in its function. The fact that he was capable of unleashing fourth-tier magic on his own was widely known even before he had transferred to this world.

However, the amount of data required to create such a spell had only been possible by fully optimizing his body for such performance. Each spell would require his full attention. Even now, a great deal of focus was required to release a fourth-tier spell that he was familiar with. At least, before the skill system appeared.

With the aid of the skill system, only a moderate amount of focus was needed before the spell would construct itself. Like this, did it not mean that he had gained the ability to fire multiple of such spells with relative ease!? What could stand in the way of numerous great, fourth-tier spells?

“Hmm… perhaps.” The blue wisp agreed, given that they had no information on anyone regarding themselves as the world’s Keeper. “For the time being, we should continue to register skills. The more options we have, the higher our chances of success when we return to complete our conquest.”

In the eyes of the various top powers of the world, the new skill system was indeed a marvel. It allowed them to measure their skills and push their limits, achieving new and greater heights. However, the real worth of the system did not come from the benefits it gave to those who fought at the top. Rather, it was what it did for the common man.

The workers, the programmers and craftsmen, the chefs and doctors. These were the people who truly benefited the most from this new system. The greatest benefit of the system wasn’t in how it increased the potential of a person’s growth, but rather in how it improved work efficiency for the working class.

Register Skill. Leoman Graves muttered as he sat at his computer, beginning a day’s work in his office. He was a simple writer, someone who published fanciful stories to entertain the masses. Some of his work had already been adapted to games or movies.

However, as he typed, he focused fully on fleshing out the ideas that appeared in his imagination. He was not writing his normal stories, in a way. Rather, he typed anything and everything that came to his mind.

Thus, five minutes passed before he even realized. When the message prompt appeared in his view, he ignored it, engrossed in the scene he was writing. The more he wrote, the easier it became.

Eventually, he decided to rest, feeling that his scene had turned out quite well. He even considered if he should find somewhere to introduce it in one of his stories. Only then did he notice the prompt waiting for him in the corner of his eyes. The ‘Creative Writing’ skill had been born, allowing him to translate his imagination into words.

When he began to do his proper writing, focusing on his story, he was able to progress far more efficiently than normal. What would have normally made him pause to consider how he should describe something, or what words he should use to best speak to the reader, were filled in before he knew what was happening. It was truly a case of the hands typing what the mind thought.

It was not just for writing, either. Every professional that registered their work skills quickly showed an increased performance of several fold. Normal errors that were previously regarded as ‘common mistakes’ seemed to vanish. Construction workers no longer smashed their fingers when hammering in a nail. Dancers no longer stumbled when practicing a rehearsed move.

Even the accuracy of their movements increased, whether it was a tailor measuring cloth, a chef adding spices to a dish, or a farmer gathering their crops. Of course, that was not to say that everyone’s actions became robotic. They still had the personal flair that they showed before. Only, now they would no longer make the common mistakes that slowed down their day.

Blank sat in his virtual domain, monitoring the various records that had been brought to him. Once the new system had been revealed to the world, he had sent his subordinates out in order to watch the productivity of various fields. It was his desire to see in what way this new system would impact the world through these little details.

As for his own skills, he had yet to register them. Being the God of Games, he was fully aware that skills had an almost infinite number of forms, and he was in no rush to try to stand out from the rest. Instead, his presence had always been one that existed behind the scenes.

“Productivity in crafting-related fields has increased by twenty percent in the last week.” He muttered, before shaking his head. At first, it may have seemed that the system was limited in the way that skills could be registered. Say the command, and you would have five minutes to perform a skill… fail to perform a skill in five minutes, and it begins scanning for passive abilities.

However, what does that say of cooking, or tailoring? How many items can be made in a five minute window? There were few dishes being made in popular restaurants that could be produced in such a short window.

That was where the division of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary skills came into play. Primary skills were those such as cooking, writing, swordsmanship or magic. Each of these skills covered a wide field and carried many different aspects to them.

Secondary skills were things such as recipes and formulas, specific techniques contained within a Primary skill set. Finally, there were Tertiary skills, which were the steps involved in executing Secondary skills. For cooking, this could be as simple as chopping vegetables, or roasting meat. For alchemy, it could be measuring the temperature of an ingredient, or grinding components.

These three divisions of skills actually served a grand purpose, by only requiring the user to register the associated Primary skill. As long as they did that, they would gain ‘hidden proficiency’ in any Secondary or Tertiary skills that they practiced, even without directly registering those skills.

Of course, it was still possible to register Secondary and Tertiary skills, as well. According to Blank’s guess, this was less to improve those specific skills, but rather to make them available for the Teaching option included in this system.

He had painstakingly gathered and compiled this information in order to know how he could best utilize the system for his future endeavors. At the same time, it was to determine if there were any hidden risks in using it. Naturally, convenience breeds complacency. This has been true since ancient times.

It was possible that people would grow dull as time passed, relying more on their accumulated proficiency than their natural instincts. However, Blank expected this to last no more than a few years, or when something struck them from those mindsets. Perhaps I can create a new game that will enable people to experience peril, and force them to be proactive for their survival?

Blank mulled over the idea, feeling as though it had some merit. As long as he created a true virtual world, he would be able to set the system laws in that world. It would be a simple matter to prevent the skill proficiency system from being included in such a world. After all, he had yet to fully comprehend the system himself, so how was he going to program it into a new world?

Feeling that this was a valid plan, and one that would likely be needed in the coming months, Blank set about doing his work. He did not bother his subordinates any further, allowing them to return to their normal duties of administrating his various online projects.

It was quite unusual to have so much time alone in the Sky Citadel. With both Tsubaki and Dana gone to Deckan, the large structure felt rather lonely. However, there was still much for me to do, even without their company. Are you kidding? Compared to being stuck on an island learning to blacksmith for a few weeks, this is nothing. 

I smirked faintly at the thought of that, proceeding to one of the various training rooms in the citadel. For the past few days, I had been conducting my own tests with the skill system, wanting to experiment and see what I could make of it. In particular, the function of the system unique to myself, the Keeper Skills.

In doing so, I had learned a rather important fact. Although the system provided me with the skills, it did not provide me with the experience or knowledge. Instead, I could only go based on my own personal understanding of the skill.

By now, I had the skill of some of the world’s best alchemists, so I thought to give the Alchemy skill a try. I had gone to Dana’s workshop, and gathered various materials, and had even activated the skill successfully. The problem was that I personally only knew how to make rather low-grade potions, and the materials available there were all higher tier than I was used to working with.

Thus, although I could be said to have the best alchemy skill in the world, it meant nothing without the knowledge of recipes to back it up. On the other hand, combat skills were far easier to understand. It did not take the knowledge of a detailed formula to know how to swing a sword or shoot a bow.

When I tested my archery through this system, I found that I was able to accurately hit a target the size of a coin from over five hundred meters away. Yet, with my own personal skills… I would be lucky to hit that same coin if it was two feet from the bow, or if I was trying to simply stab it with the arrow.

However, perhaps the skill that most powerfully resonated with this system was none of these. It was not a Primary skill, or even a Secondary skill. Rather, the skill that I found the most useful was one that I stumbled across by complete chance. This skill was called ‘Geometric Spell Construction’, and was a skill to construct geometric spells without a set formula. Instead, it purely used a person’s own knowledge of spell diagrams. I was thankful that someone had managed to register a skill like this, as it made it far easier for me to assemble higher level magic.

Within the training room of the Sky Citadel, I held out my hand, focusing. I had studied all the way up to fourth tier magic, so this skill could theoretically allow me to construct such spells on my own. However, the user of the skill who had registered it had apparently only mastered up to the third tier.

Thus, I was trying to practice this skill myself, combining it with my knowledge to slowly construct a three-dimensional spell diagram. This was a simple fourth-tier spell, one that was rather unimpressive, given its rank. With it, I planned to create a very simple stone golem. If successful, it would respond to basic commands such as ‘follow’ or ‘stay’, and be capable of walking to execute those commands.

While the Geometric Spell Construction skill allowed me to almost immediately create spells up to the middle of the third-tier, this spell was incredibly slow in its construction. Far too slow to be useful in proper combat. Nonetheless, I was happy to have the different spell patterns appearing in my mind to gradually facilitate the construction of this spell...