Chapter 402: What Did You Do?

The next morning, Derek sat up on the side of his bed and stretched. That feels good, he thought as he cracked his neck and back. Let’s see what I ended up with after fighting Simeon yesterday. With that thought, Derek pulled up his current status sheet.

Nice! Derek thought. Killing Simeon didn’t give him enough experience points to get to the next level, but he was very close. I shouldn’t expect a single kill to all that much, anyway. He’d noticed while holding back the forces outside of Astrus that now that he was closing in on level 250, each kill wasn’t giving a ton of experience like before.

Simeon was a prime example. At Derek’s current level 229, it would take five whole Simeon’s worth of experience to gain an entire level. That wasn’t bad, but Simeons—or beasts and enemies with his same strength or class rarity—weren’t just wandering around waiting to be farmed. He saw the same thing when Silvi took out Tevarian. He gave a good deal of experience, but some of the basic soldiers that were technically the same level as the deceased king only gave a fraction of the experience.

Still, it’s nothing that a little grinding won’t be able to fix, Derek thought. Alanah still wants to take me dungeon running, so there will be plenty of experience points up for grabs then. He then thought about the rest of the cake slice that he had in his storage. He wasn’t even in combat, yet it had given him so much skill experience that he’d gained another level in Greater Meditation after just gaining a level while fighting Simeon.

That’s going to come in handy for getting the rest of my skills up to par. Maybe I should have asked Dave for some of those spices for myself. I wonder just how rare they really are. Greater Meditation was known to Derek as probably the hardest to level skill he had—maybe even harder to level than Void Call. So there was definitely something special about those spices.

I bet it will be especially useful in leveling my new Powerstride skill, he thought. Since that skill was still at level 1, depending on how hard it was to level it, it would be possible to eat a little cake, then take off with it to rapidly increase its level. I am anxious to figure out much easier to use that skill will get at around level 10. Right now, it’s still going to take some getting used to.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to find some nice clusters of enemies for me to use Whirlwind Slash on when we go into the dungeons. That, or I guess I could knock two birds out with one stone by summoning some Void Beasts down to fight. I still have a promise with Avery to keep, after all. He was very interested in what it would look like when he leveled Void Call up some more. He’d neglected that skill for far too long.

Moving back to the status screen hovering in front of his eyes, Derek moved down until he made it to his list of skills. The biggest gain of everything was his Absolute Nullify skill. It had gained three whole levels during the fight with Simeon. Using Absolute Nullify as a backstop for the guy had been a great idea. The whole time he held the man against the wall created by his skill, it was sucking in the magical toxin that was being produced by Simeon’s transformed body.

That, on top of having drank the skill potions, made the skill skyrocket in levels. He’d not seen a good gain like that since he was grinding his skills on the golems in the dungeon outside of Savannah. If he was still alive, I’d give him my thanks… alas…

Moving on, his eyes landed on his Bare Fist Specialty. It had gained a level as well. It wasn’t really something he focused much on, so gaining a level in it was just a little icing on the cake, so to speak. The skill didn’t come with anything special at level 2.

However, Cure Toxin was a different story. That skill had also jumped up three levels, just like Absolute Nullify had. The whole time he was fighting Simeon, he was using the skill to lessen the damage being done to him from the man’s toxin, and it showed. If that keeps up, I’ll be the bane of poison users. He was still very much against poison, toxin, and corrosive users—he still wasn’t over the loss of the chest armor he’d brought with him from Earth, even if it wasn’t anywhere near as good as his current wyvern-made armor. Plus, those fights are terrible for my clothing.

Derek had also gained some Mental Resistance levels, but most of those just came from being around and chatting with Alanah, and his little meeting with Lyra before the wedding. Still, the skill was up to level 8, so that was nothing to scoff at.

Rejuvenation had hit level 20, so he now had a maxed out healing skill, and it was a great skill—especially when used alongside Greater Meditation. At level 10, the skill maxed out at 50% HP recovery over 30 seconds. Now, at level 20, it recovered 50% of his missing HP over 15 seconds, the MP cost was negligible, and it had a cooldown of only two and a half minutes.

The best thing about the skill—in Derek’s opinion—was that it worked great when healing specific wounds, and he could use it on other people if he ever needed to. I bet people would crap themselves if they saw me use it to heal a completely chopped off arm or something now that my body regrows things on its own… not that I’m interested in getting any body parts chopped off… still… would be funny.

Derek chuckled at himself and moved on. Spatial Collapse worked great against Simeon, he thought as his eyes landed on the attack skill. With the one cast against the poison patriarch, it’d killed the man and gained two entire levels. It was turning out to be a great assassination skill, especially as he learned to control it. As it leveled, it would be easier and easier to use.

Finally, Derek also gained a level in Void Shift when he took the poison claw that was meant for Sabrina. The skill seemed to level best when he used it to put himself in harm’s way.

After looking over everything one last time, he nodded his head and closed the screen. With one last stretch, Derek stood from his bed and left his room. After a quick visit to the restroom, he moved along to the dining area—it had been too long since he’d sat down and had a real meal with everyone. If only Silvi was… he started to think as he opened the door to the dining room and saw Silvi sitting on the table in her little cloak and chef’s hat.

“Silvi!” he called to his companion, and she looked up at him. “You’re back!” He hadn’t talked with his companion when he left, so he didn’t know what else she planned to do there. She definitely stayed in Indaria longer than he did, though. “When did you get back?” he asked.

“Late last night,” her childlike voice rang out from her communication crystals. “Had to wait to collect my dishes. A bunch of slow eaters.”

“I see…” Derek said and took a sniff of the aroma that filled the air. That smells like bacon, he thought as he involuntarily licked his lips. “Did you cook breakfast?” he asked.

“Almost,” Silvi replied. “Waiting for biscuits… should be almost done.” Without warning, Silvi disappeared from her spot on the table, and Derek saw the door connecting the kitchen to the dining room quickly open and shut. It would be a travesty to let the biscuits burn.

Derek chuckled and pulled out the chair at the head of the table, and took a seat. It seemed that, although he and Silvi were the last to get in and go to sleep—if Silvi even slept, that is—they were still the first up.

In a normal house, the noise he made probably would have woke everyone up, as he hadn’t exactly been quiet while leaving his room or going down the hall, but that was untrue for his shop—each private room had sound dampening runes inside that could be activated. So, no matter how loud the shop became, they could always retire to some peace and quiet in their bedrooms.

Still, the door behind him opened as soon as he took his seat, and Bones—wearing his deep purple butler uniform—walked in wordlessly, with only a nod to Derek as he moved directly into the kitchen. Malorie came in next, just trailing the assassin-turned-butler.

“So, the two of you are back?” Malorie asked as she pulled out a chair and sat down to Derek’s left.

“That’s the plan, at least,” Derek answered as Bones came back through the door from the kitchen with two steaming cups of dark liquid and gently sat them down in front of Derek and Malorie. He also brought with him multiple additives for the liquid. Please be coffee, please be coffee… Derek said over and over in his head before being hit with the aroma. Woohoo! Coffee! He quickly grabbed the cup and brought it up to his nose before taking a sip and sighing in contentment while slumping down in his seat.

“Great!” Malorie said, ignoring his antics with the coffee. “I need a vacation.”

Derek ignored her like a good boss should and changed the subject. “So, Rudy told me that I would be in for a surprise now that I’m back. What was he talking about?” he asked.

“Tsk…” Malorie clicked her tongue as she mixed something into her coffee and took a sip of her own. “He talks too much. It’s not a surprise if you’re prepared to be surprised.”

“I promise,” Derek said with a smile. “I’ll act very surprised. Just tell me what it is.”

Before Malorie could say anything, the door leading from the hall to the dining room opened again—this time, it was Jacks coming in.

“Well,” Malorie said with a sly grin as Jacks stayed at the door to hold it open. “The surprise is…”

Derek didn’t have to act shocked when he saw who came through next. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Rayna when he stayed in the shop for the last few days—in fact, this was the first time he’d seen her since he left for the raid dungeon, and she was looking… very pregnant.

“Jackson Reginald Herrett!” Derek hissed out the man’s full name—well, his full name if his middle name happened to be Reginald. “What did you do?”