“He was white while she was orange. What do these colors mean?” 

Jacob pondered as he watched Tim getting stitches from the nurse on duty in his school’s hospital. The furball was put to sleep with sedatives since it kept crying while looking at Jacob who had carried him inside the hospital since he would be out of his mind bringing his skellies in public at this time.

He watched over the little guy after the nurse did her work and pondered over his skill while eating an apple.

Munch!

“Yum, juicy.” He was mildly surprised.

“So far, I’ve seen red, and gold. Now I’ve seen white and orange. Let’s try to arrange these colors.”

He knew there had to be some reason for the colors shown by his skill. He was going to use common sense to figure out the pattern and understand his skill better to increase its usability.

“Let’s look at their behaviors and match them with these colors.”

Jacob recalled the one who had shone in red.

“Yep, he wanted to kill me. So let’s assign red to killing intent or hatred.”

Then he recalled those golden beings, his teammates.

“Goodwill?” He muttered in confusion. “Bob, I mean, I can understand. But Sumei? Goodwill? And she did that to me?”

Yet there was little material for reference, so he decided to understand gold as goodwill.

“Now, white is obviously neutral. That woodman William Reed didn’t really favor her over me. He simply facilitated our communication and saved her and me in the process.”

Now the most confusing color remained.

“Orange.”

He recalled Angela’s behavior toward him.

“She hated my guts. That’s for sure. But it was more like annoyance or maybe she was upset with me. Well, I can consider that ill will. But it's not to the point of killing me. She wanted to beat me up or hurt me. Hmm….”

Jacob pondered for a bit while the sun set on the horizon, and the furball finally opened its eyes on the comfy hospital bed.

“Let’s call it ill will. Someone I should look out for but not someone who’ll kill me.” He recalled Angela’s ice arrows and redecided his interpretation of the color, “That is if I have the ability, they won’t be able to kill me. Done!”

Tim woke up to Jacob’s grinning face, and nobody knew what transpired in its mind. It instantly jerked back, and a brown color appeared beneath it. Jacob smelled something strange and stepped back while pointing toward the furball.

“Tim! This is not a place to pee!”

His words filled with annoyance sent the furball into panic mode once again, and it remained frozen while shivering slightly. Normally, it would have run away, but when it remembered the bony monstrosity following this young devil’s orders, it decided to remain still. After all, it didn’t want to be pierced by another arrow!

Jacob sighed since he understood he was causing the innocent furball unneeded fear. He calmly approached it, carefully raised it, and took it to get it washed after taking advice from a nurse. He didn’t want it to bite him in panic and decided to treat the little guy gently until his graduation exam.

After cleaning it, he returned home while stopping at a grocery store to stock up some food for the little guy. He didn’t show it to his father who had returned home, smoothly went to his room, and kept the little guy on his bed.

“You’re my protective amulet for the next 18 days. I’ll let you go back to Angela after that.”

He looked at its clueless face and suddenly remembered Angela. 

“I see why they might be friends. They definitely have something in common!” he grinned.

Jacob gave it some almonds to munch on and ignored it to its relief. He sat on his gaming chair and saw his table was still broken, so he could not use his computer properly. He had to sit on the ground if he wanted to use it but feared taking it out of his closet since he didn’t know if Tim would go crazy at this time and decide to munch on some computer wires.

“Well, let’s just use my phone for now.” 

He texted Adam to check if he was available, then sent him a voice message explaining what he went through today while asking for suggestions on how to get stronger in the remaining days before the exam.

Jacob then thought of the only thing he could do. 

“Let’s plan.”

He summoned his complete system interface after a long time.

…

[System]

-Status

-Stat

-Skills

-Inventory

-Notice

…

[Skills]

Unique skill:

–Fusion Cube Lv. Max

Passive skills:

– (Unknown) Lv. Max

– Detect Intent Lv. Max

– Tenacity Lv. 4

Active skills:

– Dash Lv. 3

– Summon Undead Lv. 1

– Bone Spikes Lv. 1

...

[Inventory]

Quick Acting Band-Aid, Band-Aid, Dungeon Key (E), Skill Creation Chance

…

Jacob confirmed the changes.

“After I got more than two items in my inventory, my system added Inventory to the main menu.”

He looked at his skills since that was the only thing he could currently train in since going to a dungeon was currently off-limits, and William didn’t want him over at his place.

“I don’t know the exact conditions to level up my skills, but I guess the more I use it, the stronger it gets. Right?”

He hoped for some kind of xp numerically present so that he could observe in real time what kind of actions to give him xp and which was the most effective way to level up his skills and main level. But since there was nothing like that, he could do only one thing.

“Repetition.”

Jacob thought of strategies for his skills. As midnight approached, he finally confirmed his training plan after looking at one skill.

…

[Dash Lv. 1]

Type: Active Skill

Cost: 5 MP to Activate. 1 MP to Maintain per minute.

Cooldown: 1 minute

Effect: +10% Agility

Description: The constant running has fortified your legs. Your movement speed will increase by 10% when this skill is activated.

…

“Dash all the way with the 10 km daily run. Bony spikes can be trained in my room. I wonder if the spike will vanish after summoning it… That’s something I can check. Should I summon my skellies in my room?”

He looked down and remembered his father was asleep on the sofa while Ruby was with her tv.

“I think I can. But here’s the question. Does my skill level up if I just summon my skellies or do they have to battle like me for the skill to level up?”

Jacob didn’t know the mechanism but figured he would try all means possible. After all, the Goblin Kingdom was waiting for his massacre. He didn't want to disappoint any of those ugly green monsters.

He decided to test things the next day and head to his bed where Tim had nearly finished a pack of almonds. It was calmly resting on his pillow since it had never experienced such softness after living in the forest all its life. Then the approaching footsteps altered it, and the furball instantly jumped to the corner of the bed.

Behind it lay the wall, and in front of it approached its assailant. It tried to appear fierce, then showed a pleading look after remembering who was the actual fierce one among them.

Jacob had a headache looking at it. He wasn’t worried about Tim messing around while he was awake. After all, his 28 points of strength were not just a number. They indicated that he was as strong as 2.8 adults. Since all this power was present in one body, the actual effects of his strength were hard to estimate.

He finally could not help it. 

“Summon Skeleton Archer!”

“Summon Skeleton Warrior!”

Two lightning rifts opened up on his bedroom floor as he felt something leave his body.

[-10 MP]

After all, while the furball looked cute and harmless, Jacob had no intention of underestimating the little fellow. Tim’s eyes were filled with fear looking at the appearing archer.

“If it dares to hurt anything in my room, capture it and keep it locked in your palms,” he ordered both of them. They stared right back at him in silence, and he wondered if they had understood his command. Or was he expecting too much from common undead like them?

“Nod if you understand,” he said, and to his surprise, they nodded.

‘Wow! Looks like they have some kind of intelligence but they cannot speak. I wonder what position they have among the skeletons in their world.’

Jacob was relieved to have two guards to protect his anime figurines and other precious items in his room. He knew Tim would not dare to make trouble in their presence. Jacob took another packet of almonds and put it on the bed beside the little furball.

“You can eat this but no pissing on my bed!” He went through the extra effort of holding the furball and trying to make gestures to let it understand.

After thinking for a bit, he decided to take a plastic tray from the kitchen to give it a place to relieve itself. Jacob stood up from his bed and soon opened his door.

“What the!” He jumped back in a hurry.

Ahead of him stood his muscular father, still in his sleepwear, carrying two shortswords. He stood with perfect stability with his one leg and fiercely stared into the room and the unknown creatures in it.

“What are these… things?” he finally said after a few seconds.

“Ahem…” Jacob mocked his poor memory for forgetting that Peter had a skill called Clairvoyant Zone which allowed him to monitor everything in its radius. He had summoned his skellies, thinking his father was asleep. But clearly, that was not the case.

‘He was either awake, or these unknown beings triggered his Clairvoyant Zone and caused him to awaken.’ 

He slightly envied such a cool skill.

“These are my summoned creatures from the talent I awakened,” he tried to be concise while wondering if his father would once again go into rage mode for no reason.

“Summoned creatures?” 

Peter asked doubtfully while lowering his twin shortswords. He had already seen that the skeletons were still even after he had shown aggression. Any normal sentient creature would have become defensive or would have taken the initiative to attack at such a show of hostility.

“Yes, I’ve summoned them to understand how to use them better since there’s like half a month before my Graduation Exam. I also have one more thing I can do, but I’m unsure if I can do it here,” Jacob explained.

Peter slowly nodded and said, “Well, you’ve summoned such undead in your house already. What else can’t you do?” He thought briefly and asked, “Is it something poisonous?”

Jacob shook his head and pointed at the door.

“Watch me.”

He aimed at the middle of the door frame on the ground.

“Bone Spike!” he murmured, mainly to let his dad hear what his skill was called.

A small lightning rift formed, and from beyond the dark void of nothingness, a white spike arose with great speed. Its two-meter-tall body nearly touched the top of the door frame. Also, it made Peter involuntarily step back with an ashen face.

“I can also do this!” Jacob smiled at his father. He couldn’t see the latter’s face as it was covered in darkness in the hallway, but he felt his skill had amazed his dad.

“G-good, very good. You can practice all you want here, but don’t break anything!” 

Peter hurriedly put his shortswords in their scabbard and took his crouches that were leaning on the wall. He rushed downstairs with such speed that Jacob was astonished someone could move down the stairs with crutches like that.