“So the boss monster.. melted your clothes?” Kevin asked for reassurance with his brow raised.
“Yup.”
“And the dried blood, you are telling us that it’s not even yours?” He looked at the spots that were clearly dyed red, pretty much Michael’s entire body was red from blood.
“Exactly.”
Kevin was about to say something but stopped himself, heaving a sigh, he turned around and left.
The same went for Elizabeth and Chloe, they looked at him with a weird look and walked away, leaving him on the ground, completely out of mana.
‘Why do all my fights end with me running out of mana…’ Michael grumbled and slowly began standing up.
It felt as if he built a bit of an immunity to the fatigue one felt once they ran out of mana.
However, that did not mean he was fully immune, his head was still throbbing in pain.
The fight from earlier was still engraved in his mind, the golden haired man was an incredible fighter, if he had truly gone all out, Michael would not have stood a chance.
But despite that, he had learned a lot, even if he got absolutely destroyed, he managed to comprehend the skill the other him used.
And because of that,
-Ding
[New Skill Generated]
Mirage of Light [Intermediate] [Passive]
# You can combine and mirror two or more skills, choosing which one is fake and which one is not.
Michael looked at it with widened eyes ‘It’s a passive skill?’
It looked pretty broken for a mere intermediate passive skill as well, he assumed it would fit into the Advanced rank at the very least.
But he won’t complain, a good passive skill will go a long way.
He then took out the Halo out of his pocket ‘And then there is this.’
Michael did not know what to do with it, so he simply decided to put it on his head.
The moment he did, it simply plopped down on top of his head, he expected it to levitate or something, but it did not.
‘I knew it was stupid to try… it’s probably broken’ He sighed to himself and attempted to lift it off his head.
However, to his surprise, it was not coming off, he was able to lift it above his head just a bit but it felt as if it was locked in place, not moving any further.
He let it go and it started levitating just as he expected earlier.
Suddenly, a sharp pain spread through his head once more, many times sharper than before, making him nearly pass out once again.
But as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared just as fast, instead, a golden notification appeared right in front of his eyes.
[1/5 Pieces of the Legacy have been collected]
[Cost of all skills reduced by 50%]
Michael’s eyes were shaking as he looked at the reward he had gotten, it practically answered his prayers, making his skills half the cost.
It meant he no longer had to worry about the mana costs while fighting, well not as much anyway.
He glanced at his status for a moment and saw Physical Enhancement ‘System, can you move it into the passive skills category? I mean, I have it on all the time and it doesn’t even appear in the system as a buff, plus with this reward, it won’t use any mana anyways.’
I’ll try, I can’t promise you that it will work though.
Michael proceeded to sit back down and wait, he still had to figure out how to hide the Halo from others.
And at the same time, his party could relay that we completed our end of the deal, it was turn for the head of the house to complete his.
A few minutes passed and the system’s voice rang out.
I managed to do it, even the rank of the skill increased.
‘It increased?’ Michael raised an eyebrow and opened his status, his eyes widening upon seeing the rank of the skill.
Physical Enhancement [Intermediate] [Passive]
# Increase all stats by 1 Minor Rank
‘Why did it jump up by 2 whole ranks when it was just a Beginner ranked skill at the start?’
It cost mana to use, meaning it was inferior, now, the skill has reached its true capabilities.
‘Well.. that’s a good haul, anyways, what do I do about this Halo? Can I take it off or hide it somehow?’
I can’t analyze it, you must get stronger, however, can’t you just wear a hat or something?
‘Are you serious?’ Michael ignored the system’s antics and began playing around with the Halo, moving it a small distance away from his head.
However, even as he pulled it away further and further, it kept returning back to where it originally was.
‘Fuck, do I have to actually start wearing a hat now?’ Michael started honestly considering it but in the next moment, another golden notification descended.
[Crown of Arch-Angel Michael] [Soulbound]
# Teaches a new skill every single time you Tier up.
*Next Skill: Sanctuary
‘Oh it’s an item… that gives skills..? What an interesting Halo this is’ Michael played around with it a bit more before finally letting it float above his head.
It seemed he couldn’t make it go away no matter what he tried.
‘Though the crown of an Arch-Angel huh… I wonder why they are called crowns? It certainly doesn’t look like one’ He thought to himself and finally stood up, heading out of the dungeon and meeting up with his group.
For some reason, they chose to wait for him, well he did make them wait only 10 minutes.
But judging from Elizabeth’s visible scowl, he might have taken a bit longer.
“Took you long enough..” Kevin sighed and started walking back to the mansion.
And so did the others, which slightly confused Michael.
‘Can they not see it?’ He thought as he began touching the top of his head, still feeling the Halo floating up there.
‘Weird.. but that works out.’
Michael and the others arrived in front of the head of the house’s room and let themselves in, finding the man asleep on the sofa.
As they were about to wake him up, they noticed another person in the room, Selene, who appeared to be handling the paperwork.
“The transport has already been prepared, thank you for the help” She said in a tone that did not seem anything like her previous self.
“Thanks?” Michael blurted out and headed to the very front of the mansion, his eyes widening upon noticing the ‘transport’ Selene mentioned.
It looked like a military grade helicopter, Michael had been in one of these when he was serving and they were extremely fast.
Now that begged the question, even with this amount of speed, it would take them a day to get back to Vivum?
‘It would be faster to just head to another city altogether..’
From what he learned back in the first year of the academy, there are 10 major cities on this continent, with them being in the one at the very edge of the continent.
But even then, it was still likely the strongest out of all the cities, even if by a small margin.
Michael knew that was only on paper since there were people like Fafnir and Amanda.
It was highly likely that beings of similar power were dwelling in the other cities as well.
Though that was for him to find out in the future, the only thing he was interested in was coming back to Vivum.
The party headed inside the helicopter and sat down on the comfortable seats, with Michael still wearing his tattered clothes with the addition of a Halo.
‘It was a pretty bountiful assignment.. even if we did fail.’
