“What skill did you want him to teach someone?” Tessa asked, suspicious of the Dragon’s intentions.
“You don’t need to be so suspicious, War Cleric. I am a Bronze Dragon, a disciple of the God of Law and Order. I dislike disruption in the way things are supposed to be done, and I have little leniency for disrespect.”
[He’s totally talking about me.] Cara laughed, recalling the way she had booped him on the nose.
The newly arrived members were a bit wary of the Dragon’s temper, but Karl was smiling at Cara’s uncaring attitude.
“Why don’t we try that now? It could be fun. I haven’t gotten to see an Epic skill in a while. Not since I learned [Bestial Raiment].” Karl suggested.
“Alright. Please, come inside. We will provide refreshments for your friends, but you might want to restrain the Nature Priestess.”
“Nature High Priestess.” Karl corrected, which made the Dragon roll his eyes.
“Nature High Priestess.” He reluctantly agreed.
Tessa took control of Lotus, who was about to wander away, following the beastkin children.
They had promised to be on their best behaviour, but the Void Badger had vanished, and Rae wasn’t out to distract her. Plus, the newborn Green Dragon in her mind wanted to know all the things.
Orthos led Karl to a secured room with protective magic cast on everything.
There was a large tome open on a desk, open to the first page, and locked under glass.
“The tome is delicate, we can’t let you touch it. Can you teach from that?” Orthos asked.
“I should be able to, I can read the tome. So, as long as someone can change the page, I should be able to use my skill to teach it.
The question is if anyone is actually compatible with the skill. Rare skills tend to be rare for an excellent reason.” Karl reminded him.
“We have a candidate.” Orthos replied simply.
He whistled and a Moor Cat, larger than any Karl had seen before, and at the peak of Monarch Rank, came in to sit next to the dragon.
“Alright, you need to be in a relaxed state for this to work as well as possible. Is there anything that would help?” He asked.
The cat turned to Orthos, and they must have been communing mentally before Orthos shook his head.
“No, he should be fine. Do you need him to move? You noted with the children that teaching works better with direct physical contact.”
“If you can shift here, so I can rest a hand on you while I read, that would be best.”
The Moor Cat shifted a little so he could see Karl, but had his tail draped over Karl’s shoulders.
“Yes, that should work wonderfully. Now, Chapter One. The essentials of the [Ghost Beast] stealth skill.”
When they reached the end of a page, Orthos would flip them with magic, and Karl would continue, focusing the recently improved [Skill Master] ability on both the Moor Cat and Rae.
She was resting in her space, but listening intently. She didn’t need to be outside, they were permanently linked, and this sounded like just the sort of skill that she would love.
It was also the essential skill for a Moor Cat at the peak of the Monarch Rank to evolve into a Ghost Cat and break through the bottleneck to become an Overlord.
Rae didn’t understand human politics, but she understood beasts, and this was a colossal favour to be asking of Karl. Advancing a beast to the Overlord Rank added to the nation’s top combat power.
Even one or two more Overlords in a battle could be enough to tilt it in favour of one nation or another.
There was no way that Cara leaving footprints all over the ceiling as she ran away from the clerics warranted this. Even teaching the children who would clean the mess should have been enough to pay their debt.
But she knew that Karl was doing this as much for her as for the Moor Cat and the Bronze Dragon.
This was an Epic Grade skill that was fully capable of taking her to the Overlord Rank, and it would most likely cause her to evolve instantly when she learned it.
What form that evolution would take was unknown, but for her future, she would do her very best to learn every bit of this skill, no matter how long she had to practice.
But this skill seemed to be attuned to her, a natural fit in the same way that her own innate skills were, even more natural than Golems, and she loved her golems.
Perhaps this was a skill that she would have also naturally gained as she advanced?
When he was finished with the book once, Karl realized that it was a good start, but neither beast had quite mastered the skill yet.
The essence of it was something that was so completely foreign to a living being that it could not be mastered so easily, even by the beasts that would call it an innate skill in their new form.
[Ghost Beast] did not actually hide you, that was taken care of by other skills. Ghost Beast let you step halfway out of phase with reality to briefly move through an object, like a door or wall.
According to the text, it was incredibly draining, and few could hope to do it more than once a day. But for an assassin type beast, being able to step through a door or a solid wall to get to your target was an absolutely brutal advantage.
The name fit the skill, and Karl was looking forward to the terror that Rae could cause once she had mastered the ability.
The Moor Cat, now a Ghost Cat, or well on its way to becoming one, was the first to master the ability, but Karl dutifully continued reading the skill book to let Rae finish learning.
The Cat wasn’t moving yet, but Karl could sense the skill activation, so he was reasonably certain that it had mastered the ability.
He briefly considered the fact that a Ghost Cat didn’t actually pose a major threat to most humans at home, as they were too large to it in the room unless they were laying down, but out in the wilderness, or in the bordering nations belonging to the Giants, there would be no such restrictions.
Before they were through the incredibly long book the second time, Rae had managed to phase through one of the trees in her space.
That might not count, as they weren’t real, but as far as Karl could tell, the skill was active.
He finished the reading for the second time and nodded to Orthos.
“I believe that the task is done. The skill should have been understood and transferred, so if it was the key to an advancement, that should come within the next day or two.” He explained.
The Bronze Dragon smiled. “You have no idea how much you have helped us today.”
“By allowing the Divine Beast Nation to gain a new Overlord Rank Beast that might be able to instruct others of his species in the skill he has just learned? Oh, I think I have a fairly decent grasp on just what I have done here today. I just hope that I don’t regret it later.”
