Demonic Skeleton God-Chapter 67: Ice Spikes

Days passed while Itai studied ice magic and Flain was saving EXP for Automatic skill learning.

Three days went by, and by then, Itai had already read the book twice. Once he started to understand it a little, it went fairly quickly. Right now, Itai was preparing to attempt the spell for the first time.

Itai stretched out his hand and focused on everything he had learned and understood.

In front of him, a miniature diamond made of ice began to form, but it immediately fell to the ground and shattered into tiny fragments. When Itai saw this, frustration appeared on his face.

"Damn, failure," Itai muttered.

Days passed. Eventually, a full eight days went by, and Itai had read the book maybe a hundred times, trying non-stop. Every time, a piece of ice about the size of a thumb would appear before him, only to fall straight to the ground.

Itai expected it to be hard, but not this hard. For example, Concealment of Death, which was a non-critical skill and apparently also stage 1, only took him two days to learn.

Another four days passed. Progress accelerated, and Itai no longer needed to read the book—he just had to keep casting the spell over and over again, and he would improve. He was now casting the spell outside in the garden at a tree because he didn’t want to damage the villa.

Itai extended his hand. A large, pointed shard of ice shaped like a double-ended cone appeared in front of him. Itai sent it flying at the tree, and the shard pierced it completely, leaving a hole through the trunk.

"Finally, after 12 days, I finally learned it," Itai exclaimed with joy.

With his current mana capacity, Itai could now cast six such shards of ice and a maximum of two at once.

Itai went down into the basement to Flain, who had just finished physical training and was preparing for spell creation.

"I’ve learned it," Itai said proudly.

"Finally, give it to me," Flain replied. He had long since saved up the required 12,000 EXP.

Flain had the book in his hands, so a system window appeared in front of him again, which he now read.

[Do you really want to automatically learn this skill for 12,000 EXP?]

[Yes | No]

Flain clicked Yes.

[You have automatically learned the skill: Ice Spikes]

[Name: Ice Spikes

Level: 1

Stage: 2

Type: Ice Spell

Consumption: 120 MP

Description: An ice spell that allows the user to summon ice spikes which can be launched at enemies. The better the user is at casting this spell, the more ice spikes can be summoned at once.

Next level: Fight, train with this skill or 35,000 EXP]

’Stage 2? Didn’t he say it was Stage 1? The system was right, these people really can’t accurately determine a skill’s stage. But that’s good for me—got a Stage 2 skill instead of a Stage 1,’ Flain thought.

A question came to Flain’s mind for the system, since he hadn’t asked it anything in a while.

’If I level up my subclass Spell Master, will that also increase my proficiency in it, or will it just bring me closer to unlocking the ability to cast Stage 2 spells?’ Flain asked silently.

[Tip: No, leveling your Sub-Class is just progress that brings you closer to unlocking the ability to create higher Stage spells. It also levels up naturally when you cast spells, as you’ve already noticed.]

So Flain currently had no reason to level up Spell Master, since he hadn’t even created a single Stage 1 spell yet, and attempting a Stage 2 spell was out of the question. Flain had one more question.

’You said that people without the system and people who aren’t Spell Masters can’t evoke a skill to the level of its Stage. My question is: how possible is it to strengthen a skill through proficiency in it?’ Flain asked his question.

[Tip: Theoretically, endlessly. The more you use a skill, the stronger it becomes, but its Stage exists for a reason. When your skill that’s Stage 1 reaches the power of Stage 2, the strengthening slows down significantly, so it’s more worthwhile to use skills that match your Stage.]

Flain only asked out of curiosity—he didn’t plan to keep using skills of the same Stage.

"That spell probably took you so long to learn because it’s Stage 2 and you’re only Stage 1," Flain said.

"Really? And how did you find that out? And you already learned it?" Itai asked.

"Of course, where do you think I am," Flain replied.

"Oh, alright, can I return it to the Overseer?" Itai asked.

"No," Flain answered, as a figure materialized behind him—someone Itai hadn’t seen in a long time. It was Aran.

"At your service, my king," Aran said and knelt.

A smirk appeared on Flain’s face—he missed being addressed as king. "Aran, you’re going to learn this spell," Flain said and threw him the book.

Aran looked through it. "I’ve never studied magic before, but I’ll give it a try," he said.

[Tip: When an author writes a skill, they infuse it with fragments of their mana. That’s why no one can just describe what’s in the book and make a copy, except for the author. Without that mana, the reader can’t learn it, because their body needs to absorb mana from the book during skill learning. Learning a skill mainly depends on whether the learner’s Stage matches the skill’s Stage or is higher—then it goes much more smoothly. Intelligence also matters, but it’s secondary. Also, in most of the world, skills are bought, so the buyer receives a book that they must return after learning the purchased skill. Buying a skill book is a whole different level.]

Flain read the system’s tip—even though he hadn’t asked for it, it was good to know. After reading it, Flain realized the rarity of skill books: practically no one could copy them, so if the author died or didn’t want their skill spread across the world, there was nothing anyone could do.

Also, people who create skills aren’t copy machines, and they have more important things to do than constantly rewriting their spells by hand. Flain now understood why skills were so rare.

"It should be much easier for you, Aran, than it was for Itai, because you’re Stage 2, which is what the book was meant for," Flain said.

"Itai, it was so hard for you to learn because that book wasn’t meant for you," Flain told him.

But then, an interesting thought struck Flain...

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