Death. He almost died.

Even though he had healed his wound, Rudeus could still feel the cold bite of death on his neck.

Luke was dead, he had been murdered. The black cloaked figures were dead. Daisy had stabbed one through the eyes, and he had burned one to death.

Adrenaline was fleeing his body. The danger was gone, it had been killed.

In his previous life, he had also been murdered but the first hit to his skull rattled his brain and he had trouble thinking, then he was reborn a moment later.

There most likely wasn't another reincarnation in the cards for him. The person he was would cease to be, he would die if he died.

Through his new life, he had been complaining that he was bored, he had been questioning what his future would be for years now. If he died, all his worries would amount to nothing.

Three corpses surrounded him, he had barely survived.

'What… should I do?'

Hesitation filled his body, he didn't know what actions he should take.

A desire, one almost burning up his hopes for a better life had been reignited in his mind. Rudeus wanted to lock himself up in his room, he didn't want to die.

'So, I would rather wither away? No! I'm going to live a fulfilling life! But what the fuck does that mean!'

He didn't want to die. He didn't want to rot away in his room. He didn't know what he wanted from life.

'One thing is clear, I almost died. If Daisy hadn't killed the first person, which probably shocked the second person, I would've died.'

Luke suddenly being beheaded by a person suddenly appearing was certainly a shock for him, and he didn't know how to react before he was almost killed as well.

Daisy suddenly appearing and killing the beheader must have been just as shocking for their companion.

Rudeus didn't have time to process what was happening and just resorted to his last resort magic on instinct. And he had killed a person.

In his previous life, he didn't have a problem with abortions, letting brain dead people die, or the death penalty, as he simply didn't believe in the sanctity of life.

He didn't believe that people had souls either, he didn't have faith in anything supernatural, like gods or karma, so people who couldn't even have thoughts could die and he wouldn't even think about it at all.

Criminals who were put to death probably deserved it, was his old thought process, as he didn't believe people could be reformed or change who they were.

In his old life, he had died and then he was reborn in a fantasy world. Souls were definitely real here, and that called into question his thoughts about the previous subject.

As they were uncomfortable questions, he preferred to ignore them and unless he went into the field of soul studies, he wouldn't have a concrete answer anyway. So for now, he just took the coward's way out and decided to be neutral.

'Have I've calmed down completely yet?'

His body felt less tense, and he regathered his thoughts. Letting his mind wander had successfully distracted him from the grim reality of his current situation.

'What should I do now? First thing I should do is be polite and thank Daisy for saving me, but it appears she's still in shock and she probably wouldn't appreciate me thanking her at a time like this.'

In the year Rudeus had got to know the siblings, he became sort-of friends with Luke as they sparred, but Daisy remained distant.

He tried conversing with her on multiple occasions, but she never warmed up to him. All he knew about her was what Luke had told him.

Luke was dead now, and Daisy was currently kneeling on the ground next to his corpse as she cradled his decapitated head.

'I should probably give her some time to process, she seemed a bit like a bro-con as she followed her brother everywhere.'

He turned back around, and looked at the black cloaked figure that he had used Flame Spear on, it was still burning.

"Spirits of the great earth, I beg of thee to answer my call, I ask of thee for a strike with a mighty spear to pierce through stone. Earth Spear!"

Small rocks appeared midair in a swirl at the tip of his outstretched staff and converged to form a large stone spear, immediately after it took shape, it shot through the air at incredible speed and pierced the head of the flaming body.

The spell had used more Mana than was necessary because he strengthened it by using a longer incantation and he had also charged up the firing speed. The increased speed made it difficult to aim after a few meters, but the body was close enough.

After the body didn't move after a large hole appeared in its head, Rudeus turned back again and used the same spell on the person Daisy had taken down.

He didn't want to risk them suddenly getting back up and attacking when his guard was down.

"I call upon Aqueous, here and now. Water Ball!"

This version of the spell had a unique feature aside from being fast to chant while maintaining volume, the water it produced had a lower evaporation point and higher freezing point compared to normal water.

The flaming corpse was now drenched.

Rudeus slowly approached the now soaked black cloaked figure. Surprisingly, the black cloak itself was left untouched by the flames, but the person wearing it was now a mass of melted and burnt flesh and whatever they had been wearing beneath the clock.

After poking around with his staff, he found what he was searching for, along with something unexpected.

A Status Card was crafted using extremely durable materials, and then enchanted to be on par with steel, a small fire wouldn't be enough to destroy it.

It had to be durable enough to survive the common danger's that Adventurers faced, because it also served as an identification tag for some unrecognizable bodies.

After picking up the Status Card of the person he had killed, he tapped on the blue gem in the corner.

[Last Recorded Entry]

[Name: Polly - Race: Human - Job: Assassin LV60]

[HP: 0/510 - SP: 0/490 - MP: 0/28]

[STR: 77 - AGI: 90 - CON: 50 - MGI: 21 - LUK: 23]

[Skills: Assassinate LV3 - Concealment LV2 - Dagger Proficiency LV5 - Lock Picking LV4 - Kin Slayer LV3 - Stealth LV5 - Trap Detection LV3]

'A LV60 Assassin? Really?'

He doubted he could've killed a LV60 Assassin with a miscast, a single spell, and then the insurance.

The Assassin Job was a bit difficult to acquire according to the books he had read, not only did a person have to stealthily murder their own kind a lot without getting caught, but they also had to deal with the build up to get there.

Rudeus hadn't heard about any assassin training organization, so they were definitely well concealed, either way for a normal person to become an Assassin, they would first need to max out at least two other Jobs beforehand.

Scout was a Common Job that could lead into Apprentice Assassin, but selecting that Job required a background check and then several documents to ensure the person wouldn't break the law.

The Thief Job was in a similar boat, as well as other Jobs were less than reputable names. Selecting a Job like that leads to distrust when meeting new people, and even discrimination when choosing Quests.

No one wanted a Thief to retrieve lost goods, to protect valuable cargo, and no one wanted to explore a Dungeon with a Thief.

Disregarding the social difficulty, a normal person took between ten and twenty years to max level a Job, mostly because later levels stagnated and it was disheartening to not see any progress.

When most people meet a wall in their development, they slow down and struggle to advance for a while before giving up.

Rudeus had taken note of the warning to heart, that even if he couldn't see his progress, he was still getting better. He didn't want to play out the fate of giving up his effort again.

Back on topic, a LV60 Assassin would be an experienced fighter with incredible skill, not someone who got shocked at a comrade's death and then died to a spell from a child.

'So then what? Level boosting?'

Rumors had been circulating for a while now that some newbies were leveling up faster than their abilities would allow. The drunk Adventurer he heard this rumor from, claimed that they heard about someone using Goblin farm.

As one would expect from the name, a Goblin farm was a monster nest that was managed by a human and it was made for producing Goblins.

Then some Goblins would then have their limbs carefully removed before someone else dealt the final blow for the experience.

The worst part about farms like that, was the breeding. As in to produce Goblins, women would be held captive, drugged, and then forced to produce monsters until they were eaten or killed.

There wasn't much credibility to the drunken ramblings, mostly because it had been old men who were in a rut complaining about the younger generation.

If something like that was happening, the Adventurers Guild would've gotten evolved, though maybe the recent events going on in the world were allowing this soft of discreet crime to go unnoticed by busy eyes.

Anyway, while he had been searching for the Status Card, Rudeus had also found something else: a small glistening orb, a Skill Crystal.

When a person died, their soul left their body, certain circumstances could result in undead monsters, but regardless, when a soul departed, there was a chance of it dropping a Skill Crystal.

Skill Crystals, as the names suggest, were crystallized skills about the size of a marble. The chance of it dropping was about on rarity higher than what the skill was and the level was reset to one.

So a Common Skill, 1 out of 10 people on average having that skill, had an Uncommon drop rate chance of 1 in 100.

If one did drop, then it was mostly sold off for a large amount of money. There wasn't a way for a layman to determine the rarity of a Skill Crystal, and getting appraised wouldn't be worth the cost if it was a Common Skill.

Companies bought in bulk unidentified Skill Crystal, so even if they got a batch of duds, they would make up for that loss by playing the long game. As they steadily got lucky overtime.

It was mostly sold off because the other uses were unreliable unless there were backups.

The most important uses of Skill Crystals were ingesting it and acquiring that skill, or infusing it into various equipment or items. However, the chance of successfully acquiring or infusing a skill was another rarity rank higher.

So a Common Skill, 1 in 10, had a Rare, 1 in 1,000, success rate chance.

Overall, most people didn't bother taking the risk and just sold them for money, then the people who bought them would eventually succeed after they wasted enough money.

'I probably wouldn't get a good price for this by itself, so I might as well.'

A new skill would be nice, but he wouldn't bitch if it failed. It was a matter of chance, he wouldn't be to blame if it failed. He gotten the Skill Crystal by chance, so he wouldn't actually be losing anything if it failed, he could just pretend it never existed in the first place.

Rudeus popped the shining orb into his mouth and swallowed. It slid down his esophagus like a warm lead ball.

The skills the Assassin had could be broken down as this.

Common: Dagger Proficiency, Kin Slayer.

Uncommon: Stealth, Lock Picking, Trap Detection.

Rare: Concealment, Assassinate.

He could only hope the crystal didn't have a Job locked skill.

Some skills prerequisite was simply having the Job, that was the reason people suddenly gained skills during a Job change, they already had the skill proficiency but lacked having the right Job.

Since he was technically already registered as an Adventurer, though some red tape prevented him from Questioning until he turned of age, he could check into the Guild Library and read some books for a fee.

He had done a bit of research on Skills in his spare time.

His Magic Affinity skill was a bit more special than he first realized, it did slightly decrease the cost of spells and slightly increase his Mana regen, but most importantly: it allowed him to learn magic related Skills.

If he didn't have this skill, he would need to wait until he got a magic related Job before learning any magic related skills.

Of the Mages, most of them were nobility or at least the children of parents who could afford a magical education. Commoners, peasants, normal people just couldn't become a Mage unless they were extremely lucky or gifted.

'Hmm? Wait, if some skills were Job locked, and some had various prerequisites, then shouldn't that mean someone couldn't learn a skill that they couldn't already learn?'

If a person met all the requirements to acquire a skill from a Skill Crystal, then shouldn't that mean they didn't need the Skill Crystal to acquire the skill.

'What? Does this only save you a few years of effort?'

As he was lost in thought, questioning the process, his body suddenly felt hot. A wave of heat, of energy, swam through his flesh, and then knowledge slammed into his brain.

Stumbling backwards as he almost blacked out, he steady his feet as he unraveled what he just learned.

The Concealment Skill allowed the skill user to conceal their magical presence and information.

'What? No way…'

With a hazy head, Rudeus pulled out his own Status Card and tapped the gem in the corner. With a small shine, glowing white words appeared on the surface.

[Name: Rudeus Latreia - Race: Human - Job: None LV0]

[HP: 180/180 - SP: 106/160 - MP: 311/852]

[STR: 28 - AGI: 25 - CON: 17 - MGI: 44 - LUK: 30]

[Skills: Basic Healing Magic LV2 - Basic Elemental Magic LV3 - Concealment LV1 - Magic Affinity LV2 - Mana Capacity Growth LV2 - Mana Control LV2 - Sense Mana LV2]

The first thing he noticed was his SP and MP, his eyes went there on a reflex.

He had been training during spell casting to lower the amount of Mana he used and he had been mostly sword training for a year, so his Mana Capacity Growth had slowed down.

Earlier today he had used Healing, and on the way here he had used a basic Water spell to unclog a sewer path, then he wasted Mana on an inefficient miscast. After that he used one quick Flame Spear, two fast Earth Spears, and one short Water Ball.

He technically used seven spells, and now he was below half his Mana Cap, sure he had used extra Mana to make his spells more powerful and faster, but that didn't really matter.

There were three things that needed to change, he needed to get better at using minimal amounts of Mana for small spells, to improve his Mana efficiency when using strong spells, and he needed to increase his Mana Cap.

Rudeus shook his dizzy head, that wasn't what was important at the moment.

Right there, on his Status Card, was Concealment. From what he remembered, that skill was supposed to be Job locked to Assassin. But somehow against all the odds, he acquired it.

Blinking his eyes to make use he wasn't hallucinating, reality didn't change. A hesitant finger tapped on the word of the skill on his card, it vanished along with some SP and MP.

He tapped on his other skills, and they disappeared as well.

Another tap brought them back.