The rare thesaurus of the trillion traits floated into the air, lifting away from Ronan's hands. The heavy cover flipped open, landing horizontally on the air as if it were a solid surface. The first page followed suit, then in a very similar manner to the myriad skills tome, the rest of the pages started to flutter open.

There had been a moment where Ronan had expected using the item to fail, but as soon as it began, Ronan had confirmation that the first part of his theory was correct. He would need to die to find out if the second part also was, but first he needed to see what trait he received.

Unlike when he used the myriad skills tome, Ronan felt a sort of strange resonance from within his body. Almost like his blood began to race around his body faster, and his very cells were singing.

The description of the thesaurus did say 'accept your evolution,' he thought to himself. I guess it was more literal than I expected.

The book suddenly exploded into a shower of red and green light, which spiraled into the air and then rushed towards Ronan. It seeped into his body, and he tensed, expecting pain.

There was none.

Class infusions had left him a little traumatised, clearly. The light was all absorbed by his body, and he barely felt a thing. A notification appeared a moment later, and Ronan immediately began to read, excited to see what his new trait was.

The thesaurus has read the fibres of your being, and bestowed a suitable trait upon you! You have been awarded the mutative trait [Mineral Skeleton]

Mineral Skeleton (Rare): You are no longer content with an ordinary skeleton of collagen and calcium phosphate, but seek to enhance your natural frame. You can absorb foreign minerals into your skeleton, changing its properties in new and unique ways. Be warned, for not everything you absorb will do what you expect, and not all mutations are beneficial.

Despite the rather ominous warning that accompanied mineral skeleton, Ronan felt that it was a useful trait that would enhance his favoured combat style. He was most often a melee fighter, though he planned to vary that a little in the coming iterations to widen his skillset, so having tougher or perhaps more flexible bones would be exceptionally beneficial.

Martial artists used to smash their shins and elbows into trees or metal rods to toughen them up. This was simply taking that training to the next level, and incorporating the proverbial metal rod into the skeleton itself.

In all the excitement of receiving his second trait, Ronan had almost forgotten about the common items. He needed to make sure he used them before restarting the branch path.

It's a shame I need at least 5 skill upgrade shards to upgrade a skill… Ronan inwardly moaned. If only I had a spare brand of the temporal artificer. I have to use it for the experiment, instead. Oh well, simply knowing the shards exist is a useful piece of information for the future.

The elixir of insight was also a great find, but he doubted he would be able to earn enough insights in a single, short life to make it worth taking. Still, he would test it once to see what happened.

That left the legacy grimoire as the only usable common item he'd earned in the branch path, aside from the lucky bananas, which he'd get to enjoy quite a few times. He took it out, the book surprising him by being bound in a hard paper-like material, rather than leather.

There were no fancy effects. He simply opened the book, and a stream of memories and knowledge suddenly flew into his mind.

Most of it was garbled, and utterly useless. There was even a memory of the guy masturbating, which Ronan quickly pushed out of his mind and hoped his heritage would remove it to keep his mind intact… or whatever it did.

The one memory that was useful, however, was exceedingly so. It showed the former owner of the grimoire channeling mana into his hand and forming a mana bolt. Ronan had discarded it as just another useless memory, until the original owner of the memory spoke.

What he said changed everything Ronan knew about the system, and the powers it granted. Or apparently, didn't grant. The man had cast a mana bolt, and then said, "Finally! I cast a bolt without using the skill. Everything changes from here."

Unfortunately the memory ended there, and the grimoire had turned to specks of mana in the wind. Ronan cursed, but only gently. He would have plenty more opportunities to use the legacy grimoire on this branch path.

Now, with the matter of the items out of the way, there was just one more thing Ronan needed to do before finding a way to… end this loop. He didn't plan to take on Veloxis this time, as he had yet to finish his experiment.

Unfortunately, the elixir was pretty useless. He'd gained insights into mana mastery in the tutorial, so he had decided to attempt that with the elixir. It bolstered his comprehension, sure, but earning 4 points of mastery in four hours instead of 2 wasn't exactly… groundbreaking.

So, he decided he wouldn't bother with it for the rest of his time in the branch path. Instead, he would focus on the thesaurus of traits, the legacy grimoire, and of course, his experiment.

Something the boss had said stuck with Ronan. It had criticised him for killing foxes. It said it sent Vulparis to investigate. That meant that if he left the foxes alone… then all the nonsense with Lord Rockmore wouldn't have happened.

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Unfortunately living in peace with the animals is just what it sounds like. A fairy tale. I need to claim the sector pillar to save the world from this system, which means I have to kill the boss standing in my way, Ronan thought to himself, as he stared down at Vulparis the Trickster's corpse.

In this iteration, things had played out pretty much exactly the same as the last. With one small difference: killing the annoying fake aristocrat and the overgrown fox had been a little bit easier.

The rewards were identical, except this time the mini-boss didn't drop the Eye of the Trickster. It seemed that in order to make an item last through his deaths, brand of the temporal artificer removed it from the… normal timeline? I don't really get how a lot of this stuff works yet, Ronan thought while scratching his chin.

In any case, he wasn't after a drop from the boss. What he had been hoping to get again, and he had received upon killing Lord Rockmore, was the skillbound conduit ring.

The silver band of untold potential shone in the light of the moon as Ronan rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Lord Rockmore had used it to empower a magical skill, but Ronan felt that was lacking compared to what he had in mind.

He was going to use it to break the system.

It was his first, admittedly small, fuck you to the system that had barged in and turned life on Earth upside down. He was going to bind the class skill—learn through suffering—to the ring, and then brand the ring with the brand of the temporal artificer to make it persist through death.

There were a few ways it could end up working, or failing spectacularly, but Ronan was just interested to see what the outcome was. The best case scenario would be the skill remaining bound—and therefore not being purged from his status—upon his death.

Learn through suffering had been the main reason he'd defeated Lord Rockmore and Vulparis the Trickster. The skill was absurdly beneficial, even more so in his hands. However, he didn't want to be forced to take martial artist, and then adaptive martial artist, as his class in every damned iteration of his life.

Interestingly, the skillbound conduit ring would also empower learn through suffering. Ronan was almost salivating at the thought of how strong he might get if this worked. First though, he had to actually bind it.

In order to do so, he would need to sacrifice at least one of his other skills. This was where the choice became difficult, because there were two possible outcomes he could envision.

The first would result in the sacrificed skill remaining unusable even after his death and subsequent return to life. The second, which was undoubtedly the superior option and the one he was hoping might happen, would be that the sacrificial skills would get… flipped around somehow, and then he could use them again after he died once.

In any case, Ronan knew how to best approach the problem. He would simply bind the least useful skill he had as a sacrifice, and see what happened. If it remained unusable, then he wasn't missing out on much. If it became usable again… Well, he would simply bind every single skill he possessed to empower learn through suffering to an absurd level, and then die, making them all usable again.

He put on the ring, and when he sent his consciousness inside, a notification appeared.

Please select a skill to bind to the ring and empower…

Learn through suffering.

Learn through suffering (Rare) is a class-specific skill. If the skill is lost, the ring will no longer function, and there is a minor risk of soul damage. Continue?

Hmm… If the skill is lost? If this works in the way I think it does, then the skill should still be there even if I die. Ronan weighed the risks and rewards in his head for a few moments before continuing. In the end, he decided it was worth taking the risk, simply to find out if it was possible. Hopefully my heritage keeps me safe from the rough edges.

Learn through suffering (Rare) has been bound to the Skillbound Conduit Ring! Please select at least one skill to sacrifice to the ring…

Quick forage. The choice was immediate. He didn't need to worry about finding safe food in the wild. What was going to happen? Death by food poisoning? Uncomfortable, sure, but he'd just return to life a short while later.

Quick Forage (Common) has been selected as a sacrificial skill. Select another sacrificial skill?

No. Complete the binding.

[Quick Forage (Common)] has been sacrificed to empower and bind [Learn through suffering (Rare)]. Malus applied for rarity difference.

Using quick forage, Ronan tried to appraise a clump of moss that was currently fighting its way through a crack in the concrete floor, and felt a sort of mental block that prevented the skill from activating. It had worked.

He spun the ring between his fingers a few times, before slipping it onto the pointer finger of his right hand. It was almost a perfect fit. Snug enough that it wouldn't slip off in a fight, at the very least.

Having accomplished everything he needed to do in this iteration, Ronan prepared to end it. He still needed to figure out the results of both his experiments. It would determine not only what he did next, but might change the way he approached his entire… future?

Life?

He had been struggling to get to grips with his new existence. It was one continuous 'life,' in a strange way. Death was no longer the destination, it was just one of many stops along the way.

Ronan stood up and stretched. He walked onto the roof of the building that was often their headquarters, staring into the beautiful starlit sky. Then, he walked up to the edge of the tower, peering over the edge to the ruined streets below.

It didn't even scare him. Partly because even if he did die from the fall, it wouldn't be the end, but mostly because Ronan was almost certain the fall wouldn't even kill him. Stats were a hell of a thing, even when most of his were currently invested in luck.

Instead, he took the arcane needle out of his inventory. It was almost ironic that he would be killing himself with Lord Rockmore's weapon. Poetic, even.

He exhaled sharply, then jabbed the blade into his heart. When he saw he'd only lost two thirds of his health points, he sighed. The bleeding would kill him soon enough, but he was impatient. He wanted to know the results of his experiments.

Ronan ripped out the rapier, then thrust it into his throat. For a moment, he was plunged into endless darkness.

He expected to find himself in the endless white void of the Chronos Clan's ancestral grounds. When consciousness returned to Ronan, he looked around. "Huh. I can't say I expected that."

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