It might have been a mistake in the end. Breaking the cage was straightforward. It was the pain that came after which caused him a bit of regret. The ability had been locked away by essence, like a blood clot.

He didn't know what the system planned, but it did not seem like any of its plans involved ever letting the locked skill free. So then what about his racial ability that had been on the verge of mutating but froze in the process? It was an E rank ability, and he was still F ranked, so there was that, but still. He needed that ability for Sam's plan.

He shook himself, realizing he was just trying his best to stall the process. He let the soul pain he was sure he would be feeling again envelope him. It was such a feat.

"I know I'm kind of tolerant to pain, and no, that does not mean I'm a masochist. Still, what in the void gave Sam the idea I could tolerate something like this, huh? And her procedure should take a whole lot longer too, shit!"

He was talking to try and take his attention away from the pain tearing his soul apart. This time the trial had not dallied with providing him the required energy.

Rafe started to smile as the pain subsided, knowing the worst of it was over. All that was left would be to check on the numerous notifications he'd no doubt received.

He wanted to look at his soul first though, trying to see the shiny new toy he'd received from a higher than legendary ranked skill combining with his new skill. That was when he noticed something still happening. His least leveled skill, Appraisal, as far as he could tell was being dismantled right there and then.

"That can't be good," he said, because he'd gone through something similar twice before now, and because he knew how hard it was to modify a skill that had been settled for weeks now.

The skill hadn't even leveled once. The last of its structure was torn out and Rafe grit his teeth in preparation to scream. Nothing happened. Rafe opened his eyes slowly and started to look around the safe room he'd been sitting in.

He hadn't noticed the darkness had long receded, leaving a normal safe room like the others he'd been in before. He was sitting cross legged on a mat he didn't remember having seen before. He frowned at the few chairs and tables in the room. There was no food this time. No magical garden to cure his mind. The previous room hadn't been as bad as the aura training one, but still—

As sudden as a muscle cramp but a thousand times more painful, the wound started to claw at him, threatening his consciousness. There was a hole in his soul. The essence that made up the old skill moved towards the new skill he had somehow collected. Rafe watched the process, trying to work through the pain.

He kept telling himself he'd been through worse but physical pain and the pain of the soul were two very different ball games all told. He wondered how Liam had handled this. Thinking about Liam had him thinking about Sam and her plan.

Liam tore his soul into seven fragments. When he'd finished sewing seven different curtains, well there was a lot of space between the seven souls. That space was Liam's soul space, and he had used it to store weapons and the like for some time. That was until the space had grown naturally over time, and Liam had named it his Soul vault. It was perhaps the origin of storage skills billions of years before the system era.

A few thousand years later, Sam had gotten a simple storage skill through happenstance. Still, she had modified it to work with her natural shadow affinity. Now, according to Sam's plan, Rafe had a void affinity, nascent though it was.

Still, Rafe knew her plan hinged on him injuring his soul a bit. There was a lot of trust there. But in order to see the soul space Liam had seen in his day, Rafe needed to tear the curtain a bit, so to speak. In this moment the curtain was torn, in the little space the skill structure of his Appraisal had been.

He saw the wound close up faster than any physical wound would have even after the system. Still, he had seen enough to reevaluate his plans. Was it going to hurt? Sure. Was he going to do it anyway? Obviously. What did it matter a little pain? Well more than a little to be honest, but Rafe was of the belief that pain built character.

Getting used to the feeling now could help him out in the future. If his life was a story, some of the readers or listeners would have laughed at the times he'd tortured himself, calling him a pervert or deviant. Well wouldn't they have gotten embarrassed when they heard he'd climbed a cliff with basically only one functioning arm. He'd been able to forget the pain of a burnt to crisp body. Torture was nothing to him anymore.

'Ding' You have learnt the skill Identify, you will be able to—

The ability, Spell breaker is reacting. If you do not provide sufficient energy your life force —

Sufficient energy has been provided.

You are merging the skills Spell breaker and identify.

A new skill has been created.

A new achievement…

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Override: Achievement system not available.

A special quest has been completed. (Note that all noteworthy achievements henceforth will be awarded as special quests because the user lacks the achievement and title systems.)

Rewards: 10000 quest points, 1000 E-grade credits, 5 free stat points.

You have created the skill status—

Your skill Appraisal is reacting.

Please provide sufficient ener…

Sufficient energy has been provided.

A new skill has been created.

A special quest has been completed.

Rewards: 10,000 quest points, 1 D-grade credit, epic ranked armour keeper.

You have created the skill status display (ancient lvl. 1). You can peer through the veil. You will get an insight into the status of anyone and anything you see. Functionality increases with increase in intelligence and perception.

Rafe studied the description of his latest skills. An ancient rarity skill. He gulped. He could hardly use epic rarity skills. And then there was the second stat it scaled with. Another hidden stat? It appeared having it on a skill description wasn't the way to unlock it. That made sense. After all , he hadn't unlocked Willpower yet.

He shrugged the questions off for now. He had a new skill and he needed to test it out anyway.

There were no people to test it out on, but he did have his equipment. He opened his eyes to find that he was currently naked and sweating like a pig.

He frowned as he looked around, finding his white robes folded neatly and placed next to his other equipment. Everything had been destroyed in his battle with the calamity beast and now everything was back in one piece. The quest system, if everyone didn't have one naturally, was a god send.

He frowned when he noticed two shining golden earrings he had honestly forgotten about. The first prize he'd ever received from the quest system. A prize that had seemed like a cheap joke at the time.

Yes, he still didn't know why the quest system was giving him quest points or credits. Or what they did. But aside from those two, most of his rewards had been very useful. From the weapons to the Appraisal skill to the potions it gave him occasionally. Although the potions only seemed like something he got from completing room objectives.

Still, he decided to use his new skill on the earrings.

Name: Golden earrings of the Dawn.

Type: Soul bound(growth)equipment.

Skill: No one can see my level.

Created by the system, these accessories will hide the true level of their wearer, displaying the level the user had when they first equipped them.

Rafe found it hard to not just crash the damn things then and there. Still, he controlled himself. It was definitely not worth it. He had a skill gifted to him by a god that he could literally control to show whatever level he wanted. Why had the damn system cheated him?

Sure, Andragoth had been right to suggest his skill wouldn't be infallible. But even if his skill failed, why would he equip these gaudy things? They were just—

Rafe abruptly remembered the whole thing about special quests and something about an epic ranked armour keeper he had received. Only there was no armour lying around and waiting for him when he looked.

"That's odd," he said and he opened his status screen to check. "There should definitely be—"

He noticed something he hadn't seen there before. A necklace.

He started to groan as he went to grab it. "Why do you hate me you damn system?"

It wasn't as bad as he'd feared though. It was actually great. It was a silver chain, the links small and so intricate it was hard to see from afar. It looked like one of those shiny things delinquents liked to own. And then there was the jewel at the forefront. A black thing with an amethyst eye.

Unbidden his racial ability activated and he saw that whatever the magical core was, it was concentrated on this amethyst. It was a vibrant core of blue essence —shifted from its natural fiery appearance to more easily fit in with whatever element the crafter was using. Then there were the scripts floating around the essence core.

As far as Rafe could tell, this was how skills in his soul looked. Well, there was the difference that this core thing was bigger and probably had more runes than his skills did, but there was enough of a similarity he felt comfortable making the comparison.

Name: Armor Echo

Type: Soul bound equipment

Skill: Portable wardrobe

The equipment has a spacial magic enchantment that allows it to store clothing. The specs, materials and enchantments used on different clothes are interchangeable as well.

You currently have one F-ranked rare light chain mail armour.

Specs: +20 defense, +5 speed, +1 offense, + 2 agi, +1 end.

Enchantments: Emergency force barrier. Activates a force barrier to deflect physical damage when charged with mana.

"Hmm?" Rafe wondered out loud.

He was receiving much more information than before when he used only the appraisal skill. An F-ranked rare armour. He thought he at least knew why it was epic. Equipment improving stats directly had been hard to come by as far as he could remember. And then there was that enchantment it possessed. He believed it was perhaps inspired by the natural reactive force field that warriors possessed.

Mages didn't have one as far as he could tell. Or at least mages in the F-rank didn't. But they did have a lot of mana. And so did he. And he didn't even ever use his mana.

He put the necklace aside to study later, choosing to focus on the book with a footwork technique he'd received as a reward from the previous floor.

He went to activate his skill but then a terrible headache stopped his experimenting.

"That can't be good," he said as he pulled up his red flushing status screen.

Mana: 0/ 220.

There was something wet flowing down his left cheek. It was then Rafe remembered he could hardly use epic rarity skills. He was lucky this one didn't control his mood or something like that. It only affected his brain. Maybe melting a few neurons. So, so much better.

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