Barely holding back from looking through the options, I return to the hideout together with the two girls. Lily leaves to continue restoring her hand, and Tess goes to deal with some peopley stuff. Like the freeloader I am, I move to the corner of the hideout/cave and finally scroll through the notifications.

I really want to check the body upgrade and when I open it, the notification pops out:

Level 100 status reached. This signifies a further evolution in human potential.

A necessary body upgrade is pending, designed to withstand the rigors of heightened strength, dexterity, mana, and constitution.

The upgrade will prepare your body, heart, and brain for the execution of higher-leveled skills and support stronger passive abilities.

Note: Following the upgrade, your body's requirements for sleep, food, and water will diminish due to the robust support of stats and mana.

Well done!

Oh my my. Does it mean what I think it means? It does, doesn't it?

More mana is on the menu!

Well, it never left the plate, not even talking about the menu, but that's not what I mean.

I check the upgrade a few more times, as well as my body, and don't notice any change as of now. The system says it's a pending upgrade, so maybe it's a slower process that will be applied over time, further evolving my body? What's the difference between this and just upgrading stats?

From the looks of it, something needs to be done for the body to not crumble under all these stats. But isn't constitution doing something similar?

It also talks about upgrading the brain, heart, and body, so it's something that will show, or is it just something that needs to happen, otherwise higher-leveled skills would fry my brain, stop my heart, and crumble my body? That sounds like the main reason for the upgrade.

Another nice bonus is less water, sleep, and food. I already noticed it in other people, but even though logically our bodies should require more food and water than before, they are still somewhat fine? Is this mana keeping the body going, or can even stats have such effects? Something to think about.

Overall, it's nice, amazing reward fitting for reaching level one hundred.

But now, back to the most interesting part! Skill upgrades!

Congratulations, you have acquired a skill upgrade token. The offered options are based on your performance up until now within the tutorial. Choose carefully!

As I thought, there are options for only two skills.

Focus (Dual Focus)

Enhanced Dual Focus: Sharpen your abilities and enhance the efficiency of your dual focus. This upgrade increases the effectiveness of your multitasking, allowing each action to be performed with even greater proficiency.

Triple Focus: Push the boundaries of your mental prowess to focus on three tasks simultaneously. This builds on your Dual Focus skill, adding another layer of complexity and power.

Dual Focus Consolidation: Learn to consolidate your dual focuses, channeling them into a single, more powerful force when needed. This can help amplify the power and precision of your tasks, especially when executing complex maneuvers.

Dual Focus Overclocking: Push your cognitive boundaries to temporarily amplify the output of your Dual Focus, increasing its efficiency and effectiveness to an extraordinary degree for a short period.

Mana Manipulation (Advanced Mana Manipulation)

Expert Mana Manipulation: Extend your understanding of mana to refine your manipulation techniques. This upgrade allows for an even more precise control and intricate shaping of magical energies.

Mana Sculpting: Further improve your control over mana to form detailed and intricate constructs of magic. This extends your Advanced Mana Manipulation skills, allowing you to perform elaborate magical feats with a high level of precision.

Mana Imprinting: Learn to leave your unique imprint on mana you have manipulated. This can be used for tracking, marking territory, or creating unique temporary magical constructs recognizable only by you.

Mana Veiling: Perfect the art of concealing your mana, making your magical presence less detectable to others. This can be useful in evading mana sensors or hiding your magical abilities.

As expected, all the upgrades sound amazing.

For [Focus], I can improve on my current upgrade, making it much stronger. I can even go for triple [Focus], which, not gonna lie, sounds super useful. Overclocking is also something situational but super strong. It probably allows me to overclock the skill for a short moment, making it stronger than ever before.

On the other side, Consolidation sounds the weakest out of all of them. It only allows me to turn the dual focus into a single one. It's not bad at all, but it just doesn't strengthen the existing [Focus] and only allows them to combine.

It's something I think I might need, and even if it will be weaker than the other upgrades, in the future, when I get another opportunity to upgrade the skill, it might allow me to get on the right track.

As always, my bad decision comes back to kick me in the ass.

[Mana Manipulation] is also something I would want. Expert Manipulation? Gimme! Sculpting? That would boost my abilities with [Armament] even further, and I can't even imagine how powerful the skill can be if I'm not even using it to its fullest potential right now.

Imprinting? Interesting, maybe something to do with [Mana Infusion] and allowing me to infuse it into items or maybe into the air, leaving behind something like a temporary construct? This one sounds good, like really good, but can't I also learn it on my own? I think I can.

So thank you for the hint, system! I still hate you, but it's nice to learn a thing or two from descriptions since you are so tight-lipped all the time.

Mana Veiling is nice, but it's not something that I would exactly need. What am I, a rogue? I'd rather obliterate my enemies than hide.

Oh, I did jinx it, didn't I? I'm sure I'll pay for that sentence.

Dang it.

But yeah, back to the skill. I already know what I need to pick; it's just that I'm too weak to do it. So let's ignore it for a bit; it might solve itself if I ignore it for long enough.

Tess has already left to deal with some people, and I keep sitting in the furthest corner of the hideout, practicing and observing others, without being bothered. I kind of like it being like this.

I let them deal with people, food stuff, water stuff, and making plans. If everything goes well, there is no need for me to step in.

Leech? Freeloader? Totally not!

In case any monster appears, they just need to point at it, and I'll tear it apart! Problem with Cipher? The guy is careful around me; just a few words are enough. Natives being annoying? I'll tell Biscuit to calm them down.

Actually, am I not the leader here? But that's job for extroverts. I'm the shadow eminence, whispering the words from behind the throne. It's kind of give and take. I take a lot, but I also allow them to come to me and ask for reasonable things in exchange. Almost like the Divine Beasts natives talked about.

In the end, me and Biscuit are not that different; it's just that he is much more terrifying. He still can't fully ignore my [Disruption], but he is getting close, so I use it sparingly. The doggo, as if knowing all of this, continues to tease me by walking on his big human mana arms, like a spider, with his short legs hanging in the air.

He knows that I hate it, so he challenges me to use my skill against him so he can learn how to counter it. Probably to be able to get more food or something.

Once again, I'm reminded that the world belongs to animal archmages.

"Hello," Lily's soft voice sounds, and she sits next to me. Noticing my glance at her hand, she lifts it up, her palm nearly restored, with only the fingers missing.

"I still don't get how you could continue to move around and fight with an arm missing. It's so much harder to control mana like this," she continues while looking down at her arm. The same as mine, it's also strikingly pale and without any hair or blemishes.

"It's good practice," I answer her, and I mean it. It did help me improve a lot.

She moves a bit closer; this time, she looks at my hand and puts hers next to it. Both of them have the same paleness. Both of them restored by the girl. Lily smiles as if something made her happy.

"You and your practicing, don't you get tired of it?"

Hmm, do I get tired of it? I don't think so. I might complain, but... "It's fun," I say.

She nods and then her hand moves through her long black hair; she seemingly tries to tie it with a single hand. Why won't she just cut it? Long hair must be so annoying here. I continue to watch her for a bit and then sigh, taking another look at her missing fingers.

"Come here," I gesture to her, and for a moment, she looks startled. "Come on, with your back to me," I hurry her up, and she finally moves with her back to me. She looks so small, so weak, yet I saw the determination in her eyes as she fought.

I take a second to remember and then start tying her hair into a three-strand braid. I think that's what Victoria used to call it. First, I carefully split the hair into three sections and then start crossing them over and into the middle, and continue from there.

I do it slowly, delicately, careful not to pull her hair, and make sure to make it neat.

"Lily, you know, I'm not stupid. You could ask other girls to do it, but then started acting off in front of me," I know she knew I would do that. Somehow, I'm getting easier to read for some people. What am I doing wrong?

"Hehe, was I caught?" she giggles, with some happiness clear in her voice.

It annoys me slightly, so I stop for a moment and gently slap the back of her head, "Stupid girl."

"I'm not stupid!"

"Only a stupid girl would sacrifice her..."

"Sacrifice her arm for some maniac stranger," she jumps in. "You keep saying that all the time!"

"Because it's true." I know I'm right! And I'll continue to repeat it until the end!

Well, it's not like I'm not stupid either. I have already decided to go and hunt the Undead Aberrant Deer, the two-question mark monster we encountered last night. That might be a bit worse, just a little bit, right?