--------- Keji ---------

  After the... 'Human' had left town, everyone had bothered him for every detail related to the "flying new born."

  He answered their questions the best he could but he did not know all that much about the strange creature. The fact it can kill such a rare monster, speak their language at all, wears some strange armor, the things it spoke of about it's species, and the fact it's a fucking infant worries him greatly.

  It had even memorized his name after a brief interaction the first day it showed up. He didn't even know if the thing had a name, but he wasn't about to try and name it. That would be telling the system he was adopting the creature.

  He had no plans on doing that. The thing had proved it could take care of itself just fine. To be honest, he had been worried about the Human wondering around in the forest. He could not leave his post to check on it though. He had his orders.

  By the state the skin was in, it was clear the Human would be fine even taking on the most dangerous of monsters. Monster skin doesn't just... rip the way it had done it. It was unnerving to say the least.

  What was even weirder about the Human is that it continued to bother him day in and day out. Either bragging about it's species--which most of it sounded like complete bullshit but he couldn't prove it was--or talking about random things.

  It would just show up and yap at him for a while before floating away. Without leaving any trace it had been there at all. Except from the few dents and scuffs on the ground but that had gradually stopped. The Human was learning how to fly quickly. Very quickly.

  If the Humans had infants like the thing bothering him, he didn't even want to know what they were like when they got older. The things it had said so off handily before leaving was absurd at the best of times, and down right horrifying at the worst.

  "Hey, you have a nice soul Keji. Try not to lose it."

  "I need to train my mana core some more. I've been neglecting it. Are there any spells in town for sale?"

  "My people have this function where we can see the planets surface from orbit at anytime we want."

  "You ever see the future? Or have glimpses of it? Time is so weird. I swear it stopped for me briefly at some point."

  "The veil is both thin and infinitely thick. Best not to poke it too much, or the ripples could attract attention."

  He had no fucking clue what any of that meant. It's obvious that the Humans are technologically advanced, but how far? His people were only barely above the Jipio in the grand scheme of things. They had reached the point where they finally sent something into space that didn't immediately burn up in the atmosphere. Comparing that to what was theorized and seen to exist in other societies was like comparing a thrown rock to a speeding bullet.

  Hell, even without tech the Human infant was already more powerful than himself. What kind of thing can just rip a monster apart with it's mind? It had taken damage sure, but there wasn't any blood.

  It seemed like the Human had a mana core if it was to be believed. A fucking mana core. The thing only found in monsters. For all he knew, that pretty much made it a monster. One no one he knew, and likely on the entire planet, could take down.

  He hadn't even seen any magic cast from the thing but he really didn't want to see it. It was stressful enough being the only one put in charge of the monster that talks.

  He sighed heavily as he got out of bed. Today was supposed to be his day off, but the Human had been coming to the wall every single day. No one wanted to go near it, and it always called for him.

  "Damn it..." He muttered as he got dressed. Really hoping it wouldn't come today.

  --------- Greg ---------

  It took a few days to finish my house. Only because it turned out I sucked major balls at building them. The first one collapsed when 2 walls were barely put up. Then the third fell when a tree I was cutting planks out of fell on it. The fourth just folded inward. Working on stations designed for the void? Easy. Making a house with nothing but rocks, wood, and no tools? I might as well just go back to living in a hole.

  But it had proven an effective distraction from the Dimensional Gate skill. He really needed to get over his fear if he wanted magic. 'What kind of isekai adventure doesn't have magic?' I told myself for what must've been the literal hundredth time as I sat in my poorly built house. The 'living room' was just an open space with a fire pit. It served as the kitchen as well, since he didn't feel like making a separate fire pit room. Then there was the 'bed room', which was just a corner he liked. His bed the rolled up left overs of leather from when he "fixed" his suit. Just a patch of leather sowed over the front.

  Today was the day though. Day 3 into his wild living and he was finally ready to train the spell. I walked through the sole door of the house, which was just an open hole in the wall. I stopped a good bit from my home, and sat on a big rock.

  "Alright. It's a spell, Greg. It can't hurt you. It's not even a real black hole. It just looks like one. It's how you'll get home eventually, so it's your friend and not your enemy." I muttered to myself as I breathed slowly and deliberately. Then cast the spell.

  My hands began to shake as it took form. The orb of darkness growing from an atom to about a basketball in less than a second, but to me it felt like an eternity. The spell requires me to put an exit point in order to create an entrance, so it was created the same instant. A white hole a few feet to the right of the black one formed at the exact same speed but I didn't notice it. All of my focus was on the black hole.

  What I didn't expect was how fast I began to calm down. My fear had lessened considerably from just watching it. There was no wind or anything being sucked into the entrance. It just sat there. Eating away at my mana and waiting.

  Then it was gone. My mana had depleted and it left without even a whisper. No damage to the ground where it showed up, no gravity well, nothing. It was here then it wasn't.

  'There is no way I should have gotten over it that fast. Does my EA skill work on my mental state too? What doesn't it change?' At first I was worried about how bad that sounded, then I didn't care anymore. It was helping me so I should just let it do it's thing. Was me not worrying about it the result of the skill in question? Probably. Do I care? No.

  My hands stopped shaking half way into the process but I still felt nervous. My mana regenerated as I had my thoughts. Deciding I was okay enough to keep going I cast it again.

  My fear of the skill vanished completely after observing the second one for a while. The second time I cast it, it did not go away. I assume it's my EA skill making my regeneration evolve to keep up with the "harsh environment." The skill truly seemed to have no real limit. I hadn't even needed to use the bathroom. So my organs are probably operating at a higher efficacy, rendering the need to dispose of waste irrelevant.

  'Humans have an extremely brief moment of living with out a heart. Either by it stopping, being removed, or however it ceased, the body continues it's processes for a few seconds. Could my EA skill allow my body to evolve in that brief time if I level it up some more? I could also get my health regeneration speed to increase to such a level that a lost limb or organ is replaced as soon as it's removed.' The idea of becoming immortal by just evolving faster than the damage can do lasting harm is... very tempting. I'm not going to hurt myself to do that though. I ain't emo.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Throwing any previous cautions I had to the wind, I get up and walk into the gate entrance. I screamed as I saw my form shift and twist just like it would in a normal black hole. It only lasts less than a second and I'm unfolded on the other side. I was still screaming as I reformed out of the white hole. My scream gradually died down as I stared at my hands. It hadn't hurt, and it was so fast it was pretty much one singular step.

  Turning around and feeling a bit embarrassed at the girly scream, I shoved that revived fear toward my EA skill. Letting do it's thing to the fear as I observe the completely harmless portals. I confirmed that by using them, and then waving my hand through the white hole to no effect.

  'So it really is only an exit. I can't go back through it.' The portals were like a 360 degree one way doorway. I enter whatever angle I want through the blackhole and I'll pop out the opposite side of the white hole.

  "Well that was anticlimactic." I say out loud like a dumb ass and just leave the spell running. The reason I just left it as is, is that I am curious to see what the system will do if it seems like my spell has infinite mana. Which it kind of does.

  As I walked away from the portal, I felt it run out of mana. 'Oh right it increases in cost the further I get from it.' I cast it again, but this time within 20 feet rather than the 10. The increased cost is what I wanted as the regen evolves again. It still runs out but it lasted longer this time. I keep doing the process over and over again until it remained active within 20 feet. Checking my regen rate for my mana though, I would not have enough for it to do that same at 30.

  "My regeneration cannot exceed my max of 6, and it's already at 5 per second. Which is still insanely fast. System, why is my regeneration so fast? Shouldn't it take longer than a second?"

  I waited for a bit but I didn't get a response. 'Alright now that is super weird. I know it's not a skill doing it either. It had been that way the whole time. The only thing that changed was the number per second.'

  I let it go as I realized it wasn't going to answer me. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It's just weird is all.

  After I ate that first meal, I hadn't felt hungry again. My organs must be really efficient now to have drawn enough energy out of that meat to not need anymore after 2 days. 'Or the monster was a higher level than I thought. Making the meat have a higher amount of energy.'

  Unfortunately, I was not able to finish all of the monsters meat so the stuff I didn't eat had gone bad yesterday. So I did what I do with all of my trash, and threw it in some random direction.

  And so time passed. I bothered Keji when I had inspiration for gaslighting and trained my mana along with my knife. Well I call it training but I was really just fucking around. Making my knife travel so fast it broke the sound barrier with every strike. I had learned that if I want something to accelerate faster, I put more mental hands on it. If I want more power or 'torque' I would increase the size of them. Doing both at the same time was exhausting but it proved quite effective.

  Many trees were destroyed in the process, but they just became firewood. A growing pile of which as I had not needed to use since I did not need warmth or light anymore. It was nice to have just in case though. I even thought about selling lumber for some quick cash. That was an idea for later though, as one week had finally passed.

  As dawn broke on the 8th day, ending the 7th night, a huge smile spread across my face.

  "Yeah I'm thinking I like the idea of more luck. I'm going to need it if I want to get good skills. Might as well go all the way." I put all 5 points into luck again.

  "Now show me the Skill Shop~!" My smile falters slightly as I feel a surge of complicated feelings.

  2 mundane and 2 absolutely absurd skills.

  "System, what is Eldritch Astral Projection?" I start at the top of the list.

  "Many species are able to send a soul projection out of their body. Some can only explore their home while others use it to traverse the universe. Yours is unique to you, thanks to your nature as a being from beyond the veil. You will be able to travel not just through the universe with your mind, but through the veil as well. However, the skill at level one will only allow local journeys."

  "Lame. Next." That was disappointing, but there was a few others that could be good.

  "Eldritch Energy Manipulation connects your reserves to the chaotic forces from beyond the known universe. Directly linking stamina and mana to the veil. This will allow you to exert the energy out of your body like a mana spring. Instead of the pure energies of a mana spring, yours will have an essence of horror. Making those who see it or feel it be repulsed by it's mere existence as it should not exist here. At level one, the skill will remove the stamina stat and mana stat all together as the only limitation is the strength of the link. Level one has a base of 30, level two is 60, and it continues to double."

  'Holy shit. I knew the Eldritch stuff would be good, but this basically replaces 2 of my stats to 30. My Telekinesis skill uses my stamina stat, so I could pretty much more than double my offensive power. Everyone already dislikes me or thinks I'm weird, so I might as well right?' I think about it and use one point on the skill. Nothing notable happens but that's fine, I'll experiment later.

  "Repair?" I prompt the next skill description.

  "Gives the user the spell 'Repair', or increases the users physical ability to repair. The spell will consume resources and mana to repair an object, losing some of the resource in the process. The physical variant will require tools but will not consume excess resources. Both variants also require the user to understand how the material is made and the components within it. The skill at higher levels reduces the amount of resource wasted, and tools needed respectively. While also requiring less details to be known about the object being repaired."

  'Damn that's good. I could probably fix my visor with that by using sand.' There's another point spent, just leaving me one more point and one more unknown.

  "Harvest?"

  "The same as the Repair skill, just about harvesting."

  'Alright that doesn't sound very useful. I don't really need that, so I'm going to boost my power again.' I put my last point into EEM. Making my stamina and mana stats 60. I still don't feel any different, so I bring up my status.

  I just stare at my screen for good few minutes. I had not expected my 2 'energy' stats to combine, thus giving me a whopping 120 points of energy I can use on both spells and physical stuff. Like Telekinesis. I was already pretty strong at 12 stamina points. Scratch that, I was absurdly strong at 12. I hadn't multiplied my power by 2 or 3. I had done it by 10.

  It had also combined both of my regeneration stats of the 2. Which means I should be able to increase it further by just straining myself again. 'How the hell am I going to strain anything with 120 points of energy?!' It was unlikely to happen anytime soon. Using all 120 points in rapid succession to try and get my regen to increase would be overkill. A lot of overkill.

  'But then again, just one of the trees had been enough to knock me on my ass. So it might not be as impossible as I thought. Nor quite as powerful.' It was still an incredible leap in power, but I wasn't going to be destroying mountains anytime soon. Just a small section of forest instead.

  With that realization, I calmed down some. I was just one step closer to Eldritch Godhood, not even a one thousandth of the way there. I had time though. Now I just had to check my new quests.