Shadow Monarch: Heroines Could Hear My Thoughts?!

Chapter 88- New Skills (Part 2)

The two then walked deeper inside the building. Rin kept looking around him, just admiring the architecture that went into creating this huge place. He was starting to question many things about this place. Mainly two things: the first was 'Why is this place so technologically more advanced than other places in this world?

To be clear, it wasn't very advanced compared to his old world for example. But, it was still impressive compared to Aviresion for example. Even the buildings seemed to be way better than the buildings he saw in the capital for example.

The second thing was 'Why is this place the only place that has these things?'. He assumed that the other kingdoms are the same as Aviresion since Elise did mention them briefly before and while they were stronger than Aviresion, they weren't that advanced.

'I think I'm just overthinking stuff. Since this place is the center of this world, I can see why it has more work put into it than other places.'

"We are here." Emilia's voice woke Rin up from his thoughts and made him look ahead of him.

There, he saw an open door that led to a huge yet enclosed dirt terrain. The place was circular in shape and very flat.

"Go warm up." She ordered Rin.

The black-haired young man nodded his head and quickly got ready with some light exercises and movements. Because of his incredibly flexible body, he didn't really need to warm up but just to be safe and to not get any unwanted muscle injuries because of an eccentric move, he did stretch up.

After that, he stood facing Emilia. The latter didn't say anything and merely looked up and down at Rin assessing him with her sharp eyes. For some reason, that gaze made Rin feel embarrassed as if he was standing naked in front of Emilia.

"I see… Your body isn't half-bad. Do you exercise regularly?"

"Yes."

"What kind of exercises are you doing?"

"Simple ones. Push-ups, squats, jogging, nothing new."

"Weird. That kind of training should not give these results. Take off your shirt."

Rin's eyes widened at her request and held his chest before turning to the side a little bit.

"What do you mean?" He said with a wary gaze.

"Sigh, just take off your shirt before I take it off myself," Emilia replied shortly, her eyes deadly serious.

"I understand."

After that, Rin took off his clothes and stood with his bare chest visible to Emilia. The latter approached him while looking at his torso thoroughly as if she was appreciating a piece of art. When she was close enough to Rin, she extended her arm and touched his chest gently before running her fingers across his muscly body.

"Amazing." She murmured with a thoughtful look on her gorgeous face.

"Mmm, master? I don't think this is appropriate, is it?"

"Shhh!" She silenced him and kept examining his body.

Rin felt his blood boiling and his heart rate was starting to increase in speed. But, for the sake of not turning his relationship with this woman into an awkward mess, he tried to keep his calm. But, that was easier said than done considering that the person he was getting touched by is an extremely seductive woman.

Just a mere glance at her body and he was already feeling himself losing control for a split second. However, luckily for him, she eventually stopped her examination.

"How is this even possible?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" Rin said as he quickly fetched his shirt and wore it again.

"Your body… how did you turn it like that?"

"I didn't do anything. I don't get what you are trying to say, master."

"Your body… It's perfect… Abnormally perfect. Every part of it, every muscle, and every bone are located so perfectly. That should be impossible." She adjusted her glasses a little bit as she continued.

"To put it into simple words, you have a body that was perfectly made for fighting and any physical exercise for that matter. I have never seen anything like this before." Her frown became even stronger.

'No human should have that physique. Not even close-range top-10 rankers have that kind of form. Who is this boy?'

Rin was even more confused than she was. He really didn't do anything major except for the training quests that the system suggested for him. They were effective and he did see the drastic change but he never really thought that it would be that impressive.

[It's normal, host. That's the effect of the stat points and training on your body.]

'How can you explain this perfect physique then?'

[The shadow monarch inheritance is changing you to become the perfect candidate for it. You still have some flaws that the inheritance is eliminating slowly.]

'I see…' Rin nodded his head.

Meanwhile, Emilia, who was oblivious to this conversation shook her head and calmed her raging thoughts.

"It is indeed very abnormal. But, that's good news… No, scratch that, that's great news. I can definitely make you absorb my training quickly and efficiently." Emilia's plan at first was to just teach him some things but nothing major since her plan was to just stay close to Rin and learn more about this world to evade any unwanted things from happening.

But, when she saw his incredible talent, a strong urge filled her mind. An urge to see where this young man could reach.

'To what level of strength can he rise? Maybe he could even become a top 10 ranked in the future. No, if he actually can absorb my training, he will definitely become a monster in the future.'

With that in mind, her training plan for him changed completely.

"What weapon do you use?"

"Dual daggers but I can also fight with one single dagger."

"Dual daggers? That's a weird choice. Wait…." Her eyes widened as she remember something.

After that, she looked at her arm with squirted eyes. A few seconds later, a scroll materialized in the palm of her hand. The scroll was thin and very old-looking from its yellow color and fragile-looking parts.

"I found this scroll a long time ago inside a dungeon. It's a Dagger technique of some sort."

"A dagger technique? What's that?"

"You don't know? Well, since most sword users in this world are clearly more disadvantageous compared to mages, fighting techniques were created to recompensate for that sheer difference between them. All weapons have techniques that teach the individual how to use the weapon to extreme efficiency. Since daggers are not that popular, their techniques are quite rare to stumble upon."

After that, she shifted her eyes to look at the scroll.

"This one is very weird, though. No matter how much I tried to comprehend the technique, I was unable to do so. That's why it has been gathering dust in my spatial storage for a long while now."

"What if I don't understand it?"

"No worries, I have other techniques. But, try this one first. Maybe you could comprehend it, who knows?"

Handing him the scroll, Rin opened it up very gently not to shred it by mistake. The words written inside looked blurry from the sheer time that passed on it. Along with those words, some pictures of a human form doing some moves while holding two daggers could be seen next to the old text.

Before Rin could even start reading the text and understand what it was all about. A notification popped in front of his face.

[New Skill detected!]

[Would you like to absorb it?]

'Wait, what?! I can absorb this skill without reading the content?' Rin blinked a few times.

[One of the perks of having me, host.]

'You are amazing, system!'

[Thanks for the compliment, host.]

'Absorb the skill.'

The moment he thought of that, he felt a weird sensation enveloping his brain. It wasn't painful but still felt quite weird. The sensation was akin to someone trying to shove information into Rin's brain forcefully.

A swarm of words and pictures of someone doing certain movements filled his head. But, even with all of that, he was somehow able to understand everything that entered his brain.

'This skill… How is this…' Rin was speechless when he saw what this skill was about.

[New skill added successfully: Formless Ghost Daggers!]

[Formless Ghost Daggers.]

[Rank: A]

[Level: 1]

[Daggers are the blades of assassination and the weapons of shadows. A mere swing could harvest souls and end lives. Formless as they are, they will be the ghosts of death that will never be seen.]

[Every time this skill is activated, your movement will become blurry for any opponent while also increasing your movement speed and strength for 10 seconds. The skill's cooldown is 10 minutes. The cooldown decreases as you level it up.]

'Ignoring the first part that meant absolutely nothing, the details of the skill are imùpressive. My movement becomes blurry?! That will be extremely useful against tough enemies.' Rin thought with a satisfied nod.

"So, can you understand it?" Emilia asked when she saw that Rin froze in his place.

"Yes, I learned it."

"..."

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