Hot breaths escaped from Zeke's lips, his eyes closed from the pain and soreness that was coming at him in waves.

That was the most intense sparring he had ever done, and that was even with Tir's aid in supplying mental power for his spellcasting.

His back was on the ground, slicked with sweat and trickles of blood from the many, many cuts he endured throughout the spar, and by his side was his sparring partner and girlfriend–the current winner of their bout.

Despite all of his capabilities, he just wasn't able to close the gap between himself and Mikella. The way she kept going and going despite running on empty was too damn much. He knew the differences between a combat-class and a crafter-class were wide, but he really thought he could come in clutch with the use of his constant spell-casting and buffs supporting him.

Unfortunately, that wasn't able to beat Mikella's sheer tenacity to not lose. Still, he gave her one hell of a fight, so he was proud of that.

Though, that was just in his head. Truth was that they both ran out of energy and just dropped to the ground, exhausted beyond belief. But at that last moment, Zeke received an injury that finally tapped out his mana reserves, so he considered that a loss. On the other hand, Mikella probably had enough energy for one final shot, but figuring that he was down and out, she dropped alongside him.

He could hear the roar of the crowd that watched their fight, the otherworlders losing their shit over at the incredible fight they had. He hoped that at least Tigger and Clara watched the fight. He liked the idea of impressing the kids with such a fight, giving them hope that they can protect them from any threats.

He felt people approaching, being none other than Lyle and Janet who came over to check on their status. Zeke nodded to Lyle's questioning gaze, and Janet came over with a rueful shrug.

"Both are good. Just super tired," Janet reported.

"Need any potions?" Lyle asked.

"Ahh… guh…" Zeke groaned. "Potions are good… ugh… but give me a minute."

If he drank a potion right now, he might throw it up from how his stomach was constantly in flux. He put his Meditation on full blast and it was still not doing enough. Lyle understood that completely as everyone settled back to relaxing and gushing over how the fight went.

Zeke noticed that he had plenty of notifications flashing, but he put that aside for later. Tir wasn't keeping them down this time, so he was ready to accept everything. Just not now.

"Mikky, you mind explaining what the fuck was that?" Janet asked as the two finally got enough energy to lift themselves up. "You cloned yourself! Was that some new skill or something?"

Zeke was also desperate to know how that happened. He almost lost the entire fight thanks to that crazy tactic of hers. When Mikella finally gained enough breathing room to talk, she spoke with giddiness.

"Tir helped me out on using Warp Jump. I figured if I can use the teleports by going to every single spell and breaking them, I can get away easily."

"Wouldn't it be better to just warp away?" Lyle asked. That was something Zeke planned. He expected her to warp away, so he had made the spells with a homing feature to go after her at any cost.

"I knew this asshole was going to ambush me with some weird spell to hit me right after I warp, so that's why I had Tir warp me to the other spells instead. I just didn't expect Tir to actually teleport me to all those spells at once. I felt like I got split apart, but it worked…"

Zeke turned to the traitorous pup in his vision, raising a brow at him. To him alone, Tir replied.

"I thought about the most effective way for her to use her Warp Jump for combat. It took a bit more mana and stamina, but I got her mind to split with her skill and separated parts of herself to every spell. It wasn't really cloning, but more like partitions of her power. The bodies that cut the spells weren't real, but illusions of sort based entirely on her kinetic energies."

"You mean you split her up with stamina and using mana to teleport her?"

"Considering how complex the skill was when it comes to spatial changes, it was possible. It just took a crazy amount of thinking to pull it off."

"I see that now…"

He never even thought about being able to split yourself apart with a teleport skill. Certainly that sounded possible, considering her body disappears from one spot of a realm to another in a separate plane, but he normally thought that would actually split the body and kill the person using it.

He supposed using a big brain can actually do anything once you had enough resources to pull it off.

He went ahead to read the notifications, knowing full well that he increased his skill levels again.

Familiar Construct Level Up! He is now Level 32. -Increased Familiar connection. -Increased stats based on Familiar Construct's activities. -Increased mental capacity.

This much was obvious. Thanks to Mikella's exploits, Tir had only gotten stronger, which was probably possible for the incredible ability to expand the skill in a way he didn't think about. The fact that Mikella can help in Tir's development also showed some good news.

Mana Weave Level Up! It is now Level 4.

You have gained +2 INT (x3) from your skill. You have gained +2 SPI (x3) from your skill.

…..

Kinetic Manipulation Level Up! It is now Level 8.

You have gained +2 DEX (x2) from your skill. You have gained +1 END (x2) from your skill.

…..

Unarmed Mastery Level Up! It is now Level 10 (Maxed).

You have gained +2 STR (x2) from your skill. You have gained +1 DEX (x2) from your skill.

Unarmed Mastery has been maxed. Bonuses are now applied:

-Increased unarmed damage

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. -Attained new stances -Evolution available -Advancement available

…..

Pain Resistance Level Up! It is now Level 9.

You have gained +2 VIT (x2) from your skill. You have gained +1 END (x2) from your skill.

…..

Mythril Bastion Level Up! It is now Level 4.

You have gained +2 INT from your skill. You have gained +3 SPI from your skill.

…..

Restoration Level Up! It is now Level 4.

You have gained +2 INT from your skill. You have gained +3 SPI from your skill.

…..

Rune Printer Level Up! It is now Level 4.

Decreased Mana consumption (x3). Increased Rune recollection speed and potency (x3).

Good gains all around, if he had any say. The biggest surprise was Unarmed Mastery max level. He hadn't really focused on that one to improve, mostly using it as a stress-reliever of sorts and just preferring it over using weapons.

Surprising enough, however, is that he gained something outside the usual.

"What are stances?"

"Whatchu got?"

Mikella asked, eagerly going over to his side with interest. She also must have gotten tons of improvements, but focused on Zeke for now after his question.

"I got some new stances after my Unarmed Mastery maxed out. And I can evolve it too," Zeke asked, which only surprised the three of them.

"You can evolve it?" Lyle asked. "I thought Mastery skills don't evolve or something."

"They do, but only when they reach a milestone," Janet asked, turning to Zeke. "What options do you have?"

Zeke decided to do that, seeing as how everyone was waiting for him to pull it up to see for himself.

But instead of choosing an evolution, he got something more surprising instead.

Unarmed Mastery has reached perfect synergy with the runes made by Battle Runecraft based on body enhancement. Due to this, Unarmed Mastery has mutated into a new skill, taking in the rune patterns that had affected its growth.

Unarmed Mastery has mutated and evolved into Mystic Form Mastery.

…..

Mystic Form Mastery (Epic), Level 1 A new form of fighting style crafted by a Runist who prefers to fight with his fists. For every situation, you make a stance for precisely the occasion. Mystic Form Mastery relies not just on physical might, but magical might as well. Whether it be physical, magical, speed, or resilience, everything will be increased according to the level of the skill and the current stats across the board.

Zeke had to take a double take. Just in case, he asked Tir if what he read was true. And right before he could even remark on this, the three surrounding him stood up in alarm.

"Zeke, your tattoos!"

"They're gone!"

"They just… vanished!"

Mikella, Lyle, and Janet remarked with awe and shock as he looked at his own torn-up body. They were right–the tattoos that he had painstakingly made by his own pen and aided by Cloud before leaving Eve Glade were gradually disappearing, leaving nothing but a completely clean and toned skin behind.

He looked all over himself, peering under his shirt and lifting his pants, only to find every single tattoo he created completely gone.

"Zeke, what the hell happened?" Mikella asked. "Are you okay?"

Rather than starting to panic, Zeke faced the group with a nod.

"Y-Yeah, I just… I just got a really weird skill."

…..

After the whole debacle with his tattoos disappearing, Cloud and Val stepped forth. Ceru, of course, went with the otherworlders to keep up with the facade of being a part of them, but Zeke would probably have to explain what happened to her too. Not that he was forced to, but rather want to ask how this can happen.

After explaining his notifications, everyone stood gawking at him–except for Mikella who looked even more excited than she was fighting him.

"I knew you were special like Mikella, but you need to slow down–I'm having a hard time as it is trying to understand what Mikella did with her warping skill."

Cloud said earnestly, shaking his head while his hand laid on it. He really looked disheveled after hearing about Zeke's strange skill mutation.

"I never heard of a mutated skill before, but there are all kinds of ways a skill can transform," Val said. "But to take your rune tattoos for itself for growth? Are you truly fine, Zeke? You're not just saying that and are actually suffering?"

"I can't lie about it if I am suffering, Val," Zeke rolled his eyes. She tended to think that he was some sort of sacrificial martyr–and thanks to his personality, he can't really blame her for it.

"Yeah, I would spot it in an instant," Mikella commented, getting Val to nod in approval. "But forget that–what happened? Can you not buff yourself anymore?"

"Actually… I still think I can."

Zeke separated himself from the others, giving himself ample room to work with. Seeing this, the others backed away from Zeke as he closed his eyes.

With Tir by his side, he could feel the skill working in an entirely new way. It would've taken him a few days to figure this skill out, but he can tell now in an instant how it worked.

So he took in a stance that his Mystic Form Mastery made for him. It was a stance where he kept his center of balance low, his arms raised upwards and steadying his grip on the ground.

The first stance he would make every time he would start fighting. A stance where he is prepared to take on anything–a neutral stance of sorts to prepare himself for battle.

There, his exposed limbs started to glow with ephemeral runes cascading down his skin, creating the rune tattoos he created before–but this time they had evolved into something more. The runes were immaculate, completely different than how he wrote them before. They had meaning in a way that was different than before. He could tell in an instant that his body transformed in a way that only his rune buffs can do.

The following notifications showed that well.

Mystic Form Mastery has enhanced your stats. The following rune buffs are applied.

Then, just as easily, his rune buffs appeared according to what he needed. He knew that this stance allowed him to buff all of his stats according to his maximum Spirit stat, which was over a whopping 650 points now. He could have over 1,000 stat points now. Even more impressive, compared to his mana consumption by activating each rune buff in accordance to his situation, the amount of mana used to boost all of his stats were drastically reduced.

"This is totally broken," Zeke whispered. "I can have this all day and night and still have enough mana to spare."

He had other stances he could use as well. The thing was, he knew the rune buffs would apply themselves differently. But he could also tell that the rune buffs wouldn't be limited in any way.

So that only left the conclusion that the other stances outside of this neutral one would actually enhance his rune buffs outside of his expectations. It might even give more points on certain stats beyond what his Spirit stat can actually provide.

Once he put down the stance, his runes disappeared, leaving his body perfectly immaculate without a hint of tattoos on it now.

"Can't I actually make more rune tattoos now?" Zeke asked Tir in his head. "I couldn't add in more because of the limitations of the other rune buffs."

And even if he did, he was running out of available skin for him to draw on. He preferred not to tattoo his face or any other visible part that would be a bit too frightening to think about.

"I think you can!" Tir added. "The tattoos that came in aren't really real, so they won't be affected. Plus, I think it would make them cooler when you do!"

"Now that I can work with," Zeke said, completely at peace with being cooler.

Now that he thought about it further, couldn't he achieve another body series skill to replace his Enlightenment? If he did, wouldn't he have stood a better chance of fighting Mikella?

Those were all thoughts for later. For now, he recognized how much he had improved not just on his spell-casting thanks to Tir, but also thanks to his newly improved Mastery skill which now included his preferred stats.

After explaining all of that to the others, they got excited. Then by natural instinct, they all turned to Mikella.

"Alright, so what did you get?" Zeke asked. Out of everyone there, Zeke was the most interested of the bunch in her improvement.

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