A young man with long golden-blonde hair similar to Soph's raised his hand. "Professor Rury, I have a subskill that I'd like to display."

Professor Ruairidh was used to having his name mispronounced, so he didn't act immaturely and simply nodded. "Please, step forward, Student Reinheart. Do you need time to activate this subskill and is it a magic-based subskill or does it stem from another type of skill?"

'Seriously?' Lone thought after hearing the boy's name. 'He's called 'Reinheart'? If that ain't the name of a hero, then what the fuck is?'

Quickly doing as he was told, Reinheart placed himself next to Professor Ruairidh and bowed his head politely as he faced the class. He then answered the teacher's question. "The subskill I possess is actually also a fusion skill. It is called 'Spirit of Light'. It takes aspects from the fire magic skill 'Fire Spirit' and adds them to the holy magic skill 'Spirit Reinforcement'."

The students exclaimed in awe and began whispering about Reinheart. Not only was it extraordinary to have an affinity for holy magic but it was also rare to have an affinity for fire magic and possess the natural talent to take parts of a completely different skill to create a fusion subskill, and that, well, that took true genius.

Reinheart smiled warmly, forced a blush to appear on a few of the faces of the human girls in the class before he added, "Essentially, the skill creates a spirit of light, which is somewhat obvious, but it also allows the spirit to grow on its own in the spirit dimension. As an additional effect, due to the fire magic influence, if I have the spirit summoned, then I passively gain the Fire Magic Resistance skill at beginner-level-5."

Professor Ruairidh nodded. "An impressive-sounding subskill. Please, if you would, display it for us now."

"Of course, Professor." Reinheart reached into his robes and pulled out an incredibly elegant pure-white wand.

He awkwardly scratched his cheek and confessed, "I only recently learned this skill, and while it isn't crude magic, for it to be properly cast I need to chant 50-lines of ancient magical text, even in spite of my wand."

Professor Ruairidh waved his hand dismissively. "That's fine. Go ahead."

Nodding and smiling, the handsome, young blonde-haired man closed his eyes and concentrated as he began chanting.

Lone nudged his elbow into the shoulder of the catkin man sat next to him. The guy looked to be in his early-20s and had two fluffy cat tails which were green just like his hair and ears.

Jumping in his seat out of fright, the man stared at Lone. "Uh, can I help you?"

Lone smiled and replied in a low voice. "Yes, you can. Is that Reinheart kid someone special? To have holy magic means he's been approached by the church, right? I'm just curious if he won the lottery of life or if he's, like, the son of a bishop or something."

The cat narrowed his eyes and wore a confused expression. "You... You're talking to me, right?"

Lone gave him a funny look. "No. I'm talking to your ancestor's soul that has been reborn and is sleeping inside of you," he said with a roll of his eyes.

"M-My ancestor?" the man wore a horrified expression.

Lone sighed heavily. "I was being sarcastic. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Could you please answer my question?"

"A nine-traits is actually talking to me..." It took him a moment, but the catkin slowly nodded. "Uh, Reinheart is the grandson of the archpope of the Church of the Primals, so, uh, he's already set to become an archbishop at the very least. He's, uh, he's only studying here because he has a good affinity for fire magic on top of his holy magic and healing magic affinities."

Lone slowly stroked his chin in thought. "Interesting... Thanks for the info."

"Um, I'm Milton. M-Milton Jadetail," the young man sheepishly introduced himself with an awkward smile.

Lone was a bit surprised by the guy's attitude, but he soon chuckled and replied, "Lone Immortus. It's a pleasure."

"L-Likewise," Milton replied with a bit of a blush. 'To think the scion of the beastkin would talk to me himself... I thought I was lucky enough just to have him sit next to me, but to ask me a question... Mum and Dad will never believe me...'

Unbeknownst to Lone, he had become something of an idol for many demis, but beastkin in particular were far more appreciative of him than the other species were.

There were a few reasons for this, namely, word had spread about how he had wiped out a scouting army of the Taslo Empire several months ago, freeing dozens of beastkin prisoners. Additionally, rumours of his involvement in demolishing a slaving group in Falron had spread.

Naturally, however, the biggest contributor was the fact that he had almost single-handedly prevented a war between the beastkin species and the humans, which, no doubt, would have destroyed several of the smaller clans that wouldn't have been directly involved as well as greatly impacted the larger clans.

Of course, not all beastkin clans were happy with Lone establishing peace between the Beastman Alliance and the Free Nations' Alliance due to their hatred of humans.

Regardless, a couple of minutes had passed and Reinheart had finished his chanting, so he invoked his skill. "Spirit of Light."

A moment after his soft words, an astral figure that resembled that of a woman's body appeared. Pure white flames surrounded her figure, and, while she was shaped like a woman, she had no facial features nor reproductive organs. She floated calmly next to her master as she assessed the situation.

Gasps of awe at the spirit's beauty ran throughout the class. Professor Ruairidh had a smile of approval on his face as he said, "Student Reinheart, how long can you maintain the spirit's summon?"

"10-minutes, Professor Rury," the blonde-haired man responded.

"Excellent." The Lorian Giant glanced at his students and then said, "As you can all see, Student Reinheart has not only perfectly fused two skills, but he has also developed a very respectable and never-before-seen subskill. Does anyone here possess a powerful defensive skill? It doesn't have to be magical in nature. I wish to have Student Reinheart show us how powerful this fusion subskill of his is, exactly. Don't feel pressured, however, as I'll happily do it instead if no one wishes to, though it would be more impactful were it one of you instead that endured the power of this lovely spirit."

Lone immediately raised his hand. "I have a defensive skill that's endured the breath of an Ancient dragon. It also happens to be a subskill, by the way," he quickly said.

"Liar."

"Everyone knows it was one of the four High Elven kings that fought the Ancient Darkness Dragon."

"Yeah. What a glory-stealer."

"Shameful."

Several such whispers entered Lone's ears. He didn't really care that much since he knew the truth, but he'd be a liar if he claimed that he didn't feel at least a little bit bitter.

It wasn't that he resented the late Ele'hunda for effectively overshadowing his achievement, but he certainly resented the elves that had spread that rumour themselves simply because Lone had, in the moment, misled them about their king's death then held onto his body for 3-weeks before handing it over.

Sighing deeply, Lone controlled his emotions and said, "Well? Want me to tank a hit or two from that spirit or not?"

Professor Ruairidh frowned as his gaze flicked between each of the murmuring students disapprovingly. "Of course. I trust that as a triple-S-ranker you have no need for a defensive charm or assistance from myself should the spirit be too much for you to handle?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Lone replied then got up and walked to the front of the class.

As soon as he was standing parallel to Reinheart, Professor Ruairidh asked, "Student Lone, do you mind explaining you subskill for the class before you use it?"

"Nah, not at all," Lone replied with a smiled. "It's called Bone Armour. It's a subskill of a passive skill of mine that, uh, well, that heals me, to put it simply. Think of it like a racial thing. Golden Foxkin legends and all of that shit."

"Ah, a pure subskill. Excellent. What does it do? The name is a bit of a tell, but please, surprise me," Professor Ruairidh requested.

"Well, it does a lot of stuff. It's master-level-6, after all," Lone confessed.

Voices of disbelief filled the classroom and many of the students openly called out Lone for being a liar. This time, Lone couldn't exactly get upset.

It was rare for even an X-ranker to have a master-rank skill that wasn't a crude magic one. It took decades to gain enough enlightenment and experience for a proper skill to rank up multiple times, even more so for subskills, particularly ones that were active - which Lone's Bone Armour seemed to be.

"Is that so?" The Lorian Giant's interest had been piqued. He would doubt Lone only when his claims had been proven to be false, so with a trusting tone, he inquired, "Well? Care to explain the skill to us?"

"Yeah, sure. I was gonna anyway." Lone scratched his head as he pulled up the skill's info to refresh his memory on all of its details.

Unique Subskill: Bone Armour

A subskill unique to the host, Lone Immortus.

Allows the host to use the unique skill [Basic Regeneration] to push the host's bones outside of their own body and use them as a weightless shield.

The strength of the bones will increase with mastery. The strength of the bones will also increase the more that they're broken and damaged.

The armour will now passively heal itself and can only be removed by being destroyed completely in one attack or by the host's will.

The host can create a full set of boneplate armour.

The host can create a boneplate shield of varying sizes.

Cost: None to invoke (30-minute cooldown). 10,000 MP to recreate if successfully destroyed or if removed by the host and recreated rapidly. Mastery: Master Level 6

"To give you the long and short of it, It lets me use my bones as armour and as a shield. It passively heals itself unless it gets completely destroyed in a single attack. It's free to invoke, but if I want to use it again within 30-minutes after the original invocation, then it costs 10,000 MP. Ah, the bones also get permanently stronger every time they get damaged," Lone explained.

Professor Ruairidh frowned. "It sounds both very painful to use and incredibly powerful if real."

Lone shrugged. "My Physical Pain Resistance skill is at expert-level-8. I can manage."

"A higher level than mine?" the professor mumbled, but he quickly shook his head. "I see. Please, show us the skill."

He was worried that if he asked any more questions than he already had then the class would get even rowdier than it already was due to Lone's grand claims.

Lone nodded in response. "Bone Armour."

Instantly, pitch-black bones with deep blue streaks burst out of his hands and then grew and wrapped around his entire body. Before long, he was armoured from head-to-toe in the spike-covered and ominous-looking boneplate.

Mild screams of fear consumed the room at Lone's monstrous appearance. It wasn't exactly appealing to see a set of nine differently-coloured tails that were attached to such an evil-looking set of armour calmly swishing around behind him.

"Ah, my bones are this colour because of my awakenings, more or less. You're all meant to be powerful mages in the future, right? What kind of powerful mages would shit themselves just from a suit of armour? Granted, it's not the most ordinary suit of armour to have ever existed, but come on..." Lone's words had a certain charm to them.

Thanks to his insulting tone, his correct words, and, of course, his Persuasion skill, the classroom calmed down after a few seconds had passed.

"Excellent. Well then, without any further waiting, please, Student Reinheart, test the offensive power of your summoning subskill against the defensive capability of Student Lone's internal subskill," Professor Ruairidh said.

The blonde-haired young man nodded. "I'll try my best to not injure you, Lone. Your armour looks very powerful, but it still has slits for your eyes and your mouth, and I don't want to hurt you."

Lone grinned beneath his helmet. "Don't hold back. Give me 100%. Trust me, I've endured worse."

Reinheart frowned with concern. "Very well, however, just say the word, and I shall order my spirit to stop."

"Sure," Lone replied and then prepped himself to learn a new skill or two. Clearly, he wasn't taking this even half as seriously as Reinheart, Professor Ruairidh, or the watching students were.