Level up success. Cleanse Lv 1 -> 2 Level 2 Perks:- Improved control over the ability Enhanced purification power. Curse suppression(low)

It took me no time to decide on which skill to level up. I already had a target in mind even before the quest started.

Out of all skills in my possession, Cleanse had the most important use. The function of this skill was to remove all debuffs and status conditions. However, the words ‘status effect’ and ‘debuffs’ were vaguer than I expected.

What count as debuffs and status conditions in the first place?

Back then, Logier’s scream dropped all my stats by 100%. It was a textbook example of the debuff.

Goblin’s poison exhausts a few points of HP per second. This was a status effect.

Cleanse cures them all.

But was this all to it?

My instincts told me otherwise.

There should be more to this skill than what the [System] let me on. But, even if it was all to this skill, it still didn’t change the fact that Cleanse was one of my life-saving measures.

I opened the system window to take a look at my attributes.

Race: Infant Imp Talents: Shade Spawn; Evolution Omega; Reinforced Will Evolution Points:

60/100

Strength: 5

Speed: 4.5

Endurance: 6

Willpower: 5 (!)

Skills

Infrared Vision Lv 2; Shapeshift Lv 0; Beastial Diet Lv 0; Clease Lv 2 (!)

HP: 40/40

Stamina: 24.5/24.5

Estimated Level

2

The corners of my lips curved upwards. The growth in stats had brought a unique kind of happiness. In my eyes, those numbers were the most beautiful thing. Not long ago, they used to be decimals of zero.

Then I noticed two exclamation marks blinking in golden. One next to the new attribute and the other next to Cleanse. It was hard to miss, given how bright they were glowing.

First of all, I went to [Willpower].

[Willpower]

The toughness of your soul. The probability of a debuff affecting you or how liable you are to a certain status effect.

Affects [Cleanse].

It was as I expected. Willpower turned out to be the stat that affected control/immunity-type skills. Aside from strengthening the effects of [Cleanse], I saw no other uses. Period.

That might change in the future, though.

Then I checked on the details of [Cleanse].

Not much has changed to its description aside from a few tweaks here and there. Something else, however, caught my eyes.

The proficiency points. All my skills had them, including [Cleanse].

The last time I checked, its proficiency had accumulated nineteen out of a hundred points. They were earned after only two uses; once against Logier’s roar, which failed, and the other one during the Stalker fight.

That nineteen points hadn’t changed, but the required points for the next level up increased from 100 to 1000. In other words, the reward increased skill level directly while keeping the earned proficiency untouched.

In the future, if I get more of these skill upgrade points, I should use them after leveling up a skill to get the maximum benefit. That’ll result in two level-ups instead of one.

It was all about efficiency.

For now, I needed nine hundred and eighty-one more points to level up the skill again.

Just how many times do I have to use the skill to gain that many points? Thinking about it made my head hurt.

After dismissing the system, I peeked at Logier. He was lying on the ground motionlessly. If it was not for his normal body heat levels, I’d have thought he kicked the bucket.

“Logier, are you still alive?” I called out.

“Yes.” A cold and curt answer, as expected of the orc chieftain. So antisocial!

While I was thinking of something to keep the conversation going, his voice echoed as he fired a question at me. “You okay, little imp? I called you so many times, but you didn’t respond.”

It might be my imagination, but Logier’s voice contained worry.

It was hard to believe, to be honest. There’s no way he’d be that close to me, right? We only met a few hours ago, after all.

Nonetheless, I returned his gesture kindly. “I’m fine. I was tired after taking a few hits from that thing.”

A grunt was his response before he went quiet. It somewhat worried me, though. He wasn’t this silent when I met him. Did something happen?

Suddenly, I remembered him saying something about being cursed.

Will it work? I wondered, thinking about the new upgrades of Cleanse.

“Logier, would you let me use a skill on you?” I tried to be as polite as possible. It was a rude request that had the potential to spark a conflict. Although I was trying to help, it didn’t mean he’ll think the same.

“Okay.”

His reply came faster than expected. And it was positive, which was out of my expectations. Frankly, it caught me off-guard. I took a second look at his form, squinted my eyes, and used Infrared Vision to its limit. I didn’t have a reason for doing so other than a random impulse that came out of nowhere.

“Why?”

I mumbled, loud enough for him to hear. Why did he trust me so much? I felt uncomfortable. I had to know why.

“What do you mean?” Logier’s weak voice gave me a wake-up call. I hurried over to his side, eyes glued on his form. His body was glowing like a miniature sun. Red like a fireball.

“Logier! What happened?”

He was burning like a boiling kettle.

His eyes opened but were unfocused. “It’s the curse.” A painful groan made its way out of his mouth. “I’ll be fine. Just let me rest for a while.”

I felt his weak hands on my back as complicated thoughts arose. A strong monster that could level a horde of goblins, that which can even give a battalion of trained knights a run for their money, reduced to this weak and sniveling form.

And, why is he so trusting? What if I have some nefarious intentions? Such an idiot orc!

I made up my mind. I hypnotized myself that it was for Logier’s own good and got ready to use Cleanse on him. Praying to whatever god watching over me, I put a palm on his chest and applied some pressure.

“Cleanse.”

With my verbal invocation, the skill kicked off into action with a silverish glow that came out from the middle of my palm.

High-grade Curse detected.

Removal is impossible.

Reason: Low skill level.

Applying suppressions…. Success!

Remaining time: 2 hours

Proficiency +50

The red glow diminished considerably, and I breathed out a relieved sigh. Thank god it worked. I was happy that I was able to help him somehow. But it worried me to know that there was someone out there who was strong enough to curse an orc chieftain.

This place was indeed not safe. There seemed to be far scarier monsters than goblins and orcs in this place.

I must speed up my game and get stronger. Only the strong have the right to survive in this hellhole I was dumped into.

“Eh? I don’t feel pain?” Logier’s tone provoked a snicker from me. He sounded hilariously confused. He turned towards me after hearing my chortle and fired bullets of questions.

“What did you do? It's you, right? How can you defeat Keeper’s curse?”

After some time he calmed down, took a deep breath, and asked with all the seriousness he could muster.

“Little imp, who are you really?”