Atelier smiled, it was very simple to arouse Kurushimi’s interest. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it anything like that. Right now, you are a diamond in the rough. You have a lot of potential but also a fair amount of weaknesses.”

Kurushimi understood her point. She had grown conceited before – that was until she met the rock golem. It couldn’t be helped that she was unable to do anything when meeting that large group in her fourth run. She was surrounded by many high-level enemies with frightening crowd control ability. However, when she fought the single rock golem in her fifth run, she had been utterly outmatched. It wasn’t even close.

That was why she had come here. To hunt whatever monsters laid in wait and acquire new strength. Strength great enough to challenge the rock golem. One by one, she would claw her way through those who had cut her down before – All the way until she was able to slay even Karshak. But it seemed Atelier had a different idea in mind rather than her straightforward plan of ‘kill every monster in sight and steal their stats’.

Curious of what this plan may be, Kurushimi asked, “So what do you suggest I do?”

Atelier explained, “You have a lot of built-up skill points, so the obvious thing to do would be to buy new skills. On top of that, your skill levels are not very good. Many have been neglected and left behind in level. By learning the right skills and improving old ones, we can compensate for weaknesses and iron out any creases.”

“So I’m back to buying skills huh…?” Kurushimi held her chin and thought about it. According to Atelier, she needed to find skills that would help cover her weak points.

Atelier elaborated, “At this point, skill selection becomes quite a personal thing. I recommend taking a second to sit down and have a think. Recall past battles and experiences and try to see what you lacked at those moments.”

“Okay, I’ll do that then!” Taking her advice, Kurushimi found somewhere to sit down and mull over her past fights. As she went into deep thought, the two gods were left to their own devices. Kurono appeared distracted - A complicated expression dawned on her face. Her appearance resembled that of a worried parent watching their child walk on their own.

“Is something the matter?” Atelier asked, breaking the silence.

Kurono paused for a moment before voicing her opinions, “Will she be alright?”

Atelier understood what she meant. Kurushimi would need to independently identify her own weaknesses and solutions for each of them. Not just for her, but for people in general it is a lot harder to realize one’s own faults than it is for another. However, in the face of Kurono’s dismay, Atelier calmly spoke. “I’ll admit, thinking may not be her greatest asset. But she’s got quite the unconventional mindset. Maybe she’ll come up with things we wouldn’t have thought of?”

Her words were filled with confidence. However, Kurono couldn’t understand such wishful thinking, “That’s rather optimistic…”

Atelier smiled and replied, “She’s from Earth. You’d be surprised how well-suited they are for these kinds of things~”

Time passed as Kurushimi idly sat by the tree. Her facial expression constantly changed from one to another. With her eyes remaining shut, the inner machinations of her mind were an enigma. Thus, Kurono and Atelier could only give her time and wait to see if any satisfactory results showed fruition.

After even more time had passed, Kurushimi suddenly stood up, sparking their attention. Her face was as if it had become stone, a visage of serious and uninhibited determination unlike her usual carefree attitude. Kurono felt uneasy with this change. However when she briefly looked at her side, Atelier’s composure implied this was all within her calculations.

In no time, Kurushimi rushed her way over to them. Kurono was skeptical of this whole exercise so she decided it would be best to keep quiet and allow Kurushimi and Atelier to talk amongst themselves first.

Atelier asked, “Did you come up with anything?”

“Y-Yeah, I did-! Uhm, right so I thought of a lot of different things I could use or could’ve used…” Kurushimi’s words were quick and frequently stuttered. Anyone could tell she had become quite excited by the topic. “I was thinking that the healing was a pain in the ass so I could get healing reduction to counter that! And, I also-”

Atelier was clearly amused by her aroused state but chose to briefly interrupt her flurry of words, “Calm down, you don’t have to explain your entire reasoning for every skill you’re looking at getting~”

Kurushimi gaped and halted her words, realizing she had indeed been going off on a tangent. She decided to take a quick breath and calm herself down before mentioning the skills she had been looking at. “Necrosis, Sanguine siphoning, Craftsman, Domain of water, Overheal, Magic pistol…”

As she spoke their names one by one, she opened each of their descriptions.

[Necrosis: Inflicting a wound restricts blood flow to the area, applying ‘Necrosis’ and reducing the target’s healing from most sources.]

[Sanguine siphoning: 4% of damage afflicted is returned as health to the user.]

[Craftsman: Items can now be crafted 20% faster. An additional 2.5% is added per item the user has crafted(Greater rarity of item crafted increases the additional percentage granted).]

[Domain of water: Summons a domain of water around the user. Allies and the user themselves gain increased movement speed whilst in the area of effect, while enemies receive are slowed.]

[Overheal: Allows the user’s current health to surpass 10% of their maximum health. This extra health acts as a shield of sorts, preventing immediate physical damage to the body.]

[Magic pistol: Temporarily summons a magic pistol, allowing the user to fire powerful shots of mana. The initial cast has a set mana cost and each subsequent shot requires mana expenditure.]

Necrosis and Sanguine siphoning were skills she could outright buy simply because of her race being that of a vampire. Craftsman was also available immediately as a result of her experience in crafting her katana and glaive. However, Domain of water, Overheal and Magic pistol all had requirements she needed to fulfill before acquisition.

Kurushimi explained the basic reasoning for each skill, “Necrosis is in case I encounter an enemy with a healing factor like the living armor. Soul Siphoning for in-battle healing, Craftsman so I can make weapons and tools easier, Domain of water for wide-area crowd control and when paired with Resentful storm, I can create the same electrical field the vengeful spirit used against me. Finally, Overheal makes me a bit tankier and Magic pistol gives more range options.”

Just when it looked like she was done, she continued talking. “Oh-! And while I was thinking about it, I also came up with some things to do with my pre-existing skills…”

Atelier was pleasantly surprised, “Oh, really? I was planning on doing it one by one to avoid it being too complicated. Well done~”

“I feel like you’re underestimating me too much here…” Kurushimi retorted. She couldn’t help feeling she was being treated like a child at this point.

Kurono was surprised to hear all the different things Kurushimi had come up with. Meanwhile, Atelier had a look on her face as if to say ‘I told you so’. Sighing and choosing to ignore her smug expression, Kurono asked, “How’d you come up with all this?”

Kurushimi explained, “Well, it became a lot easier when I started thinking about it like a videogame. Like what sort of counters and stuff I’d look for.”

Kurono fell silent for a moment. She could now see what Atelier had meant by ‘well-suited for these kinds of things’.

In the silence brought about by Kurono, Atelier jumped in. “But why a crafting skill? Don’t you already own one?”

“No?” Kurushimi responded cluelessly.

“Hm, really…?” Atelier had a complicated look on her face. “So you managed to craft both the sword and that polearm all on your own without a skill to help you do it?”

“Mhm.” Kurushimi replied simply in response to Atelier’s confusion.

“Can I see them quickly?” Atelier suddenly asked.

Kurushimi, although clueless and confused with the abrupt request, complied and presented her weapons. As she held them out for Atelier, since she was unable to hold them herself, Kurushimi noticed she was now managing to carry them both around with relative ease compared to before.

Atelier commented on them as she closely scrutinized her katana and glaive, “I never thought to check because I assumed you would have one… They are a little crude but incredibly impressive for an independent work. Making such crafts out here where there are no stations to work with is a very difficult task to do. Haha, you’ll have a good future in item creation-!”

Atelier closely inspected them and was uncharacteristically passionate when she talked about it. Curious about this side of her, Kurushimi asked, “Are you affiliated with craftsmanship, Atelier?”

“Where do you think my name originates from?” Atelier puffed her chest proudly as she presented herself, “I was known as the god of Artisanry! Artisans around the world would come to me, seaking my vast knowledge on the creation of items.”

Kurushimi clapped for Atelier’s prominent display, although she couldn’t really gauge how impressive the status was really. Meanwhile, Kurono didn’t look as impressed. Tilting her head, she commented, “...and such a renowned god was left alone and forgotten in an obscure forest, in a solitude shrine.”

Atelier knitted her brows and responded, “I may be away for now but when I return I can easily regain my lost prominence. And besides, I’m sure they still tell tales of my former glory.”

Kurono looked away as she retorted, “Sounds an awful lot like coping…”

The gods started to bicker and Kurushimi got back to thinking about her next steps. Along with the skills she intended to learn, there was a lot she wanted to do with her pre-existing skills and a lot of experimentation she wanted to try. The main thing she wanted to try was combining two of her skills to make a new type of magic. And, she intended to do this by…

“I was thinking we could use Kurono’s assistant to make a new magic skill.” Interrupting their bout, she called Kurono over. According to Atelier, she could use Kurono’s new skill ‘System host: Assistant’ to create skills. She had a specific magic in mind that would open a lot of opportunities if she were successful in its creation.

“Eh, what are you doing?” However, in response to her request, Kurono strangely walked behind her.

Kurono: “I’m activating the skill.”

Kurushimi: “I-Is this the only way to do it?”

Kurono: “We need to be close for the first time. Otherwise, it won’t work.”

For some reason, Kurono had approached Kurushimi from behind and suddenly pressed her chest against her back. Paying no attention to her concerns, Kurono proceeded to hug her from behind and plant her head on Kurushimi’s shoulder.

[System host: Assistant activated: Entering the system…]

A strange message came into her vision as everything began to blur in a strange, static-like manner. As if the very world around her was disappearing, the trees, leaves and even Atelier went away until it was just Kurono and her suspended in a void of text and code.

“W-What is this?” As Kurushimi became apprehensive of her surroundings, her eyes darting around the strange location they had entered, she failed to notice Kurono separate from her until she stood directly in front.

Kurono picked up a piece of code that had been idly floating by, letting it sprawl across her hand and all the way down her arm. The text individually fell off her one by one. It was an incredibly strange sight to see. But as expected of her, Kurono appeared indifferent to it.

Kurono turned to Kurushimi who was still shocked from the scenery, “This… is the raw form of the ‘system’.”

“Eh? So we've gone into the system??”

“Right and wrong. Our bodies remain where they were, but our minds have entered it.”

“So here is where I can make the skill independently…” Kurushimi once again took a second to look around. The place was filled to the brim with code of varying length. It really was everywhere she looked. However, beyond that it was just an empty void. She had experienced many mystical sights ever since arriving in this world, but this was certainly one of the strangest ones yet.

“Now, how do I do it? It’d be a pain to search through all this text…” The last thing she wanted to do was search through all it to find the desired skills she wanted to combine.

Kurono responded, “There has to be some other way.”

Without the help of the system, she had to do everything by herself. Completely manual. As she was dreading the worst-case scenario in which she would have to search through all of the code, an idea came to her. “What if I…?”

She opened her status menu and scrolled down to her skills. Finding the specific ones, she attempted to drag them out and to her relief, she was able to do so.

“So these are what you wanted to combine.” Kurono stated, observing the skills that had been laid out.

[Blood magic] and [Shadow magic] were suspended before Kurushimi. Her intention in coming here was to combine the two magic skills ‘Blood magic’ and ‘Shadow magic’. That way she could manipulate and control her tools, weapons and constructs more easily. She also had another idea in mind that could be interesting if it worked. But first, she needed to combine them!

Following a simple line of thinking, she dragged the skills together to combine them…

“Ah-! It won’t get rid of my original skills right?” Kurushimi stopped herself, momentarily hesitating before combining them. She didn’t want to lose blood magic or shadow magic in the process, as they were valued skills.

Kurono replied, “You didn’t lose your Shadow magic or Camouflage when you created Shadow veil with the help of the system. So, I doubt you will lose them this time either. Even if you do, you can buy them again. They weren’t expensive.”

Kurushimi: “I’m more concerned about losing their levels than the skill themselves.”

Kurushimi felt it’d be a huge pain if she had to level them again. They were some of her highest level skills at the moment, after all. But Kurono was right, her skills didn’t disappear when she created Shadow veil so they shouldn’t disappear now. Continuing the combination, she dragged them together again.

The text scrambled around and became [...] instead. As she hoped, blood magic and shadow magic remained in her status and kept their levels. The combination had been a success and all that was left to do now was name it.

“It’s a bit straight-forward, but I’d say ‘Sanguine-shadow magic’.” Kurushimi stated.

Until now, combining shadows with something was purely fiction. So there are not really any proper examples on how one would name such a new material. Taking inspiration from the earlier skill ‘Sanguine siphon’, she opted to call it ‘Sanguine-shadow magic’.

With the creation of her new skill, the void fell around her and they returned to the forest. Now she had sorted out what skills she wanted and attained Sanguine-shadow magic, opening many opportunities and things she wanted to try out. Figuring out the requirements was next on the list.