Today I decided to take a walk around the area — scout the surroundings and test my abilities a little.
Before leaving, I told Garen I was going out for a walk and that he shouldn't wait for me for lunch. He simply nodded and told me to be careful.
Technically, my body didn't require food at all — I could function perfectly fine without it. But the cuisine in this world turned out to be surprisingly good, so from time to time I still treated myself to a proper meal. It wasn't fast food from my old world… but it was still pretty good.
Sometimes I even thought about cooking something from my old life. For example, Caesar salad or pizza. The ingredients could probably be found here. It would just take a bit of experimentation.
So yeah, I was already starting to come up with plans.
Besides cooking, I had also been thinking about another small thing — clothes. Not anything fashionable, just simple everyday stuff: shorts, T-shirts, comfortable things. I'm not a designer, of course, but I do have some taste. And local fashion, to put it mildly, wasn't exactly diverse.
Honestly, this world wasn't nearly as primitive as I had first assumed. Sure, there were no machines, but there were horses and riding beasts. Things simply worked differently here. Most systems relied on magic — like the lamps in people's houses.
So everything had its own alternative.
At one point I even told Garen about toilets in my world. He stared at me for a long time afterward, clearly wondering if I was mentally sound.
When I said we had toilets directly inside our houses, he frowned.
— How would that even work? Wouldn't it stink?
So I had to explain what a sewage system was.
Here things were simpler. Every house had a small wooden shack in the yard with a door. Inside — a hole in the floor, and underneath it a pit.
That was it.
A regular village toilet.
I even considered suggesting the idea of sewage, but when I tried explaining it to Garen and some of his acquaintances, they initially had no idea what I was talking about. Only when I remembered Roman sewage systems — something from a school lesson — did it become easier to explain the basic principle.
Garen actually seemed interested. He even said he'd tell the village elder about it.
What the elder decided after that, I have no idea.
But if one day this village ends up with a proper drainage system, I'll consider it a small victory.
In general, I decided to slowly improve life in the village by bringing ideas from my old world. Not just technical things either — even simple forms of entertainment might catch on here.
.
.
.
After leaving the forest and reaching the shore, I headed toward the place where I had first woken up in this world. Along the edge of the water stood the cliffs — and that was exactly where I planned to run a small test.
While walking there, I decided to ask Elaris more about the Skill Manager.
She repeated something I already knew — that during battle or moments of desperation there is a chance to obtain new skills, and the manager helps facilitate that process.
For example, during my fight with the Thunder-Fox I had desperately wanted to repel its attack — and that was when my racial skill "Observer" awakened, along with a new soul skill called "Abyss".
"Observer" allows me to copy and reproduce any skill, technique, or magic that I see or receive directly. It also works well together with "Abyss". After something is absorbed, it analyzes it.
In short — a very useful ability.
Soul skills, as it turned out, are extremely rare. They are "imprinted" into the soul and appear only in those who arrived in this world from another one while retaining memories of their past. In other words, people whose souls survived the transition.
But there was still a question: why was mine acquired rather than activated? I didn't know the answer.
But back to the important part.
That meant I wasn't the only otherworlder.
Somewhere in this world there could be others like me.
According to Elaris, there are three ways to arrive here.
The first is the way it happened to me — dying in your own world and then incarnating here in a ready-made physical body.
The second is also through death, but followed by being reborn normally as a child.
And the third is direct transportation. No death involved. Simply being pulled from your world and placed here — either by accident or by someone's will.
After hearing that, those strange videos from the internet where people supposedly disappeared in the middle of the street didn't seem quite as ridiculous anymore.
So there's a chance some of them weren't fake.
Back to the Skill Manager.
This manager helps not only in battle but also in everyday life. For example, it can merge two different skills into a new one. Or evolve an existing skill into a higher level.
Of course, in both cases the original skills disappear. You have to sacrifice two abilities for one — but a stronger one.
There are seven levels of skills in this world.
The first and most common level is "Simple" skills. Almost everyone has them. They're obtained through practice or learning: swordsmanship, basic magic, trading, blacksmithing, crafts.
Even swimming counts as a simple skill. Essentially, it's just a stabilized ability.
The second level is "Advanced" skills.
These are no longer just trades — they're mastery. Sometimes they evolve from simple skills, and sometimes they are obtained through certain events.
For example, after killing a Thunder-Fox there is about a thirty-five percent chance of gaining one of its abilities.
In my case, I received two.
The first was "Thunder Crash". I gained it thanks to my racial skill.
The second was "Dark Lightning". I obtained it after killing the beast itself.
Their effects are similar.
"Thunder Crash" allows the user to release a charge similar to ball lightning. That was the attack the fox used on me. I simply compressed the ability into the shape of a thin needle, increased its concentration, and fired it back.
"Dark Lightning" is a more straightforward version. It releases a blast of dark lightning. The name speaks for itself.
The third level is "Special" skills.
These are significantly rarer. They usually appear through the evolution of advanced skills or are obtained under unusual circumstances.
This category includes serious abilities such as mind control, will suppression, mental interference, spatial movement, and other powers that clearly stand apart from ordinary abilities.
The fourth level is "Unique" skills.
These greatly surpass Special skills in both power and potential. They are most often born from intense emotions, deep desires, or major turning points in the user's life.
Every Unique skill reflects the mind and character of its owner. It isn't just an ability — it's part of their personality. And unlike simpler skills, Unique skills can change and evolve along with their user.
The fifth level is "Soul" skills.
I've already talked about them. The only thing worth adding is that in terms of power they are almost equal to Unique skills. Sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger — it depends on the skill itself and the one who possesses it.
The difference between them isn't really about power, but about their origin.
The sixth level is "Absolute" skills.
These are abilities that go beyond the usual laws of the world. They can ignore physical limitations and directly influence the very structure of reality.
According to Elaris, the number of people who possess such skills can be counted on one hand.
And finally, the seventh level — which I almost forgot — is "Racial" skills.
As the name suggests, these belong to specific races and are innate. Such abilities are inherited as part of a creature's nature — whether demon, dragon, spirit, or something else.
However, that doesn't mean every member of a race has the same abilities. There are thousands of variations in this world. They may share the same concept or origin but still differ in details.
Sometimes racial skills look like a natural extension of the owner's nature.
And sometimes they appear completely unique.
There is also skill evolution in this world.
It can happen for different reasons: through accumulated power, by merging two different skills, or through the evolution of the being itself — in which case its abilities evolve along with it.
Evolution follows two main paths.
The first is gradual growth from Simple skills to Special skills through development and strengthening.
The second is a leap from Unique to Absolute. That's not just improvement — it's a transition to an entirely different level.
That's more or less how the skill system in this world works.
The more I learned about it, the clearer it became that things here were much deeper than they seemed at first glance. And honestly… I was starting to like it.
Understanding the mechanics of abilities, their levels, and how they worked — it was actually interesting.
And now that I more or less understood the overall picture, it was time to figure out what exactly I had myself.