"Haha, yes yes. It was only a joke, I would only want a sword. Can you help me with that?" Renard said as he tried to redirect the conversation away from what he had just said.
Renard was not feeling great right now. He thought he was going to get a great bonus from the system and not have to train as much with a weapon to be good but no. He got the, Colour-Type Mastery which he thought was definitely stupid and not useful at all. 'How is colour a weapon? I can't hold colour or attack someone with it, how am I supposed to use this.' Renard was genuinely annoyed that one of the boosts from the system had been wasted on giving him something as useless as that.
As Renard was having this rant in his head, Kathy said, "That's ok, it wasn't that funny though. I can't help you with the weapon making unfortunately, but Beth can, she's the weapon-smith here. If you give me a moment I can go in the back and get her to come out. It should only take a few minutes but it may be longer because she will need to finish the weapons she is currently working on." She didn't wait for a response and quickly rushed off to the back through the curtains behind the counter.
After disappearing behind the curtains, the noise of metal slamming onto metal stopped for a few seconds and some chatter went on between two people. Once the chatter stopped, the clanging of metal continued but Kathy didn't return. Renard assumed she had gone to work on something else until Beth could come take a break.
As Renard knew he would have to wait for a little bit, he decided to take the opportunity to look at his newly acquired skills. He willed the system to open by thinking 'Stats'.
[Status]
[Name: Renard]
[Occupation: Peasant]
[Level: 2 - Experience: 5/200]
[Stats]
[Stamina: 1]
[Strength: 1]
[Defence: 1]
[Agility: 1]
[Intelligence: 1]
[Luck: ???]
[Skills]
[Battle Techniques: 1]
[Observation: 1]
[Public Speaking: 1]
[Boosted Colour-Type Mastery]
[Beginner Colour-Type Mastery: 10]
After seeing his Stats again Renard could help but feel a slight pain in his heart. The skill Public Speaking had some trauma attached to it that made it difficult for Renard to look at. Trying his best not to think about it, Renard thought of the skill name he wanted more information about, 'Open [Boosted Colour-Type Mastery].'
[Boosted Colour-Type Mastery]
[Description]
[All Colour-Type Masteries will become maximum level once unlocked]
'Well that would have been useful on something that was an actual weapon. What does it mean by once unlocked, does that mean I can unlock more colour-type masteries?' Renard thought.
After thinking about the description of the skill for a little bit he decided to check the other skill, 'Open [Beginner Colour-Type Mastery].'
[Beginner Colour-Type Mastery]
[Description]
[This skill provides the user with enhanced control over Colour-Type weapons. This can be in the form of abilities, handling, strategy and anything else related to Colour-Type weapons]
[Unlocked Abilities]
[Minor Colour Change]
[Minor Colour Emanation]
'Oh, interesting. This mastery actually gives me abilities, maybe I can actually get some use out of this bug. Now, lets see if I can get some information about these abilities. Open [Minor Colour Change].'
[Minor Colour Change]
[Description]
[This ability allows the user to change the colour of small objects temporarily. The colour change will only be active whilst the user is holding the object and the effect can only last for a maximum of one minute. The user is only able to select one colour to change the object too.]
'I guess this could be of some use but the one minute time limit makes it kind of hard to use. It could be useful for tricking people if the situation allows it. Maybe it will be more useful when the ability upgrades.' Renard thought.
As he had decided to test it out, Renard took a gold coin out of his inventory. After it appeared in his hand he held it up, right in front of his eyes so he could observe what was about to happen properly. With the coin is position he thought, 'Minor Colour Change, red.'
As soon as Renard thought of the colour in his head, the fundamental colour of the coin changed from gold to a dark red. To test the effect further, Renard then placed the coin down on the side of the counter, to test if it would stop. Once the coin came in contact with the counter, it returned to its original colour. After this discovery, Renard decided to test the limits of his first real skill.
He soon discovered that if the coin touched anything other than his skin, the effect would dissipate and it would return to its original colour. Renard believed this was because the skill was trying to effect the bigger object, causing the skill to fail as the object was too large. One of the other discoveries that Renard made was that he could control what the skill effected. For example, he realised that if he focused hard enough, he could make some areas of the coin stay their original colour. As an extension of this skill, it also meant that Renard could stop the skill from effecting other objects that the coin touched. After a few tries, Renard could now hold two coins together and only make one of them change colour, currently however, this took all of his concentration and energy.
Renard was so focused on this task that he failed to notice when Kathy pushed returned back to the front counter. "Oooh, are you practising some illusion skills? Looks pretty cool, I haven't seen that type before."
The coins in Renard's hands quickly turned back to normal, and he faced Kathy trying not to give any tells that he hadn't noticed her return. "Yeah, it is pretty cool. I picked it up recently and need to learn how to control it properly so I've been practising whenever I can." Renard wasn't technically lying as a few minutes ago counts as recently and he definitely needed to learn how to control it the skill better.
"Makes sense" Kathy replied, "Although it is easy to learn a skill, you usually have to spend loads more time for it to actually have any practical use. Anyway, Beth has just finished up what she was working on so she'll be out to talk to you in a second."
As if waiting for the perfect timing, a few seconds after Kathy finished talking, Beth stepped through the curtains and looked at Renard, "I heard you wanted yourself a custom made weapon."