[ACTIVE SKILL: Dark magic acquired ]
Unique Title: Embraced by darkness, shadows follow your path, and darkness walks along with you.
Title Effect: Absolute Mastery of Dark Magic
[PROFICIENCY: SSS+ ]
[ All shadow skills have been learned.]
Imbue Darkness: You can use dark magic to enhance spells, weapons, or equipment.
Shadow Dimension: "Grants user access to the shadow world." [LOCKED DUE TO LOW LEVEL]
-Blink "The user can teleport himself for a short distance quickly." [LOCKED DUE TO LOW LEVEL]
One With Shadow: Error 781: No data found
Shadow Swap: "Error 781: No data found"
Teleportation: "Error 781: No data found"
Source of Shadow: "Error 781: No data found"
[All passive skills have been learned ]
Immune to darkness: "Any curse, poison, or dark magic will not harm you."
-Immune to plague Any bacteria, virus, or radiation will not harm you.
Recognised by shadow: "Any undead, vampire, litch, ghoul, or dark creature will not attack you."
Enhanced by darkness "In the absence of the moon and sun, your body will get five times stronger than base form."
-Devourer of all shadows: "Error 721: No data found"
Absolute Darkness: "Error 721: No data found"
"Father of the holy mother!" Aryan shouted in extreme shock, "What in the world happened just now?"
"Did I just get some god-level power boost or something?" Even the system doesn't know about the existence of those skills. And why in the world are almost all of them locked anyway?" Aryan was just looking at the hologram screen again and again.
The moment the strange feeling entered his body, he knew something unusual was happening—but to get an SSS+ class skill! As far as Aryan had researched so far, only adventurers above C+ class could get a skill to S level; either those were apostles of gods or contained the dragon bloodline in them. But for him to get something as great as this...
"No!! I can't let others have any idea about this power. I have to find a way to cover this up... or who knows, I might end up as a lab rat or something," Aryan muttered to himself with a very serious expression.
From the experience of his past life and hardships, he knew one thing for sure: If you don't blend in the crowd, you will be the first one to be picked up by claws. It's human nature; after all, they want everything for themselves and want an explanation for everything they see. If they can't find an explanation for something beyond their knowledge, then they will just tag it as a threat and remove it from existence. It's just how the human mind works: if they don't understand something, they think it's dangerous.
"And if I want to avoid that trouble, I need to hide this power for the time being." Aryan said to himself:
It took Aryan barely two minutes to formulate a plan for his new skill. He immediately grabbed the book and headed towards Guild Auditorium.
All I need to do is sell this thing at a good price. I can just say to them that I wanted money to buy an even better skill, so I sold the dark magic book for a healing magic one. Not to mention, "As long as Rimuru is with me, I can easily cast first aid and basic healing, enough to deceive anyone watching," Aryan thought while he reached the auditorium.
#######
"Since there isn't any internal harm in the book, it's just a little old, though... Hmmm... I can offer you 40 silver for that." An old merchant said he was holding the book of dark magic.
"I will sell for 60," Aryan said, putting on an expressionless face.
"Let's do it in 50. What do you say, sir?" The old merchant said he was rubbing his hands.
"60 silver or no," Aryan said with the same expressionless face again.
"Hahaha. "Since you are a smart customer, I will let it slide for 60 silver this time." The old merchant said he pulled out a small pouch of coins.
Aryan was more than happy to make that deal.
"Ahh... Man, that was one hell of bargaining today," Aryan thought, heading towards his residence as a notification rang in his magic desk.
"Meet me at the "corner cold coffee shop," 150 metres east of Rudra clan. Urgent: Karl."
Aryan was caught off-guard by this notification, although he and Karl weren't very close or anything. But still, Aryan thought of him as a strong person and a good guy.
"Something urgent for Karl!" What can this be for Karl!" "What can this be?" Aryan changed his direction and rushed towards Rudra Guild without giving it a second thought.
Just 100 metres ahead of Rudra Guild, Aryan was able to spot a cylindrical white building with colourful lights shining in the evening light. Aryan took a look and moved towards the building when he was pulled into the side streets by a hooded person.
"It's me!!" Sylpha said she was removing her hood a little bit just to give Aryan a clear idea.
"I am here to receive you; come with me," Slypha said as she walked in a certain direction.
Sensing the depth of the situation, Aryan didn't ask any questions and just decided to follow Sylpha wherever she was taking him.
After barely 5 minutes of walking, both of them reached an old, gaggy restaurant with a wooden door on the left.
"Knock! Knock!" Sylpha knocked on the door three times.
"Who is there?" A voice came from inside.
"Just a confused soul," Sylpha replied in a serious but soft voice.
Just as she finished her answer, the sound of an opening door was followed by a voice.
"Come in"
Sylpha removed her hood and went in, while Aryan followed after. The room inside was made of brown wood with yellow Chandler emitting lights on it. At the other end of the room was something that looked like a classic minibar. A wooden desk was followed by wooden shelves and two figures sitting on classic-style wooden chairs.
"In normal circumstances, I would have liked to greet you, but our situation right now doesn't allow me to do that. Please have a seat." Alan says the captain of the royal knight guards asked Aryan, pointing at the chair in front.
Aryan looked at the room, and then his gaze was automatically attracted to the dark circles under the red eyes of all three members of the group. He understood the intensity of the situation and followed what was said without asking any questions.
"It's nice to see you cooperating; now all you need to do is answer some of our questions honestly, and you will be free." Mike, as the accession said, looked at Aryan with an indifferent gaze.
"First question: when was the last time you contacted Karl?" Mike asked.
"The last time I got a video message from him was on the day I arrived in the city. "Officially, although I did try to call him from time to time, I didn't get any response." Aryan said it honestly.
"If he wasn't picking up any calls, then why didn't you come to find us?" Mike said he was standing up and punching the desk, making a small dent in it.
"Because I thought... Karl is a busy guy." Aryan remained calm as he answered Mike's question.
"So you are saying you didn't get any contact from Karl from the day you registered in the city?" Alan Salas asked.
"No! I didn't get any contact." Aryan said.
"Did anyone recently ask you something about Karl?" Sylpha asked.
"No".
"Does anyone have any idea of you being in contact with us?" Alan asked.
"Yes, infect many people," Aryan responded as he explained Karl's clown act that day.
"Mike?" Alan Salas asked, looking at the assassin in black leather.
"I do not sense any lies so far " Mike replied, looking at Aryan.
All three of them exchanged a short glance before Alan continued.
"I guess you have nothing to do with it after all." Alan let out a sigh, looking at the ground.
"It's about Karl Armstrong..."
"HE IS DEAD...."