[You have met the requirements to obtain the title: Leader.]
'Huh? A title? Well, that's unexpected.' Aurora was slightly taken aback by the sudden appearance of a new system message, and even more so by its contents.
I mean, all she did was give her new subordinate a weird name. Is that really something she should receive a title for?
Sigh, okay, I get it. I'm just being salty right now. Alright, alright, I'll go off the matter about the name already, so let's get back to Aurora's new title.
'Hmmm, this would be my second title, and not gonna lie, my first one is hella op. Still, I don't have high expectations for this one. Even the name sounds basic.' Aurora snickered internally and scoffed a little. In her eyes, she wouldn't obtain another title that would be as strong as her first one for quite some time, so considering how easily she got this one, it probably won't be much.
Be that as it may, she still decided to at least check out what it does. After all, even a weak title is better than no title, right?
[Leader]
– A title given to those who were able to make someone accept them as their leader.
[Requirements to obtain the title:
- Form a complete subordinate contract with another being.
[Effects:
- Unlocks a title exclusive skill: Leadership
'Title exclusive skill? That sounds new.' At the slightest mention of something unfamiliar or new, Aurora always immediately opened up her archives to see what the system had to say about the thing in question. The same happened this time.
[Title exclusive skills]
– Special skills that can only be obtained through a title.
- Unlike normal skills, their power is based on how strong the title they were obtained through is.
'I expected as much.' Nodding to herself internally, Aurora began to ponder about a few things, causing her to fall in thought for a moment.
'This is the second title I've obtained, and both of them gave me a skill. The difference is that one of them is a normal skill, while the other is an exclusive skill. This means that there are other ways to obtain the Perfect Mind skill, not just through a title.' She realized that this might be quite helpful information.
Normally, this would make it sound like her new Leadership skill is rarer than her Perfect Mind skill, but Aurora very much doubted that.
First and most important of all, Perfect Mind is an ultimate skill. There was no way that a skill obtained by such a common title could match a skill that was of quite possibly the highest grade.
Second of all, while it is true that these exclusive skills can only be obtained through titles, that doesn't mean they are rare or difficult to get. Rather, the title exclusive skills were like their own grade. A grade that was divided into sub-grades based on how powerful the original title was.
'Nevermind all that. I can care about such matters later, when I have the time for it. For now, let's just see what skill even does.' Aurora found it useless to even speculate about the matter if she didn't even check how strong her new skill is or what it does.
[Leadership]
- Level: Max
- Grade: Exclusive
- Skill type: Active
- Attribute type: None
– A special skill given to those who earned the title of a leader.
[On activation:
- You can pick one of your subordinates to receive their power.
- You will receive a stat boost equal to 50% of that subordinate's highest stat.
- This boost effects only the corresponding stat.
- Duration: 15 minutes
- Cooldown: 3 days
'Interesting. It's pretty powerful, definitely something that could save me in a dire situation. But...' Go on; I know what you're going to say.
'A cooldown of three days!? Are you being serious!?' And just as expected, the usual Aurora kicked in just in time for her to start freaking out over the length of skill's cooldown.
'Tsk, whatever. I guess I'll just need to use it sparingly.' Finally, after complaining a bit (a lot), she let go of the matter, closed all the system screens, and looked at the Midnight Wolf, who now held the name of Rejoke.
And upon seeing his confused, worried, and bewildered gaze, she just snorted, turned her little head away, and walked past him. Clearly, she was still dissatisfied with the skill's situation.
So, without sparring Rejoke another glance, Aurora walked towards one of the corpses of the Gray Shadow Wolves. It was the corpse of the wolf that first in this battle. This was obviously no coincidence, and she walked to this corpse in particular for a reason.
'There it is.' With a small smile forming on her face, she reached out forward with her paw and grabbed the pitch-black crystal lying on the ground. Right after, she tightened her grip on the crystal ever so slightly, causing it to crack.
[You have absorbed the energy of the Simple Dark Crystal. Your dark soul vessel grows more powerful.]
Quite obviously, the black crystal was precisely an attribute crystal. Specifically, a dark one.
'I think this pretty much confirms it.' After absorbing all of the crystal's energy, Aurora muttered inwardly, as if she finally figured something out, which she in fact did.
'The only wolf that dropped a crystal was the first one. None of the other wolves dropped one. This means that, compared to me, the system didn't consider them strong enough to drop a crystal.' She fell in her own thoughts, putting together a little theory of hers that she had thought about in the.
'If I take into account the previous crystals I have received, they were all simple-grade crystals except for the one I got from the tree. And the thing all these crystals have in common is that they dropped from monsters that were at least three leves higher than me.' Finally, Aurora opened her eyes and looked towards the sky.
'Still night, huh? Not gonna lie, I'm quite tired.' Though her stamina is still almost full, she's still very tired. Rather than physical exhaustion, she's exhausted mentally.
After all, not only did she not sleep ever since she fought with the Iron Wood Berserker, but in the last few days, she has been basically walking on the tight line between line and death all the time. Actually, she even died once.
Honestly, with all of these things added up onto each other, the toll it took on her mentality sure wasn't small. Honestly, she could really use a good nap by now.
'Yeah, let's find someplace to sleep.' Just thinking about how tired she actually was, she began to yawn. Clearly, her mind had enough, and it needed a break.
Not even looking at Rejoke, Aurora walked off in a random direction. Seeing his new alpha leaving, Rejoke quickly followed behind. Despite his severe injuries, he definitely didn't want to be left behind, so he quickened his pace a bit to catch up.
Only once he was a few steps behind Aurora did he slow down to a normal pace. Yet, it seemed as if she didn't mind his presence at all and completely ignored him. Her focus was solely on looking for a place to sleep at.
And after walking around for a few minutes, the two of them stumbled upon a small cave. Well, calling it a cave may be a bit of an overstatement. After all, rather than a cave, it was more of a crevice between two large rocks.
So, after trying to see if she fits inside, Aurora squeezed her little body in between the two rocks, lay down on the rocky floor, and fell asleep almost immediately. She didn't even check whether it was safe to sleep around here.
Normally, before she went to sleep at any place, she would first check out the surrounding area to make sure that it was safe to sleep in that place. Something that would now be even easier to do, considering that she can just use her aura now.
However, what's more is that she fell asleep on the floor just like that! Usually, there was no way that she would just sleep on the floor. It was impossible, and she needed her bed (a pile of leaves) to even get a wink of sleep.
That just goes to show how truly exhausted she was, despite her stamina still being well over 100 points. The mental toll the recent events had on her mind was too much for her to bear much longer.
Meanwhile, Rejoke was watching all of this with a complicated gaze. Well, as complicated of a gaze as such a beast can have. After all, though he's quite intelligent, he's still nowhere near human-level intelligence.
Be that as it may, as he gazed at the small body of his leader, he wasn't sure how to feel. Right now, there was no sign of the previous powerful beast that could cast magic much stronger than his own. Now, she looked like a completely harmless fox.
With his head full of different thoughts that he himself probably didn't understand, he lied down on the grass in front of the 'cave' and put his head down. Closing his eyes, he calmed down his breathing and relaxed his mind. He didn't sleep, however. No, he had to protect his leader while she was sleeping; otherwise, who knows what could happen?
-----
Inside a completely empty white space, a silhouette of a woman was floating around the vast emptiness of the place. This silhouette was, of course, Aurora.
'Here again?' She wondered internally. This wasn't the first time she appeared here, nor was it the second time. Every time she fell asleep, she always found herself here.
Even though she was sleeping, her mind still seemed to be conscious, so for some reason, she always wound up here. She never dreamt of anything.
Usually, nothing happens during this time. She just floated around in the empty space, lost in her own thoughts. It was comfortable. It allowed her mind to relax, even though it was still working.
It was strange, and Aurora herself had no idea why she was here. She didn't even know what this place was, but such questions were meaningless.
In here, everything seemed to have lost its meaning. Even time itself had no meaning here. It all depended on how Aurora saw and perceived the things around her. If she perceived the time around her to pass slowly, it would pass slowly. And if she perceived it to pass by fast, it would.
"Heya." A sudden voice sounded behind her. As an instictive action, Aurora tried to turn around, but it was obviously in vain. She couldn't move here after all.
"No need to worry so much. Though it seems that you still can't move your body, huh?" The voice rang out again.
Aurora, however, couldn't respond. Actually, she couldn't do anything except think.
"Can't talk either? Tsk, tsk. You need to grow stronger, sis." The voice said something once again, but Aurora wasn't even thinking much about its words.
No, she was thinking about who was talking to her. She recognized that voice; she heard it before. It was the same voice she heard the first time she ever appeared in this place.
"Hm? Oh, it seems like you need to go now." The voice sounded dejected, as if sad or disappointed about something.
No later than a few seconds after those words were said, Aurora felt herself returning to reality. Her body was probably about to wake up, meaning that her mind would have to as well.
"Until next time, sis. And make sure that you can at least speak by then." Right after, Aurora woke up.
-----
As the first rays of sun peaked through the crevice between the rocks, Aurora's body stirred awake as her eyes fluttered open.
With a cute, lazy yawn, she walked out of the little space between the rocks, events of tonight's 'visit' still fresh in her mind. Visit was what she called those weird 'dreams' of hers that she had when she slept.
'Sis, huh? Do I have a sister?' Such questions lingered in her mind. The words of that strange voice perplexed her quite a lot. After all, she didn't remember having a sister. Not that she remembered much in the first place.
What's more, it seemed like the voice that apparently belonged to her 'sister' knew things that Aurora herself didn't know. It probably even knew what that white space was.
'No point in thinking about it too much.' She gently shook her head, deciding to put those thoughts aside.
Finally paying attention to what was happening around her, Auora noticed some black creature standing just about half a meter away from her.
'What the?' Without hesitation, she quickly turned to the side and slashed with her claw. The black creature nimbly jumped out of the way and looked at her confusedly. Only after getting a better look did Aurora realize that it was Rejoke.
'Oh, it's just you.' With a relieved sigh, she ceased her battle stance and stared at the black wolf for a moment. Seeing the confusion in his eyes, she snickered internally, but she also felt a bit bad for suddenly attacking him like that.
'Sorry about that.' As a sign of an apology, Aurora gave him a quick nod and turned her head in a different direction.
Seeing his leader nodding towards him, Rejoke finally understood that he probably just took her by surprise, which made him feel quite bad. After all, he has done something disrespectful towards his alpha.
But seeing that she didn't seem to mind much, he simply told himself to never do that again and glanced in the direction Aurora was looking at.