Fisherman Kirou, <Chimera Creation>

As the trio looked over in the direction of the blast, they realized that it was caused by a player forcibly jumping into the fray. On the other side of the clearing, Kirou could see a party for four, a woman and three men. From their gear, Kirou could see that this was a balanced party, at least that is what it is described as based on the information he had obtained from the gaming forums he's browsed over the past few days.

The party consisted of a mage, priest, warrior, and archer, with the only woman being the mage. She was the one to launch an attack on the group of monsters locked in combat. While Kirou knew nothing about the stats of their equipment, with a quick activation of his skill <Metal Sense>, Kirou was able to tell that the gear that the warrior had equipped wasn't all that good. Using him, that team's tank, as the basis of the team's strength, Kirou could tell that the party wouldn't be able to face the consequences of their actions.

Off to the side, Mistaken Fox was looking at Kirou with a peculiar gaze, one which Kirou ignored outright. As for Shadow Arachne, it looked on at the party with a human-like expression of contempt. While it lacked the ability to judge a player's equipment like its master and was unable to judge the party's strength based on the level difference between it and them, Shadow Arachne instinctively knew that those four players were weaker than it currently. At the very least, they were weaker than its master and that was all it needed to know.

Kirou, for his part, only stared at the group for a bit longer before turning back to face Mistaken Fox and spoke, "Ignore them. They will pay for jumping into a fight they had no place in." As Kirou said this, he gave Mistaken Fox a shrug before ignoring the party of four.

Mistaken Fox, still with his peculiar gaze locked on Kirou, finally opened his mouth, "You knew the party was nearby, didn't you? Why didn't you say something about it, so that we could prepare for them ahead of time?"

Kirou gave Mistaken Fox a sly smile before he responded, "Of course I knew they were there. I never considered them a threat the first time I saw them and that belief still holds true even now. As a matter of fact, their entrance is quite the boon for you." As Kirou said this, the sly smile on his face got bigger.

Mistaken Fox could only shake his head at Kirou's response. With this, Mistaken Fox could now confirm that Kirou truly was a mean person at times.

******************

So said, so done. Not even ten minutes later since they interrupted the fight, the four-man party was reduced to corpses, watching as the three minotaurs started to reengage the scorpion boss creature.

Mistaken Fox could only stare at this and shake his head at the result. Halfway through the fight, he actually hoped that the party of four would have beaten the group of monsters if only to prove Kirou wrong. Alas, Kirou's prediction came through. It was at this point that Mistaken Fox finally took a closeup of the scorpion boss's stats.

Monster: Stone Mount Earth Scorpion (Boss)

Level: 20

HP: 67500/120,000

Att: 350

Def: 300

Skills: Reckless Charge, Bite, Tremor, Stone Skin, Earth Spike, Berserk,

Looking at the stats of the Earth Scorpion, Mistaken Fox took a look at the daggers in his hands before giving them a tight squeeze. While the weapons themselves are quite good, he cannot take advantage of them in his current state.

'If only I had a proper medallion. Then I would be able to use all of the arcane summoner skills currently locked at the moment,' were the thoughts passing through Mistaken Fox's mind as he stared at the rare daggers in his hands. Kirou, seeing this, had a look of understanding on his face, as if he could see through Mistaken Fox's woes as clear as day.

Instead of allowing Mistaken Fox to continue to wallow in his grief, however brief it was, Kirou gave Shadow Arachne a signal, prompting it to vanish into the treetops of the nameless forest. Kirou then turned to Mistaken Fox and patted his shoulder, drawing his attention to Kirou.

"Don't look so glum. I'll help you obtain a weapon after we are done here. I'm kind of interested in seeing one as well." After saying this, Kirou then pointed to the ongoing battle between the four creatures now drawing to a close.

Mistaken Fox awoke from his stupor with renewed determination and spoke in a quiet voice, "Thank you."

"No problems. How about we take the spoils of this battle between the *snipe and the clam?" As Kirou said this, he adopted a sly grin on his face once again. This time, Mistaken Fox too adopted this same expression before both turned to face the fight.

"I believe you're being a bad influence on me, Brother Kirou. I never thought I'd see the day I get to play the fisherman in such a role." As Mistaken Fox said this, with a change in address for Kirou, Kirou let out a hearty laugh in response.

"That just means I've become someone you can trust. Don't overthink it and let's have fun." Having said this, Kirou once again took out the pair of gloves with metal knuckles and equipped them. Along with this, wires started dangling from his hands, showing that he would be using both in this fight.

Mistaken Fox was curious about how Kirou was able to wield multiple weapons at the same time but decided that was a question for another day. As Mistaken Fox started to fade out of sight due to <Stealth>, Kirou spoke in a quiet voice for him to hear, "I'll allow you to try and tame the Earth Scorpion first. If it fails, then I'll take the kill and skin it for materials."

While under stealth, Mistaken Fox did a nodding gesture. As if Kirou could see it, he said, "Good," before he too disappeared into the shadows, this time under the effects of <Shadow Camouflage>.

******************

The party of four, under the leadership of the female mage, was currently back in a random village located within the Stone Mountain Range fuming in rage and despair. The reason for this stems from their failed attempt to take down the Earth Scorpion along with the three low health minotaurs that were fighting it. Granted, this all stemmed from her jumping the gun and attracting the mutual hate from all four creatures unto her party, the female mage was still mad.

"Big Sis, calm down. We can still make it if we run now. That boss shouldn't be able to finish off those minotaurs and escape to recover its health," said one of the men in the group. This one was dressed in a white robe, identifying him as the priest.

"That's right, Big Sis. Let's hurry back to the area. If we lose out on this boss, there's no way we'll be able to join the combat guild for our sect," mirrored another male, this time dressed in plate armor, identifying him as the warrior.

As for the archer, he stood off to the side nodding to their words while looking at the female mage imploringly. While the archer kept quiet, his determined expression showed his resolve on the matter.

Hearing the words and looking at the expressions of her three subordinates, the woman finally managed to calm herself down. She then ordered the three of them to head out and stock up on supplies immediately. It was a race against time to make it back to that boss monster and they had not a moment to lose.

Alas, their dreams would be dashed as by the time they made it to the area, all they will find is a battlefield covered in debris along with various spiderwebs in a few places. Naturally, this would leave the party in tears as they just spent all that time and money preparing for a fight, only to be late to the monster's death.

If someone was passing by the party, they would notice that all four members had a peculiar guild name above their head. Kirou had seen the guild name when the party first appeared before his eyes but nothing to help as they had nothing to do with him. The guild's name was 'Sanming.'

******************

Kirou, Mistaken Fox, and Shadow Arachne were currently making their way through the nameless forests of Stone Mountain Range, heading in the direction of Elderwood Forest. Mistaken Fox had a sad expression on his face while Kirou was smiling from ear to ear. The reason for this stems from the fact that Mistaken Fox failed to tame the Earth Scorpion. Since they had agreed upon it earlier, Kirou went in for the kill after the taming failed. While he did obtain three minotaur medallions, he felt a bit of regret in missing out on obtaining the medallion for a boss monster.

Immediately following the slaying of the Earth Scorpion, Kirou removed his harvesting tools from his inventory and went to work dismantling and harvesting materials from the creature. Like that, Mistaken Fox once again confirmed Kirou's information. With Kirou's skill in handling a knife as well as his understanding of the scorpion's anatomy, Kirou harvested quite a lot of materials from the boss monster. It got so bad that the system forcefully turned the corpse into particles of light after he removed the thirteenth material in <Excellent Condition> from the corpse. While Kirou was slightly disappointed in the system's interference, he was quite content with the spoils he did obtain.

As for Mistaken Fox, when he saw all that happened, his mouth could only remain open until Shadow Arachne approached him and poked the inside of his mouth, prompting Mistaken Fox to awaken from his stupor and flee from Shadow Arachne that was now looking at him with a weirdly human-like expression of curiosity.

After traveling for roughly another hour, the trio finally made it towards a village that bordered Stone Mountain Range and Elderwood Forest. Having arrived at a town the trio didn't immediately enter but went into the surrounding forest, finding a somewhat hidden clearing.

Now that the trio was there, Mistaken Fox resumed the conversation that was interrupted while they were waiting for the four monsters to fight earlier, "As I was saying before, the gimmick I found had to do with finding hidden areas scattered over all nine continents. In these areas, as long as you stay within, you'll obtain a permanent increase in stats. This stat increase isn't really much when compared to using the area as it should be used but it is a stat boost nonetheless. As for making use of the areas as they should be, by the time you finish, you'll have obtained a vast increase in stats. Just take a look at me. I found areas where I could obtain the <Intelligence> stat since I was basically hiding out in libraries for over two weeks. Because of this, my base <Intelligence> stat not counting equipment additions is now at 350."

When Kirou heard that, his gaze on Mistaken Fox became very sharp. Using himself as a base as someone not of the magic class, at level 13 his <Intelligence> stat was only at 23. Going by the conventional stat increase per level, if he were at level 17 as well, his stat would only increase to 29 points and even if he dumped all his free stats points into <Intelligence> at that level, his <Intelligence> stat wouldn't be above 75 points. And that was just him who got bonus stat points from obtaining a few first kills. Normal people, who spent their stat points in other areas wouldn't even come close to him, much less Mistaken Fox in front of him.

Kirou could only release a long breath after doing all those calculations, along with their ramifications within his mind. Comparisons truly were meant to hurt people. While his discovery would make the entire player base for Immortal Era flip upside down, Mistaken Fox's discovery was just as damaging.

After listening to Mistaken Fox explain a bit more on it, along with only pointing out that he's found many <Intelligence> areas and a few <Strength> areas so far, Kirou could only shake his head for a bit. While he had mentally noted down the areas Mistaken Fox had given him, Kirou decided to throw them on the back burner for now. He would visit them later on when the opportunity presents itself.

Now that the two men were finally done with their convo, Kirou turned to the side, only to see Shadow Arachne and a clone of his competing to see who can make the most elaborate creation with their respective threads. Kirou unintentionally leaked a voice of surprise when he saw both of their creations, prompting Mistaken Fox to turn around as well, only to have the same reaction.

Both clone and spider had decided to stick to a 2D image, the spider creating an image of its master within its threads while the clone created an image of the spider within its wires. Both images looked so well that Kirou couldn't stop himself from approaching both and taking a picture of each. That was something he definitely had to save for future admiration.

As both clone and spider saw their master approach, they stopped their apparent argument over which one is better and allowed Kirou to observe their works from up close. Having already taken many pictures following the instructions of the game itself, Kirou closely scrutinized both artworks before pointing at the one made in spider thread. Seeing this, the spider started jumping in celebration while the clone just shrugged before dissipating back into Kirou's shadow.

While all this was going on, Mistaken Fox stood off to the side, watching all of this taking place. Having learned from last time, he didn't allow his mouth to stay open but he had an expression of shock plastered over his face. He made a mental note to himself to prepare suitable payment in case he ever wants that spider to make a portrait of him within the future.

'There is definitely nothing ordinary about Brother Kirou, is there?' asked Mistaken Fox to himself within his mind, wondering just how many secrets truly were hidden in Kirou's being.

Now that he was done judging the artworks, Kirou returned to Mistaken Fox's side before speaking, "Ok, Brother Fox. Now that we are done with the official business, why not show me what you plan on doing with those minotaur medallions."

After hearing this, Mistaken Fox was reminded of the fact that he now had eleven minotaur medallions, just enough to make use of his class trait with one remaining. Mistaken Fox then took out all eleven medallions before passing one over to Kirou. Kirou accepted the medallion and placed it in his inventory without even looking at it before focusing back on Mistaken Fox.

Mistaken Fox saw his action but said nothing as he placed all ten minotaur medallions on the floor in the shape of a strange arcane rune. Following this, Mistaken Fox used one of his daggers to cut his hand, allowing blood to flow freely from it and unto the arcane rune made from medallions. This blood that he lost equated to his actual health as it decreased while the blood flowed from Mistaken Fox's hand. As the blood flowed, Mistaken Fox started chanting a strange incantation that Kirou did not know of.

Kirou looked on this in curiosity. To him, this was a learning opportunity and he wasn't planning to miss it. After a minute of this, Mistaken Fox stopped bleeding, with his health now at 70%. He then started using both hands to gesture as he continued chanting that strange incantation.

Unintentionally, Kirou took out the minotaur medallion he obtained earlier along with some materials and started imitating Mistaken Fox's every action, including the moment he slit his wrist and allowed some blood to land on the medallion. Shadow Arachne saw this and tried warning Kirou, only for it to be ignored as Kirou kept this up.

Eventually, after a few minutes, Mistaken Fox finally finished his chanting and gesturing. Right now, he too was waiting for the result of his skill. He didn't have to wait long as, after five seconds, the arcane rune made from medallions started glowing before the rune floated off the ground and turned into a single medallion which had the depiction minotaur, but this one was quite different from the ones before. Just as Mistaken Fox was about the approach the floating medallion, the medallion transformed into a mass of light which turned into a five-meter tall minotaur wielding two stone great axes.

Mistaken Fox was both surprised and excited at the fact that he finally succeeded in summoning his very own pet. The minotaur approached Mistaken Fox before stabbing both great axes into the ground and then kneeling before him. With this kneel, an arcane rune, similar to the one Mistaken Fox had formed with the ten previous minotaur medallions appeared from within the brow of the minotaur and approach Mistaken Fox before it buried itself within his mind. With this, Mistaken Fox has now obtained full control of this new minotaur. Following this, the minotaur turned into a mass of light which then turned into the previously created medallion which then flew and landed in Mistaken Fox's hand.

Mistaken Fox was over the moon and just as he was about to celebrate, he turned to face Kirou, only to be shocked out of his mind. Before Kirou stood another minotaur. Unlike Mistaken Fox's minotaur standing over five meters tall, this one was just over two meters and was equipped with armor and a shield that looked eerily similar to the carapace of the Earth Scorpion the duo and spider pet had killed less than an hour ago.

Unlike with Mistaken Fox, where the creature approached him and kneeled, showing submission, this newly created minotaur was staring at Kirou with blatant hostility. Not only that, it was actively trying to mow Kirou down with its carapace shield, only to fall short every time as Kirou narrowly dodged its attacks.

"Just what the hell did you do?????" shouted Mistaken Fox as he stared at the battle between Kirou and the carapace armored minotaur.

Kirou, for his part, could only adopt a wry smile on his face as he answered, "I think I may have unintentionally learned your skill." With that, Kirou had to roll to the side to dodge the carapaced minotaur's reckless charge. His words were further proven as he took a quick glance at the new system messages he just received.

[Generating Skill...]

[Skill Generation Failed!]

[Generating Trait...]

[Trait Generated: <Chimera Creation>(Incomplete)]