It's great! It's amazing! It's... F-rank?

[A/N: 'Pagma's Swordsmanship' has been changed to 'Pagma's Sword Dance', to keep it in line with the novel.]

He looked at Iris, who reciprocated the look. She seemed annoyed and interested in equal measure. Was she also anticipating the birth of this skill? No, there surely must've been another reason. Youngwoo didn't know her for long, but he already knew that anything related to Giordi in general was taken by Iris in negative light. Still, he decided not to ask.

He felt his heart thump in his chest strongly. He had to dismiss the notification before his talk, but now, he could feel the weight of the meaning behind it express itself. Finally, it was happening. He felt almost as if he had found a treasure he was looking for his entire life. Could a simple skill really do a thing like that to a person?

"Tower, I accept. Please give me this skill."

And then, in a brilliant flash of light, a small skill card appeared out of thin air in front of them both. The shimmering slowly subsided, and Youngwoo uncovered his eyes. His eyes traced the surface of the card, its beautiful mosaic, its... black color?

Wait, what was that?! He rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times, and looked again. The card rating was... F? Really?

His expression, at first filled with anticipation, was now showing his shock. Actually, it was THEIR shock, as Iris was also looking with the same expression at the card. However, as a few seconds passed, she suddenly burst into laughter. And it wasn't just a chuckle, giggle, or a healthy laughter. She just kept on laughing almost like a maniac, holding her stomach tightly as she rotated in the air. After some long seconds, she reduced her reaction to only a loud, continuous chuckle, as she was starting to take deep breaths.

"All this time..." She said. "Hahaha!" She laughed again. "So much anticipation... HAHA! And for what?! A fucking F-rank! AHAHAHA!" She started her spree again, suddenly turning forward and rotating in place for a moment.

A few more, long seconds passed, as Iris started finally calming down. Meanwhile Youngwoo only kept on looking at the card, unable to squeeze a word out. As if noticing his speechlessness, he received a notification.

["Mortal, I know it is not a lot, but as only an administrator, I cannot give you much."]

"Giordi..." Name came out of Youngwoo's mouth. Suddenly, he bent forward, creating a 90 degree angle, as he bowed with respect. "Thank you."

"???" Iris looked at him, visibly surprised.

["...??? Aren't you angry, mortal?"]

"Angry? What for?" Youngwoo straightened up and looked at the notification and then at Iris. "This is already more than I had ever hoped for. F-rank, S-rank. I don't care. To me, this skill is great no matter its rank." He reached out and grabbed the card.

[You obtained skill: Pagma's Sword Dance]
[Skill rank: F]
[This skill requires footwork to complete. Guidance of aura will be created whenever you want to cast a sub-skill of this skill.]
[*You are the master of this skill. Guidance has been turned off, and sword dances can be used with alternative footwork devised by you.]

"...You look like I'm supposed to get mad." He said to the white-haired woman.

"...Che." She put on a pouting face as she turned away. Just what was up with her now?

"Well..." He started, but decided not to finish his thought. "Anyway, let's get going." And then, he started walking away.

He heard Iris grumble something quietly, but decided not to ask her for a repeat. Yes, the rating was surely disappointing, but it was already more than he ever could've asked for. Just a month ago (which was 3 years in the future), he would never, ever expect for anything of the sort to happen. Maybe that was the reason his and Iris' reactions were so different? Perhaps.

He put a hand in his pocket and got hold of his phone. His palms were a little sweaty as he turned it on and dialed Hilda's number. After a short talk and ensuring that whatever Ieva called her for was not that serious, he asked:

"Say, do you know any good place to train?"

"Do you mean your swordsmanship?"

"Well, kind of, but I just meant skills in general."

"Wait, I'll ask Ieva." A long moment of silence ensued, and soon, he heard her voice again. "She says that there is a training ground outside of city. They test equipment in there. Why do you ask, though?"

"I'll show you, don't worry." He said, and formed a tiny, cocky smirk (not that she could see it though). "Do you think you can lead me there?"

"Yes, I'll ask her for directions... What? Um... Youngwoo..."

"Yes?" 'Did something happen?'

"Ieva says she wants to come with us..." He heard a little bit of uncertainty in her voice.

Normally, he also would be surprised, but he understood her intention: she wanted to ask him about Aliki in person, without the need of sending messages over distances. The sooner the better, they say.

"Um, if you're alright with that, I'm fine with her tagging along."

"..." For a few seconds, she didn't answer. "Alright then. A nice walk from the city will do good to all of us. Where are you?"

"Still at park. You?"

"We're at the Workshop... Alright, alright." She said something, but it didn't seem to be aimed to him. She must've been speaking with Ieva as well. "I'll send you our location. Meet you in 20 minutes. We'll prepare."

"Okay then. See you." He said, and hung up. No longer than 30 seconds later, he received a message with Workshop's location. He was honestly surprised to see it be only a little over 10 minutes away if he walked fast.

Making sure that he was walking in the right direction, he summoned his status screen, and then the skill description, and started reading.

[Youngwoo Lee
Rank: E
Alias: [None]]

[Skills:
...
Great Magician Bond (passive) (F)
Enchant (C)
Pagma's Sword Dance (F)]

First thing he noticed was the skill of bond. Strangely enough, he didn't recall it appearing after he got killed, and at the same time, it was above Enchant he got from Ieva. 'Wait... Great Magician... isn't that Iris?' Quickly, he brought up the information about the skill, and confirmed his thoughts. 'Huh. So she's called Great Magician... I know she told me all those amazing things, but... if even Tower recognizes her, she really must've been great.

Still, he decided not to ponder too much. After all, he had another skill to read through.

[Pagma's Sword Dance

Rank: F

Swordsmanship described as a pure dance with the blade. Every step, every breath is important, and connect to create the whole.

...

...]

As he read more and more, he started creating a plan in the back of his mind. When he reached the section describing fusion dances, he felt himself smirking a little. Noticing that he still was a few minutes away from his destination, he waited until there would be no people around him, and said loudly:

"Tower, I want to register a fusion dance."

[The Tower listens to you.]

"The fusion I want is Flower Revolve." He said.

[The Tower replies positively.]
[Sword dances 'Flower' and 'Revolve' have been fused.]
['Flower Revolve' has been added to your list of fusion dances.]

[Sword dance: Flower Revolve

Rank: F

Sword dance depicting falling petals swirling to create a storm.

At the end of sword dance:

Designate any number of targets in your field of view. Swing the blade spirally, sending forth 4-6 flower petals up to 3 times. Every petal is coated in aura and will reflect one attack back at its original position with 10% original power. Effects of the strikes, if any, will be reflected with 15% original probability.
*Very strong attacks cannot be reflected, but their power will be weakened.
*Petals will last for 8 seconds, and will aggressively home into attacks belonging to specified targets.

Sword dance recoil: You will be dazed for 10 seconds, taking 33% more damage during that time. Any successful strike that hits you during that time will increase cooldown of this sword dance by 20 seconds, up to 2 times the normal cooldown.

Cooldown: 1600 seconds]

"Good." He nodded, checking the info. "Thank you."

'The cooldown is pretty long... will this also be the issue for higher fusions?' He pondered for a long moment. Just looking at it now and analyzing it piece by piece. Flower had 700 seconds of cooldown, and Revolve had 690, which added up to 1390 seconds. He still was 210 short. This meant that there was a tendency to increase the cooldown. Still... just how large was this tendency?

'If I can assume this is a constant percentage value, then... Linked Kill Flower would probably have cooldown of at least 3000 seconds... and higher fusions will be counted in hours...' But, he shook off the thought. There was no need to falter. After all, just who was the person that was bound to him?

"Hey." He turned to Iris, who was still looking away. "Iris?"

"...what?" She turned to him, her tone a little aggressive. Was she in a bad mood now? Well, surely so.

"...never mind." Youngwoo shook his head, deciding not to push her. They had time, after all.

"Don't you dare 'never mind' me." She let out what seemed to be a quiet growl. "If you have a question, just ask it."

"...do you know any ways to decrease cooldown of skills?"

"..." She looked at him momentarily, and then at the sky, as if she were pondering. "There's a few ways. The most efficient one is to increase the skill rank. You can also try alchemy, meditation, there are also some other ways... up to you, really."

"Meditation, you say?"

"It's highly inefficient, but yes, it does work as well. By detaching your spirit from your body, you allow more aura in. At most, you can decrease cooldown of a skill by about one tenth, but it's always something."

"I see." He nodded. "Thank you."

"..." She turned her head away from him. Yeah, better not to move this hornet's nest anymore for the time being. "Do those skills have such long cooldowns?" She looked at him again, and there was a glint of curiosity coming from her.

"Kind of." He nodded. "Most of them have only a few minutes, but just a 2-fusion has nearly half an hour. A 3-fusion might have almost an hour of cooldown, and higher ones could be hours long."

"Che. And you think that's long." She put on a pout. "Some of my skills are only usable once per day, or even once every few days."

"...oh. I thought that all skills have cooldown below 15 minutes or so." 'Looking at Hilda's zombie back then, EDA was used almost all the time, as if cooldown didn't exist back there.'

"..." Iris put a hand on her forehead as she seemed... disappointed. Suddenly, she rose her hand up a little. "Never mind. Some skills just have short cooldowns."

"...I see." 'That doesn't seem to be the issue...' But he decided not to push. No, don't stick a stick in hornet's nest. There was a good reason this was a saying.

After he closed his status window, he opted to simply walk forward. Iris positioned herself behind him, floating within hand's reach and looking at the sky. As Youngwoo stole a glance at her momentarily, he noticed how blank her eyes became. Was she deep in thought? No, better not check it. He'd rather not have her berate him again. He still remembered the cold sweat he felt before she started recording his movements just 2 days ago. He didn't need a repeat.

A few minutes later, as the clock on his phone was showing 11:46, he looked up from the screen and noticed a glint of red and yellow in the distance. Focusing himself, he instantly recognized Hilda and Ieva, both walking towards him. Behind them, he noticed a building that he had seen a photo of in the net. The Workshop in its full glory...

...was pretty shabby, if he were to be honest, even more so in person than in the web. It actually looked like a rundown building, staged for deconstruction or a serious renovation. In normal world, such a place would never pass as a working space for engineers or the likes. But, well, as it was said many times before, this was Tower. Normal concepts hardly applied to this place.

He turned off his phone, and smirked a little.

"Hi." He waved his hand as he approached.

"Hey." Hilda smiled back at him.

"Sup." Said Ieva, fixing a small backpack that was on her back.

"Ready to go?" He asked, noticing how Hilda had a small rope on her, tied in a toga style (going from one shoulder to opposite waist), some kind of a scepter smugly fit on her back.

Noticing his stare, his girlfriend quickly answered his question:

"Yes. We also have some equipment we'd like to test. But where's yours?"

"Don't worry. It's right here." He said, tapping his sword.

Hilda tilted her head a little.

"But... isn't that the sword you always use?"

"...who said I want to try out my sword?" He raised his eyebrow and grimaced ever so much.

"...a skill? When'd you get one?" Asked Hilda as Ieva started going away, leading the three of them.

"When you went away. Kind of a weird thing to happen out of blue, but I can't argue it was nice to receive. Now I want to test it a bit."

"Ah, I see." Nodded Hilda.

Unsure what to say anymore, he decided not to say anything. In the end of the day, conversation wasn't something he thought of as mandatory in a walk. No, if silence was what the two of them wanted, silence it shall be. He knew Hilda wasn't very forward in the talks unless she had to be, and Ieva was... well, Ieva. Who knew what was going on inside her head? Oh well, not that he cared.

During their almost 30 minute long walk, the scenery of the city gradually changed. At first, the tallest buildings around became a few stories lower, reaching only about 10 floors up instead of 15 to 20 nearer the center. Additionally, some of the buildings were clearly more of residential nature, having rows of windows, nearly all of them outfitted with with some decorations, such as curtains in the windows or graffiti on walls, more often than not quite artistic, but there were a few rather... explicit.

Soon enough, the larger houses stopped appearing altogether, and were replaced with loosely placed housings, probably large enough to comfortably accommodate 3 people each. After the very short suburbs (as they walked through them in less than 3 minutes), the trio was welcomed by large, open space, filled with multiple fields with different crops. Well, at least Youngwoo wanted to imagine there were multiple types of crops planted in there. Safe for occasional small gardens with fruit trees planted in orderly fashion, the ground was brown and had nearly no signs of any plants. Then again, it was still the beginning of the year.

After a few more minutes, Ieva took a turn into a small road leading to the nearest forest. Walking on the road, after some more time passed, they stepped in the treeline and Youngwoo started hearing something. At first, he couldn't place his finger on where did he hear that sound before.

Thang! Thang!

Although distant, the sound of metal hitting metal was clear and defined. As a few more minutes passed by, he realized. It was sound of reforming metal through manual labor. It was sound of blacksmiths.

"Welcome to the training grounds, Youngwoo." Said Hilda, as the three of them finally reached the end of the road, and entered a huge clearing, easily over 200 by 300 metres. A huge building, about 50 by 70, although 'only' as much as 8 metres tall, was outstanding. Made with some kind of gray brick, it had many windows, and a number of chimneys, almost all of them spewing forth gray smoke. Thanks to all that, it had a medieval look to it. Outside of it, under a shed connected to the building, were 4 people hitting metal with hammers on their anvils.

The blacksmith district welcomed them all with its repetitive noise.