"Eh?" For a few seconds, Valyr looked at Julian with a blank expression, feeling great disbelief at the words the latter had said to him to the point that he wondered whether he had heard correctly. Fortunately, it did not take long for him to get over his shock, though he was still hesitant to accept it outright.
"What's wrong?" Naturally, Julian noticed Valyr's hesitation while concurrently having the piece of equipment he was working on now undergo through the tempering process. "Didn't you want to use the teleportation constructs? After all, it'll save you a lot of money than using the public ones."
"I know that." Valyr nodded, his face containing a wry smile. "However, don't you think it would be suspicious for a core member to head through the guild's teleportation constructs for no reason? I may now have a considerably higher rank than before, but would it be enough for me to pass through the constructs without a problem?"
"Ah." At those words, it was only at that moment did Julian realize his blunder, stopping what he was doing for a second as he thought about it for a bit. After a minute or so of silence, the man looked at Valyr with an apologetic smile. "I definitely overlooked that part. Thanks for reminding me."
"Teleportation constructs are only available to use for those at the Lesser Elder rank and above, so a core member like you would definitely be stopped even before you step a foot into the room where the constructs are." Scratching the back of his head, Julian placed the forging hammer he was wielding to the side as he pondered over the matter at hand. "Hmm… what to do…"
Of course, it did not take long for the answer to pop up in his mind, prompting him to continue working on the piece of equipment before him, albeit at a slightly faster pace.
"Let's do it this way. Let me finish forging this piece of equipment first and then I'll accompany you in upgrading your badge, as well as have you go through the teleportation constructs. Sound good?" Hearing Julian's suggestion this time around, although it still left Valyr at a loss for words, it was not due to the immense shock he felt from the suggestion anymore. Instead, it was the slight excitement he felt towards the situation, which caused him to nod in agreement to what Julian had said to him.
Seeing Valyr nod in response to his suggestion, Julian nodded back as he flashed a slight grin, only to focus his attention back on the equipment before him. "Since it'll be a while before I finish, you could either go ahead and wait for me outside, or you could stay here and watch me forge while we talk about a couple things. It's not often that I have visitors in my room while I forge, to be honest."
"I'd be glad to take you up on your second offer, then." In response to Julian's words, Valyr went with the second option, prompting the middle-aged man to let out a bit of hearty laughter as he gave the young man a toothy grin. After that, Julian worked on the equipment for a bit more before placing the forging hammer to the side, staring at the air in front of him soon after.
"What level and rarity is your disguise skill at the moment?" Whilst Julian was in the middle of staring at nothing, he posed a question to Valyr, which caused the latter to tilt his head in slight confusion for a bit, wondering the man's intent behind the question. Thankfully, it did not take long for the young man to put two and two together in his mind, becoming slightly expectant and excited as to what Julian might do in response to his answer.
"It's an Uncommon+ skill at Level 10. Currently at the bottleneck."
"I'm surprised you could get a disguise skill at that rarity with your current class rank." With his eyes briefly widening in surprise at Valyr's answer, Julian closed his eyes for a bit, only for a rift to appear a few dozen centimeters away from him.
Whoosh!
With Valyr staring at the scene before him wide-eyed in shock, Julian extended one of his hands into the rift before eventually retrieving a key that was silver in color, its overall design bearing great resemblance to keys from ancient times. Embedded within the bow of a key was a small green crystal, which gave Valyr the feeling that it contained the power to unlock something within him.
"Here you go. An Uncommon grade Skill Key. Use it to upgrade your disguise skill. After all, we don't want anyone else to find out your true identity." After giving the Skill Key to Valyr, Julian closed the rift he had opened before returning his attention to the piece of equipment he was working on, the sound of metal clashing against metal resounding throughout the room once more.
Staring at the key he had been given for a bit, Valyr took in a deep breath before proceeding to command the system to use the Skill Key to unlock the bottleneck stopping him from upgrading [Enhanced Polymorph] to Level 11 and above.
Ding!
[Would you like to use 1 Uncommon Skill Key and spend 14,684 XP to upgrade 'Enhanced Polymorph' to Level 11?]
"Yes." At the very instant after he had confirmed the prompt that appeared in front of him, the key he was holding transformed into motes of light, all of which were making their way to his forehead. Then, without leaving a trace on his forehead, the motes of light passed through his forehead and entered his mind, eventually finding the skill that Valyr chose to unlock as the sound of a door unlocking resounded through his mind not long after.
Soon after, an influx of information regarding the skill surged through Valyr's mind, giving the young man a better idea of what he could do with the skill, as well as what limits the skill had now that it had broken through its bottleneck.
Once he was finished organizing the information he had received from the upgrade, he then went ahead and commanded the system to upgrade [Enhanced Polymorph] to its max level, causing over 850,000 XP to disappear within an instant as he was soon bombarded with information once more.
Though, with the experience he had regarding learning and upgrading multiple skill books at the same time, it did not take long for everything to return to normal, with the only difference being the fact that the disguise Valyr was using now seemed to be harder to figure out. Noticing this change, a faint smile appeared on Julian's face as he briefly glanced at the young man before returning his attention to what he was working on.
And with that, the two of them decided to pass the time by talking about certain topics within the kingdom as Julian continued to toil away.
