For the first time ever Emilio decided to upgrade a Stat before he did the corresponding Trial. Not out of choice, but because he had already maxed out the other ones. This meant that he had no idea on what to expect when he selected his Body for the upgrade.

  As soon as he made his choice, he started to feel his body was drained of energy. His Vitality kept regenerating him, but his body was being weakened.

  The more time passed, the weaker he felt. When he seemed to reach an all time low in stamina, the body recovered all at once. It was as if the Vitality he spent to recover was stocked up and released all at once. When that happened, his body not only recovered, but it went beyond what it was before. He felt stronger, faster and more agile.

  The flow of energy that started to enter his daggers was several times higher than all the other times. At the same time, the upgrade took longer than the other times.

  “Is it ranking up?” Tuor asked as soon as he saw the difference on the upgrade.

  “Yes, but it is going to be at the lowest quality.” Emilio explained.

  “As long as the System makes you able to use it, it is a net positive. The main reason people have Peak weapons is their body restricts them. I am happy to witness this. It is a really rare occurrence to watch a weapon Rank up. Even if it is to Rank 2, it is worth watching.”

  Emilio stared at the daggers, but he really couldn’t see any difference between this and the other upgrades. After a few seconds, he gave up and decided to check his new Skill.

  Emilio was shocked when he read the new Skill. There were three things in particular that surprised him. The first one was the complexity it presented. All of his previous Skills so far have been kind of simple. Its applications might be wide, but they were simple in essence which was not the case with the Soul Contract.

  The next thing that shocked him was the mention of souls. As far as he knew they were a religious construct to control the masses. But the Skill made it evident that they existed and could be influenced with the Mind Stat. This was a complete breach of his scientific knowledge, but then again, all of the System stuff was.

  The last thing he noted was how he kept getting the Skills he actually needed. This new Skill might have been the best thing he could get to finalize the deals between Tuor and Earth.

  It was not only that one, but he also got the Pain Reduction Skill he really wanted. If he could influence what Skill he was going to get, he had to know how. With that in mind he decided to ask about the subject to the human encyclopedia in front of him.

  “Tuor, are the Skills you get influenced by what you want or need?” Emilio asked.

  “Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. It is really up to your luck. If you are lucky you will get what you need, but if you are not you might get something useless for you. The only thing that influences them for sure are your last Stat points assigned and your Stats distribution.

  “As for getting what you need, it might happen, but it depends on your luck. Given your question I can assume that you are one of the lucky ones who always gets what they want, right?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “The first Skill allowed me to get two more points in the Vitality Trial. The second one synergized with the first one and allowed me to not kill myself while training this week. The first one I got today was one I joked around all week about getting it and I really needed it. The last one that I just got might be the Skill I need to seal our deals” Emilio explained.

  After explaining his position, Emilio decided to share the system message describing the Skill. If he was going to sign a soul contract with Tuor for the future of his planet, he would have to see it anyway. No one in their right mind would sign something like that without knowing the full Skill.

  “Wow, your luck is really off the charts. First you got synergies, then the Skill you wanted and lastly the one you needed without even knowing it existed.” Tuor commented as he read the message. “The Soul Contract Skill is really rare, but not unheard of. It is really valuable and seeked by any powerhouse. Just this Skill alone would provide you and your family safe passage in any clan. Apparently, you will get the freedom you wanted. Your planet might not, but you will.”

  When Emilio heard the explanation, he was happy for his family, but he didn’t want to just abandon his planet. Which meant he was still in the same spot as before, just with a little bit more personal security.

  “That is a relief, but at the same time not. I want my whole planet to be free.” Seeing that Tuor didn’t react to his comment, Emilio decided to change the subject. “Why is it so good? I understand why we need it for our specific circumstances, but I don’t see why it is as valuable as you make it seem.”

  “Not right now, but after you Rank it up it will be different,” Tuor explained ,“Even if you don’t have the talent to Rank up, any power will sponsor you until you are able to do it.”

  “Rank it up? Can I rank up the Skills?” Emilio asked.

  “Do you remember that I said that System Skills can be Upgraded? The Skills you have right now are useful for Rank 1, so they are considered Rank 1 Skills. If you don’t upgrade them sooner or later they will be useless.”

  “How do I upgrade them?” Emilio asked. Even though he might have an idea on what he had to do.

  “You have to raise its proficiency to 100% and be on the Rank that you want to upgrade it to, so it is not a huge worry for you right now. Just know that you need to reach 100% proficiency in your Skills for them to become better.”

  “That was kind of evident, but I did want to ask you what happened after the 100%. The proficiency seemed to improve when I understood what the Skill did, but I didn’t seem like the 100% was no more improvement.”

  “Not even by a close margin. You can keep improving them far more. Actually, I don’t think there is a limit to improving them. The 100% just means you can upgrade it to the next Rank. How much did you manage to increase your proficiency in just these few days?” Tuor asked.

  “They are at 85% and 95%” Emilio exposed, shocking Tuor with the big number.

  “How did you increase them that much? It shouldn’t have been that easy to get one to 95%!” Tuor exclaimed.

  “That one is the Regeneration Skill. I trained with my daggers without knowing how to use them and kept healing myself when I got hurt,” Emilio explained, not solving any of Tuor’s confusion.

  “Do you have any idea the amount of damage it takes to raise Regeneration to that proficiency! Well, if you did, you have to know, but it makes no sense at all in the timeframe even if you didn’t sleep and spent all your time healing!” Tuor exclaimed “Also, what are you? A little kid? How could you hurt yourself that much while training?”

  “Hey, I got a teacher yesterday and I already have him to scold me about that!” Emilio replied.

  “Thank you for sharing that, I was beginning to doubt if you were really a good investment if you did all that damage to yourself, but at least you have someone to correct it. Either way, it still doesn't make sense. Even if you were damaged like that, you couldn’t have healed in this timeframe.”

  “I fastened the healing with the Focus Vitality Skill. I think that doing that also increased the proficiency of the other Skill, ” Emilio explained, only to find an even more shocked Tuor.

  “Is that what you call a synergy? They are practically a higher Rank Skill when they work together! I can’t believe how synergistic your first two Skills are!” Tuor remarked with a little bit of jealousy. “Now I am a little afraid to ask, but what is the Skill you got today that you joked about?”

  “Pain Reduction.” Emilio exposed.

  As soon as he heard what he was asking for, Tour’s face changed to pure disgust. “What the hell is your luck? That is a godly combo. You are practically immortal, maybe not now, but in higher Ranks you will be. Just what did you do to deserve this?”

  “Deserve? I didn’t know luck was a consequence of something.” Emilio decided to make a mental note about things like that happening.

  “It is not, that is why it is called luck. It’s just disgusting.”

  “So my Skills are really influenced by what I need?” Emilio asked.

  This reminded Tuor of Emilio's last Skill, which was a lucky stroke by itself and he just sighed when he compared him with the Skills he had. “What do you think? I actually don’t even know why you asked me with your luck. Now shut up before I leave you here alone and stop helping you. Just go and upgrade your Body.”

  While they were talking, the upgrade to the daggers had finished. Seeing that Tuor was completely frustrated, Emilio decided to finish their talk and focus on what happened during the Rank up of the weapon.

  Well Tuor was right, apparently it can limit itself for me to use it. Let’s check the specifics. I want to check the Rank Limiter.

  Even if Emilio asked for it, nothing happened in the System.

  Um, System, I want to check Void’s Rank Limiter.

  Nothing happened again. Emilio just had to accept that there was no description and he would have to find out how it works by himself. Given that Tuor was not in his best mental state, he decided it was best not to ask him. For the moment, he decided to focus on upgrading his Body.

  Thanks for reading!

  See you again at 22:00 Argentina time for today’s second chapter.

  A follow goes a long way if you're enjoying the story!

  You can support me on Patreon to read up to 50 advanced chapters:

  You can also join the discord to talk with other people that are enjoying Paragon of Luck: