“Stealth is the key stealth skill, obviously, but there are several supporting skills,” Gribble Zickleseckle said.

He was Baldeenk’s cousin and stealth expert.

“Deception is a key supporting skill,” he said, and I nodded.

“A social skill. I know it. Great for surety of movement and emotions.”

“Ah, a fellow expert. How high level is your stealth skill?”

“Empowered Stealth, level 18,” I offered freely, and he hissed slightly at that, shaking his head in dismay.

“Several levels higher than me. I am only level 12 with Empowered Stealth. Any supporting skills?”

“No. I am curious about the rest of the supporting skills you gnomes may know.”

“Silent Step and Muffle.”

Silent Step and Muffle were both known. They were about suppressing noise when moving. Silent Step focused on one’s feet, while Muffle was a more general skill, both tier 1.

When the College of Advancement offered them, I had taken them in auxiliary classes. I needed to work on different skills. I chose Stealth, as it was more versatile and widely applicable. Developing support skills could provide a wealth of abilities. Runes were a perfect example of this.

“I know of their skills and general training methods. Anything else?”

“The last support skill I know is the spell skill, Silence. It stops all sound in a sphere. Great for moving quickly through an area. Low Mana cost as well, so very hard to detect.”

“I don’t know that spell skill,” I replied and this time Gribble smiled.

“Let me walk you through the hand signs and Mana control needed for the skill.”

He walked me through the spell skill. I could feel the skill pressing heavily on my soul.

I didn’t accept it, but I won’t forget this spell skill. The College not knowing it was quite a surprise. The gnomes had some hidden depths with skills beyond counter divination.

“Are there any other support skills?”

“You learned it already?”

“Yes, but I am not accepting the skill. Not that useful for me at the moment, and I have other skills I need to learn.”

“Weird. Anyway, there is one more. Stealth Strike, a supporting tier 2 combat skill. Great for taking down monsters without alerting others. It helps mitigate the attention drawn from a single initial attack.”

I hadn’t heard of this skill either, and it sounded much more useful. A surprise initial attack against a superior opponent would be quite powerful.

“How does it work?”

“The method is simple. Use your stealth skill and strike a monster without them being aware, aiming to kill it in one strike and remaining undetected until the moment you hit it. Do that enough times and you will get the skill.”

Ah, they didn’t have a teaching method outside of actual fighting.

This skill type is typically learned by a Squire, as masters pass it down to their followers.

“The key thing is that you remain completely undetected to any hostile presence. This is best down with the monsters in the higher layers when there are only a few of them and from range. This kind of skill pairs well with the wands we use,” Gribble explained.

“I see. I will consider getting this skill.”

It sounded like a decent skill, but with my combat style of fighting directly, I wasn’t sure how much use it would get unless I was fighting a more powerful opponent.

My mind went to the demon I had faced recently and the one that had killed my mother. I would have an immense advantage in a fight with a powerful, overwhelming initial attack that couldn’t be detected. Landing the first blow wasn’t just about wounding an enemy but a huge mental boost as well.

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One reason the demon had retreated was that my attacks overwhelmed them mentally . The pressure was too much. Getting in an initial hit would swing this factor heavily in my favor during a fight.

“That is it. That is the extent of my knowledge of stealth skills. You already spoke with Merrywhistle who teaches counter divination. They have great synergy, by the way,” Gribble said and I nodded.

“If I were a stealth specialist that kind of skill focus would make sense. But I am more of a melee fighter,” I replied, and Gribble shuddered slightly at that.

“Daring and brave. But for a human adventurer, that is understandable. You already surpass me in Empowered Stealth, so there is only so much I can teach. My only other piece of advice would be to consider wand combat.”

“They seem limited, and I have spell skills.”

“Versatility and the ability to improve them, right?” he asked, and I nodded. “Even separated by an immeasurable distance, our cultures still think along similar lines. Wands are useful since they are an external source of Mana and something you can use in a pinch. Wand Skills is a tier 1 skill, but you can use tier 3 skills in a pinch.”

“Do gnomes even sell wands?”

“Since I wasn’t able to teach you much, you can take this with you. Look after Lanner. He is my sister’s son and foolish,” Gribble said.

He pulled out a wand and handed it to me. They intertwined silver and gold to make it.

“A Tier 3 weapon,” I said in surprise, and he nodded.

“It stores the tier 4 skill, Explosion. The most powerful of all spell skills known to us. We have lost the knowledge of the spell skill itself, but we can make wands that use it. Don’t use it in the settlement. That would panic many people.”

“I will use it only after I leave.”

I knew he didn’t want others to know about his gift, and he let out a small sigh and smiled.

I know it won’t be easy caring for Lanner, but he’s a good gnome.”

“Does he have a wand like this?”

“We will gift him a set of better wands on his departure. A bunch of us are coming together to support him. Don’t tell him; it is a surprise.”

“That is remarkably kind of all of you. I thought your people would cast him out.”

“Gnomes aren’t like that unless you commit a serious crime. We are a community. Lanner…he is excitable and adventurous, but they are negative traits. Just traits that don’t mesh well with the rest of us gnomes. The dream of us all is that he becomes a legend and returns one day.”

It was far more likely that Lanner would be nothing but a corpse, but I wouldn’t say something so negative. These gnomes were passing on their hopes to one of their family members; it wasn’t my place to crush their optimism. Well, it might be since Lanner was coming with me, but it felt like the wrong decision.

The gnomes were, for the most part, nice. They were nice, though incredibly secretive and insular. Maybe I was too agreeable, but Safan’s demeanor indicated they were aware. We were all pretending to keep the tranquility of this place and not break Lanner’s mentality.

That was what I liked about the gnomes. Even when they strongly disagreed with each other, there was no violence. This place had a tranquility about it that was hard to describe. I even suspected some kind of ward or large-scale enchantment, but I had detected nothing.

This was just how the gnomes were. They were small humanoids who cared deeply for each other and wanted to remain hidden away.

The threat from before had been weak. If I had gotten far enough away from the gnomes’ tunnels, then the dungeon would have separated us. It wasn’t as deadly as I had first thought. I could have killed Borwass when I had found him, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to meet and learn about the gnomes and their hidden society.

While I didn’t want to team up with one of them in the dungeon, I was going to do my best to help Lanner. While the gnomes had gotten a lot from me, they were putting together a portable formation to keep Mana out if I wanted to train their counter divination skills and then this tier 3 wand, with a tier 4 spell skill in it.

I knew that the power of such a spell skill would be devastating. I was also right to be wary and trust my Danger Sense regarding these wands. While I hadn’t seen them in action yet, I had no doubt they were a powerful force multiplier.

They had lost out as versatility and personal skills surged in popularity during the Eldarin Empire. The wands’ power was limited. This Tier 3 wand was the limit unless someone used incredibly expensive materials and made one with a spell skill they knew.

There might have been one or two wands that could use a tier 5 skill, but they were one-off creations. Ultimately, it was a good backup weapon, but not something one should constantly use. But the gnomes had kept wands, since they were so weak. They hadn’t created the systematic learning that had emerged during the Eldarin Empire and afterwards with the College of Advancement.

They were quite interested in the training methods from the College. I knew there would be a surge of skills as they used that knowledge to gain more levels. A small gnomish revival was likely to happen in their society after I departed.

As for the cursed skill Gnomish Silence, I was going to break that skill. In the process of breaking that skill, I would learn something about curse skills and use that to break Experience Siphon.

I could still feel the curse skill layered over my soul. If I could figure out a method or create a skill to counter curse skills, that would be perfect. The key thing was avoiding as much risk as possible. It would be too easy to damage my soul.

Regarding the other skills and knowledge the gnomes had shared, it was interesting, but not immediately useful. I would focus on soul skills once I left, with the goal of learning a skill to trace the cursed skill left on me as a child back to Xanatos. That remained my best hope for leaving this section of the dungeon I had been siloed into.

Once I broke the Gnomish Silence skill, I wouldn’t bring them up to anyone except perhaps in casual conversation with my father. I wondered if he knew of other races scattered about the world and then ask him about the beastkin.

I didn’t know the Eldarin Empire had expanded to this continent, which was a surprise. It wasn’t something recorded in history.

I hoped his war was succeeding, and others hadn’t turned on him. Despite knowing he had legends helping, I worried a bit. After my mother died, I wished I’d spoken to my father more.

That was something I would fix once I returned to the Eldarin Continent.

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