Last thing remaining now, the new skills. First one up is [Celestial Fire]. Seeing how its level is 19, it's probably fair to assume that [Candlelight] played a major role in the development of this skill.

  For skills like these, nothing beats just trying them out. Without hesitation, I called upon the skill that had become so intimately familiar, even if it carried a new name now. However, instead of the standard-looking flame that normally appeared when I casted my old skill, this fire looked like it didn't belong in the mundane world.

  Instead of the mellow orange glow that normal fire should have, this one was a vivid shade of sky blue. In that moment, as I stared at the ever-changing fluctuations of the flame in the palm of my hand, it felt like I held a piece of the sky in my hands. The way it twisted and turned as I watched its mesmerizing display was almost hypnotic in a way. It took me a lot of will to finally pull myself away from it.

  Another thing I observed was that its default temperature was a lot higher than before. With this new skill, I only needed to focus slightly to get it to a level where it could start charring the flesh of the dead leviathan around me. It also took less mental effort to manipulate in general, which made all my previous applications a lot more viable for use.

  Condensing it down to something solid, like I had done so many times before, also came very naturally. The resulting block of solid fire looked ethereal in the way that its soft light-blue glow mostly removed its ability to cast and receive shadows, like what one would expect from a similar object made out of normal metals.

  Holding the sky-blue rod I just formed in my hands, I noticed another striking aspect I had missed previously. It no longer burned me, even if its temperature was a lot higher than before. Even at temperatures high enough to melt through the still very resilient dead leviathan flesh around me, it didn't affect me in the slightest.

  I doubted, however, that this was an effect of either my enhanced body or of my enhanced resistance against heat. Instead, it felt more like the flames just refused to hurt me on a level that was instinctual to the fire itself.

  That was something to experiment with for later. While I didn't need it right now, being capable of excluding other things from being burned when interacting with my fire could be invaluable in the future.

  Before trying out [Broken Sky], the entirely new skill in my repertoire, there was something else persistently nagging at my attention. What I was talking about here is the duplicate skill [Regalia: Starfire Corona] that existed in both my active and passive skills, though the passive one just had two weird lines instead of the expected level numbers. I had never seen or heard of something like this before, but it probably meant that the level was linked and equal to the one shown among the active skills.

  Interestingly enough, the level of this skill was also 19. Did this mean that [Candlelight] also played a part in the formation of this skill? [Photo-Thermic Synthesis] had also been level 19, but the aptly named passive skill [Heat Conversion] I now owned seemed like a much better fit for that.

  Unlike for my first active skill, I had not even the slightest idea what exactly that skill was doing. Its passive manifestation materialized itself atop my head in something that resembled a fancy halo seemingly made out of the same sky-blue material that was created when condensing the [Celestial Fire].

  The bluish halo-like corona floating a couple of centimeters above my head looked almost like one would expect from a traditional halo, except for the fact that it had four prongs or spikes that exited the ring in one of the cardinal directions, respectively. If it weren't for the hole in the center of the construct that made it the halo it was, it would look like a slightly three-dimensional representation of a stylized four-pronged star.

  Another thing that threw me off a bit was that it didn't sit perfectly symmetrical on top of my head like a normal halo should. Instead, it was slightly off-center to the right and back. Accompanying the offset was also a slight tilt that made it so that the corona was still aligned properly to the curvature of my head. It wasn't much in general, but more than enough to be unmistakeable when looking at it.

  Maybe that was a kind of poetic interpretation of the system regarding the 'broken' descriptor that was part of my class name and some of my skills. The corona itself wasn't broken apart or destroyed, but it was a bit misplaced. An imperfection in what would normally be a symbol of perfection.

  Well, maybe I was reading a bit too much into that. The poetry of the system text in recent times probably inspired me a bit here. In times like these, what else is there apart from some philosophy to keep me entertained?

  I had been pushing it away a bit, but it was time to look at the description of the mentioned skill. I wasn't expecting much from the usually very vague system, but maybe it wanted to surprise me today?

  [Regalia: Starfire Corona

  A symbol, not of adornment, but of acknowledgment, a fight against unjustified hate. A corona of starfire hangs above you, offset and deliberate, its radiance burning in reflection of the power of will and witness to your struggles against fate. Power flows into it as flame to a hearth, held not in spend but in trust. The heavens do not crown you yet, but they prepare for the moment they must.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Functions as a reserve to mana and heat. All held types of energy can be used at will.

  [Mana Reserve] 0/9500

  [Celestial Presence]: You hold an aura of inevitability. Increases corporal resistance against magical effects of all aspects.

  [Celestial Reprieve]: Consume all stored energy to channel a beam of celestial fire.

  [Unstable Space]: Actively weaken the stability of the space around you. (Hint: This facilitates the ease of affecting reality with intent and aura. This effect is also highly destructive for existences that aren't native or only partially part of the currently inhabited plane of reality. However, overuse can cause lasting damage to the underlying realm and will draw unforeseen consequences. Please use sparingly.)]

  ... Okaaay? Damn, what the hell of a bombshell did they drop on me here?

  Okay, step by step. First of all, the description, also known as flavor text, is, once again, a cryptic mess. No idea what that is supposed to tell me at all. Who are 'the heavens', and what are they preparing for? Who entrusted me with this apparent power and why? Is there even anyone behind this, or is this just an artifact arising from however the system generates all of this stuff?

  From what the instructors told us, there are no 'gods' or similar in this world. Never have been, even. The only thing that ever existed beyond the mundane was the system itself, or rather the Will of the World that is responsible for all of this. From what I understood, however, it's not a conscious entity but rather something akin a physical law of reality.

  Whether or not these flavor texts mean anything or not is anyone's guess at this point. There certainly aren't any 'heavens' here in the world, unless the system refers to itself that way for some reason. Why would it do that, though?

  Another thing to mull about here is that warning that was appended to the descriptions of the last ability of the skill. Who the hell are those so-called 'existences that aren't native to or only partially part of the currently inhabited plane of reality', and where are they? Today is the first time I've ever heard of anything even remotely close to that; no other matches in my memory at all.

  Well, disregarding all the ominousness surrounding this, the effects are pretty good. The mana it can hold is over ten times my current maximum amount, which is quite a considerable amount. The fact that it can store heat is also rather interesting. It doesn't list a limit for that, though I doubt that it can just store infinite amounts of energy. Also, how do I get the heat in there? It doesn't seem to have an ability to just absorb heat from the environment or something. Do I have to heat it up like a blacksmith does with a chunk of metal?

  It was pretty ambiguous what all that exactly meant, but at least [Celestial Reprieve] was pretty clear in what it did. While it also sounded extremely powerful, I suppose I should treat it more like a last resort than anything else. If I opened a fight with that ability and it didn't immediately erase my opponent, then I'll be a sitting duck in front of it with all of my resources spent.

  [Celestial Presence], however, was pretty weird. The increased general resistance to magic was probably pretty good, but I wasn't so sure about the 'inevitable aura' thing. Is 'inevitability' even a real thing one can feel? Was stuff like this normal to receive? The king we met back when we first came to this world did have a kind of unnatural presence of regality to him, was this similar to that? But still, what the hell was inevitability supposed to feel like!?

  If so, I didn't know whether or not I liked having such a thing. As far as I could tell, I couldn't even really turn it off. If there's a way to suppress it, I don't know how. Well, how should I if I don't even know what it does in the first place? At first I thought the system was rather generous with explanations today, but that was only true at first glance because there is so much to be explained. In the detail, however, all of these explanations are extremely lacking.

  From the last ability, [Unstable Space], I wanted to keep my distance for now. I'd be a serious fool to disregard such a clear warning given to me. Unless there's a really specific reason for me to even consider it, I will strongly refrain from activating this double-edged sword.

  Oh, well. Done with this strange ability for now, I turned towards the last active ability I had open. Since it was at level one, [Broken Sky] was probably an entirely new ability I was given from my class. Because I didn't even have a single idea about it, I immediately threw [Identify] at it.

  [Broken Sky:

  The fabric of reality is fragile yet intangible in its entirety. Invisible and ethereal for most, its existence reveals itself to you. Peer through the veil and revel in clarity. Step beyond the boundary and your world will be born anew.]

  ... I should have expected it, really. There I go, deciding to not use the potentially reality-destroying ability of my newly gained off-center halo, only to immediately have another skill related to that available to me. No warning, though, so maybe this is safe to use? Or did it expect me to adhere to the previous warning and keep my fingers from it?

  I felt apprehensive, but I didn't want another ability I couldn't use. [Celestial Fire] was already incredibly versatile and technically enough to do basically whatever I wanted, but losing another ability would still suck.

  Despite trepidations of dread at the back of my mind, I decided that I'd try it out at least once. Maybe it did something entirely different from what I thought it did? Well, if I was being honest, I still had no real idea of what to expect from it. The description was as vague and unhelpful as ever, and it didn't even have anything else written there except for the flavor text!

  The proof is in the pudding, or so they say, right? In the end, nothing beats actually trying it out. Losing any hesitation I still harbored, I finally invoked the skill.

  Maybe I should have hesitated a bit longer in the end.

  The moment it activated, I felt like my world had been turned upside down, fragmented, thrown in a mixer, and then blended until it was a homogenous smoothie of perception. I felt like I could see everything and nothing at once, like entering the limbo world of Inception from inside a maze of mirrors.

  With endless twists and turns, an infinite web of iridescent strings and paths wrapped through and around everything. In the sudden panic of my mind, nothing made sense anymore. A myriad of thoughts tried bubbling their way up to the surface of my consciousness, but not a single one made it.

  As I suddenly felt a piercing headache closing in, I unconsciously stumbled a step forward, stepping on one of the strings in the process. Then, without a warning, everything went black as my active consciousness fizzled out.