Chapter 78: Chapter 78Aaron almost missed it, but he was lucky enough to catch the subtle difference on his status panel. Even if he had missed this at the moment, he would have caught that another day. So, there wouldn’t be much difference, except that he would have waited for this for a few days.

    When he first caught the slight glow, he didn’t understand why it was so, but then an idea struck him.

    "Wait, maybe it is...is it?" Aaron spoke out in a surprised tone.

    The reason why he was surprised was that this could prove his absurd thought that he had a few days ago, was indeed possible.

    The skills start at Rank 0, and when used frequently or when the awakener uses SPs on them, the skill rank improves.

    The highest rank one was supposed to achieve was Rank 9.

    This was how it was supposed to be, or at least that was what the public knew.

    Normally, no one would care much about whether there was a Rank 10, as reaching Rank 9 is not easy and would take decades for others to do so.

    So, even if a fleeting thought appears about what lies beyond Rank 9, no one would give it a deep thought unless they were closer to Rank 9, which would normally happen a few years after awakening, but the case of Aaron was different.

    Due to his talent, his SPs are very high,h and he reached Rank 9, while many are still wondering how to reach Rank 4 in a skill.

    Now is the time to check whether that was true or not.

    ---

    Aaron quickly used his SPs to upgrade his Summon Skeleton skill. Once he did that, he checked his status to see what changes occurred in that skill.

    "Status"

    --

    Name: Aaron Skyhart

    Age: 18

    Class/Profession: Death Mage, S-Rank

    Grade: Uncommon

    Rank: 2

    Level: 51

    Talent: Super Growth (SS-Rank) (Unique)

    Vitality: 475 (+5%)

    Strength: 475 (+5%)

    Stamina: 475 (+5%)

    Agility: 475 (+5%)

    Intelligence: 550 (+10) (+5%)

    Wisdom: 550 (+5%)

    Health: 4,750 (+5%)

    Mana: 5,500 (+5%)

    Skills/Spells: Summon Skeleton (110/110) (Rank 9) (110/150) (Bronze Rank 1); Death Lash (Rank 4); Sprint (Rank 5); Death’s Disguise (Rank 6); Summon Ghost(20/20) (Rank 3); Mana Regeneration (Rank 3) (+40%); Mana Ball (Rank 3); Dual Cast (Rank 3);

    Free Status Points: 392

    Skill Points: 517 17

    Items: Wolf Fang Pendant (+10 INT);

    --

    When Aaron saw his new status panel, he couldn’t understand it. The upgrade was supposed to be for his skill, but there was a new classification on his panel.

    This was located between his profession and rank, which was named Grade.

    The grade given to him was Uncommon. He didn’t understand it. So, he did what anyone would do. He clicked it with his mind.

    When he did that, a description appeared.

    --

    Every awakened professional is Common Grade by default.

    The professional would reach Uncommon Grade when they upgrade a single skill to Bronze Realm. Reaching this grade would give the professional a boost of +5% in all Physical and Mental Attributes.

    To reach Elite Grade, one has to upgrade a single skill to Silver Realm or a total of five skills to Bronze Realm.

    Reach Elite Grade to know the benefits and how to reach the next grade.

    --

    Aaron was surprised when he saw these details.

    He quickly checked his attributes, and as mentioned in the description, there was an extra boost of 5% for all his attributes.

    He started to wonder about this aloud, but luckily, this was his dorm, and no one was here to hear his thoughts.

    "This was something no one had ever mentioned before".

    "Is this a super secret?"

    "Hmm, I don’t think so. Maybe this was irrelevant at this point. I mean, no one would have upgraded their skill to Rank 9 at the start of the first year".

    It was true

    "Moreover, I don’t think that knowing about this would be helpful for society. If anything, people would start unnecessary wars over the skill rank stones", Aaron came to the conclusion that this information would do more harm than help the public if it were released.

    There was a reason why he came to such a conclusion.

    During his afternoon reads, he came upon a pretty important piece of information.

    Normally, skills would improve when they are used frequently or when SPs gained from level up are used on them, but there are other ways to do so.

    One is Skill Point stone and the other is Skill Rank stone.

    Skill point stones are equivalent to skill points. If one skill point is required for skill upgrade, then one skill point stone can be used instead of that, when you lack skill points. Of course, this is if you are talking about Low-grade Skill Point Stone.

    There are Mid-grade and High-grade ones, which are equivalent to 10 and 100 SPs, respectively.

    Skill Rank Stones, on the other hand, can improve a skill rank by one directly. These too have Low-grade, Mid-grade and High-grade divisions.

    Low-grade can improve the skill to Rank 3, while Mid-grade can be used to improve it to Rank 6, and High-grade can be used to improve the skill to Rank 9.

    Of course, there are certain restrictions.

    If a low-grade Skill Rank stone was used once on a skill, then it can’t be used again on that skill. It is the same for Mid-grade and high-grade ones.

    Of course, awakeners can use them again on other skills, but not on the skill that was improved using the stone.

    So, the ones who have these stones in their possession would keep them until they reach the rank that was previous to the highest rank possible before using them. Of course, using them on skills that can be improved easily would be a waste.

    Only idiots would do so.

    Anyway, knowledge about these skill-improving stones was not exactly a secret, but they were not made public, and one can’t make them so. S~ea??h the N?velFire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Only by entering academies could one would be able to learn about such knowledge. The students who learned about such knowledge can’t share it with others. If found, they would be fined for that.

    Of course, there were no strict restrictions that made people stop spreading about this, but they didn’t do it excessively, making the information semi-public.

    They would share the info with their family members, and that would be it.

    So, unlike Aaron, who learned it after coming to the academy, some rich kids knew about this information a long time ago.

    When Aaron learned about this piece of information, he first wondered why the information was restricted from spreading, but he understood that if the public learns about everything, then there would be nothing but chaos.

    Of course, that doesn’t mean everything has to be restricted, only the information that may cause chaos.