Hey, Why Are My Skills so Weird!?

[Boy, how did you do that?] The demon suddenly asked.

"I just thought about storing the lamia in the contract and it worked. Why, is anything wrong?"

[... No, it's just that I did not know that the contract had that function.]

I found the demon's tone of voice strange. He seemed a bit surprised.

Did he really not know about this function?

I looked at the tattoo on my arm and decided to continue experimenting with the new skill. This time, I tried to summon the lamia.

I focused my mind to find the feeling when I summoned the lamia, then, I tried to reverse it.

Immediately, I was hit by strong nausea and a headache. My head felt like it was splitting apart from pain.

I gritted my teeth and continued trying to summon the lamia. Eventually, a dim light came from the tattoo on my arm, then, the tattoo disappeared and the lamia appeared beside me.

I held my head and panted heavily. Fuck, that hurt a lot.

The lamia noticed my pain and slithered towards me. She grabbed my clothes and looked at me with a concerned expression, so I smiled to relieve her.

After around one minute, the pain finally faded away, and I let out a sigh of relief.

"... Damn, that was really painful."

If I have to go through this pain every time I want to summon the lamia, then this skill won't be as practical as I thought.

[... Don't worry, it should not be painful the next time your try it.] The demon explained with a weirded-out tone. [If you don't believe me, try to store and summon the lamia again. It won't be painful this time.]

I furrowed my brows in doubt and tried again just as the demon suggested. To my surprise, there was no pain, nausea, or anything like that this time. Quite the opposite, the process was very smooth.

Besides consuming a bit of my mana, there was no other side-effect.

"I guess it's only the first time that it's painful, huh," I said while rubbing Saphire's head.

She squinted happily and rubbed her body against mine. Seeing her cute gestures, I could not help but smile as well.

At that moment, I heard a beep coming from the watch on my wrist.

"Mm? Huh? Six hours have already passed? Shit, I need to leave the dungeon!"

'I must have been unconscious for longer than I thought.' I thought in my mind and stored Saphire in the contract. Then, I hurried towards the exit.

Shit, I'm late. The staff of the association won't be happy.

At that moment, I realized that my speed was faster than before.  Not just that, but my mana had also increased. It had reached the late stage of Tier 3.

I was confused and tried to find the reason. Soon, I found that I was receiving mana from another source.

The contract.

This... Is this Saphire's mana?

Does it mean that we can share mana too?

Is it only when she is stored in my mind, or can we also share mana when she is summoned?

It looks like I need to study this new skill carefully later. It's full of surprises.

Thanks to my breakthrough and the increase in my abilities after contracting the lamia, I managed to reach the exit of the dungeon in twenty minutes.

As expected, the staff of the association seemed a bit displeased that I was late, but because I was late for just fifteen minutes, they did not mind it that much.

After giving a statement to the staff and answering some questions about why I was late, the staff easily allowed me to leave.

But when I was leaving, the woman that led me inside the dungeon looked at my arm with a suspicious expression. She seemed to be doubtful about if that tattoo was there when I entered the dungeon.

However, she said nothing.

When I left the cordoned zone, I found Mary leaning on her car while waiting for me.

"Jane, here!" She shouted and waved her hand, but then, she stopped abruptly with a stunned expression.

"You... Late third tier? How is that possible?" She asked stunned.

"Well, I was about to breakthrough when I entered the dungeon, plus, I was lucky and found a lot of monsters, so my mana increased by a lot."

"Is it so?" Mary seemed doubtful, but she accepted my explanation and looked at my right arm. "By the way, what is with that tattoo?"

"A new skill," I shrugged without explaining much.

Mary looked at me with a strange expression.

"Hey, Jane, just how many secrets do you have?"

Cold sweat appeared on my back.

As expected, she noticed something wrong.

"That is..."

"Well, you don't have to tell me. Men with secrets are more charming."

I was startled, then, I sighed with an amused smile.

"Be serious."

"Mm? Could it be that you prefer a woman that likes to pry into your secrets? I can be that kind of woman if you want."

"I think that you are perfect as you are."

"How smooth." Mary giggled. "Hey, Jane, I bought new clothes yesterday. Why don't you come to my home and I show them to you? I'm sure you will like them."

Looking at Mary's seductive expression and seeing her lick her lips, how could I not understand her meaning?

I gulped a mouthful of saliva and nodded.

"It's my pleasure. Don't worry, I will make sure to judge every piece of clothing carefully."