Climbing up the wall they met Gregory and Sariah along with an enthusiastic shaman.
The shaman and Sariah were trading ideas about how to apply group debuffs across whole battlefields while never leaving the comfort of your own home.
Apparently, they could do so if they used totems to channel the curse or debuff. But if they wanted to succeed, they would have to carve the totem themselves then douse it in curse or debuff magic until it practically reeked of it.
Chronos interrupted them, pulling them out of their discussion.
"We're ready to go. My apologies that we can't stay for the full festival, but we are expected at the capital soon."
"I understand. It looks like I'll be needing to put the spirits to rest within the hour anyways."
"Can you put them to rest? Like permanently?" Lyla asked, curious to know if the shamans had developed a superior method to her own.
"No, when we put them to rest it's more like forcing them to sleep until something wakes them up again. Which happens two or three times a year."
They nodded in understanding before heading towards the stairs.
As they walked, they watched the children happily throw stones or any other projectile they could get their hands on at the skeletons. Then run down the stairs to find something else to throw at them.
Chronos chuckled at their eagerness as he was reminded of the eager pups trying to prove themselves back home. It looked like the orc tribes, and the Beklaedning clan weren't all that different from each other.
As they passed the stairs an elderly orc stopped them.
"Name?" he asked.
Recognizing the scoreboard in his hand Chronos answered, "I believe you should have me as wolf and my partner as order priestess. I don't think my other companions took part."
Gregory and Sariah shook their heads. They had stayed on the wall talking with the shamans the entire time.
The old orc ran a finger down his board until he found them. Then his face took on an appreciative look.
"Ah, wolf you killed 235 skeletons in just two hours, impressive. Your reward is a Skull-Tally bracer, it gives you greater endurance when facing a horde. The effect increases the more tally marks you get."
The Elderly orc handed over a bracer made from scrap iron and polished bone. Along its surface were two hundred tally marks with every fiftieth mark being more pronounced than the others. And at the very front was an image of a skull being crushed by a mace.
"Thank you, forgive me for being ignorant but does it hold some sort of significance amongst orc culture?"
"Yes, it means you held your own against a horde while below the fourth rank. Any orc tribe worth fighting will know exactly what it means. Now for the order priestess it looks like you only killed 79 skeletons, still an impressive feat but not nearly as impressive as the wolf's."
Lyla glared at Chronos, blaming him for stealing so many of her kills.
The elderly orc passed her a similar Skull-Tally bracer, but this one only had 79 tally marks.
Thanking the elder they started the long walk back to the ship.
They had to stop twice to destroy skeletons that emerged from the ground along their path before they made it back. Chronos assumed that the Bonecrusher tribe would clear those random spawns out once they finished clearing the central bone field and chose not to think about it too much.
Having safely taken off Chronos retired to his room where he turned his attention to the system.
{Would you like to begin your profession upgrade?
Yes/No?}
It had been incessantly reminding him ever since he had received it but first, he wanted to know what his five weapon masteries were.
"System, show me my five weapon masteries."
Commanding the system to search for it would be much faster than trying to find them himself, he hoped.
{Weapon mastery list:
Sword: Master rank
Spear: Master rank
Twin Axe: Master rank
Fists: Master rank
Hammer: Master rank}
Chronos recognized four of those weapons, but he didn't know that fists counted as a weapon too.
He did actively use his fists; in fact, he punched something nearly every time he was in combat. He just didn't think they would count as a weapon for his profession.
Knowing that he hadn't somehow mastered an unknown weapon cleared the last of his doubts.
He looked at the profession section one last time wondering what was about to happen. Then he selected yes. The next second he was standing in a black space facing a system screen.
{Profession upgrades available.
Your understanding of weapons has surpassed the boundaries of an Initiate.
Three paths have become available.}
Three images that looked like him appeared behind the screen
The first image was surrounded by numerous weapons of all kinds, including many that he didn't recognize or know the name of. This version of him picked up one weapon at a time and wielded it with extreme skill.
The level of skill was truly impressive but the fact that it was only wielding one weapon at a time bothered Chronos.
The second image had magical or enchanted weapons. Every time this image picked up a weapon it looked like it was empowering them in some way allowing the weapons to surpass their innate limitations.
The level of destructive power it could display with a wave of its weapon shocked Chronos as it had surpassed anything he had accomplished.
The third image was surrounded by all kinds of weapons, like the first, but Chronos could clearly tell that some of them were enchanted while others were broken. It rapidly moved from wielding weapons to punching its enemies to grabbing an enchanted weapon with a brutal efficiency that Chronos admired.
Even the broken weapons or the rocks at its feet were all turned into tools for killing the moment it looked like it needed them.
All three of them were impressive in their own ways but Chronos wanted a deeper understanding of them before he made a choice.
The system screen came up.
{The three professions on display are...