When the sunlight illuminated his room, Ainsworth woke up.
Knowing that it was morning, he stretched his body and got up.
While he was rubbing his eyes languidly, Ainsworth noticed that there was a pile of books placed on the floor in front of his window.
Recognizing those piles of books, Ainsworth muttered, "Aren't those skill books?"
With one step, he teleported near the pile of books and picked up one of them.
The skill book he picked up had a cover of [C-rank Disguise].
Although it was only a C-rank skill book that would grant a C-rank skill, it already cost quite a lot to acquire. After all, this was the Class Awakening Era and skill books were a strategic resource.
Although Ainsworth had a bunch of SSS-rank Class Exclusive Skills, that didn't mean SSS-rank skills were easy to come by.
It was merely the perks of having an SSS-rank Class that he had three SSS-rank class exclusive skills.
To acquire an SSS-rank skill book, an SSS-rank Awakener must take on an SSS-rank Otherworld Mission. There were also a few exceptions such as an SS-rank Awakener acquiring it at a highly difficult SS-rank Otherworld Mission.
Either way, those two ways to acquire it had already meant that only a few could obtain SSS-rank skills as there were SS-rank Awakeners in three digits, let alone those SSS-rank Awakeners that only thirteen were known to exist.
Looking at the C-rank Disguise skill book, Ainsworth pondered, "According to the knowledge I learned from Edenbridge High, it's not that necessary to learn S-rank skills in the first otherworld mission."
"If a student planned to take on their first otherworld mission as a team, then the priority wouldn't be skill grade but to fulfill multiple roles. For example, Dante will be the tank, while Rian will be the damage dealer."
"However, otherworld missions don't require just combat-related roles. After all, awakeners are literally invading another world. Although the Earth's Will can grant identity to the awakeners, those identities are mostly just enough to integrate into the invaded world."
"Depending on the difficulty chosen, the invaded world's information might not even be displayed to the awakeners. So a team needs to have other support-related roles such as hackers if it was a technological world, or spies, scouts, and investigators for information gathering."
"Since survival is paramount in the Otherworld, having a healer and medic in the team was also a necessity."
However, Ainsworth knew that as a three-man team, they couldn't fulfill all those roles as only a five-man team could.
Although there wasn't a limit to the number of members that a team could have, it was researched that having more than five members in a team would drastically increase the difficulty.
There was a case where someone sent a team of ten, and they all died in the Otherworld Mission.
After obtaining research data at the cost of a pile of corpses, it was agreed upon that a team shouldn't have more than five members.
Although Ainsworth could invite more students until his team had five members, he didn't trust anyone other than Rian and Dante.
At least, Rian and Dante would be willing to dive into a septic tank if he asked them to fetch a hidden item there. If it was other students, they wouldn't listen to him as Rian and Dante would.
Because of that, their three-man team lacked a healer and scout. However, that problem was dealt with by how versatile his SSS-rank Freedom Freelancer class was.
He had asked his sister Kyla yesterday if she could acquire him some skill books for the healer, scout, and chef roles. As for why a chef was added, Ainsworth knew that food was important in the Otherworld and he also didn't want to waste his God-Level Cooking talent.
Since his SSS-rank Freedom Freelancer class could learn any skills regardless of class restriction, Ainsworth decided to take on multiple roles that their three-man team lacked.
The C-rank Disguise skill book could only be learned by assassin and scout-related classes such as A-rank Shadow Assassin, F-rank Scout, C-rank Investigator, etc.
Even if he gave Dante and Rian the C-rank Disguise skill book, they couldn't learn it even if they wanted to.
After checking the skill books his sister had given him, Ainsworth didn't hesitate to use them.
[You have acquired the C-rank Disguise skill!]
[You have acquired the C-rank Create Cooking Utensils skill!]
[You have acquired the A-rank Presence Concealment skill!]
[You have acquired the A-rank Healing skill!]
[You have acquired...]
After several screens popped up, Ainsworth checked his status screen.
[Name: Ainsworth Arthurford
Class: SSS-rank Freedom Freelancer
Awakener Rank: None (Complete an Otherworld Mission for your awakener rank to be graded)
Charm: SSS+ (Limited)
Talents: God-Level Cooking, God-Level Charm
Class Exclusive Skills: Ultimate Freedom (SSS), Freedom Of Movement (SSS), Freedom Of Speech (SSS)
Skills: {Healer/Medic Type: Healing (A), Accelerated Recovery (B), Detoxification (B), Pain Suppression (B), Herbal Proficiency (C), Stamina Restoration (C), First Aid (C)}
{Scout/Assassin Type: Presence Concealment (A), Tracing (B), Danger Sense (B), Evasion (B), Disguise (C), Shadow Concealment (C), Silent Steps (C), Night Vision (C), Trap Detection (C), Thermal Vision (C), Steady Hands (C), Weak Point Detection (C)}
{Chef/Cooking Type: Spatial Food Storage (A), Create Cooking Utensils (B), Temporary Kitchen Setup (B), Condiment Manifestation (B), Fire Control (C), Instant Grill (C), Food Preservation (C), Vacuum Food Seal (C)}]
After checking his status screen, Ainsworth was satisfied with his newly acquired skills.
In his plan, he could just copy Rian's SS-rank Hero of Light class and then he could have the same power as Rian.
Even if his class copy ended its duration, he could also use Ultimate Freedom (SSS) and Create Cooking Utensils (B) to create a kitchen knife and become a combat chef.
When a chef holds a kitchen knife, even humans would be reduced to ingredients!