As Calvin brought each of his options to the forefront of his mind, a helpful sentence described it.

Calvin went through them a couple times to make sure he knew what each of them did. He slowly narrowed his selections down.

Active stealth is pretty good, like a spell in and of itself, but I don’t have a lot of spare Bent to go around.

Unseen affinity is powerful, especially at the beginning.

Sneak critical is out. I’m not planning on becoming an assassin.

May cause vampirism? What in the nine hells? Cal looked at the first Mutation. Does that mean these might change my body? Hmmm.

Camouflage is useful if I plan on sneaking around naked like a perv twenty-four seven, which is the only way it would be more cost-effective than Active stealth.

Third eye…that’s not bad.

Touch grip is interesting. I could theoretically climb walls and even ceilings with impunity, and pick pockets with a single finger.

Calvin took a deep breath and began weeding them out.

Don’t focus on what’s cool, focus on what pays the most dividends over the longest period of time.

After some thinking, Calvin narrowed it down to Third eye and Unseen Affinity. After fifteen minutes of careful deliberation, he painfully chose to give up on the empowered spells from stealth. Third eye was just too handy in more circumstances.

Knowing when people were looking at him meant he knew exactly when his stealth was blown, and conversely, when it wasn’t. He also could notice other people in stealth easier if they were paying attention to him. He could tell when girls stared lustfully, or if someone behind him was staring, possibly allowing him to dodge backstabs. Even in a social situation, if someone was throwing too many looks at him, he would know.

It’s a damn shame though, I may never get my Body high enough to get another chance at that ability at tenth level.

“All right, I pick Third Eye.”

User will be rendered unconscious while Mutation is taking place.

Huh?

Cal’s skin started to itch, and his head started to ache, then stab with pain as the plates of his skull popped apart and began to shift.

“Agh!” Cal gave a strangled cry before everything went dark.

Cal woke up still in his bed, clothes sticky with sweat.

“What in the hells was that?” he asked. “Does everyone have to go through that when they mutate? Never told me.” Matter of fact, no one had ever told him anything about mutating, it was always abilities, abilities, every five levels in a skill.

Cal reached up and touched his skull. Did it change? Are people going to start asking questions? After massaging it for a few minutes, Cal didn’t notice any changes worth mentioning. His hands and skin looked the same, and he plucked a hair out.

Hair color’s still the same. As long as my eyeballs didn’t change, I’m golden.

Cal didn’t have all day to sit and screw around, he had twelve Warp to spend.

The amount of Warp a person received each Breaking was dictated by their highest primary stat, Body or Mind, and according to Bekvah and some of the people he’d asked since, twelve warp to spend was a lot.

It also explained why Bekvah suggested frontloading his Warp into Mind.

Spending all twelve points doing puzzles would raise his Mind to thirteen, ensuring his next Break gave him seventeen Warp, which was a truly outstanding amount. It would simultaneously raise the limit on his sub-stats greatly…but, he wouldn’t have access to any skills to raise them until his next Break.

Bekvah’s method truly leaned on getting more Breaks afterward.

So if the nobility basically cheats by absorbing Warp from battlefields, why can’t I?

A seed of an idea began to germinate as Cal opened the book of puzzles and began solving them. The first couple pages were easy, but they quickly became something that Cal had to struggle to solve.

Your Mind has reached Level 10!

Remaining Warp 9/12

Your Mind has reached Level 11!

Remaining Warp 6/12

Your Mind has reached Level 12!

Remaining Warp 3/12

Once Cal had only three Warp remaining he got out of bed, carefully trying not to devote too much effort to any one thing. He was starting to get a feel for the Warp buzzing around behind his heart, like Kala had told him.

Cal decided to pick up two Will related Skills, and a Stability one, to increase his Bent recovery and Storage.

Cal didn’t want to be left high and dry for years if his plans didn’t work out.

He stepped outside into the afternoon sun and squinted against the glare.

First order of business, fishing.

Cal leaned over and grabbed his rod, a simple notched Lipia sapling with twelve feet of string and an iron hook on the end.

Lipia was famous for its flexibility and strength, and it was commonly used to make war bows, but the farmers of Deinos, who had the stuff growing in their back yards, often made fishing poles out of them too.

Cal trotted down the well-beaten dirt path to the river. The trees loomed over the well-worn groove in the ground as he walked downhill. After a couple minutes walking between splashes of sunlight, Cal made it to the village fishing hole, where the villagers liked to relax and put an extra fish or two on the table.

Old man Juka was sitting on a lump of dirt overlooking the river, silently watching his wooden bobber.

In Deinos, fishing was a popular pastime for the elderly, who were too frail to engage in heavy labor, but still wanted to put food on the table for their children and grandchildren.

“Afternoon, Calvin.” Juka said, glancing over. The village elder wasn’t working in that capacity at the moment, so he was just Juka.

Calvin felt a sensation something like an itch on his face, with the directional feeling of warm sunlight beating on his skin. This must be the Third Eye mutation.

He could vaguely tell the direction the old man’s gaze was coming from, but maybe with enough practice he’d be able to pinpoint people with his eyes closed.

Juka was a bald old man with no teeth. He was a stick thin prune of a man, but he was wise, and could still hold a fishing rod.

The old man had his rod tucked in a frame, so he could let a fish wear itself out before reeling it in. He wasn’t that strong, especially against some of the large fish to be had in this river.

“Afternoon,” Cal said as he did his customary check for Norlocks. The awful creatures were the apex predators of the river, and weren’t above snatching things off the bank. They didn’t even taste good. There were no strange eddies, or suspicious brown lumps in the water.

“No norlocks today, son.” Juka said.

“As Karen would say, I’d rather trust my eyes than another person’s word.”

Juka chuckled. “Good plan.” He turned back to his bobber, patiently watching it dip in the slow-moving current.

“What are you doing here so late?” Juka asked, glancing over at him. “Best fishing’s already done.”

“Forming Day,” Cal said, sitting down about twenty feet down the bank, leaning up against a fallen log he and Baroke had moved there for that purpose. “Thought I’d pick up fishing as a Warped Skill.”

“Ah, can’t go wrong with that. My uncle got to level five, and the man never went hungry. You don’t mind if I cast where you do, do yah?”

Juka gave him a wry toothless grin.

“Get your own fish,” Cal said, digging a worm out of the soft soil and baiting his hook before relaxing back into his nook and casting his line out into the water. On a hunch, he aimed for a particularly fast moving current that eventually drew his wooden bobber into the shallows in a more natural way than simply splashing the lure into the hole.

Fishing was a common Will/Sta hybrid skill. Skills that raised Stability tended to be ones that relaxed you, kept you grounded, or ensured a certain quality of life. Cooking, Cleaning, and Tool Maintenance were all good examples.

Will skills required focus, determination, or patience. Examples included Babysitting, Animal Training, Hunting, etc.

Since fishing was both relaxing, grounding, and requiring focus and patience, it was a hybrid skill, delivering a stat point to whichever attribute was lower every five levels.

In Cal’s case, it would be Stability, but that could reverse if he raised his Stability higher than his Will. He felt like it was a good choice to have a skill that could flip as necessary to help round out his attributes.

After this he’d grab two more Will skills, and be well on his way to being able to restore two Bent per day to fuel his magic practice.

Call waited, watching his bobber intently as the brown water swirled around it, waiting for the moment to set the hook. After ten minutes, Cal replaced his worm and cast again, letting the lure flow down into the shallows on its own.

After another few minutes of waiting, his bobber dipped unnaturally. Cal’s heart slammed in his chest, causing him to flinch and almost tug one the line too early, but he caught himself. No, it’s just testing the bait. wait until the fish swallows it.

A couple seconds later the bobber dipped under the surface, more violently this time. Cal tugged the pole back to set the hook. Not too hard, or it’ll snap the line or tug the hook out. Just the right amount of pressure.

The hook set deep, and the fish began to swim back and forth under the surface of the water, intractably hooked.

You have manifested Fishing!

Fishing has reached Level 1!

Level 1: Boosts effectiveness of bait and line strength. 5% correction

Remaining Warp 2/12

“Whoo!” Cal shouted as he let the fish wear itself out. Their homespun line didn’t exactly have a lot of strength to it, so he had to be delicate.

“You seem awfully excited.” Juka said.

“I got the skill!” Cal said, doing his best to follow the fish’s movements and keep the tension on the line steady.

“Oh, maybe I can bum a couple fish off of you, then.”

The fish suddenly made an unnatural turn, snapping the line and nearly yanking the pole out of his hand.

Damn, I paid a copper piece for that hook! More specifically, the hook was a copper piece that Ghol the smith would form into a hook for kids in exchange for chores. Cal recently had been bumped up to adult rates for hooks, so the loss stung.

Cal felt Juka’s gaze land on his face before the old man spoke. “Hah, I guess I won’t be bumming any fish off you today. In honor of getting the Skill though, I’ll give you a small loan from my stash, with a very reasonable interest rate of one fish per day.”

“Bah, I’ll be back with a couple spares tomorrow,” Cal said, glancing over at the old man. “I could even-“ Cal’s eyes went wide as he spotted a purple, veiny lump of muscle, something like a snake with a penis’s skin, sporting a mouth full of barbed teeth at the end.

A norlock’s tentacle.

“Look out!” Cal shouted, pointing.

“Eh?” Juka only had time to glance over before the Norlock struck, sinking barbed fangs into the old man’s arm and dragging him off his hill.

“Motherfu-“ Juka’s words were drowned out as he landed in the water, where more tentacles writhed just below the surface.

Ice went down Cal’s spine. Tradition was, if you spotted a norlock, go get some friends and pelt it with arrows from a safe distance until the damned thing floated to the surface, but it had Juka, and the old man would be dead before he made it halfway back to the village.

Pulling the old man out wasn’t going to work, neither of them were strong enough to pull away from the thick muscles designed to pull things underwater and drown them. Not before Juka was already dead, that was. The only way Juka was getting out of this alive was if the norlock died in the next minute.

Cal spotted the old man’s fishing knife, a razor sharp piece of steel with a modest four inch blade. It sat unattended beside where Juka had been sitting.

Just have to hope it’s enough, Cal thought, running forward and snatching up the blade as he sprinted past, diving into the roiling water.