The next day came quickly. Jen was woken by the growling from her stomach and almost reached for a mushroom to eat before she was awake enough to remember her plan.

After thinking for a moment, Jen decided to try and replicate the circumstances from the previous day as closely as possible, including eating some mushrooms before hand.

Not only would it allow her to focus better by taking the edge off her hunger, but the pain would help refresh her awareness of her mana channels.

Jen ate slowly, doing her best to savor each bite while still putting food away at a pace that would prevent the poison from kicking in immediately. She stopped after four mushrooms, far less than she wanted to consume, but hopefully few enough that any affect on her magic would be minimal.

The pain was surprisingly sharp. Jen briefly wondered at the difference compared to consuming the mushrooms one at a time, before shifting focus to studying her mana channels. Eventually the pain faded, and Jen once more began to try and stir the magic within her.

While her last attempt had succeeded due to sheer stubbornness and a strong imagination, this time Jen had access to the Mana Manipulation skill. It was subtle at first, but as the moments ticked by she began to feel the mana swelling up, as it was slowly coaxed towards her stomach. Remembering the pain that had resulted from her efforts last time, Jen changed her focus. Trying to move the energy directly to her palm proved much simpler, and Jen soon felt a growing fire as her gathered energy began to stretch the limits of her channels.

Wanting as much time as possible, Jen continued to pull on her mana, ignoring the growing pain. Just as the sheer agony reached a point where she was afraid she would lose her focus, Jen started to push outwards much as she had previously.

Moments later there was a basketball sized orb resting on her hand, giving off a warm yellow light as well as an audible hum. Jen absently noted that while she could feel the heat and the sound vibrations coming off of it, there wasn’t any sense of weight that she could make out.

Putting that aside to explore at another time, she quickly turned her attention to her waiting notifications, curious as to how successful her experimentation over the last day had been.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Chronos’ Heart Lvl 1. Chronos’ Heart is now Lvl 3.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Whip Mastery Lvl 1.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Ribbon Dancing Lvl 1. Ribbon Dancing is now Lvl 4.

Echolocation is now Lvl 5.

Taste Testing is now Lvl 3.

Poison Resistance is now Lvl 8.

Pain Resistance is now Lvl 5.

Mana Manipulation is now Lvl 3.

Jen smiled. She had managed to gain three new skills, all of which she had been hoping for. The vagueness of Chronos’ Heart intrigued her, as the name didn’t follow the same descriptive scheme that every other skill so far had. As the last of the skill notifications faded away, leaving nothing but empty air in their place, her smile slipped away.

So far, all of her System screens had opened themselves. Jen had been hoping that both her status screen and her Path screen would have been waiting for her to examine, but that was clearly not the case. As Jen thought about it, she realized that there must be some method for a person to call up the desired screen at will. Given that the system had already shown a degree of telepathic ability, Jen began to mentally shout out various commands. Status Screen! Menu! Paths! Help!

Eventually she had run through all the guesses she had, but no screen appeared. Reminding herself that there was nobody around to see her possibly make a fool of herself, she yelled loudly, “Status Screen”.

Any possible embarrassment was cut short upon seeing the screen waiting in front of her. It was almost exactly the same as last time, except that her mana was currently sitting at eighteen points out of thirty one. Realizing that she had managed to put out more magic than previously, Jen now guessed that the mushrooms took a large amount of her magic to digest.

Satisfied for the moment, she moved her attention onwards. “Skill Screen” did not bring up the point spending screen she had intended, but the listing of her skills and their level was still beneficial.

Skill

Level

Listen

8

Poison Resistance

8

Determination

7

Echolocation

5

Meditation

5

Pain Resistance

5

Ribbon Dancing

4

Navigation

3

Singing

3

Mana Manipulation

3

Taste Testing

3

Chronos' Heart

3

Yoga

1

Crafting

1

Whip Mastery

1

A little testing revealed that it was possible to touch any skill and receive a basic description of its effects. Most of her skills seemed self-explanatory, with the description adding nothing to her understanding, but there were exceptions.

Determination: The ability to ignore pain, hunger, and other distractions in pursuit of a goal

Meditation: The ability to align one’s body, mind, and soul. Reduces severity of Mental Status Effects and increases all regeneration by 5%

Chronos’ Heart: The ability to tie your perception of time to your heartbeat.

The increased regeneration from Meditation was small for the moment, but Jen was hopeful that the percentage would scale with level. Combined with the increased ease of entering a meditative state, and Jen was hopeful that one day she would have what amounted to a permanent boost to her regeneration and mental defenses.

That need for mental stability was driven home by the wording of Determination. She had been grateful for the System’s ability to enhance her physical capabilities. Even the direct influx of knowledge that came with certain skills was but a momentary alteration of her mind. To have the knowledge that she had a skill that directly influenced her mental capabilities was hard to stomach. It seemed to be a beneficial ability, the ability to press on when she would have otherwise given up, but Jen was afraid of losing her sense of identity to the system. Would she still be herself if all her fears, her personal desires and quirks, her flawed humanity was all traded away to be better?

She didn’t know and that scared her.

She shifted her attention to the third skill description, that of Chronos’ Heart. It was evident that this was the skill she had earned for using her heartbeat to keep track of the passing time, and yet Jen was unsure as to why this skill earned a name that defied the basic descriptors that the rest of her skills used. It would be worth spending more time trying to figure out why it was so, but later. The skill paths called to her at the moment.

It took a while to remember that they were called plot paths for some unknown reason, but soon she was staring at the desired screen, trying to make her decision. Jen currently had four paths available to her.

Intro Path 0/5, Underdark Dweller 0/15, Magic Mastery 0/20, Path of Patience 0/60

The patience path had continued to extend, remaining equal to the entire sum of skill points she had earned so far. The others were as they always were.

Jen was torn. On the one hand, she had enough plot points available to complete all three of the smaller paths, and the potential rewards from both Underdark Dweller and Magic Mastery seemed particularly apt for her current situation.

On the other hand. The requirement to unlock the Path of Patience had been to earn forty skill points without spending any. Combined with the way that particular Path had continued to grow to match her current total made her guess that taking any other path would remove it from her options. There was a chance she was wrong, but she was hesitant to risk it.

In the end, Jen decided to risk the Path of Patience. It was less a rational decision and more the self-awareness that she would always regret not knowing what would come of it were the opportunity to pass her by.

While the screen was only a mental figment, it still responded to her physical interaction. A few finger presses later and the Path of patience had been selected and Jen was given the option of spending her plot points to advance the path.

There was no confirmation, no reversions, and for the first thirty-nine points invested; no rewards. Jen had started to get frustrated, before reminding herself that it was called the Path of Patience for a reason. The fortieth point again gave nothing upon investing it. A quick closing and re-opening of the window didn’t change anything either.

Thankfully the forty-first Path Point did give her something. One point each to health, stamina, and mana. Another point gave her .1 to all regeneration rates, and the next gave her a free point to improve one of her ability scores.

Encouraged by this progress, Jen continued to invest her hard-earned points.

2 to all pools.

.2 to all regen.

2 free stats.

3 to all pools.

.3 to all regen

3 free stats.

Jen was beginning to be encouraged. If the returns per point continued to increase then this path would be worth it.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Patience Lvl 1.

A new skill was interesting, and the change in rewards broke Jen out of her current mindset of simply spending points. Given the increasing rewards that this path offered, having it be as long as possible was to her benefit. The length of the Path had grown as she had earned more skill points, and while that might have stopped once she had selected it and started spending her points, it might not have.

On a clock due to her globe of magic, Jen frantically tried to think of a new skill she could acquire quickly to check her theory. Her gaze fell upon the mushrooms she had collected. Examining them would be useful in its own right, and the odds of getting a Biology or Herbology or even Mycology.

Picking one up, Jen peered at it closely. It seemed like any other mushroom. A short stout stem supporting a wide circular cap. The coloring was grey, with pale specks of blue scattered across the entire surface.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Identify Lvl 1.

Noting that the mushroom was apparently an Anti-magic Mushroom, Jen switched her focus back to her Path of Patience. Sadly, it remained at 50/60 points invested. It made sense. The path was built to reward those who would wait before starting, with a longer wait resulting in a better reward. Jen felt a small pang of sympathy for any individuals who had invested in the path immediately once it was unlocked, receiving only a very expensive lesson for their skill points.

With no reason to delay, Jen spent the points to complete the path. In total, she had received 21 health, mana, and stamina, 2.1 to all regenerations, 21 free stats to invest as she wanted, and two skills. Patience was a similar skill to Determination, but while Determination helped her in the face of external obstacles, Patience increased her ability to wait and act at the opportune moment. It was vague, but Jen imagined she already felt calmer, not as anxious about being trapped under a mountain for the moment.

The other skill, earned with the final skill point, had removed any doubts about the worth of the investment.

Self Improvement: Regeneration while resource pools are full instead slowly expands the size of resource pool. Efficiency increases with skill level.