A few nibbles later, just to make sure that the magically grown mushroom still tasted normal, and Jen turned her attention back to her Status Screen. Completing the Fungal Arts path had given her four stat points to spend, and Jen was unsure as where they would best be invested.

Resilience was her first choice. The increased regeneration was helpful, both to let her cast more spells, but also to increase the value of her Self Improvement skill. Her stamina had increased by one already, and more regen would cause the further increases to occur more often. Beyond that, the intangibles that an increased resilience offered were also valuable. The ability to come back after any setbacks that would inevitably occur, as well as what she suspected was an increased resiliency to better recover from otherwise permanent injuries.

As valuable as that could be, increasing other stats had merits as well. Intelligence would also increase her mana regeneration, so essential to progress, while also granting her an increased ability to generate insights and make connections that would allow her to best use her resources, meager as they were.

Her physical stats were tailing her mental ones, and while specialization was powerful, it worked best in a group situation where others could cover any weaknesses that might develop. A rounded build would perhaps save her from unseen obstacles in the future. Jen rejected that thought. Trying to prepare for any eventuality felt too defensive for her. She was already on a clock of sorts, with a limited amount of time before her solitary existence began to crack her sanity. Better to be proactive, to hone her strengths and be offensive.

Wanting to strike a happy medium, Jen decided to invest in her Willpower. It was a mental stat that hadn’t received increases from her most recent path, and one that she had mostly ignored when investing her free points. While it had still increased quite a bit from its initial value of 4, it had begun to lag behind her Intelligence and Composure.

While the flat increase to her Mana Pool wasn’t the most useful, the fact that Willpower determined the strength of System Spells was enough to tip the balance. Jen went ahead and invested the four free points she had accumulated, bringing her Willpower up to 16.

For having a 15 or higher in every mental stat, the Novice Spellcasting Plot Path is now open to you.

The notification wasn’t a complete surprise, Jen having already suspected that having high stats could possibly be sufficient to unlock a path. And while she had just spent all her plot points, she had a good idea of what she would be working towards next.

With her stomach filled, and her new pet secured, Jen decided that now was as good a time as any to experiment with her Identify Skill. Having already named Rocky, she was curious if she could name other objects, and if she could use that to her advantage somehow.

While the rocks she had gathered had all been put to use making a new home for her Myconid pet, she still had a pile of gathered mushrooms, something that had been identified before.

Burning a few mana to make a light in her offhand, Jen picked up a single mushroom, entering the state of intense focus necessary to Identify an object.

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Just like she had with Rocky, Jen declared her name for the fungus out loud.

“I shall call you Testy!”

Twenty seconds later, and Jen had confirmation that she could give common objects simple names. Jen put Testy back down off to the side, planning to come back later to test for permanency, and picked up a second mushroom.

Wanting to keep the number of variables to a minimum, Jen again Identified the mushroom, before planning out a longer name to give it. A list of potential skills to try for was a good choice as it was longer than a single word, valuable to keep track of, and comprised of words that were not usually thought of as names. Jen took a deep breath as she prepared to speak.

“I dub thee, Cookingwritingfightingrunningtrackinghealingspeechfirstaid smellingenchanting.”

It was by no means a comprehensive list, but it did cover what Jen both could think of off the top of her head, and what she was able to get out in a single breath.

Cookenritenfitenrunnintrackingealingspeechfirst

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Jen blinked at the result the system had produced. She knew she had been speaking a little quickly, but it was still a little insulting to see spelled out just how poor her diction was. She also noted that it had only gotten half way through first aid, though it was a little unclear if that was because she had paused enough to start another word, or if she had hit some sort of character limit.

No matter which limit she might have run afoul of, the current capabilities were still something she could very much put to use. Refreshing her light, Jen picked up another mushroom, eager to continue experimenting.

Five minutes and eight mushrooms later, Jen took a small break to examine her progress and refresh her light source.

El Señor de la Mancha

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Mao Zedong

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52,048,050,040,160,105,040,403,061,505,161,921

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Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

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One

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One

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Help Options Essyew

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Jen’s Pond

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While some experiments had failed, such as her attempt to give a blank name, others had been more successful, or at least gave her a better understanding of how the System worked. Jen took a moment to try and organize her conclusions.

The system tried to give the name as she would understand it. Two years of spanish in high school was enough for her to name a mushroom a name with a spanish enye character, but having no knowledge of Chinese, the system went for a literal translation.

It was possible to name something a number. If the number was simple enough it was possible for it to appear as a word instead. Attempting to use hexadecimal to make a more compact number failed, though Jen was unsure if that was because she didn’t think of it as a real number or what. Writing numbers down was valuable, as it was both compact and precise. While she might eat or recycle some of her other experiments, Jen was keeping her numbered one, which served as a quick summary of her status screen.

There was a soft cap around fifty characters. Jen figured this had more to do with her own breath capacity than it did any hard system limit, but it was still valuable information for planning future information to keep track of.

Names did not have to be unique. Jen had a short daydream of the horrors that might have otherwise occurred before shaking her head.

There was no simple way to access some external system help. Jen hadn’t been holding out hope, but knew she would never have forgiven herself if there was and she didn’t try.

Multiple words were possible, so long as Jen had a good understanding of how they formed a name. ‘John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith’ would likely make it through. ‘Buy eggs and milk’ probably wouldn’t.

While Jen wasn’t going to be keeping a daily journal anytime soon, she did foresee making more notes in the future, to keep track of her status screen if for nothing else. It did require her to have a light source to be able to bring up the identify screen, but she had enough mana to spend, and it would give her something to do with any excess illumination she might make.