Solomon met the next boar head on. Lowering his shoulder behind his shield, he charged straight at the oncoming monster. They came together like a car crash.

His teeth rattled. His shoulder ached. Solomon had come to a sudden halt. But he hadn't been pushed back. He leaned forward and kept pushing.

The boar had been stunned for just a moment. It took a step back, then dug in and pushed back with renewed fury. They were at a deadlock.

Solomon bared his teeth in a grin and pulled his hatchet from his belt. He couldn't put his body into the attack, locked together as they were, but he could hardly ask for a better target. He swung the hatchet sidearm in a flat arc that ended with a meaty thunk as the axe head bit into the boar's thigh.

He must have hit something important. The leg buckled immediately, allowing Solomon to press forward and drive the boar's head down into the ground. He wrenched the hatchet free and started raining attacks down on the boar's exposed back. Its HP might be enough to heal its leg, but now that he had the boar pinned it didn't have the leverage to get back up.

Solomon didn't give it any time to recover. By the time the flash of the system's HP healing closed up one wound, he had opened up two more. Soon enough, the wounds stopped healing and the boar was dead.

Congratulations on completing a successful combat encounter!

You have demonstrated Bladed Weapons Mastery, Lvl 3. Would you like to add this skill?

He hitched the hatchet to his belt and used the back of his sleeve to wipe the boar's blood off his face. With a thought, he accepted the system's offer.

Congratulations! You have earned 6 Grid Points!

Together with the points he'd earned from his use of improvised weapons, he had enough to fill out another grid or two. He wanted to save something for whatever gun-related abilities the system had on offer, but investing a few points now would give him a better chance to live long enough to get a chance to put a gun together.

He pulled up his status screen.

Name: Solomon Gragg

Skills: Pain Tolerance (MAX), Improvised Weapons Mastery (4), Bladed Weapons Mastery (3)

Grids: Tutorial (6/6)

Field Engineering (7/7), Personal Equipment (9/9), Weapons (11/11), Projectile Weapons (13/13), Firearms (15/15)

Free grid points: 16

Strength: 18

Constitution: 18

Dexterity: 16

M. Capacity: 5

M. Intensity: 10

Free attribute points: 0

HP: 173/180

MP: 23/50

Adding the Bladed Weapons Mastery skill had made a new grid available, as he'd expected. The Bladed Weapons grid would cost seven grid points to complete. It offered an attribute point for every other grid point, with every other attribute point being locked to a physical attribute. The complete grid also offered two new abilities: Enhanced Endurance and Power Strike.

Solomon bought out the whole grid, adding an attribute point each to his Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity. Finishing the grid opened up the choice between Duelist and Brawler. At first glance, the next two grids offered the choice between more of a focus on Dexterity and fighting technique on the one hand as opposed to building on Strength and toughness on the other.

He had a sneaking suspicion which grid would end up being a better fit, but he kept his points in his pocket for the moment. While he had the points to finish out the next grid, he hardly had any information to inform his choice. He'd just received his first abilities from the system that directly increased his ability to fight, one a passive boost to stamina and one that required him to spend MP to hit harder. He wanted to get a feel for how the abilities worked, at least, before he decided what to get next.

As far as he could tell, there was no way to back out of a grid once you started on it.

Solomon rendered the dead boar down for parts, stored the resulting tusks and core in his inventory, and pulled his spear out from storage. Thus prepared, he continued to work his way around the edge of the dungeon.

He could feel himself breathing a little easier. The boost from Enhanced Endurance was subtle but already proving helpful.

Killing individual boars became a matter of routine. Between his spear and shield, the charging boars couldn't get close enough to do any damage. Administering a coup de grace with his hatchet was straightforward enough, when it was even needed.

As he walked, Solomon used his regenerating MP to improve his gear whenever he got the chance. By the time he had almost completed his circuit of the dungeon's edge, his boots, jacket, and pants had all had their toughness boosted. His hatchet and spear had received the same treatment, along with the two enhancements he could layer on melee weapons: one to give them a slight overall boost, and one to give a stronger boost as long as he was the one wielding them.

The benefits of his dungeon experience became clear when he ran into one more clearing with two boars waiting for him. They came at him with the same enthusiasm as the last ten boars that he had killed. After the current grace period expired, if the boars became stronger or the dungeon spawned more of them, their single-minded aggression would be intimidating. For now, it just made them predictable.

Solomon braced his spear against the ground and caught the right hand boar square in its chest. Its progress was halted as it pushed through to the bar on the spear shaft. The other boar charged straight into his shield. He let it drive him a couple of steps back, letting go of the spear and trusting it to hold by itself for a few seconds.

He drew his hatchet from his belt and finally had the MP to spare to try out his new ability. He raised the hatchet up over his head and brought it slamming down as he invoked Power Strike. At the cost of 10 MP the axe head hit the boar's head with the force of a meteor, splitting its skull and killing it instantly.

Cleaning up the remaining boar was almost automatic by now.

Congratulations on completing a successful combat encounter! Your Bladed Weapons Mastery has been raised to level 4. You have been awarded 4 Grid Points!

Solomon read the announcement with a sense of satisfaction. More grid points were always welcome.

More importantly, he was starting to feel even better about his decision to ignore the Berserker grid. It seemed that the abilities granted by the grid opened up by the Bladed Weapons Mastery skill would help him to level up his Bladed Weapons Mastery skill. It wasn't precisely a one-to-one correspondence, but to some extent he could earn grid points by spending grid points.

Cutting off his hand had given him a massive windfall of grid points. He had considered it a minor head start, a small consolation prize. Now he could see that his initial head start might just snowball into a lasting advantage.

As if prompted by his thoughts, a phantom ache came from past the end of his left arm. Solomon shook his head. Given the choice, he'd still rather have the hand back.