With the Blue Sphere as his goal, Tormacc went on a killing spree, the reward of so much Essence driving him forward to push himself for that one extra kill before he had to retreat for the day. There was also the allure of more loot, as by unlocking a tier nine ability and getting an additional 5,000 Essence he thought he had a pretty good shot of being able to safely descend into the crevices. Filled with that single-minded purpose, it took over three weeks of grinding to reach his goal, his unwavering will pushing him forward until he finally had enough Essence to unlock Giant’s Strength.

Unlike Strengthened Blows, which just affected his attacks, Giant’s Strength was a comprehensive boost to his whole body, and after unlocking it he felt giddy at the rush of power flowing through him, his muscles bursting with unconstrained might reminiscent of some primordial lifeform. It was similar to just after he completed the rituals, his strength experiencing a comprehensive growth compared to the past. It also made him realize that his strength was finally outpacing things like stamina and vitality, as there was a noticeable difference in the comparison between them. He couldn’t pinpoint how he knew, but after taking stock of his own body he realized he might need to invest more in his body’s durability. He was positive he could crush the rats with his present strength, but it would also drain his stamina, leaving him easily winded after only a few minutes of fighting.

That was where the Blue Sphere came in, and as Tormacc felt it dissolve in his hand Essence gushed into him, a veritable storm of power flooding his Fate Wheel and filling it back up to the previous point before he had unlocked his tier nine ability. It was addictive, gaining that much power at once, nothing like the slow burn from the steady accumulation from grinding. Now the only question was what to do with his newly-gotten gains.

There was a part of him that wanted to save for a tier ten ability, and one of the ones he had available, Giant Growth, seemed like it would be helpful for him. But he already had enough strength. He needed to branch out, make sure he didn’t become too one-dimensional. Strength had been his focus, and it still was, but to support it he needed to round out his other abilities, particularly his stamina and vitality.

He realized it during his previous weeks of grinding, but if he had more stamina he would have been able to kill more rats, thus gaining him Essence at a faster rate. From what Stella had said, there was never a problem of running out of monsters to kill. You could sometimes decimate the local population, but there would always be other places to continue your slaughter. As long as he had the power to break the defenses of whatever he was fighting, anything that allowed him to fight for longer would directly improve his Essence gain.

With that in mind, he looked over his Fate Wheel, this time with a mind not only for the abilities that had immediately available, but also what abilities they were likely to unlock down the line if he continued down that part of his Fate Wheel. He decided to start with the top section and work counter-clockwise. He already knew he wanted stuff from the right section, but it wouldn’t be good to ignore the others just because of that. There had to be four sections in his Fate Wheel for a reason, after all.

The top section had very little that interested him, although to be fair he didn’t have many options. The only one he thought sounded good was a tier three ability called Synergy, which, rather obviously, increased his synergy. It only cost fifty Essence since it was only a tier three ability so he kept it in mind, but it would depend on what else he decided on. From what he had heard, he wasn’t too interested in the top section, so he was hesitant to invest a lot of Essence there.

The left section had a few abilities he was interested in, but, similar to the top section, he was loathe to diversify his build. As a warrior, he had a healthy respect for mages and their craft, and there was a small part of him that longed to unlock magic abilities. He might unlock the other tier one ability, Force Ball, just so he could have some sort of ranged attack, but recklessly spending his Essence on abilities that didn’t synergize with his physical abilities sounded like a bad idea. The two tier three abilities he had access to did sound tempting though, so he decided to keep his options open.

Out of the abilities in the bottom section there was one that he knew he was going to get. In fact, he arguably should have unlocked it much sooner. It was the last tier three ability he had yet to unlock, Reset, which allowed him to use an ability twice in rapid succession in exchange for not being able to use it for days or even weeks. It could easily save his life in a pinch, allowing him to do something like Dash twice, crossing a previously insurmountable distance.

Since he already knew he was going to unlock it, he invested the fifty Essence to light up Reset, leaving him with 4,950 remaining to spend. Neither of the two abilities revealed by Reset seemed all that alluring, and there was only one ability he wanted, Discount, but he was saving that for later, so he finally turned to the right section of his Fate Wheel. That was where he intended to spend the majority of his Essence anyway.

He started near the center, first by unlocking the last tier two ability which he still hadn’t unlocked yet, Improved Physique. It was a small boost, especially considering his other enhancements, but everything counts, and he wanted to see what else was offered further in. The twenty Essence was almost trivial at this point when compared to the additional options he would see.

Moving on, the tier three abilities in the right section of his Fate Wheel had three options available. The two new ones, Body Boost and Iron Skin, which he had just unlocked, and one of the options revealed by Energy Sustenance, Iron Stomach. He had already unlocked the other five abilities. He wasn’t sure about the other two, but Iron Skin sounded like something he was going to want at some point, so he went ahead and unlocked it for fifty Essence, leaving him with 4,880 left.

Deciding to move on to tier four for now, he had a few options available, some of which he knew he would unlock. The question was which ones. At this point, with the tier four abilities costing 100 Essence, he knew he had to start being selective, especially if he wanted to reach farther into his Fate Wheel with his remaining Essence. The only problem was there were a lot of abilities he wanted.

The first two options, revealed after he had unlocked Enhanced Vitality, were Rapid Healing and Regeneration. From the descriptions, he honestly had a hard time telling them apart, as one made him to heal faster, while one made him regenerate faster. The difference between those two seemed meaningless to him, as both seemed like powerful additions to his kit. He wanted at least one, and possibly both. He had been able to hold out and heal from the injuries he had received, but often it took days for him to heal. If that healing time was cut in half it meant a faster turnaround time before he could be back out in the field farming Essence.

The next two options, which he had just revealed by Iron Skin, were Block and Force Absorption. While neither of them were what he currently needed, he knew he would eventually be unlocking them. Perhaps Force Absorption would be useful now as an additional defense if he got in over his head. In contrast to those two, he knew he wanted at least one of the next two available, although not necessarily because of how powerful they were.

The next two abilities he had access to, Explosive Blow and Sweep, were derivatives of Cleave. Neither one seemed super useful to him, but if he was going to descend into the crevices he needed more area of effect skills, and the skill tree after Cleave was his best place to find those kinds of skills. So even if those two skills weren’t the best, he wanted the skills that came after.

Elemental Perception was the next one had could unlock, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It was one of the options unlocked by Elemental Blade, but other than the elemental part it seemed out of place. Perhaps perception was loosely related to physical abilities, but for such an ability to come after a clear attack skill, it was almost like something else… was at play… and influencing his Fate Wheel.

He was an idiot.

Reaching up behind his ear, he gently rubbed the area where he knew his tattoo was. He had tried to examine it in a mirror when he was in the First City, but because of the angle he wasn’t able to get a good look at it. Still, he knew it was there. Tattoo of Perception; the link was obvious, and if he had spent more time thinking about it he would have realized it sooner. Stella had given him a whole speech about how his Fate Wheel could be influenced by his other abilities, which apparently he had done his best to tune out, as it didn’t take a genius to connect his tattoo with the out-of-place ability.

Now the question was, what did he do with the information? The obvious answer was to unlock Elemental Perception, it was after that he was unsure of, the snowball effect of a variant ability potentially cascading far into his Fate Wheel. Or potentially not, with Elemental Perception his only variant option.

It only took a glance at his Essence to realize he was agonizing over nothing. He still had 4,880 Essence left. Even if he stopped there, wasting one unlock on a tier four ability that would at the very least be useful later was no waste at all. Ignoring his previous train of thought, he selected Elemental Perception, lighting it up and revealing the two tier five abilities after it.

The two abilities revealed were Elemental Senses and Elemental Boon. Elemental Perception allowed him to augment his senses using an element he had attunement with. For example, he could use his water attunement if he were in a body of water to commune with the water, extending his senses through it. Elemental Senses was a step beyond that, with instead of his chosen element augmenting his perception, he could fully channel his senses through that element, meaning he could hear or see out of a pool of water hundreds of meters away, where right now he could only extend the range of his senses.

It was a powerful effect, and one he knew he would select at some point. But in his current almost waterless environment it just didn’t make sense to unlock it. Elemental Boon was more useful to him, as it allowed him to grant himself bonuses depending on what elements he was attuned to. It was a little vague, the description not really telling him much, but he would have unlocked it if he was attuned with an element like earth or possibly fire. But since he only had water attunement currently he held off on unlocking it, leaving his elemental skills aside for the moment, even though he knew he would come back to them later.

The last two tier four abilities he could choose from were revealed by Dodge: Centered Balance and Read the Flow. Centered Balance’s effect was obvious, while Read the Flow seemed to be a combat sense skill, improving his skills at dodging and landing attacks. Neither was what he needed, so he moved back to the earlier skills, although Read the Flow was on his list of skills to unlock later when he was faced with more skill-intensive fights.

After looking over all of his options, there were two main paths he could take at his point: either go towards the healing and regeneration skills or down the AOE path after Cleave. Both were appealing, and at this point he started to consider his Essence and how much he could spend. He had 4,780 Essence left, and out of that, he wanted to have enough to unlock a tier eight skill, which cost 2,000 Essence. Tier seven skills cost 1,000 and tier six 500, which meant if he wanted to save enough for those he only had 1,280 to spend on lower tier skills.

Math was never his strong suit, so he decided to take out some paper from his Storage Bracelet to try and figure out how many skills he could unlock before he had to commit, and exactly what those skills would be. Multiple sheets of crumpled paper later and he knew it would be a long, long process, his colorful curses echoing around the empty plateau as he tried to make the numbers add up.