Out in the forest, in the middle of the undergrowth of bushes and desiccated, dried leaves, where two—no, three—fawns were playing in the foliage. They were chasing each other, jumping on top each other, and rolling around with a play attitude.

Just close by, either watching the fawns jovial playing or staring into the thick undergrowth, were three deer, one clearly a buck by the small antlers protruding from its head.

The other two, consequently, could be identified as does.

All of the deer had a reddish coating to them, no tail—though the females did have small, white tufts of fur where a tail would be—and they were rather short in height; none reaching more than a metre when excluding the head.

The fawns were playing without a care in the world but the adults were hesitant—vigilant. The buck had heard something, he believed, and his black, beady eyes were peering into the forest before him, trying to find anything suspicious.

The does, protective of their young spawn, tensed their bodies as anxiety filled them.

It was far too sudden. One moment the buck, standing tall, its powerful body and sharp antlers showcasing it as a bastion of defence, just fell down.

It’s taut muscles relaxed and it collapsed gracelessly.

The does could barely react, one of them hopping backwards towards the fawns while the second one quickly underwent the same fate; a sudden draining of energy and life from its body in no more than two seconds.

By now, the children had realised something was going on, and ceased their unhelpful playing. But it was too late; by the time the remaining doe had ran over, it, too, collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

The massacre didn’t stop there; one after the other, the fawns succumbed to this mysterious power, dying quickly and in less than a second each.

Only now, after all the deer had been reduced to just warm bodies of meat, did the assailant show themselves.

A young woman, clad in a brown fur cloak and with a knife in hand, emerged from a particularly thick bit of undergrowth, a good 14 metres or so away.

As she walked closer, she swiped her hand through the air, dismissing blue notification boxes.

[Leech] [Level up]

[Level up]

You have gained 5 stat points and 1 skill point

That’s already two families of deer in… Less than three hours. And not a boar in sight, though I did spot a squirrel or two.

What’s caused the difference in fauna? It can’t be me, can it? I didn’t do anything.

Location, then? The further away from the village I travel, the greater the density and diversity of wildlife? Strange—I wonder why it’s like that.

But, nonetheless, I got a level up! Time to get that new skill.

[Essence Transformer] (1/10) -Learned

Convert health into essence.

Conversion rate: 5.2 hp/sec

Efficiency: 10%

A bit disappointing that [Maximise Mastery] doesn’t affect the efficiency; I guess it’ll be 100% at level 10. But this is amazing! I totally forgot [Lone Wolf] would affect this skill.

Just like she had done earlier, the young woman scouted out a nearby tree, full of sturdy, low-hanging branches, and climbed up it, securing herself on a thick branch not that high up but high enough to preclude any ground-based creatures from getting to her easily.

Normally, she’d [Meditate] here to gain her essence back but this new skill presented a new opportunity. The maths was going to take some time so she sunk into meditation anyway.

[Meditate], [Maximise Mastery], [Leech], and [Essence Transformer]. There’s a way to use them all optimally.

If I use [Essence Transformer] for two seconds, I gain 1.04 essence when I expend 10.4 health, which is a 1:10 ratio.

[Leech], meanwhile, on its lowest power, consumes 5 essence to confer 60 health on me. A 1:12 ratio.

Therefore, with [Essence Transformer], when using that in combination with [Leech], I can gain essence without changing my gross health. Just have to figure out the most favourable breakpoints.

With [Essence Transformer] for 11 seconds, I expend 57.2 points of health to gain 5.72 essence. I then use an unmaximised [Leech] for 1 second, spending 5 essence to gain 60 health.

Total change in health: 0.

Total change in essence: +0.72.

Total time taken: 12 seconds.

That’s 1.44 essence every 24 seconds, which is better than maximised [Meditate], giving me 1 essence every 23 seconds.

The choice is obvious.

She quickly ran the numbers and figured out she’d need to wait for only six minutes to replenish the essence she spent in the last fight.

A figure she was very quickly proven wrong in assuming.

[Essence Transformer] [Level up]

With the level up, that meant the time taken for the whole process was cut in half.

Shortly after [Essence Transformer] leveled up twice again, the woman's concentration was interrupted by an unexpected but pleasing reveal:

[Maximise Mastery] [Level up]

Oh yeah; of course that would level up. Then, I guess it's levelling is proportional based on the resource I expend with the original skill? Either way, great news that I'm levelling two skills at once.

As she continued to remain in this tense state of equilibrium, the skill kept levelling up, the breakpoints changing so sometimes she would actually lose health rather than it remaining stagnant.

Never-the-less, by the time her essence was full, the skill had levelled to a staggering level 7!

And that wasn't all; throughout the whole process, [Maximise Mastery] was levelling up as well. It had also reached the same level as [Essence Transformer].

Wow. Just… Wow. My highest level skill is one I bought like ten minutes ago? Fuck me. And [Maximise Mastery]... Note to self; self-damage skills are broken when combined with healing skills.

I suppose it makes sense; I can effectively generate infinite essence from it, with my only limitation being time.

Fuck it; let’s get both of these bitches to level 10.

Hopping down from the tree, as she was a bit worried it’d topple over any second now with how much health she had drained from it, she set off walking in the forest, making sure to use [Leech], [Maximise Mastery], and [Essence Transformer].

The plants wilted as she drew near, bending over in discolouration as life left their measly little bodies. The woman's health fluctuated back and forth, giant expenditures slicing her health in half before instantly refilling it again.

Her walking was strange, the pace to her steps uneven and unnatural. Periodically, her legs would almost give out from under her, sudden strength leaving them withthe absence of adrenaline, unable to keep her upright. Like a marionette controlled by an incompetent puppet master.

It didn’t take very long at all for the skills to give off their final notifications:

[Essence Transformer] [Level up]

[Essence Transformer] has reached level 10.

You can choose to spend a skill point to upgrade the skill or turn the skill into a passive.

[Essence Transformer]+

Convert health into essence

Conversion rate: 20 hp/sec

Efficiency: 50%

[Essence Transformer] (passive)

50% of natural health regeneration is converted into essence regeneration

Efficiency: 20%

[Maximise Mastery] [Level up]

[Maximise Mastery] has reached level 10.

You can choose to spend a skill point to upgrade the skill or turn the skill into a passive.

[Maximise Mastery+]

Multiply intensity of an active essence skill by 7

Cost: variable

[Maximise Mastery] (passive)

Active skill's intensity is multiplied by 2 without increasing essence cost.

This is... Interesting. So, when a skill gets to level 10, it can be upgraded further, though it costs a skill point to do so. Let me compare them to their current iterations--without [Maximise Mastery] involved, of course:

[Essence Transformer] (10/10)+ -Learned

Convert health into essence.

Conversion rate: 20 hp/sec

Efficiency: 10%

[Maximise Mastery] (10/10)+ -Learned

Multiply intensity of an active essence skill by 5

Cost: variable

An upgrade seems to be exactly that; a straight numerical upgrade. [Essence Transformer] is nice in that it gives me more bang for my buck--I don't have to kill myself so much to regenerate essence. It's not that much of an issue currently, but maybe it'd be more useful in more dire circumstances.

[Maximise Mastery] is more enticing since it'll boost any active skill I get but when combined with [Lone Wolf], any active skill can already undergo a 10 times multiplier; the upgrade would only make skills 40% more powerful than they can be without the upgrade.

Then, we've got the passives. [Essence Transformer] has a massive downside that's negated by [Leech]; I can heal myself to full within a second so the lack of natural healing doesn't matter anyway. With how often I use [Leech], I doubt my body has experienced healing through natural regeneration much at all.

But whether it would actually be good is another question. If it doesn't undergo any modifiers, that's just a plain 100 essence per day, which is less than 10% of my regeneration without a maximised [Meditate]; not that impactful.

The [Maximise Mastery] passive is interesting; it's essentially another [Lone Wolf] but one that only applies to active skills. Pointing it that way, it's extremely tempting.

Arguably, the most important piece of information that I don't have is whether I retain the skills in their original forms. If I take the [Maximise Mastery] passive, do I lose the ability to amplify skills by an additional 400%?

This is information that I need to know before I take any of these options, and I don't feel like spending a skill point to find out is the wisest decision.

Not like I need to make a choice any time soon, though; I don't have any skill points and I'm certainly powerful enough as it is currently.