The joyful moment between Blackthorne and Jackie eventually came to an end, as she needed to rest. Her morning shifts started early, and the evening shifts seemed to come early as well.

Once again alone in his room, a smile in his heart and a gleam in his eyes, Blackthorne gazed happily at his status window.

STATUS [Uninjured]

Name: Scott Logan

Dream Form: Blackthorne

Level: 2

Ability Points: 2

Talent Points: 0

Skill Points: 40

Life Force: 26/26

Armor Class: 3

Strength: 13

[+1]

Agility: 12[10]

[+0]

Vigor: 16

[+3]

Intellect: 14

[+4]

Charisma: 16

[+5]

Luck: 10

[+0]

"An eight point boost in Life force..." he said with a grin. Blackthorne looked to his vigor stat then nodded. "Choosing that talent must have paid off big time."

He brought up the information for his lesser talent, Minor Vigorous Body.

Talent: Minor Vigorous Body

Info: Your body has been honed to a razor's edge. You are an individual who possesses great vitality and resilience. Your vigorous nature allows you to produce more vital essence than the average person, regenerate vital essence more quickly, and to have increased resistance to both poison and disease.

Talent Grade: Minor

Bonus[1]: Vital essence is increased by one standard deviation. In addition to your vigor modifier you will now gain [+2] vital essence per level, plus an additional [1-4] vital essence.

Bonus[2]: +1 Increase to Your Vigor Attribute Score.

The second talent that he chose during the first dream provided between six and nine points of life force each time he gained a level. Otherwise, he would have gained only what his vigor modifier offered.

He checked his skills. His grin broadening slightly. "I can finally do a little serious upgrading!"

His good humor was short-lived, however. A mystery presented itself. A few of his skills were higher in level than he previously anticipated that they would be. In fact, a few of them had increased when he knew for a fact that he never received a whisper which claimed that they had done so.

PRIMARY SKILLS

Dark Magic

Rank: 18

- Sub-Skill: Basic Dark Lightning Mastery

Rank: 2

Conjuration Magic

Rank: 1

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

SECONDARY SKILLS

Heavy Armor

Rank: 2

Blade Mastery

Rank: 20

- Sub-Skill: Basic Longsword Mastery

Rank: 1

- Sub-Skill: Basic Shortsword Mastery

Rank: 2

Arcane Ring Mastery

Rank: 3

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

TERTIARY SKILLS

Synergy

Rank: 3

Jewelry Crafting

Rank: 7

Enchanting

Rank: 1

Alchemy

Rank: 1

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

"I might have lost count with jewelry crafting, but I know that my weapon and armor skills never went up before now..." said Blackthorne thoughtfully.

"Wait, that message I received when I was in the bathroom..." he said after a moment, "Didn't take the time to read it because Jackie was pounding on the door."

No sooner did he think about that message intently did it reappear before him. "Neat, so they aren't lost forever if I ignore them?"

Message

Congratulations on receiving your first level increase!

You have performed admirable and reached a milestone achievement. We should note, however, that a few things have changed in the skill system since your tutorial session.

The administrative team in charge of skill growth determined that it would be best for people from your world to automatically consume all skill experience at once whenever you achieve a new level.

This update allows for explosive growth in skill ranks if someone trains diligently. However, there is a downside to this new policy. The skill ranks can only increase to a level that there is enough skill experience available to achieve. All extraneous skill experience is lost in the process.

As you know, or should know, skill experience is typically consumed in small drips and bursts based on both your total skill experience and your intellect score. The more of both that you develop, the faster your skill ranks may grow due to the increased size of these experience consumption bursts.

This experience-over-time model is a highly immersive method, but a lengthy period of time may pass while you wait for the experience in your skill pool to convert into increased ability should there be little experience available.

The content of the message caused Blackthorne to become conflicted almost immediately. Once he came to a conclusion he growled low under his breath then said, "Oh, you cheap fuckers..."

Thieves! That was what they became when they made such a decision. What they billed as a helpful change was nothing more than theft of his hard earned skill experience. He might have had a skill experience pool that was one point over his current skill rank, or enough experience to be nearly to the next rank. Either way, they took the so-called extraneous points away.

The skills that increased to the next rank would have done so on their own eventually, even if he did not train them further. Now they were empty, reset to zero across the board, if the message was to be believed.

Blackthorne stared bitterly at his dark magic and blade mastery skills. "How much more would I have needed until you two increased in rank? Well, you're back to square one now!"

Enchanting was back to square one as well. In short, the new change was nothing more than a great big hairy middle finger to people who gained a level. The only silver-lining was that he would need to spend fewer skill points to increase a skill to the next important milestone immediately after a level increase. However, he could have simply waited for his skills to increase naturally and then used the points.

Annoyed, but still hopeful he decided to check on the most important thing about his recent level increase, skill upgrades. "Please don't be a lie..." he muttered as he focused his attention on his synergy skill. His eyes lit up when he received the message he expected. For once, the administration did not opt to screw people over.

Message

You have reached a new milestone, level two.

- Skills may now be transferred between tiers, or removed from your list altogether. A change in tier level will require ten skill points, plus an amount of skill points equal to the skills current rank.

- Any skill transferred to a different tier will be reset to [Rank 1].

"You know, initially I thought that magic and swordsmanship would be the most important things..." he said with a laugh. He wanted to be some sort of armor clad magical badass, but the truth was that he simply was not equipped for such things at the moment. There was one truth in this world that was shared with Earth. It was hard to do anything without money.

Blackthorne eyed his synergy skill. That skill was money. He earned more after a few minutes of its use than he did in an entire day of hunting for onions to sell. The cost was high, but if he paid it now it would hurt less in the long run.

He chose to transfer his synergy skill from the tertiary tier to his primary skill tier. The loss of twenty-three skill points hurt, but it was a small price to pay in the end. Besides that, he fully intend to do tier transfers with a few other skills after he gained another level or two.

"Alright, I've already spent a fortune in skill points on you... it's time to go the distance," he said. Blackthorne spent another nine points on Synergy to bring it to rank ten. Upon doing so, he grinned broadly as several possible sub-skills appeared to him.

His eyes roved over the offerings for a moment. Each of them held promise. He could focus his efforts on specifics types of item synergy such as inanimate organic material, something he was not fully capable of synergizing before, and crafted items among other things. However, it was one sub-skill in particular that grabbed his attention.

Improved Synergy Refinement

The ability to take any item crafted through synergy and reduce it down to its most basic constituent parts. These parts may then be recombined through synergy to create refined versions of the basic materials.

- The cost for combining multiple items created through synergy will be reduced by ten percent.

- You may combine some items which are naturally less compatible, though the cost in life force may be severe.

- At every 10th rank of ability, this sub-skill can be further refined in order to specialize in the refinement of specific types of materials. Upon reaching skill rank [100] further customization can be achieved.

"Hello beautiful. You're what I did when I made that big chunk of green rock become a smaller one, huh?" he asked the skill in a light tone of voice. It was the exact type of synergy sub-skill he wanted to find. The stone he sold required a few smaller chunks to be brought together, but this sub-skill would make the process simpler and more effective.

Seven skill points remained. He could have spent them, but instead he opted to hold onto them for the next time he gained a level. They would help to lower the burdensome cost up upgrading skills from one tier to another.

Blackthorne looked at his status once more. "Not really anything that exciting that I can do with my attribute points at the moment."

The most useful stat to increase would be intellect, but he would be level three before he received so much as a single modifier increase. Luck might help, but there was no way to be certain. At least no way to be certain enough that he would spend his points on it at the moment.

"My magic's a joke right now, and charisma has a bonus from one of my talents..." he said thoughtfully.

He found himself at a crossroads. The two best choices that he could see were either to spend it all on Intellect for the next few levels, or to boost strength once to increase its modifier to plus two points.

Strength was the best short-term investment by far. It was only a single point away from a modifier increase. That upgrade would increase his ability to carry things without becoming overburdened, and would allow him to hit a little harder with his weapons. If nothing else, it would allow him to wear a bit more armor without losing too much more in the way of agility.

Intellect was a much better long term investment. If he increased it until he reached eighteen points, his bonus modifier from his magical talent would allow for a major boost in his overall ability. Once his intellect was at eighteen, his modifier would be plus four. The magical talent he possessed increased that modifier by two points.

A six point modifier would be enough to acquire a third extra primary skill slot, two more secondary skill slots, and increase his tertiary skill slots to twelve. Most importantly of all, the bonus skill points provided by his intellect would rise to thirty points per level. He would gain fifty of those points total due to the base twenty skill points given to everyone.

"Am I prepared to spend every attribute point I earn on Intellect until I reach level six, though?" he asked himself cautiously. That little fact was the big sticking point for him at the moment. It would cost him ten attribute points to increase his intellect from fourteen to eighteen points.

If he really wanted to push the intellect envelope he could pump it all the way to level fifteen and reach twenty-two points. He would have a modifier high enough to add yet another skill slot to his primary skills. Such a thing seemed ridiculous at the moment, however. If what he'd seen online was any indication, it should take months to achieve that level.

The cost in time and levels continued to grow steadily with each new stat point achieved. There seemed to be no limit for how high it could grow. He could raise it to thirty points, or more, but his level would easily need to be in the mid-forties. All of the attribute points gained would be spent solely on intellect. I was a sobering thought.

Most people had yet to reach level two. If anything, Blackthorne managed it fairly quickly when his first few days without entering the dream were not added to the mix.

It was obvious, in hindsight, that he did something out of the ordinary to achieve his current status as a second level dreamer. Could he do it again, and quickly? Only time would tell. For now, he needed skill points. He spent the points on intellect. Whether he would stick with it after level three was a decision for another day, but he would need to extra skill points to rearrange his skills at the moment.

The skill system itself was something of a marvel. On the one hand it seemed easy to drastically upgrade any one skill, especially a primary skill at the earlier ranks before the costs went up per rank. On the other hand, the cost to do the same with sub-skills was a different story. A base primary skill required only one point per rank, but sub-skills, specializations, and powers each doubled in cost compared to the skill used to unlock it. Secondary skills were twice that cost from the start, and tertiary skills cost four times as much.

One specific skill rarely did much on its own, according to the little blurbs provided for them. They mostly provided a minor bonus and access to a sub-skill or ability which also only granted a small bonus.

Briefly he considered his blade mastery skill tree. "First the base, then a sub-skill, then a specialization, and then a technique..." he said carefully.

"Six thousand points to get them all to rank two hundred where the cost doubles and then increases at each hundred points afterward..." Blackthorne frowned at his skill information. Was intellect worth it after a certain point? The extra skill slots were practically a waste unless skill points were never used for them and each modifier increase only added five extra skill points per level.

Upgrading sub-skills with skill points was much better than focusing it all on the same skill. Six thousand skill points for a primary base skill would get the rank over one thousand, but in the case of the blade mastery skill tree the result would far inferior to spread the points out on the tree. The various sub-skills, specializations, and powers all worked in tandem. He possessed blade mastery, and two basic blade sub-skills. If he were to add in heavy sword specialization, and then choose power strike as his special technique, two hundred points in each part of that tree would allow him to easily perform hundreds if not thousands of points of damage on a single maximum powered strike. This of course depended on the type of heavy sword he used, and his strength modifier.

He ran the numbers once more then laughed. "Yeah, but wouldn't most swords just shatter all to hell if I hit something that hard? I know my copper butter knife would."

Blackthorne pulled out his sword and waved it around. His current weapon was the other reason that he did not choose to increase strength at the moment. It could only handle a strength modifier of plus one without taking extra durability damage with each swing. At fourteen points he would have to hold back whenever he attacked for fear of heavily damaging the thing with each strike.

"Throw a thousand points of damage at someone with this thing... they'd probably die for sure, but I'd end up with confetti on a stick," he said with another laugh.

His thoughts on skill point distribution ended for the moment, it was time to focus on his training once more. "Let's see what synergy can do for me now..."