Lust was perturbed. Things had already gone completely out of control, and Dix was only just out of the first test. It wasn’t the results of Dix’s test, it was how he had done it. Most transfers struggled through, and maybe managed to kill a dozen of the monsters before they broke down one way or another. It was a bit of a toss up between turning into rage powered berserkers, terrified stabfests, or the walking dead, those who manage to fight even though they can’t seem to think. The vast majority of the rest broke early, completely unable to kill anything, simply screaming in pain as the first monster beat on them until the system finally gave in and sent them to the non combat section. Thankfully, every once in a while they would get transfers that had been hunters, criminals, or soldiers. These people had at least killed something before, so they typically did better than the civilians, soldiers being the best, but even they would sometimes lose their shit over things like goblins and giant spiders.

Of course fighting ability wasn’t the only thing being tested. Lust had long suspected that the true purpose of the tests wasn’t the obvious thing being tested. There seemed to be no real usefulness to testing melee, ranged, and magical combat abilities. Yes, these things were useful, heck, necessary for life on Mantra, but if that was all the tests were truly about, then they were more tutorial than test. Furthermore, the end results of the tests were pretty much the same, no matter how bad someone may have done. The most common theory by the gods was that they only existed as places to let the system analyze the person in them, so that they could be properly initialized by the system. This theory persisted because absolutely everyone who went through the testing was connected to the system at the end, and there was no evidence of any kind that indicated differences between people who had significantly contrasting performances other than statistical variances.

Lust, however, believed differently. She had spent a great deal of time watching the earliest portions of the testing process, and, perhaps more importantly, had her people keep tabs on new transfers once they hit Mantra. While the results were inconclusive, there seemed to be certain trends to people who did well in the testing. The problem was, did they do better on Mantra because they did well in testing, or did the tests really just show who would be most likely to succeed once they reached Mantra. Those who had done well in testing seemed to have more skills, better classes, higher levels, and better overall chances to survive. Maybe there weren’t rewards for doing well, and it was all just to help people accept the new reality they were headed for. Either way, there was definitely more going on with each test than could initially be seen.

The first test supposedly tested someone's abilities with melee combat. It was a logical assumption based on the few things the gods actually knew about it. There was no magic use, no throwing or ranged weapons of any kind. Hand to hand, or weapons that never left contact with the body. They also had to be under a certain length, roughly double the height of the wielder. No armor, even a shield, was allowed. But if it was truly just a test of melee combat, why were all of the monsters basically made of paper. None of them took more than a single solid blow to kill. And why was the variety of monsters so limited, surely a true test would encompass a wide variety of monster types. Lust was mostly focused on when and why each test ended. No matter how easy or hard the combat was for someone, it ended as soon as they killed the final monster in the room in which they first started to show signs of breaking down.

She was convinced that the first test wasn’t about the action of combat at all. No, it was a psychological exam. How well can the new people the system was accepting handle blood, pain, violence, and death. How far would they go to survive, and can they retain their sanity doing so. Would they adapt to the changes this new reality presented to them, or would they give up the struggle, forever more removed from the chance to access combat classes.

Dix seemed to stroll through the entire test like it was an interesting hike. Curious, and excited to see new things, but not that engaging, and certainly not scary. And while soldiers in the past had killed over twenty monsters, Dix had tapped out at forty, the highest she had ever seen. Most of the soldiers had even struggled in their later fights, unlike this newest transfer. And it wasn’t the martial abilities that made the difference. He didn’t bat an eye at the killing, and the visage of a slavering monster left him about as impressed as a rock. Dix displayed an air of a casually efficient exterminator throughout the entire ordeal. As though none of what he had done mattered to him in any way other than doing it as smoothly as possible.

But that wasn’t the thing that perturbed her. No, it was the list of skills Dix had acquired that was causing her trouble. Meditation was one thing, and could be explained away by him being in Crossroads domain. More specifically the skills he obtained in his second to last fight were usually things that were obtained after someone had received their class. Quick Swap, a favorite of warriors, rogues, and rangers, not only allowed one to bring a different weapon to hand quickly, it also allowed that same motion to increase the speed of bringing the weapon effectively into the fight, resulting in faster strikes or blocks. Battle Sense was a perception ability that combined the inputs from all of the users sensory organs to present a better awareness of everything around them during combat. This heightened sense was a more refined, and longer lasting version of what happened to people’s perceptions during an adrenaline rush. And finally a first stage combat form: Flow. Combat forms were an all encompassing skill type that helped with body movement during combat. In the case of Flow, it was exhibited through a gracefulness of momentum. The skill was focused towards guiding the user throughout combat by maintaining movement around enemies and using it to avoid blows and strike swiftly at multiple opponents.

The three skills were remarkably well synergized, but the fact remained that he shouldn’t have had them at all at this point. Lust didn’t think even Crossroads domain should give access to skills that were this far down the line. If these were to be the level of skills that Dix could attain at this point by accident, just how far could his learning go if someone were to suggest things. If she really wanted to test his limits, it would be best to start as soon as possible. With Beauty still distractedly starting off into space, most likely thinking about Dix, Lust was free to contact Roanoak without too many distractions. First, though, she obscured the connections to her allies. She would let them listen in to the conversation, but they would be unable to communicate with her or Roanoak. It was an annoying solution, but necessary to maintain the anonymity of her compatriots.

Watching the feed of Dix’s activities, she waited until he had started working with a short bow to bother Roanoak. The god was just as capable as any of the others, but even gods need practice to keep the use of their abilities hidden from others. Letting the newest human get himself busy with learning archery would give her time to convince the god of crafters to go along with her plan. Convincing him would likely be fairly simple, but she still brought out her best long range weapon: her voice.

In her sultriest purr, she cooed into Roanoak’s mind, “Hello, Hot Sauce.” It had been her nickname for the centaur since their first dalliance, and she never failed to smile at the reaction it evoked in him.

“Lust”, the returned greeting was shaky with suppressed desire. The deviant chuckle that he got back for that only made his condition worse.

“Oh, you sound all backed up. It’s been far too long since I’ve visited my favorite horse cock.” Somehow she managed to add a fair amount of slurping noises following that statement, causing Roanoak to just groan quietly.

Another purring growl came from her before she continued. “I’ll tell you what, Hot Sauce, you do me a quick favor, and I’ll spend the entire night taking care of you. I may even bring a friend or two.” In this case the friends would be a couple of mares from a tribe of his people on Mantra. They weren’t as large as his normal size, but he could shrink down for some fun. Lust of course would shapeshift into a lava centaur as well. No matter her shape, she would always satisfy her partners, and it was so much easier to do in the shape that they desired most.

“Wha- Uh, um. What sort of favor?” Roanoke’s stuttering reply had started high pitched and full of excitement, before he cleared his throat and calmed down. Lust had to mute her connection for a moment so she could laugh without upsetting him.

“I want you to try a little experiment with that new transfer you are working with.”

Roanoak was a little surprised at the request, shooting a quick look at Dix still working with his short bow. “What sort of experiment?”

“Let’s see if we can’t help him put some high level skills together. I imagine that you have a few skills that would be very impressive to someone new to our world, but aren’t overwhelmingly powerful. Why don’t you show a few to your little friend, and see if he can’t learn them?”

It was at this time that Dix finished with his first bow, turning back towards Roanoak, briefly putting a pause on their conversation. Lust was well aware that the centaur had never broken himself of the habit of mumbling to himself during telepathic conversation. Personally she thought it was adorably ridiculous, or maybe ridiculously adorable. Either way you wanted to say it, it pretty well described the god.

After a short chat with the human, Roanoak briefly sent back, “I hope your friends are hot.” And then he explained to Dix that they’d be looking into more skills for him later.

When Dix got back to his training, Lust and Roanoak spent a bit of time chatting about the expected activities for the coming evening. Eventually they swung their conversation back to the enigma of Dix.

“Have you seen the skills he’s gotten already? Half of those are things I’ve never seen anyone pick up before a class.” Lust was still a little excited by the things this new transfer had done, and what he could do next.

“Ah, so that’s why you want me to help him with this. You want to see how strong he can get before he gets sent down.”

“It’s not just that. His current patron is Crossroads. Look at how much his influence has changed what this human can do. None of the others has ever gotten close to doing the things he’s done, and it’s only been one test so far.”

Roanoak laughed quietly. Lust was always excitable, but normally just for her particular interests. “So what do you want me to teach him? Snipe? Flaming Arrow? Arrow Rain? Multishot?”

It took Lust a few moments to decide on something she thought would be appropriate. It would have to be impressive, both visually and practically. The skill also needed to inspire Dix to start experimenting in a lot of unusual directions. An optimal solution would actually be to use at least two, maybe three, skills that would showcase the very different directions you could go with arrow skills.

Exploding Arrow would be a good first option. Easy to visualize, but more difficult to learn the skill for. Also very impressive to see it used, with a very useful collection of effects. And perhaps the most important thing was that it would force Dix to learn to add elemental attacks and effects to his skills, or at least try. With that understanding he would be able to create skills that used fire, ice, lightning, or any other element. And not just on the arrowhead, these skills would have after effects like chain lightning, or poison clouds. She expected he might be able to get a Flaming Arrow out of his attempts in training, but Exploding Arrow should be beyond him.

Second would have to be Split Shot. Similar to Multishot, but whereas Multishot would create extra arrows on the bow before firing, Split Shot would create duplicate arrows in flight, right next to the existing ones. The firing angle for both was very different. Multishot was a flat shotgun blast, arrows shooting out in a wide spread. Split Shot would be a fairly narrow angle, something like five to ten degrees, and the farther away the target was, the more arrows there would be. Once more the main purpose of the skill wasn’t just to get it, but to figure out how to make duplicate arrows in other skills. He could make things like Multishot, Arrow Rain, Rapid Fire, or Endless Quiver once he understood the concepts correctly.

The last one would be a more complex decision. The final thing Dix would need to learn about how to make ranged skills would be to add direct effects to arrows. Homing would be a good choice, but Lust was unsure if this would give him enough insight to understand what he needed to do. Lust got a little lost in thought trying to make things perfect. Drill Shot might be better, or Pierce. Well, not Pierce, it doesn’t have enough visual aspects for it to be easily duplicated. Same thing with Snipe. I guess we could try the higher end stuff like Weaving, but it might discourage him when he can’t get it. Exploding Arrow should be hard enough already. With that thought she turned back to studying Dix, as he continued launching arrows.

Eventually, having finally acquired the Bows skill, Dix wandered back to Roanoak. After a brief conversation they stepped back up to the line, so that Dix could attempt to learn something he shouldn’t be able to. Lust was so convinced that he wouldn’t even have the chance to succeed, that she actually dismissed his first attempt. Somehow she didn’t realize that to have that much flame stuck to an arrow meant that he was more than capable of succeeding in her little game.

So when he did succeed, on his second try no less, she was absolutely flabbergasted. All she could do was stare at the wall, as the feed pumped through her brain, with her jaw hanging open. How?! Even if he has mana, there is a progression to skill gains. You have to have Flaming Arrow before you can get Exploding Arrow! Don’t you? Suddenly, a great many things she had taken for granted seemed to be falling apart, but she wasn’t angry, just shocked. And oddly proud. She had made her own personal little tests of what this transfer could do, and he was blowing them away. Even gods need their perspectives changed sometimes.

With a happy little smile she watched Roanoak show Dix the other skills she decided on. He seemed to struggle with Split Shot for a while, taking a whole six shots before he got it. Homing Shot he got on the first try. He seemed happy with his new skills, but didn’t immediately start trying out other variations. Instead he started working on crossbows.

Crossbow work was when Dix really started to shine. Once he got used to the rate of travel, and the amount the bolt dropped at certain ranges, he stopped missing. Picking up the passives was easy from then on. As he usually had a fair number of bolts left after acquiring the subskill for each type of crossbow, Dix put them to work making new skills. He got a multitude of elemental arrow attacks, as well as a number of more explosive style area attacks. Endless Quiver he got entirely by accident while trying to make Multishot. The others of the multi arrow style came easy after that. Homing didn’t seem to give him a lot of insight into the things he could do with an arrow or bolt, although he did manage to add homing to most of the attacks he had just made.

Slings and whips he learned to use, and did get the passives for, but showed no real interest in using them long term, nor did he bother learning any skills with them. The utility weapons received much the same reaction, except bolos. For some reason Dix seemed to truly enjoy using them. Had anyone bothered to ask Dix, or troll his thoughts through the feed, they would have quickly understood that the bolo was one of those weapons he had dreamed about as a kid. He had always thought they were an interesting toy, limited in use, but exceptional where it mattered.