“Am I correct in assuming that you want me to explain how I figured it out?” Dix asked. At Crossroad’s brisk nod, he sighed and continued. “It started with the flying spark of hate. She mentioned that the whole purpose here was to prepare people for Mantra. Stats, skills, combat training, etcetera. Claimed it was all in the interest of fairness, so that those who suddenly found themselves here on this whole new world, likely very different from wherever they come from, would at least have a fighting chance. You, however, didn’t seem to care at all about the people that show up here. Roanoak did to a degree, but only insofar as making sure they appreciated what he was trying to teach them, and what he was letting them use to learn with. Beauty and Chance both seemed more interested in me as a person than in any training that I might have to undergo.” He paused to clear his mind for a moment, and organize his thoughts. It had been a bit of a hazy idea anyways, so he was a bit shocked to discover it was the truth. After a moment he continued.

“Roanoak was actually the first sign that something was wrong. He didn’t really bat an eye when I was working with melee weapons, but he was aware that I had trained with them for a long time, even before coming here. After I asked about some things that were different for me during the first test, he explained a little about skills. When I started training with ranged weapons, particularly the active abilities, he was getting more and more perturbed. He was trying to hide it whenever I was noticeably looking at him, but had forgotten I got some sort of skill to monitor my surroundings during battle. As I was holding a weapon, and feeling like I was under attack, the skill stayed active the whole time. Did you know he mumbles to himself while using what I can only assume is some sort of telepathic communication?” By this point he was smirking again. Even before he got the awareness skill, or whatever it was, he had learned to pay attention to people without them realizing it. It was a very handy trick to have, even before coming here.

“Keep going, I know that isn’t enough to figure it out,” Crossroads growled.

“Of course. The other thing that was wrong with Roanoak was how hard he pushed me to get as many of the general weapon skills as I could. I’m positive that he loves his weapons, and would like everyone that passes through to use each and everyone of them, but he was focused on the skills I was learning, not his weapons. Man, did you see his face when I learned Exploding Shot? That was hysterical.” He paused as they both started laughing, starting back up as soon as they were both done.

“Chance didn’t give me much, but the fact that she made that drink that very nearly killed me again without even bothering to think about what I had been up to earlier spoke volumes about how different I am. She made it completely by rote, no thought of ever doing something different. That means that absolutely every other human she has met throughout all the time she has been doing these tests needed that drink to open up their mana channels. The only things that seemed to be different were that I was dead, and that I was affiliated with you. Otherwise I imagine that I am fairly similar to the rest of humanity.”

Dix had to stop for a bit. This time because Crossroads was laughing at him. He wasn’t sure why.

“Similar to the rest of humanity? You? Ha! That’s the best joke I’ve heard in millenia. You are anything but normal. Nobody asks or figures out the things you have. Nice try.” He went back to laughing for a while. After a couple minutes of slapping his knees in mirth, Crossroads calmed and gestured again, summoning a table and a drink. One appeared next to Dix as well. After downing his drink and summoning another Crossroads said, “Keep going.”

A few sips, and a deep breath later, Dix got back to it. “However you look at it, the few gods I have dealt with here in the tests seem to have provided plenty of evidence that I am above the rest of my species in performance. But the pieces that convinced me came from you.” He took a few more sips of his scotch. He wasn’t really delaying the discussion, just thinking back over what had given it all away. “You told me to watch everything, and hide the fact that we were connected.” Crossroads made a mental note to get back to how he was hiding things from the gods trolling his mind for his thoughts, the better to understand him.

“You mentioned two things that cleared up a lot of it, but still left questions. The first was when we were talking about changing races, and how that would affect me. You mentioned the phrase ‘equivalent to someone of the same physical maturity you have now,’ which I surmised would apply in both directions. Meaning that I would be made equal to people raised from birth on Mantra. But how equal would I really be if the two gods most in charge of training during these tests have both shown me how abnormal I am?”

Dix was watching Crossroads closely, so he saw the very minor twitches that ghosted across minor portions of the god’s face. He was definitely prepared to hide some more things. As if the earlier reaction hadn’t already proved he was right.

“The second was when you said ‘we just have to take care of them.’ Have being the operative word. It was said like the task is something you can’t escape. It is a responsibility of the gods, all of them. That makes it some sort of rule, or restriction. That means this whole thing has rules that you can’t break, and I can only imagine that anything that enforces rules on gods would have an easy time doing the same to me.” More twitching, and even a brief moment where his face looked to be trying to scowl, only to be forcibly stopped. “So, if I am already powerful to the point the system will be taking things from me when I get to Mantra, will you tell me how many I will be losing and if I can choose which skills?”

There were a few minutes of silence as Dix waited for an answer. As he sat there waiting, he calmly sipped his drink, and quietly read through a few of the other racial options that had appeared in the extinct list. He wasn’t completely convinced to take Runeborn yet, but it was definitely still the leader. The descriptions of the races in the Singular section were singularly disappointing.

Sikix

This Singular entity arrived, only to immediately die in a fire. Nothing else is known.

Trevor the Great

Trevor would have been classified as Human, but he originally appeared in a black bathrobe and a pink witches hat. Nothing else. Immediately after his arrival, he began demanding fealty, money, booze, and virgins in a very loud voice. As he was unaware that he had appeared in a village of mutated cannibals, he was just as surprised at his reception as they were at his appearance. As the mutants thought of themselves as humans, it was obvious to them that he was not. They did add “the Great” to his name, although they insisted it applied only to his flavor.

Loggan

Loggan was a sentient log. Then he was sentient fire wood. Then he was gone.

Tyrannical Lizard

The Tyrannical Lizard spent most of his time looking like your common Lizardman. However, his anger was legendary. When angered he grew to a height of ten meters, with wings, horns, and spiked scales. Unfortunately, he also grew so heavy he couldn’t move. This resulted in his extinction when he lost his temper while fishing in the ocean. It should be noted that he took up fishing as mandated by his anger management counselor.

In Dix’s opinion, most of the races in the Singular category all shared one aspect that wasn’t mentioned in any of their descriptions. They had the worst luck in existence. Most of the listings were like Loggan and Sikix, in that they died immediately. There were also a great number that had been summoned by some wizard, but died immediately because they were unable to live in the environment of Mantra.

It was bad enough for the Singulars, but they were mostly alone, and died before they got a chance to even try. The Non-Viables, on the other hand, sometimes had it worse. One race consisted of a brother and sister pair. Even if they could get over the incest taboo, their children would have to continue it, eventually resulting in species death. Another race had plenty of males and females, but each gender had been sent to different continents with no way to get from one to the other. It didn’t help that the women had kept the men slaves for generations before their arrival on Mantra, and, after finally finding freedom, the men immediately went out and killed themselves due to their incredible lack of survival skills. Although, amusingly, the women were eventually enslaved by yet another race, and then met their end through the ritual sacrifice of enemies to increase fertility. Although that race was also on the list. Wiped out by a volcano that erupted due to them channeling too much mana through it to increase their fertility.

Eventually Dix just gave up on reading any more of the extinct races. Even he was starting to get a bit down at the morbid hilarity of the stories. He was very curious who wrote the descriptions, though.

His introspection was interrupted by Crossroads releasing a sigh. Looking over he saw that the god looked ready to get back to their discussion, although he didn’t look happy about it.

“Alright, since you figured it out for yourself, there are a few things that I can tell you, but I’ll need some information from you in return.” He stopped long enough for Dix to nod, with a serious look on his face. Crossroads hummed to himself briefly, then continued.

"The first is that I don’t know exactly how many skills you will lose, or even if you will lose any. We don’t actually know how any of it is determined, exactly.” As he paused briefly Dix opened his mouth to ask some more questions, but a raised finger from Crossroads got there first. “Hold that thought. I greatly suspect that you will either lose a great many skills, or be forced to upgrade or combine them. Some might not interact correctly with whatever race you eventually choose, or however your mana control works, so you would lose those skills anyways. Others you might lose, or just be locked out from, due to their generally higher requirements, or being class specific skills. Sadly, I have no way to influence any of this.”

Another pause resulted in the same actions as last time. Although the pause was for Crossroads to refill their drinks, and down his. Before he continued, Crossroads locked his eyes on Dix’s.

“You, however, can influence how many skills you lose.” He smiled at the surprised expression on Dix’s face. Dix’s surprise was real, but it had more to do with the fact that Crossroads was actually telling him something useful, than what he needed to do. “There are two ways to do this. The first is to create more composite skills. The ones that absorb other skills. We do know that these types of skills only count as a single skill, and subskills aren’t counted at all. You currently only need three more general weapon skills to compact them all into a single skill. Shields will be fairly easy, and obvious.” Dix nodded. He already had plans to do exactly that, as long as his Shield spell would work for it. “The last two are similar, although one is a little ridiculous. Neither will be particularly easy to get, unless you have the correct mindset. You need Improvised Weapons, which is basically anything that’s not already a normal weapon or found in a bar, and then Bar Weapons.” Crossroads sighed again, and rubbed his head with a pair of hands.

“You can thank Roanoak for Bar Weapons being a skill. He spent a great deal of time brewing a few centuries back. Right after he tried to make guns, I think. During that time he never left the bar that grew up around his brewing area. It was basically a city sized bar and brothel after about fifty years. Periodically fights would break out, or monsters would get in. After witnessing this a few times, Roanoak decided that he might need to make some weapons for the people hanging around helping him drink his brews. Unfortunately, he was already quite drunk himself, having been drinking for roughly three decades straight at that point, so he decided to make weapons out of whatever he could find lying around.” The god sighed again, and made a bigger drink to toss back like water.

“Stooly. The Easy Break Bottle. And my favorite: The C.H.A.I.R. One night, drunker than normal, he spent a fair bit of time talking to someone from Earth who wouldn’t shut up about how the greatest weapon ever used in anything resembling a bar fight was a chair that folds. He regaled Roanoak with tale after tale of your professional fighters beating each other senseless with chairs. So Roanoak actually forged one, and then gave it a name. The Celestial Hammer of Absolutely Incredible Rest. The C.H.A.I.R. He bludgeoned his way through an entire monster horde with that thing. Didn’t kill a damn thing, but every single monster in that horde was unconscious long enough for someone else to skin and kill it, in that order. And there were so many, many other types as well. Almost all horribly named, and generally useless in a real fight. You get the idea. So, the hard part here is that you have to actually think of them as weapons before you summon them up with Conjure Weapon. If you can do that, you can get the skills.

“On the note of composite weapon skills, the magical weapons in this room will also create a skill, but it is not linked to the others that you already have. Make sure that you snatch up one of everything, as some of these are more tool than weapon, but you need them all to get the skill. They are also very handy to know how to use.

“Don’t worry about your movement skill, that’s already sucked up a huge number of your passives. Resistances don’t count, which is nice, so if you get bored, feel free to pick those up now, while it is easier.” Dix immediately made a mental note to do so. “I’m not sure what to do about all of your ranged weaponry skills. Those might be something that you have to get rid of, but maybe the second way you can influence your skills will take care of this.

“One of the things that has always confused us gods is the end result of the tests. We simply don’t know for sure that there is actually a reward for doing well in them. That being said, no one has ever done as well at the first two tests as you did. The first test, others have come at least somewhat close. But the second test? Pffft, you absolutely destroyed any chance of someone catching you there ever. Which is why I think you will get something for it. We just don’t know when you would get a reward. Previously, we had speculated that the rewards influenced the classing system, but there is no evidence. Now I think that the rewards are reserved for people like you. You have enormous potential and talent, and your results in the second test showcased that. You also, unlike the vast majority of those who have come before you, have far more skills than the average person of your maturity on Mantra. Perhaps the rewards are designed to help that potential, and let you keep more skills as you enter the system on Mantra.”

Both men pondered on that thought for a while. Once more there was mostly silence as they drank, and followed the thoughts bouncing around their heads. Dix was eager to get back to work making more skills, and learning magic. His thoughts lingered on the magic for a while until he remembered that Crossroads had more information for him. He looked up finding the god waiting on him. Dix nodded to show he was ready, and Crossroads got started again.

“The other thing you need to be aware of is why all of this is going on. The tests are more than just a way to introduce you to life on Mantra, it is also your induction into the system. The enemies you fight here, while significantly weaker than their real world counterparts, still carry essence. Whenever you kill something, you absorb some of the essence that allowed them to live. Most people of your world seem to call it experience, or XP. When you gather enough of it, the system will use it to empower your body. The testing allows you to gather enough essence to actually activate the system inside of you, as well as allowing it to test you for your starting statistical values and skills. Or at least that is what normally happens. Your case is a bit different.

“Because you showed up dead, I needed to tie you into the system. Unlike a normal person who has to earn the system, you have had it since we met. This is what allowed you to gain so many skills. Your stats, sadly, will still be an accurate account of your condition, instead of getting the same massive boost your skills have. Although all of your skills are still only at level one, you can’t actually level them here. I am curious to see if the unlimited health, stamina, and mana of those under my domain will affect your stat values.” He wanders off in thought for a short time, then snaps back to the conversation.

“The other option for what you may receive by way of a reward are titles. We don’t know if this is actually an option, but it seems to be the most logical guess. As to what those titles might confer to you, we have absolutely no idea. The tests and the system are ultimately just as much unknowns for us as they are for everyone.

“But enough of this. You still need to pick a race.”