Pyromancy was out of the question, especially if he ever wanted to see his family again without causing a whole new incident. Kent himself had reservations about a skill tree of such a destructive type. It seemed to become rather powerful after a dozen or so leveled, but he needed something to help now.

This was also very much why he decided against the Poisoner tree. The potential was without a doubt there, but the cost in resources was already quite high. This issue was further amplified by the relatively low effectiveness of the skills in the beginning. Circumventing half of any poison inflicted and maybe even all at a later date would be amazing, yet he couldn’t afford the time and resources required to reach that place. Maybe if he knew what conditions were bound to the leveling of the skill he would have considered it more.

The Dagger tree was honestly the most interesting of the bunch. The Tormentor skill that had been unlocked was a skill he should definitely have if he had to live out in the wilderness fighting against strong monsters. The rest seemed interesting, and he had heard of skills like Penetrate before. Those counted skin as armor as well, which would result in a flat damage boost against unarmored individuals. Metallic Insight had a good chance of working with that tree as well… He saw potential there.

Metallic Insight and Metallumancy appeared before his eyes again. The latter offered ranged combat and potential amplification in hand-to-hand combat – maybe. Though there was no doubt that those two would be his first specializations. And thus receive the first three and hopefully the extra skill he could unlock by killing a monster above the cap.

Wait, shouldn’t that have been a title? What if I can’t get that extra skill point and end up with only three. He considered his options but knew that he didn’t really have a choice.

As much as he hated it, he would have to forgo the General Combat Magics for now.

With a last glance, he inspected all the trees side by side.

Who could ever need that much metal hardening?

***

The last item on Kent’s “definitely have to do this today” agenda was stat points. He had chosen to go down the mage route which would require him to invest his stat points accordingly. There was just one issue. The acclimation for stats to take effect usually took several days. That is, without specialized procedures.

It was why he was still a little flabbergasted by his growth in pools. He had thought that this too would require a bit of growing into, but at least for the pools it seemingly didn’t matter. Maybe he wasn’t feeling all that stronger yet because the physical manifestation his effective stats would need some time to take effect. Similar to how stat allocation through the system took several days to take full effect.

As things stood it was probably smart that he had decided on walking the mage route, he only knew three of the sigils, which accelerated the growth of stats and their corresponding placement.

Willpower was a spiral drawn in the blood of a monster on one’s forehead.

Vitality, likewise, had to be drawn in monster blood, though the amplification was supposedly very painful if you didn’t mix the blood with a health potion beforehand. The depiction of reknitting wounds above the naval and a drop of blood below was the most commonly known sigil of the ones he knew.

Magic, to the left of a man’s throat and to the right of a woman’s, drawn in monster blood ideally mixed with a mana potion was a contender for the least well-known one. Only a small part of Issar’s families could claim to know the sigil, not that it was necessarily important to know those sigils. The two lenses in conjunction aiming at the heart were odd to look at and hard to draw but he had decided on that path the moment he picked Accelerate Metal.

Kent considered how he would best get his hands on monster blood. He considered using the collected turrl saliva, rather than stomping out of the dungeon's entrance area, but that might have unfortunate side effects. While most, potentially all liquids derived from monsters worked, the risk was a bit too vast.

Wringing his mind, he couldn’t really come up with a good alternative than stepping into the main dungeon. Forgoing the mana potion for the engraving might be bad enough, additional risks would best be avoided. As long as he didn’t run back with turrls following him he should be fine to apply the free stat points here, without the dungeon-born monsters attacking him here.

I should probably train my skill a bit before I use it. I probably have the time. A quick glance at his mana regeneration did not offer the confirmation he had hoped for. His regeneration was quite bad as of right now. He would have to spend stats on Willpower as well.

I will just have a quick look around. I’ll be careful.

Kent left the rest of his belongings, besides a single health potion, his stolen armor, his knife, and his cloak in the cave.

Leaving the cave without wetting his shoes proved impossible. Fairly early into his efforts of climbing out of the cave he stepped into the creek and cursed a bit, he hated wet feet. The short excursion on the wall confirmed one thing he had desperately needed to know. Neither his effective stats nor the stat increase was applied, yet. He desperately hoped that the “yet” existed, that the titles weren’t just a prank by the system.

There was an easy way of testing that. He turned back into the cave and chose his canteen as a test subject.

Kent didn’t have to focus much to activate Accelerate Metal, in fact, it was shockingly easy. Instantly he knew of all the metallic objects in his possession and could decide to attune them to himself. The process went fast, just a few seconds, and didn’t even cost mana.

As a test subject, he chose a metal canteen, as he was still slightly worried about the mana corrosion on the knifes status. He held the canteen in front of his chest and began to invoke the skill's effect. It moved. Initially quite slow but slightly speeding up as time ticked by did the canteen fly away from him. After one second, he changed the direction from away towards the reverse, back to him. The only other possible direction.

But instead of flying back towards him it just became slower and slower. After another second it stood still in the air before slowly reversing directions.

Kent just stood there dumbfounded until the canteen impacted his chest and he dropped the skill.

Hmmm, that is underwhelming… I should have gone for Pyromancy, shouldn’t I?

He glanced at the skill card for Accelerate Metal and grew even more annoyed. Suddenly there was a weight limit mentioned on the skill card, it hadn’t been there before. Apparently, the skill was currently limited to 5kg. Whatever that unit is.

He was halfway down to reconsider the build he had planned when the urge to just punch some turrls manifested. He was a bit pissed so he might as well go and let some of that anger out.

The carcasses would be useful either way and replanning his build wasn’t really an option now.

No longer caring for anything he stomped through the creek, and into the pond. Not even the beautiful scenery in its entirety was able to remove all the grogginess he was under, but it was enough to come back to his senses.

Being smart was essential, that meant being quiet and striking when at an advantage was preferable.

Kent decided to take land to the left of the cave and after just a few paces through the shallow water he reached the bank.

The tree line, which was just another few paces away from the shore, was odd. There was no underbrush, only trees.

Probably because that was the ideal environment for turrls.

The first encounter didn’t tarry long. Just a couple of steps beneath the oddly colored leaves were enough for a turrl to come along squeaking.

That the turrl, contrary to previous encounters, squeaked was a bit of a shock. He had heard of the group dynamic, which could become potentially life-threatening in a dungeon. With panic coursing through Kent’s heart he stumbled backward, back into the water. If it had alerted other monsters nearby, he was already done for.

But only one attacked.

Kent dodged the creature's attack and swung at the monster, barely missing by a finger’s width.

The same dance continued for a short while. Kent slashed at the monster but it dodged – the issue was that it had no way to gain elevation with the trees left behind, yet Kent lost too much time crouching down to hit the monster. Kent realized that he would wear himself out winning this fight, he couldn’t afford a fight of attrition.

He tried implementing his skill into a strike. As he swung he activated the skill but instead of propelling the knife in his hand towards the monsters, he had to fight the knife so as to not escape his grip and fly upwards.

So I can only propel it directly away from my center. He figured, skills mostly gave intrinsic understanding to a certain degree and that was what he now understood. He received a large scratch for his failed move but had managed to dodge the larger threat of the venomous fangs.

The next time the turrl approached he had his knife in front of his body, the connecting line between his navel and the turrl to be precise. Combining all his might and the small boost of his sole skill he rammed the knife straight into the monster’s face.

The monster had dodged backward. To no avail. The skill kept propelling the knife forwards for the remainder of the cast time, impaling the knife in the monster's head.

Kent had let go of the knife as he realized that and for a short, while the knife pushed the impaled turrl a bit further away before Kent could end the skill and catch the dead monster and make his way back to the cave.

As he checked his notification he drank the spare health potion he had taken with him.

*Ding – Notification pending*

New Notification Log Entries:

You have slain “Somniferous Turrl” Level 9! Experience has been awarded.

A quick glance at his status showed that he was at twenty-five percent progression to the next level. Which was disappointing. Kent would have imagined, both from stories and just regular deduction that the experience gained should have been a good chunk larger.

Something seemed off about the number, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He had gathered what he needed. With haste, he moved back into the cave through the pond, turrl carcass in his arms.

With a few hesitant incisions, he began draining the monster's blood, pooling it on the wrapping of a ration bar he had acquired from the army’s stock. The gruesome work went by fairly quickly as those things went. The amount of blood needed was fairly low, with the only requirement of it being fresh. That didn’t change the fact that Kent almost retched on several occasions, it felt weird, uncomfortable, and disgusting. He would prefer to have a skill for that. Or pick a class that didn’t offer free stat points.

Before starting the process of drawing the sigils he quickly spent his three free points on magic. Otherwise, the process wouldn’t take hold.

At first, he tried drawing the two lenses on top of each other without the monster's blood as a test run. It was barely doable, though exactness didn’t matter too much. According to his parents, if the general shape was present, the intent was sufficient to guide the effect though at a slower rate.

After being satisfied with his testing he repeated the same movements with the monster's blood. The dungeon-created liquid sizzled slightly when it encountered his skin, feeling as though hundreds of needles pierced his skin. Which might not have been far from the truth depending on the interpretation of the process. Somehow the sigil had to affect him was his thought.

He did his best, drawing the sharp half oval shape on the bottom and the counterpart atop, more circular. The system seemed to approve.

New Notification Log Entries:

You have increased your Magic stat by three!

Your effective magic is adjusting.

Divergence detected.

Effective Stat desynchronization detected.

Insufficient external Sigils available.

Host blood used for internal Sigils.

Please stand by.

The lurching sensation was the last thing he felt before he fell face-first onto the floor.

***

When Kent came to his senses again, he first read the notifications he had seen before passing out and grinned. He felt different, and it seemed like the system had done its job properly this time around, even throwing in some goodies.

The parchment on which he had the monster blood before – which he had fallen into – was as though licked clean, no blood remained where there should have been a good amount. He pushed himself up, with ease and stretched, inspecting his status.

Kent Larsson [Level 1] [25%]

Pools:

Health: 8/67

Stamina: 136/150

Mana: 44/44

Stats (0 Free Stat points):

Vitality: 14

Toughness: 11

Endurance: 27

Strength: 23

Agility: 21

Senses: 12

Mind: 11

Magic: 22

Willpower: 24

Regeneration 14

“Nice,” Kent grinned. He had some monster culling to do. Though before that he would take at least a single health potion. He worriedly glanced at the Health indicator again, a few trickles of sweat slowly forming on his forehead.

Jup, Health potion where are you?