Degritone contemplates out loud, "Hmmm. I can immediately rule out Souls. Souls are cool and all, but Soul Grasp was just a tool I made at the time, and I might use similar images in the future, but it's not a big part of me..." as he takes a pause, the wisp and the path leading to it fade into the same sky and gently sloping plain as the rest of the area.

He turns to the graves path, a slightly sad expression on his face. "And I'm very sorry, but, while I loved Yorick and will definitely use his images with love, you're not something I can see dedicating multiple paths to." He bows his head slightly as the shovel holding silhouette disappears along with its path.

"That just leaves you three," he says before looking at each path individually, sitting down once he's done. "Well, growth is very tempting, because I'd love to get a bunch of stats or skills, but I don't think I'll pick you, even if you gave a bunch of regen, as there's something I care about in myself even more than I care about regen." Like the others, the growth path disappears.

He turns to the knight. "While I love being a knight, specifically the Lolicoknight, and it will definitely forge my images going forward, you're not," he pauses, feeling his eyes starting to wet, "you're not, ultimately, the most important part of my internal world." He bows deeply to the knight path as it disappears.

"That just leaves you, loyalty," he says as he turns toward the loyalty path. With sad eyes, he says, "You're lonely, aren't you?" He pauses slightly before standing, walking down the loyalty path. "How many times did you have to walk down this path alone?" The world around the path turns to the pure darkness as was around the rest of the path, the previously dark silhouette now a shining, golden outline. "I can't know exactly, but you had to have walked down this path thousands of times to get it like this."

He squats down, patting one of the many divots in the ground, each spaced just under 2 feet apart. "I don't know if it was out of boredom or because you wanted to for one reason or another, but I can tell that these would be in the plain even if I hadn't chosen this path." He stands up, continuing his walk down the path. As he gets closer to the glowing silhouette, it slowly shrinks. He silently walks forward.

Over the next 20 minutes, Degritone just walks and walks, the patron getting smaller and smaller. At the end of that time, he reaches the edge of the path and patron has shrunk to just over 4 feet tall, standing at the very edge of the path, a small little girl looks up at him. He doesn't stop walking and goes up, embracing her in a hug.

"I enjoyed your path. I hope you no longer need to walk it alone," Degritone says quietly.

The girl looks slightly surprised as he goes for the hug, but accepts it, and upon hearing his words, she grips his shirt and nods into his chest.

Immediately after, he finds himself back on the couch in front of the TV, seemingly no time having passed, but it's dark, so he's unsure. He looks at his path screen and finds the Pupil path finished. He checks his notifications and finds two new ones.

You have chosen the path of Loyalty!

Ahead of you lies a path not many choose to take on, as fancier or more promising paths distract them.

Do not stop walking, for if you should, you will find wrath unlike any other.

Congratulations! You have finished the Pupil path!

The path was long and full of wear from a single individual, but you took your time, taking in every inch.

Upon embarking on this path, you have come under the scrutiny of a higher power.

At the end of the path, you met with a friend.

Summon Ally lvX

He sighs contentedly and leans back, rubbing his itchy right eye. "Though, loyalty is more part of my personality than my images. I don't know how to implement such a," he pauses, decrypting his thoughts, "uh," he stops rubbing his eye and snaps as he thinks, "esoteric is a bad word for it, but I can't think of the word I want, so esoteric concept into my images." He looks up. "Maybe I should have chosen growth or knight," he says with a cheeky grin. After a few seconds, he says, "Keepo."

"Now then, let's make Omen of War and Unholy Covenant. I'll worry about Omen of Death in the future. I highly doubt making a skill that negates death will be easy, even if I use the original image of it being a temporary clone that only temporarily revives people, but I really want both of those weaknesses gone. Next time I get a custom skill with no prefix, or a prefix that makes me assume it's more than neutral, definitely making Death," he says to himself as he stands up.

"Wait, what were the rest of my rewards for going down Pupil?"

Pupil 200/200

Unlocked by reaching a skill total of 500.

Rewards:

5: 1 free stat

10: 1 free stat

15: 1 free stat

20: 1 free stat

25: Branch! Loyalty Patron

Completion: The Summon Ally skill

"Oooo, yay, nothing. Already testing me?" He puts his thumb under his chin, his pointer finger on top of it. "Well, the lack of rewards is annoying, but whatever." He shrugs, removing his hand. "I chose this path, and got to hug a cute loli, which is all I could ever really ask for. Though, if any of their other paths also give nothing, it's going to seriously set me back in terms of power. Though, the boost from having a 4L skill set was pretty good, so maybe it'd be more of a balancing factor than anything."

"I have quite a bit of unlevelable skills. I wonder if that's normal or if I'm weird." He waves his hand in front of his face, as if dismissing a smell. "Anyway, I need to get to making War and Unholy Covenant." He walks outside, donning his sword and armor as he does so.

Knowing how Omen of Famine summons the ghoul and having that confirmed by creating Omen of Pestilence, he imagines sending a mana-soul packet toward his sword, imbuing it with power until he swings and hits a target, unleashing the blue ghoul within, which is stronger than its green and red brothers. It takes him about 20 seconds of doing absolutely nothing but visualizing the image for it to grant him the skill.

Congratulations! You have created an original skill!

Omen of War

He activates the skill and runs toward the tree line before he swings at a nearby tree, cutting half way into it, summoning the ghoul. He quickly imagines an invisible mana tether between it and him, his side of the tether surrounding him in an invisible mana barrier. He summons Omen of Pestilence before Omen of War runs out, and does the same with it, then does the same with Omen of Famine. It takes him nearly three minutes of doing nothing but summoning the ghouls and visualizing for him to finally get the skill.

Congratulations! You have created an original skill!

Unholy Covenant

He checks Visualization and sees it increased by 11 levels making those two skills before putting his 11 new PP into Greatsword Mastery II, increasing his Strength by another one. He walks back to the house and as he does, he thinks, I bet I could jump up there. As he gets within 5 feet of the house, he jumps up, and overshoots by nearly 10 feet, coming down with a somewhat loud thud near to his mom, who is taking his spot for that night.

After making sure he didn't damage the roof, he asks his mom, "When do you think the Stanleys will be here?"

"Probably some time today, though John was up in Washington, so he won't be coming." She pauses slightly, smiling. "You seem excited. Something happen? Well, beside this system coming."

"Yeah. I learned about skill sets." He takes a long pause. "It'd be nice if we could get," pause, "everyone one, but I don't..." He stares at his mom for a good 10 seconds. "Know of a list of skills inside skill sets. Skill sets are basically a collection of skills that all share a level and only count toward the SLT once. It's really, really good to have one, as I learned."

"Cool. You said something about a guy from another world before. Did he not mention skill sets?"

"Not that I remember, but I do know that the system," pause, "prevents people from worlds that have had the system for a long time from telling newer worlds stuff." He holds up a finger as he decrypts his thoughts for multiple seconds. "Though, I don't really see," pause, "a pattern in what, it... blocks. I have a few theories, but," pause, "I have no way of proving them. I was planning," pause, "to do this later, but let's see if I can do it now. Give me," he doesn't finish and opens Beltag's chat.

Degeritone: I'm assuming I am able to, so is it ok for me to give my family your friend contact?

There's a long delay before he gets a response.

Beltag: Go ahead. I have tons of free time during my gathering to talk.

Degritone responds by closing the chat and clicking and dragging Beltag's name towards his mom. A copy of Beltag's friend entry flies toward her and her eyes focus on something very close to her. "It's the guy. I don't know what prompt it gave you, but add him." He uses the time it takes her to accept to decrypt his thoughts. "You'll see why that's important after everyone arrives." He takes a deep breath before exhaling it. "Now to dad. I'll also include Kelk and maybe one other."

He walks to the other end of the house. As he approaches his dad, he says, "Hey. I heard gun shots throughout the nights. More deer things or did the difficulty," pause, "increase change what they were?"

He points. "Over there, right at the dam. A really big bug, looked like a giant cockroach, about the size of Dan. It took a shot and ran away before coming back later. Took three shots to take down."

Degritone nods and looks over at the dead bug. If it weren't dark blue, it would look almost exactly like a cockroach the size of a large dog from here. He then silently gives his dad Beltag's contact. "You'll need this later. What's your skill level total?"

His dad puffs up his chest and sticks out his chin in a fake haughtiness. "Five HUNdred, thirty naaan," he says, shaking his head as he says the first syllable of hundred. He immediately lowers his facade. "Why?"

"We need to get everyone to 1000 SLT. Preferably tomorrow," he says, looking around as he begins thinking. "Did you get a skill for firing? I forgot to ask up until now."

"Yep, though it only lets bullets I fire have a slight tracking power. If I'm just a little bit off target, the bullet will redirect mid-air. It doesn't say anything about damage."

Degritone raises his right eyebrow slightly. "I knew it wouldn't increase damage, as it's a gun, but," pause, "being a homing effect is interesting. The problem is bullets. We only have like 10k." He pauses a bit before continuing, "We need to get you a mana or stamina bullet skill. Preferably stamina since it regens faster." Pause. "The problem is I don't know how to actually control stamina outside opening its pathways."

He shrugs. "Whatever, you'll probably get it or something similar when you get your class. For now, raise your gun mastery skill. How much experience do you get per shot?"

His dad shrugs. "I haven't paid attention."

"Check. I need to know."

"I need to know," he responds in a playfully mocking tone before saying loudly so Degritone's mom can hear, "I'm gonna shoot, so don't be surprised."

She turns around and says, "Ok."

His dad opens his skills and looks at Gun Mastery's experience. "I currently have 4 and I'm at level 14," he says as he raises his rifle and shoots into the ground near the tree line. Immediately after, he checks his experience. "34 at level 15."

Degritone mentally works his way up to level 14's experience need of 114. "114 plus 34, 148, minus 4 from having it before, 144. You have +20% experience, so that means 120, as 144 is 12 squared." He opens his skills and checks Greatsword Mastery's damage, seeing it at 185.8. "I currently deal 41.8 more damage than you with any greatsword, let alone my mana one that has bonus damage."

"Blah," his dad says. "It's still better because it's basically instant and can be done from miles away. There are snipers in the world who can shoot a penny from multiple miles away. Heck, Devon and I can shoot the exact same hole from about a hundred feet away. Back during world war two," he then goes off on a tangent for 20 minutes about various gun related topics as Degritone turns off his ears.

Finally noticing his dad not talking anymore, Degritone says, "We should be able to get a suitable replacement for normal bullets that will scale up in some way. It might be very small like my Mana Sword, or it might scale really well, like Greatsword Mastery. We'll see. Anyway, change in plans, ignore other weapons for now and work on Gun Mastery. I know how much you love them, and seeing they're not entirely useless, your class should allow you to get them to as useful as other weapons."

He walks off before his dad has any chance to respond, walking off the roof and continuing on to the tree line like he didn't just fall down 20 feet. "I should probably max Haste's Physical bonus before 1k. For other skills... Probably just level Rot G till I hit 1k. Greatsword is probably fine at 200 for now and running is basically free at this point." He freezes mid step.

"Wait, why didn't I think of this before?" He uses Soul Grasp on himself, attempting to pull himself upwards with its tremendous force.