After distributing his 40 free stats, 4 in Bonus Mana regeneration and Bonus Stamina regeneration, 8 in Bonus Health regeneration, and 26 in Vitality, Degritone felt an itch to try to recreate Requiem of the Gravedigger, but told himself, "Once I have a chance against level 7s again, we will."

And so began his grind.

Healing 40/40

Congratulations! You have completed the Healing Path!

Revitalize lv1

2 Endurance

1 Bonus Mana

1 Bonus Mana per level

DPS 40/40

Congratulations! You have completed the DPS Path!

Haste lv1

1 Strength

1 Agility per level

1 Strength per level

Lively 100/100

Congratulations! You have completed the Lively Path!

Orbs of Revitalization lv1

200 flat Health regeneration

4 Vitality per level

2 Bonus Health regeneration per level

Vital Sharing 100/100

Congratulations! You have completed the Vital Sharing Path!

Revitalizing Aura lv1

5 Endurance

5 Vitality

1 Agility

2 Endurance per level

2 Vitality per level

A few seconds before putting the final points into Vital Sharing, Degritone was called to help man the wall. For the two hours there, he didn't actively train anything, just kept Haste on permanently. It saddened Degritone to waste Skill levels on Pacifist, but it was pretty much inevitable that he would have to grind it while traveling or something. After an uneventful two hours, he got back to grinding proper.

Energetic 100/100

Congratulations! You have completed the Energetic Path!

Energize lv1

4% Mana regeneration from stats

4% Stamina regeneration from stats

1% Health regeneration from stats

2 Vitality per level

1 Bonus Stamina regeneration per level

1 Bonus Mana regeneration per level

Damage Reduction 40/40

Congratulations! You have completed the Damage Reduction Path!

Tough Skin lv1

20 flat Health

1 Strength

10 flat Health per level

1 Strength per level

Regenerative Physique 0/200

Warning!

Putting PP into a tier 4 Path makes you incapable of putting PP into tier 3 and below paths.

Additionally, you can only put PP into 3 tier 4 Paths. Do you wish to continue?

"Well, no, I want Determined," he canceled the action before continuing, "and now that I know I can't hold on to these low Paths, I need to make the decision on the Juggernaut path now. Well, in like a level. Only reason not to take the Raw Health Path is because it'd slow down getting to better Paths, though it's only 40 PP, but I can't be certain that there's any other Paths that are needed for Juggernaut below tier 4... Add this to the ever growing list of things I need to ask Beltag but either have forgotten or will forget."

In fact, let's just send him that now, he said, asking Beltag if there are any tier 3 or below paths that go toward Juggernaut other than Damage Reduction, Raw Health, and DPS.

Determined 100/100

Branch!

Degritone found himself before a wall. Its surface was jagged, though not sharp-looking, rock and it completely barred his progress down a white path in a void of gray. Before Degritone was a pickaxe, rope, pitons, a hammer, and a wooden rod. He walked up to the edge of the path and stuck his arm over the void. He then knelt down and stuck his arm down below the path's height in the void.

Nodding to himself, he walked up to the wall and found a good hand hold near the edge of the path, then held it tight as he looked out to see how thick the wall was, finding it to be about 2 feet. Nodding once more, he found a hand hold just under an arm length away from the wall's edge and held it. Once he was certain he wouldn't lose his grip, he swung all but the arm and one foot out over the void, using his foot and hand hold as a pivot to swing his leg to the other side of the wall.

A few seconds of blind fumbling later, he found another hand hold on the other side and reversed his earlier maneuver to pull himself to the far side of the wall. After landing on sold ground, he found himself back home.

Congratulations! You have completed the Determined Path!

Mark of Antipathy lvX

2 Strength

2 Agility

1 Vitality

2 Strength per level

2 Agility per level

1 Vitality per level

1 Bonus Stamina regeneration per level

While Degritone was getting and "choosing" the branch of Determined, Beltag responded that there were no other tier 3 or below Paths required for Juggernaut. At that news, he checks Inexorable March.

Inexorable March

Moving ever forward, your progress may be slowed, but never stopped.

"Hm... Combined with DPS, DR, and raw Health... Maybe..." He wobbles his head back and forth for a few seconds before saying, "Ok, yeah. Fine. I wasn't planning on taking it, but sure. Stamina regen can lead to Health regen through RCD, so fine."

Raw Health 40/40

Congratulations! You have completed the Raw Health Path!

Bastion lv1

1 Bonus Health

1 Endurance per level

1 Bonus Health per level

With 684 Skill levels under his belt, Degritone felt comfortable enough to work toward Requiem of the Gravedigger again. It had been a long while since he manually made a Mana Soul, but he was determined. With having to slap himself every 9 to 10 seconds to not waste Skill levels on Pacifist, it took Degritone 10 minutes and 12 seconds to recreate the Blue Ghoul's Mana Soul. He was "rewarded" with another Skill he'd never use, if possible.

Summon Ghoul lv1

"Now that I think about it, why don't we just make all the Ghouls have summoner-heal, higher Strength, higher Health, and an AoE slow, since we can edit their souls?" Degritone asked himself. Because Unholy Covenant needs unique summons. "Why not just make it any summons?" Because then it would probably be significantly weakened. "Then why not make the Ghouls stronger, but very slightly randomized?" We don't know how to make them randomized. Maybe once we figure that out.

Nodding, Degritone moved on to creating old Yorick's basic abilities as Skills. This part was trivially easy, especially since the system remembered the Skill Set and him recreating the original Skills gave him the Skills instantly, though Omen of Pestilence was changed to deal Mana damage rather than Necrotic damage, probably because Degritone didn't know how to create Necrotic damage, and all the Skills had been rebalanced. Omen of Famine was still Force damage, though. Probably because it's trying to create a body inside another body?

Sadly for Degritone, it didn't reward him for its creation as it had before. Beltag said there would be a reward way back when, but that had gotten filtered by the system to say it would give a Path. It would probably just give an instant reward, now, if at all. Adding Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine to the Skill Set increased its level by 1 each, taking his overall Skill level total to 701, 1 over his current max.

Requiem of the Gravedigger lv3 Omen of War Omen of Pestilence Omen of Famine

Unfortunately, Unholy Covenant and Omen of Death confounded him. When attempting to send Mana to copy old Scan's effect, he found he couldn't push any Mana into his soul to know what to copy, and how to achieve the effect of Unholy Covenant within the limitations of the new reality escaped him. Ignoring Omen of Death for that moment, he decided to pursue Unholy Covenant a bit more.

He tried imagining linking his soul to his summons' souls and using that link to power a barrier, actually manipulating a Mana link between his Ghouls' souls and his, imagining siphoning away the Ghouls' generated Mana to power a shield, and imagining the Ghouls' souls passing through some form of detector that would simply activate a shield. None of it worked or even got him a Skill.

After 7 hours and 8 minutes of peace, Degritone decided that 4 AM was the perfect time to go find a goblin to kill.