The Way Ahead

“Just for the record,” Edwin hedged, “I’m not going to just do everything you suggest. I know you think that more skills is better, but I’ve had luck evolving my skills so far and I kind of want to keep doing that.”

“Do you insist?”

“Yes.” Edwin stayed firm. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to be too pushy...

“Very well!” Lefi clapped Edwin on his back, sending him stumbling until he recovered, “I suppose it would be rather hypocritical of me to insist that you must take certain skills, wouldn’t it?”

Edwin was taken aback, “Just like that, you agree?”

“Just like that! Why, did you expect otherwise?”

He shook his head, “No, no. Just… people tend to be a lot more insistent for that sort of thing in my experience.”

“Ah! But those people were not me! I am Exceptional, after all! It’s right in my Class!”

Edwin scoffed, “No it’s not. You’re an Adventurer-Mage, not…”

He trailed off as he Identified Lefi again.

Exceptional Adventurer

Lefi Forolorzal- that guy that Tara stuck me with so I wouldn’t immediately die and as a punishment for him.

“Wait, what? You can change your Class name? Or can you just fool Identify?”

Lefi just winked at him, “That’s the benefit of having many, many skills! You can gain some truly exceptional results!”

Edwin frowned, “That doesn’t answer my question. Though I suppose it does explain why a ‘mage’ had so many weapons, if you aren’t actually one.”

“Oh, that? No, weapons are always excellent! Anything is better than nothing. Even if you don’t pick up a Skill for it, I expect you to be able to use that staff for a weapon by the time we’re done!”

“It’s a stick! A literal stick!”

“And with your Mana Infusion, it will be a very strong stick! Perfect for keeping a wolf at bay or blocking a low-level sword strike! But that!” He punctuated each statement by striking a pose, somehow not breaking stride, “Is not what you are here for! Skills!”

Edwin groaned, but mentally tuning down the volume of the adventurer, nonetheless prompted, “Okay, what do you recommend?”

“Well, a mere twenty skills is far too few! I advise…”

The next several hours passed by both really quickly and also so, so slowly. Quickly, because Edwin was getting actual details about Skills and being passionately informed about why he should take more and more skills- Lefi’s opinions on the matter were radically different from Rashin or Tara’s, that was certain. His opinion of ‘grab every single skill’ made more sense in the context of him never expecting to evolve all of them, and the variety of skills which he had available to him meant that even fairly straightforward evolutions provided a wealth of new options. Then, he’d just figure out some way to combine evolved Skills to create a new basic Skill and start over again. While most of it was useless, he also kind of wished that he had some way to take…

Actually, Edwin realized mid-conversation, I can take notes.

Edwin’s Logbook

Lefi day 1- Skills

Eating: Increased energy from eating food. Improved calorie efficiency, perhaps? Worth considering. Possibly too similar to Nutrition to unlock.

Stealth: Reduces noise made when in use. Possible invisibility evolution? Tempting.

Hearing: Increased sensitivity to noises and better ability to tune out sound. Useful for awareness. Probably not worth it, though more than the other senses. Spatial Awareness does not seem to be a Skill, or at least Lefi does now know of it.

Reflexes: Reduced reaction time. Difficult to level. Tempting.

Improvised Weapons: Increased ‘proficiency’ and ‘damage’ with random objects. A walking stick might count. Interesting, but no.

Staves: Akin to Improvised Weapons, but focused around sticks and staves. Added focus brings greater bonuses. Similarly not worthwhile.

Learning: Enhanced ability to remember things memorized with the skill. Possible overlap with Research? Get.

Block Strike: Active Skill. Aids in interposing something (shield, staff, etc) to stop a physical blow. Less efficient than something like Shield Block but wider use. Potentially life-saving, but still too situational.

Small Blades: Enhanced proficiency and damage with knives, daggers, etc. Popular among cooks, apparently. Slightly interesting.

Cooking: Food tastes better and is more filling. Possibly synergy with alchemy for potions? Worth considering. Also apparently a possible evolution of eating/nutrition.

Speaking: Reduced strain from speaking. Can evolve into yelling, which increases maximum volume. Neat, but not worth it.

Reading: Increased reading speed. Potential synergy with Polyglot. Worth considering.

Writing: Enhances ability to write neatly and quickly. Interesting, but probably redundant with Almanac.

Archery: Weapon skill with bows. Note to self: not worth keeping around as a note. Delete later like the others.

Wrap Wound: First Aid-related skill, focused on those injuries which need bandages (which might be all of them?). Specifically focuses on increasing the efficacy of the bandage as a protection for the wound and immobilizing/stopping blood from the injury. Amusing possibility that it might be usable as an armor Skill at higher levels (mummy armor)

Disguise: Makes it harder to recognize you. Possibly useful in the future, but not notable enough to require it at the moment.

Sleight of Hand: Enhanced dexterity for stuff like magic tricks or precision work. Possibly very useful if I can’t get proper lab equipment for precision work.

Sprint: Active skill. Drastically increases speed for a short time. Very exhausting. Might be worthwhile.

Repairing: Fix broken objects. How Lefi restored my walking stick. Worth getting at some point.

Knot-Work: Knots are sturdier/looser/generally better. Might be worth getting purely for research purposes, but probably not.

Cleaning: Makes it easier and faster to clean objects. Possibly useful for sterilization purposes. Worth considering

“Do you have all of these?”

“I speak from personal experience!”

“That’s… I suppose that sort of answers my question, though I’m not sure if I trust that answer now.” Edwin thought for a moment, “Are there skills which let you copy other skills?”

“There are skills for everything!”

“I suppose that’s a yes, then.” Edwin sighed, “Do you have one of those skills?”

“Alas, I do not!” Lefi cocked his head, looking into the distance as he struck a pose, “Such a Skill would be truly exceptional, though, so I ought to!”

“And how, exactly, do you get that sort of Skill?”

“I believe that would be some form of evolution, most likely!”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that. Don’t you miss out on evolved Skills? Aren’t they supposedly better in every way or whatever?”

“They are!” Lefi caught his statement just in time, “Slightly better! And primarily of use in providing more options with your Skills, beyond your normal reach! The higher in Tier you go, the more esoteric the result can be! However! They are less useful when you can already do everything! And have no need of crutches for esoteric effects! I have heard tales of mighty mages of the past whose grasp upon magic allowed them to have hundreds of basic Skills! They barely reached Tier two! Such secrets have been lost, however!”

Edwin frowned, “How could something like that be lost?”

“Because it was accepted that fewer Skills were better! The more Paths you complete, the better your Class becomes and the more tailored your Skill evolutions become to you and the Paths you walk! Such thinking is nonsense! Focusing all your Skills on a single point restricts you in other areas!”

So politics. Got it. No more wizards (come on, what else would you call someone with hundreds of spells at their beck and call?) because ‘common knowledge’ dictated that a one-size-fits-all approach was better. Given how poorly that idea had worked back on Earth even just in public schools, Edwin couldn’t imagine it would be any better in the place with literally magical competencies.

Something else tickled the back of his mind, “Oh yeah. Tiers. What are those?”

“That is how many times each of your Skills has evolved! You are Tier one, most competent individuals your age are Tier two or three, generally finishing at Tier three or four! The best of the best are usually in the six to seven range! That’s likely where Tara is at. The Tier of Royals such as Xares is unknown! It is said that they are Tier twenty or even higher!”

Tier twenty. Sheesh. Even if he assumed that a Skill evolution was no better than a basic Skill, that was still the equivalent of Tara having more than seventy Skills or the Royals having two hundred and forty. That was… difficult to wrap his head around. “And you are?” he asked, but Lefi just grinned at him in response, “Guess I should have expected that,” he sighed.

Edwin perked himself up, “So, what sorts of Paths should I try to go for?”

Lefi thought for a moment, then spoke, amazingly, softer than normal. Still rather loudly, though, “The Beginner, Novice, and Trainee Paths can all provide good, cheap evolutions of skills. I don’t know what Novice would evolve for you, as it usually provides Status Log, though that wouldn’t apply to you. Beginner provides Common Knowledge, which allows you to see more than the type of animal something is or what type of Class someone has. It is an oftentimes invaluable skill, and the higher level it is, the more detail you can learn!”

That… did sound useful. Especially paired with Almanac, he could save space in his notes by not having to include what they were called and a basic description in each generic tag. More room for his experiments! Plus, with both Tara and Lefi, what with their totally opposite approaches to Skills, having advised him to take it, it was really tempting.

…So why did he feel so hesitant in trying to do so? He just had a hunch that it would go wrong, and the gnawing in his stomach wouldn’t go away.

“You’re sure this will work? I just have a bad feeling about it.”

“What’s your Identify level? Thirty or so, you said? You’ll be fine! You don’t need much more than a dozen spans of range most of the time, and you’ll be essentially even on skill points that is your concern!”

“I guess? Does it ever upgrade anything else?”

Lefi shrugged, “Not from what I have heard of. Only if you somehow evolve Identify beforehand, and then you usually get some small tweak to another Skill. Perhaps Walking to Running at the most?”

Hm. Well, his Walking skill was coming close to hitting level 30. It was 28 last time he had checked, and would probably level up once or twice over the course of the day. Lefi was taking really big steps- there had to be a Skill involved- and he had to struggle to keep up. He might even net an Athletics or Breathing level or two today.

“I’ll… complete it tonight, I suppose. When we stop to rest.”

Lefi nodded, and Edwin continued asking, “What about my other Paths? You’ve dealt with a lot of them, surely. What sorts of things can I expect to come out of them?”

“Ah! I’m glad you asked! Well, you see…”

Edwin’s Logbook

Lefi Day 1- Paths

Note to Edwin- these are apparently common results, but Lefi seems to think I’d get alchemy-related variants for some Skills like Firestarting should they evolve while he had his current class.

Micro-Biomancer: Uncertain, but would likely affect First Aid, possibly changing it to Disease Prevention.

Path Less Traveled: Lefi had never heard of this Path

Realm Traveler: Didn’t ask

Scientist: Research. Lefi seemed certain, though that may have been a result of me having to explain what a Scientist was and eventually settling on calling them a type of researcher. He didn’t know what it would result in, though.

Alchemical Warrior: Possibly Firestarting, though Lefi advised waiting until it might be able to affect Alchemy and give him a weapon skill of sorts.

Stonehide Vanquisher: Trophy skill, though what exactly was unknown. If I had an armor skill, likely that.

Titan Slayer: Lefi got annoyed about my lack of combat-related skills. Guessed possibly Athletics.

World Traveler: Walking. Possibly changing it to Hiking, or something pertaining to keeping my footing and improving traction.

Researcher: Research, obviously. Though Lefi didn’t know what the result may be for something so closely aligned. He offhandedly speculated it had a slim chance of giving an Attribute, but said most likely not.

Explorer: Most likely Seeing, with Walking being a possibility. Seeing would probably result in an active zoom-in skill of sorts, like Skill binoculars. Walking would result in something similar to World Traveler’s Hiking.

Outsider: Didn’t ask

Unkillable: First Aid or Survivor, probably making either a damage resistance or healing ability.

Blackstone Conqueror: Trophy Skill. Lefi once again ranted about me not having any weapon or armor skills.

Mage: Basic Mana Sense into Mana Sense.

Field Medic: First Aid into Battlefield Medicine, making patching up wounds faster. Lefi claims to know someone who got this.

Adventurer: Packing into Bag of Tricks, making it easier to pull things from his belongings.

Survivor: Survival into some kind of damage resistance.

Athlete: Would unlock the Stamina attribute. Highly advised I complete it.

Daredevil: Athletics, maybe granting a Reflexes-like Skill or increased toughness.

Pioneer: Mathematics, apparently. This was based on the logic of it being a ‘signature skill’ of sorts for me.

Novice Pyromancer: Firestarting into Basic Pyrokinesis. This was apparently something Lefi had personally experienced, and was used to unlock a lot of other Skills.

Warrior: Would unlock the Health attribute. Highly advised I complete it soon.

Pyromaniac: Firestarting, into Persistent Flames or something else that would make fires harder to control and extinguish.

Wanderer: Walking into Longstrider. This was apparently well-known and would let every step taken be longer. Highly tempting.

Exile: Walking into Running, which increased maximum speed.

Escapee: Breathing into Breath of Freedom, an active skill which made direct mind-control and usurpation of abilities harder, though offered little protection against more subtle threats.

Lecturer: Research, probably into something like Teaching, which functioned like Research but for people he taught

Lumberjack: Lefi didn’t know, but guessed possibly something involving Athletics, possibly evolving it to Climbing.

Way of the Empty Hand: Athletics into something like Unarmed Combat.

Trapper: Either Survival or Firestarting into some variant of a Trapsetting skill.

Novice: Strong possibility of Walking into Running or something similar

Beginner: Identify into Common Knowledge

Trainee: Similar to Novice, possibly evolving Nutrition to Eating or Sleeping to Napping (reducing the time needed for a full night’s rest).

Slave: Would have evolved Status to make it out of his control, would instead probably make Walking into Fetters, making it hard to leave a certain area (would be countered by Breath of Freedom).

Assassin: Flexibility into Stealth, or something similar.

Killer: Would make something into a weapon skill.

Traitor: High possibility of Sleeping into something like Sleepless, allowing him to sleep less.

“So skills can evolve into a skill that you could get on its own?”

“Yes! That’s a major contribution to my dislike of the ‘upgrade’ terminology! Granted, a higher-tier Skill with the same effects as that same Skill at a lower Tier usually is ever so slightly stronger, but it is barely worth noting! Far better to just get the other Skill and gain a different effect with your evolutions! Also, if you can accomplish it, you can get a skill for it! If you were a natural mage, you might be able to get Basic Pyromancy as a basic Skill instead of needing to evolve something!”

That made enough sense, he supposed. It was starting to grow a bit late, though, and so they stopped at a small roadside shelter made of wood and stone. It wasn’t much, but there were a couple of bunkbeds inside, affixed to the wall, and a small shrine with a statue depicting

“What is this place?” Edwin asked as they settled in, “I saw a couple others as we were walking, but I guess I didn’t question it.”

“This!” it was a bit strange, hearing Lefi whisper-yell as he actually wanted to stay quiet, “Is a shrine to my god, Curicna, patron of wanderers, travelers, and adventurers! His church establishes them along roadsides as a form of worship, and his presence keeps them safe and clean!”

“Ooh. Did we stay in a church of his last night?” which prompted a nod from Lefi, “I understand.”

As he sat down on his mattress, delighting in the feeling of relief for his ever-sore feet, Edwin munched on one of his rations and pulled up his notifications for the day, ready to get to work.