[WELCOME TO LEVEL 16]

Seems like killing an army of feral ghouls and a rad scorpion resembling Godzirra was worth enough for a couple levels. Afton wasn't complaining, he welcomed any boost he could get, maybe he should start looking around for somewhere in a similar state to Camp Searchlight. ​​

He had 30 skill points to spend and was definitely going to max out his Repair. But, what to do afterwards?... Well, he had this new axe and Tamia wasn't going to mind if he used her gift for himself for a while. Not to mention how curios her was to see if maxing Melee Weapons would give him a Perk that'd make it more viable in actual combat... The saying "Bringing a knife to a gunfight" was seriously applicable here.

...

He could hold off on the other non-combat related Perks for now as he felt getting his capabilities as high as possible was a must before he started skilling into skills like Lockpicking or Science. He shoved the other 20 skillpoints into Melee and moved onto the Perk screen.

[Perk gained! : Mechanicus]

[Mechanicus] : Things gradually repair themselves in your presence, intensity depends on your intentions towards objects. +50 Condition to all things you use.

Afton couldn't help but smirk at the mechanical abomination Pipboy that appeared next to the notification, it still had that cheesy grin, but it was almost creepy now given that half of its body was made from machinery, it wasn't even wearing the typical vault suit, instead just wearing a blue and yellow robe...

As to his thoughts for the Perk itself? Incredibly overpowered, it was essentially a supernatural force that aided him, he didn't even need to put any effort into repairing his weaponry or armour anymore as it'd slowly fix itself... It was even better than that though, he didn't even need to contribute materials for the repairs to happen! This was definitely worth maxing Repair out, seriously.

Now, onto the Perk screen for level 16... Shit that rhymed.

[Action Boy] : +15 Action Points. Good, but as he'd mentioned before, he wasn't focussing on his VATS skills.

[Weapon Handling] : Weapon Strength requirements are now 2 points lower than normal for you. This Perk was kind of pointless for him, it was skin to two skill points in intense training set to strength. And he was sure it'd become useless if he hit 10 strength...

Afton shook his head and scrolled up to the past Perks he'd not used yet, selecting [Intense Training] and picking the S.P.E.C.I.A.L point to go in Strength.

After clicking confirm time hadn't resumed, instead he was hit with another influx of information from the Repair skill. It was actually even more intense than the last time, he knew that he could probably repair a nuclear reactor is pushed, though, by that thought he could simply repair it by standing next to it now...

The Melee Weapon skill didn't introduce much new to him, he knew what he himself needed to improve on... Instead, he felt like he'd training a couple thousand hours with various weapons. One would call it muscle memory, same thing for the Guns skill, the ability to reload and fire ballistic weapons than he could think.

That wasn't the worst of it, he felt his muscles tear momentarily before boiling energy filled them, he hadn't felt this when he decreased his strength, but perhaps it was more difficult to gain it than lose it? They bulged slightly as if he'd recently worked out by quickly went back down to their original toned size, now with larger potential strength behind them.

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 17]

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 18]

Afton was surprised that he'd level up four times in a row, he'd thought that his levelling would soon slow do to the exponential increase you needed each time. Though, he and Karl had exterminated an entire town of ghouls.

He spammed all his points into the Melee Weapons skill and moved onto Perks again,

...

There weren't any Perks he could get this level, the reason for this was that certain Skills weren't high enough to reach the minimum requirements. For example :

[Computer Whiz] : Needed INT 7 and Science 70.

[Concentrated Fire] : Needed Energy Weapons 60 and Guns 60.

[Infiltrator] : Needed PE 7 and Lockpick 70.

[Paralyzing Palm] : Needed Unarmed 70.

Not that Afton really wanted any of these Perks, they were either VATS related or situational, giving another chance to hack or unlock a lock that'd been previously broken. No, he turned to past Perks again and decided to try out [Jury Rigging].

[Jury Rigging]: Repair any item using a roughly similar item. He knew that in the game this would probably only concern weaponry and armour... But now this was real-life, he wondered if he could use it on other items... He'd try and find out in the next town he ended up in.

He confirmed his selection and was once again graced with information about the Melee Weapons skill... Huh, who knew he'd literally learn sword martial arts by upgrading this skill... Not that they'd be all that useful against ballistic weaponry, but each to their own.

Time resumed and he managed not to stumble from the sudden sensation or gravity working again. He saw that he was still engaged with Karl in conversation, he decided to nod at the man who, form what Afton recalled had an idea as to how not to get ripped off by the NCR...

Karl left to arrange whatever he had planned and Afton took one glance at his status to confirm his level had gone through.

Afton Parker

Level : 18

S.P.E.C.I.A.L :

Strength : 8

Perception : 7

Endurance : 7

Charisma : 4

Intelligence : 6

Agility : 7

Luck : 4

Skills :

Barter : 21

Energy Weapons : 55

Explosives : 20

Guns : 100

Lockpick : 10

Medicine : 40

Melee Weapons : 91

Repair : 100

Science : 44

Sneak : 20

Speech : 100

Survival : 30

Unarmed : 30

Perks :

[Trigger Discipline], [Heavy Handed], [Rapid Reload], [Torture Techniques], [Educated], [John Wick Style], [Toughness], [Stonewall], [Bug Stomper], [Lord Death v1], [Spies Guise], [Quick Draw], [Adamantium Skeleton], [Ranger Tactics], [Ranger Targeting], [Ranger Awareness], [Mechanicus], [Jury Rigging]

Companion Perks :

[Old Wisdom]