First things first, he needed to stop wasting time lamenting on his now egregiously difficult path. He needed to allocate his and Gunner's stats as well as make preparations to enter the Plains of Death immediately.

As such, Darius opened his Character menu and allocated his Ability Points as well as his Skill Points. After sorting out his own allocation, he moved onto Gunner, carefully placing the points where he felt they needed to be.

As such, his character sheet now looked like this;

[Name: Darius Stone

Race: Human

Class: Itemancer

Sub-class: Magus

HP: 255/255

MP: 1,000/1,000

Level: 20

Experience: 440/2000

Strength: 15

Agility: 20

Endurance: 17

Intellect: 50

Charisma: 15

Luck: 50

AP: 0.2

SP: 0.2

Skills: Analyze - Lv.6, Skinning - Lv.1, Butchery - Lv.1, Cooking - Lv.1, Washing - Lv.1, Basic Lancer Arts - Lv.4

Spells: Sparks - Lv.20, Ember - Lv.4, Heal - Lv.5, Blink - Lv.10, Spawn - Lv.15

Abilities: Mind Power, Transmutation, Deflection]

Darius had thought strategically about how to allocate his points and had come to the decision that the best choice would be to invest in Luck heavily. Out of a billion-plus probabilities, only 56 would secure his victory.

No amount of raw computing power that Darius could access at this time with mere points would allow him to divine the perfect path when there were so many unknowns.

Rather, since there were probabilities, then a strong amount of Luck had to be involved. His Luck which had been 27 points was boosted by 23 to make 50, at which point Darius had gained a new ability.

[Congratulations! You have reached 50 points in Luck and have acquired the ability: Deflection.]

[Deflection - Basic Ability

Cost: None

Description: As a Paragon of Luck in the Basic Order, you are protected by the Goddess of Luck. Whenever you encounter an attack on your person of any type or category, you have a 20% chance to deflect it fully and a 1% chance to reflect it back to the attacker with the attack becoming unblockable.]

Darius was extremely satisfied with this ability as it gave him an extra layer of security for where he was heading. He couldn't help but wonder if any of the 'him' in the 56 paths had also chosen to do this.

Since there was no way to know, he decided not to fall down that rabbit hole of overthinking. Darius placed his 7 remaining points into Endurance, bringing it from 10 to 17. This had increased his HP from 150 points to 225.

Normally, he could care less about his HP because he had always planned to acquire someone like Gunner to shield him from harm. However, against Journeymen and Adepts, he would certainly need more of everything he currently had.

As for his Skill Points, he had 18 of them and he had placed 14 in Spawn straightaway. Caesar had been 'kind' enough to hint that the two undead fellows here were part of his secret to success, so Darius didn't even hesitate to improve them.

He used the 4 remaining points to increase his Heal spell to level 5. Darius checked on the spell, and it now gave 25% HP to all targets selected by him, although he feared the effect it might have on the two skeletons.

As for Spawn, Darius decided to check the changes before checking Gunner's in detail.

[Spawn - Level 15 Spell

Cost: 4 MP

Description: Channel the purest death energy through your body to form undead servants that do your bidding. Only two undead Liches are summoned at this level.]

Darius' eyes widened and his head snapped up as he looked at the two skeletons who were being covered by a wealth of blackish miasma, their forms transforming.

Darius and Gunner retreated significantly as they noticed the energy surrounding the duo becoming volatile, lashing out at the area around them and spreading the aura of decay.

The ground beneath them had become an ominously black color with wisps of sickly green energy floating around. Darius frowned and Analyzed what he was looking at.

[Blight Infection - Condition

Durability: ?/?

Description: Blight is the opposite of Avalon, the antithesis of living. It carries the aura of decay, illness, death, and suffering. It is not suitable for anything but Undead to live on for long periods of time without protection.]

Darius nodded in understanding. So this had to be why despite the Plains of Death housing many dangerous Undead, everyone had left it alone. How were they supposed to launch campaigns against the area if they were unable to stay inside for too long?

This brought up the question of how he would protect himself from this effect? His mind flashed and he gazed at Gunner who was glaring at the dark ground with hostility, his green eyes burning with anger.

While he waited for his two undead skeletons to finish their transformation, Darius opened Gunner's menu and made sure his changes had been completed as planned.

[Name: Gunner

Race: Half-Human, Half-Giant (Royal Blood)

Class: Vanguard

Sub-class: Open

HP: 400/400

MP: 665/665

Level: 19

Exp: 790/2000

Strength: 20

Agility: 15

Endurance: 20

Intellect: 35

Charisma: 16

Luck: 19

Physical Status: Healthy

Mental Status: Calm.

Affection: Friendly lvl max

AP: 0

SP: 0

Skills: Engage - Lv.1, Earth's Guardian - Lv.19, Earthen Stomp - Lv. 1, Berserker's Rage - Lv.1, Earthen Punch - Lv.1, Basic Martial Arts - Lv.1

Spells: None.]

Gunner's allocations had been straightforward and targeted. Darius had raised his Intellect from 13 points to 35 after using up 22 of his AP. The goal was to raise Gunner's mana threshold as high as Darius possibly could, even though the fellow had no spells.

As for the remaining 8 points, Darius had placed it in Luck obviously. He regretted not being able to send Gunner to 20 points of Luck, but reasoned that the large lad had one more level up to get there.

Still, this raised the question, why increase his mana? Why not increase his Strength or his Endurance? 30 points could have sent either of them to the first threshold and could have resulted in a very useful ability!

Why the hell would anyone waste it on Intellect of all things?

Darius had done so because of Gunner's cheat racial skill, Earth's Guardian! The formerly level 9 skill had been raised to level 19 with Gunners 10 SP, creating a skill that was far more valuable than 50 points in any stat!

[Earth's Guardian - Level 19 Skill

Cost: 15 MP per second

Description: The natal skill of every royal blooded giant, this skill is a blessing of Gaia granted to her protectors which grants them the ability to borrow some of the planet's power in combat. The user of this skill is granted +105% Strength, Endurance, Damage, and Defense for the duration of its activation.]