The grin on Jack’s face would not go away even as he cleaned his blood-soaked hair. Unexpected synergies of abilities in games always made him giddy when he discovered them.

The entire day couldn’t be spent on his new combo though. His earlier thoughts about passive and active skills gave him a better perspective on how skills work.

With that perspective, he thought he might be able to learn the crowned prince’s Mucus Shield.

Putting on his rubber gloves, he picked up the frog and carefully scraped the layer of slime off of its back. He’d already collected as much of it as he could in his flasks, so he just let it fall into the water pouch that the frog stayed in.

This is something he’d done a few times already just to watch where the mucus came from and to see the frog activate his skill.

The empty patch of skin slowly glistened with moisture as tiny beads of slime formed on its skin. As the beads grew, they would touch and meld with their neighbors until they formed a thin sheet. The sheet would build in layers until it matched the rest of its body.

The issue he was having with learning this skill was he kept thinking of the skill as something it was using. Instead of passively affecting it, much like how Jack didn’t have to think about using Poison Resistance.

So the frog was secreting this fluid as naturally as if it was sweating.

**Skill Up** Mimicry Level 10 Mimicry has reached level 10 and is now able to be evolved. Would you like to Evolve this skill? Yes No

Yes, obviously.

**Alert** Skill Evolution Token Required.

“Oh, right,” he said in mild surprise, pulling out a golden coin from his inventory. “I finally get to use one of these.”

When he clicked yes again, the coin dissolved into the air accompanied by the sound of hundreds of coins falling to the ground.

**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Eternal Intern Consumptive Learning Requirement: Evolution Basic Instinct Higher Sentient

A lot of thought had been put into the previous evolution options in his downtime.

After realizing he couldn’t learn class skills, Jack felt the best candidate was Eternal Intern. An intern is just someone who is learning a job. In the context of the system, what is a class but your ‘job?’

Higher Sentient was definitely just learning skills from people.

The first time Jack had ever been exposed to the concept of a blue mage was from one of his favorite video games as a kid.

That mage would eat monsters and learn their abilities. So he didn’t even really have to think about it to know what Consumptive Learning did.

Eating something to learn its skill might be easier for him and would make it so he could learn skills from things he couldn’t capture alive. Learning class skills from monsters seemed to be a much better option right now than a shortcut to something he could do with patience.

**Alert** Mimicry has gained the evolution Eternal Intern **Skill Unlocked ** Through observation, you have unlocked Mucus Shield with Mimicry. Would you like to learn this skill? Yes No

Now came the question, did he really want this skill? He had just wanted to level up Mimicry, but the skill could have its uses. If it had the same psychoactive properties as the crowned prince then he could incapacitate his enemies easily.

Plus, he should have an extra skill slot now that Mimicry is level ten. It might be really gross, but he should at least try it out. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he did this week.

Mucus Shield Level: 1 Secrete a protective layer of mucus. Spell Seeker Level: 19 Current mood: Tired

A grey wolf that has gained the class Spell Seeker. While most wolves hunt and live in packs, a Spell Seeker, by its very nature, travels alone. A Spell Seeker has one purpose in life: find and absorb mana. Usually, this means finding a location with a high density of mana and claiming it as its territory. The only thing that will make a Spell Seeker leave its territory is being attacked or if they sense a creature with a large magical affinity. Its class ability to absorb most spells thrown at it makes them the bane of mages.

Age: 12 years.

Highest attribute: Perception.

Highest skill: Sonic Howl, Mana Absorption, Tracking.

The Spell Seeker began to inhale. Although it wasn’t actually taking in any air, he could see that its chest wasn’t expanding.

Faint golden smoke flowed from the magical barrier towards the face of the wolf. Once the smoke was a few inches away from the barrier, it would disappear. In the path it would have taken to the wolf’s mouth, there was the slightest disturbance in the air. Like the shimmer of light when you look at hot air over an open flame.

From what he could tell, the wolf broke down the spell or magical effect into raw mana, then drew that mana into itself. Mana in its raw form was invisible. The only time he could see mana was when it was actively being used. The faint smoke was the spell breaking down.

Well, at least that’s what he had to go on until he got more information. The manaweavers being able to infuse their webs with mana messed with the ‘actively being used’ part. The glow of their webs was exactly what he imagined raw mana to look like. He could be overthinking it though.

Pointing at the wolf, he turned to Lucy and asked, “Can you see what’s going into the wolf’s mouth?”

Lucy took a long look at the wolf as if she was confused. A mental image popped into his mind.

In her image, there was a vortex of golden energy flowing out of the barrier and into the wolf. That was what he was hoping she would be able to see.

The more disturbing part of the image was a powerful aura of purple energy coming off of the wolf itself.

While looking at the image, an odd feeling crept through him. Like he was looking at something wrong, not possible. An optical illusion of some sort. It almost hurt to look at.

Once he broke his concentration on the mental image it seemed to fade out of his mind. He knew that he’d seen the image and what the mana looked like, but he just couldn’t remember exactly what it looked like.

He’d have to explore that more later, but for now, the barrier was gone. The urge to use the other shot was great, but he didn’t want to be anywhere in the dungeon without at least one charge of the barrier.

There was always tomorrow after grinding more drones.

Jack smashed in the head of the giant porcupine drone, defeating the last of the large group that had appeared. Ever since he found the boss, the drones had been traveling in groups.

At this point, killing a small group wasn’t that difficult for him. He would quickly take out the fastest or most mobile one in his initial strike, while Lucy attacked the toughest where her venom could be put to full use.

The issue with this last group was that there were two blooming drones. The first one was easy to take out, but before he could get to the second one it had already made its wet growling sound that could attract nearby drones.

So instead of a fight against a group of four, it turned to eight, and then eleven when one of the new blooming drones summoned another group.

Jack was covered in several cuts, including a large gash on his side. There were small needles scattered all over his body, slowly filling him with their poison. Fortunately, at this point, Jack could effectively ignore the effect of the ichor.

His heart was pounding, and he was taking heavy breaths. The fight had nearly drained him of all his stamina.

While normally Lucy would finish a battle completely unscathed, due to how drawn out this one was she ended up getting hit a few times. One of her middle legs was broken off and there was a crack in her exoskeleton, on the underside of her abdomen.

While the damage was concerning, he knew she was going to be molting soon so it should repair itself. She’d just need to be extra careful until then.

After dismissing the kills notification, he saw that the difficult fight was well worth the effort.

**Level Up** You are awarded 5 attribute points

Crouching down, he started harvesting the drone’s vines when another notification appeared.

**Class Alert** Class Skill Available Class Skills do not count towards Skill limit. Choose one. Skill: (Class) The Long Game: The adaptable dungeoneer is always trying to make the next battle easier. Dungeon bosses are a great way to hone and build your skills. It may not be a fast way to get stronger but playing the long game never is. Skill: (Class) Reverse Engineering: Dungeons can have some of the deadliest and most complex devices hidden within them. The adaptable dungeoneer has spent the time to learn how to wield these tools for themselves. Skill: (Class) Quickened Evolution: Requirement: Skill Mimicry The path to skill mastery is long and splits often. If only you could travel multiple paths at once.

He hadn’t realized he was going to get another class skill. It made sense from a gaming point of view that you would unlock more features as you level up, but with evolutions of skills, and how influential Mimicry already was, he figured that might be it. Not that he was complaining at all, he welcomed the opportunity to get another powerful skill.

The first two were the same options he had last time, but he knew a lot more about the system now, so he might have a better idea as to what they do now.

The third skill was new, and since it had Mimicry as a requirement, it could be assumed that class skills functioned like trees. Hopefully, the skills were more powerful the further down the tree you went.

The Long Game was his second choice before. A slow build to power skill. It was definitely appealing to him now that he had a base level of power and wasn’t going to most likely die in his next fight. It was even more enticing because it said dungeon bosses and he might fight one in the near future.

Reverse Engineering still sounded like an artificer type skill. Considering how useful the magic items he found inside his first dungeon have been, if he could create more, his power would increase dramatically. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unknowns with this skill. What does making magic items cost? Can he make new items or can he only remake items he’s already seen? Would he be able to improve his items? This choice could definitely be powerful.

The new option, Quickened Evolution. The name implies it would just let his evolutions happen faster. Possibly let the level five ‘free’ evolution happen at level one. While that would be nice, it would only save time not actually give him more power.

The description gave him a different impression. ‘The path to skill mastery is long and splits often. If only you could travel multiple paths at once.’

Working with his theory that class skills work in a tree type system, choosing one unlocks the next branching skill.

What if skill evolutions work the same way? Considering the new evolution option of Mimicry had a previous one as a requirement. How did he miss that possibility?

Maybe even racial evolutions worked in trees since the quest that rewarded Pack Bond called it a tier-one evolution.

Could ‘multiple paths at once’ mean going down two of these trees at the same time, or simply gain two evolutions at once?

Jack released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Evolutions were powerful. Like the Tolerance evolution of Poison Resistance allowed him to fight all the drones of this dungeon without worry that the slightest scratch could lead to his death.

He finished cutting off the last vine from the group of drones, having continued the task while he contemplated his choice.

Still unsure what their use could be, Jack had no doubt they would be of some value. The guess he had was the sap inside the vine was condensed vitality.

Considering the boss had the skill Vitality Absorption and the multiple times Identify stated the drones were being drained of life and vitality, it made sense. It was actually a terrifying concept, if true.

The plant converts an animal into a drone with its parasitic vine controlling its actions and slowly draining it. That drone in turn brings back more creatures for the same thing. Once the vine is ripe, basically when the host was almost tapped out, it would return to the boss to be finally absorbed.

All of the drones had nearly the exact same age, either six months for the budding or a year for the blooming. So either vitality draining takes a very long time or taking it slowly is more efficient.

As much as he liked the idea of gaining a skill that let him buff his vitality, he hoped that all the skill did was heal it or feed it. Because if it actually gained vitality from every vine it ate, that attribute would be absolutely monstrous.

While he still didn’t fully grasp how the system measured health in relation to actual bodily damage, he fully understood having more made something harder to wound and kill.

Health seemed to increase by half of his vitality at each level. So a level thirty should have about fifteen times its vitality in health.

So let’s say base 10 vitality.

10 * 15 = 150 health.

Three attribute points a level (No genesis perk)

Assume all points invested in main stat.

100 * 15 = 1500 health.

Going off that Lucy’s one point a level.

40 * 15 = 600 health.

Now he didn’t believe something would invest all its points into an individual stat. Truly, he didn’t even know if monsters leveled up as he did. Lucy didn’t seem to be able to invest points when they first bonded, but to be fair she was only a few days old.

Note to self: see if Lucy can invest her own points now.

Assuming they can invest points and assuming it could boost its vitality through its class skill, it should have a crazy amount of health.

A daunting task was ahead of him.

The success of that task could very well depend on this choice.

All of the options were viable. Another factor he had to take into account was he’d likely get at least one more class skill, eventually. Based on how consistent the system had been with giving him three options, he couldn’t imagine it stopping at two skills.

So while working with magic items was something he really wanted, he was going to have to pass on Reverse Engineering. Maybe he could take it when he knew more about how magic items were made.

The Long Game or Quickened Evolution? Long-term investment or a more immediate boost? Unknown power or versatility?