Dan finished his cup of coffee. The goblin attack loomed, but this was not time wasted - it was time invested. He had stayed remarkably, even suspiciously calm so far, and at this point he was confident that he had the system to blame or thank for that. For unknown reasons, it had seemingly influenced his brain to keep him from reacting as a normal person of sound mind and judgment would to these circumstances and freaking the heck out. Still, Dan felt it was important to reestablish a mental equilibrium before further action, and drank his coffee while his new super senses slowly began to feel more normal. When he was done, 53 minutes remained. It was time to plan.

First step: Make a mental list of every task that would be useful and realistically possible within the time limit. Second step: Estimate the relative importance of everything on the list. Third step: Estimate the time everything on the list would take. Fourth step: Order the list so as to accomplish the most within the remaining minutes. Actual first step: See what the system notification that had been waiting patiently within a corner of his consciousness was. To his great relief, its initial appearance had been much less demanding than previous system messages, and he had sensed instinctively that he could bring it to the forefront of his mind by focusing on it. Given how consequential every previous interaction with the system had been, it was dumb to make plans without knowing what this one would bring, even if its more unassuming character may indicate a lower level of importance.

Congratulations! You have reached level 1. Please choose an unlocked attribute (Strength, Constitution, Agility, Perception or Aether Attunement) to receive a +5 bonus.

Dan thought a command at the system. "Status."

Name: Daniel Martin

Age: 29

Species: Human

Class: Esper

Level: 1

Health: 116/116

Aether Pool: 115/115

Health Regeneration: .031/minute

Aether Regeneration: .192/second

Attributes

Strength: 17

Constitution: 16

Agility: 15

Perception: 74

Aether Attunement: 15

Available: 1

Skills

(none)

Perks

(none, 1 available)

Aether Abilities

Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1

Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1

Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1

Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1

Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1

Available: 1

Interesting. The first thing that jumped out at him was that his health was one hundred plus his constitution, and that if his mental arithmetic was accurate, it would take a little over half an hour to regain one health, or around two days and eight or nine hours to go from death's door to perfect health. Dan could remember nothing that would explain such a super human rate of healing, but wasn't about to complain. It was typical of him, he noted with a wry smile, to bore down on a detail first. His attributes were rather good, even accounting for the +5 to all attributes bonus, assuming that ten was a baseline. His Esper school Aether abilities were, unsurprisingly, much more rare than the two he'd gotten with the first system message. It remained to be seen if they were more useful - or, for that matter, how useful any of them would be. Before making further committal decisions, he needed to know what each attribute did and what perks were and which were available to him. His hypothesis that the system responded to mental intent more than exact commands had so far more or less held up, so he made another mental query: "Attribute descriptions, please." He did not know why he added the "please". Probably ingrained habit.

Strength:

Increases physical power and the body's ability to resist forces exerted by its own strength. Has a minor effect on explosive movement such leaping or sprinting. At high levels unlocks physical combat abilities.

Constitution:

Increases maximum health and rate of health regeneration. Increases physical endurance. At high levels unlocks self healing abilities, increases mental endurance, increases damage resistance, and reduces need for food and water.

Agility:

Increases speed, leaping, climbing and other forms of self propelled movement, excluding self propelled vehicles. Improves bodily coordination and control. Improves flexibility.

Perception:

Increases the effectiveness of all senses, reaction speed and precision, and mental perception of and attention to detail. Increases the power and decreases the Aether cost of Esper school Aether abilities. Improves the healing and durability of sensory organs. Increases ability to process sensory input. At high levels unlocks additional senses and the ability to regenerate destroyed sensory organs. Currently unlocked senses: Thermal, Echolocation, System Identify, Danger Sense, Aether Sense, Tactical Precognition.

Aether Attunement:

Allows use of Aether abilities. Increases per-level growth of Aether Pool and rate of Aether Regeneration. Increases power of non-Esper school Aether abilities.

Okay, that was pretty much as expected. It seemed clear that the free attribute point and the 5 point bonus should go to Agility. His Perception was already monstrous and it seemed doubtful that increasing it further would have nearly as much impact as improving one of his weaker attributes. Aether Attunement would put valuable resources into a path he'd walked away from when he picked Chosen Esper. Strength seemed pretty useless. Constitution would help him take a hit, but he would much rather avoid getting hit in the first place. Agility would also synergize with his super senses. Knowing you were about to get smacked wasn't useful if you weren't fast enough to get out of the way. He mentally locked in his choices, and confirmed that his agility was now 21 rather than 15. If attribute increases had a linear effect, then he should now be slightly faster than Usain Bolt. Not bad.

Dan next checked what perks were available, and was presented with a list that was long and filled with perks that were mostly useless in the immediate term. He wanted something that would insure him a bit if things went wrong or he slipped up, literally or figuratively, in the fight to come. After scanning his options, he narrowed the choice to three. There was one that would let him heal 10 points of health plus one per class level once per day, another that improved pain resistance, and the final perk he considered was called "Brain Cage". Its description said that it would improve his resistance to brain and nervous system injuries, and increase his ability to heal nerve damage, including to the brain. He knew that that option pulled at him from the worst day of his life, from the trauma that had yet to fully heal even while the system had restored him physically. He knew, and picked it anyway. It was tactically defensible. He would perform better if he was less anxious about injuries that could take away control of his body or mind.

Next up: Time to check the available aether abilities. The list was much shorter than that of perks, but sadly, nothing looked too helpful. Fire Touch, Ice Touch, Minor Aether Shield, Cleanse (which apparently physically cleaned one's body and garments), Enhance Vision [self], Enhance Hearing [self], and Detect Monster were his options. Minor Aether Shield did seem potentially useful, but there was a real concern that with his penalty to non-Esper school aether abilities he could not use it efficiently. Detect Monster had the highest rarity at R3 and was within his specialization, so he went with that one. Goblins seemed monstrous enough to him. It should work. Hopefully.

Dan glanced at his watch and saw that he 46 minutes left. He'd also rushed ahead rather than follow his planned decision making process. Easy mistake to make. Understandable, given the circumstances. Still a mistake. Dan frowned. It would be frightfully easy to spend every remaining second paralyzed by thought and analysis. He decided to limit himself to 6 more minutes of planning. Then it would be time to work. He was no one's idea of a commando, but he had seen Home Alone twice, and he had a few ideas...