The options Tormacc had in his Fate Wheel kept on growing, as with each new ability he unlocked, two new ones would be revealed. He never though he was decidophobic, in fact he prided himself on his ability to make decisions, but looking at all his options he had to admit that at least a small part of him was feeling overwhelmed. There were just too many options; and even if the options themselves weren’t intimidating, he had to think about their implications for future abilities he could unlock.

To give an example, let’s say he was debating between unlocking ability X and ability Y. Both abilities would be useful in different situations and he could only unlock one with his current Essence. Of course, he could always come back in the future and unlock the other ability, but Essence was a limited resource, and his Fate Wheel was growing quickly enough that he realized he was never going to unlock all the abilities he wanted to. So in this imaginary scenario he had two choices: ability X and ability Y.

On the surface, that’s exactly what the choice was; it was him choosing between two abilities. But was that really true? Suppose he took the equation one step further. Let’s say he was leaning towards unlocking ability X as it would be useful in 30% of situations, while ability Y would only be useful in 25% of situations. It should be a straightforward comparison, but let’s add something else to the equation: ability Z, which is one of the abilities revealed by ability Y.

Ability Z is a godlike ability. It’s incredibly powerful, and would benefit him in 75% of situations. In this imaginary scenario Tormacc doesn’t currently have the Essence to unlock it, but if he knew it was there he would start saving for it immediately: it’s just that powerful. The problem is, to get access to ability Z, he first needs ability Y, but since he doesn’t know that ability Z exists, with the information he has unlocking ability X is the better option.

In this scenario ability X is a solid choice, but as the abilities it reveals are not particularly amazing with perfect information ability Y is actually the better option, as it gets him to ability Z the fastest. This is only an imaginary scenario, and if he were only deciding between a small number of abilities he likely could successfully navigate his way through. But as his Fate Wheel keeps growing, the implications of his skills keep snowballing, each decision having a myriad of far reaching ripples potentially changing the landscape of his Fate Wheel, and in the extreme, maybe even costing him his life by leaving him stuck without an ability that would have saved him if he had it unlocked.

It made him understand why Kaz Ehen created a shop in the First City instead of adventuring into the Shards. From what the bear-man alluded to in their conversations he was a powerful fighter, but even someone of his stature couldn’t guarantee his life in the Shards, so he chose the safe route: opening a shop in the First City and selling services to make money to buy spheres and earn Essence that way. It was similar to the guards working in the city, except their pay came directly from the city itself. Tormacc never pictured himself longing for that kind of danger-free lifestyle, but he would be lying if he said he couldn’t see the appeal.

But he was Tormacc, and he wouldn’t falter before such paltry pressure. He couldn’t conquer anything by lamenting over his decisions.

Coming back to the issue at hand, he organized his thoughts, trying to divorce himself from his ego and think about things logically. When looking at the abilities themselves it was hard to do that, so he started with something at bit more abstract: numbers. Math wasn’t his strong suit, but even he could figure out that with only 1,800 Essence left to spend the highest tier ability he could unlock was a tier seven for 1,000 Essence. So he decided to start there, as if he unlocked lower tier abilities first he could lose the option of a tier seven one.

Part of him didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help but examine the four new tier seven options he had just revealed by unlocking Flash Step and Quick Reflexes. Glancing over them, he couldn’t help but drool. They were all powerful, and looking at them made him have second thoughts about devoting Essence to abilities in the top branch of the right side of his Fate Wheel.

First were the two revealed by Flash Step, Greater Flash Step and Instant Acceleration. The first was self-explanatory, merely giving him an upgrade to Flash Step, both increasing the distance he could travel and increasing how often he could use it. The one he was more interested in was Instant Acceleration. It was hard to know what the ability truly did without unlocking it, but his Description skill told him that is enabled him to reach max acceleration instantaneously once activated.

If that were the case, the skill was unbelievable powerful. When moving, there would always be some buildup time. Physics couldn’t be overcome that easily, no matter how strong or fast you were. But with this skill he could overcome that, allowing him to either run away faster or close the distance on his opponent quicker than he would otherwise be able to. And that wasn’t event considering if he could use the skill to speed up one of his attacks. He could imagine a situation where he swung his hammer only to have it blocked by his opponent. With Instant Acceleration, he could immediately execute another full power attack with zero windup time.

As reality breaking as the skill was though, he wasn’t even sure it was the most powerful out of the four new revealed skills. The two revealed skills from Quick Reflexes were Hurricane Strike and Instinctual Parry. Hurricane Strike was an active skill that allowed him to strike rapidly in quick succession, but it was the other skill that he was awed by. Instinctual Parry did as the name suggested, allowing his body to move on instinct to parry what would otherwise be a life-threatening attack. There seemed to be a long cooldown time after the skill activated, but that didn’t matter if the skill did its job.

There were a lot of skills he wanted to unlock, but the more he thought it over the more he realized that Instinctual Parry was a must-have. He was bound to slip up at some point, and a skill that could save his life was invaluable. And that wasn’t even mentioning his penchant for getting in over his head. He probably needed more defensive skills anyway, so ignoring other tier seven options, like his other recent unlocks and Encapsulated Vitality, he spent the 1,000 Essence to unlock Instinctual Parry, bringing him down to only 800 Essence.

With only 800 Essence left he could unlock a tier six ability and still have Essence left for a few other low tier abilities, but looking over his tier six options nothing stuck out to him, so he turned his attention back to the top branch of his Fate Wheel and his tier four options.

There were three that he liked: Strength Boost, which was one of the ones revealed by Body Boost, and the two abilities revealed by Iron Skin, Block and Force Absorption. Tier four abilities only cost 100 Essence, so he ultimately decided to unlock all three, bringing him down to 500 Essence. None of the abilities were amazing, which was to be expected of lower-tier abilities, but they were solid at worst.

Strength Boost gave him yet another passive boost to his strength while Block allowed him to fully block an attack, completely negating its effects. Force Absorption was the most interesting, as it allowed him to dissipate some of the force he received from attacks. It would do little against slashing or piercing damage, but against blunt force it was very useful. It would also help him when parrying attacks, as he would recover that little bit faster as he had to deal with stopping less momentum from the attack.

There were six new tier five options revealed by his newly-unlocked abilities, and he took some time to look them over. Block revealed Parry and Shield Bash. Parry was similar to Block, but while Block was better suited for use with a shield, Parry was more suited for use with a weapon. Shield Bash did as the name said, but since it required a shield to use it wasn’t something on his radar at the moment.

Force absorption revealed Stand Firm and Force Redirection. He had high hopes for the two abilities Force Absorption would reveal, but he was a little disappointed. Stand Firm allowed him to avoid being knocked back by an attack, while Force Redirection allowed him to redirect incoming force somewhere else. Both were useful, but they were a bit narrow in scope, so not really options he was considering. On the other hand, the two abilities revealed by Strength Boost he was much happier with.

They were Muscle Enhancement and Bone Compression. Muscle Enhancement gave his muscles better bang for their buck, while Bone Compression increased his bone density, making his bones stronger. They were basic abilities, but his physical body was the basic of everything, and he knew not to underestimate such small boosts when enough were stacked on top of each other. He was only as strong as his body, and boosting his base specs was definitely worthwhile.

He only had 500 Essence left to spend, and after some debate he decided to just unlock Muscle Enhancement and Bone Compression. He had 100 Essence left after that, which he wasn’t sure where to spend. There was some merit to saving it, but he had some Essence still saved in his pool for his daily tax, and every ability he didn’t unlock was one that he wouldn’t have access to in a sticky situation.

With that in mind, he decided to unlock the other tier four ability revealed by Body Boost, which was Adrenaline Surge. It was a kind of berserk ability, giving him a surge in strength which was followed by an intense period of weakness. He didn’t want to ever be forced into a situation where he had to trust in a skill like that, but there might be times where he needed the immediate power. Any skill that left him weakened was a liability, but right now he might not have any other option than to rely on such a skill, as he didn’t have confidence to straight up overpower everything that came his way. It was between that and Read the Flow, and while better combat senses were useful, the power offered by Adrenaline Surge seemed the better option to cover his bases in a crisis. He was confident in his abilities, but there was a difference between that and overconfidence; one could get him killed while the other would help him bring out his full power.

Going back over the new abilities he had just unlocked, he could understand why people tried to ambush others. The Essence he gained from one battle was more than he could farm from Stone Giants in a month. But it came at a steep price: danger. Despite the gains, he would much prefer to stay far away from the knife’s edge he had to navigate to win the battle against that deranged swordsman.

He knew he still had a long way to go to truly feel prepared for every eventuality, but he was moving forward, even if it was only a few Essence at a time. Winning battles was important, but the true winner was he who won the war.