He stares at the total in disbelief as he's transported back into his house, his parents standing where they were before everyone got teleported to their dungeons. He angrily opens The One's chat.

Degritone: Critas, you dingo, this is your fault, isn't it? You're the one who had 482 total skill level and now makes me take a giant risk when not saving mine up.

The One: How many times do I have to tell you I'm not an Australian wild dog?

And no, I only had a skill total of 469. I got 13 SP.

Degritone: That doesn't make it better. Now I'll be significantly weaker than anyone who immediately spends them. Whatever. Go do what you were going to do.

His parents attempt to get him to talk to them, but he says, "Hold on. I'm not exactly happy right now." He closes that chat and opens Cibian's.

Degritone: What would you even do with 500+ SP? Keep them and hope to not encounter anyone aggressive who spent them, spend them all, spend a portion...?

Cibian: save em for hard to level skills or from what i could tell, rare skills. like for example, your running one, is pretty easy. but the mana bolt is slightly hard since mana takes too long to come back. i may put a few in there, but not much. I would maybe put at least 50 in something like fly just because it's really hard to level since i can only use it 10 seconds at a time, since it goes off of mana. so 50 into fly, and maybe save the rest for skills that would be hard or seems rare

shit like different kicks and punches i would not even bother putting points in. so easy to train

Degritone: Fair enough, but my main point is that 500+ is a lot. That's potentially 500 skill levels below an enemy you fight, not to mention any paths they went down with that PP. Saving them would be preferable since you could use them to level the very slow high-level skills you'll eventually have, but also spending them on early ones means you get a potentially easier time, like with your flight skill, and also earlier power.

It would primarily be a difference of power now + harder leveling later vs hard leveling now for a 500+ skill level boost from, like, 1500 to 2k or whatever.

Degritone: I'm just having a massive mental dilemma about the fact that I really want to save them for the high, slow to level skill levels, but also don't want to be so extremely far behind anyone I encounter.

Cibian: well that's why now that we're out of that white area, it's time to grind like crazy.

Degritone: True

Cibian: your right, the system will have to upscale enemies as if you spent those points. and then running into assholes who want to attack other people, they may have spent their points too. so you WOULD be behind on strength, so time to grind.

Degritone: Thanks, you really helped me determine what to do. A few points in Omen of War + Mana Sword + Soul Grasp to get my magic up to simultaneously get my mana up, then grind as hard as possible. I don't really need any more physical immediately, and the 28 stats really help, too. Definitely putting them all into regen for more consistent grinding rather than better burst grinding.

Cibian: awesome! =3 glad to be of help

He smiles and sighs contentedly before he opens his status and dumps 11 into Vitality, 5 into stamina regeneration vitality multiplier, 6 into mana regeneration vitality multiplier, and 6 into health regeneration vitality multiplier while saying to his parents, "Ok, guys, it's time to begin grinding. Use any stat points you have from that to increase vitality. Make sure your stamina regen and mana regen multipliers on vitality are equal to your vitality to get the maximum possible value."

He continues while making Mana Armor, Omen of War, Soul Grasp, and Mana Sword all level 50. "Actually, dad, you probably don't plan on using mana really at all. You can ignore the mana regen part of that order, and it was an order, not a suggestion. Do NOT spend any SP you have until you consult with me. We'll start with you, dad, since I know you want to get started. You want to use physical weapons, correct?"

He dons full mana armor as he talks, taking up 180 of his now 738.6 mana pool thanks to his now 54 magic. "What specific skills do you have? I highly recommend getting a mana weapon and mana armor. It's convenient and it uses a resource you don't plan on using. Both of you listen to this next part, as it'll teach you how to get a very useful skill."

He explains the process of obtaining Mana Manipulation as well as creating the Mana Armor skill and the general process of making a mana weapon skill while maxing out Greatsword Mastery I and Adapter, as well as putting his remaining 20 PP into Novice, granting him +1 strength every 20 PP in Greatsword Mastery I, +2% skill experience every 20 PP in Adapter, and 1 free stat every 5 PP in Novice.

Congratulations! You have completed the Greatsword Mastery I path!

The path was long, though along the journey, you acquired help, and quickly blazed toward the end of the path.

Great Cleave lv1

Congratulations! You have completed the Adapter path!

The path was long and tried to scare you away, but you quickly steeled your mind and sprinted forward.

He increases his vitality by 2 and health regeneration vitality multiplier and stamina regeneration multiplier by 1 each as he watches his mom grasp the concept instantly, while his dad struggles. "Imagine it's play-doh. Pull a little bit from near your brain to your forehead, then out into the world, then shape it. I almost guarantee you it can be used to make arrows and maybe even bullets, but then you'd require actually investing into mana."

He shakes his head. "Anyway, work on it. It will be very important in the near future that you can do this. I'm currently reducing my," he pauses. "My stam-" he shakes his head, "my max mana by 220 right now for this armor and sword, but it's more than worth the benefits and convenience they grant." He sees his dad struggling and sighs before turning to his mom.

"Well, while he's trying to figure it out, Bo, what did you get? We haven't had time to talk yet." She explains the skills she got, focused on spells and she even got healing and buffing spells. Degritone explains how she should distribute her stats toward vitality and mana regeneration, with one or two to stamina regeneration. While he's explaining, his dad finally succeeds.

"Alright, you two, I'm going to set up training regiments for you both, as well as myself. Dad, once you determine what weapon you most prefer," he pauses, "go attack an object or the ground as fast as you can without losing power while running as fast as you can while doing so. When your stamina runs out, wait for it to nearly get full, then continue. You have a simple job, since you won't be doing mana related things." He turns to his mom while his dad playfully groans, going outside.

"Bo, you will be alternating between casting Mana Bolt on yourself and healing yourself while running. Never let yourself drop below half health at any point. If your Mana Bolt damage becomes too high for you to safely shoot yourself, find me and shoot me. I have a ton of regen and health. Your damage won't be a problem for a long time. Now, go get to work. I need to contact someone."

She nods and says, "If you say so," before going outside. Degritone checks his friends list and sees Beltag on there. He adds Victoria just because he can, though she doesn't instantly accept, before opening Beltag's chat.

After some basic greetings, Degritone begins a barrage of questions about the system. He learns that classes are earned at villages, like in Randidly, though the class is always guaranteed to be something the person obtaining it desires. Additionally, classes are mostly stat-oriented, only giving out a single skill every 10 levels, and that skill is always a very basic skill, never something very advanced, but can be used to build your skill base, like Mana Manipulation can.

Classes give 15 stats per level, though this can be increased by path rewards. How they are distributed differs per class, but they usually give 3-7 free stats, with the rest being automatically allocated to specific stats. Additionally, they increase resources. Beltag's never heard of a class increasing regenerations, but he knows that every class gives a total of 120 toward resources per level, split up between the different resources.

Villages are created by focusing 1000 mana into a single point, creating a village core. The cost of new village cores increases by 250 for every village core that has been created on the planet. Village cores create a village spirit, which are contacted to do various things, like magically change the village, get a class, etc..

Degritone also learns that there is a skill level total cap of 1000 times your level, plus 1000. You can continue to gain experience past your current skill level maximum in skills, but the skills will not level up until you level up your class. Despite all the connected worlds with system access, no one has come to a conclusion as to why this is.

He also asks about various skills, but Beltag doesn't know very much, as they're a non-combat class. He has some combat skills for self-defense, but he primarily has skills to increase gains while gathering, similar to Degritone's Dig. Degritone specifically asks how a haste skill works, and that is one Beltag does know, explaining that, in order to create the Haste skill, you imagine the tube-like structures that stamina travels through being forced open.

Haste lv1

He immediately tells everyone on his friends list about Haste, telling his parents to incorporate it into their training when they can, before asking about the luck stats. Beltag tells him everyone has a base luck stat, which reduces likelihood that the middle ground effects will happen, while good luck increases the good outcomes, and bad luck increases the bad outcomes.

He then asks about food, water, and sleep. Every single endurance past 10 reduces your need for food, water, sleep, oxygen, and other such things by 2%, up to 100% at 60 endurance. Mentioning of stats makes Degritone think about base stats and how they're determined.

Beltag responds that they are partially genetic, but mostly earned. Everyone starts with 1 in all stats except physical and magic, which are 10, and earn the rest of their stats through an achievement system, up until their base stat total, excluding physical and magic, is 20 or they reach their race's puberty, or its equivalent, at which point, their base stats are locked.

He asks if he could get a list of skills and paths. Beltag says that he can get one, but it will be a while, as he has to take Victoria somewhere safe and then return to somewhere he can actually acquire that information. He then asks about mana type change and how to do so.

Beltag says that it's complicated and not something he cares to attempt, so he doesn't know the specifics, but it involves great understanding of the physics behind the energy being created and mana itself, but doesn't know more than that. Degritone asks about the Imagineer path and asks if the skill created to unlock it was actually created or if it was unlocked in an unintended way, specifying that he used Soul Grasp to get it.

Most skills have already been created, so they are mostly unlocked through Visualization when doing so, though some original skills are still created. You'll get a path with the name "Origin of" followed by the name of the skill when you create a unique skill, except when doing so through being granted custom skills by the system.

Degritone runs out of questions, or, at least, forgot any others he had by this point, and asks Cibian for his input. He says to ask about future hardships like the calamities of the Randidly system, the reason the system goes to new worlds, and big famous people, what skills they had, etc.. He asks Beltag those three.

He says that it's unknown, at least to the public, why the system exists and collects new worlds, but it is generally accepted that it does so either as some sort of test or to help defend that world from something they'd have no chance of dealing with otherwise. As for hardships, he says it's generally different for every world, but there are things that could be called calamities, but those who believe the test hypothesis call them tests, while those who believe the defense hypothesis call them invasions.

They're big, world changing events that kill many, and force the general population to greatly increase in strength. These tests or invasions don't happen very often, and it's not unheard of for worlds to only have a single one happen in multiple thousands of years, but there are some similarities between frequent danger worlds that people have been able to figure out.

For one, the less magic there was in the world, the more frequent the dangers come, and more powerful the normal monsters. A correlation between low magic worlds and high adaptability ratings has also been found, so the jury's still out on which one is actually causing the increased frequency. One point toward the test hypothesis is that there is one event that always happens at the same point in every world.

Exactly 24 Earth days, 13 hours, 55 minutes, and 12 seconds after a village is founded, a creature will attempt to absorb the village spirit, removing the classes from all creatures that obtained a class from that spirit, causing them immense pain and damage, almost always leading to death, before the village turns into a very high level dungeon. However, one point toward invasion is that there are no other known events that always happen.

Every other event was seemingly random, but it has been noted that worlds with stronger averages had more events happen. As for people, Beltag's not a history buff, but he knows of one specific person, Grendal Darkwood, who was an elf. They specialized in stealth and burst-damage skills. It's said that they only ever put points into strength and agility, not wasting a single point anywhere else.

People would contract him for assassinations, and they would get done, though they were expensive. It's said that at one point, someone had tasked him with assassinating one of the patrons, but they haven't been seen or heard from since, though this is likely a rumor. This makes Degritone ask about patrons.

He says that once you get your skill level to 500, you unlock the Pupil path, requiring 200 PP. Once you reach 25 PP, you need to select a patron from a list given at the time. Most worlds differ in some way and the list can differ even between people. The patron you choose affects the rest of the path, and they give you various benefits, as well as paths in the future to increase the amount of power they give you.

Degritone relays all the information he's been given to Cibian before getting up and beginning his training. He considers using a single SP on increasing a physical skill to increase both his physical stat and get another stat point from Novice, but he decides against it, instead choosing to just run while under the effect of Haste while using Omen of Famine on a nearby tree at every opportunity, and slashing at the ground with his sword.

From the outside, his family looks like they went insane. But, from the inside, they know the gains they are obtaining.