After Degritone finished telling the story, his Patron sat thinking for a while. "Well, you definitely pass the test," she said. "We now have a couple options going forward. My per-follower power allotment got reset with you, so I can either give it to you now or save it until some future time. It's rarely done, and even more rarely offered, but we Patrons have the option to not grant power to an individual to have an increase in overall power we're allowed to give to them.

"Similar to a savings account, whatever goes unused gets some interest over time, but we also get a relatively small amount each time you come to us that we normally give out in full. The 'interest rate' is 0.035% per day. Given the 23 days you'll have, that would be an increase of only about 0.8% before the village monster attacks, but can add up in the long run. The power allotment does not, however, take non-granted power, such as training, into account.

"So you could stay here for a bit and-"

"Yes," Degritone said immediately.

"What?"

"I'll stay and train for a bit, or at least- at least- at least- at- atatatata- HOLY MOUTH!" Degritone exclaimed. Before he continued, he took one long, deep breath, then exhaled it and angrily looked off into the distance fore a few seconds. "At least stay long enough to get some pointers on how to train a little more effectively before going back to the dungeon for some time compression. Now that I have to relearn the system from about 50% knowledge - well, of my old knowledge - I'd really like some pointers." Plus, you're really cute, he thought in addendum.

"What about granted power? Now, before the fight, or some time in the far future?" She asked.

He waved a hand in front of his face once, actively scowling, before saying, "Later. Once I get the power to hunt level 7s again, I'll- I'll- I- Eyeyeyeyeyey- WORDS!" Deep breath, exhale, angry stare. "I'll get back to 15 in no time and clear the dungeon. Should be easy enough. Maxing skills again will take a bit more than before, but oh well."

"So, what do you want to do, in terms of combat?"

"Regen. I want to be able to out heal literally anything that doesn't instantly kill me, or be outright immortal, though I don't care whether or not that means immune to damage or not, just incapable of death. Other than that, in no particular order, reflect damage, being super fast, swinging a big sword, and maybe remake the Requiem of the Gravedigger Skill Set, since I enjoyed old Yorick so much, but I don't particularly care about being a summoner, I just like that specific Skill Set."

"Requiem of the Gravedigger?"

"A 5-Skill Skill Set. Unholy Covenant, giving an additively stacking 5% damage reduction for every unique summon active; Omen of War, which enhanced the next attack made to deal bonus damage and summon a blue Ghoul, which gave me an Agility boost while it was alive; Omen of Pestilence, which did damage in an AoE and summoned a green Ghoul that reduced the Agility of people around it; Omen of Famine, which was a targeted ability that dealt single-target damage, healed for a percent of the damage dealt, and summoned a red Ghoul that healed me every time it dealt damage; and Omen of Death, which created a clone of a target that is slightly weaker than the target. If that target died while the clone was alive and the clone was nearby, the target would move to the clone."

"Sounds difficult to make."

"Definitely would have been without the free Skill creation we got at the end of the intro dungeon, which it didn't refund."

"How were the ghouls made?"

"Mana soul, which would automatically create a body around itself."

"Sounds like we should start with Mana Manipulation, then," the Patron said before standing up. "Should be pretty simple, since you already had it before. I guess you falling on your butt was you not remembering you couldn't just make a mana chair. I'm going to assume the process wasn't much different than it is now; but, before that, you should spend your free stats. How many did you get as compensation?"

"34. I was planning on putting them in Vitality and- Vitality and Health regeneration. I'll need to do some math to find the optimal... distribution, but," he waved a hand in front of his face, "if I need Mana regen, I'll do that."

"What are your current stats in those two; also, did you get any PP from the ordeal?"

"13 V, 5 BHR, and 20 PP."

After looking at her status and thinking for a second, she replied, "37 Vitality and 15 Bonus Health regeneration would be optimal for starting Physical, but 39 and 13 would be optimal for when you max out your Skill Levels. Go ahead and get the Offense and Defense Paths."

"You do mental math fast," Degritone said before allocating his stats and getting the 10 PP Paths, going for the more long-term optimization of 39 and 13. For the Defense Path, he got 1 Endurance on odd PP and 1 Vitality on even PP and for the Offense Path, he got 1 Strength an all but the 4th and 8th PP, where he got 1 Agility.

Congratulations! You have completed the Defense Path!

Block lv1

0.5% total Health

10 flat Health

3 flat Health regeneration

Congratulations! You have completed the Offense Path!

Empower lv1

10 flat Stamina

40 flat Mana

2 Strength

1 Agility

"Percent total health!?" Degritone exclaimed.

"Yep. It's the only Path that costs less than 1000 PP to have percent total of any resource, including regenerations. Though that only holds true if we exclude Skills. Regeneration Gland, a Skill from a tier 4 Path, is percent regeneration and only costs 200 PP. Next up, let's get you Mana Manipulation. How did you get it originally?"

"I think I felt where my mana pool was in my body and imagined moving the mana from there."

"Do you know what the concept of a fourth dimension is?"

"Yes. A Skill I made, Flash, required I imagine a fourth dimension, though it wasn't directly a fourth dimension. It worked a little wonky. Anyway, yes."

"Ok, then simply imagine pulling Mana with a non-zero fourth dimensional value toward the fourth dimensional axis. This isn't an entirely accurate representation of what you're doing, but a good enough abstraction to probably work."

He does so and gets the Skill instantly. Subconsciously, he begins making his sword and armor. "Good," his Patron said. "The final thing we need to get you, though it won't be as immediately required as other Skills, is a perception Skill. Things quickly get too fast for your brain to reasonably react to unassisted. You'll need a perception Skill to increase your reaction time."

"Perception? Misnomer?"

"Yes, but established terminology is hard to change. Anyway, this is probably the most tricky type of Skill to obtain, at least initially, as even once you know the 'trick,' so to speak, of how to learn it, it usually takes 3 to 4 hours of doing nothing but attempting to obtain; though, some people find Mana conversions harder. If you get a levelable one, it'll also eat into your Skill Level total, but be more powerful; this may be able to wait until our next meeting, however, because a village monster will still be reactable.

"This isn't a decision to be made lightly, either, since the number of perception Skills that can coexist within a single person without major side effects can be counted on one hand, and the number of those that I know how to obtain is zero. The three people who have made them keep even their names secret."

Degritone thinks for a long while. So long that he begins repeating himself in his head, so he began pacing and talking aloud, though in a mumble, rather than purely coherent, "Let me talk myself through this. So, either I take the more powerful option and risk my soul strength being low or I don't take one at all. If I don't take one at all," the village monster may be too fast and it'll be hard to react to, "though she said it will be reactable, so it isn't as if I'll be at an 'unbridgeable' gap.

"The benefit of taking one now is that it'll be higher level than if I take it in the future and I'll have more PP, which means I get to Regeneration Gland sooner. The downside is risky Skill Level total. If I have a weak soul, that means I get a massive experience drop. If not, then whatever. If I could get my soul strength measured, I'd be able to make this an easy decision.

"But right now, I need all the Skill Levels in damage and defense that I can get. Though, those Skill Levels are meaningless if I can't react to what people are doing. A cactus Skill or seven would actually entirely negate the need for a perception Skill, but it would be required if I wanted to go fast, which I kinda do, but can give up for a more optimized cactus swordsman. But, if I want to include 'swordsman' in that, I'll need the Skill.

"That doesn't mean I need it now, however, so..." He stopped and rocked his head back and forth with his eyes closed for a few seconds before turning toward his Patron and declaring, "I'll wait. Probably next time, though."

She nods. "How long do you want to stay here?"

"Forever, but I know I can't. I have things I need to do back home, and a dream that may have even become an achievable goal with the introduction of the system. I'll stay until I max my Skill Levels, then go back and get a Class before going back to the dungeon. Even if it's only five times speed now," he never finishes that, ending that sentence for no discernible reason, despite ending like he was going to say more.

"Anything you need while you're here?"

"Nothing I require, no, but I'd like to do many things."

"What do you want, then?"

Perceiving that as an order to speak, Degritone's heart sank a little and his throat felt sticky as he began, "Pat your head, hug you, pick you up and spin you around, play with and/or comb your hair, watch you do whatever it is you do while no one's here, play games together," then he got a little quiet and his eyes began moving even more than they normally do when he talks, "squeeze your butt, have sex, make yo-"

"Stop, I get it," She says, looking away. After a few seconds of neither of them doing anything, she says, "You are allowed to pat my head."

Degritone's chest expands as his face goes from his angry looking neutral to his neutral looking happy. He looked toward her just in time for her to sit in his lap, where his mind stopped entirely for multiple seconds.

"Well?" She asked. That brought Degritone back to reality and he hugged her tight with an obvious smile. Well, tight for his piddly 16 Strength. He then pat her head and played with her hair for multiple minutes while he made various shapes with Mana Manipulation, quickly running out of mana.

After Degritone got enough Mana back, he partially coated his right hand with Mana, creating a guard around the meat of his palm and his ring finger while making a finger sleeve on his middle finger that left the tip open and had a spike off the end, aimed at his own palm. Afterward, he began using Empower combined with snapping to grind all four of his current combat-related Skills at once, still playing with his Patron's hair with the other.

After figuring out how often to snap to get Empower's maximum experience per second, his snapping was metronomic, constantly keeping near the maximum experience per second. Once his Stamina reached zero, he would snap slightly faster to increase the speed with which Mana Weapon gained experience, since it had a harder time gaining experience due to dealing less damage than Empower, with Empowers weaved in when he had enough Stamina.

Sadly for Degritone, he reaches 75 in only 14 minutes 5 seconds. He dismisses his mana equipment and looks over his new stats, Skills, and Paths.