After looking at his stats, Sevs pulled up his skill list to check what was going on there.

Skills: Leadership 12, Physical Fitness 18, Persuasion 7, Engineering 6, Marketing 2, Physical Combat 4, Programming 2

Sevs mentally pumped his fist in the air; he had just picked up another level in Persuasion. He figured that must have come from the altercation that he had helped figure out at lunch. It was a skill he had trouble training as there weren't too many chances for him to use it. Or at least he wasn’t having to work hard enough that it got leveled. He hoped that high school teachers and students would make adequate training partners for him.

He was progressing rather well with his skills. Not that there was much to compare it to, as he had never had skills at this point. Sevs had successfully laid a foundation that would describe his play. So far, he had five root skills; that was probably all he would need. Though he might pick up one or two more, he wouldn’t go out of his way for them. The skills he had acquired had good enough coverage that he should be able to get any other skills he needed from their skill trees.

Three of these skills were class-based and would dictate his skill progression and play style. Leadership and Persuasion both would really help with working with people. He hoped to leverage these and form a group and do mostly strategy. Marketing was something he hadn't figured out yet, honestly. Maybe it would just support his Persuasion skill. The other root skills were just what he had planned. He had picked up a physical skill that would lead to all his combat abilities. He had decided to forgo magic. It was too heavily dependent on internal things he didn't have. Whereas he could get a force multiplier for Physical Combat to level the strength difference more easily. The last root skill was one that he would have eventually got anyways just because of his previous experience. Engineering would still be valuable, though. It let him get some of the intelligence-based skills, and due to his experience, he knew how to use those to stunning effect. It would also help him understand a lot of plans in battle. Sevs didn’t plan to go out of his way to train it actively, though.

Those root skills would allow him to get several tier II skills. Those skills would be slightly more specific. They would be more powerful, but they would also be relevant in fewer circumstances. It was a bit of a balance. He already had picked up two tier II skills. Physical Combat and Programming. These skills would make him really good at these activities, but those activities were a lot more narrow than the root skills.

Physical Combat had branched from Physical Fitness. If he fought someone without either, it wouldn’t be fair. However, if Sevs tried to fight something with a tier III skill, like Muay Thai, he would be at a disadvantage. Sevs would likely need a tier 3 skill of his own to level the playing field. Though if his tier II combat skill was at a very high level and the opponent's tier III skill was not, it could balance out. The tier III skill Sevs would learn could be another unarmed fighting style, or maybe he would pick up a weapon. It just couldn’t be magical. Ranged weapons were a gray area in deciding what was physical or not.

The combat skill made it so Sevs wouldn’t be useless in a fight. He would be limited, however. He hadn’t trained with a weapon yet, as that would depend on what kind of world he would end up in. After the training so far, Sevs was decent at unarmed fighting. He could hold his own but would be in trouble if he didn’t get back-up. His main goal was to disengage with a more combat-focused opponent. He would pick up a weapon and learn in the main world, but he would not pick it up nearly as quickly as others because of his stat penalties. His head start might compensate for some of that, but he was better off focusing on his strengths.

The other tier II skill was also not from the main focus of his class, which was Programming. It wasn’t really intentional; it was just a byproduct of how much time he had spent working with Markus. Not really sure if it came in handy. Probably not, honestly. Maybe if he got into some cyberwarfare situation in a high-tech world, he could put it to use. However, that wasn’t the direction he wanted to take this build.

Overall, Sevs was very happy with how the skills were going. He hadn’t really picked up many more skills. It was an option to focus on getting tier II skills from Leadership and Persuasion, but Sevs had decided against that. This was more of a personal choice, really.

There were three main benefits of high-level basic skills. First, your ability to perform tasks under that umbrella increased. Not as much as a higher-tier skill would, but it was a wider area. This caused the other two main effects. Second, a high-level root skill would let you learn its dependent skills much faster. Third, it allows you to accomplish more complex or demanding things, which enables learning rarer and more valuable skills.

Sevs wanted a foundation so that when he got to the main world, he would know more about the direction he wanted to take his skills. Then with the high-level root skills, the others would explode as he could perform the actions at a higher level. This would make it easier for those skills to level. Also, it would be much less work to get to any rare or valuable skills that he needed.

Some people rushed to get their tier III skills as soon as possible. That meant that they would have an advantage early. Usually, those skills they got early were lower-quality tier II skills. Those would need to level a lot before access to tier IV skills is unlocked. That leveling was much more effort if the base tier I and II skill were not very high already.

Sevs had spent so long thinking about his plans for skill growth he almost missed his stop. He lunged out of the seat right as the driver closed the doors. The driver Saw him running up the aisle and opened the door again. There was some soft chuckling, but Sevs just hurried off. He stopped to apologize to the driver, who just winked at him. “Have a good day son.”