The shifting golden runes on the cover of the myriad skills tome burst to life as soon as he accepted the prompt. The ancient leather bound tome flew into the air and hovered in place as the front cover flipped open.
The pages began to flip, slowly at first but rapidly speeding up until they were just a blur. Golden streams of light twisted and swirled around the tome. Ronan watched anxiously, unsure of what to expect.
Gradually the golden light joined together and condensed into more runes that floated above the tome. The pages slowed and eventually they stopped flickering, leaving it open.
Ronan had never encountered the golden runes before in his life, but somehow he found that he understood them. It had to be the universal language adaptation skill he'd seen in his status earlier.
Despite the book flickering through countless pages, it still looked as though it was opened right to the middle. There were moving pictures on the two pages, but he was only able to catch a glimpse of what they contained before the floating book vanished in a puff of smoke.
In its place was another message from the system which Ronan immediately read. The second line was identical to what had been written in the floating golden runes, but the further he read the deeper his frown grew.
[Myriad Skills Tome (Common)] has been consumed!
You have received the skill [Relentless Training (Common)]!
Relentless Training (Common): Mastery and Experience penalties for repeat kills on the same enemies are slightly reduced.
He scratched his temple with a finger while reading over the message a second time. Ronan could see how the skill would benefit him in the long run; he hadn't been aware of the penalties in the first place but it made sense. However, he'd wanted a skill that would help him fight immediately, not minmax his gains long term.
This skill would be useless if the next monster he fought ended up killing him. However, he couldn't change the outcome of using the tome. Ronan sighed and dismissed the message.
26…
The timer counting down to the beginning of the next tutorial stage had passed the halfway mark while he received his skill. There was one more task to complete before he was ready to face the next challenge.
Ronan had received a free stat point when he levelled up, so he had to decide how to allocate it. Saving it when he was being thrown into deathmatches with savage monsters would be foolish. He needed every edge he could get.
The first thing he did was try to prompt the system for an explanation of the stats. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be in a generous mood and he was met with a complete lack of response.
He looked over his status with a sigh. Figuring it out himself shouldn't be too difficult but it would be annoying to make guesses with his life on the line. Less than an hour ago his biggest problem had been impressing the Accumulate shareholders…
[Status]
Name: Ronan Steele
Race: Human (G)
Heritage: @#^?
Level: 1
Class: N/A
Fortune: 12 Copper Credits
[Stats]
Health: 70/70
Stamina: 100/100
Mana: 50/50
Vitality: 7
Endurance: 10
Wisdom: 5
Regeneration: 3
Resistance: 6
Strength: 6
Agility: 5
Intelligence: 8
Dexterity: 5
Acuity: 7
Tenacity: 12
Luck: 2
Charisma: 4
Available Points: 1
[Traits]
[Skills]
Unified Language Adaptation (Universal)
Relentless Training (Common)
[Mastery]
Pugilist 2/100
[Cultivation]
Mind: None
Body: None
Energy: None
Soul: None
Health, stamina, and mana were easy. They were his resources, representing his life, energy, and magic respectively.
The last one was still crazy to Ronan. He hadn't received any skills that used mana, nor did he have a clue how to start using it. However, the fact that magic was now likely to be real made him as giddy as he'd been when he read his first fantasy novel or played a video game for the first time.
After levelling up he'd been able to figure out that the three resources were tied to the stats vitality, endurance, and wisdom. When his vitality and endurance increased by 1 point, his health and stamina had gone up by 10.
Whether they had effects beyond that he couldn't know for certain, but he suspected they did. It would be pointless to separate the stats from the resources if they had no other purpose.
Regeneration was hard to figure out. It might seem simple at a glance, but he had no way of knowing whether it affected all his resources, or none of them. It might relate to regeneration of mental energy—although that was a far-fetched idea. He would need to experiment, but he doubted that putting his free point there would help him in the next fight.
Resistance was another simple yet complex stat. Resistance to what? he moaned internally. Damage? Fatigue? Boredom?
Continuing down the list the stats became easier to understand. Strength, agility, and intelligence; physical prowess, speed and reflexes, and mental processing and problem solving.
At least, that was what they should correspond to. He was still new to this system stuff. There were likely to be many unseen effects of each stat that he would discover in time.
Dexterity meant that agility was more related to speed, as it governed fine motor control and hand-eye coordination. Acuity was a word he'd encountered in the past but couldn't immediately think of the definition.
Something to do with the brain… precision or something? I can't remember… As Ronan was uncertain what it did, he crossed it off the list of potential recipients for his free stat point.
Tenacity was his highest stat at 12 points. He was damn proud of that and he was sure his grandma would agree with the system's allocation.
A low luck score could be crappy. Then again, the baseline could be 0. In which case a 2 might be a decent starting point. Ronan believed in hard work rather than luck, so he discounted it for now.
The lack of charisma was hurtful, but accurate. He'd never been a social guy and most of his relationships—if they could even be called that—hadn't lasted longer than a couple of months. He'd once told the cashier at his local pizza joint to enjoy their meal after paying. And that was before the kid had even had a chance to say it to him first…
As Ronan saw it, he had three real options. Vitality, strength, or agility. Increasing his total health points would let him last longer against whatever opponent he faced—assuming the next stage of the tutorial was another monster fight. It could end up being a puzzle and then he'd wished he put the point into intelligence…
Ronan hated puzzles. The traditional kind, anyway. The idea of them was intriguing but the reality was sitting around for hours searching for the right piece. There wasn't much problem solving involved.
Strength and agility would improve his combat prowess. He'd still be just as easy to kill but he'd hopefully be able to tear it apart before that happened.
He leaned towards agility. His lack of speed had held him back against the lesser goblin. However, he couldn't know if he'd face another goblin or a completely different kind of monster.
Ronan decided to go with agility anyway. He felt plenty strong, but being able to dodge blows and land more of his own seemed a smart decision.
Having assessed the various stats, he felt like the next stat point he had to allocate shouldn't take as long. He'd focus on hitting harder and faster. A simple strategy, but one that would take him far. Hopefully.
His agility ticked up to 6 as his free point vanished and he felt all the muscles in his body tingle briefly. Ronan swore he was slightly leaner than he'd been a second ago, but maybe it was just his mind playing tricks.
2…
The countdown to the next stage of the tutorial had almost finished. He'd made his decision right on time.
1…
On the plus side, if he did come up against another goblin he would make fantastic gains when he killed it, thanks to his new skill. If he killed it.
0…
Good luck, challenger!
Ronan's vision blurred as the countdown ended and he experienced the same sensation of weightlessness as he was yanked into space. This time he didn't close his eyes, but somehow he was unable to perceive anything around him.
Without warning he was flung into the air, falling at high speed towards a wet, muddy field. He managed to right himself and land on his feet, bending his legs to absorb the impact of the fall.
He was shaken, but otherwise unhurt. Unlike the previous stage of the tutorial, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud to be seen in the bright blue sky. Unfortunately, he wasn't alone.
Swivelling his gaze across the seemingly endless mud, he cursed the system for throwing him into this crap. There were two enemies this time, their names and level displayed above their head as a reminder of how screwed he was.
[Lesser Goblin Warrior Lv.4]
[Lesser Goblin Archer Lv.5]
As a precaution, Ronan turned around and looked over his shoulder to ensure there weren't any goblins ready to pincer him. There were no goblins, making him sigh in relief.
That was when he saw something far worse.
[Human Lv.1]