After a breakfast of jerky and water from his Inventory, Lor made his way back through the chambers to the room the spider was apparently in. On the way, all of the Tier 1 monsters had reformed, along with the crab. Acquiring a snack of crab legs, he moved on through the slider’s cavern and approached the spider’s chamber.

Carefully peaking inside, he still could not see the spider, so he carefully entered the room. Suddenly he sensed something thin and sharp rapidly approaching the back of his neck. Activating Blink, he instantly moved into the center of the chamber. Looking back, he still couldn’t see the spider, even though he knew where it was. Deciding the rely on his skills, he closed his eyes and focused on Spacial Awareness. Even with his eyes closed he knew the exact location and shape of everything within seven feet of himself. Crouching slightly, he readied himself for the next attack.

The moment it came, he sensed a long thin object enter his field of perception from behind, moving incredibly fast. Activating Blink, he teleported in the direction the attack came from, instantly arriving at the origin. Suddenly within his view he found a large spider. The body itself wasn’t too big, only the size of a large cat or small dog, but the legs were easily eight feet long and ended in sharp points that it had been using to attack him.

As soon as he found the spider, he lashed out with the knife, only to have it struck from his hand. In a panic, he lashed out with his foot, activating Discharge as it collided. The kick caused the spider to appear to explode, while at the same time, one of the legs pierced through his chest, just above his heart.

At first, he didn’t register the pain of the injury. Vaguely, he realized that he was in shock, and started moving as fast as he could back to his room. Staggering into the next chamber, his vision beginning to fade, he remembered the Vial of Recovery he had sitting in his Inventory. As he summoned it into his hand, his fingers felt stiff and the vial slipped from them, dropping towards the floor. In a panic, he made a feeble grasp in the air and felt a sudden drain on his stored kinetic energy. The vial stopped falling, and instead began floating back towards him. In his mentally foggy state, Lor didn’t really think of how this was happening, instead he opened his mouth and willed the vial to open and pour. The thick liquid slurped out of the vial into his mouth and he swallowed.

Suddenly his mind was clear. Dropping the vial, which he realized he had grabbed with Telekinesis, Lor began moving towards his home as fast as he could, Blinking to simply bypass all of the low Tier creatures. Something he did not notice in the moment, but would realize later, was the creatures did not leave their rooms, even though they could. The vial, Lor quickly realized, did not heal him at all, but functioned more like adrenaline allowing him to function through blood loss and what should be debilitating pain.

Entering his home, Lor dropped to his knees at the edge of the water and began drinking as fast as he could. He managed to get only a half dozen gulps before the melting sensation in his stomach began, causing him to begin rolling on the ground, the pain overwhelming the effects of the vial. Through the pain he did feel some relief, as he noticed that his wound seemed to be closing, albeit slowly. As the burning started to die down, he gulped down some more water, summarily passing out from the pain.

Awakening to pain, Lor repeated the process of drinking the water then passing out. He repeated this an unknown amount of times, the repetitions blending together in a haze of pain. Eventually he awoke without the feeling of missing a piece of his chest, and slowly sat up.

He carefully patted himself down, finding no problems with his body anywhere. Closing his eyes, he focused inward, using the energy from the creatures he had defeated to increase his Mind stat, hoping that gaining a new skill in it would help him at least make progress towards leaving. It wasn't long before an intoxicating feeling of knowing he was smarter than anything else flooded over him before quickly fading.

Mind: Space has reached Tier 1 Rank 0

Mind: Space has increased in Tier. New Skill gained

Scry (Active) (Tier 0 Rank 1): You are able to view a location remotely. You must have at least some knowledge of the target beforehand, or have something from the target. Range and accuracy increase with Rank. Cost: Low energy.

"Maybe I can use this to get a better look at that bear? I wonder what the range is at least." Lor muttered to himself before looking back over the messages he had gotten in the fight and healing delirium shortly after.

Spacial Awareness has reached Tier 0 Rank 8

Spacial Awareness has reached Tier 0 Rank 9

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Time Stop has reached Tier 0 Rank 5

Blink has reached Tier 0 Rank 9

Telekinesis has reached Tier 0 Rank 2

Dimensional Body has reached Tier 1 Rank 0

…

Dimensional Body has reached Tier 2 Rank 1

Discharge has reached Tier 1 Rank 0

Absorb has reached Tier 1 Rank 0

Looped Energy has reached Tier 0 Rank 8

Looped Energy has reached Tier 0 Rank 9

Looped Energy has reached Tier 1 Rank 0

"Holy shit Dimensional Body ranked up. Just how high tier is that water?" Lor exclaimed, slowly standing up and stretching. "That spider was way more difficult than that snake. Also, I now have an answer for the question of can Skills be raised higher than their stats. This means that I can practice and raise my skills until I can take on that bear. I wonder if there is diminishing returns for fighting something weaker than yourself or can I farm the weaker creatures for energy. Something else to look into."

Finished with his musings and feeling well rested, Lor decided to practice his skills as much as he could. He also decided to store some of the strange water in his Inventory for emergencies. He was pleased to see that it remained separate from the regular water he still had.

Before beginning his training marathon, Lor decided to try and make a cooked meal with the pot, crystal, and jerky he had. Taking out the pot, he carefully placed it on top of the crystal, and proceeded to fill it with water and jerky pieces. Concentrating, he willed the crystal to heat up and soon the water was bubbling. It was only at this point that he realized he had nothing to eat it with. After waiting for it to cool down to edible temperatures, he formed a Dimensional Shield in the form of a bowl, and carefully poured some of the weak soup into it. Concentrating, he maneuvered the makeshift bowl to his mouth and drank. It tasted awful but he still made sure to consume it all before packing up his pot and crystal.

Something he had realized while he was eating, was that he had left his knife in the spider's room. Steeling himself, he made his way back there. Without his knife, he opted to simply dodge and avoid the Tier 1 creatures and sneak around the reformed slider. Arriving at the entrance, he quickly spotted his knife lying on the ground where it had been knocked by the spider. Examining the room carefully, he crept forward, Spacial Awareness stretching over as much of the room as he could manage. As soon as the knife was in range of Telekinesis, he pulled it to his hand and Blinked out of the room.

Returning to his room, dispatching all of the monsters on the way, Lor contemplated his future course of action. Without a doubt he needed to get stronger, and the best way he could see to do that would be to practice his Skills as much as possible before attempting to make it past the bear. Satisfied with his decision, he began practicing.

~~~~~

After finishing their training for the day, Elise and Almer retired to their tent to concentrate the energy they had gained that day. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, Elise focused inward, pushing the energy she had gained towards her Mind stat. After a few minutes, the amount of energy she had collected ran dry and she stretched before climbing off the bed. Walking over to her dresser, she reached out her hand towards the blue crystal in an ornate golden stand and concentrated, closing her eyes.

As she focused on the crystal, she could suddenly feel some information in her mind, allowing her to know how much she had progressed in the week they had been there.

Name: Elise Sorenta

Tier: 3

Rank: 4

Power: Storm (T3 R5)

Body: Wind (T3 R0)

Mind: Stone (T3 R1)

Energy: Fire (T3 R5)

Elise was quite pleased to see where she was at. She had managed to get all of her stats into Tier 3, making her a true Tier 3 in the eyes of her father, unlike some people who only focused on three of their stats to rapidly increase their overall Tier and Rank. Something people had discovered very quickly was that all identification devices only counted the average of your three highest Stats when determining your Tier and Rank. This meant that unless you had some Skill for identifying weaknesses, you had no way to know if the person you were examining had a lagging stat or not.

She was also quite happy to see that her overall Tier and Rank was 3 and 4, almost guaranteeing her a place in the Arcanin Magesterium should she not terribly fail any of the starting exams. Satisfied with her results, Elise left her room and went to check on Almer.

She found him sitting on the couch, concentrating on a smaller identification crystal. As soon as he saw her, His face split into a wide grin. "So, how are you looking? Did you get to Tier 3?" She asked, already guessing the answer.

"You bet I did!" Almer exclaimed, "True Tier 3, actually. All of my Stats are Tier 3 Rank 0. Last one was Mind. I didn't have enough energy by a small margin, but I just gathered for a few minutes and managed to get enough. The energy in this area is pretty dense."

"That’s good to hear. Now we just need you to reach Rank 4 in your primaries and we'll be set for the exam." Elise replied with a smile. "I did receive a letter from my father today. It contained the usual 'hope you are well' stuff as well as some good and bad news about the exams."

"Lets hear the good news first. I'm still hoping for no spiders."

"Well, in that case you are in luck. No spider extermination is scheduled at this point. A high Tier went through the forest on a drunken walk and eliminated almost all of them."

"Yes!" Almer exclaimed pumping his fist. "Fuck you spiders!"

"The bad news is instead of spider extermination they are having a team Dungeon dive. Teams need three people at a minimum. Coupled with that, apparently Selma has gone out of her way to paint us as incompetent, meaning no one else will want to team with us."

At this news Almer's face fell and he slumped back onto the couch. "We need to find someone as soon as we are done here then. Preferably a rogue or a healer. We will most likely end up with a rogue and will need to pay them a large sum to join. Fucking hell this isn't looking good."

Flopping into the chair across from him, Elise sighed, "Let's forget about that for now. Just focus on getting to the right Rank, we can worry about our team member later. Let's get some sleep, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Make sure to show me your new ability at some point."

After locking the front of the tent and saying goodnight, Almer and Elise drifted into an exhausted sleep.

~~~~~

Name: Lor Telmrin

Tier: 1

Rank: 0

Stats:

Power: Kinetic (T1 R0)

Body: Dimension (T1 R0)

Mind: Space (T1 R0)

Energy: Time (T0 R1)

Skills:

Active

Discharge (P) (T1 R0)

Telekinesis(P) (T0 R2)

Inventory (B) (T0 R5)

Dimensional Shield (B) (T0 R3)

Blink (M) (T0 R9)

Scry (M) (T0 R1)

Time Stop (E) (T0 R5)

Passive

Absorb (P) (T1 R0)

Dimensional Body (B) (T2 R1)

Spacial Awareness (M) (T0 R9)

Looped Energy (E) (T0 R8)

Artifacts:

Eye of the Traveler (Bound)