I was breathing hard from the floor of the cavern where we had our little spar. For the first time ever [Judge Threat] had given me no indication of anything. Before I spent my free stat points it used to give me a sure death feeling when used on Hatchet but now it returned absolutely nothing. This was something that I was going to ask him about once I caught my breath.

Looking at my stat values I noticed that the ten minute fight at the end really took a lot out of me. My mana was sitting at 200/1690 and my stamina even lower at 30/1360. My health was very high in comparison at 750/1730. This clearly showed me that depending on the situation sometimes it was worth taking the hit instead of spreading the resources to dodge it.

I ran through the fight in my mind again. Thinking of how it started with a medium drain on my mana constantly running throughout using [Mana Syphon] to upgrade my physical stats. That alone counted for about 900 of the mana I had drained during the entire fight. The rest was split between my [Mana Augmentation] and [Mana Conjuration] with the former using close to 400 and the latter 200.

During the fight a few things were made painfully obvious to me by fighting a high level scout. First and foremost was how useless a lot of the elements I had access to were offensively against a high level scout. True, fire magma and ice could work decently defensively but someone on his level could easily outlast me if I decided to go that route.

What was effective was the combination of earth and water. The mud was clearly a problem for him to get through. Sadly it also posed the same challenges for me any time I entered the fray. Lightning on the other hand was both fast enough to make contact, damaging and even had the added benefit of limiting his speed and movement. This was definitely something that I would be looking to lean into in a speed match up. I would just have to make sure it doesn’t become a crutch that something immune to lightning would use to beat me.

With my stats evenly spread as they were, I found that I actually overpowered Hatchet quite a bit with the power boost from [Mana Syphon]. Considering that he was quite a bit faster than me this led me to believe that I had about the same total when considering only Strength Endurance and Dexterity. While it would take a bit more experimenting, I think I would stand a better chance against him if I was to increase the amount of mana I fed into [Mana Syphon].

The only downside being that I wouldn’t even be able to keep that up for ten minutes. If he caught on and just fought defensively he could most likely outlast me. He was also very likely going to be a lot more careful of my lightning in any other spar we were going to have.

“I have a question.” I rasped out after a few minutes of laying on the floor waiting for my stamina and mana to regenerate. “Why does my [Judge Threat] not give me any idea about you anymore?”

“That's because of my [Privacy] skill.” he answered.

“But it used to be responsive to you before I spent my stats.” I argued.

“Yes but all it told you then was that I could kill you anytime I want with little to no effort.” he said.” Now that the answer is a bit more ambiguous it falls within the bounds of my [Privacy] skill. As you level up [Judge Threat] to close the gap you will start to receive some information. Though most of it will be ambiguous at the start.”

“Is the [Privacy] skill something a lot of higher level people have?” he asked, thinking back to the time the commander picked up on him using a skill on him.

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“That’s a tough question. Most people above level fifty have it. A bit earlier if they are a spy or any type of stealth and infiltration specialist. The most useful part of it is being able to pick up on anybody using any sort of inspect skill on you. It will also always let you know if it succeeded or failed in blocking it.” he said as he stretched and finally had a full range of movement again.

Thinking about it, this was something he should most definitely look into getting. Sadly he was a long way off level fifty. Even if he didn’t have any penalty against fighting creatures at level twenty-five or thirty, they would still be quite a bit weaker than him and he wouldn’t have the increased experience from difficulty and danger he has had so far.

With a helping hand from Hatchet he finally picked himself up from the cavern floor and together they headed back out to the village. There he headed straight home to find that his father was still out back working in the smithy and his mother was also not at home. He paid it little mind and quickly grabbed a quick bite before all but falling into bed to rest and recover his spent resources.

The following week followed a much different schedule. He would spar with Hatchet twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening after they both had time to replenish the spent stamina and in his case mana. They forewent any hunting at this time as they knew it was of little consequence and he would be leaving shortly.

During the entire week the only time he ever got so close to winning as he did in that first match was when he forewent any caution and frontloaded his mana into [Mana Syphon] eating though his entire man pool in just about three minutes. During the entire time he pushed Hatchet hard defensively and had managed to get a good number of hits in. Sadly none of them were decisive enough and after he had spent all of his mana and a good portion of his stamina to keep up the aggression he simply collapsed.

The power of [Mana Syphon] was clearly a double edged sword so long as he was up against someone that didn’t use spells themselves. He also hesitated to try and directly use it on other people, or even creatures and had only used it on spells and used by the kobolds and his own mana. The fear of being identified as a vampire was still something that he hadn’t gotten past just yet.

The day before his official fifteenth birthday, as he knew from the Hoarder Achievement that even the System considered his birthday to be two weeks prior, the merchant caravan rolled into town with an apology message from his sister and Alana about not being able to make it back for the celebration. It also carried a gift from each of them as well as one from Kate and Tom.

The gifts consisted of a healing scroll created by Kate herself as she had made some decent strides in healing magic in the past five years. It wasn’t something that would heal any wound, but it could definitely turn a lethal one into something more manageable. His sister had sent him a detailed map containing a lot of information about the various known dungeons and adventuring spots in the kingdom, something that would prove very useful in the future.

The last gift came from Alana. He received a set of rather expensive clothes. Something he hadn’t owned before. It was a set of clothes that one would wear if they ever went to an event hosted by nobles. His relationship with Alana had progressed very strangely over the past few years. Their mutual interest in each other seemed to be genuine but it wasn’t more than physical.

The next time she and his sister had come back into town, she had gotten rather drunk and they had ended up sleeping together. This became a common occurrence thereafter with them trying at a relationship but quickly figuring out that they worked better as friends and continuing a friends with benefits relationship every time she returned to the village, much to the displeasure of Jonny who had somehow figured out what had happened.

As he woke up on the morning of his birthday he found himself with two more notifications. This was definitely odd since he had asked Hatchet if there was anything else that he should be on the lookout for about the end of his Apprentice Trait, so as to not miss out on any benefits. He quickly opened them and was pleasantly surprised by what he found.

Achievement : Physically Gifted

End Apprentice trait with more than 500 points in Physical stats.

Reward : [Berserker].

Achievement : Archmage hopeful

End Apprentice trait with more than 600 points in Mental stats.

Reward : [Mana Skin].

Looking at the two odd new skills he gained and their odd presentation in their message he slowly went from ecstatic to annoyed. His [Berserker] skill was an Uncommon skill whereas [Mana Skin] was a Rare skill. This led him to the conclusion that every 100 points would have pushed his reward up a tier. Had he spent all his points on his magical stats he would now be the proud owner of a Mythic skill.