Froufrou was ready to level up, but was she rightly prepared to do so emotionally? She considered this deep within her squelchy self. Surely, it meant that Kahli couldn't be far behind her from a good old leveling session. Right?
And of course, it would surely hurt Kahli's feelings if Froufrou leveled up without her. Sure, sure, there was the whole bit where Kahli loved to level up in a balanced way, whereas Froufrou thought the only true way to level up a system was by minmaxxing it as much as possible. If they leveled up together, this of course could come into play as she would no doubt get shoehorned into balancing out some of her stats. Or, even worse - Kahli would give her another [skill] instead of leveling up one of her existing [skills] next time she had a slot available. Sure, it was nice to have, say, [Tendrils of Fury], but who was Kahli to say that leveling up Froufrou's current [skills] wouldn't have had a similar effect? And sure, Kahli had more [INT] than that vile alternative Kahli, but she had almost decided to choose [Levitation] for Froufrou's [skill], and had only at the last second remembered that Froufrou had access to her [Rock Summon] [skill] which afforded a greatly similar function. Froufrou didn't necessarily want to allow Kahli the opportunity to make such a grave mistake, although at the same time she was wholly uncertain so as to whether or not she'd get a [skill] slot or not this next time, and knew that regardless she would, at some point, have to level up with Kahli.
Then again, would Kahli be ready to level up? Sure, it had been a bit, but in reality much time hadn't passed since they first got their [class] of [Time Manipulator]. Of course, seeing as they were [Time Manipulators], there was the local time versus global time to consider. However, much more local time had passed from Froufrou's perspective than from Kahli's. After all, Froufrou had been in a nested [checkpoint], whereas Kahli? She'd been in one [checkpoint]. And, to be real, had Kahli done a whole lot within the [checkpoint] she'd been in? No, of course not - other than getting bossed around by alternative Froufrou for what felt to Froufrou like about half a century. That couldn't have leveled Kahli up a whole lot - that is to say, it couldn't have given her a bunch of [XP]. Whereas Froufrou had totally carried that [checkpoint] and indeed had expended so much energy and effort that she was surely brimming with [XP].
Right?
Froufrou couldn't remember the last time she'd checked her [XP]. It generally wasn't something her system, or indeed many systems focused on all that much. Some systems indeed hid access to [XP] altogether, although that generally only happened with extremely low [INT] builds. Almost like alternative Froufrou's build, Froufrou thought with a bit of a squelch.
And so it was that Froufrou checked her [XP], figuring it might allow her to glean whether or not she ought to wait to level up until Kahli and her were both on equal footings in time, as it were.
[XP]
[69420/35000]
Ok, this helped an awful lot. So it looked like Froufrou was exceedingly close to leveling up yet again. That meant that Froufrou could safely level up now, by herself, and then not long after would indeed also have enough [XP] to level up with Kahli in such time that her [paired] companion was indeed ready and willing to level up. And maybe that would be the best way. Froufrou would just have to submit to the fates on whether or not she was getting a [skill] slot, not even her system with all her [INT] had a visual into that information.
[Level up]
[Congratulations, you've reached level 10]
Level 10! What a great milestone for Froufrou. She'd spent so much time being a level -1 that being not only in the positives, but being in the positive level with a double digit felt like a major accomplishment to her. She was, truly, moving up in the world. Not to mention, of course, her super rare [class]!
[You have 1 skill slot available, would you like to select a skill?]
Froufrou squelched with glee. Of course she wanted to select a [skill]! This meant that, almost assuredly, Kahli wouldn't get the chance to fiddle with her build strategy.
Now, one thing about Froufrou that was fairly of note is that, due to her high [INT], she was able to manipulate her level up screening a little more than Kahli had present access to. That is to say, while Kahli often only saw the opportunity to increase one of her [skills] - which she generally ignored anyway - Froufrou reprioritized seeing new [skills] in favor of only seeing her present [skills] available for increase.
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[Please select a skill]
[Tendrils of Fury (increase)]
[Wretched Reflex (increase)]
[Putrefy (increase)]
With that, Froufrou decided to check on each [skill] to determine which one would be the most ideal for her to increase.
[Tendrils of Fury (increase)]
[Increasing this skill will allow for enhanced tendril hardness and damage potential. That is to say, your tendrils will almost be unbreakable, and they will be resistant to all elemental attacks. Along with this, there are higher chances to land critical hits when using your tendrils as a weapon, and there is even a chance that just seeing the wicked power your tendrils are capable of will inspire fear in your enemies and opponents and indeed weaken them to your abilities.]
Wow, that was a pretty good increase. That being said, Froufrou had more to consider before she just leapt forth and chose the first option.
[Wretched Reflex (increase)]
[Increasing this skill allows for your reaction speed to triple what it already was - in other words, good luck to anything other than the fastest or strongest of foes landing a hit on you. Along with that, due to your applicable status as a Time Manipulator, increasing this skill will allow it to tap into your time based attributes and actually slow down your experience of time while you are fighting in order to improve your striking accuracy and evasive actions.]
That, too, was quite a good increase. Froufrou felt a little frustrated with Kahli in this moment. Why had she almost always refused to increase her existing [skills]? Increasing [skills] allowed for so much more power than collecting a ton of weaker [skills]. Why, either of these [skills] sounded a little overpowered to Froufrou, and she was barely a level 10!
Still, Kahli's system, while in existence due to [pairing] with Froufrou, was still her system and indeed her responsibility to configure as she saw fit. It just left Froufrou feeling a little frustrated, like opportunities were being missed. Then again, Kahli did use all of her many [skills] an awful lot - and she had at least seen fit to increase her arguably most powerful and indeed important [skill], [Seismic Sense]. So, there was a bit of a silver lining there, Froufrou supposed.
Froufrou shook herself. She couldn't lose focus, she still needed to check on her last - and indeed favorite - [skill] in order to see how increasing it might improve its abilities.
[Putrefy (increase)]
[Increasing putrefy will do a number of things to a skill that is already well increased. Firstly, it will allow you the ability to not only release large, slow moving blobs of putrification as it already does, but also produce a powerful 'putrification ray' that will immediately hit enemies and encumber them with the worst effects of putrification. Along with that, this putrification ray can chain together for up to five different enemies at once. Use your putrification ray in tandem with a large putrid blob in order send a huge barrage of putrification orbs at large clusters of enemies. Also, putrefy now fully poisons them.]
Froufrou squelched with excitement and anticipation. There was no way she could miss out on that. She had made up her mind the second her system mentioned a putrification ray - the rest of the effects of the increase on her [skill] were but icing on the cake.
[Skill selected]
[Putrefy (increase)]
Froufrou had finished leveling up, and indeed she felt more than satisfied - she was excited to go forth and [Putrefy] some baddies, as surely she would find herself in the situation to sooner rather than later. After all, Kahli seemed to be a bit of a magnet for trouble.
"Ohh, leveling up, are we?" said the young Supreme Time Protector in their off-white robes. "And without your [paired] companion?"
Froufrou squelched with embarrassment.
"I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. I get it. If I was [paired] to somebody and always had to level with them, I'd probably revel in the chance to do it on my own every once in a while, too."
Froufrou started to feel like maybe she'd been a bit of a jerk to Kahli. She'd been kind of ragging on her in her thoughts - not that anyone knew excepting herself, of course, but still. Froufrou did really like Kahli, after all. She figured she probably would have to like Kahli. Right? Froufrou was doubtful that they would've ended up [pairing] if she'd disliked the silly, strong-willed tauman.
"Wow, Froufrou, you look like you really took that seriously. Look, I won't tell if you won't tell, okay? It's no big deal. Everybody levels up on their own from time to time. Well, almost everybody. From looking at those scenarios of yours, it doesn't seem like that Omar guy has leveled up at all in a long, long time. Well, relatively. A long time for a tauman that can't manipulate time, that is. Manipulating time kind of skews everything."
Froufrou squelched. She was ready to pick her scenario and get out of the void, that much was clear even to the young Supreme Time Protector, who was barely versed in interpreting the emotions behind her various stinky squelchings.
"Well, best of luck, Froufrou. This was, uh, fun."
Froufrou squelched that she knew it hadn't been fun, not that the Supreme Time Protector understood. Then, she looked down at her tendrils and beheld her twisted scenario, and indeed the twisted scenario nested within it. She was ready, finally, to find out what the dragon had to say.