“–and then I realized the exit might be behind the entrance… which it was,” I finished explaining from my perch on one of the random benches all over the place.

GeorgeDoshington: lmao

GeorgeDoshington: you got owned

I scowled.

“Why am I even retelling you everything? Can’t you just go and watch the stream history yourself? Hmph…” I sniffed and lay down on the bench with a sigh.

Truth be told, I was still shaken about what had happened in there, but retelling it like a campfire story helped to make it feel less severe. I’ve had a few close calls already and I had intellectually known that this wasn’t a game and I could die at any moment… but now it was finally sinking in.

And the idea of dying was terrifying.

GeorgeDoshington: but im lazy

I quickly shooed those thoughts away as I rolled my eyes at George.

“Anyway… In conclusion, I should invite more people to the group chat, so that I’m not stuck with just one person who will tell me to go inside a dark room filled with a horde of monsters.”

JamieWasTaken3: hey

JamieWasTaken3: I didn’t know that would happen

“I mean, I don’t blame you, but… Yeah, I think a second opinion never hurts,” I concluded, a bit morosely. “Anywho, what’s up, you two? I kinda don’t feel like continuing right away…”

I stayed in my position for quite some time, occasionally checking around to make sure nothing would ambush me, while chatting with the two trolls in chat about nothing in particular. About how their lives were going, about any noteworthy news from Earth I had missed, or about any new games or updates that had come out in the few days I’d been stuck in this world.

It really helped to have a bit of normality even if a treacherous part of me felt like it was all irrelevant stuff since I might never make it back to Earth…

“Anyway!” I suddenly shouted and slapped my hands on the bench while sitting up. “That nightmare back there wasn’t all for naught! Guess what, chat? I have a whole fifteen skill points now! And I can get one more from the coin, so sixteen in total!”

I grinned and rubbed my hands in anticipation.

“What should I get? There’s so many options now!”

GeorgeDoshington: self-destruct pls

JamieWasTaken3: yo what about that title

I completely ignored George and hummed questioningly as I remembered the title.

“Oh yeah! I also got a new title! The first one I got since the reincarnation. Let’s see…”

Available titles:

Fire blessed (EQUIPPED)

Immolator

“Immolator… Sounds really edgy, but considering what you have to do to get it…”

Immolator:

You killed over 500 living beings or dungeon monsters using fire, and you killed 100 or more living beings or dungeon monsters in the span of ten seconds or less using fire.

Having this title equipped grants the wielder major fire resistance, and increases the power of all fire-based attacks by 50%.

[INNATE] skill: Immolate - Use a variable amount of Ether to immolate any target you or your weapon is touching from the inside.

“Wait, five hundred? I thought it was three hundred. These numbers just keep getting higher…”

At this point, I had no idea just how many monsters I had burned back there.

“Wait, this title seems amazing though! I’m already using fire as my main source of damage anyway so this is just a fifty percent damage boost!” I gushed. “And it also gives another fire skill? That’s awesome!”

I idly asked the system to explain the innate thing.

[INNATE] - This skill is tied to an item or a title. Equipping said item or title temporarily grants the skill without taking up skill slots until unequipped.

“Okay, that’s what I expected. Makes sense… Hold on, tied to an item? Doesn’t that break the system? I thought the point of the skill slots was so you were limited, but if you just get all the items with innate skills…” I mused, my gamer mind kicking in.

JamieWasTaken3: how come the sword doesnt say it has innate skill?

I frowned and idly patted the sword’s hilt.

“Good question, actually… I guess the lightning stuff doesn’t count as a skill…? It’s kinda unfortunate since I can’t use it without craftsman…” I shrugged. “Anyway, what were we talking about…? Oh, yeah. The title! Are there even any disadvantages to equipping it…?”

I looked over the description once more and then glanced at my current title ‘Fire blessed’ before stopping and narrowing my eyes.

“Wait… Yes there is. Yes, there is a huge disadvantage to changing titles!” I yelled in indignance. “Look at this! ‘Having this title equipped allows the wielder access to tier 1 phoenix skills’. Both Fire breath and Flameguard are from the phoenix section! I almost completely screwed myself over!”

GeorgeDoshington: but if you dont swap youl never find out what that skill does

JamieWasTaken3: mb you keep the skills even if you swap tho

I grunted in annoyance.

Great. Instead of one terrible helper fairy, I now had two.

“Can I get an angel on my shoulder too? Why do I have to have two devils?” I said with a dry tone. “Right, I said I would invite more people, didn’t I? You two keep distracting me! Okay, who should I invite…?”

I briefly glanced at the normal stream chat and quickly gave up on catching anyone’s name, much less the name of someone who could be reasonable.

“...Never mind… Actually, how about you guys pick out some reasonable people to have us join here? Wait, no. You’ll just pick more trolls. Ugh…” I grunted. “Whatever. Skill points! What am I getting?”

After another brief check of my surroundings, I began opening up skill upgrade descriptions that I could afford all around me and began planning.

“So I wanted Fusion… But I swapped Craftsman out and now it’s on cooldown. Dang it… I wish I swapped out Appraisal instead… Ah well. I can still hold on to six points for when the cooldown is up I guess. What else is there…?”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

First, I looked at the upgrades for Appraisal.

Upgrade: Assess (1SP)

Upgrade: Inspiration (3SP)

Upgrade: Psychometry (9SP)

Assess - You can now use appraisal on living beings.

Inspiration - Appraising an item will now tell you about its possible uses. Uses more Intra.

Psychometry - You can now glean the rough history of the appraised object. Uses a moderate to large amount of Intra based on how old the object is.

“Inspiration would be nice and Psychometry might be cool but probably not that useful…”

JamieWasTaken3: isnt it useful for the quest?

I perked up.

“Oh yeah, you’re right. Secrets of the world. Figure out what happened to this world… Yeah, actually, Psychometry sounds like the perfect skill for that.” Then I stopped and frowned. “Wait, but… The reward for that quest is five points… and psychometry costs nine… What the heck? That’s not even worth it!”

I grumbled.

GeorgeDoshington: scammed lol

“I mean, unless I do the side objectives and get something extra from it, I guess… Ugh, whatever. I think I’m gonna ignore psychometry for now.”

Next up, I looked at the Fire breath’s upgrades.

Upgrade: Flame bullet (3SP)

Upgrade: Extreme temperature (5SP)

Upgrade: Mega lungs (9SP)

Upgrade: Phoenix breath (80SP)

Flame bullet - Reshape your Fire breath into a stable projectile capable of traveling much further. One bullet uses double the Ether than a normal breath would.

Extreme temperature - Fire breath’s temperature range ceiling is greatly increased. Higher temperature breath uses more Ether.

Mega lungs - Triple the amount of fire you breathe per amount breathed. Ether usage scales appropriately.

I hummed.

“Right, so… In simple terms, the first one gives me a long-range option, the second one increases damage and Ether cost, and the third one increases the AOE and Ether cost… And then there is Phoenix breath which I’ll never afford. Hmm…”

Flame bullet gave me more options, which was always good. The others… While increasing the damage or area of the breath was also useful, I didn’t think I could handle the extra Ether cost. I already ran out of Ether even with the regular Fire breath, after all. I would have to use anything stronger sparingly. And at that point, if I rarely even used it, was it really worth all the skill points?

Maybe if I got more of those Ether tickets and had more Ether to spare. Maybe then I could get these two upgrades without it feeling like a waste.

“I’ll think about the Flame bullet, I suppose… The rest doesn’t feel worth it.”

Finally, I looked at the upgrades for my newest skill, Flameguard, for the first time.

Upgrade: Channel fire (3SP)

Upgrade: Living torch (5SP)

Upgrade: Eternal flames (9SP)

Upgrade: Self-destruct (11SP)

Channel fire: Channel the skill through a held item to empower it instead.

Living torch: Fire resistance is increased to fully withstand this skill for the duration of it.

Eternal flames: During Flameguard, half of resisted fire damage will heal you instead.

Self-destruct: Detonate yourself, causing an explosion of fire around you. Note: Fire resistance granted by Flameguard and Living torch doesn’t account for this sub-skill.

“Heh, I could make my sword fiery instead of zappy…” My eyes widened. “Oh! Living torch actually makes me fully immune to the fire! I’m totally getting that one! No more burns from my own skill! Actually, because of the blessing, using Flameguard would then keep healing me, wouldn’t it?”

I laughed.

“Synergy, chat! Things are starting to shape up now! I’m gonna be the melee fire healing tank!”

JamieWasTaken3: jeoff would be proud

I snorted.

“What else… Wow Eternal flames is just the blessing but worse. Not worth it at all… But I guess there’s a reason why the blessing is only temporary…”

I finally looked at the last available upgrade for the skill and scowled.

“I don’t like that there is literally a suicide button. Like… Yeah, I’m never getting the Self-destruct. I would be too tempted to push the button and it would probably kill me. Or hurt me really bad. Nope. Not happening.”

GeorgeDoshington: get iiiiit

GeorgeDoshington: go out in a blaze of gloooory

JamieWasTaken3: it sounds funny tho

I scowled at the evil fairy duo.

“You two are trying to get me killed, aren’t you?” I asked in a dry tone. “Well, too bad! Not getting that last one. Screw you guys.”

With that, I closed the windows with upgrades I knew I definitely wouldn’t be getting and began thinking about the best combination of skills to get.

If I used the coin, that would give me a total of sixteen skill points. And sixteen would be exactly enough to get Flame bullet and Extreme temperature for Fire breath; and Channel fire and Living torch for Flameguard.

That sounded great on paper, but it ultimately came down to the same problem – not enough Ether. I needed more Ether if I wanted to effectively use all these upgrades. I might just ignore Extreme temperature for now and get all the others. I could get it once I had more Ether to work with.

A stray thought had me reaching into my backpack and pulling out the ticket I’d gotten from the secret chest. Now that I wasn’t in complete darkness, I could see that it was red and had black text saying ‘10%!’ on it, similar to the Ether ticket.

“Hmm… Yeah, I don’t know. I have yet to have any issues with Intra, and only Streamer uses Tempor, so… The choice is obvious!”

Consume 1x Large power expansion ticket?

Y/N

I furrowed my brows at the lack of choice but mentally confirmed regardless.

Choose:

Ether/Intra/Tempor

“There we go. Ether, please!”

I confirmed once more and watched as the ticket turned into orange mist and seeped into my hands.

I nearly flinched away at the sudden energy I felt. It was similar to drinking the Refined ooze, just less violent.

“Okaaay… That was something. Now… Let’s get some upgrades.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: Nanaaaaa

“Ebiiiii! My savior!” I immediately yelled as soon as I saw her message. “Those two demons are taunting me to the dark side! Please save me!”

KaiEbikoOfficial: whatt

KaiEbikoOfficial: what did they do

JamieWasTaken3: I did nothing im innocent

GeorgeDoshington: shhh dont interrupt she wants to come to the dark side

“Well, long story short… Jamie goaded me into going to the locker. So I went inside, got swarmed by monsters, nearly died again, got achievements and a title for burning hundreds of them, got a secret chest with a pocket dimension backpack, and now I have fifteen skill points to work with.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: ??????

KaiEbikoOfficial: neraly died again?!

KaiEbikoOfficial: are you okay?!

“I’m… fine. But yeah, it’s been intense. I’m glad you’re here now,” I murmured before pushing away the uneasy feelings and grinning. “But now I’m about to get some upgrades! It’s super exciting!”

KaiEbikoOfficial: okay I’ll have to watch the stream back

KaiEbikoOfficial: what kind of upgrades are we talking?

GeorgeDoshington: selfdesctruuuuct

“Shush, devil number two,” I grunted. “I think I’m getting… Flame bullet and then Channel fire and Living torch for Flameguard. That will cost me eleven points and leave me with four more… or five if I count the coin.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: I think I’m missing a lot of context

JamieWasTaken3: she got flameguard

“Yeah, I uh… Kind of panic-bought Flameguard and swapped it with Craftsman to save myself back in that dark room. I can’t shoot lightning anymore,” I explained and opened the Flameguard upgrades I was planning on getting just for Ebi to see.

KaiEbikoOfficial: right okay

KaiEbikoOfficial: flame bullet makes sense then

KaiEbikoOfficial: long range attack

“Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking.” I nodded. “Flame bullet for long range, and Flameguard and my sword for short range.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: alright I approve

KaiEbikoOfficial: not that you need my approval

KaiEbikoOfficial: you’re the pro gamer here

I chuckled. “Not really, but thanks.”

JamieWasTaken3: no poll?

“I’m not gonna poll this…” I grumbled and shook my head. “How would I even poll it? Nah, you guys will get to vote in polls later. Right now, I’ll just get what I think I need.”

Purchase the [Fire breath] skill upgrade [Flame bullet] for 3 skill points?

Y/N

‘Flame bullet’ skill upgrade unlocked!

Purchase the [Flameguard] skill upgrade [Channel fire] for 3 skill points?

Y/N

‘Channel fire’ skill upgrade unlocked!

Purchase the [Flameguard] skill upgrade [Living torch] for 5 skill points?

Y/N

‘Living torch’ skill upgrade unlocked!

“Alright! Locked and loaded! Time to destroy this stupid dungeon!” I said as I unsheathed my sword and dramatically pointed it to the sky.

Then I prodded the new mental switch I’d gotten with the upgrades and let my hand light on fire – which didn’t burn me at all anymore! – before it spread to the sword and enveloped it.

My eyes widened when some of the fire apparently seeped into the sword’s circuits and I saw small sparks of electricity crackle between the flames.

“I can still sort of use the lightning! Heck yes!” I cheered.

KaiEbikoOfficial: nice!

JamieWasTaken3: lightning fire sword!

GeorgeDoshington: sounds edgy lmao

Ignoring George, I strode forward into the locker-filled halls with renewed confidence.