After a long moment of contemplation, Nick decided to put both points into dexterity. This stage of the quest was more about speed and stealth and was less reliant on plotting and planning. To seal the deal, he had barely walked away from his fight with the trio of frogs without some broken bones or worse.

While his new flask was an invaluable lifeline, the elixir wouldn’t save him from severe injuries. Although he now healed much faster than back on Earth, the System had warned him that the effect was limited by his health pool. In short, taking a critical hit could easily end Nick’s life, and the best defense against them was not to get hit to begin with. Besides, dexterity had some awesome synergy with his sword skill in addition to evasion, so boosting dexterity would increase his offense as well as his defense.

His choice made, Nick sent his intentions into the display, spending his free attribute points to raise his dexterity. As an experiment, he decided to spend both points at once, so that he would be prepared for the sensation the next time he leveled. He leaned against his pack and braced himself for the intense changes that came with spending a free point, gritting his teeth as a wave of vertigo broke over him.

The experience was significantly more intense than spending a single point, and nearly made him vomit, but it wasn’t as bad as he had feared. When it was over, he felt more aware of his body than ever before, especially his balance and how his weight transferred with the movement of his joints.

Thanks to his enhanced Survivor trait, he only needed to sleep for four hours each night. So instead of passing out right away, he reflected for a while on his progress for the day and his goals for tomorrow. He was glad that he hadn’t been forced to use his flask yet. It would be there when Nick needed it if he was injured while crossing the bog. After taking an inventory of his tools and resources, he decided to use the rest of his planning session contemplating his new powers, now that he had tried them out in battle for the first time.

After taking them for a test drive, Nick was thrilled by the performance of his new skills and upgraded spells. Having a class that focused on battle was a perfect complement to his original skills, which were geared more toward survival. He hoped to find a way to upgrade size up in the future, and he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to boost his foraging skill either, since both had saved his life on numerous occasions.

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Evasion and throwing were great, and would come in handy in a wide variety of situations, but the skill that really had him excited was sword. Nick already understood the basics of throwing and dodging, since the ideas behind them were relatively intuitive. But until now, his understanding of how to wield a weapon had been based on game mechanics and a bit of basic theory.

The sword skill was already teaching him things that would have taken him months to figure out on his own, like twisting his wrist to widen a wound. Having never been trained in the use of a blade, being provided with clear guidance on how to hold the weapon, how to move it through space and bring the edge to bear, was invaluable. The timing couldn’t be better, since there would be countless battles over the trying days ahead.

Nick would never have been able to pull off that tongue-severing slash without the feedback provided by his sword skill, and he was certain that it was helping to improve his accuracy. The impressions of rightness and wrongness transmitted via the skill were teaching him how to properly block and parry, in addition to refining his offensive techniques. These options expanded his defensive playbook and were complemented by his evasion skill, whose value should be obvious to anyone now that the System had arrived.

The combination of sword-based defenses and dodging offered him a range of options in the midst of battle, making him less predictable and less vulnerable than before, a trend that would continue to improve as the skills ticked higher. Until he mastered the blade, Nick would try to get out of the way of any given attack as a preferred option, then block or deflect an incoming strike if left with no other choice. If he was able to find a suitable shield, his light shield skill would make him even more versatile, and he was looking forward to finding out what it could do.

But as useful as they were, skills were no replacement for old-fashioned learning from a knowledgeable source. Not unless Nick had years of practical experience to develop his technique from scratch. He had begun to sense that his sword work would contain inefficiencies and weak points until he received proper training from an instructor. In the end, his skills could only approve or disapprove of his chosen actions. Refine and perfect his natural inclinations, as his preexisting conceptions of swordplay were tempered with firsthand experience on the battlefield.

Despite their vital importance, his skills could not impart broad concepts, holistic theories, or refined styles passed down across generations. Those were things that he would have to figure out for himself, at least for now. While Nick was trying his best to fashion his own style through trial and error, followed by a thorough post battle analysis, he would have a hard time holding his own against someone with proper training.

But that’s a problem for another day, Nick let out a sleepy yawn, closed his eyes, and let sleep carry him away to the land of dreams.