Okay. I know. I know I have said it before. And I swear. I will remember this time, next time, what I am supposed to do. I focused on my status screen. I had 5 Stat points and 3 Skill points. And for my stats, I wanted to experiment.

So far, putting 5 points into something raised it by one, except for Stamina which raised by 3. That is a big difference. Besides Stamina being my highest Stat, there wasn't anything I noticed on the screen itself. Nothing listed Stamina as being 'special' or anything like that. No special colors or fonts to indicate something different.

Then what? Also, so far I just kinda quickly dropped all the Stat points in at once. So maybe, it doesn't actually take 5? Here is what I am going to do. I'm going to split them, 3 and 2, into different Stats. Then, next time, I'll do the same. That time I will put 3 into the Stat I didn't do this time, and then 2 into the Stat I put 3 into this time. That will then round that one up to 5, and this one will be 3. And since it seems easier to raise Stamina, I will save that one for next time. So…!

I dropped 3 Stat points into Health and 2 into Mana. This time though. I did it one at a time. I focused intently on each Stat and Stat point as I put them in. Neither Health or Mana changed.

However, I did notice something. As I focused intently on each as I dropped each point, something marginally ticked up.

Well. That was interesting. It definitely is doing something, so it isn't a flat-out waste of points. I wonder why it is different for Stamina though. At the moment all I have is that the higher it is, the more it gets from the points I put into it, but something about that doesn't feel right.

I mulled it over for a while.

"Hey El-uh, Miryam?"

"Yes, flower?"

"Do you mind if I ask your stats? I'm just assigned some points and I can feel it did something, but nothing actually changed."

"Nothing changed? What did you do?"

Well that didn't fill me with confidence. "Well, this time I split them. 3 into Health and 2 into Mana."

"Reall?? And neither changed? That is interesting. And sounds like math. I don't want to do math for you, but… that is different from how mine respond. And even then, between each stat it does react differently."

Her scent of thinking filled the air. It actually seemed quite a bit more potent, then before, but I let her think. Not like I was going anywhere.

"I've gotten 25 points total. 15 from leveling and 10 total from those patches. I put 5 into Health and Stamina each, and each of them were raised by 2. I put the rest into Mana, and honestly, it had the most benefit. I got a 1 for 1 increase to my Mana."

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What?! A 1-to-1? That was even better then what happened to my Stamina. I released my own thinking pheromone, more to be polite then out of actual need for it.

"Huh… is Mana your highest?"

"Yes."

"Stamina is mine and it also got a better benefit per point then the others. Not 1-to-1 better, but still, better."

Miryam gave off an acknowledgemental scent and sent her ants back to work. I thought it over for a little bit longer before turning to my skills. There were a few I had been eyeing, and a few I had discarded.

Initially, at least. There was one that was tugging at my attention. Desert Resilience. Originally, I had dismissed it because I was doing pretty fine now. But will that last? It's been months, and it's only been the last few weeks that I have had a fairly reliable source of water. If it wasn't for that leak, I doubt I would have any.

But also, 5 months without any rain. And who knows when this underground source might dry up with the lack of rain, then it won't matter that it's there. No new water would come through the crack. Since Miryam and I arrived at the same time, she also didn't know when the rain was going to come, if at all. None of here skills had anything to do with weather.

Maybe it might be a good one to take. I don't have an immediate need for any of the others, and leveling up has gotten easier now that I know what I am doing. I did notice it took longer this time around, but I am still getting up there.

I spent the rest of the day reading over the skills, debating and arguing with myself. As the sun set, I sighed and accepted the skill.

Several things seemed to happen at once. For one, something about my Health tingled. I brought it up and took a look. Nothing changed. It hadn't actually increased, but something about it felt fuller, like when I had put the points into it earlier.

As for the rest of it, the ground seemed a little less dry and packed. I could feel a faint breeze stirring my leaves. I had felt the wind before, but the last few months, it had seemed like such an infrequent thing, but now I could feel it again. It was just weaker.

For another thing, the heat seemed to lessen. I know it was already getting dark, and I wouldn't say it actually felt any colder, just less burn-y.

Well, this was actually a pretty pleasant one.