“Grimmy, I reached lvl 5! Take a look at my skills and help choose one.”

Death’s Touch – You have been blessed by the God of Death, Death Incarnate himself. As one of his blessed ones, you can perform abilities that the God of Death himself can perform. Death’s Touch will allow you to inflict necrotic wound on any enemies you touch.

“This one looks useful, don’t you think, Grimmy?”

“Yes, it is useful, but not as useful to you, Alice, as you already have a weapon that can inflict necrotic wound. Weapons that can inflict necrotic wounds are rare, but still obtainable. It is not worth it to waste a skill selection on this one.”

Beat Death – You have challenged the God of Death, Death Incarnate himself, and came out victorious. Beat Death will allow you to survive a deadly attack once every grade. Once in F-grade, once in E-grade, and so on.

“I challenged Death? Is it referring to that blackjack game?”

“You beat Lord Death in a game! Lord Death does not simply lose a game, Alice. How did you do it?"

“I mean it was blackjack, Grimmy. You lose sometimes and you win sometimes. Sure, the odds are a little favored towards the house, but it is not that hard to win.”

“Well, beating Lord Death at anything is quite an impressive feat, so no wonder the system is offering you this skill. It is an overpowered skill if you get it early on. I have heard of people getting variants of this skill at higher grades, which is not a bad skill to get, but the usefulness decreases the higher grade you are. Right now, since you are F-grade, you will get seven uses of this skill. The most you could get with this type of skill.”

“So, we choose this one?” Alice asked, already wanting to get this over with and continue hunting dire wolves.

“Hold on, let us take a look at the last one.”

Masochism – You have endured an abnormal amount of self-inflicted damage. So much, that we are beginning to suspect you actually enjoy it. Masochism increases the potency of all self-inflicted afflictions.

“Grimmy, what the fuck!” said Alice, looking at him with a piercing gaze. “You told me to inflict damage to myself! Now the system thinks I am into bondage!”

“It’s not a bad skill actually, if you think about it...” started to explain Grimmy, before being interrupted by Alice.

“I AM NOT CHOOSING THIS ONE. I AM NOT A MASOCHIST, GRIMMY!” said Alice, towering over Grimmy.

“Ahem... yes of course. That is why I was going to suggest Beat Death anyway. It is a much better skill...” said Grimmy, tensed and avoiding Alice’s gaze.

You chose Beat Death. Beat Death has been added to your skill list.

“Alright, with that out of the way, and completely ignoring that the system thinks I have a weird kink, how should I allocate my five free points?” asked Alice.

“Well, your main stat for now should be Intelligence, since it directly boosts your afflictions and allows you to perform transfusion more times in a fight, but do not neglect the others either. Your top three stats for the moment are: Intelligence, Vitality, and Dexterity in that order.”

“Got it…” said Alice with a serious face pretending she understood. “So... where should I put them?”

Grimmy sighed. “Just give me access to your character sheet, and I’ll take care of it,” he said, resigned.

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Alice just thought about giving access to Grimmy, and as if the system had read her intentions, a notification appeared.

Do you wish to give Grimaldi access to your character sheet?

Yes or No

“I love it when it does that!”

Alice mentally selected Yes, and that is the story of how Grimmy became the one in charge of allocating Alice’s free stat points.

Alice’s battle plan did not change much with the addition of her new skill Beat Death. It did not change at all, actually. So, when they found the next group of dire wolves, Alice did the exact same thing. This group was only two dire wolves, so the battle was much faster and easier than the previous one.

Lvl 5 Dire Wolf defeated.

Lvl 6 Dire Wolf defeated.

A few minutes later, Alice and Grimmy encountered another group of dire wolves, three this time. Grimmy was identifying the levels of the wolves so that Alice would be prepared, but before he could even begin to identify them, Alice attacked.

Alice used transfusion on the bigger-looking wolf first.

Transfusion failed; enemy’s level is too high.

“Uhhh… Grimmy, what just happened?”

“Exactly what the notification said, Alice, the wolf you tried transfusion on is too high of a level.”

“But I thought you said they couldn’t be more than lvl 10?!”

“If you weren’t so impatient, I would have been able to tell you that the big one is not a dire wolf.”

“What is it then?” said Alice, arming herself with her sickles as she saw the wolves rapidly approaching.

“It’s a Den Mother Wolf, Lvl 15.”

“Lvl 15!” yelled Alice as she stepped into her battle stance.

The Den Mother slowed down, making the other two wolves rush towards Alice first. Alice saw that as an opportunity to attack those two with her sickles and inflict them with necrotic wound and bleeding. As Alice was about to perform a roll in between the two wolves and attack each one with a sickle each, the Den Mother howled, and the two wolves jumped out of the way, making Alice hit nothing but air.

“The Den Mother has a special skill that allows her to direct and coordinate other dire wolves. They will be harder to hit,” yelled Grimmy from above.

“Thanks, Grimmy, that would have been great advice a couple of minutes before, but better late than never, I guess. Anything else I should know?” said Alice as she successfully evaded the upcoming attack from one of the wolves.

“No, that is pretty much it... wait, the Den Mother is also really strong. She can bite off your arm in one go, so stay away from her.”

Alice’s heart started to race. “In one go?”

Alice’s mind focused back on the two wolves and performed Surgical Strike. The moment she activated her skill, she could see the wolves’ weak points. With a finesse only seen by Olympic gymnasts, Alice jumped and rolled her way close to one of the wolves and successfully landed a strike with her black sickle. Lucky for her, the wolf was not the only one that was inflicted with necrotic wound.

Necrotic Wound inflicted on self.

“Sweet!” Alice quickly used transfusion to transfer her affliction to the other wolf.

Transfusion successful. Necrotic Wound successfully transferred to dire wolf.

“Alright! We are back in it, Grimmy!”

“I believe in you, Alice!” said Grimmy as he nervously chewed his fingers.

The two wolves significantly slowed down after being inflicted with necrotic wounds. That gave Alice some breathing room.

Alice’s small break came to a stop as the Den Mother, seeing that her two wolves were about to be out of commission, rushed in towards Alice in an attempt to turn the fight in her favor.

Alice successfully avoided what could have been an arm-losing moment. She did not come out of that attack unscathed, however. A huge chunk of her forearm was gone. Alice was no stranger to blood, being that she had seen worse things at the hospital than a missing forearm, but this was the first time she had it on her own arm.

Alice went pale. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Grimmy, she took a chunk of my arm. What the fuck!”

You have been afflicted with Bleeding by Den Mother.

“Alice! Focus! Heal yourself and keep on your toes, the Den Mother is coming at you again!”

“Right, right!” Alice performed heal on herself and the arm automatically stopped bleeding, but only for a second. The wound opened as fast as it closed, and she started flooding the grass beneath her with blood.

“Alice, it’s an affliction! You have to use Cure Sickness to get rid of the Bleeding condition first, then use heal to close the wound,” yelled Grimmy, frantically floating in circles above the battlefield.

Alice heard Grimmy’s advice as she jumped out of the way and successfully avoided the Den Mother’s bite.

Alice did just as Grimmy indicated and she felt life flow back into her. “Okay, Den Bitch…”

“Den Mother, her name is Den Mother,” interrupted Grimmy.

“I know, Grimmy, damn just let me work here.”

“Sorry!”

“Just shut up, Grimmy!”

“Sorry...” whispered Grimmy.

Alice focused again on the matter at hand. She looked over at the two other dire wolves, and they were as good as dead. They were both almost completely covered in black necrosis, and they were lying down gasping for air. The Den Mother, now she was a different story. She started circling Alice, studying her, deciding when to attack next.

Now, this would have been the third time that she rushed Alice with the same, and apparently only attack, a ferocious bite, so this time Alice was ready. She started focusing on Surgical Strike as the Den Mother rushed for Alice.

Alice did not jump out of the way, but towards the Den Mother this time. In the air, Alice twirled to one side evading the Den Mother’s bite, and at the same time, dragged both her sickles from the neck of the Den Mother all the way to the tail.

The Den Mother cried in pain.

Critical Hit. Damage doubled.

Necrotic Wound inflicted on Den Mother.

Bleeding inflicted on Den Mother.

“I thought I couldn’t inflict her due to her high level,” yelled Alice to the still-floating-10-feet-above Grimmy.

“No, I said you couldn’t use transfusion because her level was too high, sickles are okay,” said Grimmy, giving Alice a big thumbs up.

“Grimmy, we need to have a talk after this is done on how to communicate better.”

Grimmy shrugged not knowing what Alice meant. “I’m pretty sure I said transfusion did not work, I don’t recall even mentioning the sickles,” Grimmy thought.

The Den Mother’s agility was significantly decreased with both afflictions actively working on her body.

It only took Alice a couple more minutes of dodging and occasionally attacking the Den Mother, before the Den Mother fell to the ground, no longer being able to walk.

Dire wolf defeated x 2.

Den Mother defeated.

You have reached level 6. +5 Intelligence +3 Dexterity +2 Strength +5 Free points. You have five available free points.