Sarah had ten skill points, but she quickly realized that didn’t necessarily equate to ten skills.
The skills were divided into five ranks: Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary. Basic skills cost a single skill point to purchase, Common cost two points, Uncommon required three, Rare took four, and Legendary skills cost a whopping five points each. So she could get ten Basic skills; five Common skills; three Uncommon, plus one Basic; two Rare, plus two Basic; or two Legendary; or some other variation of the above.
She would have to find a balance between skills that she thought she’d use, the Attribute pre-requisites of said skills, and her available skill points. Choosing all Basic-ranked skills would probably give her the greatest amount of flexibility but she knew better than that. She might be doing the tutorial on Easy mode but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have nice things.
“Is there a way I can take notes?” she asked out loud.
A low wooden table materialized in front of her, exactly the right height to complement her stone stool. On the table sat a sheaf of blank paper and a fancy pen.
“Nice,” Sarah said. She then quickly added, “Uh, thanks.”
She wasn’t sure whom she was actually thanking, if there was a person overseeing all this or just a computer program, but it seemed the proper thing to do. A little bit of courtesy never hurt anyone.
Spreading out the papers, she took up the pen and started labeling each page with various categories into which she could sort all of the skills that caught her eye. Once she’d found all the ones she liked, she could then mix and match until she found just the right combination.
With her note-taking system prepared, Sarah settled in for a deep dive into skill-choosing-fun.
All of the skills were first divided into one of three broad categories: Physical Combat, Magic, and Crafting & Utility. Furthermore, every skill was labeled as either “Purchasable” or “Earned”, though some of them carried both labels, especially in the Magic category.
Focusing on these labels caused small screens to pop up.
Purchasable Skills: Skills that require expenditure of skill points to activate and improve
Earned Skills: Skills that are activated through specific activities and improved through accumulation of experience. **Cannot be activated by skill points unless they also have the Purchasable tag, in which case only the initial activation may be purchased, while all improvements in level and rank must be earned.
Earned skills are listed in the menu for reference and planning purposes only.
A huge number of the Physical Combat skills were [Weapon Affinities] and [Weapon Proficiencies], the former purchasable and the latter earned. There were [Affinities] and [Proficiencies] for every single fantasy and historical weapon Sarah had ever heard of, along with quite a few she didn’t recognize. She noticed with interest that there was not a single skill for more technologically advanced weapons, not even a flintlock or a musket.
There were reams of fighting styles too, listed as [Combat Affinities] and [Combat Proficiencies], but not a single one seemed to deal with modern day weapons or vehicles of war.
On the one hand, that fit into the traditional LitRPG themes that the Builders had supposedly copied. On the other hand, these Builders were clearly a highly-advanced space-faring people, so it wasn’t like they were unfamiliar with more advanced stuff. If this tutorial and system was intended to prepare humanity for integration into the Sanctuary worlds, what did these skill options say about the level of technology available in those civilizations?
Sarah shook her head, reminding herself not to get distracted by things over which she currently had no control.
Turning back to the Skill menu, Sarah frowned absently as she considered the various combat skills. She’d already decided that she had no interest in combat, so she wasn’t about to load herself up with weapons and fighting skills, but she would need to be able to defend herself.
Finally she chose a single Physical Combat skill to put on her “Don’t really want it but should probably have it” list. The bow would be a useful weapon for more than just combat with monsters and people, since she could also use it for hunting.
[Weapon Affinity: Bow] (Purchasable) Basic (1SP)
100% chance to activate [Weapon Proficiency: Bow] when using a bow in combat or training
25% chance to activate [Combat Proficiency: Archery] when using a bow in combat or training
Provides increased rate of experience gain for [Weapon Proficiency: Bow]
Attribute Requirements: 1 point P-PER
The 100% chance to activate the associated [Proficiency] skill was nice, though she wondered how difficult it would be to activate a [Weapon Proficiency] without the associated [Affinity].
[Weapon Affinity] skills all seemed to have attribute requirements – for example, the rapier skill needed a point in Physical Dexterity, while the mace skill called for one in Strength – but none of the [Weapon Proficiency] skills had any attribute requirements at all.
None of the [Proficiency] skills listed their associated [Affinity] skill as a pre-requisite either, so it must be possible to earn the former without purchasing the latter. The [Affinity] skills must then be intended as short-cuts for both activating and improving the [Proficiency] skills, for people who wanted to specialize in a specific type of combat; which meant, Sarah concluded, that she might not need to spend a point on a combat skill after all.
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Leaving [Weapon Affinity: Bow] on her list for now, Sarah finished browsing through the rest of the Physical Combat skills. When nothing else jumped out at her as an essential skill for how she wanted to live her life, she turned to the next category: Magic.
At first, Sarah was very excited about the possibilities inherent in a list full of magic skills, but the more she read, the more confused she grew.
There was Transformation magic, which included oodles of different ways to transform part or all of one’s body for various effects that would be useful both in and out of combat, but most of the Transformation skills had odd little warnings about elements of the effects being permanent and irreversible. None of them seemed to have an option for transforming matter or beings other than oneself.
The Aura magic, both offensive and defensive, was very sketchy on details but most of the skills mentioned working via scent, which made Sarah think of pheromones.
Finally there was Personal Magic, which included Elemental Resistances, Physical Boons, and Mental Boons, all of which affected only the person using the skill.
The only overtly “offensive” skills in the Magic category were some of the Auras, and even those worked more by disorienting the target than by striking it down.
There were no fireballs, no ice spikes, and no lightning bolts; none of the traditional “magic” stuff that had filled Sarah’s favourite stories could be found in this Skills menu. With a sinking heart, Sarah remembered a quote from the classic science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, who said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
So, magic wasn’t real after all; the Builders were just using their super-advanced technology to imitate magic for the sake of the primitive humans. All those so-called magic skills were probably just nanotechnology, or something even more advanced, being used to change the body and create various effects; in fact, that’s probably how all the skills worked, Sarah realized.
Well…that was a bit of a let-down.
After a long pout, Sarah finally pulled herself from her funk. Magic wasn’t real, and that sucked, but if all these skills could actually deliver what they promised, then that was still pretty cool.
She couldn’t bring herself to put any of the Magic skills on her lists so she turned with a sigh to the final category: Crafting & Utility.
The crafting skills seemed to follow a similar pattern to the weapons and combat skills, though the purchasable version seemed to actually be a pre-requisite for the earned version, instead of simply a short-cut.
[Tailoring Knowledge 1] (Purchasable) Basic (1SP)
Grants access to [Tailoring Proficiency]
Grants introductory knowledge of skills and techniques related to the craft of Tailoring
Grants a small collection of Basic Tailoring patterns
Attribute Requirements: None
[Tailoring Proficiency] (Earned) Basic (0SP)
Each level earned grants a previously unknown Tailoring pattern, of a random rank
Patterns earned may be of any rank, so long as the Tailor's skill is high enough to complete them with at least Common-level success
The rank of this skill can be improved with sufficient levels and experience; the higher the rank of this skill, the better the chances of receiving high-ranked Patterns upon leveling up
Attribute Requirements: None
Another thing that was different was that there were multiple [Knowledge] skills for each area of crafting. For example, [Tailoring Knowledge 1] had no pre-requisites, but [Tailoring Knowledge 2] required that [Tailoring Proficiency] be at least Level 25 or Common rank. Apparently there was a bonus if both requirements were met before [Tailoring Knowledge 2] was purchased.
Sarah was seriously considering choosing some crafting skills when she scrolled a little farther down and blinked in surprise. There were job skills, like [Professional Standards: Barkeep] and [Businessman’s Acumen: General Store]. As she scrolled further and further, her mouth dropped open. There were more skills in Crafting & Utility than in both the other categories combined.
A slow grin stole over Sarah’s face. Other people could be meat shields and hack-n-slashers; she was going to make herself indispensable in her new world, and she knew just how to get started.
After what felt like many hours, Sarah straightened up from the table, neatly stacked her many scribble-covered pages, and reviewed her final choices.
[Polyglot] (Purchasable) Legendary (5SP)
Able to speak, understand, read, and write all human languages in use on Earth at the time of the transition
Able to learn non-human languages 50% faster (Increases by an additional 5% for every point in M-DEX)
Attribute Requirements: None
Other Requirements: Human; Ability to speak one human language fluently
[Keen Eye] (Purchasable) Basic (1SP)
Increased ability to recognize items of value in your environment
Base increase: 10%
Additional increases: +2% for every point in P-PER, +5% for every point in M-PER
Attribute Requirements: None
Other Requirements: None
Current chances of item recognition:
Basic Items: 100% of skill total
Common Items: 50% of skill total
Uncommon Items: 25% of skill total
Rare Items: 5% of skill total
Legendary Items: 2% of skill total
[Dimensional Storage] (Purchasable) Rare (4SP)
Ability to link a pocket dimension to a physical item for the purpose of storage
Can store items of any rank, though the efficiency of storage will be influenced by the rank and type of the item used for an anchor
Pocket dimension can only be accessed by someone with the [Dimensional Storage] skill who has been authorized by the owner of the anchor item
Volume of accessible space increases by 5% for each additional point in FOR and M-DEX
Attribute Requirements: 1 point FOR + 1 point M-DEX
Other Requirements: None
With her skills chosen, Sarah went back and distributed her Attribute points. She put one each into Fortitude and Mental Dexterity to meet the requirements for [Dimensional Storage]. The Mental Dexterity point also gave her a bump up for [Polyglot], so she put her last point into Mental Perception, for an improvement in [Keen Eye].
Sarah confirmed her point allocation, and then confirmed her skill choices. She leaned back with a satisfied sigh. She was ready for the next step.