After a quick breakfast, Vel and I had found ourselves a quiet spot close to the gate. We were both dressed and ready for the trial. We had spent a good part of the previous evening reading through the notebooks my mentor had given us. Now, it was time to put what we had learned into practice.

"Let's pick our perk first," Vel said.

I nodded. Perks were an important part of every build, the provided advantages not attainable through other means. The prime example was Magic Affinity, there were no ways other than by having it to use magic of a specific type. Others like Blessing of Gaia changed how the system worked in some ways.

"Do you already know what you're going to chose?" I asked.

"The book recommends choosing one of the mana related perks," she said, "either [Mana Efficiency] or [Mana Well]."

It made sense, magic users relied on their mana to do anything.

"Same here," I said, "but it's possible I have access to the later perks too."

"Yeah, maybe you can get something better."

I opened the list of perks and scrolled through. Many of the lower tier perks were useful but situational, Dark Vision was useful only if you spent large amounts of time in the dark, the same went for Polyglot which made the acquisition of language skills easier, or Craftsman which increased the skill gain for crafting skills.

Scrolling through the perks, I found a few useful ones that caught my eye.

Danger Sense (requires [Improved Senses])

Gives advance warning of danger

Mana Perception (requires [Mana Sense])

Grants the ability to perceive mana

Mana Efficiency

Reduces the Mana cost of spells and skills by 50%

An upgrade to my mana sense was tempting, in its current state it was minimally useful, just a feeling of presence or absence. I had an inkling that the next version would be a lot better. Danger Sense also sounded useful. I knew I would pick both in the long run, it was only a question of which I would pick first.

In the end I settled on Mana Perception in the hopes that it would help me with spell development.

System Action

Lose [Mana Sense]

Gain [Mana Perception]

Cost: 1 Perk, Left: 0 Perks

Confirm [Y/N]

I mentally confirmed the action and I immediately felt the results.

"Woah," I said.

Instead of a vague feeling of presence, I felt all the mana around me with much higher clarity. The sense extended in a sphere of about ten meter around me before it became fuzzy and dropped off after five more. I could see the basic sharpness and durability enchantments on my dagger, the small threads of mana woven through my armor from the taratect silk, the ebbs and flows of energy through Vel and I. Even the air itself was saturated with mana which flowed freely like air currents.

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"What did you pick?" Vel asked.

"Mana Perception," I answered, "it was an upgrade to my Mana Sense. It's … a bit overwhelming."

I saw a swirl of mana surge from Vel and into the earth, it spread around like small roots. With my eyes, I saw the grass sprout up and small flowers bloom.

"It's … mesmerizing," I said. "Your magic is beautiful."

"Hopefully, you'll get used to it by the time we leave," she said, "right now it looks like you're drunk."

I shook my head and tried to push the sense to the back of my mind. It effortlessly complied and limited itself only to my line of sight. Another powerful aspect of perks, they were flexible.

"I got it under control," I said.

"Nice," Vel smiled and gave me a quick kiss.

"Now, skills! Then, spells!"

"Yes! Yes!"

I dove back into my mind space and opened the menu to purchase general skills. The book Breknir had given me had suggested several skills that would be important for a magic user. Especially one interested in research. I ignored everything else and honed in on them.

Meditation (Cost: 5 SP, Active: 5 FP)

Centers your mind and reduces negative mental effects such as fatigue.

Resource regeneration is increased by 100% and an additional 20% every 10 skill levels (max 500%).

Tier I: Must be immobile to channel the skill.

Memory Enhancement (Cost: 5 SP, Active: 5 FP)

Improves your ability to memorize information.

Tier I: You can memorize 5 pages with 2500 words and 400cm2 of images per skill level.

Logic Enhancement (Cost: 5 SP, Active: 5 FP)

Improves your logical reasoning and visualization abilities, improves with skill level and intelligence.

Mind Acceleration (Cost: 5 SP, Active 10 FP)

Increases your speed of thought by 50%.

Tier I: Gain an additional 10% per 5 skill levels up to a maximum of 500%

Mind Partition (Cost: 5 SP, Active: 10 FP)

Tier I: Create 2 mental partitions and gains an additional one per 10 skill levels up to a maximum of 8

Meditation could be learned through practice but the others were nearly impossible to get without spending skill points. Memory Enhancement was useful to carry your notes and spells with you and Logic Enhancement made using what information you had on hand better. Breknir's notes had a warning about trusting the results of Logic Enhancement too much, the user was still fallible and bad data led to incorrect conclusions one hundred percent of the time. The last two were the icing on the cake and I was glad I had access to them from the get-go. Those two also had warnings about over-use.

System Action

Purchase Skill [Memory Enhancement] at Rank I for 5 SP

Purchase Skill [Logic Enhancement] at Rank I for 5 SP

Purchase Skill [Mind Acceleration] at Rank I for 5 SP

Purchase Skill [Mind Partition] at Rank I for 5 SP

Total: 20 SP, Left: 10 SP

Confirm [Y/N]

I confirmed. Unlike perks, skills that consumed resources did not start active by default. I cautiously enabled them one by one. Focus in the system was a measure of how much load the mind could handle, it was a limited to prevent frying your brain with too many active skills. Going over the threshold knocked you out and disabled all skills. Not something I ever wanted to experience for myself if I could.

Having two mental partitions was a strange feeling. I could process two streams of thoughts at once without effort. It was not quite as if I had two instances of myself running at once, the partitions were independent but I could tell that there was a primary partition that was coordinating everything.

"All good?" Vel asked.

"I managed to get some of the advanced skills Breknir talked about in his journals," I said.

"What did you get? I only got Memory and Logic."

"Those two plus Mind Acceleration and Mind Partition."

"So you can think twice as much about me?" She said playfully.

"Hmmm, that sounds like a great idea," I kissed her on the neck, "I can focus on kissing you and …"

"Ohhh," she shivered, "I like the sound of that."