Callum walked up to the Gnarlhound and looked at it for a few moments. To him, it was another glaring example of his fragility. If what the human said was true, this beast had been only a few feet from him when the explosion had gone off.

With a mental command, he used his [Scrap Collector] ability.

You looted: Gnarlhound

Loot Received:

- Class Specific: Lesser Monster Core

- Hardened Hide

- Gnarlhound Fang x 2

His items went straight into his spatial storage, but he quickly removed the Lesser Monster Core from his pouch. The core was slightly smaller than the size of his palm. He bounced his hand up and down several times, judging the weight of the gem-like object.

Now... what are you?

Callum walked over to the side of the cavern wall toward one of the torches. He held the blue crystal up to the light and attempted to peer through it. He'd expected the light of the torch to light up the core, letting most of the light travel through.

Hmm, the Grande Aurielle Sapphire in Mom's library is identical in color, but they seem to behave differently. The light and fractals that would shine from her blue crystal were beautiful, but this seems to be solid.

He pulled his hand back down and continued to look at the core. The closer he looked, the more entranced he became. There seemed to be a very subtle shifting of grey smoke beneath the surface that he hadn't noticed before. He pulled the core closer to his face, watching the patterns.

Pain. Searing pain exploded from the back of his leg. Callum yelled out, almost dropping the monster core in surprise. He glanced over his shoulder to see a small green creature there, baring its teeth up at him.

He froze there, for a moment, in complete horror. A goblin was standing behind him, smiling with teeth full of blood. He only woke from his stupor when the thing screeched at him and drew its hand back, readying to stab him with its rusty knife once again.

Callum jumped away from the monster, thanking his recently increased Constitution that he hadn't just been killed in one ambush strike. Callum moved rapidly away from the goblin, attempting to regain his wits.

With mounting panic, he realized that his wrench was back by the rocks, where he'd been looting all of the corpses. The small goblin was doggedly chasing him, and Callum realized that despite its size, it would catch him in seconds. He turned and raised his fists.

He got up on his toes and prepared to fight. Just as the small beast was about two arm lengths away, Callum stepped into the charge and brought his knee into the goblin's oversized nose. It squealed, but Callum pressed his temporary advantage. Cocking his fist back, Callum used [Imbue Mana] and swung with a right-handed hook at the goblin's jaw.

It fell to the ground and yelled in pain, dropping the knife. Callum put his fists together and brought them down in hammer-fist motion repeatedly. Activating [Mana Imbue] each time he did so.

Callum was embarrassed by the fact that exhaustion, shock, and fear caused him to hit the goblin many more times than was necessary. He only stopped when he ran out of mana, not realizing that he must have hit the goblin a good number of times, considering his now increased mana pool.

The dark elf fell backward and away from the dead monster, his leg still bleeding, onto the rocky floor.

"Forget what I said before. Melee SUCKS!" Callum shouted at the ceiling of the cavern. With a groan, he looked down to his side to pull the linen strips out of his pouch, ready to make more bandages, when he froze.

The core in his hand was glowing a brilliant blue through the smears of blood. He cocked his head to the side, staring at the item. Well now, that's interesting. He thought to himself.

Realizing that he had more pressing matters to attend to, he set the gem down in front of his feet while pulling out his linen strips. He made several bandages and wrapped his leg while thinking about the odd class-specific item.

It must be the mana that I put into it. Gods above, I wish I had an Analyze ability. It seems to be absorbing the mana. I guess Book was right; I should maybe try imbuing items instead of my own body. Should I feed it more?

Callum wasn't sure what it did, but he was certain that if it was class-specific loot, then it must have something to do with his class. Once he finished with his wounds and turned several more strips of cloth into backup bandages, Callum scooped up the core and stood.

He walked over to his wrench and sat down. He wanted to mess with the core some more but realized that he needed to take a moment and consolidate his gains. He'd yet to distribute his skill points or pick his minor class ability.

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He pulled up his character sheet and was flooded with messages:

Congratulations, you've reached level 2!

Please chose your Minor Class ability.

Callum pushed that aside for the moment, wanting to get to his stats.

Congratulations, you've reached level 3!

Well, that was an unbelievably brazen maneuver! I'm not sure if that's how you meant for it to happen, but oh darling, it looked absolutely splendid from over here. I especially liked the bit where you almost blew yourself up.

Anyway, here are your new base stats! I'm looking forward to seeing more dangerous explosions of- sorry, from you in the future!

Location: Ladrian Forest Mines Name: Callumir Venor Class: Arcane Tinkerer Level: 3 Profession: Locked Mana Gates: 0 Titles: The Late, Unflinching Passives: N/A

Health: 10/10 0.02 / second Mana: 30/30 1.9 / second

Stats: Strength: 6 Dexterity: 13 Constitution: 15 Endurance: 9 Intelligence: 19 Wisdom: 11 Charisma: 7

You currently have 6 Skill Points to use.

Callum marveled at his stats. While his Intelligence and Wisdom were nowhere near where he had them when he was an Enchanter, his Dexterity was higher than he'd ever been allowed to have it. His Constitution would pass its height in a few levels, even without him adding points into the area.

Getting three free points per level was also absurd in Callum's mind. Most classes got one free point per level, and some of the rare classes got two. In this class though, three points per level at the first tier was almost unreasonable. Despite his excitement, his feelings sobered quickly when he remembered that this class also made it so that he couldn't use spells anymore, making three points per level feel like a meager consolation prize.

Callum shifted his focus back to the floating blue window in his vision. While Endurance drew his eye, thinking about how difficult some of those melee fights had been on his stamina, he had to shake his head.

No, that would be a trap. If I can't regenerate mana in a fight, I'll likely be a burst fighter. I need to get in, do as much damage as possible, and get out as quickly as possible. When my mana begins to get to the point that I can sustain in a fight, though, it would be worth looking into.

For now, there only seemed to be two sensible options for Callum. Constitution and Intelligence seemed like the obvious choices. While he'd always put points into Intelligence, his secondary stat had always been Wisdom. Focusing on the stat, he queried the system for a more in-depth breakdown of the stat:

You grew up with this stuff! Shouldn't you know it by now?

Wisdom: Wisdom measures a character's perception, intuition, and common sense. A character with high Wisdom might be more attuned to their surroundings, better at noticing hidden details or danger, and able to make wise decisions in difficult situations.

Callum ground his teeth and ignored the System's snark as much as he could. He knew that while the System didn't give a specific breakdown on how stats affected his body, he knew from teachings growing up that Wisdom directly affected one's mana regeneration. In contrast, Intelligence directly affected one's overall Mana Pool and spell-casting ability. Since he wasn't able to regenerate mana during a fight, no matter how high the score got, he didn't see much of a reason to increase it.

It would be more valuable to put the points into Intelligence, increasing his power and overall mana capacity. This left him without a secondary stat to invest in. "No..." he thought to himself. "That leaves me without a single secondary stat to lean into."

He looked again at his distribution, attempting to use his knowledge of other classes to discern what direction the class was trying to lead him in. It seemed like the base class wanted him to be in melee. That much was clear by the melee skill as well as the increased Constitution and Dexterity.

So, he felt that left him with two paths. Either he could continue to increase those stats, or he could begin shoring up some of the weaker stats that he had. For a moment, he considered the second option, purely out of spite. However, every fiber of his being was screaming at him not to do it. All of his upbringing and teaching had taught him that being a generalist wasn't part of The Path.

His eldest brother loved to preach about this to his younger siblings. The path to power was paved by specialists. Those Challengers who dedicated all of their resources to one stat, technique, or branch of power, were often the ones that made it the furthest on their journey through the tiers of power. Just at the thought of his brother, Callum felt irritation begin to rise.

He pushed the thoughts away and decided to follow his gut. He put two points into Intelligence, two points into Constitution, and decided at the last moment to put two points into Charisma. Callum had to admit that the penalty to his Charisma had been on his mind, and he knew that it could be an unbelievably valuable stat.

Especially since the System to decided to drop me in the middle of what is, essentially, a foreign nation with no support, he glared quickly upward, then caught himself. Surprised at his own audacity, Callum coughed and busied himself by reading through the rest of his notifications.

As he pulled up the notification for his minor class ability, Callum felt the warmth of a level-up wash over him. With his stats allocated, the System adjusted his body to its new adaptations. It was always accompanied by an amazing rush of bliss as if the System were flooding his body with pure power.