Waking up on the next day Locke had gone over his death several times in his head and was frustrated. It was a tense situation, his foes were clearly both high level and skilled. There was also the fact that they most likely had many more cards to play. Locke understood that he spent far too long in the tutorial. His attributes are probably much higher than the majority of the player base, but his gear and skills have fallen far behind. Even with all that he felt that his death could have been avoided.

I think my main failure was impatience. There was no reason I couldn't have drawn out the fight longer. The longer it lasted the more trump cards I could have observed more safely. I was rushing because more help could have arrived at any time, but would people have actually come to help? The more I think about it, the less likely it seemed. Shit, all I can do is learn from my mistake and get stronger.

Vincent wasn't ready for the second assassination job on the next day. With the unexpected free time, Locke thought about what to focus on for training. He knew at some point learning active weapon skills would be important, especially with how strong they seemed to be. Locke just felt that magic was more interesting to learn. The time it takes to learn weapon skills could be used to learn magic instead.

What do I prioritize other than learning magic? I should speak with the guards and see if my weapons are sold, maybe magic items are affordable. It will most likely be pretty hard to level up in my situation making it the best way to increase my attributes in the short term. The next option would be to train my mana sense up a tier which would increase the passive perception bonus from 3 to 8.

My enhancement mastery was slowly increasing just by keeping my small physical boost running at all times. The problem was it stopped at 5/10, it's either just going to take a while or I need to train with a more advanced enhancement. Though, it makes sense that passively training a skill this way would be slow. The last passive I could focus on is pain tolerance to gain more endurance.....but no I would rather not.

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Locke decided to focus on two things today. Training his ice and lightning element spells to make use of his increases in maximum mana capacity. Currently, his maximum mana cost for ice spears he could cast was 80 but with the new passive ranks that amount could be increased to 112. A similar situation could be said for lighting spells. The second part of his training was to focus on training mana sense, there was something in mind he wanted to test as well.

The training facility wasn't open for him as it wasn't after hours just yet. While he waited he had a brief talk to the guards and found that his weapons were not sold yet. He also inquired about the prices of magic items. Based on the provided information their prices are quite high. To purchase an item similar to his gloves or boots at normal prices would be roughly 1500 gold. Locke was specifically interested in items that increased either intelligence or wisdom which cost more than that.

You would call it impatience or boredom but Locke counted the minutes until the training room was available for him to use. In the exact moment it opened up for him he was already halfway through the doorway so to speak.

Finally, I can start my training. Been thinking about this all day.

He turned on both enhancement slots to perception and setup a glacial mine on the floor. Locke proceeded to get on all fours and got his face as close as he could without triggering it. It took almost ten minutes of intense focus but he could see the faintest outline of what looked to be a rune. When he turned off one of the perception boosts the rune was no longer visible at all.

I knew it....mana sense and perception seem far more important than I originally expected. If both the passive and attribute were higher it might have been possible to see through the attack Beatrix killed me with. Whether it was an illusion or mana that extended from the blade there should have been a way to defend against it...this should be the answer.

With the plan to train mana sense finally showing merit his motivation skyrocketed. The idea he had in mind was to run at 63 perception using both boosts to continue his practice. Once his mana runs dry from casting spells he will turn off the one that is not free until his mana is fully regenerated. There were roughly ten hours of training time available and he was going to use every second of it.