After extensive training, Lucas managed to reduce the casting time to one and a half minutes. While it still wasn’t anywhere near his goal of just one second, it was progress.

The reason he needed to cast gates quickly was simple: in battle, he wouldn’t have much time. He envisioned himself appearing on all sides of a battlefield, striking unexpectedly.

However, his expectations seemed unrealistic—for now, at least. Initially, he hadn’t fully understood the part of the skill description that explained how his knowledge and proficiency in spatial magic would determine his ability. Yet, after encountering obstacle after obstacle, he finally grasped what that meant.

What Lucas had received from the system upon acquiring the skill was essentially a beginner’s guide. It was like learning to use a computer: you know how to operate it but don’t understand the programming or mechanics behind it. You can perform basic tasks but lack the ability to customize or optimize it to your needs.

This was exactly Lucas’ situation. He could create simple portals, but he was clueless about how to improve them—be it making them faster or more efficient.

Of course, not all of his struggles came from ignorance. Familiarity also played a role, and he had already made significant progress in reducing the casting time. Unfortunately, upon returning to training, he encountered another harsh reality: he could only maintain four gates at once.

Though this was yet another setback for his dream of filling the world with his "wonderful gates," Lucas remained optimistic. He was confident that the skill had untapped potential, waiting to be unlocked through mastery.

During one experiment to test his limits, Lucas tried creating gates as far apart as possible. He positioned one near the elevator door and the other on the far side of the apartment, then stepped through. Based on his estimate, the gates were about 250 feet apart. After successfully crossing, he checked his mana and saw he had only used five points. This led him to conclude that five mana was the minimum cost for teleportation. He now needed to determine whether—and under what conditions—this cost might increase, which would require access to a larger space.

…

After hours of repetitive training, Lucas finally decided to take a break. Upon reaching the living room, where the TV was located, he checked for new games but was disappointed to find only the same two titles on the coffee table.

“Well, two’s better than none,” he shrugged and started playing.

...

After gaming to his heart’s content, Lucas spent some time practicing mana manipulation, crafting a sculpture of Axis holding his giant fireball. The result was satisfying, but without paint to color the fireball, it felt incomplete.

Feeling worn out from both work and play, Lucas went to bed shortly after finishing his statue and slept for ten dreamless hours.

...

When he woke up, the question he had been avoiding all day resurfaced: What should he use his skill upgrade on?

This was a far tougher decision than choosing a new skill, and he had been putting it off. But after a good night’s sleep and having done nearly everything he could in the waiting room, he felt it was time to decide.

Yet, after several minutes of deliberation, Lucas shook his head in frustration. For the first time since starting his journey on Ponos, he felt genuine doubt about which path to take. He had so many skills he wanted to upgrade, but he could only choose one.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Eliminating the skills he rarely used and those already at a satisfactory rarity still left several strong contenders. His Fire Shot had fallen behind, especially after his last fight with Axis, although his skyrocketing Magic stat might have given it a boost.

There was also Death Aura Manipulation, still at Inferior rarity, and Life Aura Manipulation, arguably his most precious skill, as it was the only one that could directly save his life.

Glass Gate, his flashy new skill, had already proven its usefulness and had great potential for enhancement. And then there were his Bone Blades. Though he wasn’t even sure if they could be upgraded, given their Unique rarity, they were still worth considering.

Lucas also knew that upgrades weren’t entirely random; they were influenced by how a skill was used. His Life Aura Manipulation skill was a prime example. During his fight with Axis, the skill evolved in response to his experiences, gaining an auto-regeneration perk.

This meant that skill upgrades were personalized and could vary greatly, even for generic abilities like Stealth. Lucas suspected that if he had used Stealth in a more unconventional way, he might have unlocked a unique upgrade—different from what others would receive.

Considering his options, Lucas had little idea whether he’d get anything beyond a basic quality upgrade for most of his skills. He simply hadn’t had enough time to experiment with them, leaving most in their original state.

The only skill he had truly tinkered with was his Fireball, which eventually evolved into Fire Shot and, incidentally, Fire Blast. He had aimed to make it smaller and more aerodynamic so it could fly faster and deal greater damage. After implementing these changes, the system rewarded him with an upgrade.

However, as his foes grew stronger and his relatively low Magic stat limited him, the skill quickly became little more than a distraction while he prepared more powerful attacks. Since then, he hadn’t revisited it.

Another skill he had briefly tested was Death Aura Manipulation, when he infused its necrotic effect into his glass blades. But even that fell within the scope of the skill’s description:

Death Aura Manipulation (Inferior)

You have uncovered the mysteries of the death aura, a path seldom explored, and now have some control over your own aura, being able to extend it up to 7 feet from your body and imbue weapons in your possession with a necrotic effect.

Since his blades, though part of his body, could be classified as weapons, he hadn’t done much beyond what the description already covered. As such, he doubted the system would grant him anything more than a standard upgrade for the skill.

A quality upgrade wouldn’t hurt for any of them, but maybe I should wait until I figure out where I want to take each skill, he mused.

Reaching this conclusion presented another problem: Lucas had no idea how to directly influence skill upgrades without doing all the work himself.

His Life Aura skill had evolved under extreme circumstances, whereas his Fireball upgrade was the result of deliberate, extensive experimentation. In the latter case, he had essentially directed the system to upgrade it without external guidance.

If he could replicate that approach with all his skills, the Skill Upgrade would become redundant. Yet, even with his confidence in his determination and ability, he knew it would demand a tremendous amount of time and effort. This was precisely why the free Skill Upgrade was so valuable—it saved him time.

Pondering how to guide the system without shouldering the full burden, Lucas recognized his greatest weakness: despite reading extensively in Zoria’s library, he still lacked sufficient knowledge about this world and its mechanics. He needed far more study before he could guide the system into giving him what he wanted with minimal effort.

Thus, he resolved to wait until he knew exactly what he wanted and the most effective way to achieve it.

…

Hours slipped away as Lucas rotated between training and resting in the waiting room, his routine nearly uninterrupted. He didn’t practice alchemy, explore the room’s other features, or revisit Faruk’s teachings, all of which he remembered only much later. Instead, he focused entirely on reducing the casting time for his gates.

After countless hours of training, he managed to cut it down to one minute. Just as he prepared to push further, he realized his time in the waiting room was nearly up and decided it would be wise to save some time for when he returned.

As Lucas considered leaving, he hadn’t considered where or how to exchange his points for rewards. Speaking aloud to the emptiness of the waiting room yielded no results, so he assumed the process would begin after he exited the tower.

Even though he hadn’t done much besides honing his new skill, Lucas felt that his time in the waiting room had been productive. With nothing else to do, he grabbed a few snacks, washed his face, and finally declared his intention to leave the tower.