Veronica went first after my 'little' reveal and that quickly got into a discussion about classes. Apparently all classes from different archetypes came with the same starter ability. For the Tech tree there was the ability to directly interface with technology, the "Upgrade for Bionic Control Implants" ability I had never taken, while for the Super path they got something that could modify their body. Nobody was really sure why they got the 'Body Manipulation' skill, but it was why everyone on that path looked as outlandishly attractive as they did. Even Dimitri, who hadn't gone for the pretty-boy look, was shaped like a mountain of a man, regardless of how he had been before.

The best upgrade, and possibly mandatory for the path, went to the Mages. The 'Magical Reservoir' genetic upgrade worked like an extra pool of stamina that could only be used for casting spells and that recovered alongside their normal stamina. The efficiency was fairly extreme, letting the caster get more casting than their Stamina score would allow with even a small point investment in the ability. The ability was also extra sensitive to other upgrades that would increase the potency and depth of the magic it contained, allowing it to act as a bit of a multiplier to anything else magical they had. I was actually kind of sad I hadn't gotten access to that ability yet.

Also, not all classes gave the same number of potential upgrades. All had at least three, not counting the freebee starter skill, with at least one upgrade from each path. My class tied with Clark for both giving 5 upgrade paths at base while everyone else here had started with 4 options. More options weren't always useful, however, as some of the offerings had things like maximum levels available, like my Inventory, or were useless without some other tools or upgrades that weren't included, like my crafting skill. Clark had two options that were limited by level, a questionable form of magic and a self defense upgrade, but he could use everything with his provided options. Nobody else had those limitations, though some of the stuff did seem like it worked together in almost required synergies.

Hearing Veronica's choices was when I began to understand just how much I had profited by killing so many opponents during the earlier Tutorial phases. Her stated desire to become a mage had borne out in how she spent most everything she could on a "Light Magic" skill, boosting it all the way to tier 4 at a cost of 64 points. That was 64,000 credits just to apply it and likely a few hundred thousand to buy the upgrade. I could have likely afforded it, even including my big ticket item of an AI and the fact that my other choices cost a premium due to how specific they were; but everyone else's reactions just showed the difference between what I had gotten and what they had. She must have also gotten more than the average payout in the last mission to even afford what she did get. Unsurprisingly everything else she had was class standard, and some of it wasn't even past Tier 2 because she couldn't afford to upgrade it.

What she did have from her class, however, made me a bit green with envy. That 'magic' dress she was wearing, that was tier 4 armor. Point for point, it was almost certainly better than the stuff I was carrying around from the soldiers. It powered her up enough that she could literally do the 'magical girl' meme where they jump straight up to the top of a light post and across rooftops. Her class also came with Radiation Resistance and a Skill making her superhumanly capable at Ranged Combat, both currently at Tier 2 but uncapped in potential. And that was in addition to her Tier 4 "Light Burst" Ability that she was known for. She was the only one in the group with a full 3 skills at Tier 4. I wouldn't even mind having the Body Manipulation ability to make me prettier.

So in total her Upgrades seemed to amount to this:

-Bound Items: Tier 4 Protective Armor (64pts)

-DNA Superpowered Abilities: Tier 4 Light Burst thing (64pts), Tier 2 Body Manipulation (4pts), and Tier 2 Radiation Resistance.

-Preternatural Skills: Tier 4 Light Magic (64 pts), Tier 2 Ranged Combat (4 pts)

Considering that the maximum amount of points she could have in each category was 85, it was clear what she had given up to have so much high leveled stuff.

After her reveal, and the group's conversation about classes, Clark was the next one to speak up. I don't know what it was that made him speak up but it did make clear that his growing trust for us as a group had gone beyond the basic lip-service that so many of us had professed for everyone else since the very beginning. This was especially true with what he had to say.

Clark's reveal was, in some ways, even more surprising and far darker that I could have guessed. Apparently his "healing" is full on Body Manipulation magic, raised all the way to Tier 4 for a cost of 64 points out of his 85 total for that category, and not just the enhancement magic I had thought it was. He also had some sort of "Soul Magic", only raised to Tier 2 with 4 points spent, that he said was used for preserving a person's life if he ever went too far with his first skill. He obviously understood exactly what he could do with the skill if he were to have less solid morals but chose to develop his System acknowledged talents despite this.

This revelation actually explained a lot about him and his skill use. I could see why a person would want to be known as a "healer" rather than a flesh warper and soul mage, there really weren't too many other things he could pretend to be. It also made sense, from an odd sort of game design perspective to give him that class: Clark wasn't a doctor, he was a biochemistry researcher. The normal enhancement or regrowth magic that other supports used just wouldn't fit his past experience. It also explained his slow speed at doing his job and why he had done so few things beyond healing and recovery. The advantage and problem with his skill was that it had both a high skill floor and ceiling for what it could accomplish. He had tried to work with it by taking a Tier 3 Biology Skill (that was the actual name, I checked), but he still had a lot to learn about using it.

His explanation for the rest brought up how everyone had such high level Upgrades, where everyone but me had an average of a couple upgrades all the way at Tier 4. Apparently you could take the same thing multiple times, gaining higher bonuses but less efficiency with the multiple copies, and then combine them later. His Bound items actually included one thing at every tier up to four, all for enhancements to his magical ability. Beyond that his DNA based Abilities included the Mage signature skill of Magical Reservoir, at Tier 3, and a class exclusive upgrade to his Magical Precision, at Tier 4. This left him with 5 Ability points and 1 Skill point unspent, but he confessed that it had been intentional so as to let him better work with the group plan for survival.

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His Upgrades, so far as I could tell, looked like this:

-Soulbound Items: Tier 4/3/2/1 Magic Enhancers (for individual costs of 64pts, 16pts, 4pts, and 1pt)

-Superpowers: Tier 4 Magical Precision (64pts), Tier 3 Magical Reservoir (16pts)

-Skills: Tier 4 Body Manipulation Magic (64pts), Tier 3 Biology skill (16pts), Tier 2 Soul Magic (4pts)

Donnie, being the more outgoing of the two who were left, went next. Most of what he had to say was already familiar to me, but not all. For instance I already knew that his arm was actually a miniaturized fabricator, it was pretty obvious by how he used it, and that he had kept it as upgraded as he could have it at Tier 4. What I didn't know was that the fabricator only went to his wrist and the hand itself was a fabrication. Also, his lower arm could actually open up for building larger items, something that had to have been a new upgrade considering that I hadn't seen it used that way before. Another thing that came up about his robot arm was that the upper part was a computer that cost just as many points as mine. Granted, his was miniaturized and didn't have the weird 'peripherals' that mine did, so it was far less powerful and useful. Still, it had been a surprise to find out that we shared that similar Upgrade.

He actually liked his class, though, and had leaned in on its strengths, including a 'Mechanical Engineering' skill that was also raised to Tier 4. In addition to the 'Interface' skill, that he apparently liked, he also had an Ability called 'Matter Creation' that let him make limited amounts of exotic materials for use in his creations. Well, technically he had three of the skill, all at Tier 3. He was planning on combining them, of course, but chose to put it off in order to make room for an Inventory/Soul Space/Pocket Dimension/Hammer Space. Near as I can tell those are all the same, so I have no clue why they are referred to differently. Following the theme of copying me, his was the same size and was built to similar specifications. This included the ability to stay partially open over long periods of time, something that I used to be able to connect with my computer and that he planned to use to store materials for his fabricator. Nearly everything he had gotten was in the pursuit of being the best gadgeteer that he could be.

There were some outlying Upgrades in his build, though. The biggest was a Tier 3 'Close Quarters Brawling' skill, chosen because he knew that he couldn't avoid combat all the time. Apparently it had started out as a 'dodging' skill, which had still been Tier 2. He then tried to add a much simpler 'Perfect Throw' skill, at Tier 1, to let him use his gadgets offensively. Unfortunately, while the 'Perfect Throw' allowed him to throw fast and hard every time with supernatural skill, it didn't let him aim or hit a moving target or do so in an awkward situation or anything other than make a throw with perfect form; that required the Tier 2 version of the skill. The same thing happened with a punching and a weapon use skill for using his robot arm in some offensive ways. Combining the lesser Tier 2 skills into a Tier 3 skill had been more expensive to get but had broadened the component skills and allowed them to work together seamlessly.

This was the common point behind his other oddball picks, something bad and/or unexpected had happened and a tool had been picked up to deal with it. Traveling had been tough after our old group had split off from the Cheaters, and so he had taken a Tier 2 version of the 'Reduced Biology' Ability that cut back on his need for food, water, and sleep. Keeping out of bad situations, like we had run into several times, had prompted a Tier 2 'Lie Detection' skill. Water had been generally available, due to a Water Mage who was no longer with us, so a 1 point magic skill filled in that need. This left him with 5 points unspent for bound items and 1 for Superpowered Abilities.

His choices fit what I knew about him: he was generally a laid back individual who was a problem solver when confronted with some difficulty. Not that I really need the extra information, but it is good to have confirmation that my earlier observations weren't completely off the mark.

So far as I understood, his upgrades were something like this:

-Soulbound: Tier 4 Miniaturized Fabricator (64pts), Tier 4 Computer (16 pts)

-Superpowers: Tier 3 Matter Creation X3 (16pts each, total 48pts), Tier 3 Interface (16pts), Tier 3 Inventory (16pts), Tier 2 Reduced Biology for food/water/sleep (4pts)

-Skillz: Tier 4 Mechanical Engineering (64pts), Tier 3 Close Quarters Brawling (16pts), Tier 2 Lie Detection (4pts), and Tier 1 Create Water (1pt)

Finally there was Dimitri. He was the one person who seemed to be taking this whole Tutorial as seriously as I was. Unfortunately he wasn't the trusting type as was proven by his lackluster description of his Soul Bound items. "A bunch of survival tools" was what he said. Further prompting got him to admit that his backpack was tougher than it had any right to be and could hold a lot more than it seemed, but nothing more specific was given on it. There was a communications device and what looked like a high-tech compass with miniaturized radio antenna coming out in all directions? Again, there wasn't a whole lot of explanation for what it did besides the fact that he got it all through his class offering "Survival Gear"...

Some of the choices he made were more evident, even with his roundabout speech. For instance his Earth Manipulation Super Power was maxed for his level, which I took to mean that it was Tier 4. He also had a Construction Skill that helped him work with the stuff he created out of 'earth' to make it stronger, but he had bought multiple copies of it for different purposes. From that, and some math later on about his other Skill options, I figured he bought it either twice or three times at Tier 3 depending on if he was holding back any other options he had bought. Tier 2 Body Manipulation, explaining his heroic proportions and lack of the slightest physical flaw, was also fairly self evident. The rest of his build took some figuring out.

For instance he mentioned having a type of Magic that warned him of something bad happening if he did a particular action. The range of it was narrow and short term but still useful in broad application, so I judged it to be at Tier 2 for a modest 4 point cost. More difficult was his skill to use his 'Earth', which apparently encompassed anything non-living and not part of another structure, as personal defense. I was just calling it 'Earth Armor Proficiency' in my head. His descriptions about what it could now defend him from and the different forms it could take had me convinced it was a 16 point ability at Tier 3. The same type of logic and questioning bore out most of the rest of his build which consisted of a Tier 2 Stealth and some sort of similarly leveled Survivalism skill.

Beyond that, I really couldn't tell. Here is what I did know about Dimitri.

-Soulbound Items: "Survival Equipment", whatever that meant, including a backpack, compass, phone, and such.

-Super Abilities: Tier 4 Earth Manipulation (64pts), Tier 3 Reduced Biology generalized to cover food/ water/ temperature/ and sleep (16pts), Tier 2 Body Manipulation (4pts)

-System Skills: Tier 3 Earth Construction X2 or X3 (16pts each, total of 32pts or 48pts), Tier 3 Armor Proficiency (16pts), Tier 2 Hazardous Prognostication Magic (4pts), Tier 2 Stealth (4pts), and Tier 2 Survivalism (4pts)

His build and how he didn't talk about it despite the circumstances made his guarded nature clear, even to the point of being suspicious. Beyond that, however, he had a well thought out build for the current circumstances that took advantage of his class's obvious strengths. He would likely prove to be either my biggest ally or hinderance within the group, I couldn't yet tell which.