Leon's mouse hovered over the Starter Box, which Auriel mention that everyone would get. Auriel also stated that everyone received the same items.
-Would like to open the Starter Box?
(Y/N?)
Leon clicked yes before the Starter Box flashed with a white light on the CPU screen.
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-Congratulations, Leon, you've received [F-Rank Weapon Card]!
-Congratulations, Leon, you've received [Random Skill Card]!
-Congratulations, Leon, you've received [Double Exp. Card x3]!
-Congratulations, Leon, you've received [Space Pouch]!
-----
"Congratulations on your first opening. Please ask any questions if you need help with anything." Auriel was watching Leon from behind, so she didn't miss anything.
"Thanks, now I want to check the skills I can buy." Leon had an Idea of what skill he wanted to purchase to survive.
"Be mindful of your points when purchasing them, you might run out before you know it. They're at the very bottom, your total points, that is." Auriel smiled and said.
Leon looked down and saw that he had 2,900 points at his disposal. He remembered that Auriel said that you would only have 500 points, but Leon had more than that.
"Oh, yeah!" He suddenly recalled the notification before he was summoned here.
"Haha, let's see what skills we can get." Leon laughed and clicked the skill tab.
-Sword Mastery, Spear Mastery, Bow Mastery, Hammer Mastery, Fire Ball, Fire Bolt, Ice Bolt, Ice Coffin, Lightning Bolt, Thunder Seed, Electro Ball, Earth Spike, Sink Hole...
The number of skills for each weapon and element continued on and on. Leon thought of how amazing it would be to use any of these skills, but he had to find skills that would help him survive.
"I need a skill that can check my surroundings, without me having to do it myself." Leon also wanted to bring forth some companions who could fight for him.
"Oh, I can advise you on this if you need help," Auriel spoke.
"Ah, yes, I need a skill that can check areas for me, or at least can check my surroundings." Leon felt like he would be ambushed if he wasn't aware of the things around him.
"Type in summoning skills," Auriel said.
Leon typed in Summoning skills and a few appeared. There was the Scout Crow, Scout Owl, Scout Mouse, and other scouting skills. Bugs could even be used as scouts to investigate a situation.
Leon read what they could do and found that these scouts had no attack power. They were exclusively useful for scouting.
"Hmm, the cheapest one is the mouse scout but mice are vulnerable to many predators." Leon decided to buy the Crow Scout skill.
The prompt asked Leon if he was sure he wanted to buy this skill and he said yes. The skills cost 100 points to purchase.
[Congratulations, Leon, you've purchased the [Crow Scout] Skill!]
Leon went to browse for perception skills. He found skills related to your five senses, such as smell and hearing. Leon decided to buy the Search and Detect skills. They both cost 200 points each to buy, which was worth it to Leon.
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Search: This skill allows the user to search for any close living being within a certain radius.
•This skill may not detect stealth skills depending on the rank of the target's skill rank.
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Detect: This skill scans the radius of the area for any unnatural oddities.
•Allows the users to search for any traps of all sorts within a certain radius. The radius depends on the rank of this skill.
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Auriel was watching silently from the side, there was no telling what she was thinking.
"Alright, let's check the Elemental Mastery and see what I can buy." Leon backed out of skills and checked the Element section. Once he was there, he saw a whole list of Elements, which was shocking to him.
Pyrokinesis, Hydrokinesis, Electrokinesis, Terrakinesis, Spatiokinesis, Photokinesis, Umbrakinesis, and so on.
However, when Leon saw the price for each of them, he frowned. He couldn't afford any of them with the points he had now.
"Hahaha!" Auriel broke out into wild laughter when she saw Leon's disappointed expression.
"What? What's so funny? These Elements are too expensive." Leon's eyebrows twitched. Were they on the market to tease everyone?
"It's okay, you can gain points by killing monsters in the Dungeon. Once you beat the bosses on the first and only floor, you can purchase more items." Auriel wiped her tears and said.
"Boss?" Leon's heart jolted. Of course, there would have to be a boss in a Dungeon!
"That's right. Once you defeat a boss, it will give you a great number of points."
Leon went back to the Skill section where he saw many of the Elemental skills from before. "I don't understand, why can you buy skills with the Elemental Masteries?"
Leon thought that you would need Pyrokinesis in order to use Fireball for example. So he was curious as to why they could be bought separately.
"Indeed! Fireball can be bought without needing to buy Pyrokinesis." Auriel smiled and continued. "However, Fireball would be stuck in the F-rank category without Pyrokinesis."
"Pyrokinesis increases the power of Fire skills and also allows the user to gain enlightenment on fire skills. This means that you would be able to increase and even create your own tailored fire skills."
Auriel explained the importance of having Kinetic Elemental Masteries. Of course, you could buy Fireball or whatever elemental skill separate, but it wouldn't get stronger.
"Also, your Fireball skill's power would scale with how strong your Pyrokinesis rank is. So if you have Fireball and Pyrokinesis, Fireball wouldn't have a separate rank, as its power would depend on your Pyrokinesis strength."
Auriel explained slowly.
"Dang!" Leon knew that if he bought any of these Elemental skills, they would be stuck at F-rank!
"I have an important suggestion." Auriel saw how many points Leon had and sighed in relief. She had almost forgotten to tell him about a skill he should urgently buy.
"What is it? What is your suggestion?" Leon was all ears.
"I suggest you buy, well, save as many points as you can for [Item Box]."
Auriel explained that in the world of Eternia, Item Box was an extremely Legendary and useful skill.
"Eternia? What is that?" Leon asked curiously. From what she said, Leon surmised that it was obviously a world or place.
"Ah, it's nothing!" Auriel shifted her eyes and continued. "Anyway, this is an important skill, and you should buy it."
Leon stared at her blankly, but she only looked away—avoiding eye contact.
Leon turned to the CPU and searched [Item Box], which popped up right away.
The price for this skill was 15,000 points!
Leon couldn't afford it yet, so he could only wait until he finished the trial.
Leon bought the Summon Golem and Summon White Knight Skill for combat. They both cost 800 points each, leaving Leon with a total of 800 points.
Leon wanted to buy self-regeneration skills but he was low on funds at this point.
Leon decided to purchase food and water, which was the cheapest but the most needed. Pots and pans could be bought in bundles for a cheap price.
Leon was left with 400 points he planned to save for later. Afterward, he placed all of his items into his Space pouch, which could hold up to 10 by 10 square feet worth of items.
This was just 100 square feet. His storage pouch was actually a high-grade storage pouch. Leon wondered what they were preparing for with all of these skills.
He tried asking Auriel but she would simply avoid answering the question. Leon could only give up, he was sure she would tell him at some point.
Leon hoped that what he and everyone else was doing wasn't for the entertainment of some higher power. He hoped that his purpose wasn't to accumulate skills and then fight to the death with some other people.
Leon sighed before looking at the skill card he had bought.
He tore all of the skill cards he bought to learn them. Leon bought mostly support skills in order to survive. These were skills for detecting enemies and skills that allowed summons to fight for him.
Leon would strengthen himself personally later, but it was too dangerous to fight personally. He believed.
Honestly, he needed to lose weight to make that happen. Leon had to put points into his defense, which scaled off his body's appearance and fitness.
"Nice!" Leon was satisfied. That's when he suddenly remembered the Exclusive Token he received before coming here.
"What could that be used for?" Leon pulled it out and what appeared was a mostly all-black coin.
The token was not only black but there were golden letters written in the middle of it. The golden letter said EX, which meant Exclusive. Leon checked the token when a holo screen appeared over it with information.
-Ultimate Token
-Rank: 𝐄𝐗
-Effect: This Transcended level token gives the user an Exclusive [Ultimate Skill]. The skill will be randomly generated and would be one of its kind.
Note: To activate, say 'Engage.'
'This coin will give me an Ultimate Skill. If I remember correctly, even in novels—such things were rare.' Leon wondered what Ultimate Skill would be given to him.
"Unbelievable, you even have such a thing?" Auriel was stunned as her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the token.
"Uh, yeah, is it that amazing?" Leon knew Ultimate Skills were amazing because they were exceedingly rare. Usually, they could be used without mana in any given situation.
However, for it to amaze a being like Auriel? It must be better than what Leon had thought.
"Give it a try and see, you must have already read its information." Auriel smiled and said.
Leon nodded and whispered the word 'Engage.' The token flashed with a gleaming black light.
[Searching for Ultimate Skill, analyzing...]
Leon saw the status screen's wording and just sat there and waited for the results.
[Ding! Ultimate skill found! Downloading in 1%...3%...9%...15%...20%...]
While Leon was waiting, Auriel spoke. "After this, you will need to fight monsters in the tutorial before being sent to the Dungeon."
"After you beat the 1st floor, you will be able to leave the Dungeon. Afterward, you will meet a Cosmic Merchant, who will sell everything displayed on this CPU. You will only be given one chance to meet this merchant and that will be it."
Auriel's warning was clear. When the time came, Leon would need to choose wisely if he wanted the best skills, weapons, Etc.
"Fight monsters?" Leon felt nervous, what monsters would it be?
"Don't worry, you'll be alright." Auriel had received a message that most of the contestants had already descended into their personal Dungeons.
Unfortunately, quite a number of contestants were eliminated by the Tutorial monsters. Once this happened, they would be deemed unworthy and sent home.
Auriel told Leon this and he was stunned, he only hoped his brother made it. Leon could only take a deep breath at the thought while nodding.
[Ding! Ultimate Skill completed!]