Explorer of Edregon

It had been a few weeks since Vin had picked up his last skill, and he hadn't once regretted his decision to go with Drawing. The ability to keep a journal with accurate pictures of the different people and monsters he encountered in each fragment was critical to his goal of teaching others about Edregon. The only question now of course was…

What should he pick for his newest skill?

Vin scrolled through both his class list and general list, keeping an eye out for anything that stood out as particularly useful. Technically, he also had the ability to spend his skill points to immediately boost the levels of his currently owned skills, but that seemed like a bit of a waste at the moment. While the growth of his skills certainly was slowing down the higher they got, especially after he evolved them, they would still reach the next level eventually. He just had to be patient.

The last time he'd gone through the skills lists, there really hadn't been much that stood out to him. This time, however…

There were a few options he'd skipped over before that now seemed a little more enticing after what he'd been through recently.

Public Speaking

Trap Setting

Interrogation

Swimming

Public Speaking was a general skill, and an obvious choice with how often he had to explain himself to the new settlements they encountered, but it was one Vin couldn't help but feel had been tainted by Patty. It wasn't as if the skill would allow his voice to magically persuade groups of people, but the thought of getting any assistance from the System in helping him convince others to do what he wanted just left a bad taste in his mouth.

Which was a shame, seeing as he had no doubt improving his communication skills would be huge with all the new people he was constantly meeting.

Trap Setting was one of the skills on the Explorer list he'd ignored from the very beginning, but after witnessing the sheer number of times Alice's traps had saved people, it was starting to look a hell of a lot more appealing. Vin knew even if he took the skill his traps would never compare to those of an actual Trapper class, but even so, he had a feeling he'd find plenty of uses for some of the more common traps.

Interrogation was another general skill, and one he'd never even looked twice at the last few times he'd skimmed down the skill list. However, after working with Myers to try and figure out who had killed Patty and Kyle, he'd come to realize just how useful such a skill could potentially be. Abby had already asked him to essentially be on call for any future murders they needed help solving, which meant there was a very high chance the skill would come in handy in the near future.

And lastly, back on his Explorer list, there was Swimming. Vin could swim pretty much as well as the next person, and was confident in his ability to cross a small pond if need be. But if they ever came across any more semi-aquatic fragments, he would probably need to pick up the skill. Even if he finally figured out a method of breathing underwater, the spell probably wouldn't do him much good if he could barely propel himself forward.

The fact that he and Lumel were a thing now played a bit into that as well. What if Lumel ever patched things up with her people and had her banishment lifted? Vin couldn't very well visit her underwater civilization if his swimming skills were on par with that of a young child.

Running is already up to level 17, so at a minimum, I should keep a skill point in reserve to evolve that once it hits 20. So either one general skill, or two Explorer skills. Or just one Explorer skill and keep an extra point in reserve…

Vin sighed as he leaned back against the couch, pondering what he should go with. On top of all the new skills that called to him, he had half a mind to go back to one of Alka's old recommendations and snag either Blocking or Evasion. Each option would cost him two points, but he had no doubt the skills would synergize well with Threat Detection, and he was far better suited for trying to dodge or stop attacks than he was for making his own. In fact, his entire fighting style with his staff was to try and evade and deflect attacks and create space to better allow him to use his magic.

"Ah, to hell with it," he muttered, going back to his Explorer skill list and snagging Swimming without a second thought. He wasn't one to spend all day agonizing over a decision, and the thought of exploring an entire underwater civilization one day was extremely appealing to him. Being prepared for combat was always good of course, but he cared far more about being able to successfully navigate any type of fragment they stumbled upon. He was sure they'd also encounter other fragments down the line that were more aquatic-based, which meant the skill definitely wouldn't be wasted. As he purchased Swimming, he rubbed his temple as he received a mental crash course on all the best ways to move his body in order to propel himself through the water.

Though that wasn't the only thing he gained.

Vin blinked as an unfamiliar notification popped up in front of him, causing his eyes to widen.

Warning. You have filled 9 out of your 10 allotted skill slots.

"What?!" He gasped, rereading the warning and shooting a glare up at the ceiling. "Are you guys serious? Why didn't you warn us sooner!?"

Realizing he wasn't going to get an answer from the gods regardless of how long he ranted, Vin grumbled as he dismissed the notification. None of his friends had made any mention of the System having a cap for skills, which led him to believe the ten-skill limit had to be another addition to the new System, similar to how one now had to prove they were worthy of prestiging.

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Less skills means less ways to gain experience… It's starting to feel like the gods tried to make leveling up harder with this new System. Vin sat there, wondering why that was the case. He knew it was divine magic that had corroded and eventually led to the old System's downfall, but maybe there was something about high level individuals that played a part as well.

Either way, Vin made a mental note to inform Spur. Thanks to all the opportunities he had to gain experience roaming the different fragments, he was the highest leveled Earther by far, so he was almost certain he was the first person to have stumbled upon this discovery. Hell, he was pretty sure he was one of the highest leveled people in this general area of Edregon entirely. The only ones he either knew for sure who were higher, or who he at least suspected were a higher level than him, were Deorer, Madam Trebella, and possibly Curash.

Madam Trebella and Curash obviously wouldn't have shared this new information with him, and he had a feeling Deorer was the type of person to dump all his excess skill points into just a few skills, raising the levels remarkably high as fast as possible. That might explain how he'd managed to regain his ability to wade through literal lava so quickly after the Great Reset.

Now that he knew he only had one skill slot left to fill, Vin dismissed the other skills he'd been looking at. He needed to make sure his final purchase was a good one. Otherwise, he'd have to pray there was some method of erasing one's skills and opening up a new slot down the line.

He had a feeling if something like that existed before Edregon his friends would have mentioned it, but with this new System, who knew what was possible.

With this issue of his stockpiled skill points taken care of for the moment, Vin shifted gears and began thinking about magic. He had five different projects sitting at the back of his mind, and it was time to decide what to tackle first. To organize his thoughts, he made a list on a free page in his journal.

Figure out some form of area-of-effect offensive spell for situations with lots of small monsters like the insect dungeon

Learn fire affinity from the heat resistance artifact Nohral had given him

Grab the next tier of spatial magic from Lumel and finally learn

Dimensional Pocket

or

Dimensional Shift

for himself

Master his first tier 3 spell

Create artifacts for Abby and the new guards

Luckily, slimming that list down was rather easy. First off, he had absolutely no idea how to actually go about creating an artifact, which meant that was off the list until he could either convince Shia to teach him, or find another teacher. Next, was the fact that both Dimensional Pocket and Dimensional Shift were tier 3 spells, which meant those two goals were basically one and the same. And lastly, while learning an area-of-effect spell would be useful, he didn't actually have one available to him at this moment to work on. His only thoughts were either asking Shia for Grass Spikes or running over to Eithan and seeing what the Stone Mage had available.

All that to say, there was only one thing Vin could actually work on right here and now.

Gently pulling off his amulet and placing it in his lap, Vin slipped into Introspection and mentally prepared himself. Technically, he supposed he should have Shia here watching over him. But he'd come a long way since the last time he'd delved into an artifact in order to learn Create Water. Sure, trying to learn his first fire-aligned spell on his own might be a tad reckless, but he was confident!

And worst case scenario, his new apartment looked to be made mostly of stone. The chance of burning the place down to the ground was almost zero!

Reaching out with his magic sense, he felt the artifact waiting just outside his void, and he expanded his senses to encompass the foreign runic formation. As soon as the glowing runes came into view, Vin realized this attempt was both going to be easier and harder than his last one.

Create Water was a tier one spell, which meant it was inherently more complex than a tier zero. However, it was also the bare bottom of the building blocks that made up water-aligned spells, which meant he didn't need to worry about trying to split the foreign runic formation into different parts.

This amulet, however, was clearly a tier one spell that was not just one of the building blocks of fire magic. That meant the actual learning of Sense Fire would be fairly easy, but first, he had to isolate that portion of the formation from whatever had actually been imbued into the amulet. Based on what it did, he assumed the full spell was something like Protection from Fire, but that was a task for later.

Just like the last time, Vin got to work. He carefully walked around the pulsing, live runic formation within the amulet, examining it from all angles. Thankfully, there was one other tool he had in his arsenal that he hadn't the last time he'd tried this, and it made his task far easier this time around.

With his Flexible Formation Capstone guiding his eyes, Vin quickly managed to pinpoint precisely where the Sense Fire portion of the spell was located. He had so many different sensing spells under his belt at this point, that frankly, now that he knew the similarities between them, it was almost child's play.

Gingerly, he used his focus to stretch out and place a thin layer of his mana along the runic formation he wanted to learn. The tier 0 spell was simple enough that despite it being a live formation, he didn't even trigger a single runic backlash this time around. As soon as he'd finished making his copy, he once more leaned on the flexibility of Runic Recalibration, his own skills in Introspection and Runecraft, and the concrete mental image courtesy of Iron Mind to drag his copy from the amulet over into his own personal void, where he let it collapse in on itself and transform into a flawless replica of Sense Fire.

As the glowing formation roared to life within his inner mana, he grinned and slipped out of his Introspection. Just as he'd hoped, he could feel the spell active within his core, searching for any source of active flame in front of him. And if that wasn't evidence enough of his success, his notifications certainly were.

Introspection increased to lvl 10! 2,000 exp gained.

New spell learned! Tier 0 Fire Spell (Sense Fire). 2,500 exp gained.

New magical affinity discovered! Fire affinity. 12,000 exp gained.

Level up! Magical Explorer lvl 35.

+3 Attribute points to spend.

+1 Passive point to spend.

Looks like he had at least one more decision he had to make before calling it a day.