He wanted it. He really did. There were so many ideas going around in his head, and he wanted to test them all out, but he also had to accept that a dungeon wasn’t the place. He had pushed his luck plenty of times, and it only takes pushing it one time too many for things to crash and burn.

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  Also, he had to keep something else in mind. The recovery effect wouldn’t really benefit him that much. The entire fight with the mentalist had left him with 85% mana, which hadn’t taken long to go back up to 100%, so picking a resource recovery skill was a waste, at least for now.

  It did make him wonder whether he could get [Revitalize] in a future skill offering or if it would be entirely different skills. While he loved the idea of more skills that were hopefully higher rarity, he also could imagine himself picking [Revitalize] even if there were uncommon skills on offer, he just hoped this wouldn’t be the last time he saw the skill. “Well, that’s a problem for future Matt to deal with.”

  Discarding [Revitalize] left him with [Mend] as well as [Knockback].

  They were both solid options, [Mend] would probably see less use since he already had [Minor Heal], but if he planned on getting it anyway, since getting a different weapon was bound to happen at one point or the other, having the healing skill earlier was important, if only to familiarize himself with it, and maybe even work it into his fighting style.

  He also really wanted to know if there were limitations on what it could and couldn’t repair. As a guy who would have to survive 6 months in isolation with only monsters to keep him company, repairing things would definitely come in handy. If there was no one to do it for him, then he had to do it himself, right? Also, the fact that it scaled with both spirit and willpower, which were not only his highest stats but also the exact ones his class provided, was a big plus.

  On the other hand, [Knockback] was the opposite. It was a skill that would yield immediate results while still being useful as time went on, although maybe less so. It was both an offensive and defensive skill, even if it did no damage, which would make his dungeon diving experience go a lot smoother. The main caveat, however, was that it scaled with intelligence.

  While his intelligence was high right now, his class offered him none per level. He also didn’t really feel like committing his 1 free point to it long term was the right move. Boxing himself in this early was never a smart idea, versatility and adaptability trumped early power almost every time. And while [Knockback] sounded amazing, [Mend] was definitely the more versatile of the two–at least in the long run–simply because of how ambiguous the description had been, along with its scaling potential, while [Knockback] would always be a skill that knocked enemies back.

  [Mend] could still end up being a case of bad description, with the skill simply being a basic heal, but he’d still rather have that than a knockback with limited potential and scalability.

  “A mender with mend. Now I just need a pointy hat and a sign that says ‘trust me bro, I’m a healer’,” he groaned in protest, still unhappy with how things had played out. “Just put me out of my misery already,” he complained again before making his choice.

  A couple of uneventful seconds passed, then he felt something.

  A searing sensation came from his right wrist. It wasn’t painful, but definitely weird, like a painless branding, if that even was a thing.

  The weird feeling soon receded, lasting for only a few seconds, before a flood of information followed in its wake

  It felt amazing. It was like the knowledge of book after book was being imparted onto him, as his brain was kindly and warmly guided through every page in a very efficient, yet gentle, manner.

  His understanding of mana improved by leaps and bounds. Not from a knowledge standpoint, but on an instinctual level. How it journeyed, how to guide it, and how much it hates being forced. He didn’t know that learning a single skill would teach him so much, it even made him feel more connected to his soul through his mana, and all it took was a mere few short seconds.

  He wanted to test out so many things, endless ideas kept cycling through his mind one after the other, and just like how abruptly it had started, it ended, leaving him wanting, nay, needing, more.

  “Woah,” Matt exclaimed. “Why couldn’t schools do that?” he joked as he read the new notification.

  Skill unlocked!

  [Mend] (common)

  1 of 15 skills allocated

  14 skill slots remaining

  He finally looked at his wrist and noticed, for the first time, something new itched under his skin, like a tattoo… a radioactive tattoo. It was a circle with some kind of mark inside of it that resembled a serrated knife with only 3 edges. The entire pattern was exuding a faint soft green glow that was definitely both weird and distracting. He tried focusing on it in an attempt to make it less… obvious, and thankfully it only took a thought for it to turn invisible, yet he could still sense it. Definitely something he was gonna have to get used to.

  The notification also let him know something else, the fact that he had limited skill slots, which did make some sense, better to have a few very powerful skills than an endless supply of mediocre ones, and 15 was a generous number. It was also good to know that both [Identify] and [Universal Tongues] didn’t count as part of the 15.

  He hovered a hand over his chest and tried casting his new healing skill. He also tried splitting his attention inwards and outwards to get an idea of what a skill did to his soul, which was incredibly challenging to do, so instead he alternated between the two. At first, he felt a minor draw on his mana followed by small light green threads extending from the tips of his fingers and latching onto his chest, searching, but finding nothing. It lasted for a few seconds before the threads seemed to give up and dissipate into a barely noticeable puff of light green.

  The entire process was very intriguing. The draw on his mana was subtle, barely noticeable even, and he definitely felt like he could push more mana into it, but he was also unharmed and uninjured, so he couldn’t really be sure.

  He tried punching the cobblestone a few times to see if he could injure or bruise his fists, but to his surprise, it didn’t work. He tried punching harder, putting more and more of his strength into the punch, but still… nothing. His hand wasn’t sustaining any damage, and neither was the cobblestone.

  He wouldn’t call himself tough, nor would he say he was easy to bruise, nevertheless, he was never a durable or resilient person, which meant it was either his evolution, his stats, or something about the dungeon itself, maybe even a combination of all three.

  While it was a good thing, he had hoped to familiarize himself with the skill as soon as possible since he really didn’t want his first test to be… well, mid-battle.

  His eyes darted, falling on the dead mentalist a few steps away from him. He got up and made his way towards the body. Standing over it, he contemplated. It was a dungeon, and nothing in a dungeon was ‘real’, at least it shouldn’t, or a dungeon would simply be a one-and-done. And yet he couldn’t really be sure. Yes, the mentalist’s milky white eyes and deadpan look lacked any life to them, and yes he knew that bodies of the deceased were sometimes donated for scientific or educational purposes, and yet desecrating the dead still didn’t feel right. But could he really afford a moral compass?

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  Okay… that sounded way worse than what it was. It wasn’t about abandoning his morals, just making them more… flexible. “That sounds even worse than no morals,” he sighed.

  It was life and death, and he had to be decisive, he couldn’t afford not to, and it wasn’t like he was hurting anyone. Besides, the mentalist kinda gave him permission when he traumatized and tried to kill him. He’ll just call it even.

  Matt stared at the prone body for a minute longer before making up his mind. Steeling his nerves, he scrunched down, putting a hand over the mentalist’s injured back, where his mana orb had blasted him, before casting [Mend]. He felt the familiar draw on his mana, followed by the appearance of the tiny threads, but this time they didn’t search, they just went to work.

  It wasn’t like stitching, but more like filling a hole. Any place the threads touched slowly started recovering, open cuts closed, muscles and tendons repaired, missing skin replaced. It was astonishing how quickly and efficiently it was closing the wound.

  It didn’t take long either, neither did it cost that much mana, taking around a couple of minutes and 8% of his total mana to close up a fist-sized wound. He couldn’t help but wonder if the skill was capable of resurrection. Maybe not while common, that was a little too much to ask for, but as time went on, would it be able to? If not, then were there even skills capable of resurrecting someone? Did he even want a skill like that? In all honesty, no, he didn’t. The sanctity of death was sacred and shouldn’t be interfered with, but he also just desecrated the dead, so did he really have any ground to stand on? The answer was not really, but he never claimed that he wasn’t a hypocrite, so he was standing by that opinion.

  After a couple more minutes, he removed his hand, causing the threads to snap, disappearing in a puff of green. The wound was fully healed, with no indication of it ever existing. It worked even better than Matt thought, which he was happy about, giving him enough of an idea of how fast, thorough, and efficient it was. With a final nod of respect, he got up and made his way towards the stone altar, ready to test his second idea.

  Hovering his hand over a chipped off part of the altar, he proceeded to cast [Mend] again, the familiar threads appearing, and surprisingly, attaching themselves to the altar, however nothing seemed to happen beyond that, no draw on his mana, no stone replacing the chipped off parts, just a whole lot of nothing. He even tried pushing mana towards the threads himself, but no changes whatsoever, so he pushed even more mana, until the threads eventually exploded in a significant puff of green, that thankfully caused him no harm.

  So, no regrowing stone for the time being it seems, he thought to himself.

  Next, he grabbed a broken-off piece of stone and attached it to the altar, the spot where he assumed it fell off from, holding it in place. He then hovered a palm over it and cast [Mend] once more. The threads latched onto the stone and the familiar mana draw began, but at a much higher rate. Like if before the mana drain was similar to water dripping from a faucet, now the knob was fully turned, causing mana to pour out of him and into the stone, however, the little piece of stone was still loose, falling to the ground whenever he removed the hand keeping it in place.

  Whether the skill worked or not, he wasn’t sure. He liked to believe that it was-given how much mana it was draining-yet the results said otherwise. It could be an arduously slow process, but he also couldn’t really keep up with the mana drain. The skill was draining 4% of his mana per second, and he was already at 64%, meaning he had 16 seconds more at most before he’d have to stop, recover his mana, then go again.

  He kept at it for a dozen more seconds, the mental and physical strain from using so much mana becoming much more strenuous. It was both annoying and exhausting, yet tolerable, or at least it was.

  Without warning, a splitting headache hit Matt like a hammer, dropping him to his knees as he clutched his head in his hands. It was like a dozen jackhammers drilling through his brain at the same time while a wrecking ball kept smashing his skull. It was more intense than anything he’d ever felt in his entire life, and not knowing what to do, he grabbed his scepter and tried casting [Minor Heal], but instead of relief, the headache only got worse, causing him to scream in agony.

  He dropped to the ground and tried to breathe through the pain. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he couldn’t even think, the pain occupying his every thought as his head felt as if it was on the verge of imploding.

  A couple of minutes of intense suffering and agony later, he could finally feel the headache subsiding. He let out a shaky, relieved breath before taking a look at his resource bars. His health was surprisingly full, and stamina was at 80%. Mana, on the other hand, wasn’t. It was at 20%, and while it was recovering, it was a slow recovery, around 1% every 20 to 30 seconds.

  His first and only guess was that it perhaps was as a side-effect of running low on mana. Exhausting your stamina left you sore and tired, exhausting your health left you… well, dead, so he felt safe to assume that exhausting your mana left you with a construction site in your brain. He didn’t know at what percentage exactly would the suffering start, which was annoying, but while he did want to know, he had no intention of going through that again to find out.

  Guess I’ll just have to play it by ear, he thought as he closed his eyes, letting his mind and body recover a while longer. He stayed that way, sprawled on the ground, for another hour, before he felt well enough to continue his testing.

  He tried pulling the stone he was trying to attach to see if it was firmly in place, but after a couple of wriggles it broke off. It did seem to work, since it wasn’t falling off on its own anymore, although at an incredibly slow pace. It was a proof of concept, which was what he had hoped for. And while it wasn’t efficient by any stretch of the word, it indicated the possibility of replacing the stone, not just fusing it, but maybe not at his current level.

  He reattached the stone to the chip and went at it again, but this time while keeping a close eye on his mana bar, making sure to stop and recover his mana every time it dropped to 25%.

  It took him about 4 hours to fully attach the small piece of stone back to the altar. The process was long, but he couldn’t be happier with the result. It was perfectly attached, with no indication that it had ever not been. Feeling pleased, he spent the next few hours testing. He tried attaching a stone that clearly didn’t fit and protruded out of the altar, which seemed to work, although at an insanely higher cost that he could only keep supplying for 4 seconds before he had to stop, the strain from the amount of mana being drained out of him making him almost keel over. This was clearly something that was far beyond him.

  After that, he decided to go even further, and tried to attach a stone to the mentalist’s body. Thankfully, no matter what he did, it didn’t work, the threads never even attaching themselves to it. He had mainly tried it for his own peace of mind. He knew that odds were a class existed that could do the unthinkable, he was just happy his didn’t. He had no intention of becoming some crazy doctor, but not having the option in the first place was definitely the safer bet for everyone.

  He had tried looking for the Mentalist's staff to see if he could channel mana through it the same way he does with his own scepter, but to his surprise, it was nowhere to be found, leaving him to question whether there was even a staff to begin with. In the end, he gave up on his search, deciding to go back to his experiments.

  It wasn’t until a few more hours that he felt satisfied enough to stop testing. He opened his notifications and status to see how things looked now that he was Tier 9.

  Skill level up!

  [Mend] (common) → [Mend] (common 4)

  “Huh, interesting, 4 levels from that session. Not bad,” Matt nodded approvingly before continuing to his updated status screen.

  Title upgraded!

  Initiated (initiate)

  A title given to all the initiated.

  +6 all stats

  (this title is upgraded with your race or level tier.)

  Status

  Name: Matthew Ashfield

  Level: 5 (Tier 09)

  Class: Mender

  Race: Human (Tier 10)

  Titles

  Initiated (Initiate)

  Spirited Soul

  The Sole Reject

  Hunter (Tier 10)

  Unrivaled Genius

  Stats

  Strength - 35

  Agility - 35

  Spirit - 58

  Intelligence - 40

  Wisdom - 41

  Willpower - 44

  Vitality - 39

  Endurance - 37

  9 stat points available to distribute.

  Skills

  [Universal Tongues] (unique)

  [Identify] (common)

  [Mend] (common 4)

  Seeing ‘The Sole Reject’ title still pissed him off, but his noticeably higher stats helped alleviate that somewhat. The 9 free stats were also something to keep in mind. Right now he didn’t know what he was lacking, so waiting until he did felt like the safest option.

  Feeling satisfied with what he had seen, he decided to catch some shuteye, excited to finally have a class and a skill under his belt, even if that class was… a goddamn healer.