Selene’s POV

  Jason, Caleb, and Selene were outside Selene’s home sitting in a circle. Each of them was wearing their new gear. Caleb looked the part of a brave and daring adventurer with his scale armour and brilliant red hair. His dark eyes even seemed to twinkle joyfully in the sunlight right now.

  Selene was caressing her new robes with her gloved hands. Truth be told she didn’t actually like being completely covered like what Jason thought, but since Caleb was here it was a necessity. Maybe after a few years she could show her face and black splotchy skin to Caleb without worry about what he’d do, but right now she had to keep it covered. A few years more of waiting isn’t so bad. Maybe I can be completely myself some day, but right now… only around Jason. By the abyss he’s a good friend.

  Jason was sitting in his wolf skin. A new wolf skin judging from how it didn’t smell like shit. Either new or he somehow washed that fur. I’m not partying with a man in a wolf skin who has a scraggly beard. If we get strange looks they’re more likely to notice me as well. Alternatively he could act as a distraction from me, but I still don’t want to party with a smelly wolf man.

  “Let’s plan exactly how we’re going to function as a party. I might not know a lot about adventuring as I’m sure none of us do, but I know quite a bit about party planning thanks to du… some games I used to play.” Jason continued after a brief pause. “So let’s tell each other our abilities. We don’t have to say all of them but just generalize. I know it’s a touchy topic for a lot of people but we’re a party so we need to be more open. Saying what our classes are is a must.”

  Jason paused looking at each of them in turn. Open… yes I’ll be as open as I can. It’s good practice. Good practice. Selene found it almost impossible to shake off her nerves but she managed to do it and nodded. After her nod Caleb nodded twice.

  “I’ll go first since I suggested this. My name is Jason Walker. Though that last name hasn’t been used in a long long time. My class is Blessed One and I have twenty-eight passive skills. Nine of those increase my defense against slashing damage a lot and my defense against blunt damage a moderate amount. One increases my magic defense in general. Three more increase the damage my fists do. Then another three increase my reaction time. Af--”

  “Wait wait. You are level twenty-four and have t-twenty-ei-eight skills?” Selene was thinking the exact same thing as the math there didn’t work. Most people can’t do any type of multiplication or division and adding was difficult but the ratio from level to skills is one level is one skill. It was kind of hard to mess up that math. Look at someone’s level and that’s how many skills they should have. Jason was telling them that he had four more skills than he should be able to get.

  “Yes yes I was getting to that. You’ll see in a bit ok… alright. So. What I just said takes care of sixteen of my skills. I have six skills that reduce stamina consumption and increase various things about my body. I can run faster for longer, I’m more flexible, I see and notice more things, I can jump higher than normal, and I can climb and hang for longer than normal people. Then I have the Eyes of Inspection passive which is admittedly annoying and I shouldn’t have listened to Baghric when he said the inspection skills were only passive. I should’ve known he was lying.”

  “But the most important skills I have are these last five. I have one that doubles my effective luck, one that doubles my effective random event chance, one that lowers everyone else's luck by half of my own in a range of ten meters. Though I keep that one sealed. For the last two they only activate on level up. One will now always give me an extra skill point hence me having more skills than I should while the other will give me an extra five stat points occasionally. It hasn’t happened yet but it has a twenty-two percent chance of happening on level up.”

  “Cheater. You’re a cheater.” Selene mumbled to herself then said once more with volume. “You… are a cheater.” Jason just shyly smiled and scratched the back of his head.

  “Well the luck skills are probably going to cost more than ten skill points individually. The last one I mentioned cost me eight skill points.” Alright maybe not as much of a cheater after all. At least if he decides to get all the luck skills. If not… cheater.

  “Well I-I think I’ll go next. I ca-can’t beat that, b-but I’m an Archer and I h-have twenty-four skills. Thirteen p-passive and eleven active. Three passive increase m-my d-damage with fire abili-abilites. Three increase d-damage with dark a-ab-abilities. Two increase my b-bows damage and one let’s me h-hit weak points more often. Three more double my s-stamina, health, and mana until I get thirty-one p-points in them then t-they increase by half. The l-last let’s me discover weak points b-better.” Caleb stopped and took a swig of his water skin.

  “T-the eleven active are mostly various ways to sh-shoot an arrow. Four are dif-different ways to s-shoot. One is how I d-draw arrows so qu-quickly. I can co-cover my arrow in fire and in darkness, wh-which is co-corrosive. Three skills in-increase my mana, stamina, and h-health regenerations f-for a little bit but then the reg-regenerations get slo-slower for double the time. The last is Eyes of Analyzation so that I can g-get more in-information on what I’m l-looking at if I want.” He turned and looked at Jason. “Definitely not as ann-annoying as your skill, but I h-have to th-think about activating m-mine.”

  A classic archer it seems. Although instead of the typical movement skills he went to add some magical effects on his arrows. If Jason can keep him safe he’ll do a lot of damage. Selene appraised Caleb’s build with the very limited knowledge she had. She wasn’t an expert in strategem but she was definitely better than either of these two. I guess it’s my turn.

  “I’m a Poison Mage. I have twenty-four skills and I split them between active and passive at a one to two ratio which left me with eight active and sixteen passive. I have four poison projectiles. One poison type defense I can use. The other three are all simple utility related active skills including an inspection skill. Four of the sixteen passives boost my poison effectiveness, four boost my water element damage, four boost my dark element damage, and three boost my mana. The water element damage so that the poison I throw around in liquid form does more damage just from hitting people regardless of the poison’s strength. The dark element damage so that any corrosive effects of the poison’s get amplified. The last one is a hearing based one.”

  “So you’re a poison mage through and through.” Selene nodded her head. Jason then nodded his head and clapped his hands. “Well then. Let’s start strategizing. Since we have two backliners and then me we need a bit of a different approach as you two will be targeted in fights. If it’s a single enemy that’ll be easy as I’m fast enough to move around and get in their way. Now if there’s two enem…” Selene half listened to Jason as he made initial plans for their formation during fights. She was staring at her Status that she had summoned right after talking about her skills.

  Be open… yes open. Selene sighed in her mind. I wasn’t open at all. Already I have betrayed my companions. Isn’t there a better way? Selene stared at four of her active skills. The ones that came from her abyssal heritage. She stared at them wondering if there wasn’t a better way for her to live.

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  New Skills