1.15 Bloody Rewards

Chapter 15

“You got one too?” Huwett asked, moving close to me. “Uncommon Skill Card. Wonder what we would get if we used it?”

Uncommon? I thought, realizing that Huwett might have been rewarded with only an uncommon grade reward. Which made sense, I basically did the optional quest alone, and landed the final blow on the dungeon boss, so my contributions were probably rated higher by the System. No one else made mention of the grade of their reward, which made me think they all got an uncommon card besides me.

“Let’s find out what we get then!” Francis yelled as a faint golden light suddenly flashed in his hands where a small rectangular item floated above his palm.

The small item was only barely discernable by its outline for a moment before it crumbled into ash and the light was absorbed into Francis’ body. His eyes glazed over a moment as he began readying some kind of notification.

“Basic Axe Mastery,” he said aloud when he finished reading. “Not all that impressive, but at least useful.”

Everyone else quickly began activating their own skill cards, and with all the excitement of their own reward, no one noticed that my card was tinted yellow instead of light blue. It only showed in my hand for a moment before crumbling away.

[Activating Skill Card (Epic) Blood Manipulation…Skill Slot Used: 1 -> 2 / 10
New Skill (Blood Manipulation) Unlocked]

That certainly sounded better than a weapon mastery skill. I couldn’t help but bring up the skill description.

[Blood Manipulation – Lvl 1 – Beginner

Effect: Allows physical control of your blood through use of mana. Level of control is determined by skill level and intelligence stat.]

It was a rather open ended skill, which were the kinds that I loved in video games, as it meant one had many options in how to use it. Something like this skill may sound simple, but it was a godsend if used by anyone with enough creativity or talent.

As it would turn out, those were two things I had in generous amounts.

“What’d you get, Adam?” Barry asked me with a smile.

“Basic Sword Mastery,” I lied. “Would’ve loved some magic like Vasquez, but still useful I think.”

“Agreed, I got ‘Minor Regeneration’, seems good for a tank, ” he laughed. “What’s with the slots though?”

That was also something I noticed as well. I brought up my skills to figure out what was going on. The System was stingy with information, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any logic to it, so I tried piecing it together.

[Adam Pierce:

Skills: Inspect [Max], Blood Manipulation – Lvl 1 – Beginner, Shade Stealth – Lvl 2 – Beginner, Marked to Die – Lvl 2 – Beginner

Skill Slots: 2/10]

“Did you get the [Inspect] skill from the Tutorial quest rewards?” I asked.

“Yeah, you too?”

“Mmm,” I swiped away the screen and clicked my tongue in thought. “Looks like our class skills don’t count against these ten skill slots. Meanwhile, these rewards do. So I’m at two used slots out of ten.”

“Can we just trade out skills whenever we want, like a loadout?” Barry closed his own screen and was looking at me now, his face filled with a mixture of excitement and concern.

“No clue,” I admitted, this wasn’t something my Sponsor went over with me in the entry room of the Dungeon. It was apparent to me that I’d need to have more indepth talks with her later, if one could even manage to get Death to talk. “I’m guessing there is a cost or penalty to changing out skills once your slots are filled. Maybe they disappear, maybe the lose levels or something? There’s always trade offs in RPGs, I don’t see this would be any different.”

“Yeah, true. Guess that’s a pig that will need to learn how to fly once we ride it,” Barry said with a grin.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he waved a hand dismissively. “Now how do we get out of here?”

“I think by using that,” Norton pointed off a short distance away where a dark blue portal shimmered just above the ground in the clearing.

“Weird, we gotta use a portal, the Tutorial just kicked us out once the quest was complete,” Huwett said.

“Tutorial is different from a normal Dungeon Rift, I guess,” Francis replied, already beginning to walk toward the portal. “No use filing a complaint, doubt this System has an HR department.”

“True that,” Norton chuckled, clapping a large hand on Francis’ back.

“Let’s go then,” Barry waved, following after the two men.

“Alright, alright, let’s go,” I walked a couple steps before halting abruptly and brought up my status screen.

I only at that moment realized I never chose an option on the spirit absorption for the Dungeon Boss, nor for the Elite Ork Warrior for that matter.

[Ability Activated: Soul Usher (F)

Harvesting Soul Essence…

Options available.

Consuming Stats: Essence Cost 10 (5 x 2)

Sentient Spirit (Ork Scout) consumed, Beast Spirit (Lord of the Wood) consumed, allocating gain based on Sentient’s highest stat.