10 minutes after stepping into the bathroom, Lazar came out scrubbed clean of the soot and ash that had covered him earlier, dressed in a clean set of tactical gear instead of the grimy one he had discarded.
Unwilling to head back outside without checking the notifications he had yet to read, Lazar ordered them to appear, 'Show me what I missed.'
[As a newly awakened, you will gain two initial skills : one passive, one active]
[They were not granted arbitrarly]
[They may reflect your nature, your past actions, the hardships that shaped you, or simply possess synergy with your weapon]
[Passive skill acquired : Calm mind | Decent-grade (Level 1/15)]
[Active skill acquired : Sharpness | Crude-grade (Level 1/10)]
Well, there it was, one tangible advantage to awakening : skills.
Whether they were worth a damn remained to be seen, however.
Decent-grade sounded underwhelming enough, but Crude-grade? That's the description of something unfinished, unreliable, or both.
'Calm mind.' Lazar thought, 'That sounds like me.'
'But Sharpness...' He studied the word in silence.
As an 'active' skill, it was unlikely to be metaphorical. And given the bluntness of the name, it most likely had something to do with his blade.
An enhancement? That was Lazar's best guess.
He opened the last notification, already assuming it would raise more questions than it answered like the others.
[Summon your status window with a thought. Through it, you may review your growth, allocate attribute points, and inspect your skills]
'Okay. I was wrong.' A rare glint of excitement flashed in Lazar's eyes, 'Status window.'
▼ [Lazar Sogorov] ▼
⚫Class : None
⚫Level : 2 (420/500)
⚫Essence points : 10/10
⚫Essence recovery : 1 point/min
⚫Attributes [points available : 4]
◼ Vitality : 9 +
◼ Strength : 8 +
◼ Agility : 10 +
◼ Perception : 10 +
◼ Essence : 5 +
⚫Passive skills
◼ Calm mind | Decent-grade (Level 1/15)
⚫Active skills
◼ Sharpness | Crude-grade (Level 1/10)
"Damn." Lazar muttered the word before he even realized he had spoken.
First things first, assuming the interface was being literal, the '4' beside 'points available' was the number of attribute points Lazar could distribute through the '+' signs beside each attribute.
As for their source, he had little doubt they came from his two level-ups.
That implied a gain of two points per level, which, measured against his starting attributes, seemed rather stingy.
Still, stingy or not, that hardly changed the bigger picture : with a single thought, he could now make himself tougher, stronger, faster, more perceptive and... he wasn't sure about the last one.
The first mention of 'essence' had already made Lazar pause when he realized he apparently possessed a reserve of it, but now that he saw it listed as an attribute of its own, his interest rose another notch, 'What is it?'
Before he could dwell on it any longer, a new panel appeared on top of his status window.
[Just as a car requires fuel to run, an awakened requires essence to use most active skills. Increasing this attribute enhances both the power of your essence and the volume of your reserves]
'Oh. Well, I appreciate the clarification.' Lazar thought with genuine approval, his opinion of the interface soaring.
With that cleared up, he decided he might as well check the descriptions for the other attributes, if only to make sure that his initial understanding of them matched the interface's.
[Vitality : Determines the body's toughness, stamina, and capacity for recovery]
[Strength : Determines the raw physical power the body is capable of exerting]
[Agility : Determines speed of movement, coordination, balance, and precision of motion]
[Perception : Determines sensory acuity and spatial awareness]
The descriptions were about what Lazar had expected, and noticeably less detailed this time, which made sense. Unlike the other attributes, essence was a completely new concept, so it naturally called for a fuller explanation.
With that out of the way, he was already weighing where to allocate his attribute points.
But after some thought, he resisted the impulse.
Throwing points around before knowing what his skills did could be a big mistake. For all he knew, their effects could make one attribute far more valuable than the others.
And since the interface had mentioned they were inspectable through the status window, he focused on his two skills and requested their descriptions.
◼ Calm mind | Decent-grade (Level 1/15) :
- Reduces the influence of panic, fear, anger, and other disruptive emotions or mental effects on your mind.
◼ Sharpness | Crude-grade (Level 1/10) :
- Enhances your weapon's sharpness through essence reinforcement.
- Essence consumption : 1 point/second.
Calm Mind was not as straightforward as Lazar had expected.
What it offered more or less confirmed what he had already assumed, and at first glance, it was not especially impressive.
For the most part, it only reinforced habits of thought he already possessed.
What kept it from sounding entirely underwhelming was the mention of resistance to mental effects.
That single detail stirred two opposing reactions in Lazar : unease at the realization that powers capable of affecting the mind were now something he had to worry about, and relief that he was not defenseless against them.
As for Sharpness, on paper it had promise.
In the hands of someone using a normal weapon, it could already be useful.
On his blade, which was already unnaturally sharp, it could be devastating.
The price, however, was absurd. 10 seconds of use and his essence reserves would vanish.
'Actually, can I even use it?' Lazar wondered, reaching for his weapon, set down on a dresser.
He unsheathed it, formed the name of the skill in his mind, and waited.
Two or three seconds dragged by before the first sign of change appeared.
A sensation Lazar had no frame of reference for stirred inside his hand.
Something moved beneath his skin, not physically, not quite, but close enough to make his grip almost falter. What had to be his essence then flowed from his palm into the handle of his weapon, and the moment it did, a sense of unease came over him.
It was not pain, not in the strict sense, but it was foreign enough, invasive enough, that his body reacted as though it were, screaming at him to let go of his weapon.
But Lazar held on. Jaw clenched, he forced himself through the wave of revulsion, reasoning that he could always stop if it started to actually hurt.
A second later, he realized the flow was spreading. His essence was no longer confined to the point of contact of his hand with his weapon, but coursing through the entire weapon, from the handle all the way to the tip of the blade.
And he could feel all of it. Every fraction of his essence remained part of his awareness, including the part now coursing through the blade, as though his essence became an extension of his own nervous system.
Lazar studied his hand and blade from every possible angle, his fascination eclipsing his discomfort.
Then, before his mind could remind him of the skill's cost, his body did as an increasingly insistent sense of emptiness, of something running low that he could not quite name, warned him that he was about to run out of essence.
Lazar willed the skill to deactivate, and the stream of essence abruptly withdrew. When he checked his reserves in the status window, the result made his expression tighten, 'Only one point remaining.'
Now more than ever, he was left doubtful about the immediate usefulness of that skill.
In the end, he chose not to place any of his attribute points into essence yet, favoring improvements that would benefit him right away.
That left him four choice.
Vitality? Lazar found himself unconvinced.
A single clean strike from the monster he had faced earlier would kill him, and he doubted one or two more points in that attribute could change that outcome.
Strength? That was already a better option, but in Lazar's eyes, it still wasn't where his points should go first.
◼ Agility : 10 + 1 ⟶ 11
◼ Perception : 10 + 1 ⟶11