WebNovels

Chapter 41 - Skill Point

The final notification faded. The choice was made. The die was cast. He was, for better or for worse, a Reality Architect. The class felt both absurdly grandiose and terrifyingly specific. He had gone from a guy who couldn't commit to a career path to a guy whose career path was literally the architecture of reality. It was, he thought, a bit of a lateral move in terms of pressure.

He mentally navigated back to the [CLASSES] menu, curiosity compelling him to see what had changed. The endless, overwhelming list of bizarre and mundane job titles was gone. The scrollbar, once a tiny sliver representing an infinite number of choices, had vanished. The menu was now a simple, clean screen. There was only one option, its text a clean, bright white, confirming the choice he had just made.

[Reality Architect (LVL 7)]

He selected it, and the screen changed. The simple text was replaced by a new, breathtakingly complex interface. A small notification appeared at the top, a quiet confirmation of his new status.

[Reality Architect Skill Tree Unlocked]

Chris's breath caught in his throat. His vision was filled with a beautiful, intricate diagram that looked like a glowing architectural blueprint had been cross-bred with a celestial star chart. It was a vast, sprawling web of light. A central node, labeled [Core Competencies], pulsed with a soft, steady white glow. From this central point, dozens of faint, silvery lines of light branched out, connecting to other, smaller nodes, each one representing a potential skill or ability. Some nodes were small, simple points of light. Others were larger, more complex, surrounded by smaller, satellite nodes of their own. The entire structure was a shimmering, three-dimensional constellation of potential, waiting to be activated.

It was the most beautiful, and most intimidating, skill tree he had ever seen. In Vexlorn, the skill trees were simple, linear paths. You put points in, you got a new spell. This... this was a universe of choices.

In the corner of his HUD, a new indicator appeared, a direct and immediate consequence of his new class.

[Skill Points Available: 1]

One point. After all the chaos, all the quests, all the near-misses and accidental heroics, it all came down to this. One single, precious point. He understood the mechanics instantly. His seven existing levels, earned through a combination of luck, panic, and sheer stubbornness, had been retroactively applied to his new class. The System, in its bureaucratic grace, had granted him a single skill point to begin his journey.

To a gamer like Chris, this first point was the most important one he would ever spend. It was the cornerstone of his entire build. It was the choice that would define his playstyle, his strengths, his weaknesses, for the rest of his life. A bad choice now, a single misplaced point, could lead to a "gimped" build, a character who was permanently suboptimal, forever struggling in the end-game. The pressure was immense.

His instincts, honed by tens of thousands of hours of strategic optimization, took over. The fear and awe faded, replaced by a cool, analytical focus. He began to explore the skill tree, his mind a whirlwind of theory-crafting and potential builds. The tree was clearly divided into three main branches, each one originating from the central core and glowing with a different, subtle hue. Each branch represented a different path of power, a different specialization for a Reality Architect.

The first branch, glowing with a faint, coppery light, was labeled [Material Sciences]. He focused on it, and the nodes within that branch grew brighter, their labels becoming clear. This was the crafter's path. The skills here were all related to the physical world, to the nuts and bolts of reality. He saw nodes like [Component Analysis], [Advanced Fabrication], [Matter Deconstruction], and, further up the tree, the tantalizingly-named [Exotic Material Synthesis]. This was the path of a master artisan, someone who could take the world apart and rebuild it into something better, stronger, and probably more efficient.

The second branch, which pulsed with a soft, ethereal green, was [Environmental Design]. This was the world-shaper's path. The skills here were powerful, flashy, and reality-bending. He saw nodes like [Object Property Editor], which sounded like the ability to change an object's fundamental attributes. He could, in theory, change the [Hardness] of a rock or the [Buoyancy] of a lead weight. Further up the tree, he saw even more potent abilities: [Vector Analysis], [Gravitational Field Manipulation], and, at the very top of the branch, a massive, glowing node simply labeled [Terraforming]. This was the path of a high-level mage, a wizard of the physical world.

The third and final branch, glowing with a cool, logical blue, was the [Scripting & Logic] branch. This path was different. It wasn't about physical objects or grand, world-altering powers. It was about the code that ran underneath it all. The skills here were more abstract, more fundamental. He saw nodes like [Syntax Highlighting], [Debugging Suite], [API Access], and, much further up, [Custom Function Creation]. This was the path of the programmer, the hacker, the person who didn't just play the game, but who learned how to rewrite the rules.

Chris's mind went into full theory-crafting mode. He was a min-maxer at heart, always searching for the most efficient, most powerful build. He began to weigh the options, his brain a frantic calculator of potential synergies and late-game viability.

The [Material Sciences] branch was tempting. It was the most immediately practical. He had just had a huge, tangible success with crafting the lawnmower. With skills like [Advanced Fabrication], he could probably build a new one from scratch, without needing to scavenge for parts. He could solve real-world problems. He could fix things. It was a useful, respectable path. It was the Engineer build.

The [Environmental Design] branch was the flashy choice. It was the path of power. [Object Property Editor]? The possibilities were mind-blowing. He could change the [Flavor] of his coffee from "bitter" to "delicious." He could change the [Weight] of the trash bags to make them easier to take out. He could, in a moment of petty vengeance, change the [Friction Coefficient] of the Mayor's office floor to zero and watch him slide around like a cartoon character. It was the Mage build, full of crowd control and impressive particle effects.

But his eyes kept returning to the cool, logical blue of the [Scripting & Logic] branch. It wasn't as immediately useful as crafting, or as flashy as environmental manipulation. It was the boring choice. It was the path of study, of learning the complex, arcane rules of Reality Markup Language. It was the homework path.

But he recognized its importance. He knew, with the deep, instinctual knowledge of a veteran gamer, that scripting was the foundation for everything else. Better crafting recipes would probably require custom scripts to execute. More powerful environmental edits would likely require a deep understanding of the underlying logic. To ignore the foundational skills and just spec into the high-damage abilities was a classic "noob" mistake. It was a path to a "gimped" build, a character who was powerful in the early game but who would hit a hard wall in the late-game content because he had skipped something important.

He had to learn the fundamentals.

His gaze drifted to the very base of the [Scripting & Logic] tree. There, connected directly to the central core, was the first, most basic skill available to that branch. It was a small, unassuming node, glowing with a gentle blue light. The node was labeled [Function Comprehension].

He used his [INSPECT] ability on the skill node. The description that appeared was simple, direct, and more important than any flashy spell he could imagine.

[Function Comprehension (Level 1): Grants the User the ability to understand the purpose, syntax, and required parameters of pre-written System Functions in the RML library. Increases the clarity and detail of tooltips related to scripting. A necessary prerequisite for all advanced scripting skills.]

The choice was clear. The flashy, high-damage skills could wait. The practical, crafting-focused abilities could be learned later. He needed to learn how to read. He needed to understand the instructions before he could start building.

With the focus and seriousness of a player allocating the first, crucial skill point in a hardcore, permadeath RPG, Chris mentally selected the [Function Comprehension] node. A confirmation window appeared.

[Spend 1 Skill Point to unlock [Function Comprehension (Level 1)]? This choice cannot be reversed.]

He confirmed it.

The [Skill Points Available: 1] indicator in his HUD vanished. The single point was spent. On the skill tree, the [Function Comprehension] node, which had been glowing with a soft light, now flared with a brilliant, permanent blue. It was activated. It was his.

From the now-glowing node, new, brighter lines of light illuminated the paths forward, connecting it to the next skills in the branching chain. He could see the path to [Syntax Highlighting], and beyond that, to the [Debugging Suite]. The journey was laid out before him.

A final, satisfying notification appeared, and the chime of a new skill learned.

[Skill Unlocked: Function Comprehension (Level 1)]

He looked from the glowing node on his skill tree to the golden-bordered [WORLD QUEST: Civic Stabilization] that still hung in the corner of his vision. The quest was still daunting. But now, for the first time, he felt like he might have a chance. He was armed with his first, hard-won tool.

He could now, hopefully, begin to read the instructions.

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