Well, that was considerably more dramatic than he’d expected. The Flame Lance shot out of his hand with more speed than his previous attempts, the more concentrated spear of energy almost seeming to pull itself through the air with its drill-like rotation towards the stream. It also didn’t explode once it had bit into his target like it had previously, though that might just be because the spitting and steaming water hid what was happening. The skill message popped while the water was still boiling away quickly followed by the level-up message he was hoping to see.

He didn’t need to read the description to know that the spell cost more Mana than a regular Fireball as he felt his reserves drain considerably as the spell left his hands. That it was faster than a regular Fireball was also evident, but the note that it could potentially lower his opponent’s defence was interesting. Due to its cost it was a spell that would be best used sparingly, either to crack opponents with strong defences or to hit opponents which were too fast for his other spells to hit. Costly or not, it added yet another tool to his kit, another solution to a potential problem that may show up in the future, which is exactly what he wanted.

Speaking of his tool kit, with his recent level-up he had another five skill points to spend and given their imminent meeting with a potentially dangerous Goblin tribe he planned on using them to prepare for any eventualities that may happen. His skill list hardly looked any different than it had a few moments ago, so he was able to ignore the information displayed to him having already thought about what he wanted to spend his points on. They were about to enter into negotiations with a group of creatures native to this world, his first non-hostile encounter with something that wasn’t reincarnated like himself, and he had a Charisma skill that was close to completion that might come in handy in the upcoming meeting; normally he wouldn’t want to spend points on anything that close to ranking up by itself but considering he hadn’t seen any progress in the last day and a half he felt okay in this case. He could also spend some points in ranking up his Alert skill, just in case these Goblins tried anything sneaky.

[color=f49ac2]“System: show current experience.”[/color]

Before that however, there was something he wanted to check. He knew that creating skills gave him experience, and ranking them up might do the same, but did purchasing skills with points also give him experience? He would assume not, but given that he now had a rare opportunity to find out for certain, he was going to make use of it.

[color=f49ac2]“Put one point into Charisma. Show experience again.”[/color]

It would be interesting to see what the results of this would be. If buying skills gave experience, even if it was less than what you would gain when earning the skill through natural development, then they might be able to use that in an emergency somehow; not to mention that if spending one or two skills point could trigger a level-up and thereby gain them five more skill points, that would be a net gain no matter how you looked at it. And if it did give less experience than creating a skill normally then that would give them more reason to try and create skills naturally wherever possible.

[color=f49ac2]“Put four points into Alert. Show experience again.”[/color]

At this point Oberon wasn’t sure if ranking up a skill gave any experience at all, but with this he would hopefully soon find out. He knew, or could assume at least, that learning new skills granted about 10% experience from what he had seen, though that would likely change over time as he grew in level and more experience was required. He had no evidence that the same was true for ranking up an existing skill and even after this he wouldn’t know if buying a new rank gave the same or less experience. Since his skill list showed him that he had a couple of skills that were very close to gaining a new rank however, it wouldn’t take him long to find out.

The Sprite raised a hand and created a Mana Orb before reaching out with his Mana Shape ability to start moulding the orb into a different shape. He had no goal in mind, no spell he was trying to create, Oberon just wanted to exercise Mana Shape until a system message appeared. He began by flattening the orb down, the circumference growing as the sphere was compressed and the sides bulged out; when viewed from the top it would look like a perfect circle still, but while viewed from the side it would appear to be an oval, one that was quickly growing longer and thinner as it was squeezed flat into a disc shape. Once it was mostly flat Oberon would work on the edges, pressing them flat so that the border of the disc was sharp rather than round and making the Frisbee of Mana look more like a large pizza cutter. In his mind the Sprite couldn’t help but picture a circular saw blade and even though he had started this with no aim in mind he began to think about how he could work the Mana into that shape.

The edges would need to be serrated, but doing so would require finer control and shaping of the Mana than Oberon had done previously; up until now he had really only worked with simple, geometric shapes after all. He focused on the flat disc hovering over his hand, imagining the shape he wanted it to take as he used Mana Shape to etch teeth into the rim of his creation. If at any point he received a notification about Mana Shape ranking up he would request to see his experience again, even as he became increasingly distracted with his newest idea.

[hider=Action Report]
Requested to see current level experience
Spent one skill point on "Charisma"
Requested to see current level experience
Spent four skill points on "Alert I"
Requested to see current level experience
Used "Mana Shape I" on "Mana Orb II" to create flat disc of Mana with serrated edge
Requesting to see current level experience if "Mana Shape I" ranks up
[/hider]

[@Zeroth]