Now that I have Skill Points to spend, I want to acquire a new Skill.
But I need to be really careful about this.
I've got to consider Appraisal and everything else — if I casually pick one and go for it, I'll obviously regret it later.
First, I need to secure my safety and then take my time thinking about it while I focus.
I ignore the remains of the frog I just ate and throw together my temporary base in no time.
I've gotten so used to this that I can knock out a simple base one-handed at this point.
Good.
Now I can focus.
First — Skills I absolutely should not take.
Given the Heterodox Magic example, I should avoid all magic-type Skills.
Even if I took one, I'd have no idea how to use it, and that scenario is plainly visible in my mind.
By the same logic, any Skill where the name alone doesn't give me a clear picture of what it does — I'm ruling out all of those too.
Next up — Skills I could probably obtain on my own.
Based on my experience so far, every Skill has its own Proficiency level.
Once I accumulate enough Proficiency, the Skill's Level goes up.
This works even when the Skill is below Level 1 — once I hit the threshold, I can acquire a brand-new Skill. That's my understanding, anyway.
All the Skills I've obtained through this method so far have been resistance-type, so maybe it's a quirk that only applies to resistances.
But if I can get it on my own, there's no reason to spend Skill Points on it.
When I think about it that way, getting Appraisal wasn't exactly a mistake.
Because with something like Appraisal, there's no way I'd know how to raise its Proficiency from zero on my own.
Plus, unlike magic, I figured out how to use it right away — looking back, that was incredibly lucky.
I kept saying it was useless this and useless that, but Appraisal might actually be one of the rarer Skills that turned out to be a total hit.
With all of that in mind, the Skills I should acquire need to satisfy two conditions: I have to know how to use them, and I need to have difficulty obtaining them through normal means.
That's a pretty demanding set of criteria.
Honestly, the whole system of acquiring Skills based solely on their name without knowing what they even do is terrifying.
Even just figuring out the name — I've had to keep pestering the Voice of Heaven (provisional) to get anywhere.
I tried this before, but when spending Skill Points to acquire a Skill, I have to formally request the Voice of Heaven (provisional) to grant me a Skill by its specific name.
If a Skill with that name exists, the Voice of Heaven (provisional) responds. If there's no Skill by that name, it stays silent and gives me nothing.
So to find out whether a given Skill even exists, I have to go through that tedious process of asking the Voice of Heaven (provisional) one by one.
I've been poking at it during my downtime, so I've managed to identify a decent number of Skill names at this point.
From those, I'm going to pick the ones that fit my criteria and seem usable.
I've got five candidates.
Poison Claw. Thread Manipulation. HP Auto-Recovery. SP Cost Reduction. Detection.
Poison Claw and Thread Manipulation are both designed to enhance my existing Skills.
Poison Claw is basically a claw version of Poison Fang.
Thread Manipulation is a support Skill to help me use Spider Silk more efficiently.
The potential issue with Poison Claw is that right after acquisition, it'll probably be much weaker than Poison Fang.
As for Thread Manipulation, it's iffy whether I'll even know how to use it.
HP Auto-Recovery and SP Cost Reduction are pure support Skills.
Their effects are probably exactly what the names suggest, and having them would be extremely convenient.
The last one — Detection — is a pretty big gamble.
At the end of the day, when you're living in a Dungeon, you want countermeasures against surprise attacks. That's what this Skill is for. But whether it actually has the effect I'm looking for is questionable, and whether I'd know how to use it is equally uncertain.
Taking this Skill would be, in a sense, a real gamble.
There were other Skills I wanted too, but when I prioritized practical benefits, this is the lineup I ended up with.
I'm not the type to chase dreams when my actual life is on the line.
Then there are the ones I want but clearly don't have enough Skill Points for.
Like, say, immortality.
The number of Skill Points required is in a completely different order of magnitude, no matter how you look at it.
Ugh.
This is tough.
In the end, I've ended up focusing more on reinforcing my existing tactics rather than developing entirely new ones.
Well, that's unavoidable if I want to avoid the pain of picking up a half-baked Skill and paying the price.
So with all that, I'm going to take HP Auto-Recovery off the list for now.
Because in my case, losing HP is basically a synonym for dying.
If I'm going to keep committing to the Assassin playstyle going forward, I simply can't afford situations where my HP drops.
That leaves me choosing two out of the remaining four.
What should I do~ The one with the fewest downsides would be SP Cost Reduction.
It feels almost too safe, though.
Poison Claw would broaden my tactical options, but leveling it up sounds like a pain.
Thread Manipulation would be incredibly useful if I could pull it off, but if I can't, the setback would be huge.
Detection is even more of a gamble than that.
Hmph hmph hmph.
Hmm.
Alright. I've decided.
《Your current Skill Points: 200.
Skill 'Thread Manipulation LV1' can be acquired for 100 Skill Points.
Acquire?》 YES.
《'Thread Manipulation LV1' acquired. Remaining Skill Points: 100.》 《Your current Skill Points: 100.
Skill 'Detection LV1' can be acquired for 100 Skill Points.
Acquire?》 YES.
《'Detection LV1' acquired. Remaining Skill Points: 0.》 I acquired Thread Manipulation and Detection.
I literally just said I wouldn't gamble when my life is on the line, and then I went and picked the two with the heaviest gambling elements.
Ugh, I am not cut out for this.
Well, what's done is done.
Here's hoping I can actually use both of these.
If I can't, I'm going to cry.
I don't know if a spider's eyes can even produce tears, though.