Reid's pulse thrummed in his ears. He scanned the text twice, then did it again.

You have defeated Beast Lord, Branching Terror [Elder Drus] - lvl 43. Experience Awarded (+400,000 xp) (+120,000 xp)

Questline Stage Completed: The Beast Lords - (Stage 5 of 10) Secret Challenge Completed: Took No Losses in Stage 5 Secret Challenge Completed: Finished Stage 5 in less than 50 days Secret Challenge Completed: Completed Stage 5 without falling to the Terror's madness

Bonus Experience awarded for completing secret challenges!

Achievement Upgraded! Venator IV -> Venator V (Earned for engaging and defeating beast lords in solo combat)

New Achievements Earned! Woodcutter (Earned for defeating an arboreal beast lord in melee combat)

Sound Mind (Earned for rejecting or resisting the mental manipulations made by a beast lord)

Woodcutter Slightly increases sense of direction and mobility in arboreal environments. Slightly increases damage against wood-based material.

Sound Mind More easily distinguish thoughts that are not your own.

Final Experience Awarded: 15,000,000 xp (F) Accelerated Growth Experience (.33) Awarded: 5,000,000 xp

Experience: 17,263,001 / 26,214,200 -> 37,786,001 / 52,428,800 Level: 44 -> 45 Control: 530 -> 550

Another dead beast lord had translated into another level for Reid. The fight was long, if straightforward, and the experience points he'd received in return for felling the beast were significant.

He'd hit another 'milestone' with the two new achievements that meant he was - almost - getting a 1/3 bonus every time he gained experience. And, the two achievements themselves were ones Reid could appreciate. He'd spent a good amount of time in forested environments recently, and while the damage against wood didn't seem useful, the movement bonuses probably would be. No matter how strong he got, Reid was still at the mercy of distance and the travel he could manage on his own two feet.

Sound Mind was even better. He did feel that he already had - or had shown - a decent handle on when something was messing with his head. Extra protection in that department, though, was always welcome. The last thing he wanted was to lose himself to some person or creature's mental magic. No matter how much raw power he had, he could fall victim to a gimmicky thing like that - at least in theory.

The thought of that possibility itched at the same part of his brain that had a visceral reaction when he saw the cages at the starting base. It flashed through memories of Bertrand, and the relatively short stint he'd spent caged on Thad's ship. Mental manipulation of any kind was the same as taking away someone's freedom. He just wasn't ever going to be okay with that kind of manipulative magic. Whether it was a whisper, a nudge, or a push - Reid would happily end anyone dumb enough to try messing with his head.

A twinge of emotion flashed through him, and faded just as quickly. It was a swirl of guilt, rage, and urgency. There were people in cages, deprived of freedom and at someone else's whim, here in this tutorial space. People he hadn't yet helped. He'd chosen his progress over their freedom. Reid took a breath through his nose. He'd made that decision. He was okay with being selfish. He'd earned that selfishness. He couldn't just help everyone.

Reid shoved the doubt aside, and threw his attention back towards his notifications.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached a progress point for a questline. This is one of [1] progress points for [The Beast Lords] questline.

Your progress and performance have unlocked special rewards. You may choose rewards for yourself, or bestow them on your party or faction. Rewards may also be banked for the next progress point, or the questline completion. While there is no guarantee rewards will improve, additional options may become available dependent on performance between this progress point and the next. Failure to reach the next progress point will result in the loss of all banked rewards.

NOTICE: Multiple rewards may be claimed. Please select all desired rewards, then confirm choices. Rewards are not distributed until choices are confirmed.

NOTICE: Rewards must be claimed within time limit, or they will automatically bank: [ 4d 22h 45m 22s ]

In the back of his mind, Reid had wondered why he wasn't getting skill opportunities as a result of completing the different stages of the questline. After all, completing the challenge dungeon had rewarded him with two skills, and two pieces of equipment. His assumption, until now, had been that the stages were just sub-aspects of the questline, and as such didn't have any of the same sort of skill and equipment rewards.

Reid was happy to be incorrect.

AVAILABLE REWARDS:

- Bonus Stat Points. Converts reward allocations into stat points that may be used by individual, or the individual's party or faction. Notice: Unable to generate stat points estimate. WARNING! Unknown outcome detected.

- Difficulty Adjustment. A rare version of the normal 'difficulty decrease' reward option. Allows the individual to lessen - or increase - the difficulty of the current questline. Warning: Difficulty adjustments will impact future rewards. WARNING! Adjusting difficulty will lock other reward options. WARNING! Difficulty increases are not recommended.

- Equipment Upgrade. Uses reward allocations to forcibly apply qualitative increases to any type of equipment. Warning: Upgraded equipment may gain or lose traits. Warning: Upgrading equipment may have adverse effects on growth-capable equipment.

- Equipment - New. Converts reward allocation into equipment of varying types and rarities, depending on performance.

- Experience Conversion. Converts all reward allocations into experience points and awards them to individual. Notice: Estimate Exceeds 50,000,000 xp

- Skill Upgrade. Converts reward allocations into energy used to upgrade an existing skill.

- Skills - New. Converts reward allocation into skills. Multiple skills may be offered based on performance. Skills above Common rarity may be offered, based on performance.

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Some of the options were instant 'no's. The equipment upgrade, despite how great it sounded at first, had the warnings around potential adverse impacts to the equipment he'd made. As an osteal smith - and a talented one at that - Reid didn't need to focus so much on upgrading things, because he could just... make equipment. He was more concerned with the upgrade causing issues for one of his creations than excited about the potential it might unlock in his weapons or his armor. The value just wasn't there.

Similarly, he was unenthused by almost all of the equipment options. There were a few swords, one axe, pieces of armor but not a whole set, and a storage ring that was about the same as his current one. He did consider the ring - having one on each hand would be a good way to make sure he kept his stuff if... or when... he got into a fight that took off his left hand. But he shook himself off that notion. Anything that was equipment, he'd eventually be able to make himself. He wasn't exactly impressed with the pieces on offer, either. Sure, one of the swords could ignite in flame when charged with mana, but Reid wasn't a fire mage. He was an osteal smith - and he could perceive that the weapons wouldn't be as impressive as the ones he'd made for himself.

The stat points were not something he really felt would be a value-add, either. At least not in an immediate and tangible way. Reid already had more open points to realize than he could manage easily, and throwing extra on top of that wasn't exactly changing circumstances, either. He was already on track to be massively overpowered on stats compared to others around his level, and he was using his current abilities to fight things one-on-one that seemed like they weren't meant to be soloed. So, while tempting, stat points were also not worth the squeeze.

Similarly, the experience point conversion felt like a hollow reward. Reid was going to get about that much over the next few beast lords anyway, so it wasn't exactly beneficial to use the potential for more impressive things on something he could earn naturally. The only thing that might change his mind on that was if he suddenly ran out of things to fight that would help him get through the remainder of F grade. He was, of course, still on a timer - but couldn't bring himself to treat the XP conversion like a proper option.

The last 3 options - Skills, Skill Upgrades, and the Difficulty Adjustment - were where he saw real potential. The others all had value, but these were things he couldn't exactly get elsewhere.

Skill upgrades seemed significant. Reid didn't have the regular skill upgrade points the system was talking about. That was still 'broken' and unusable from when some combination of Nyx and the Shackle had walled off that avenue for growth. The option made Reid realize there were questions there that he hadn't really thought to ask Nyx. While he didn't have skill upgrade points, he had been able to get osteal smithing out of his calcification skill. It was possible that he was capable of doing more than that, and just lacked the understanding to make it happen. He mentally added it to a growing list of conversation topics for his teacher and friend.

The new skills might've been the most enticing prospect out of all the rewards. He focused in on them again, and brought forward his list of options.

Glide [epic] Scales with level. Allows the individual to perform controlled falls and glides. Advanced practitioners may activate skill regardless of local gravity and atmospheric issues.

Snorkel [rare] Scales with level. Allows for limited breathing underwater. Lasts in proportion to the user's available mana, and their exertion while submerged

Arcane Craftsman [rare] Scales with understanding. Increases the ease at which all items created with mana or fueled by mana are constructed. Increases understanding and learning around mana devices.

Combat Synergy [uncommon] Scales with combat experience. Increases the individual's awareness of battle, the ease at which they set the pace of a fight, and the cohesion between the individual and their allies.

Vanguard Commander [uncommon] Scales with level. Grants combat bonuses to party and faction members when fighting on the front lines. Grants the individual slight bonuses based on the morale of their faction.

Wood Manipulation [uncommon] Scales with level. Allows for the control of natural wood, and the creation of wood-based equipment. Advanced practitioners gain the ability to more deftly manipulate wood.

Conversational Telepathy [common] Gives the practitioner the ability to perform short range, consensual, conversational telepathy. Upgrade to unlock scaling and additional effects.

The most immediate and notable thing about it were just how many options he'd been given, and the range. The things went all the way from Common to Epic, and each seemed good - or at least decent. Conversational telepathy could be an excellent way to have secret conversations in front of prying eyes - and would've been a huge benefit in the warrens. Wood manipulation wasn't really his thing - but it was neat. The Vanguard Commander and Combat Synergy skills would be useful if he did anything with a group - and it seemed like synergy would work even if he was fighting solo.

Arcane Craftsman was one he had to stop himself from immediately earmarking for selection. Anything that gave his creations even more power or made them easier to craft was something Reid took an immediate interest in. The only thing that made him pause was that Reid had been able to get pretty good progress in crafting based on Nyx's instruction alone. It wouldn't be very useful, long-term, to take a skill that was just mirroring what good advice could manage.

As much as Reid despised the thought of choosing to engage in another underwater fight, snorkel was immensely valuable. The turtle he'd fought was close to dead, and it had still taken more than five minutes underwater to put the thing down. Reid wasn't so naive to think that he would be able to avoid that kind of creature battle forever. When it came, he wanted to be ready to fight... without drowning. He shook away an alternative thought about having Nyx teach him to make gills the next time he had to fight underwater. That wasn't happening. Probably.

Hopefully.

The final option was the second most tempting after arcane craftsman. Reid would've loved something more, but gliding alone would make his travel through the tutorial so much easier. It would be simple to leap far into the air, or get back down from the mountains, should another of the beast lords be at one of the peaks. It was just a great skill.

Sure - in the back of his mind, he didn't want to glide, he wanted to fly. But flight wasn't on the menu. So, gliding was the next best option, right?

Reid let himself waffle and war between options before he broke down and finally leaned on Nyx.

"Hey, this is a lot, and I could use some advice."

"What kind of advice?"

"Well... I have questions. About the rewards, and about things in general. Like, I still want to understand how the tree was able to get into my head, and I want to know what happens if I use these points to upgrade a skill. And I want to know what negative effects equipment upgrades might bring. I want to know if I can improve skills - or do any of the other things in here on my own. I want to understand what options I'm going to get if I bank the rewards and just keep going, and whether that's worth it."

"Alright - that was too many questions, but let's tackle them anyway. The tree, we'll get to after you do this progress point. I wouldn't recommend upgrading a skill with points like this, unless its one you need an immediate boost on. Don't upgrade equipment. Take new equipment if what it offers is really, really good. There's quite a bit you can do yourself, in a general sense. I can't promise what rewards will be offered, and your last question is entirely subjective. Let me instead ask, Reid - what choices resonate with you?"

Reid took a few minutes to walk Nyx through his thoughts, then paused.

"Well, you don't sound convinced on anything, so I'll meddle more than I mean to... On average, Reid, people come out of a tutorial around level 15 or 16. Many are lower, of course. Exceptional fighters tend to get into the low 20's, as do exceptional leaders. Every hundred thousand worlds or so, you'll get an exceptional population where a handful of 'new powerhouses' creep into the lowest rung of F grade. Out of every few million new powerhouses, you'll have one exceptional person become a prodigy - where they make it to level 30. More rare than that, you get a true talent - someone that makes it to the mid 30's. There are a handful that ever made it to level 40, and those have their own individual names, like the Blightflower and the Typhoon."

"Now, based on what I just said, you might assume a powerhouse is comparatively weaker or worse than a true talent - but that isn't always right. The powerhouse might just be unlucky, or slow, or too committed to their faction to prioritize themselves. Yes - getting into the 30's is rare in part because it requires you to win big fights. But, it's just as important to have the chance at those tough fights. No one gets to level 30 if they can't get a questline difficulty upgrade. Think about it. Without your accelerated growth, you wouldn't be at the level you are, right now. The real value of that skill, Reid, is in the never-ending avenues of growth it opens before you. As long as you keep trying, you will never starve for challenge or stagnate for a lack of opportunity."

Reid let her words simmer in his mind. Growth wasn't just about strength and action, but the availability of challenges to sharpen yourself against.

Accelerated Growth should have put him on the maximum possible difficulty for the beast lords questline. But if the system gave him the option, maybe there really was a potential for more.

If so, that potential was worth more than any of the other rewards presented to him. Reid selected his reward before he could second guess himself.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Rewards Selected: Difficulty Adjustment - Increase.

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