Still hiding within the network of caves while his clones patrolled the area for dangers and opportunities, Henry pulled up his rewards from all of his tuna fishing and met his first question: did he convert everything to tokens and upgrade everything he could upgrade, or did he reserve some for levels?

  Wait… that’s not all. I could afford some stat points as well.

  Henry hummed and peered around through his clones.

  Well, there’s plenty of prey here. I can start by upgrading everything, then stat points, then once I run out of stuff to spend tokens on I can look into levels.

  Henry nodded to himself. That was a workable plan. He just wished the tunas hadn’t been so quick to leave. He could have gotten a lot more levels and cores out of them. But at least there were still Otodus sharks in the area.

  I bet it will be easier to kill them once I get through all of this. All right. Let’s start.

  Henry went through the available upgrades, upgrading them all one after the other. Considering most abilities were upgrading from E-rank to D-rank, the change wasn’t too noticeable. Aside from a few outliers, the first of which was Draining Touch, which moved up to D-rank.

  Having spent so much time meditating and doing mana exercises under Arisia’s supervision, as soon as the upgrade was done Henry could sense the trickle of mana being slowly absorbed through his bare skin. It wasn’t much, but it was interesting, and it was only one of many changes.

  Telekinesis, for one, broke into C-rank, and when he’d tried holding on to a flailing Maurice, it was a world of difference. Back before its upgrade, holding on to the resistant crab was like trying to grip him with thick oven-mitts. It did the job, somewhat, and it allowed him to apply some good pressure, but the crab could slip out if he fought hard enough. Henry’s control was not as direct and sharp as it could be. But now? It was as if he were holding him directly. As if there was an invisible arm that allowed him to grip his companion with as much pressure and flexibility as he wanted, and as much as the crab tried to fight off the hold, he couldn’t break it. Not even when he’d used his own dispelling skill.

  And the upgrades weren’t over.

  Mana Nexus upgraded and made his pool of energy feel deeper. Denser. Henry was confident that once it was back to full, he could actually use Blink more than once if he needed to. Maybe even three or four times, which he decided he’d have to test to make sure. Still, the mana upgrade had come at a good time, as Trickster’s Domain could now be stretched further around him, easily reaching a hundred feet in every direction, though the cost increased as well. Mind Shield—even though both him and Maurice kept it down when they were alone—felt sturdier, and there was less leakage, even when he tried to simulate stronger emotions. Echo Strike upgraded to D-rank and well… It still had some road ahead of it before it became as powerful as he hoped it would be, but he resolved to give it some attention now that he was back in the ocean.

  Lastly, Lightning Discharge reached C-rank as well. It was the second of his copied abilities to do after Telekinesis, and just like the latter, the increase in potency was… remarkable. Without even needing full contact, Henry reached out with an arm and triggered the ability, and a blue bolt of criss-crossed light instantly shot out, connecting the tip of his arm to the awaiting multicolored-shell while the dark space lit up with violent, blue-white light.

  Maurice’s arms twitched as the bolt arced down his limb, making his pincers and legs twitch in pain. “[Ouch! That hurts,]” shouted the crab, and swatted at Henry’s arm.

  The kraken stared down at the crab, arm pulled back.“[You literally just told me to test it on you.]”

  “[Yeah, but I didn’t know it would hurt this much. But no, this is good. It’ll help upgrade my resistance. Do it again. No! Wait,]” said the crab, raising a pincer. He was still for a second, then took a step closer to Henry. “[Now, do it again. Wait!]”

  Henry sighed and turned his attention back to his interface. With his available upgrades done and paid for, he began considering the next steps.

  I still have plenty of B-rank tokens, so I can buy every point that costs B-tokens and get that out of the way. After that, Aspect levels, and I’ll put all my attention on a handful of skills I want to upgrade before I have to head back up.

  As much as his instructor was demanding, Henry had to go back and see her. Barely a couple of weeks with her had seen his knowledge and control over his abilities jump forward, and even though he could continue what he learned and explore on his own, why pass on such an amazing resource when he had her at his disposal?

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  That would be like wanting to get good at math but refusing to read math books. It’d work, eventually, but he’d waste so much time. Plus, the next portion was going to touch on skill engineering and fusions, which he sorely needed help with. There was also his prize that they’d have to eventually talk about, but that was a problem for another time.

  For now, what are my priorities for the next upgrades…

  Henry went through his skills, and quickly narrowed his attention on three: Mana Nexus, Trickster’s Fortitude, and Trickster’s Domain. Then after a moment, he added a fourth: Trickster’s Pathfinding.

  Everything else needs to get to C-rank, but that last one at least up to D-rank. That should be easy enough, and I have just the plan for it.

  Henry began planning his B-ranks points while at the same time, he spoke to one of his Octominds. Specifically, the one who had control over his pathfinding skill. His navigator.

  “Start mapping the area for more B-ranks, and just in case, A-ranks. We don’t want those to get the drop on use. Also, try to find krakens, and work with number 1 to create some sort of display for those. Actually, nevermind that, work with number 4 and have him post a clone to watch everything you find. Got it?”

  The navigator gave him a salute with one of its arms, and deep in his spirit, he felt the pathfinding skill activate. Leaving his sub-mind on the task, Henry began assigning the points he bought and winced as the total of required points grew. He could afford it, of course, but he wasn’t used to having this many B-rank tokens, much less spending this many of them in one go.

  So that’s going to be five points in every attribute, plus two unassigned ones I haven't placed yet. I’ll give each to Dexterity and Perception.

  With that, Strength and Perception stepped on to their next threshold. With a deep breath, Henry accepted the change and braced as his muscles spasmed and burned, while his awareness of his body and senses went haywire. The cold of the sea seeped into his soul, and he thought he could sense the ripples of the small fish that occasionally swam by. In fact, he was almost sure he was sensing them.

  Interesting, he thought. He was going to have to limit-test this new sensitivity. In the meantime, he pulled up his updated stats. It had been a while since he’d taken a look, and he was happy to see he was closing in on a hundred in Constitution. It was still a bit far, but soon he’d get there. He just needed to find some extra resilient monsters and snack on them. After all, he had a chance of gaining points in an attribute only when the creature had a significantly higher score in the stat. Just one of the things he confirmed with Arisia.

  If only someone could get me a bunch of A-rank cores. I bet I’d get a crazy amount of stats from those. Even through the penalty.

  It was true that following that logic, Henry should have waited before buying the extra stat points, but he was trying to strike a balance. If he got too greedy, he might get himself—and Maurice—in serious danger. After all, anything that eclipsed him in stats could have a real chance of killing him, so even if he was missing on some bonus points this way, he was fine with it.

  Strength: 63

  Constitution: 85

  Spirit: 75

  Perception: 50

  Dexterity: 48

  With that done, he could finally start working on levels. He still had more than a hundred B-rank tokens, which would be plenty for the next couple of upgrades, but he also had to start saving for the next round of Aspect upgrades. Considering the pattern, the next Aspect to upgrade to B-rank was going to cost a thousand B-tokens. Meaning a full A-token.

  Henry stretched his arms and pushed those considerations aside and instead, he turned himself to his navigator. Already, a few B-ranks were being highlighted, and to his surprise the Octomind found him a kraken. It had been barely ten minutes.

  Good job, buddy.

  Henry peered through the blood clone as it searched for the kraken. The pathfinding skill led them here, but the trail got foggy when they’d reached the area. This place seemed at the edge of the rocky formation. There were boulders and rocks, like one might find at the edge of a mountain, but as Henry’s eyes roamed the bare, sandy area, he couldn’t narrow down the location of the kraken. But he didn’t need to.

  Right below him, one particularly large boulder moved, and two large yellow eyes peered up at him.

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