Once Raze opened his eyes, he found himself in another dark room, which almost triggered his ptsd of when he almost died.
Thankfully, upon closer inspection, the darkness in this room had a comfortable vibe to it instead of being suffocating like when he died.
Once he had made sense of his surroundings, a few system panels appeared in front of him.
[Congratulations, Climber, on completing the first tutorial.]
[As the second fastest person to clear it, rewards are being distributed.]
[+500x Tower Points]
[+E-rank weapon box]
"Not bad." Raze couldn't help the smile creeping up on his face.
Being the second-fastest person to clear the second tutorial was a lot better than he expected.
Asher was the first person to clear it, which made sense, and he wasn't too bothered by it right now as he had already achieved his goals by making an impression on both Asher and Alek.
That was enough for the first floor, and now he needed to focus on his own progress.
Raze clicked on the item box he received from the tutorial, and upon clicking it, it showed a wide array of items.
However, much to his dismay, all of the items displayed were close-range cold weapons, like swords, spears, daggers, axes, maces, scythes, etc.
After a lot of deliberation, he finally settled on the spear since it proved to have the most range out of all the options, and according to what he had read, it should be the easiest to learn. It could also be used as a long-range weapon, which was perfect considering the nature of his innate rune.
A long, plain spear made up of metal manifested in his hand out of thin steel, and it felt very light and had a nice feeling to it.
Raze was sure that someone who was into these kinds of weapons would really appreciate it, but sadly, he wasn't like that, so he used his innate rune to send the spear to his inventory.
Just like it had appeared, the weapon disappeared into thin air.
'So that's how inventory works, interesting'
After that, he also took off his mask and placed it inside his inventory, fully exposing his breathtaking face.
Honestly, Raze was still really afraid of getting close to monsters, and it didn't help that he still felt awkward walking.
He was in desperate need of experience fighting using a weapon, and to get that experience, he would need to risk his life.
Something he was unwilling to do, at least for the moment, meaning he was going to stick to being a long-range fighter for a while.
That raised one main problem: His gun was almost out of ammo, and it probably wouldn't work on any monsters stronger than a goblin anyway, so that only left him with one real option.
His innate rune allowed him to store weapons and fire them like projectiles.
He wasn't quite sure about the limits of this skill, but he planned to find out on the next floor.
But before that, he needed to allocate all his stats properly.
After a few minutes of allocating the stats, he was ready to see the results of his labour.
"Status"
------------------------------------------------------------
Name:Raze Brightheart
Race:Human
Age:16
Class: Magic Archer
Rank: Apprentice
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Gift from ??? : Black Box [Locked]
Innate Rune: Inventory (F)
Elemental Affinity:Water,Ice
Mana Circle: 1st Water Circle
Vessel Limit: 120
Beast Shard:36
Strength: 4
Endurance:6
Agility:5
Mana:21
Runes: [Mana Flow], [Mana Surge], [Far Sight]
------------------------------------------------------------
Looking at this status screen, one might wonder why his beast shard count had only gone up by 12 despite having killed 20 monsters total.
The answer to this was simple: not all monsters dropped beast shards.
In fact, they were supposed to be very rare, and just the fact that Raze managed to get so many out of just 20 monsters was already absurd.
As for the reason behind his allocation,.
His first thought was that since his mana was already so high compared to his other stats and he didn't have any runes to properly utilise it, he decided to ignore it for now.
Which left him with three other stats. Since he didn't want to get one shot, he decided to invest the most points in endurance.
But nothing excessive; next was agility so that he could dodge attacks and, if needed, run away.
And last but not least was strength; he didn't invest too much in this stat since he didn't really have much need for it yet.
However, it would be stupid to completely neglect a stat as important as strength, so he invested 3 points. This also ensured that, if need be, he was capable of fighting in close quarters.
Next was vessel size. Each person can only handle a limited number of stats per circle, and in order to improve this limit, they need to make more circles.
An easy way to understand is by calling the circles the glass and the stats the liquid.
And by making more circles, the glass becomes bigger, allowing a person to add more water or, rather, get more stats.
Usually the average vessel limit is 100, so having 120 wasn't too bad, and if used well, he could definitely become quite strong in the future as the 20 extra stats per level will just keep accumulating the more circles he makes.
Or at least that's what he would have liked to say, but sadly, that isn't the case.
Most of the named and strong climbers in the future will have really big vessel sizes thanks to either their innate rune or class, which meant he was probably going to be at a disadvantage in terms of stats.
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that vessel size is the most important thing to consider when discussing someone's future growth.
As the difference between people with small and large vessels only becomes more apparent, the more time passes and both parties make circles.
Even his innate rune was more focused on utility and only had a secondary and very limited combat application.
Maybe that will change in the future, or maybe not; he had no idea as of now.
But that should be enough about his powers. There was a bigger elephant in the room that needed to be discussed.
It was something that both excited and scared him.