Joshua Tree National Park is home to a place called "Hidden Valley." This area is filled with numerous rock formations and cliffs of varying difficulties, making it a paradise for rock climbers and renowned as one of the top ten climbing destinations worldwide.
Jack parked his car at a nearby campsite and shouldered his backpack, filled with climbing ropes, pitons, and other gear. He climbed to the top of a cliff about ten meters high to experiment with his skills.
Jack wasn't particularly a climbing enthusiast; he was here to test the changes in his system after the recent update. The entire skill panel had transformed dramatically, turning into a densely branched skill tree.
Under the Professional Skills section, many new large icons had appeared. For example, clicking on the "Vehicle Driving" icon revealed a set of smaller icons categorized into ground, water, and air vehicles. Clicking further into ground vehicles broke it down into small and large vehicles. Jack's original driving skill (Mastery) was now labeled as "Small Vehicles (Mastery)," while "Large Vehicles" was only at the "Beginner" level.
When he explored water vehicles, it was similarly divided into small boats (Beginner) and large boats (grayed out), leaving him to wonder if an aircraft carrier would count as a large boat in the system. Air vehicles were split into fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. Despite both being grayed out, implying he couldn't pilot either, it was amusing to think that knowing how to fly a fan with propellers might somehow qualify him to fly a jet plane. Did the system also consider the Space Shuttle as a fixed-wing aircraft?
Fortunately, fields like Forensics and Psychology weren't broken down into countless sub-skills. Otherwise, considering the vast number of forensic disciplines (like trace evidence, footprint analysis, fingerprint identification) and psychology subfields (like micro-expression analysis, psychological assessment, and behavioral analysis), Jack might have fainted on the spot.
However, the update had its perks. Skills Jack had no knowledge of were previously invisible, but now they appeared as grayed-out icons with small progress bars beneath them.
For instance, Jack's once stagnant Rifle Marksmanship skill, which was at "Adept," now fell under the Combat Skills category, which included Shooting, Fighting, and Special Skills. Within Shooting, Jack's current levels were Handgun (Mastery), Rifle (Adept), and Bow & Crossbow (Beginner). Interestingly, the progress bar under Rifle was already full.
Jack's reason for climbing was to test the new "Climbing" skill, now visible under Special Skills as a grayed-out icon. Last night, he read several professional books on rock climbing and rope techniques. Although the Climbing skill remained grayed out, its progress bar was fully loaded.
By observing the different progress bars for various skills, Jack had formulated some theories, and today he was here to verify them.
At the top of the cliff, Jack hammered in three pitons, tied himself with a safety rope using a figure-eight knot he recalled from his readings, and rappelled down to the base, securing additional pitons along the way.
He then attempted to climb the cliff barehanded. For someone with the strength to lift their body weight using just a couple of fingers, this posed no difficulty; all he needed was patience and caution.
Upon reaching the top again, the Climbing skill in his system upgraded to "Beginner," with the progress bar still full. He eyed another rock formation, about 30 meters high, a short distance away.
This larger rock had a climbing team of three men and two women preparing at the top. When Jack approached from the side, two attractive, fit, blonde women in the team gave him flirtatious glances.
In the May heat of the Mojave Desert, where daytime temperatures approached 40 degrees Celsius, Jack wore only tight-fitting knee-length hiking shorts, showcasing his impressive muscle definition on his bare upper body. Unlike the tanned Caucasians who risked sunburn to achieve a bronze glow, Jack was content with his ivory skin, which remained untanned despite his exposure, saving him the need for sunscreen.
Returning their smiles politely, Jack passed by the group and chose a section of the cliff that protruded outward, likely the most challenging route.
Using the same method as before, Jack hammered in pitons and secured safety ropes. This time, he carried additional gear like rock wedges, mechanical chocks, and rock hooks on his belt.
Descending to the base, Jack started his second climb. This time, the difficulty was significantly higher, especially when he reached the outward-jutting part of the cliff. His techniques were still clumsy, and he was unfamiliar with using the tools, but he brute-forced his way through to complete the climb.
As Jack struggled over the edge of the cliff, a slightly calloused hand reached out to help him. Looking up, he saw one of the blonde women, the slightly older one, standing in front of him.
"Thanks."
Jack grasped her hand and used the leverage to pull himself up.
"I'm Natasha, a student at UC California, from Moscow," the blonde introduced herself with a heavy accent and a bit of a tongue roll.
"I'm Jack Tavoler, but you can just call me Jack."
Jack's system had updated its Language Tree as well, with over sixty languages, most of which were grayed out. After mastering Italian and Latin recently, he was now working on Russian, which had just reached the Beginner level.
Excited by his progress, Jack greeted her in Russian, "Zdravstvuyte (Hello)."
Natasha's face lit up with a delighted smile, and she began speaking rapidly in Russian. Here's where the system's capabilities shone through. Despite being at the beginner level, Jack could understand most of what she said, though his responses were as hesitant and stammering as a novice's, and his rolled Rs weren't quite right.
During their conversation, Jack learned that the younger blonde was Natasha's sister, Talia. They came from a well-off family and were both excellent students at UCLA. Both sisters were avid climbers and quite experienced.
When Natasha found out Jack was a police officer on a solo road trip during his leave, she looked at him with unconcealed envy.
Jack didn't overthink it. The system had notified him that his Climbing skill had upgraded to "Adept," though the progress bar was now half-full.
Taking advantage of the conversation, Jack asked Natasha for more climbing tips. As she explained, he noticed his progress bar inching up slightly, confirming his theory.
Skill upgrades in the system appeared to have hidden conditions. For a skill like Climbing, progress seemed to be a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. Merely reading books wouldn't earn an "Entry" level anymore; hands-on practice was essential to elevate the skill further.
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