He browsed the tree for a few minutes, musing over skill combinations and possibilities.
Then he returned to the previous panel, and observed something.
"What is this?" He asked Record.
"That is a button."
"Right, what does it do?"
"It opens up a panel, which contains owned skills that do not have enough related skills to be considered a tree, or have a tree, but the you have not met it's requirements to open, so you can only unlock the direct upgrades to the skill."
Reed thought for a second.
"How many related skills are needed for a tree? Or rather, what is the minimum amount of of skills on a skill tree?"
"A skill tree has at least two 'branches', and at least 5 skills."
"Hmm... Thank you." Reed rubbed the ball's top part with his right hand.
"No problem sir."
Reed opened the panel.
There were quite a few skills in it.
[Lesser Empathy]
[Lesser Thought perception]
[Cold Reading]
[Hostility Sense]
[Mental suggestion]
[Persuasion]
[Pickpocket]
[Premonition]
[Analysis]
[Repair]
[Carving]
'Most of these make sense, except for the mind magic, and repair ability.'
"Record, Could you tell me how I obtained psychic abilities?"
"These are just upgraded versions of abilities you already had sir. Only when you are obtain the skill tree function will you obtain skills based of your own ability, as a courtesy of the game system."
"So everything I could do before, it has all been improved?"
"Indeed it has."
"That's very nice of the game master."
[Mental suggestion: Creatures with a lesser INT than yours will be more willing to obey your words.]
[Persuasion: It is easier for you to persuade intelligent creatures.]
'Very nice indeed.'
...
[Lesser Empathy]
[Lesser Thought perception]
[Cold Reading]
[Hostility Sense]
[Mental suggestion]
[Persuasion]
[Excellent Swordsman]
[Proficient Spear user]
[Proficient Staff user]
[Beginner Archer]
[Expert Marksman]
[Master Martial artist]
[Body Control 2]
[Conditioned body]
[Pickpocket]
[Premonition]
[Analysis]
[Repair]
[Carving]
[Knifework]
[Cooking expertise]
[Ingredient appraisal]
'Hu! That's quite a few of them.' Reed counts 21 usable skills, and a maximum of ten more that he can unlock at the moment using the skill points he obtain from breaking through to tier 3.
'Best to determine what would be the best ones before choosing.' He thinks eyeing the magic tree.
'A small garden, no?' He thought, looking at the 8 trees of magic.
Fire, water, ice, wind, earth, thunder, and healing. The eighth one being of element-less magic, such as barriers and constructs. Each tree with at least 3 branches and more than 20 skills.
He breathes out, eyeing the vast quantities of spells before him.
'So many possibilities, so few points.'
As the tree went up, the points required to unlock the skills also increased.
"Haah..." Reed exhaled wishfully.
'Better see what I can learn before choosing any of these.' He looked over the very first skills. 'Maybe I can get a mage to teach me, or there might be a book in the library.'
...
At approximately 9 in the morning, Reed had his first encounter with other players.
There were three of them, all white males, with two holding the third up as he limped along, with a rather large bandage tied to his left shin.
'Earthlings.' A small smile appeared on his face, before vanishing as one of them looked up at him.
The fact that they were from earth was evident from the fact that they were wearing clothes that were not present in this world, he knew, he had checked.
'Never thought I would get this opportunity. Looking at other humans and calling them aliens.' He chuckled mentally.
"What happened?" He asked aloud as they approached him. "Rather early to get hurt."
The injured one grunted and said nothing, the one to his right looked at him and started speaking.
"His first time in the dungeon, and this idiot runs directly into the goblins, next thing I know, he's got a knife in his leg and 7 goblins running to us."
"Tough luck, get well soon." And with that sentence he departed.
'Inexperienced and hot-blooded, with little to no combat experience.'
Reed glanced backwards. 'He's little threat right now.'
...
The dungeon trip had gone mostly the same, with prior experience, he cleared the same two levels 7 times in the span of 2 hours before heading back to the city for lunch.
After lunch he decided to locate the area that Brunot had told him about.
A kilometre was not a great distance, so Reed found them pretty easily.
But. They were occupied.
By goblins.
'This does not make sense.' Hidden up on a tree, Reed looked at the fully established goblin village.
'There's at least fifty of them.' With a stolid face, he looked through the trees to the left.
'There's another that way. This is impossible.' He quietly retreated, but suddenly stopped.
He brows furrowed, as he advanced till he was in sight of the village, then retreated again.
'Sound insulation? I can only hear them when I can see them, and as soon as I fall back the sounds vanish.'
'Is this how they've remained unnoticed? But how? Is there a mage in there somewhere?'
With increasing worry, he sneaked around to the back of the village, and slowly approached.
[You have discovered a level 10 goblin tribe.]
The notification was quiet, but it still startled him, stopping him dead in his tracks.
'Fucking hell.'
He relaxed and quickly retreated a few hundred metres.
"Record, explain." He demanded.
"That, sir, was a system-generated monster den. Only players can discover it, and it is hidden from all other creatures, they will just ignore the existence den."
"A monster den may contain up to 9 different types of monsters, and have at least ten living creatures."
"Once all the creatures of a den are destroyed, the den will disappear and the destroyers will be given a reward."
"If a den is not destroyed within a month of discovery, it will lose it's barriers and the creatures inside will attack any nearby non-monster settlement."
"Any questions sir?"
Reed let out a long breath.
"God damn it."