The years raced by with Zoe repeating her comfortable routine. The other delvers at the dungeon began to recognize her as she passed them by — or as they passed her by on her earlier levels in the reset. Sally left after five years — just after managing to get her own Cosmos skill with Emma’s help. Quite an achievement, Zoe felt. She still hadn’t managed to get around to it.

  Honestly, Zoe wasn’t sure she cared so much. Cosmos was interesting, but the main draw to it was immortality which she already had. If she was going to spend time working on something, then it made much more sense to try and get some more levels or work through accumulating new skills she didn’t already have.

  But she’d get around to it at some point, she knew. There was little reason not to — even if combining her Space and Time skills wasn’t something she would be able to do for some reason or another, she could just bypass that and get the skill directly. She had Cosmos Manipulation so it would only be a few weeks of studying if she put her mind to it, but what would the benefit be?

  More ability to manipulate space and time? Space was the only interesting part of that to her so far — and in the odd moment she did need to be able to do a little more, she could just weave in both of her skills in tandem to replicate a similar enough effect anyway.

  Zoe’s understanding was that Sally back home was pressuring her parents to learn the same skill, but neither of them had all too much experience with magic to begin with so it was a bit of an uphill battle. They still had a good twenty, maybe thirty years left before Zoe started really worrying about their old age, but it was a bit of an eye opener for her, too.

  She was old, now. Her first terrified steps on Abyllan were almost fifty years ago now — the people she met back then were all old and often dead. Some of the faces in Foizo were different now, new people on the council, shops changing owners. Expansion was continuing as steady as ever, the walls pushed further out into the surrounding forests bit by bit and the sprawling network of buildings below the surface diving deeper into the ground.

  The world was changing around Zoe, and it was exciting to see. New villages popped up in the wilderness as she travelled back and forth between the capital and Foizo. Other villages she’d met decades prior were decrepit and aged, forgotten to time.

  Emma was even looping her classes now, trying to replace her earlier classes with stronger ones. She had a bit of a different perspective on the whole process though — for Zoe, she could always just replace her classes and keep trying. But for Emma who lost all of her general skill levels whenever she did, each time she looped needed to be something worthwhile.

  Rather than replacing her earlier classes, Emma had taken to switching out her sixth class over and over with as many as she could take, going through her entire class list just to have them all unlocked for later. One day far in the future, when she had her ideal combination planned out, she’d go through all her classes with one massive bump in power. But until then, Emma didn’t want to lose all of her skill levels and instead seemed to be trying to collect every single class she could get her hands on.

  The cats were doing well — they didn’t have a dedicated cat room made just for them, but they did have plenty of toys to play with and the home Zoe and Emma rented was more than large enough for two cats to enjoy their life. Every so often, they’d take the cats out for a walk through the forest to get some fresh air and enjoy the wilderness for what it was.

  But they seemed content inside. Maybe it was part of their age, Zoe thought. The cats were far older than cats lived back home, nearing fifty years old themselves. Did their brains continue developing? Were they smart, were they wiser? Did they understand what was happening around them? At some point, would they have a breakthrough and become something more than they were? Zoe wasn’t sure. They never seemed to change all too much and just enjoyed the peace Zoe and Emma provided them.

  Over the years, Zoe got better at racing through the levels to check if she got her sixth class, bringing it down to just a month long time investment for the whole process. And even still, the months flew by as she tried over and over to reach her lowest possible sixth class.

  Zoe sat down at the table and brought up her skill sheet.

  Name: Zoe Mara

  Race: Human

  ——

  Stat Points: 0

  Strength: 1000

  Dexterity: 1000

  Vitality: 1000

  Endurance: 500

  Intelligence: 1295

  Wisdom: 2324

  Health: 315000/315000

  Stamina: 10000/10000

  Mana: 2343302/2343302

  ——

  Class 1: Earthian (176)

  - Identify (372)

  Class 2: Seasoned Persistence

  - Elemental Affinity (417)

  - Time Affinity (427)

  - Elemental Arsenal (357)

  - Restoration (323)

  - Adaptive Elements (387)

  - Elemental Echo (243)

  - Alacrity (478)

  Class 3: Cosmic Explorer

  - Cosmos Affinity (317)

  - Storage (255)

  - Cosmic Leap (342)

  - Explorer’s Journey (98)

  - Traveller’s Tiny Tent (27)

  Class 4: Enchantrith

  - Mana Affinity (175)

  - Mana Manipulation (198)

  - Enchanted Mirrors (217)

  - Erupted Enchantments (132)

  - Mana Projection (76)

  Class 5: Death’s Master

  - Death Affinity (164)

  - Life Affinity (132)

  - Death’s Decay (179)

  - Life’s Respite (98)

  - Life’s Embrace (102)

  ——

  General Skills:

  - Vampyric Regeneration (201)

  - Vampyric Senses (401)

  - Vampyric Resistance (157)

  - Vampyric Immortality (45)

  - Vampyric Charm (179)

  - Vampyric Empathy (374)

  - Gathering (176)

  - Archery (297)

  -- Meditation (271)

  - Cooking (212)

  - Dagger-fighting (147)

  - Tracking (178)

  - Stealth (246)

  - Frost (571)

  - Spear-fighting (142)

  - Sword-fighting (101)

  - Shield-fighting (217)

  - Wind (325)

  - Earth (417)

  - Carpentry (217)

  - Pottery (37)

  - Fishing (21)

  - Smithing (18)

  - Mining (41)

  - Water (325)

  - Fire (326)

  - Cinders (331)

  - Gales (379)

  - Torrents (497)

  - Wood (397)

  - Flora (378)

  - Alchemy (79)

  - Magical Scouring (435)

  - Time (157)

  - Elemental (287)

  - Space (366)

  - Spacial Weave (124)

  - Light (235)

  - Foizo on the Moon (43)

  - Cosmic Familiar (27)

  - Sending (256)

  - Distant Scribe (91)

  - Bearer of Ink (85)

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Resistances:

  - Mental (59)

  - Poison (34)

  -- Pain (117)

  - Heat (197)

  - Fire (214)

  - Cold (75)

  -- Disintegration (2)

  - Time (15)

  - Space (27)

  - Gravity (17)

  - Ice (24)

  - Wind (87)

  - Lightning (7)

  - Sound (16)

  - Bone (9)

  Many of her general skills were in the hundreds, with some even at four hundred or five hundred. Frost was almost at six hundred. It had been years since she last counted up her total general skill levels — the last time being when she suspected she’d passed five thousand without a feat. But now she was close to if not passed ten thousand and was getting curious.

  She wrote down all of her general skill levels and totalled them up, double checking her work to make sure she hadn’t missed something. In total, by Zoe’s count, she had nine thousand seven hundred and eighteen total general skill levels. That wasn’t far from ten thousand, and it had been quite some time since she last got a feat for total skill level.

  Zoe looked at some of her lower skills, they were at a lower level for a reason — she just didn’t enjoy them, or at least didn’t find much use for them. But there were eight skills under level one hundred that would be easy to train. Getting three hundred levels spread across eight skills would be just forty levels per skill. That wouldn’t even be all that much work, Zoe thought. Spend a bit of time working on the skills she didn’t enjoy, and there must be a feat for having ten thousand total general skill levels.

  She nodded, and turned her attention to maximizing her total general skill levels for the next few months. Zoe started with her Pottery skill — much of Sally’s supplies were left behind so Zoe was able to jump right in without much hassle.

  Rather than going for forty levels per skill though, she decided to just try and bring all of her general skills up to level one hundred at a minimum. It might take longer, but something about seeing three digits in her skills just felt better.

  It only took a month of dedicated practice, day in and day out to get her Pottery to the goal and she thought about what the next skill would be. Alchemy probably made the most sense — it had been a few months since she last visited Bruce anyway. But Cosmic Familiar would be the simplest since she didn’t need anything to do it, and was close to her lowest level anyway. Plus, it was actually useful, just new and not used very much yet.

  Zoe decided on the best of both worlds and made her way down to the royal office for transportation to the Stute district and visited Bruce to work on some Alchemy, while working on her Cosmic Familiar in any downtime she had.

  Achemy was quite a quick skill to finish off — with Bruce’s help Zoe blew through the twenty one levels in just two short weeks. Cosmic Familiar took a little bit longer, but Zoe took to delving into the dungeons while she summoned Cosmic Familiars with all of her spare mana for a bit of multi tasking.

  In another month she’d gotten her Cosmic Familiar to one hundred as well as looped to check for her sixth class again. By Zoe’s count, that gave her one hundred twenty five levels left for her final goal, which would only be another two skills. Distant Scribe and Bearer of Ink would both get there on their own at some point anyway, so Zoe put them off and turned her attention to her two lowest skills. Fishing and Smithing.

  Smithing was by far the more interesting of the two — and even something that Zoe did enjoy, just hadn’t quite found the time to enjoy yet. She chuckled, thinking at how silly she was for mocking Joe all those years ago for enjoying an excuse to wander around town. Why not just go for a walk, she’d ask. Who was stopping him?

  Nobody was stopping him. It was just that oftentimes there wasn’t enough time in the day to do everything she wanted to do. Visit friends, work on her goals and aspirations, explore the world. Heck, at some point she’d have to take another trip back to the moon just to see her dungeon again. There were so many things to do that the entire room she’d built just for Smithing had never seen much use, despite even being functional now.

  Zoe purchased an enormous amount of flux from a nearby smithing district for a handful of gold coins and made her way back home to Foizo to slave away at her homemade forge. Unlike with her Pottery skill where she just made pots and destroyed them, Zoe tried to make things that might be helpful. Pots and pans, grills for cooking. Knives and other cooking utensils. She tried her hand at making some more intricate designs, but most turned out looking more like wiry masses of metal than the cats she tried to make. One of her attempts did look like a cat when she squinted though, which she was quite proud of.

  It didn’t take long before she realized another mistake she’d made, either. Within just a few short weeks, when her smithing reached level fifty two, Zoe was greeted with a notification from the system telling her that she got a new feat — and that she can’t do addition, apparently.

  *Ding* For accumulating a total of 10000 general skill levels, you have been awarded with the [Well Versed] feat.

  [Well Versed]

  You have accumulated a vast wealth of skills and find pleasure from refining your own capabilities. All general skills gain a bonus to affinity.

  Zoe stared at the notification for a moment. This was the first time that any of the skilled types of feats gave her something direct — and the first time she’d seen anything that specifically gave bonuses to general skills. All affinities? Every single general skill she used, forever, would just be more powerful, now?

  She summoned a small ball of Frost and zipped it around the room, feeling the improvement. It was subtle, but noticeable. The ball moved just a bit quicker than she was used to and felt a little more responsive to her will than she expected it to be. It wasn’t much — maybe the difference of a single level or two. But it applied to every single one of her general skills?

  Zoe almost couldn’t believe it. She looked through her stat sheet again, trying to do some rough calculations. If she didn’t have the Patient Decider feat, then at level one seventy six where she was and with the fifty three skills she had, this skill wouldn’t even be possible to have.

  And let alone the Patient Decider feat giving her a massive help to unlocking the class — how many others even had as many skills as Zoe did? Most that Zoe had spoken to had maybe a dozen, two dozen at most. Heck, six of Zoe’s skills were just from being bitten which made up over ten percent of her total number.

  And even further, if somebody did have a tonne of general skills, did they also have the time to get their classes high enough to unlock Well Versed? For all Zoe knew, she might be the first person on Abyllan to unlock the feat. Or at least a part of a very elite club.

  She eyed her skill list. Ten thousand was ten percent of the way to a hundred thousand. All she’d have to do was what she already did, nine more times. Would there be another feat then? With even more bonuses for her to unlock? Or would Well Versed be the last one in the series? Did whoever made the system expect anybody to get past this point? How far would the feats continue?

  also forget a skill in my calculations so this chapter actually makes sense. I checked like, five separate times. Hopefully I didn't.

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