“Nine years in the Synod, and I’m Level 4,” Fabrisse murmured to himself as he stared at his profile.

His Synaptic Clarity attribute was terrible, also, and that had accounted for the extra 1 SYN he’d received from quest completion earlier.

There was a small note underneath the figure for EXP which he had to squint to read.

He laughed. Quiet, dry. The laugh delayed the impact. A second later, it landed—nine years of minimal yield. His stomach twisted.

“Nine years, and I spent most of them befriending rocks and writing monologues to sediment.”

He turned the page instead.

Fabrisse blinked at the menu again and scrolled to the descriptions. A side tab expanded with a soft click of light. He took out a notebook—his newly-assigned ‘Note of Important Observations’—now that the old one with knowledge he’d already memorized had become too tattered and was left at home.

He was on his third reread. Not because he forgot, but because it felt better every time.

So Thaumaturgy is wrong! I can improve my resonance! Or maybe I can’t, and the numerical number next to it only exists to remind me I’ll be stuck at 2 forever . . .

In Thaumaturgy theory, four elements need to exist in harmony for a perfect spell: Technique, Intent, Timing, and Innate Resonance. Technique would be simple; his physical attributes like STR and DEX would influence that. Intent consisted of emotions and mnemonics, so EMO obviously would influence that. He didn’t know why the glyph bothered to lock him out of such apparent attribute. Timing must be tied to SYN. If you had good STR, DEX, EMO, and SYN, you would successfully cast a spell.

After a spell successfully ignited, RES would take over as the most important attribute for controlling and amplifying magical output. As for FOR . . . well, FOR didn’t affect spellcasting at all, but rather resistance to spells.

This attribute breakdown had given him so much hope, at least. Even if every single attribute of his was at the rock bottom, he knew he could improve. The knowledge alone got him pumped. I need to dig deeper. I need to know all the different ways to boost my abilities.

He was looking for reasons why Synaptic Clarity would be the most important attribute for Grain Analysis, and it seemed like he’d found it. He didn’t need to control the aether, since most rocks resist control anyway. But he needed to understand how and why the rocks had retained that aether, and captured emotions along with it.

There was one more thing he needed to check. Earlier, after he’d finished Phase 3, he saw this message: [Earth-based Thaumaturgy Mastery +1]. He wanted to know what this mastery attribute meant, and he suspected it would be within the Skills sub-section.

He was right. There was now a Glossary note for Mastery when he entered the sub-section.

He moved on to the Earth-based tree.

Too many variables. He could choose one now or wait. But if he picked wrong, he’d feel it forever. He hated optimization traps disguised as choices. However, it wasn’t like any of this mattered right now as he only had 4 Mastery Points.

Huh? How does this work?

He mentally willed the Note to show more details.

Ah. So each item would give me a 1% boost.

Okay. How do I utilize this Celestial Hoarding to my advantage, then? How can I upgrade it?

Rude.

Still, he made a mental note to collect more pebbles when he had a chance. Ideally, he would get more Stupenstones, because he could use them to fling.

He moved on to the unlockables.

Okay, so a new Tier I skill costs 5 Mastery Points to unlock, 10 Mastery Points to upgrade to Rank II, and 25 to upgrade to Rank III. Meanwhile, a Tier II skill costs 10 Mastery Points to unlock and 25 to upgrade to the next rank.

The higher the rank, the more Mastery Points it takes to level up. So in theory, it would be more efficient to unlock all the base skills first. But do I need all the Base skills? Maybe the higher-level skills are expensive to unlock because they are worth it. I need to read further into what they do in detail when I have the chance.

He read the descriptions, noted them down, then read again, underlined the keywords, then read again the third time.

Okay. It makes sense that I have to learn fundamental skills as a basis for learning relevant higher-level skills.

But . . . Stone Golem Summoner?! He had never heard of any Thaumaturges summoning Stone Golems before. Stone Golems were a construct made specifically by Geomancers. To his knowledge, there had not been any recorded animated or summoning spell within the Earth Thaumaturgy department. Maybe the Eidralith knew something Thaumaturgy theory didn’t.

He was about to examine the Skill Tree, but realized Stupenstone Fling was the only skill that demanded him to ‘click’ on the description. He did as told.

Those seem like massive upgrades. Emotional tracking can curve the path lightly, which means I can find cover first. If I imprint it with fear, I might be able to scatter a group before they even know what hit them.

And I’ll need to smack Cuman in the head soon.

But hold on . . . He squinted at the Casting Requirement. It said SYN ≥ 5,and he only had 3 SYN. Did that mean he wouldn’t be able to cast the spell?

Okay. That’s not too bad. I’m only 2 SYN behind, so I think I can bridge the gap soon enough.

He mentally tapped on the name ‘Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)’.

The air shimmered around the glyph.

He mentally confirmed.