Skill Points Put to Proper Use

As the Skill Points were consumed, Manus received something that surprised him: not knowledge of the spell.

Within his sea of consciousness, an entirely unfamiliar spell model was formed through Condensation. It was like a spell that had already been prepared; all he had to do was inject mana into it to activate it.

But... why had a spell he had not mastered been prepared for him?

"Wait, so this is how Skill Points make someone master spells? They're basically activators that let you cast a spell as long as you inject mana?"

Manus was somewhat dumbfounded. His original guess might even have overestimated that transmigrator. Rather than mastering ten thousand spells, had he merely possessed ten thousand spell activators?

How many of those ten thousand spells had the other person actually learned and mastered? That was still unknown.

No wonder that guy's spellcasting had always been so... standard, and rigid.

As he carefully observed the spell model in his sea of consciousness through meditation, Manus's shock faded, leaving only surprise and delight.

Though it was a spell that could be cast simply by pouring mana into it, it was far better than a magic scroll.

This activator was essentially a prepared spell model. It was more intuitive for research and study than any spellbook, and he could even personally experience these spells before learning them.

Personally experience them! Wasn't that far better than any great mage's annotations?

"Up to now, aside from being unable to learn the strongest spells because of my level, everything has gone so smoothly it's almost ridiculous. How should I use the remaining hundred Skill Points... hmm?"

Manus glanced at the Character Panel and could not help freezing.

Why were there still a hundred Skill Points?

Entering shallow meditation, he found that the spell model in his sea of consciousness was undoubtedly still there. The [Beast Blood Baptism] on the Skill Panel still shone brightly, and there was even a plus sign in the lower-right corner.

"What is this?"

Manus examined it.

[Consume 1 Skill Point to raise the skill Beast Blood Baptism to Level 2?]

[Yes] or [No]

A skill upgrade?

Manus blinked. What exactly did this upgrade improve?

Its power? Its proficiency? Or something like raising its circle?

It now seemed that the way Skill Points made someone learn—no, master—a spell was by directly providing a spell model. Before he learned it himself, he definitely would not be able to adjust it freely.

In other words, the spell would remain in its mastered, standard state. There were far too many aspects that could be upgraded.

"Three questions... Why haven't the Skill Points decreased? Should I upgrade the skill?"

The first two questions were closely related. If things really were as he suspected, there would be no need to conserve Skill Points. Even his previous plans for allocating Skill Points would have to be completely overturned.

Because he probably would no longer be short on Skill Points.

After checking the Character Panel several times, Manus wore an expression of subtly incredulous disbelief.

"The entire Character Panel... is frozen?"

After a careful investigation, the problem turned out to lie with the Character Panel.

Just as Manus had worried before, if the trunk had a problem, then no matter how intact the branch of Skill Points was, it could still be affected.

But this problem seemed to bring Manus nothing but benefits.

Because the panel was frozen, the Skill Points on the Skill Panel had genuinely been consumed, yet that expenditure could not be received by the Character Panel.

This was not merely a display synchronization issue. A Skill Point had truly been used, yet the account still showed no reduction in Skill Points.

So had the Skill Point been used or not?

Looking at those inexhaustible hundred Skill Points, even Manus was briefly dazed. Events had developed so wonderfully that they almost felt unreal.

It was not until after lunch, when the temperature outside finally rose a little and the snow stopped, that Aivina quietly went out to use magic to clear the snow from the doorway.

Only then, with the help of the cold wind at the entrance, did Manus completely calm down.

"Manu, come help me~"

Aivina did not melt the snow or make it disappear out of thin air. Instead, she piled it together and made three Yetis. Two large and one small, they were clearly their family of three.

Clearing the tangled thoughts from his mind, Manus picked up the vegetable basket at his feet and walked over to the Yeti family. After making his selection, he grabbed a round onion and pressed it into the face of one of the large Yetis.

Griffin's nose was a little flat, as though a section of his nasal bridge had been broken. Fortunately, Manus had inherited more from Aivina in that regard.

"Oh, Manu... this doesn't look like your father at all."

Aivina frowned. After studying it for a while, she replaced the round onion with a potato, burying half of it diagonally into the snow and leaving an exposed portion that was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom.

"This looks right!"

Clearly, the long potato looked more like a nose to Aivina than the round onion, though both were equally flat.

After exchanging a glance, Manus and Aivina both burst out laughing.

They spent half an hour carefully decorating the three Yetis. In the current weather, the Yetis could last nearly a week without losing their shape, and by then there would be fresh snow to make more.

After returning to the room, taking off his coat, and lying down on the bed, Manus narrowed his eyes.

"Huh? Now that I think about it, my fifth birthday is coming soon."

Manus's birthday was January 1st. Christmas had just passed, and there were fewer than seven days left until his birthday.

"Could this be my birthday surprise?"

Manus looked toward the Skill Panel and recalled the third question he had only half considered before being interrupted by this pleasant surprise.

That was... how exactly did skill upgrades work?

Given that the system allowed someone to master spells by directly providing spell models, Manus had reason to suspect that upgrading a skill directly modified the spell model.

That way, the system's owner would still only need to inject mana to activate the spell.

"If this had happened earlier, I would have needed to consider whether this spell was worth upgrading, then memorize this unfamiliar model perfectly and compare it with the upgraded model."

It was not difficult to imagine that the spell model after the upgrade would not differ much from the one before it. The differences might even be extremely subtle. That would greatly increase the difficulty of memorizing and comparing them.

Manus, who had done considerable research into the mind and spirit, knew that human memory was not entirely reliable.

To save effort, the brain deceived you. Using fragments you remembered very clearly as its core, it performed lossy compression on your memories.

What Manus needed to do was equivalent to memorizing one picture, then playing spot-the-difference with another. When the new picture was extremely similar to the original, it would interfere with his memory of the original.

More importantly, Manus did not know how many differences there were between the two pictures.

"Fortunately, I no longer lack Skill Points. I don't need to use an unfamiliar spell model for comparison."

Manus's gaze returned to the spell Skill Tree he had first ruled out. It was filled with spells he would never misremember by even the slightest detail.

"Perfect. I'll use the spell system I know best for comparison and determine what level of spells I can learn at Level 10."