One Night!

It does not take you long to come to a decision. You will not manage more than an hour or two of sleep, but this would be more than worth it. And anyway, you were a Shadowfur, night was your birthright.

You nod decidedly.

"Tomorrow at dawn, we will be waiting before the Torii gate."

"Then take this. You'll need it far more than me." Hayami nodded to Keiko, who passed you a…

Elite adventurer's backpack - 72 slots

Tanko-sama's sweet tits and/or bits that was a premium inventory backpack! That thing almost quintupled your own inventory. And inside were various bits and bobs of the adventuring gear from the idiots you had dispatched. Including an uncommon Incendiary Billhook that must have come from the Flame Archon!

You had no particular need for it, but an uncommon weapon was an uncommon weapon, and you were fairly certain you could find someone who could make better use of it.

First things first, though, you exchanged your threadbare pants for the good leather ones that were Rogue's and put on the Tomebound's doublet. None of the rest of the dropped gear were things you could equip, but there was a basic Iron knife that was better than your own old chipped one, so you equipped that too.

It was remarkable how much difference a bit of new gear made you feel. Well, that and two additional levels.

As you orientated yourself and started on on your way, you opened up your stats, and the changes there shocked you so much that you tripped over your own feet and faceplanted into the jungle floor, not that you minded.

Shin, Level 7 Foxkin Scout (Shadowfur)
Monster, Beastfolk, Fox, Explicit
Experience to level up – 660
Attributes
| Strength 13+1 | Dexterity 40+1 | Endurance 15 |
| Charisma 27 | Manipulation 24 | Appearance 20 |
| Perception 28+1 | Intelligence 33+1 | Wits 40+3 |
You have 2 AP to distribute.
Skills
Archery 15+1
Thrown 15
Awareness 25
Investigation 20
Dodge 15
Occult 10
Stealth 25
Survival 15
[Lore] Requires 1+1 SP to unlock
[Presence] Requires 1+1 SP to unlock
[Socialize] Requires 1+1 SP to unlock
Warning! Each additional Skill will require 1 more SP to unlock!
You have 8 SP to distribute.
Crafts
Woodworking 10+1
Butchering 5+1
Trapmaking 5
Feats
Low light vision - Your eyes need much less light to give you clear sight. Dim light does not impose disadvantages to you.
Skulker - You are expert at slinking through shadows and stalking prey. When trying to hide when you are obscured from other creatures add (½ Survival, rounded up) to stealth. When you are hidden from a creature and miss it with a ranged weapon attack, making the attack doesn't reveal your position.
Ancestral form - You are of the Shadowfurs, and can still call upon your ancestry at will. Once every (600-Occult) minutes, when obscured from direct light, you can turn into a fox made of shadows for (¼ Wits, rounded up) seconds. While in shadowform you ignore physical obstacles at will, but treat light as if it was solid, with hardness and solidity dependant upon the brightness of the light’s source.*
Monstrous Appearance – For some reason, some folks just have trouble appreciating the fur, yellow eyes and sharp teeth. Weird! When attempting to use Appearance in a positive way on creatures who do not share at least one of your sub-types, count it at 20 points lower until the target gets used to you.*
* feat will be affected if new skill is unlocked!

Those gains were insane!

9 attribute points! That was a clear 50% growth from what you were used to! And you were offered three new skills to unlock! You did not even imagine you could have more than eight skills! And, at least one of those skills would affect your Shadowform! That had the potential to be huge!

Then you frowned.

Problem was, the system didn't tell you what any of the new skills did, nor which of the new skills was associated with the feats.

And unlocking all three of the new skills was decidedly out of the question because that would pretty much wipe out your entire SP pool, which would be decidedly suboptimal.

Which meant you had to figure it out with nothing but the names and your Wits to go on.

Luckily, Wits was your highest stat. Especially now.

Sooo… Socilize seemed pretty straightforward, and it was not particularly difficult drawing a probable connection between it and Monstrous Appearance.

You probably could ignore that, in that case.

You did not particularly mind about MA nor did you feel the need to become better at socializing in general. Not that it would not be useful in the upcoming negotiations, but then again, since there was no such thing as a useless skill, all three would certainly prove useful in some form or fashion going forward, so it was all about priorities, and you felt fairly safe in your deductions and relegating Socialize to almost certainly less usefull than the other two.

That left Lore and Presence.

Lore was all about knowing things. Or at least that was what you thought. Which, to your mind, sounded like it could synergize with Occult, which, in turn, your shadowform was already reliant upon.

Presence, on the other hand, sounded more nebulous. More metaphysical.

You could see ways it could interact with any number of your other skills, and without knowing exactly what it did, it was difficult to deduce if and how it might connect.

And your instincts were no help at all.

They were all over the place.

One moment they told you to go Lore, the very next they were all for Presence, and the third, you were certain that both was the only way to go!

It was infuriating.

To buy yourself more time as you stewed in indecision, you decided to spend your AP.

Getting your PER to 30 was a no brainer, which left you with the choice of where to put in the other point.

Getting your WIT even higher was really, really tempting, but your low STR and END scores all but clubbed you over the head at needing to plug those deficiencies.

You were a glass cannon build, no question about it, but, well, the cannon part was debatable, exactly because your STR was so low. Your damage was derived primarily from your excellent DEX score, but archery was still STR reliant, and anyone who thought otherwise knew nothing about bowmanship…

On the other hand, not being as flimsy as wet tissue paper would also allow you to last longer in combat and give you that tiniest bit more chance to survive attempting to escape.

Decisions, decisions…

Ultimately, you put it into STR because it was your lowest attribute. Well, it was still at the bottom, but now it was at least even with END.

Which brought you back to your new skill conundrum.

With a heavy heart, you make your choice…