Eight unallocated skill points remained, with quite a few more interesting skills to choose from. Before picking more skills, he would have wanted to test the new ones he'd chosen, but now that he was alone, that would've been more than a little difficult. Guardian Weave, he'd tested. The other ones required other people. Well, another portal would open up soon, he figured. That'd be a good testing ground. For now, Luke would do what he could on his own.

  No, wait. He did have another skill to try. Manipulate Thread. Thinking about that one brought up a storm of emotions, a potent mix of excitement and apprehension. Trying to forget his last interaction with Dot and the resulting weight growing in his chest, Luke threw himself wholeheartedly into the maelstrom. These sorts of skills were important to the Lifeweaver class and, therefore, to himself, but you never knew what you might get.

  This one wasn't something he could just activate to see what would happen, since it was passive. That meant the way to use it rested with his other tools. Threads of Mana was a good bet, and he brought out a thread to dance in the palm of his hand. It didn't feel different from before. For a moment, he pondered the meaning of 'the thread' in the skill description, but couldn't settle on a meaning. Touching his own thread with a finger did nothing. No, it had to mean touching a different thread, but which one? An infinite number of threads made up the entire world, or, well, the system. Was he supposed to touch those? Exasperation growing, Luke did his best to focus, trying to summon the threads that made up the system, but failed.

  The other times he'd seen those, it had been in the middle of combat, when he was close to running out of mana. Said and done, Luke upped the stores of healing mana in his meta-heart and mana channels, but even that wasn't enough. The threads wouldn't show.

  "Annoying," he muttered to himself, prompting Smudge to look up from where he was curled up on the carpet. "Go back to eating that core," Luke said, shaking his head.

  The throbbing headache brought on by a lack of mana made it difficult to focus, but he pushed on, dropping even lower, making the room spin around him. Nausea followed. Not fun. But after all that, staying at around seven percent mana made faint traces of threads appear around him. The void being he'd stood face to face with back when he killed Relian wasn't present this time.

  As soon as the threads appeared, Luke reached out with a single thread of mana. It trembled as it moved. Steadying his hand, he touched the system thread.

  Awareness rushed into Luke. All the knowledge of everything and more. For the briefest of moments, he got a glimpse of the system. Not just a small piece of it, but everything it touched, everywhere, all at once. Something popped, and Luke's vision disappeared. Something wet ran down his face, down his nose, and even out of his ears. The healing mana in his mana channels dried up in an instant. Meta-heart pumping, Luke held on to his dim awareness with an iron will, forcing himself to stay awake through it.

  Soon, vision returned, as did proper consciousness. Luke blinked, looking down at his bed. Blood. So. Much. Blood. It wasn't just on the bed. It soaked his shirt, too, and clung to his skin, sticky and gross. Smudge was right next to Luke, who hadn't noticed the pet move. If his head had been throbbing before, now it was as if someone was setting off fireworks in there while shining headlights into his eyes.

  "Fuck..." he muttered as he struggled to the side of the bed. Walking proved difficult. The Tempered Staff worked as support for about a second until the weight threw him off balance, and Luke dropped it.

  Mutable Blade of The Lilineese: This weapon takes whatever shape the user wills. Imbued with the strength of the Lilineese.

  The new weapon came in clutch as he withdrew it from his inventory just before toppling over. As if understanding what he wanted, it formed itself into a staff. This one was far lighter. Even using it as a glorified crutch, Luke's eyes widened when he saw his Strength jumping up by fifteen points. Even in that state, it was something to marvel at, at least until he collapsed into the tub and turned the shower on. Warm water rained down from above. It made the whole thing a little more bearable, as if he was nursing the world’s worst hangover, and he hadn't even retained any of the information gleaned from touching the thread. All that did was make his head explode. Or perhaps implode fit better. Either way, it was not a good time.

  It took him the better part of an hour to collect himself and wash the blood off, then change out of the now-soaked clothes. Smudge stood watching him from the doorway all that time, wagging his tail and letting out the occasional soundless bark. Once clean, he changed the soiled bedclothes, then sat back down with a tall glass of water. Before doing anything else, he downed that, then sighed and went for a refill.

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  "Not doing that again," Luke murmured. Either the skill was so beyond him that it was almost laughable, or he'd done something wrong. More experimentation was out of the question, at least for the moment.

  He lay back in bed and let sleep take him. When he woke, it was dark out, and he still felt drained beyond belief. At least his mana was back up to full. Before doing anything else, he spent a while making sure his meta-heart held all the healing mana it could contain. It'd saved him from his own mistake, and he had no doubt it would do so again.

  Satisfying his hunger didn't take too long with a fridge stocked up with ready-made dinners, of which he downed three. That done, Luke settled back on the bed. It was time to allocate the remaining skill points.

  Available skills:

  Wounded Symmetry [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Mirror a tear in the weave and create it anew.

  Strengthen Thread [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Use mana to strengthen the weave.

  Heartthread [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Bind your weave to another.

  Weaver’s Boon [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Mana not only restores, but empowers.

  Bleed The Weave [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Rupture a weave to make your target weep mana.

  Corrupt Thread [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Force threads together in a harming weave.

  Weaver's Whip [Active - Mana Cost: Low]: Turn a thread of mana into a weapon.

  Weaveguard [Toggleable - Mana Cost: Low]: Shield the core of your being from outside influence.

  Draft Insight [Passive]: Read the intent in the weaves of others.

  Destabilize Spellweave [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Destroy spellweaves with Threads of Mana.

  Loom's Reminder [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: For a brief moment, each touch produces a thread.

  Rank up skills available:

  The Healer's Staff [Active. Mana Cost: Low]: Turn your weapon indestructible for a brief moment.

  Weaver’s Rupture [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Shatter a Thread of Mana into a pulse of force.

  Weaver’s Mercy [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: On the brink of death, lend the weave one final stitch.

  Loom's Reminder was a good pick, Luke decided. That would let him deal with opponents who were too quick for him to react. The way he interpreted the description was that if someone touched him, a thread of mana would kind of latch on to that person. Not wanting to spend hours on skills, he used a point and selected the skill. Only then did he realize that most monsters used weapons of some sort and let out a long string of curses for not having thought of that before picking the skill. Oh well, what was done was done.

  Weaveguard sounded similar to Guardian Weave, very similar, but the description made him think it was more specialized toward the meta-heart. More protection for that was never a bad idea, but perhaps it didn't make sense to pick it right at that moment. Instead, he chose to rank up Weaver's Mercy. While he hadn't used it too many times so far, it was a good skill to have when things went to shit, as they so often did.

  Weaver’s Mercy [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: On the brink of death, lend the weave one final stitch.

  Turned into.

  Weaver’s Mercy (Rank 2) [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Allow your target another few moments in their current condition.

  This one was simple enough to test. Luke cut a long gash in his arm, focused to keep the healing mana in his meta-heart from rushing to patch him up, then used the skill. The wound didn't stop hurting or bleeding, but his health points didn't drop, and the injury didn't worsen. So, it was a sort of stasis skill, keeping the injury stable, no matter what. As long as it still kept his patient alive no matter what, it was a straight upgrade. That last part, he didn't feel like testing on himself. No, that would have to wait until he found himself in a situation with a whole lot of people not doing so good. If his experience was anything to go by, it wouldn't take long before he got the chance.

  That left six skill points. Not wanting to spend the entire night agonizing over the decisions, since he had better things to do, he made a quick judgment call.

  Draft Insight [Passive]: Read the intent in the weaves of others.

  Destabilize Spellweave [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Destroy spellweaves with Threads of Mana.

  Yes, he was able to do both even without the skills, but perhaps using the points in this way would make him learn more about how to do it, well, better. Knowledge in battle was important, and cutting spellweaves had turned out to be a formidable way to battle opponents. Any improvement on either of those two would be fantastic. Four points to go.

  Weaver’s Rupture [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Shatter a Thread of Mana into a pulse of force.

  Turned into.

  Weaver’s Rupture (Rank 2) [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Create a controlled blast of mana to disrupt any who would threaten you.

  After that, he selected another offensive skill.

  Bleed The Weave [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Rupture a weave to make your target weep mana.

  Like he'd considered earlier, it was time to embrace the offensive capabilities of his class. Lifeweavers were healers, yes, but all too often Luke found himself in situations where he had to stand against an enemy, be it monster or other Integrated.

  With this, he could cut their spellweaves, drain their mana, burst their mana channels apart, and so much more. If someone mistook him for nothing but a squishy healer, they would soon have to revisit that erroneous assumption.