Reed looked at the group of four who were resting a few meters away, all of them had let their guard down after he had not shown any hostile intent.
He mentally clicked his tongue and then diverted his attention.
He looked away from them and towards the corpse of the feline he had shot a few minutes ago.
'Identify.' A mental command was issued.
[Blazmane Lion] [Corpse] [Tier 4]
[Beware of its flame breath]
[Threat level: None]
[Note: It's been killed recently]
Reed walked up to it, and used his analysis skill.
But something occurred when he did so.
[Skill: Analysis is compatible with the 'Identify' function, do you want to fuse them?]
Under his mask, Reed's eyes glowed blue as he activated environment sense and looked over what the group was doing.
A moment later, he moved to remove some parts of the lion's body, some of its teeth, a part of its mane, and all of its claws.
It took him less than two minutes to take all he wanted, after which he stood up and looked at the group, who were eating some of the food that they had recently obtained by trading with him.
"Well then," He began, speaking in the slightly modified tone of voice he had used before. "I shall be on my way now."
Reed could see the visible disappointment that emanated from them at his statement.
"Can't you walk travel with us?"
The man who had tried to calm the angry one spoke with hope in his voice, wanting to stay with Reed in order to obtain his protection.
"You're too slow."
Reed shut down his thoughts with a single sentence and left before they could say another word, leaping onto the rock where the lion had been resting and bounding away.
***
"Finally."
Reed allowed himself to let out a sigh as he looked at the notice in front of him.
[The event 'Movement' is complete!]
[Congratulations for surviving till the end!]
With the midday sun beating down on him in his black armor, Reed collapsed into the dirt.
The sheer boredom had taken quite a toll on him, and he couldn't train much while traveling, which had left him with little more than his thoughts during most of the journey.
Reed disappeared from his position and appeared in a room similar to the one he had been sent to after the end of the first event.
Reed shot up to his feet.
'My boredom's gone, and so is my fatigue.'
Somehow, all of his tiredness disappeared out of nowhere.
Additionally, unlike the previous time, he was pulled here without any prior warning or notification.
[Please check the table for your reward]
Reed read the floating text and looked around to see a table against the middle of the wall, with a few ornate boxes on top of it, placed next to each other in a line.
He walked up to it, and another message appeared.
[Would you like me to explain how this works?]
Reed looked at the table again, now noticing that each box had a plate with a number inscribed on it in front of it, nailed into the table.
The numbers were in descending order, 4,3,2, and 1.
The boxes seemed to be more ornate the lower the number, with the box with the number 1 looking the most exquisite and luxurious.
Reed turned to the floating question.
"Can you talk?" He asked.
"I can."
Reed was momentarily taken aback.
Unlike the previous time, this voice seemed to belong to an excited little girl.
'Don't think too much about it.'
"Explain how this works."
"Okay!"
Reed wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about this.
"So you see the boxes in front of you right? And the numbers in front of them?"
"I see them."
"Uh-huh! So the numbers tell you how many skills you will get if you choose to open that box! If you open the box with the number '4' you'll get four new skills, if you open the box with the number '3', you'll get three! And so on, understand?"
"Hm." Reed nodded.
"Buuuut..."
'And here is the problem.'
"Each box draws from a different pool of skills, and they'll all give you different results."
"Can you explain?"
"Sure! Sure!"
Reed looked at the boxes, feeling a little uncomfortable.
"So the first box on the left,"
Reed looked at the worst box on the table.
"That will pull from the biggest pool, so you will be leaving your gains to pure luck, you may get something very good, or something very bad, or something that you can't use at all, etcetera, etcetera."
"The second from the left will pull from a much smaller pool, with both the best and the worst skills removed, so the best you can get will be quite good, but not anything game-changing, and you still get skills that may not be of much use for you at all. All the skills you get from this box are guaranteed to be useable by you."
"The third box guarantees you skills useful for you, but their higher limit is not very high, but their lower limit is quite high."
"And finally, the fourth box, the one that gives you only one skill, this is a special one."
"This one does not have a specified skill pool from which it draws the reward. Instead, it dives into your mind and matches your wants to a skill from the database, and gives you that skill."
Reed inhaled sharply.
"But be careful, the mind is a fickle thing, and the skill you get may be a bad combination of things that you wanted, wasting your reward."
Reed took a moment to get over his shock.
He looked over the boxes again.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
"How many skills are in the prize pools?"
"Six figures, five figures, and three figures respectively."
Reed nodded and abandoned the first two boxes without thinking twice.
'So that leaves these two.'
He looked at the two remaining choices in front of him, and the choice was clear.
Reed did not like to gamble, and he trusted his own thoughts to a good extent.
He sat down on the ground and took a meditating position.
'So what do I want? What do I need? What do I have?'
Reed mentally questioned himself, trying to drive his mind in the direction of his needs.
'I have more than enough attack in the form of my guns and magic, so no attacking. Defense is steelskin and magic, sufficient for the near future. Movement is lacking, but I can learn magic to take care of that.'
With those few thoughts, he eliminated some of the possibilities.
'Perception is with celestial sight and the sense. Recovery has regeneration and magic.'
Reed spent some time thinking about what he needed and what he wanted.
When he was ready he got up and touched the box he had chosen.
[Do you choose this box?]
Reed closed his eyes and confirmed his thoughts.
Then his eyes opened and he confirmed his choice.