Rifu lazily waved her scepter through the air as she lay panting on her back, her head drooping over one of the stone benches ringing the amphitheater. A drizzle of teal water splashed down over her face and she laughed, "That was a great fight!"

  Her health slowly ticked back up in the corner of Shelby's vision, but she was more focused on the trio of menus displaying the Basic Skill choices she had just unlocked:

  Shelby was much more accustomed to using her Identity Skill now that she had been adventuring with it for a few hours, so the utility of the listed skills seemed a lot more obvious that it would have, but she still consulted AIDAN about them. Rifu snuck over to Shelby's side and listened in to AIDAN's explanations, "Rootwhips is meant to serve mobile Briarknights who can execute their Identity Skill's expiration effect regularly. It also supplements the need to move away from enemies by providing a ranged attack. This may be helpful for solo playstyles and for more damage-oriented roles. It can also be useful to allow Briarknights assist their allies from a distance to impose Snarling on enemies they cannot reach."

  Shelby nodded and bit her thumb, thinking aloud, "But it's not as good if you can't get away from an enemy, since resetting the cooldown only helps if you can get away."

  AIDAN vibrated, "Correct, this skill is not as useful for sustained battles in close quarters."

  Shelby frowned, "That could change how I approach combat. I can imagine attacking from a distance to quickly use Snarling, or using it to recharge Snarling faster when it’s down... It's a little confusing, but it seems like it could be good. Having a ranged attack would be helpful for flying enemies too, oh, or for slimes!"

  AIDAN turned to the next panel, "Entangling Strike is meant to cover the weakness of Snarling when creating distance is not possible or when moving is otherwise not feasible. It can also to be used to quickly resolve individual fights and maintain momentum through the cooldown reduction mechanic. This skill is well suited to supporting defensive playstyles and for fighting multiple enemies efficiently, which are common needs for organized content like dungeons."

  Shelby folded her arms, "It does seem like it works with Snarling really well, but if the enemy doesn't die then you still have to wait. I wish it made Snarling faster on hit like the first one. So, this would be the skill for dungeons and bosses..." she thought over the fight she just had with Rifu and the golem. It might have been nice to fight from a distance but could have been just as helpful to activate Snarling's big hit after a few attacks. She sighed, "I'm not going to play any dungeons or fight bosses very often, so maybe this isn't a good fit for me."

  AIDAN chimed in, "Dungeons may be possible through the use of Confidants. There is an option that allows players to bring up to three Confidants in lieu of other players."

  Shelby brightened, "I didn't know that, I could bring Rifu with me!"

  Rifu groaned beside them, "Please don't drag me into anything swampy. Interesting dungeons only. Ones that will advance my research, okay?"

  Shelby nodded, "Okay, only the good ones."

  AIDAN hovered towards the third pane, "Reigns is a skill for players who want control of their enemies, and it rewards clever playstyles. While this skill could be used effectively in many different scenarios, it is primarily meant to be used in player-to-player combat. While it could be used for hunting and organized content, it does not supplement the use of Snarling as powerfully as the other two options."

  Shelby agreed, "I was wondering why this one seemed less powerful. So, it's for robbing people or something. Okay... let's strike that one for now."

  Rifu nodded beside Shelby, "If you call on me, you should focus on protecting me. Keeping enemies away from me so they can't find a way to harm your magnificent Confidant is a Briarknight's job, after all."

  AIDAN vibrated in agreement, "Both Rootwhips and Entangling Strike are well suited to protecting allies. Rootwhips allows you to command attention from a distance and inflict Snarling. Entangling Strike allows you to shrink the safe space for enemies and execute your strongest attack when it is needed."

  With a huff, Shelby leaned back against a bench, "I still wish one was clearly better than the other. I can switch between them at my guild, right?"

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "That is correct, for a small fee." AIDAN said.

  "Okay, I'll start with Rootwhips then." Shelby confirmed her choice, and felt the new skill appear somewhere inside of her mind. She could picture holding a barbed whip and slashing it through the air.

  She shook her head and continued with urgency, "Now let’s go turn in our quests before we lose our bonuses!"

  Rifu stood with a stretch and looked around the room one more time before she scurried off towards the stairway, with Shelby and her orb following closely behind. They wound back through the ruins and out of the cave system to the beginnings of a faint morning glow. Rifu immediately marched up to her lounging students and started barking orders at them. Midway through, she turned to Shelby with a smile and pointed at a particularly large tent, "Assignment board is in there. Good job today. I'll teach you Excavation once these lay-abouts get back to work."

  Shelby gave Rifu a nod and walked into the tent, slipping under a heavy linen tent flap. The tent was packed with tables that had carefully arranged pottery and other delicate relics reconstructed on them. She carefully navigated the tightly packed workstations to access a big wooden board, which was plastered inches deep with pinned notes, manuscripts, and diagrams. The contact menu appeared when Shelby examined it.

  Shelby slumped, two of them had dwindled down to a measly 2 and 4 tin coin bonus. Oh well, the advancement is still great. She was up to 88 of 100 per the region map. The seedling quest must have been considered a difficult quest because she received the full bonus for it, and she agreed with the assessment. It was a pain to find those items. One more good set of quests should trigger the region advancement. She smiled at AIDAN, and he vibrated back.

  Rifu pulled back the flap behind them and sighed dramatically, her good mood already a distant memory, "Come on then. I'll teach you Excavation and we'll get some work done at the same time."

  Shelby looked away from the board without picking anything new, and Rifu escorted them back into the cavern.

  Shelby didn't remember that pop up from Pico. Did I miss it? With a snap, Rifu activated a skill and two copies of a small mountain icon appeared above her and Shelby's health bars. She explained the skill to Shelby, "[Deblende] allows you to notice valuable ores, rocks, salts... all sorts of things you might want to remove from the ground. Try looking at this cave wall."

  Shelby stepped forward and could now easily notice a stripe of coppery ore embedded in the stone. It was so obvious now that she couldn't believe it didn't stand out the her when they had passed it before. Rifu stepped up next to Shelby and handed her a chisel and hammer, "Excavators use chisels to remove valuable items from their rocky prisons. You might think that a pickaxe would be better, but activating [Deblende] up close like this will naturally separate the ore from the stone, so you just need to pry it loose. Try it!"

  Shelby thought about the icon, and she could see... something, an aura or outline, peeling free from its surroundings. She held the chisel to the edge of the feeling of the ore and tapped. The ore flaked off in one long strip, about as long as Shelby's hand and wrist. She felt it snap into her inventory.

  She chipped away three more strips before the aura of the copper grew indistinct. Rifu clapped her on the back, "Great, that's everything useful from that vein. Now let's go use this skill on what really matters: artifacts!"

  She scampered on ahead, and they returned to the underground city. As Shelby entered, she saw the grad students roping off an area and slowly getting ready to study an area. Rifu ignored them and continued deeper into the city, finding a relatively intact home to stop at. She gestured to an inlaid carving over the home's doorway, and it had the same distinct aura as the copper ore.

  Rifu explained, "This is an artifact. It's not just an item with a history and meaning to a culture, though those are good too, but a true artifact. That means it contains a small piece of divinity."

  Shelby tilted her head, "You mentioned that before, but I still don't understand."

  "Yes, yes, visitor that you are, I should explain... but where to begin..."

  Rifu paced, "Big picture. There are 12 gods and 13 divinities they embody. Things like civilization, justice, safety, romance. Those kinds of ineffable concepts that make us what we are. They have many names, and there is a god for each of them."

  Shelby looked puzzled, but the basics didn't seem too bad, "Okay... so gods take care of person stuff, somehow."

  "Person stuff..." Rifu trailed off for a moment, "Anyways, when a divine concept becomes particularly strongly expressed by a person or thing, they'll gain a sliver of that divinity. This mantle right here has such a sliver in it. Items like that can be very valuable, and often they have a story that is useful for our research. But sometimes they're just common items too."

  Rifu gestured to the street beneath them, and Shelby noticed some of the pavers were slightly highlighted as well. "Roads tend to become vessels for particular divinities, so often road stones are great items to harvest. Well, not from a major city, I imagine they’d arrest you or make you replace them, but this city won’t mind. Take one the same way you did that ore."

  Shelby kneeled and pried out a hunk of rock.

  She examined it in her inventory, still unsure of what these items really were.

  Shelby blinked, "This is what made the golem we fought? Some random stone that a trader has walked on?"

  "No, no, it absorbed hundreds of divinities to become that way, plus it fed on fragments more related to the king it mimicked. Anyways, you'll see that the item has a grade. That will reflect how powerful the divinity is."

  Rifu nodded to herself, "Well... thems the basics. You'll need to rank up before I can stop your Apprenticeship, so why don't you clear whatever loose stones you find in the ruins and help clear our dig sites. You can keep the good stone and dump the rest outside of the camp."

  Shelby agreed and spent a half hour wandering the ancient streets clearing away fallen rock and other natural debris. She found 3 Minor Trade Divinities, 8 Quality Stones, 13 Common Stones, and 41 Rough Stones before she finally learned the class: