Gacha Kingdom Building

No way, I thought to myself.

Even the most hopeless bastard out there should at least have one buyable skill in the  [Available Skills] menu.

This was such an unquestionable truth that even though I was seeing for myself proof of the contrary, my mind still refused to accept it.

I guess there's a first for everything, but to be the first person who is incapable of choosing skills to work towards is...

Well, it's both sad and unlucky. This development cast a shadow over my expectations for the whole Gacha thing that would be an integral part of my life from here onwards.

Opening the [Available Skills] menu managed to completely overwhelm me, what I'd been told and what I knew as truth were absolutely shattered in a single moment.

If the menu didn't even appear to me, it would basically be the same since not a single skill was present there.

Based on what I usually see on the internet, some skills can be unlocked later in [Available Skills], depending on what you do and specialize in, the situations you experience in your life, the opponents you fight against, and even by training or conceptualizing a skill, you might be able to find it in this menu eventually.

if you put in enough effort or have the potential for it, that is.

But knowing that only worried me more...

No one lives their life doing absolutely nothing, there should be something for me here, the fruits of the life I lived for 18 years should be materialized in this menu.

Even though it wasn't amazingly unique, it was at least something...

It's strange no matter how I think about it, not only have I never heard about something like this, but it also felt wrong... as if something was purposely out of place.

Was it possible that I would never have a single skill show up on this menu?

I could get skills through the [Skills Banner] but they were completely random, I would depend entirely on luck for cohesion, and with how many skills there are, this would be incredibly hard.

Usually, even if you have a useless Gift, you are always able to go to the [Available Skills] menu and grab something useful or unique from there after grinding enough Level Points for it.

You can also use it to plan your path going forward, knowing what skills you have available makes it so that you can better decide on what you should train on and also have a general idea of your capabilities, allowing you to focus your points and efforts.

As long as one plans carefully and puts in the time and effort, they should be able to achieve great results in whatever field they decide to strive for. Even if you have a Gift incompatible with your goals, by using the [Available Skills], you could go as far as anyone else.

Not even dungeon raiding is an exception. And that's part of the reason I'd be fine with a basic Gift, I wasn't going to run away just because of something minor like that.

There's also the chance of fucking up your skill selection and "kit" due to a wide array of skills to choose from, but even then, this extreme where you have too much to select from feels way better than the one I found myself in.

Even though the obvious way to circumvent a Gift weakness seems to be unavailable to me, lamenting over that won't take me anywhere. I'll play the game with the cards I've been dealt, and if that means I'll have to rely on the [Skills Banner], so be it.

I already got a positive outcome from it, so it seems like a good alternative to me.

Back in the [Gacha Kingdom Building] menu, there was still the [Mana Banners] for me to check out.

And looking at it I'm somewhat surprised.

It seems to function the same way as the normal [Banners], except there are way fewer banners to choose from here.

I guess this is due to the fact I'm level 1 and only have a single mana point to use.

The description said that some banners could be unlocked and that more mana spent would yield better results, so I imagine one condition for unlocking certain banners must be to first have enough mana to use them.

One banner that might work like that is the missing [Companions Banner].

Seems like friends are worth at least more than a single point of mana.

Although I noticed that the [Weapons Banner] was already present.

So not rolling on it back then might've been the right decision since the [Skills Banner] isn't available in this menu.

Knowing what happens when one depletes their mana makes it hard for me to roll in this banner though, so I'll leave it for later.

Continuing on what I had yet to check out, the [Kingdom] menu was the first button that didn't seem to refer to the Gacha aspects, so I was eager to see what this one was all about.

Focusing on it showed something actually very predictable, funnily enough... a plot of land with the simple name of Kingdom...

Calling it that would be a stretch though. Aside from the plains that the plot consists of, the only object is a single lone [hut] with nothing else close to it.

Scratch that, there was nothing else anywhere, close or far from it. The map was completely empty.

I found this to be quite boring since there wasn't anything for me to do with it, so I tried the [Access] function.

But this one changed every negative thought I'd been harboring about the [Kingdom].

First of all, this gave me a teleporting ability, only to the [Kingdom], but still, pretty neat. I could definitely use this to escape danger, at the very least.

The green plains scenery stretching in front of me felt very pleasant and even made me strangely feel at home, even though I had just left my house.

Also, free hut. Nice.

Before even starting work, I was already the owner of my own real estate, almost like a millionaire, really.

The place is really good... but I doubt I'll be using it too much.

Don't misunderstand me though, I'm not saying this because I already have somewhere to live.

The real problem with this place is that surrounding the plains, there's an extremely thick fog. I can't see anything past it, and it almost feels like there's nothing there to be seen to start with as if that place was the absolute limit of the universe.

It does mark the limit of this space, and though I wonder what would happen if I touched it, the foreboding feeling it gives shakes off any curiosity instantly.

It seems like I'm capable of expanding and modifying this place by using the [Kingdom Points], but I don't have the leisure to waste those since I'm only capable of claiming one [Kingdom Point] thanks to my only level 1 [Citizen] registered, that is, myself.

There was a bunch of things I could buy that seemed to be useful for settlements and the [Citizens].

But spending it on anything seemed like a waste at the time, so I just saved it, thinking it might be more relevant later.

After finishing with the [Kingdom] menu, there was just one other function for me to look at, the one that shows my Status.

And at least this one was pretty normal, from intelligence to strength, and of course, mana as well, everything displayed there showed a 1, which is the average by a large margin since getting a status to 2 before receiving a Gift seems to be really difficult.

After the [Status], I was done with checking menus, and even though it was very tiresome, the fact that I was now able to, after many years, enter dungeons, level up, and go on all sorts of adventures gave me all my enthusiasm back.

The world I grew up watching from afar, never being able to enter myself, was now just steps away.

Before that though, it felt important to at least test the [Mana Banner], even though I knew it would delay me a day, but I couldn't go out without knowing what this one was capable of.

I went on with my day as usual, sometimes being anxious about not stepping out there already, but by the time I was cooking dinner, such thoughts were disregarded completely.

After I finished dinner, it was time to test the last aspect of my Gift, and I spent my mana on the [Weapons Banner] inside the [Mana Banners] menu.

I didn't really know what to expect, given that it's a gacha, maybe even a single mana point would bring an incredible result.

I failed to consider that I was already lucky today, and the gachas aren't usually so forgiving.

Like last time, my head goes blank for a second, I feel lost, but before I can wrap my head around these feelings, they are gone.

In front of me, I see a small bladed weapon. A dagger.

Doesn't look fancy or anything like that, so I guess it worked out perfectly.

Was this lucky or unlucky? Considering I didn't spend too much on it, it was good, but maybe this was among the worst possible outcomes. Anyway, it was probably appropriate.

I was a bit worried about a flashy weapon and the prospects of being targeted because of them, so a simple dagger actually works out pretty well.

If I look at it this way, yeah, I got pretty lucky.

Sadly, I didn't have too much time to be happy about it.

The effects of spending all your mana quickly started to affect me and I had to put the dagger away or risk hurting myself.

This effect is known as Mana Depletion, alongside the strongest headache you'd ever feel, you can count on it draining away all strength in your body and making you extremely exhausted.

Any simple task becomes a great hurdle while under this condition, but as mana regenerates naturally, as long as you get a good night's sleep, it usually goes away, at most you'd feel a bit sluggish in the morning.

People often say that if you're going to deplete your mana, you better do it during the night, since spending too much time awake while suffering from Mana Depletion might be dangerous.

Due to that, even though I knew I'd be wasting a day, I couldn't help to test the [Mana Banners] before going to the dungeon.

And hey, it kind of paid off. A level-up or a rare drop would be nice, but the dagger is as good.

Since even thinking was draining, I decided to accept things as they were and not ponder on them too much, so I went to sleep.