Chương 8: Apparently, Changing Your Mind Costs $500

Matt woke up at 7: 15 AM to the dull ache of physical exertion. His Life had protected him from actual injury during yesterday's dive. The System had not abolished the concept of sore muscles. He had still spent hours jogging in armor, swung a longsword through more Cave Rats and Goblin Miners than he cared to count, and fought his first Boss. Adrenaline had carried him through The Old Foreman, the Auction House, tacos, and the deeply satisfying sight of a twenty-thousand-dollar winning bid.

The morning after was less glamorous. Matt sat up slowly in the narrow bed of trailer G-214. His shoulders objected. His thighs objected. His lower back had apparently developed political opinions overnight.

"Okay." He stretched.

"Bosses are fun the next day too." Matt got dressed and started the small coffee maker built into the trailer kitchenette. A few minutes later, he took one sip from the finished mug. Too hot. Perfect Temperature corrected that immediately. Matt drank again. Perfect. The ability still had absolutely no combat application. He remained unwilling to give it up. His phone buzzed on the counter. BLACK HOLLOW GROUP Ethan: breakfast first? Chloe: Yes. Ethan: wow Chloe: We fought a Boss yesterday.

Ethan: I thought you hated wasting time Chloe: Eating is not wasting time. Matt: The Last Flask? Ethan: 10 min Chloe: 15. You aren't dressed. Ethan: how do you know Chloe: Because you're you. Matt laughed. He finished getting ready with his armor, bracers, boots, Beginner Set, longsword, Life Flasks, and Portal Scrolls. There was no point walking all the way back to the trailer after breakfast just to gear up again. Today wasn't supposed to be another Boss race.

But they were still going into Black Hollow afterward. Matt locked G-214 behind him and headed toward the commercial strip. ◆ The Last Flask Diner was a different place in the morning. Matt had first visited in the afternoon, when half the customers had already finished a run and the other half were preparing for one. At seven-thirty, nearly everyone looked like they were heading underground. People ate pancakes in chainmail.

A woman in lightweight Dungeon armor sat at the counter drinking orange juice while scrolling through an Instance list, and a man with a Portal Scroll tucked into his belt drank coffee while reading what appeared to be an actual printed newspaper. Several Dungeon-forged greatswords and other oversized weapons rested in the designated rack near the wall. Matt added his longsword beneath a laminated sign.

PLEASE REMEMBER YOUR WEAPON BEFORE LEAVING There was something strange about setting down a magical sword beneath that sign. The stranger part was that nobody else found it strange. Ethan and Chloe were already in a booth. Matt slid into the seat across from them.

"I'm starving," Ethan announced.

"You ate three tacos yesterday," Chloe said.

"That was yesterday."

"Strong argument." The waitress arrived. Matt ordered eggs, bacon, hash browns, and black coffee. Ethan ordered enough food to make Matt wonder if Overmuscle also enhanced metabolism, while Chloe ordered something much more reasonable.

"You did pretty well yesterday," Ethan said once the waitress left.

"For a first Boss."

"I killed rats."

"That was your job." Matt nodded solemnly.

"I'm getting very good at rats."

"Useful specialization."

"I may build my career around it." Chloe looked up from her phone.

"Please don't."

"Too late." Ethan laughed.

"You held your lane. That's what mattered." Matt leaned back.

"I'm still annoyed that deliberately not attacking was part of the strategy."

"That bothered you a lot," Ethan said.

"It still does." Matt had spent enough time with games growing up that not attacking a Boss while its Life bar sat directly in front of him remained personally offensive. The Old Foreman had also demonstrated exactly why it was sometimes necessary.

"You're going to hate higher-rank Bosses," Chloe said. Matt looked at her.

"Why?"

"Because they get worse."

"…Great."

"That's all you're getting."

"I wasn't asking for spoilers." Their food arrived. For a few minutes, conversation stopped. Then Ethan froze with his fork halfway to his mouth.

"Oh." Matt looked at him.

"What?"

"Are you using your Passive Points yet?" Matt's own fork paused.

"…No."

"None?"

"None." Chloe looked up. Matt shrugged.

"I haven't figured out what I want." That was true. He had noticed the Passive interface and understood that leveling gave him access to long-term character development beyond simply selecting a Job and equipping Skill Gems. He had also noticed that the interface looked exactly like the sort of thing capable of punishing somebody for clicking the wrong option. So he'd done nothing.

"Should I be using them?" Ethan thought for a second.

"Depends." Matt stared at him.

"That's not useful."

"It's the correct answer," Chloe said.

"Unfortunately." She set her fork down.

"Passives are the foundation of your long-term build. Weapon specialization, defense, Life, resource efficiency, Attributes, movement—whatever direction you're actually taking." Matt nodded.

"Can I reset them?"

"Yes." His shoulders relaxed slightly.

"Oh."

"You need an item." His shoulders stopped relaxing.

"…There it is." Ethan laughed.

"Current market is about five hundred dollars per Passive Point," Chloe said. Matt slowly lowered his fork.

"Per point."

"Per point." Three days ago, five hundred dollars to undo one bad click in a Skill tree would have sounded completely insane. Yesterday, Matt had made roughly six thousand five hundred dollars. That somehow made it worse.

"The strange part," Matt said, "is that now I'm thinking I could afford it." Chloe immediately shook her head.

"Do not normalize that." She pointed her fork at him.

"Being able to pay five hundred dollars does not make five hundred dollars cheap. And if you change enough Passives to change your actual build, the Respec items may not even be the expensive part." Matt frowned.

"What else am I replacing?"

"Weapon, armor, Skill Gems, Support Gems. Maybe Support Sockets you paid to open for Skills you no longer use." Matt stopped chewing.

"Oh." Ethan nodded.

"There it is." Matt imagined building around sword and shield, investing Passives and equipment into it, opening Support Sockets, buying Supports—and then deciding two-handed weapons looked more fun. The five hundred dollars per point could easily become the entry fee rather than the total cost.

"Okay." Matt picked his coffee back up.

"That's substantially worse."

"Which is why the Academy's default advice for the F-rank circuit is to hold your early Points until you understand what you're actually building," Chloe said. Matt glanced between them.

"You just leave them unused?"

"For a while. F-ranks are training Dungeons. Your Job, basic Gear, Skill Gems, and actual combat training are enough. You don't need an optimized Passive tree to kill Cave Rats."

"Can confirm."

"Once you start moving into harder content, leaving everything unspent becomes its own mistake. But by then you should at least know what direction you're going." Matt looked toward the Passive interface only he could see. For most beginners, waiting protected them from building around the wrong Unique Skill or weapon. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Matt had almost the opposite problem. COPY kept adding possible directions.

Overmuscle could support a Strength-heavy build. Quick Frame could push him toward Dexterity. Anchored Step favored stability. Future Skills might make Mage-style progression attractive, or something completely different. Having more options did not make blind commitment safer. If anything, it made it worse.

"So I leave them alone until I have an actual plan."

"For now," Chloe said. Ethan shrugged.

"Probably." Matt looked at him.

"Probably?"

"Depends what you're building."

"Warrior." Ethan shook his head.

"That's a Job." Matt paused.

"Not a build."

"…Right." That distinction landed harder than Matt expected. Warrior was where the System had started him. It wasn't an answer to what kind of Warrior he intended to become. Sword offense, shield-heavy defense, two-handed weapons, Life stacking, mobility, area clearing, single-target damage—there were already more directions than Matt could comfortably count, and he'd only been doing this for three days.

"What are you actually planning to do?" Ethan asked.

"With the Passives?"

"With Delving." Matt leaned back. That question was harder. His original plan had been simple: travel alone, pick interesting Dungeons, collect loot, then move somewhere else. He could party when there was a reason to, but he hadn't intended to build his entire life around a permanent team.

"Honestly? Mostly solo." Ethan raised an eyebrow.

"Mostly?"

"Travel alone. Run whatever Dungeon I'm at. Party up when there's a reason." Ethan considered yesterday.

"You would've hated The Old Foreman solo." Matt nodded.

"Yeah." No argument. Chloe was more measured.

"You could solo it eventually with the right build and Level. Yesterday would've been rough." Matt remembered the final add phase. Handling the Boss and every rat simultaneously sounded unpleasant.

"So I don't need a permanent party."

"No," Chloe said.

"But you also don't get a prize for refusing temporary ones." Matt smiled.

"Apparently." Temporary parties also happened to feed COPY. Overmuscle, Quick Frame, and Light Load were now sitting permanently in his Archive because he had spent one morning with Ethan and Chloe. Nothing about traveling alone required him to fight alone after he arrived.

"If we keep running the way we are," Chloe said, "you'll probably hit Level Seven before we leave Black Hollow." Matt looked up.

"This week?"

"Probably."

"Assuming nothing weird happens," Ethan added. Matt looked at him.

"We got a zero-player Instance and a twenty-thousand-dollar pickaxe yesterday."

"Right." Ethan reconsidered.

"Assuming fewer weird things happen." Chloe continued.

"Which means you should start deciding what direction you want."

"Without spending the Points."

"Research first." Matt took another bite.

"How does a beginner choose?" Ethan answered immediately.

"Guides." Matt looked at him.

"Seriously?"

"Very." Chloe nodded.

"Our instructor has a line." Ethan groaned.

"Oh, God." Matt became interested.

"What line?" Chloe quoted it with the precision of somebody who had heard it too many times.

"Don't waste money inventing an original build." Matt laughed.

"That's the official educational philosophy?"

"No," Ethan said.

"He usually says it louder."

"Usually after somebody wastes money inventing an original build," Chloe added.

"That happened?"

"Several times." Matt leaned forward.

"Okay. Example." Ethan smiled.

"One guy in another first-year group decided guides were for people without imagination."

"That always ends well."

"Started sword-and-shield," Chloe said.

"Then decided he wanted spears. Then dual-wielding after watching a streamer. Then a two-handed axe." Matt could already see where this was going.

"How expensive?"

"By the time an instructor caught up with what he was doing, several thousand dollars across multiple versions of the same Level Ten build." Matt stared. Ethan grinned.

"The instructor looked at his transaction history and said, 'Congratulations. You've invented poverty.'" Matt nearly choked on his coffee. Chloe sighed.

"He did say that."

"That's fantastic."

"It was not fantastic for the student."

"No." Matt laughed anyway.

"Memorable, though."

"That was the point." Matt wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"So beginners use proven builds."

"Proven structures," Chloe corrected.

"A guide isn't a commandment. It's a tested starting point. Once you understand why the pieces work together, you adjust it." Matt thought for a second.

"But everyone has a different Unique Skill."

"Right. The common parts—Job, Passives, Gear, Skill Gems, general playstyle—give you the skeleton. Your Unique changes the details." Ethan pointed at himself.

"Overmuscle gives me twenty extra Strength, so I can hit equipment requirements more easily than another Warrior. Somebody with a defensive Unique would adjust differently." Matt nodded slowly. For an ordinary Delver, a guide provided a stable skeleton and their Unique bent it in a personal direction. COPY gave Matt far more ways to bend that skeleton. That still didn't mean he needed to invent everything from scratch at Level Five. He had six copied Skills.

There was no reason to solve the entire System on his third morning. A proven base first. Then see what COPY could do with it. That sounded considerably cheaper than paying thousands of dollars to rediscover mistakes other people had already documented. Matt pulled out his phone.

"Okay. Who should I be following?" Ethan looked delighted.

"Oh, finally." Chloe immediately pointed at him.

"Do not let him give you only streamers."

"Streamers are useful."

"Some are. Most are entertainment."

"Entertainment can be educational."

"Not when the title is 'I fought a Boss naked because chat donated fifty dollars.'" Matt looked at Ethan.

"Please tell me that's not real." Ethan hesitated. Matt sighed.

"Of course it's real." ◆ The first recommendation came from Chloe.

"RookDelves." Matt searched. The profile belonged to an older man with a weathered face, a shield, and an extremely plain profile picture. The most recent video title read: BEGINNER WARRIOR: STOP BEING CLEVER Matt tapped it. The opening shot showed the veteran standing in front of a training arena with no music, flashy introduction, or animated logo. Rook looked directly into the camera.

"If you're Level Five and asking whether your custom bleed-critical-block-retaliation build is secretly better than the standard beginner sword setup, it isn't." Matt paused the video.

"I like him." Ethan stared.

"You watched nine seconds."

"He saved me money in nine seconds." Chloe nodded approvingly.

"Exactly." Matt resumed.

"Use something tested. Learn why it works. Then change it." Matt glanced at Chloe.

"Your instructor stole this."

"Probably. Rook's been publishing guides for years." The video shifted to footage of a Warrior fighting an E-rank monster with a shield, short controlled attacks, and nothing remotely dramatic.

"Boring," Ethan said.

"Extremely." Chloe nodded.

"Which is why his builds work." Matt followed the account.

"I'm beginning to respect boring."

"That's adulthood," Chloe said. Matt chose not to respond to the nineteen-year-old explaining adulthood to him. Ethan took the phone.

"Now something useful."

"You just called Rook useless."

"I called him boring." He searched another account.

"ClearSpeed." The page was immediately more aggressive, filled with split-screen Dungeon maps, movement comparisons, route diagrams, timer overlays, and videos titled: THE 40-SECOND ROUTE MISTAKE COSTING YOU HOURS WHEN TO SKIP A PACK F-RANK MOVEMENT SKILLS RANKED BY ACTUAL CLEAR TIME Matt stared.

"Rick would love this." Ethan frowned.

"The beer guy."

"Yes."

"I am learning about a man I've never met against my will." Matt opened a route comparison. The creator showed two runs through the same Dungeon. One player killed almost everything; the other skipped awkward side packs, used movement Skills between clusters, and finished dramatically faster. Matt thought about yesterday's Boss Rush. He had ignored cheap Mana Stones, skipped entire monster packs, and still managed to scoop a Magic Shortsword off the route without meaningfully slowing down.

Apparently there was a difference between ignoring bad-value loot and refusing to pick up good loot that was already under your hand.

"He's basically monetized Rick's entire personality."

"I'm sure Rick will be devastated." Chloe sent another link.

"DelverMetrics." Matt opened it. There was no presenter at all—just charts, tables, item histories, reported Unique drops, estimated drop rates from submitted runs, Skill Gem usage, clear statistics, and historical Mana Stone prices. Matt stared for several seconds.

"This one." Ethan looked over.

"What?"

"This one I like." Chloe sighed.

"Of course the logistics guy likes the spreadsheet account."

"They have regional price comparisons."

"That sentence made Ethan stop listening."

"Completely." Matt followed it. Then Ethan showed him CampToCamp. Matt didn't even need the introduction.

"Already following." Ethan stared.

"Seriously?"

"This is how I ended up here." The account was more or less responsible for Matt's current life. It had been CampToCamp that made driving between Dungeons in a truck and trailer look less like a bizarre career choice and more like a road trip with loot.

"Of course you follow them."

"Good content."

"Good truck content," Chloe corrected.

"Same thing." A few clips from famous high-rank Delvers appeared next, full of enormous monsters, complex Gear, impossibly fast Skills, and movement abilities that made Black Hollow's long tunnels look irrelevant. Chloe pointed at the screen.

"Watch these for entertainment. Not builds."

"Got it."

"Do not copy their build." Matt kept his expression perfectly neutral. Poor choice of words.

"I won't." His feed was already filling with Boss guides, item showcases, Camp reviews, build discussions, auction screenshots, and arguments about cheap Magic Gear outperforming expensive Uniques. Video titles flashed past. I SPENT $40, 000 FIXING THIS BUILD FIVE PASSIVES YOU SHOULD NEVER TAKE EARLY THE $220 SWORD THAT BEAT MY $6, 000 UNIQUE DON'T BUY THIS GEM UNTIL LEVEL 20 Matt stared.

"This is an entire internet ecosystem." Chloe nodded.

"Fifteen years."

"Of course it is."

"Humans got magical Dungeons," Ethan said, "and immediately started making tier lists."

"That might be the most believable thing you've told me." Ethan grinned and opened one final video. The thumbnail showed a young Delver holding his head in both hands beneath huge text: I RESPEC'D 27 PASSIVES AND REGRETTED IT Matt stared.

"…Twenty-seven."

"Don't," Chloe said. Matt calculated anyway.

"Thirteen thousand five hundred dollars."

"Just the Respec items," Ethan added. Matt locked his phone.

"Absolutely not."

"Good." Chloe finished the last of her breakfast.

"For now, pick three Warrior builds that look fun. Don't spend anything. Watch normal runs instead of highlight reels and see how they actually play before narrowing it down." Matt nodded.

"That sounds suspiciously sensible."

"That's school." Ethan looked offended.

"School is mostly people telling you not to do fun expensive things."

"That is because you enjoy expensive mistakes."

"Allegedly." ◆ The conversation should have ended there. Then Ethan noticed CampToCamp still open on Matt's phone. He leaned across the table.

"By the way." Matt immediately became suspicious.

"What?"

"You know you bought your setup about five years too early, right?" Matt narrowed his eyes.

"…What does that mean?" Chloe closed her eyes.

"Don't start." Ethan was already searching.

"Have you seen the new expansion pickups?" Matt repeated the phrase carefully.

"Expansion pickups."

"Oh, you're going to hate this."

"Why?" Ethan found a video and placed the phone in the middle of the table. A heavy-duty pickup filled the screen, dark-bodied and expensive-looking but still recognizably a truck. There was no trailer. The camera walked around the vehicle. Matt waited.

"So?"

"Keep watching." A door built into the rear cabin module opened. The camera entered. Matt leaned closer. The interior was impossible. The door should have led into a space roughly equivalent to a truck bed. Instead, it opened into a hallway. An actual hallway. The camera turned left. Bedroom. Matt paused the video.

"Go back." Ethan grinned.

"To what?"

"The room."

"It's a bedroom."

"I can see that." The bedroom had a king-size bed, storage cabinets, large window displays simulating exterior light, and enough floor space to walk around comfortably. Matt looked at Ethan.

"That's bigger than my bedroom."

"In your trailer?"

"Yes."

"Keep watching." The camera continued. Bathroom. Matt paused again.

"No." Ethan started laughing.

"What?" Matt pointed at the shower.

"That's bigger than my shower." Chloe glanced over.

"Your shower is in a twenty-foot trailer."

"That does not make me feel better." The video continued through a full bathroom, kitchenette with actual countertop space, refrigerator, dining booth, workstation, storage room, reinforced equipment area, and finally a lounge. Matt stopped the video again.

"That's a pickup truck."

"Technically." Matt pointed at the screen.

"That is an apartment wearing a pickup truck." Chloe nodded.

"More accurate."

"No trailer?"

"No trailer."

"No hitch?"

"No."

"No backing a twenty-foot box into a campsite while three strangers watch me fail?"

"Correct." Matt stared at the screen.

"I hate this vehicle." Ethan grinned.

"You haven't heard the price." Matt immediately sat back.

"I hate it less."

"Top-end models are deep into six figures. Custom stuff can go higher."

"There it is." Chloe took the phone away from Ethan before he could find something even more expensive.

"Spatial expansion hardware, certified maintenance, parts, and insurance all cost money. And when something breaks, you don't take it to whatever local mechanic has an opening." Matt sighed.

"There it is again."

"Your setup is better for a new Delver," Chloe said.

"Normal truck, normal trailer, mostly ordinary parts. If one needs work, the other still exists." Ethan nodded.

"If an expansion pickup needs specialist service, your car and your house disappear at the same time." Matt considered that.

"…That's actually a compelling argument."

"See?" Ethan took the phone back.

"Still cool." Matt looked at the impossible kitchen again.

"Extremely cool." The next clip featured a custom model belonging to a famous Delver. From the outside, it was still a pickup. Inside, it looked more like a luxury hotel, complete with a large bedroom, separate office, equipment workshop, and a dedicated loot room with expanding storage racks. Matt watched the shelves unfold.

"Okay. That part is useful."

"I knew you'd come around."

"I did not say I'm buying one."

"When you're rich." Matt leaned back.

"I made six thousand dollars yesterday." Chloe answered immediately.

"You are not rich."

"Thank you."

"Six thousand dollars is a good day. It is not luxury-spatial-pickup money."

"Also fair." Ethan pointed at Matt.

"Give it a year." Chloe turned toward him.

"Do not give him financial advice."

"I haven't lost money yet."

"You're nineteen."

"Exactly."

"That is not a defense." Matt laughed.

"Maybe someday." And he meant it. The truck was ridiculous, wildly unnecessary, and eliminated towing entirely. He would be thinking about it for weeks. Probably longer. ◆ Breakfast turned into another half hour of increasingly useless conversation. Matt discovered he liked that. Ethan had a personal ranking of Dungeon Camps based almost entirely on food. Matt learned this when Ethan started discussing Pennsylvania.

"You rank Dungeons by restaurants?"

"Camps."

"That's different?"

"Obviously." Chloe cut in.

"He has categories." Matt looked at her.

"I need to hear these."

"You don't." Ethan was already opening a note.

"Breakfast, late-night food, coffee, food truck variety, price, and post-Dungeon meal quality." Matt stared.

"What is post-Dungeon meal quality?"

"Some food is better when you've been hit by monsters for six hours."

"That isn't a measurable category."

"It absolutely is." Chloe shook her head.

"He gave one Camp an extra point because the burger place stays open until two in the morning."

"That's important." Matt thought it over.

"…Actually, yes."

"Thank you." Chloe looked betrayed. The conversation drifted to the Academy's next stop: another F-rank Dungeon in Pennsylvania, with a different environment, different monsters, and different lessons.

"You do this all semester?"

"More or less," Chloe said.

"F-rank circuit first, then more specialized training later." Matt nodded.

"And after graduation?" Ethan shrugged.

"Some people join companies or permanent teams. Some go home. Some do what you're doing."

"Truck and trailer?"

"Road Delving." Matt looked interested.

"Common?"

"Common enough." Chloe nodded toward the diner window.

"You've seen the Camp. Plenty of people move when they're done with a Dungeon." Not all of them used trailers. Some rented furnished Camp housing, stayed in motels, lived in vans, or apparently traveled inside six-figure dimensional pickup trucks. But the basic lifestyle was exactly what Matt had wanted. Stay somewhere. Farm. Level. Move on. Ethan finished the last of his food.

"Everyone's going to hate us today, by the way." Matt looked up.

"Why?"

"The Echo. And the fresh Instance."

"Oh."

"You got both." Chloe corrected him.

"We got both."

"Right." Matt smiled.

"I'll try to survive the resentment."

"Mostly they'll congratulate you and complain about probability."

"Already happened."

"Exactly." The waitress dropped the bill. Matt looked back at his phone and opened a note. BUILD RESEARCH Sword / Area Clear — closest to current setup, good for farming packs. Sword + Shield / Solo Stability — better Boss control, safer when traveling alone. Heavy Physical — more single-target focus. Need to research. Then, in capital letters: DO NOT SPEND PASSIVE POINTS YET RESPEC ≈ $500 PER POINT Matt stared at the second line. Still offensive.

But he had a direction now: research the three builds, watch normal runs instead of highlight reels, and decide what he actually wanted before throwing Points into the tree. Matt paid for breakfast. A normal meal. A normal amount of money. Five hundred dollars still wasn't cheap. The strange part was that it no longer felt impossible. There was an important difference between those two things. He stood, retrieved his longsword from the weapon rack, and checked his Life Flasks and Portal Scrolls. Everything ready.

His Passive Points remained completely untouched. For once, indecision was the financially responsible choice. ◆ They stepped out of The Last Flask into the morning sun. Black Hollow Camp was fully awake now, Delvers crossing the plaza while the Gate glowed in the distance. Ethan adjusted his shield.

"Normal run?"

"Normal run," Chloe confirmed. Matt looked toward the Instance terminals.

"No Boss race?"

"Unless another zero-out-of-sixty-four appears." Matt immediately looked at Ethan.

"Don't say that."

"You'd go." Matt thought about yesterday's fresh Instance, his first Boss, reaching Level Five, and his share of a twenty-thousand-dollar pickaxe sale sitting in his bank account. He hesitated.

"…Probably." Chloe sighed.

"Of course."