Amongst the offensive skills he saw several that he would like to practice.
From what he could tell a number of them just altered his [Sever] skill, like the [Spatial Rend] which was an inferior version of [Sever] that anyone with a slight affinity with space could practice or the [Horizon Cutter] which made [Sever] fly towards the horizon.
There were many other skills based off of other weapons as well. Like the [Space Lance] that would launch a lance of spatial energy at a target. The [SpatialBreaker] that shattered space with a hammer within a certain area was another good skill but the one he was most interested in was the [Rift Spear].
The [Rift Spear] created or possibly summoned a spear made of compressed folded layers of space until they fractured. This would create many microscopic spatial fractures around a central axis that could be summoned or dismissed as needed and could pierce or cut almost anything.
"If I can use this [Rift Spear] skill I'd have a weapon for the rest of my life, I just wish the description was a little more detailed." Chronos excitedly muttered.
At first Chronos was really looking forward to this skill, but he slowly calmed down, creating this spear looked horrifically difficult.
He only needed to create it once to have it on call at all times but making it just once would take everything he had and then some.
Even more unfortunate was the fact that even though this skill could be used by those in the third rank its usability and future use placed its cost firmly within the intermediate grade skills with a cost of 150 points.
That was almost all of Chronos' accumulated points right now!
Looking at the other offensive skills, he saw several magic type skills that looked interesting but those would throw off his fighting style as he wasn't used to using magic in combat yet.
Deciding to keep the [Rift Spear] skill in mind for later he started looking over the other sections starting with defense. He wanted to buy a movement skill but something inside him said to wait.
But as he looked over the defensive skills, he found the same problem he had encountered with the offensive skills.
A large number of them were altered or weakened versions of his [Isolate] skill although learning from these altered skills might give him new ways to use [Isolate] it would take some time to develop any new skills.
For now, he would try to replicate the [Folded Bulwark] skill. It looked like it just folded space to create a layered defense, and he felt he could do that easily enough by layering his barrier.
"This is no good, most of them are weaker than my [Isolate]. And the ones I like are all in the intermediate grade making them too expensive. Hm, this one looks interesting." Chronos muttered as he approached the end of the list.
The skill that caught his attention was the [Empty Gate] skill. The description said it opened a gate to a hollow layer or realm allowing its user to throw incoming attacks into a space where they can't harm anything.
With some training he might even be able to throw the attack back at the attacker.
And most importantly it was a basic grade skill costing just 40 points, it was a bit expensive but if it worked as it claimed it could become an unrivaled defense.
Chronos put it on his list of skills to buy and moved on to the control skills. He wasn't very skilled with control type skills, but he wanted to cover all of his bases.
"At the very least it won't hurt to take a look." He said.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Chronos had spent most of his life practicing combat skills so he already had a good idea of what the offensive and defensive skills could do but the control skills broadened his horizons to an entirely new field of expertise.
He wanted to buy nearly half of the control skills just for domestic use.
Like the [Folded Corridor], it could create a corridor that would drastically shorten the travel distance between two points but any attempt to leave the corridor would be stopped. Or the [Horizon Prison] which would expand the space within a given area making it difficult to leave but for homeowners it could expand the area inside of a building.
There were several other control skills that could be used to make daily life easier but for now he had to focus on what was needed in the moment and purchase only the necessary skills.
Continuing to read the skills he found several that would lock or seal boundaries between layers and realms.
However, he couldn't understand why someone would want to practice those. Why wouldn't you want your enemy coming to you instead of skirting around the edges in the dark?
It made no sense to him.
After reviewing all of the skills he added four possible purchases to his list. [Planar Cage], [Folded Corridor], [Gravity Knot], and [Axis Lock].
The [Planar Cage] would let him place a cage of planar boundaries around the target, effectively locking them inside of a cage. Chronos thought it would be fun to set up partial cages to create a maze to explore, like the corn mazes children ran through.
The [Gravity Knot] could twist space into a knot that would affect the gravity within a certain distance. This magic could pull in projectiles, people, and even spirits dragging them towards the knots center and redirecting attacks for a time.
Making it very useful in many different situations.
And the last skill [Axis Lock] would stop a person from moving in a specific direction. If used the target would not be able to move forward, backwards, sideways, or even up and down.
Chronos had thought this skill should be an intermediate grade skill until he realized that it could only lock one direction at a time. If he wanted to lock multiple directions, he would have to cast it multiple times.
This didn't stop it from being a very useful skill, but it did take time and spirit to cast. Besides he had an idea on how to use it to descend from a great height but first he needed to test whether it would work or not.
"After seeing those amazing control skills, I'm a bit hesitant to look at utility type skills. I'm not sure I'll have enough points to buy everything I want." Chronos complained.
"Look at them anyway. That way you'll have something to look forward to." Lyla who was sitting in the corner of the room said. "By the way how long are you going to sit like that?"
She gestured at the wooden blocks on his legs and the boiling pots he was holding.
"I still have another hour before I'm done." Chronos replied as he dove into the spatial utility skills, Lyla nodded and went back to her own skill lists.
It was only now that Chronos realized how poor his spatial skills actually were. If other spatial users saw his skills, they would undoubtedly call him a brutish fool which wasn't exactly wrong.
He didn't have a formal education in space techniques to rely on, and the utility skills really drove home just how poor his understanding of space was.
[Spatial Compass], [Boundary Sense], and [Rift Detection] were all basic skills that he needed if he really wanted to advance his spatial skills and avoid being called a fool.
Each one allowed him to sense and understand space on multiple levels and were amongst the cheapest spatial skills he had seen. Not because they were poor skills but because they were so fundamental to using spatial magic that it would be nearly impossible to work with space effectively unless you had them.
[Spatial Compass] would allow him to find his direction regardless of where he was, even in other layers or realms.
[Boundary Sense] let him sense the weak points in reality; hidden passages, dimensional barriers, and pocket realms.
And [Rift Detection] let him sense the disturbances in space. Portals, teleportation, and spatial techniques would all leave evidence behind on the layers of space that [Rift Detection] could see letting him follow this evidence to its source and understand what it meant.
"Ugh, there are so many skills that I want, and I don't have enough points. Hm, alright I'll get these seven now and the rest later, I'll also have to wait on the intermediate grade skills. Why are spatial skills so expensive?" Chronos complained again.
"They're expensive because space is hard to understand or create skills for. Which ones did you buy?" Lyla curiously asked.
"The [Empty Gate] skill is my only defensive skill; all of the others are control or utility types. I'm glad the utility skills aren't that costly. I didn't buy any offensive or movement type skills for now, my natural abilities can make up for those areas.
The ones I bought for control are [Planar Cage], [Gravity Knot], and [Axis Lock] that covers most of the control skills that I need. As for Utility skills I bought the [Spatial Compass], [Boundary Sense], and [Rift Detection] without those I'll definitely become lost one of these days.
I wanted some of the others, but I just can't afford them." Chronos whined.