Dad comes home

I was waiting way past 18 o'clock when finally the front door opened and Dad came in. Right away I jumped and practically shouted at Dad, " where is it?". He just smiled at me. From behind my mother say, "Mortimer you should first let your father come in.". I rolled my eyes and answered her with a simple " Yes mom."

Dad intentionally took his time to enter our home, slowly undressed and then handed me a small box with a teasing smile and said, " Happy birthday my son, now you're a grown-up." I didn't even wait till he finished his sentence to open the box. Inside was a skill crystal, but not the one I had waited to get. the color was wrong. It was a clear blue crystal. ok, just a moment the color for skill crystals are blue violet red orange yellow with yellow being the highest rank. So dad got me a crystal of rank 1? Tears started to well up in my eyes. I looked at dad and only asked a single question, " why?". "Because you mean so much to me," he answered with an evil grin.

I couldn't take it, I run out of the door. I just wanted to get away. I could hear dad say something after I went out the door, but I didn't want to hear it, I didn't care. he knew how much I wanted to be a dungeon diver and I thought he supported me, but this is just too much. I did run for I don't know how long till I was once again before the crystal store. I looked inside and saw that mister Kim was about to close the shop I entered the store and uncle Kim looked at me, " Mortimer? what happened to you? you look awful."."Dad, he betrayed me.".uncle Kim looked at me. "what did my stupid brother do this time?"

After I told uncle Kim the complete story he just said "show me the crystal" I handed uncle the crystal and he looked at it intensely. "say Mortimer how much do you know about skill crystals?" " I know the color rating." uncle looked at me and said, "As I thought. Mortimer, your father didn't betray you. do you see how clear this crystal is." he didn't betray me? I looked at the crystal and indeed it was almost crystal clear.

"what does that mean?"

"it means that this is a high choice crystal."

"high choice crystal, I thought you always get a skill that best suits your needs?"

" if it would be like that it would be great. but sadly skill crystals aren't like that. when you use a skill crystal you can choose one skill from a small list of skills. when you already have one or more skills the choice will depend on them, but if not it will be completely random. that is why most people say the first skill is the most important one. some people still believe that a strong skill is the best for the first one, but those like me and your father think that the first skill must be one that suits the person best. that is why your father got you a skill crystal with as many choices as possible. if you would be my son I would have done the same." I looked at uncle with wide eyes if I understood him correctly if father had gotten me a high ranked crystal then I could have ended up with a skill that didn't suit me. I looked at the crystal and then back to uncle.

"So how many choices does this one give to me?"

"I don't know for sure but it looks to be around 9 or so, but if you want I could use my tools to look it up."

uncle stood up and walked into the back of his store I followed him there stood a machine I had seen before it was the one to analyze crystals he took the crystal I got from dad and put it inside and a short while later a small print paper came out with the information of the crystal uncle handed it to me and said, " here you go" I looked at the paper and was shocked what stood there.

Rank 1

Choices 9

Grade 0

Value 16,000$

I couldn't believe it this blue crystal is worth as much as a car. I knew dad made good money but that is still way too expensive. if I remember right the cheapest rank 3 crystal goes for only 1000$. this one is 16 times as much worth. but why. I turned back to uncle.

"why is this crystal worth so much?"

"it is because it gives you so many choices people pay more if they can choose what skill they get when your dad was young people didn't know much about skills and crystals, because of that many people got rank 3 skills with no choice many couldn't even use their skills and some got lucky like your dad but most didn't and that is why choices became more important to those persons."

I didn't completely understand what he meant but it more or less makes sense.

"So, uncle how do I use this crystal?"