Some advancement paths that feel weak/pointless to do at the moment:
A) The Arena. Costs 50 gold to start and has very long cooldowns. Considering that you basically have to kill the Goblin King to have 50 gold... Also:
-> First fight only grants you +1 power, +5 combat and +1 gold.
-> Second fight only grants you +20 power, +10 combat and +5 gold.
-> Third fight is the only one that feels worthwhile to achieve with +80 power, +15 combat, and +25 gold... but requires you to already have 200 power.
=> You can't ever recoup your full initial investment and the elven champion defeat feels anticlimatic. It might be nice to unlock something like the "Adoring Fan" from ES: Oblivion, when you become its Arena champion. Or maybe something like winning Fable 1's Arena. Something.
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B) Helping out the Tavern Keeper. Maybe by completing the first Tavern, you unlock a second Tavern to help out in the city, and that leads to a variety of cool places to explore and see.
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C) More lessons on Animal Empathy (Elves). Mentions lesson 1, but nothing further. Maybe after cudding a bear, you need to befriend a hydra and then convince a dragon to invest in a time share property.
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D) Visit a Manastorm. The Fight Floating Crystals mentions it, and be cool to explore one.
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E) Some further use of wood. Defeating twig creatures and gathering wood leaves me with a lot of wood to use.
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F) Better archery training. It has 30 uses, and only grants +1 power and precision with each. Maybe at the end of it, you get to enter into an archery tournament, with decent prizes or something.
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Anyway will play some more and go from there.