never bother putting skill points on axe it is poor. a cool but ruining to the game way of kicking bum early on is to use the duplication cheat on the spell book you get from Kistidanilus in the ars magicana when he leaves his house. If you get elemental bolt you can reep havoc (if you have loads of mana). this gets you up levels early on but spoils it because you cheated. I did this cheat after i had completed it on hard and normal first.