The reason Augustus missed the notifications on his phone is because he was training.
"Finally! I've leveled up to Forced Unequip 3!"
As a Hunter, he makes a weekly salary of 500 dollars. That covered most of his rent and some groceries.
That may seem like he's barely surviving, but he spent 250 on some blue materia gems. The hundred or so he bought would last him for a month, even if he took a crawl everyday.
The thing about skills is that anyone who can possibly use them can activate them. But to level them up or learn other skills, a Hunter has to practice one skill over and over. Practice can open skill trees that a hunter can use to upgrade what they can do.
"Forced Unequip is at Level 3. It was at level 2 last week. And I have the option to learn either Counter Lesser Skill Counter or Shield." Augustus was scrolling through his phone. On it was an app displaying his skill tree. He switched apps to the browser app. "The forum says I should learn shields. It's a defense spell, which is perfect for new exorcists who don't have top tier armor or gear." he scrolled down a bit more. "And this guy says Shield uses green materia, which is the cheapest on the market." He continued to scroll for several minutes. Sitting up, he notes how one user says to pick Counter Lesser Skill. It read:
"I've been an Exorcist and have worked up from c grade to b. After Counter Lesser Skill, I leveled up to use Negate and, eventually, Counter Greater Skill. I could have chosen Counter Multiple Skill, but, who cares. I'm only saying this because everyone on here seems to be Grade C at best, and are noobs when it comes to Crawling. I've been in several crawls, most of which Rare dungeons, and-"
Augustus stopped reading there. "Don't care. I think I got all I needed to know."
On his phone, he selected the skill "Counter Lesser Skill." The Hunter App let him know he could now activate the skill.
"That's so easy. Imagine having to spend points to learn a new skill."
Instead of a point, or buy system, a Hunter could level up skills after spending a certain amount of time casting the skill. For example, his new skill needed him to spend 8 hours using the skill before it.
"That may not seem like a lot of time, but 8 hours of activating skill is a lot. According to the Hunter's school, most Hunters only used 4 minutes intotal using skills. In a rare dungeon. And most people don't even live to see Rare dungeons!"