Diablo – What am I supposed to see through the Telescope on A Reasonable Man – Tier 3

This is actually confusing but I did a little googling and found this dev blog from the lead designer. I have added emphasis to the key parts of the paragraph.

In order to explain the progression we need to start talking about xp. At the bottom of the screen is the xp bar, and when the player has filled up 1/3 of it they will be given an ability point. Filling out the whole bar gives a skill point. A player gets xp from many different sources: Killing monsters, PvP, missions and crafting. The amount of xp needed to get an ability point or a skill point is static.

So it looks like everyone was on the right-ish track but I think we were reading too much into the bar.

EDIT: A bit more info from playing more tonight. The blue area will fill up each third of the XP bar as your progress. When you completely fill the bar you will get an AP point and the redish tint will go over that section of the bar. When you fill all three bars, that is when you get an SP.

This is another of those quests that many assume is bugged, when in fact it's just not very obvious.

Piercing actually has nothing to do with it. After looking around for a lot longer than expected we found it - at the base of the Windmill there is a door leading inside, on the door frame there are two spaces to place the runes which will open up a secret instance for further investigation.

Screenshot: