Part 8 - All Follow This…

Liz met with Arlyen just outside the church grounds. That was the first difference to their usual cadence. They usually met outside the town in the dense woodlands.

“Disciple, follow me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They began to walk through the streets of the town toward the walls downstream of the artisanal areas. Liz narrowed her eyes, since her only experience with the area was seeing the smugglers nearby.

“Your new class? Metal?”

“Yes ma’am. Chains, entirely. More [Artisan] than I’d first thought I’d take, but it makes sense.” The air around her teacher was all business. This was like taking a few steps back, undoing any sort of opening up they’d done since they began their training sessions.

“Does it? Your perception matters to these things a lot. What is a chain to you?”

“My father was a jeweler. I used to go to his workshop as a kid. I’ve seen chains made of all kinds of things, mostly gold and silver, but also some titanium among others”

“Not exactly the best materials for fighting, and an [Artisan] class isn’t very ideal. What kinds of skills?”

“All three are for using and strengthening chains. One durability skill is based on the skill’s level, but the other is for precious metal chains, and it runs on my Vitality.”

She drew out the gold bracelet she’d tucked away and displayed her skill, making it hover and then move in figure eights in the air in front of herself as she drew up alongside her teacher.

“I just haven’t tested the range. That’s based on skill level.”

Speaking of…

[*ding* [Elegant Chains] has leveled up! 1 -> 2]

She held up her hand, looking for specific details on how her skills would level. She needed to know if [Elegant Chains] would work for [Chain Proficiency]. She had a sneaking suspicion based on the latter’s description that it would require more complex tasks to level.

The gold chain began to slide around her fingers and weave around and between them at an increasing speed, and she kept her eyes on the awaited notifications.

[*ding* [Elegant Chains] has leveled up! 2 -> 3]

Faster.

[*ding* [Elegant Chains] has leveled up! 3 -> 4]

Faster!

[*ding* [Elegant Chains] has leveled up! 4 -> 5]

[*ding* [Chain Proficiency] has leveled up! 1 -> 2]

Finally.

She stopped moving the chain around and let out a sigh.

“Not very efficient to get both simultaneously. The [Chain Proficiency] skill requires complex tasks to gain efficient levels, while [Elegant Chains] is leveling rapidly.”

“How was the mana cost?”

Liz checked it over, realized she was still at maximum, and then repeated the actions again, while studying her mana pool for changes.

She staggered as she realized why she hadn’t noticed the change before.

Her mana pool was now above twenty thousand, while her mana regeneration was over sixteen thousand after subtracting all her expensive passive skills. They’d both exploded from her primary class upgrades, and she could invest a huge pool to anything she needed now, with caveats around full body pain sense elimination in particular.

She increased the pain settings of her skill to tank her regeneration and checked the costs of her [Elegant Chains] skill. Her mana dropped by the hundreds, then thousands every minute, based on how fast the chains were moving.. She had her system reorganize her information to check the actual regeneration and skill costs and found that her mana usually regenerated by over two hundred fifty per minute, while her skill cost her three hundred at what she’d consider a decent speed.

“This skill would be unusable by a person who didn’t have a high level [Mage] class or similar. I’ll need levels across both classes to make this more useful in the long run. And this is with a small chain.” She didn’t want to think about using one that was any bigger. She’d never felt more relieved to have a regeneration class and build.

“Let’s focus on your levels. Local leatherworker got stiffed by a smuggler on some questionable goods, which began a fight, and that caused a few problems for the other [Artisans] in the area. You’re going to learn to fight people trying to kill you. And if we’re lucky, you’ll get over your aversion to killing other people quickly.”

Liz paled. She knew it was an inevitability in this world, but it all felt too soon.

“What’s wrong? These are realities of life you need to figure out now, while in a controlled environment, rather than on a battlefield with no safeguards.”

The young woman closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe steadily. She understood the logic, and she understood her situation. She was walking a path that would eventually require her to take a life and most likely more than just a small number.

Several deep breaths later, she nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The walk from then on was in silence.

They smelled the tanneries near the walls before they saw them, carefully planned at the most downriver locations to prevent tanning chemicals from tainting drinking water or laundry locales. The stench even meant the area wasn’t visited by anyone who didn’t live in the unfortunate place, or have business with any of the local shops.

The town didn’t have extensive sewers to hide out in, but the local smugglers all seemed to bunk up in this area, and frequented a tavern not far from their largely open secret of an entrance.

The whole town was made from stone, because apparently many aerial predators could destroy a town made from wooden buildings. The tavern was no different.

“I’ll storm the front, you take anyone who tries to escape.”

“Mm.” Liz’s reply was a short, barely audible assent.

Then Arlyen entered the tavern. The resulting silence of her entrance was almost cliche. It just didn’t last more than a few moments. The sound of the whip cracking through bodies and stone alike was sickening, and Liz could hear the cries of pain.

One man darted out the entrance after a few moments had passed, and Liz acted more on instinct from her training sessions than conscious thought.

She’d meant to simply neutralize him, knock the wind out of his lungs and finish him off after confirming his complicity in the smuggling crimes.

[*ding* You have slain a [Seedy Barman - [Water] Lvl 85], [Accomplice Smuggler - [Metal] Lvl 163]!]

It was too damn easy.

One knee driven into his stomach and he was done. The impact went through her mind over and over. The sensation of his organs giving way as the blow traveled through him and sent an instantaneous shock that simply ended his life.

Another person fled the building and Liz’s body felt like it was on autopilot as her mind focused on her shock at how easily she’d taken a life.

Wasn’t she supposed to feel something more?

It was all wrong.

Her body twisted into a roundhouse and brought her stone foot down in a mid-air kick that landed squarely across the back of the fleeing person’s neck.

She had so much mass and momentum in the attack, combined with her stats and [Martial Arts] skill that her foot turned the man’s spine to a gory mush.

[*ding* You have slain a [Quick Thief - [Wind] Lvl 173, [Smuggling Connoisseur - [Wood] Lvl 198]!]

Wasn’t it supposed to be hard?

Wasn’t it supposed to be shocking?

She thought back on all her movies and acting.

All the times she’d pretended to kill someone for a role on stage.

It was all a lie. It was easy for her, and she’d been so prepared for this to eat at her. They were bad people, so she had no reason to even feel bad. She simply didn’t feel anything that the notion should have comforted.

She felt somewhere, deep down, that she hadn’t ever really valued lives that weren’t close to her to begin with.

All told, it was an important revelation.

She could kill without remorse, and she’d be most concerned that she’d gotten dead person on her sandals.

[*ding* You have slain a [Septic Cleaner - [Water] Lvl 43], [Amateur Go-fer - [Wind] Lvl 110]!]

“Oh, buddy, your parents picked an awful career path for you, huh?” She spoke emotionlessly. “Still, a life of crime? Tough luck; play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

“I could say the same to you, girlie.” A woman with a few more piercings than Liz wanted to count was glowering at her with tangible venom.

[Laborer - 413]

Liz had to admit, she was a bit surprised to see someone close to Arlyen’s level, even if the tag implied a non-combatant.

“I do have some class skills to try out. You’ve got the right level to be worth a trial run, Miss Mad Max supporting character.”

Liz felt awful. She’d gone past the thrill of realizing movies had gotten something so wrong and just started feeling like she must’ve been broken somehow. Didn’t she appreciate life? When did she stop caring about the lives of others?

She knew.

She just wouldn’t admit it.

Somewhere along the lines, the list of things she cared about had simply shrunk.

So she’d do what she had to. Even if that meant using a level eight class against a level four hundred.

“You’re just a total ass-wipe, aren’t you?”

“Awww, I’ve been killing people for the first time today. I’m in a very fragile state of mind right now, thank you very much.”

“You religious types always make my skin crawl. That kid you just killed? He was only fourteen. His parents will have to bury him now. You’re a monster.”

“Yeah,” Liz said, barely above a whisper, “I’m getting that now. I’m more screwed up than I ever thought. Servant of the Goddess of Order, but I’m not a good person, not even a decent one. But all I had is gone, so I’m done pretending to care about the lives of those who get in my way.”

“Sorry, girlie, but today’s the end of your line. I’m not about to let the temple’s assassin chicks run around tearing up my business.”

“We’ll just have to see how this turns out, then.” Liz drew out her gold and silver necklace chains and set them in motion in rapid circular motions, making abrasive makeshift saw blades from them.

She began to study her opponent, who was dressed in a tough leather vest over thick cloth gambison, and had striking deep blue eyes, far more vivid than was naturally possible. She’d rarely noticed the eyes of an advanced element in anyone, and even Arlyen’s were subtle in the metallic flecks within them.

Both of them burst into motion at the same time, with the woman sprinting for the water nearby in the channel while Liz kicked off from the ground with an explosive upheaval of the stone beneath her enhanced foot, shooting forward like a rocket with her chain blades picking up speed as she launched them forward, aimed for the exposed flesh of the woman.

Even with her initial acceleration, her opponent was closer to the water she was trying to get in range of, and get in range of it she did.

With a rush of nasty, tanning chemical polluted water, three spear-like jets erupted towards Liz, who chose to move her spinning chain-blades to intercept two of the projectiles while she struck the last with her enhanced hand.

The chains held up well to the test, and she was sure her final tally of levels would reflect nicely if she kept using the skills well in this fight.

She made sure to use [Chain Reinforcement] on the chains the entire time as well, enjoying the new complexity of simultaneously controlling her body and her chains, all like separate muscles she could work to make second nature now. She still had no idea what the range of [Elegant Chains] would be, but she was in no hurry to risk losing her chains just because she couldn’t find them.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The water jets didn’t remain active for more than a brief blast, but they possessed a shocking amount of force to them.

More jets streaked towards her, revealing that the woman had the skills of a [Mage] rather than her tag which showed [Laborer].

Liz was guessing the woman had an Ocean element for their first [Laborer] along the lines of sailing based on her eyes, and a second class of some manner of Water [Mage]. She was intimately familiar with the feeling of a low skill backed by a higher class’s stats. Her chains were the same, after all. Her [Elegant Chains] got to profit from her high Vitality, as had all her other low level skills she’d been training with Arlyen to improve since their first day.

She felt, more than knew, she could handle the mana pool of a [Laborer] classed individual.

She smiled as she closed in and lashed out with her chains, aiming again for the exposed neck and face of her opponent.

Her aim was fouled as a protective sphere of water encased the woman and stopped her blades from piercing through.

Liz could see a [Sailor] getting some kind of skill to prevent debris from hitting them in a storm. It made too much sense to her, and her momentum carried her straight into the bubble of noticeably nasty water.

Her foot lashed out in a powerful kick that shattered the barrier, drawing out a look of surprise from the smuggler.

“Seira’s bitch, through and through. You’ve either reset already and gotten a huge quality upgrade, or you’re a divine classer.” The sneer was enough to make Liz’s blood boil alone.

In her defense, that expression would’ve ticked off a saint.

Liz threw her left fist out in a jab as the chains swung in from her right, only to be met with obnoxious knock-off water-fist things.

It was enough to really piss her off. Unarmed combat was her thing, now she was being mimicked by some random pirate lady.

The smuggler threw out rapid punches that Liz dodged with a newly practiced ease. [Warriors] like her teacher were much faster and stronger, and dodging these wasn’t even necessary. She could just ignore the pain, though she wasn’t interested in getting that water on her skin. She was sure it would give her a rash.

Back and forth, she dodged each punch that seemed to mimic her [Martial Arts] skill from before she’d gotten more realistic training from her teacher. She was guessing there was a minor mimicry aspect to the woman’s class, which seemed more like a Mirror function than the Water aspects she’d been guessing about..

Her opponent seemed to rethink the idea of challenging her in hand-to-hand, though the shields had stymied every one of Liz’s attempts to get her own attacks in. The stalemate was annoying.

Each time she’d tried to break through, there was more disgusting water in the way. It must’ve been clear that Liz hadn’t wanted to touch the liquid with her skin, and the woman before her just coated her hands in the stuff and had been throwing out the basic array of attacks the combat skill would nudge Liz to do before she had much practical combat experience.

It just wouldn’t work, though. Neither of them could get a hit in, and things dragged on for a frustratingly long time. Her chains were also useless. The skill was still new, and the chains weren’t being damaged, but they couldn’t break through any better and Liz was slightly frustrated that she didn’t have the skills down well enough yet to make any complex tactics work. All of her new moves simply ended up being predictable, and inevitably failed.

The fight would’ve been anticlimactic, if Liz hadn’t let her guard down.

After throwing strikes and dodges for minutes, the woman finally held her hands up in surrender.

“Alright, I’m out of mana, I give up.”

Liz was just happy she wouldn’t have to kill another person. It bothered her how much killing didn’t bother her, and she was feeling like she might need to put some sort of limitation on herself to keep her own actions in line. There was only a dark future ahead of her if violence began to root out all her problems.

She’d wanted fighting skills for self-assurance, to feel confident in her ability to survive, not to get in the habit of ending things permanently like she could tell would be all too easy.

Except, the woman had been lying.

As soon as Liz was about to figure out how to subdue and tie up her captive with whatever she could find around, she felt something pass into her abdomen, from below her ribcage.

If it weren’t for the patches of awkward stone that filled the gaps in her torso, she might’ve taken the hit through her heart.

Confusion flooded her as she looked down at the chain made from that disgusting water that had pierced her.

Her panic turned to a sort of depressed acceptance faster than she could even process fully that the woman had copied something in her chain skills and had used them on a chain made from water.

The thoughts fell away as she put on a spur of the moment performance.

Her aggressor could easily believe the attack had mortally wounded her, as Liz reached out a trembling hand towards the woman with a stricken expression on her face. Liz’s hand got within close proximity of the gloating woman before anything approaching realization dawned on her face.

The woman tried to dodge away too late as Liz’s golden chain slipped into her ear canal with lethal force.

[*ding* You have slain a [Tidal Reflections - [Ocean] Lvl 413], [Hydromancer - [Water] Lvl 110]!]

“Huh… I was expecting Mirror.” Liz spoke numbly, wondering how someone had gotten a method of mimicking skills from her opponent. Then she saw the parrot fly over to land on the woman’s shoulder.

Seriously? Her bonded companion gave her a parroting skill?

Liz just shook her head. That was not the time to think about how stupid that was.

The water lost form around them and formed puddles at her feet as the smuggler collapsed into a heap with blood running out of her ear.

Liz inspected the chain that returned to her side with a grimace. She wasn’t sure quite how she would be cleaning that… stuff off.

Then she remembered that she’d been stabbed. With chemical runoff water.

She sighed as she inspected the hole in her robe, rapidly turning red with her blood.

All she knew was that she wanted to clean it before she staunched the bleeding, and to her luck, there was a tavern right next to her. She mentally focused her pain skill on removing the pain to her body in that area, then went on a hunt for the strongest whiskey she could find.

Arlyen was just coming to the door as Liz entered, and the gnoll gave her a look Liz couldn’t quite identify. One day she would get gnoll expressions down completely.

“You hesitated?”

“Got stabbed by one who surrendered. Level four hundred.”

Arlyen’s expression soured.

“The leader, then.”

Liz rolled her eyes. She was bleeding, and she was eventually going to black out if they kept talking. She made for the bar, and Arlyen turned quizzical.

“Don’t you need a [Healer]?”

“After this.” Liz grabbed bottles and started sniffing the contents of anything without a label, settling on whatever smelled the strongest. Then she leaned back against the counter and poured the alcohol directly onto the injury, which her pain skill actually nudged her for, mentally informing her she was hurt—and should do something about it, urgently.

She sent her messy chain into the bottle after, swirling it around like some kind of washing machine to clean the gore off the delicate piece of jewelry-turned-weapon before storing it back inside her favorite—literally—personal storage via [Earth Manipulation].

She then tossed the bottle back onto the counter and encased the bleeding area in some excess stone to keep the blood loss from being too severe.

“Now we see a healer.”

They both left the tavern together and Arlyen gave her some side-eye over the bodies outside.

“So you did it? I’m surprised, really.”

“Why are you surprised?” Liz returned the side-eye. “It was comically easy and I felt nothing. The first one I just meant to knock the wind out of. Then I got the notification, and it felt like a mental shrug at most. The third one was just a kid! Still nothing. Back home, people who feel like that about killing are called sociopaths. I never thought that would be me.”

“I have some thoughts about that. First, being chosen by Lady Seira usually means you’re unique in some way. I excise threats to society, and I am proud to do it. Does that make me a bad person when I kill people in pursuit of that? Second, you are clearly upset that you killed someone, are you not? You have a conscience.”

“That isn’t it. I just know how easy it would be to go down that road, and I know plenty of stories about how that always ends. I have to keep myself in check or I won’t like the person I become.”

Her teacher gave her a pat on the shoulder, which felt a bit like being patted with sand bags, and then allowed silence to take over for a while.

After they’d nearly reached the church, the silence was broken again.

“Thinking from your perspective, you’ve been placed in a tough position. Any of the rare times I’ve heard of someone being reincarnated or brought here from somewhere else, they’ve usually been reborn as a child. Lady Seira must be desperate to have thrown you back together and dropped you in our laps. That comes with side effects I didn’t think through before now, and I’m sorry about that. The things you’ve lost? It shouldn’t have been a mystery why your emotional state is so volatile. You are at least trying to make yourself into a good person, and that’s a good sign. Hold onto that.”

Liz mulled those words over for the rest of their walk back, and then immediately sought out one of the church’s [Healers] to get patched up.

Then, she checked her level notifications.

[*ding* Congratulations! Your class [Acrobatic Templar of Seira] has leveled up from level 67 to level 70!]

[*ding* You have gained the following stats per level! +30 Free Stats, +60 Dexterity, +50 Vitality, +60 Speed, +30 Mana, +80 Mana Regeneration, +50 Magic Power, +50 Magic Control from your class! +4 Free Stats for being Partially Human, +2 Vitality for being Partially Stone Golem! +1 Vitality from your element!]

[*ding* Congratulations! Your class [Chain-bound] has leveled up from level 8 to level 11!]

[*ding* You have gained the following stats per level! +4 Free Stats, +4 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +6 Vitality, +2 Speed, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control from your class! +4 Free Stats for being Partially Human, +2 Vitality for being Partially Stone Golem! +1 Magic Power from your element!]

[*ding* [Earth Authority], [Earth Manipulation], [Tenacity of Stone], [Mental Partitioning] and [Roll with the Punches] have leveled up! 67 -> 70]

She was more than happy to condense her capped skills and keep those condensed.

[*ding* [Rigid Body] has leveled up! 1 -> 7]

She felt a bit disappointed at the poor gains for the disgusting attack she’d taken, but she was mostly angry that she hadn’t been rewarded extra for the revulsion she was forced to endure.

[*ding* [Chain Proficiency] has leveled up! 1 -> 11]

[*ding* [Elegant Chains] has leveled up! 1 -> 11]

[*ding* [Chain Reinforcement] has leveled up! 1 -> 11]

Those were surprisingly easy to cap, which made her more than a bit pleased. She hated grinding skill levels, since class levels just felt more rewarding to her Liz-ard brain.

She could’ve died of shame at her own horrible internal pun.

[*ding* [Martial Arts] has leveled up! 46 -> 55]

That skill sure seemed to enjoy being used for real combat.

[*ding* [Identify] has leveled up! 43 -> 45]

[*ding* [Awareness] has leveled up! 49 -> 56]

Speaking of the skill, it hadn’t warned her of that attack at all, though she’d been fully aware of the presence of her attacker. She’d need to find a more useful version of the skill. It had been a somewhat untrustworthy companion to her fights thus far.

[*ding* [Learning] has leveled up! 50 -> 70]

Important life lessons about trusting others successfully rocketed the skill forward, and had a slightly darker undertone of exactly when those levels first began to roll in. She sure had learned a lot about herself throughout the morning.

[*ding* [Imaginative] has leveled up! 36 -> 42]

Realistically, she was still a low level person, so these levels made sense. Using her chain to kill the smuggler leader had been both an [Imaginative] choice, and a poor one. She’d learned from that, and now dimly recalled that dipping gold into alcohol and various cleaning chemicals was actually really bad for their luster. She hoped all her protective skills about chains had prevented her short-sightedness on that decision from coming back to bite her.

[*ding* For reaching level 10 in your second class, you have unlocked the skill [Chainmail]!]

[Chainmail: Conjure a mesh of chainmail armor over your body, preventing harm to your person. This could help with getting stabbed in the future when you make more bad decisions. This armor is made from mana and will vanish when the skill is not in use or the user is incapacitated. Efficiency and strength increase based on level and familiarity with the material envisioned]

She took the skill without a second of hesitation. It struck her as a core skill around which she could merge the concepts of her two classes better, creating a more perfect singular concept for her eventual [Priestess] evolution. She needed more personal fortification skills to center the class identity she desired upon, and the system seemed to help even divine classes do what the user invested effort and attention into.

She tested the skill right away.

With no success.

She tried again and simply felt an empty sensation, as if the skill was missing all the actors on the stage.

Reading over the skill again, she realized she needed to actively choose a metal for the skill to conjure the armor from.

Her knowledge of the periodic table and the chemical compositions of gems was one of her beloved hobbies right alongside her old tarot card readings, but she was at least smart enough to know that metals didn’t function well as singular elements from the table. She just didn’t have the knowledge she needed to choose a high strength material.

She chewed her lower lip in thought.

[Elegant Chains] would be the strongest source of improved immediate durability, and it would be the most useful to use a material that benefited from the support skill.

She needed a solid understanding of the rules and functions of her skills. She couldn’t just leap to conclusions. That in mind, she began testing the limits. She mentally created as detailed a mental image of a golden chainmail as she could think of without any reference material.

Her mana took a massive hit as the chain appeared as more of a single string wrapped around her arm continuously, rather than a complete mesh of uniform protection.

Half of her twenty thousand mana was gone for the initial creation of a glittering masterpiece of utter failure. She let out a sigh, then dismissed the creation.

She next attempted to partially complete the image. Now that she knew what a completed skill execution felt like, she just needed to work up to success from the least complexity and find the details of what made the skill tick.

She envisioned just the material she wanted—a sparkling silvery metal—and then used the skill again.

Her jaw dropped. The skill used an image, sure, but it hadn’t mentioned a complex image of the mail itself. That detail promised an incredible potential for variations and customization in the future, but even a simple mental image of a silver material was enough for the skill to compose a basic chainmail over her torso for a more reasonable quarter of her mana pool.

She shuddered at the realization that she now considered five thousand mana reasonable.

Thinking over the brief information she had, it meant she could allow the skill to do a lot of the work for her in a pinch, but would require more mana and knowledge for a customized protective suit.

Liz wasn’t sure she wanted to go about testing the skill’s limits on her being ‘incapacitated’ or how her pain skill would interact with something of that nature either. Blunt force trauma was one of the things she most worried about and counted on [Roll with the Punches] to handle.

She had one last thing to check, however.

Allowing her mana to recover only took less than half an hour when she turned her adjustable skills to a sort of ‘efficiency mode.’

She ensured her room was closed and the latch was secure before stripping off her clothes.

Then she burnt as much mana as she needed in order to coat herself in armor fully. It felt extremely thin when spread out, and she had noted the mana cost. Sylvestre and Arlyen had given her a rough idea that conjured materials would, at peak efficiency, cost one mana per unit she roughly identified as a gram (she didn’t miss that much of high school science). And her entire mana pool had vanished with this new effort, meaning she’d need another huge meal to replenish that energy afterwards.

The chain armor that was conjured was thin, but the theory that she could create over twenty-two thousand grams with her full pool was somewhat promising for the future. In live combat, she’d likely never have a full mana pool to throw at the skill, though. She could focus on the area that was being hit, but that seemed inefficient as well. After all, she could conjure the armor and then wait out her mana pool.

She set the thought aside for now.

It was time for the real tests. She moved her left leg.

The metal horribly pinched her inner leg and chafed unbearably.

She grimaced. No more bare skin when using the skill. She’d had a feeling it would be like that. Now she would need a custom, form-fitting outfit beneath her new armor to be as efficient as possible. The armor was supremely noisy, too. She supposed there was a reason she’d never seen a stealth skill turn up for herself.

With a sigh, she decided she’d be off to hit the baths at long last, and then she would try to sleep with the armor on, just to test the bare minimum of that ‘incapacitated’ wording.