Josh stabbed the monstrous boar in the eye with his combat knife. It squealed one last time and died, nearly crushing him when it fell over hard enough to shake the ground. He landed with a splat into the mud and muck and just lay there, breathing hard. For a moment, all was still, just a few leaves falling from the trees.
Then a loud ascending ding chimed in his head, and a semi-transparent text box popped up in front of him.
CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a level 39 Hunter! You have 1 free attribute point and 1 class attribute point to allocate. Your class attributes are Precision and Flexibility.
“Blast it all,” he muttered. He waved the notification away.
His friend Mary offered him a hand up, which he took. She smirked as he brushed dirt from his pants. “Oi, you're acting more daft than usual. You do know that the point is to capture these things, right? It's a little late for some grinding.”
Mary was a willowy young woman taller than most men, though still a good head shorter than him. She had shoulder-length brown hair, a button nose that she got incensed when he poked, and a perpetual smirk on her face.
“Ah, bugger off,” he said flatly. He sheathed his knife, then picked up his bow. He had dropped it when the boar broke out of his trap unexpectedly and charged at him. He looked around and grimaced. “Not seeing anything else to capture.” Of course, surrounded as they were by tall trees as thick on the ground as nuns in a convent, he couldn't see that far.
Mary shrugged. “We can be heading back if you want. How many you have already?”
“Five.”
“Eh, should be enough. You want to risk looking for one more?”
Josh thought about it, looking around. There weren't any obvious monsters lurking among the trees, which wasn't all that surprising. They were still close to the vanguard outpost's wooden palisade, and the area was largely cleared out. The problem was that the sky was growing dark, and he did not want to be in the Jungle in the dark.
Even as he had that thought, he saw vines creeping along the ground, drawn by the blood spilling from the monster's corpse. If he left it alone, they would wrap it up and start to feed. By tomorrow, there would be a tree here that looked like it was ten years old.
Mary slashed through the vine with her sword. The plant spurted watery sap and withdrew back into the dark trees. The trees rustled, as if angry. There might be no monsters out here, but that didn't mean it was safe.
First rule out here on the edge: The Jungle was always hungry.
“Let's head back,” Josh said at last. “Five should be enough for me.” They headed towards the wall. They left the monster. It wasn't worth the effort of fighting the Jungle over it so late. He glanced at her as she sheathed her sword. “How many did you bag, anyway?”
“Six,” she said. “Mine tip-top at a hundred and twenty levels.” She glanced at him. “You?”
He did the math in his head. He had captured five monsters, with the lowest at level 20. “Think... a hundred and five. Maybe a hundred and six?” He frowned and looked at her. “That should be enough, right?”
She shrugged. “Probably.”
They were dressed about the same, in jeans and t-shirts with leather armor crafted from monster hides. The Jungle rotted the leather at an annoying rate, so the tannery was running all day and night. But that was just the price for living out here on the edge of civilization.
Mary might be a tall girl, but Josh was a big boy. He was a couple inches over six feet and about as wide. He looked like he wrestled bears in his spare time, while Mary looked like she played substitute for a beanpole. Still, even out here, at the edge of civilization, she managed to make her survivalist scavenger gear look fashionable. She'd always been good at that sort of thing, while Josh looked like a brute who got dressed by robbing corpses.
This was one of the many border outposts where they cut back the Jungle. It was a constant task, one that required overwhelming force. The Jungle had overtaken the entire world when the Tower first rose, bringing low all the nations of old. Eighty years after the Tower was cleared, by the grace of the Eight Heroes who had saved the world, they had only reclaimed a fraction of what had been lost. The vanguard outposts were at the front of that push.
Within a few minutes, they were in sight of the wall. It was a basic wooden palisade, sharpened logs driven into the ground to form a crude fence. It couldn't do much more than slow down anything actually dangerous, but they moved the camp too often to make anything more permanent. The ground around the wall was scorched black, creating a border ten feet wide. Even though the ground had been burned just last night, green shoots were already starting to burst through the soil again.
The Jungle was always hungry.
Technically, the outpost was outside the Burn Line. Pushing forward meant you couldn't rely on the safety of being behind it. Sure, they burned the land around them to hold off the Jungle, but that was temporary. It took more work to make it permanent.
Josh and Mary nodded to the guards as they entered. The guards recognized them, and pulled the gates closed behind them. It seemed like they were the last to return. They were buttoning up the outpost for the night.
Everyone here was a reclaimer. They were the ones who lived at the edge, far from the safety of the City. Here, they cut back the Jungle, fighting monsters and trees that could sprout up overnight and devour a man who rested his head in the wrong place.
Josh and Mary were specifically scavengers. They were the ones who went out into the Jungle to collect items and artifacts from the ruins of the Old World. That, however, was not what they had been doing tonight.
“You two!” an authoritative voice called. A man strode up from the line of tents. They were more solid than simple camp tents, but they were still temporary. They'd be broken down and moved soon, maybe as early as tomorrow morning.
That also summed up the man in front of them, to Josh's mind. He had the look of a man who had lived his entire life as a scholar, only to be thrown out into the wilds to survive on his own for a year. He was tall, skinny, without an ounce of fat on him and only a little more muscle.
“Paul,” Josh said. “How can we help you?”
“You said you were bringing back another captive,” the man said. He crossed his arms and looked up at Josh. Paul was about average height, which meant Josh towered over him. He stood there in leather armor just like their own, but with his back straight and arms behind his back, he made it look like a uniform. “Why did you return without it?”
Josh shrugged. “Bad luck, had to kill it.”
Paul frowned. “Do you have enough for tomorrow?”
“Should be.”
“I have enough,” Mary added, smirking.
Paul didn't say anything, just looked back towards the gate, that frown still on his face.
It made Josh nervous. He forced a smile and gave Paul a playful smack on the arm. “Come on, boss, I'll be fine. Can we turn in our quests?”
Paul shook himself out of his stupor. “Yes, apologies. The night before is just... difficult.” He tapped at an invisible screen in front of himself. Instantly, notification windows appeared in front of both of them.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the quest: Kill Four Boars! Reward: 80 experience.
This repeated eight times in total, for bounties on various forest animals and murderous plants. The quests were almost a joke. 640 experience was nothing at their current level, and each individual quest could give out no more than 80 experience. Still, they were free to create and free to take, so the outpost leader made sure to let everyone fill out their quest logs every morning. Giving everybody a little extra experience for something they would be doing anyway didn't hurt.
Even if tonight, it was a waste of time to even turn the quests in, it wasn't like they could do anything else with them. They'd expire tomorrow one way or another.
“Get some food and some sleep,” Paul called after them as they walked away. “We're pushing for that factory in the morning.”
Both Josh and Mary stopped and gave each other aghast looks.
Mary whirled around. “On the Summer Solstice?” She sounded almost horrified. “You want to make a push on the first day?”
“The City really wants that factory,” Paul said grimly. He jerked his thumb at the truck that had rolled in that morning. It was an Old World pickup truck, with what looked like a small apartment built over the bed of the truck. Josh was shocked that anyone would bring it out here. Whoever owned it had to be loaded. “They even sent an operative to keep an eye on our little outpost. They want that thing up and running as soon as possible.”
Josh gave Mary a look. “This is your fault, you know.”
She just rolled her eyes. In one of her early scouting missions this year, she had gotten close to the factory and identified it as mostly intact. Later scouts had confirmed that it didn't even look like the Jungle had broken the walls yet. They didn't know what the factory had made, but it almost didn't matter. Any production machines from the Old World were invaluable.
Paul ignored their byplay. “Do you two have your classes and advancements planned out yet?”
Tomorrow morning would be a rush, as everyone tried to advance as quickly as possible to get to a stable footing again. It was like that everywhere on the solstice, but it was so much worse in the vanguard outposts. People on the safe side of the Burn Line could afford to take a few days to leisurely level. They didn't have that luxury here.
“I'm starting as an Archer,” Mary said confidently.
“I'm not sure yet,” Josh admitted. “I'm leaning towards Rogue, though.” He had been a Hunter this year, which was easiest to reach from the Rogue base. Though he had started as an Archer this time. There were multiple paths to every possibility.
There were eight foundational classes to choose from: Rogue, Archer, and Mage were classes of the Attacker role, meaning they focused on direct damage, in various ways. Knight, Shielder, and Shrouder were classes of the Defender role, meaning they focused on protecting themselves and others. Mender was of the Healer role, meaning it, well, healed people. And Beastmaster was from the Tamer role, meaning it focused on pets and minions.
There were only eight foundational classes to choose from, but those classes could then advance to more, then to more still, so on and so on. The base eight weren't bad, but they had limitations. Planning out your advancement path ahead of time was important.
Paul sighed. “Well, I was hoping for more Healers, but I won't complain about having more Attackers. That factory is going to be infested with monsters.”
They both nodded. The Jungle was always hungry.
After another few quick words, they said their goodbyes. Josh and Mary went off to their respective tents, both large and solid enough to be mistaken for real houses. Josh called goodnight, then stepped inside his tent.
Inside were five monstrous boars.
They were swollen to disgusting size, their muscles so large it looked as if they shouldn't even be able to move. Their tusks were as long as swords and at least as sharp, while their hooves were as big as plates. Their course fur was as thick as steel wool, and their eyes glowed with a red, baleful light.
Each one was in its own bamboo cage, hardly even large enough to contain them, and they were tied down with leather straps so that they could hardly move. They growled when he entered the tent, but they could do no more than shiver angrily.
Josh checked each one of them, careful not to get too close. He nodded to himself. All their ties were still solid, and would hold until the morning. He checked the spear he had in his weapon rack. It had a strong metal head that was still sharp. He almost never took the Lancer class—the path to it was frustrating—but he always made sure he had a good spear on the solstice.
He frowned at the boars, doubt twinging at his mind. Traditional wisdom was that you needed eight captive monsters on the eve of the Summer Solstice, but what actually mattered was the total levels. Six level 20 monsters would have been more than enough, even though that was a bit low-level for the area. Five should be enough.
He shook his head. It would have to be. Even if it wasn't, it wouldn't be the end of the world. He pushed the thought from his mind. He had a quick snack, cleaned up for the night, and then went to sleep on his thin mattress. Paul had been right, he was exhausted, and tomorrow was going to be even worse.
He was woken up in the morning by a System notification.
WARNING! The light of the Summer Solstice has touched the Tower. The current season has ended, and the world turns once more. All levels reset. Top players of the season are:
Josh dismissed the notification. He didn't need to see the leaderboard, though he did spot [Jonah Moore, Arch Gun-Lord] at the top. He had seen that name a few times, back when he actually paid attention to the leaderboard.
Now, he had more important things to worry about.
Before he even got up, he checked his status.
Name: Joshua White Race: Human (earth-type) Role: Not Applicable Class: Unclassed, level 0 Stats: Strength 5, Agility 3, Constitution 5, Perception 4, Power 4, Flexibility 4, Capacity 4, Sensitivity 4 Techniques: None Spells: None Skills: None
He sighed, then rolled out of bed, trying to ignore the way his body was weak and slow. When he picked up his spear, it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and his fingers, once so nimble, almost fumbled it. The entire world seemed dull, as if his eyes were half closed and his ears stuffed with cotton.
He didn't really need to bring up his status to know what had happened. He didn't know why he bothered. With the Summer Solstice and the end of the current “season,” the System had reset everyone. He had gone from a level 39 Hunter—a respectable achievement, though not breaking any records—to a level 0. He had even lost all his hard-earned techniques and spells.
Josh hated Summer Solstice. He always had, even when he was a kid who had just gained access to the System. In his first year, he had hardly even scraped together a handful of levels before the solstice, but it still felt like a punch to the gut to lose them all.
But here, on the the border, right next to the hungry Jungle and the wildlands? Here, it was far more than annoyance. A level 0 could survive in the City just fine, do some trash collecting quests to level up over days or weeks.
In the wildlands, they had to level up much faster.
Josh took a moment to steady himself, aimed the spear, and stabbed the first boar as hard as he could straight in the eye. Red mist gathered out of the corpse, slowly turning white. He breathed in deep, and the white mist flowed into him.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 3! You have three attribute points to allocate. Warning: You may not allocate your attribute points until you choose a class.
The boar died instantly, without even a scream. Josh withdrew the spear and moved on to the next one.
This one managed to squeal in pain and rage, and he had to root around with the spear to kill it.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 4! You have four attribute points to allocate. Warning: You may not allocate your attribute points until you choose a class.
Three left.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 5! You have five attribute points to allocate. Warning: You may not allocate your attribute points until you choose a class.
Normally, a level 0 killing a level 20 monster would be enough to propel him halfway to twenty all on its own. But he received an experience penalty for killing something that was tied up, and more so since it had, according to the System, been tied up by “someone else.” The reset was weird like that.
He moved on to the next one.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 6! You have six attribute points to allocate. Warning: You may not allocate your attribute points until you choose a class.
Furthermore, everyone received a bonus to experience for performing actions suited to their role. Attackers got a bonus for dealing damage, Defenders got a bonus for taking hits, Tamers got a bonus for directing minions, Healers got a bonus for healing. All of which made perfect sense, and it mostly worked well.
The problem was, you couldn't select a class until level 8. Meaning he didn't have a role yet, or any way to collect bonus experience. The only way to level before you had a class was to finish quests, or to kill monsters. And quests were slow.
Josh was sweating when he turned to the last boar. This was the highest-level one; he had killed them in order from lowest to highest. He felt he was on the cusp of level 7. He needed to get all the way to level 8 with this one.
He took a deep breath, then thrust with his spear. The boar snapped forward, trying to intercept his attack. Its ropes must have loosened at some point in the night, but it had been intelligent enough to hide that.
Not that it mattered. His spear stabbed up through the roof of its mouth, into its brain. It thrashed for a moment, then stilled. It glowed with red mist, which slowly transformed into white. The cloud was noticeably larger than any of the previous ones, and Josh breathed it in eagerly. He felt its energy seep into his muscles and his bones.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 7! You have seven attribute points to allocate. Warning: You may not allocate your attribute points until you choose a class.
His heart fell. Level 7. And if the feeling in his chest was accurate, he was only halfway to 8. At this point he wasn't even sure that a sixth boar would have been enough.
“Bollocks,” he muttered. He stood there for a moment, frustrated, then shook his head. Nothing for it. He dropped the spear, got dressed at record speed, and stepped outside.
The morning air was cool, damp, and thick with the smell of boar blood. Everyone was getting their killing done as soon as possible. Out here on the border, you couldn't afford to be unclassed for long.
He spotted Mary coming out of her tent. She already had a bow and quiver slung over her shoulder. “You ready to go?” she asked. Her eyes unfocused, and she frowned. “Wait, you're still level 7?”
His heart sank further. He had hoped she wouldn't check the party screen. At that thought, he checked her status. They were the only two in their party, and he could see that she was listed as a level 8 Archer. Not a surprise.
“Bad luck,” he grunted. “I need quests from Paul.”
“I'm here.” They both spun to see that the man had appeared behind them. He rolled his eyes at their reactions. “Allocate your points. And by the Eight, don't forget to put some in Perception.” He looked between them. “I'm giving out the quests, but am I to understand you still need your class?”
“I'm almost there,” Josh said quickly, which was only slightly a lie. Halfway to 8 wasn't that bad. “A full load of quests should get me over the bump.”
Paul grimaced. “Yeah, but all I can give you are monster hunt quests. By the time you finish them, you'll be well past 8 anyway.” He sighed. “I wish I could give you fetch quests.”
Well, he could give them fetch quests. Quests to collect wood or tinder or even random rocks. In the City, Summer Solstice was a day of cleaning, as everyone scrambled to finish quests to collect and turn in random pieces of trash. The problem was that to complete a fetch quest, you had to turn it into a citystone, not the quest giver. The closest citystone was on the other side of the Burn Line, at one of the larger farms. Not far, but too far to just casually return to dump quests.
“Give them to me anyway,” Josh said decisively. “It can't hurt.”
Paul nodded. That was the entire philosophy behind giving out quests. He gave both of them a full load, then moved on to the next party. He yelled out again, reminding everyone they were starting on the factory today.
Mary looked at Josh with concern. “You sure about this?”
“No,” he said flatly. “But what am I gonna do? Running monsters is the only thing I can do. Paul is right, the City needs that factory.” He punched her arm in a good-natured way. “Besides, the monsters always get lethargic after the reset.”
The monsters didn't have their levels reset on the Summer Solstice; that was purely something humans had to deal with. But they did get... complacent. As if they knew that people wouldn't be as much of a threat to them for a few weeks. They'd be less aggressive, less territorial, at least for a time. This was the best time to at least make a probing attack for a new asset.
Pushing this hard, this fast, was still surprising, though. Out here on the edge, most people didn't like doing anything risky until they were level 16 with their first class refinement under their belts. People died, pushing this hard, this fast. Hell, entire outposts died this way. Even reclaimers, who knew what they were doing, could have a bad day and get wiped out.
Josh saw Paul standing next to the truck he had spotted earlier, speaking to a well-dressed man in a sharp suit. Was that the City's operative?
He saw someone peek out from inside the structure built into the back of the truck. The operative waved them away, and the person disappeared inside before Josh could see their face.
He turned his mind away from that, and looked to the gates. Reclaimers were already lining up, armed with whatever weapons they could use at their low levels. Bows, knives, and even arcane focus devices for the magic types. None of them were enchanted, unfortunately. Some people had a few enchanted objects, but no one had brought out their enchanted weapons. There were a small number scattered around the outpost, but they couldn't be used at such low levels.
In the Old World people used to make enchanted weapons for every level, tier, and class combination. Now, since they didn't have any way to make new enchanted objects, they had to make do with what they scavenged. Enchanted objects eventually lost their power if they weren't used for too long, so nothing found in the ruins still held its enchantments.
He looked the other way, south, back towards the City. He couldn't see the City, of course. They were a good eighty kilometers away. But he could imagine it, that massive white Tower poking up high above even the skyscrapers.
That was why they were doing this. For the City, for the people who lived at the base of the Tower. He forced himself to focus on that, instead of everything else that could go wrong.
Josh and Mary joined the line, and she gave him a look. “You're sure—”
“Yes,” he snapped, a bit harsher than he intended. He sighed and wiped his hand down his face. “Sorry. But I just need one good kill to level.” He'd get more experience for a real fight, even if Mary did most of the work. “Then I'll be able to pull my weight.”
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Mary nodded. “All right.” She grinned and clapped him on the back. “Let's get that class, and that factory.”
An hour later, they had managed one of those things.
The reason Paul had rushed them was to get to the factory as soon as possible, while the monsters were still lazy. They cut a straight path through the Jungle, planning to surround the factory with sheer numbers, then hold it while they leveled up on anything that tried to take it back.
Even considering the lethargy of the monsters, it was difficult. The entire outpost, about a hundred strong, encountered half a dozen boars and three angry monkeys over the course of half a mile. They still almost killed several people, and the vanguard had to retreat to heal while they handled each monster, one by one. Even a hundred level 8 fighters working together had to be careful here, where monsters averaged around level 30. A single bad hit could kill someone.
It was a long, slow process as the scouts found the monsters, pulled them away from their bands, and brought them in range of the reclaimers. Even with everyone working together to fight each monster, it took some time to take them down. Level 30 monsters were no joke.
They did manage to cut through without any losses on their side. Quite a few people gained a handful of levels. Out here, in real combat, the experience came fast and strong.
Josh did not level. He couldn't participate enough to earn even a sliver of the experience.
The factory itself was about what he had expected. He had never seen it himself, but Mary had described it to him. It was a gray, multi-story rectangular building that looked as if it had been designed to be as simple and practical as possible. It was almost completely undamaged, just some basic vines on the walls that tried to attack when they got too close.
Even that was less than normal. The Jungle didn't care about structures, though it tended to consume anything in its path as a matter of course. But the structure was surrounded by an electric fence, kept operational over the decades by solar panels on the roof and a great deal of luck. That discouraged monsters from exploring, and without anything alive inside, the Jungle didn't spend any extra effort on consuming it.
Of course, now there was plenty of life inside. An electric fence wouldn't keep the monsters out when they smelled fifty humans. Paul had sent half of their number back to the outpost, while the rest of them secured the area. They were given explicit orders to lay down their lives to defend the factory if they had to.
The factory, as it turned out, produced screws. That was better than a hundred acres of untouched farmland. Screws could be used for almost anything, from moderately advanced machinery to simple buildings. Everyone was smiling and laughing, and Josh saw Paul shaking hands with the City operative.
Josh tried not to let his own depression get the best of him. This was a great victory for the City and for the reclaimers. They'd all get a big bonus for their part in this operation. He was just annoyed that he still hadn't managed to level.
He was sitting in the field outside the factory, watching Mary and the other Archers train. They were taking turns shooting each other's arrows out of the sky. If they managed to do it once, they'd gain the Intercept Shot technique. It wasn't a very useful technique, but that wasn't the point. Inventing new abilities granted a decent experience boost. And since you could re-discover old abilities after the reset, it was an effective way to level early on.
Unfortunately, it only worked when you had a class. Josh was still stuck.
He watched Mary out of the corner of his eye, but he was facing the Jungle, and the path back to the outpost. Reclaimers were spreading pitch and oil on the trees, soaking them so thick that he could smell the sharp scent from here. The Jungle's plants were resistant to fire, but eventually the Mages would feel confident that they could burn everything down. This would become just another blackened section of ground, more land reclaimed from the Jungle. Then the outpost that they had left behind could become a real village.
There were a few patches close to the outpost where the trees had been cut down, clearing the area for farming. Josh noticed that they were spreading pitch on those areas too. That was normal. All plants grew at an insane rate inside the Jungle's influence. Somehow the Jungle gave plants the ability to feed directly off the mana in the air. That meant that you could grow a full field of crops in a few hours. You just had to make sure that your tomatoes didn't try to eat you when you picked them.
A true farming village would send food back to the City. Since the City was on the safe side of the Burn Line, the side without the Jungle, their food production wasn't accelerated. The City relied almost entirely on imports for food.
But this wasn't a farming village, it was a vanguard outpost. The fields were only there to feed the reclaimers. It was easier to just burn it along with the rest of the Jungle, then sow new fields once the Burn Line had been moved up.
There was a cheer from the Archers. Josh turned to see that Mary had managed her shot, and had her arms raised in triumph. He smiled, but paid it little mind. There were plenty of other trick shots she could practice, so she'd still be here for a while.
To his surprise, she walked over to him, leaving her comrades to continue on their own. It looked like she was the first one to earn the technique today.
“Surely you're not done,” he said.
She laughed. “Nah, just taking a quick tea break.” She nodded at the Jungle, and the reclaimers preparing for the burn. “They're almost ready. I'm going to try to earn the Pyro Arrow spell by helping them.”
Josh nodded. Every class had both techniques, which cost stamina to use, and spells, which cost magic to use. Most classes leaned one way or the other, though, and it was notoriously hard to learn the other side. Getting her first Archer spell would be more a matter of luck than anything else. It would be easier after that.
“Anyway, wot are you doing out here?” she asked. “I'm sure you've got something better to do than watch the burn.”
“Eh, they said if they find any monsters they'll try to let me kill them,” Josh explained. They both knew that wasn't likely. Monsters were smart enough to avoid fire unless they had an overwhelming advantage.
She rolled her eyes. “We both know what you want to do. Go inside, have a laugh exploring.”
He gave her a look. “I'm not an engineer.”
“No, but you're an explorer.” She made shooing motions. “It's a big factory. See if there's any extra treasure. Who knows, maybe there are phones in the lockers or something. I don't know.”
He rolled his eyes and rose to his feet. “Mary...”
“Josh,” she said, serious for once. “You're doing no good out here. I'm sure they need extra eyes.” She brightened. “Maybe you can find me a gun!”
He chuckled. “There are better things in the world than guns.”
She scoffed. “That's because you've never had the Gunner class.”
He had, in fact, had the Gunner class twice before. It had been a huge pain to get the second time, with Mary's help even. It hadn't been much better to actually use. Mary, on the other hand, had become obsessed with it.
“Fine,” he said, walking towards the factory. “Just give a holler if you need anything.”
“Oi, get me some meat,” she called after him. “I ran out of jerky!”
“Nitwit!” he called back.
Josh found Paul soon enough, who directed him to the offices in the back of the factory. They had enough people combing over the main production floor and the warehouse, including actual engineers. But Mary had been right, they needed extra hands and eyes.
The offices were surprisingly intact, though absolutely filthy. The monsters and the Jungle hadn't gotten inside, but rain and time had taken their own toll. The carpet was pitted and rotten, revealing cracked concrete floors. The paint was peeling off the walls, half the cubicles had collapsed, and most of the long lights had fallen from the ceiling.
There were computers, but Josh didn't have enough training to identify if they were salvageable. He didn't dare try to turn them on to check. He just dutifully marked them all on his map for the engineers to get to later.
He had more success with the cabinets, desks, and drawers. They were mostly metal, so while they were rusted shut, once he broke them open there wasn't all that much damage to their contents. There were plenty of papers and records that he didn't care about, but maybe Paul would find them useful. He did find a few small tools, devices, and other treasures. The electronics were all dead, of course. Hopefully they could be recharged. Regardless, everything went in the sack.
As he went, he marked the containers he searched with a splash of paint from his spray bottles. Green for something he was done with, yellow for something that he had to leave behind like the papers, and red for a container he wasn't able to open. There weren't many of those. He might not be an engineer, but he was experienced. He knew how to crack open a filing cabinet.
Eventually, he reached a locked door. In his experience, those were rare in places like this. Generally, Old World buildings tended to either leave every door unlocked or leave them all locked. Depended on how paranoid the owners were.
He glanced around and saw a faded nameplate next to the door. He couldn't read it, but he would bet that it was a manager's office. He smiled to himself. This could be something good.
He was a bit more careful on this door, just in case breaking down the door damaged something useful. Still, it wasn't a difficult lock, and he managed to get inside without too much trouble.
It was, as he had expected, a manager's office. There was a solid desk in the center of the room and faded pictures on the walls. There was a plant in the corner that had spilled out of its pot. It was sitting right beneath a tiny hole in the ceiling which apparently gave it enough water and sunlight to thrive. Of course, with the magic of the Jungle filling the air, a plant didn't need much.
Sitting in a chair behind the desk was a skeleton, flesh and clothing almost completely rotted off.
Josh gave it hardly a blink. This wasn't the first time he had seen a corpse, in any condition. This wasn't as bad as when one of his fellow reclaimers fell. Still, it was a bit rare to find intact corpses out in the Jungle. The monsters devoured every piece of human flesh and bone they could get to.
He wasn't sure how old this body was. Even without the monsters, the Jungle would rot human flesh quick as you pleased. If this was out in the open, he would assume that this skeleton had been here for a month or so. Maybe less. But how long did it take for a body to reduce to bones in a closed room like this?
He wondered how this person got here. Sneaking past the monsters wouldn't have been all that hard, and getting by the fence without disabling it would have been easy. But the door had been locked. Besides, why would someone find a treasure like this factory and not report it to the City? No one had known about this place before Mary scouted it out.
Josh stepped around the desk. Clutched in the corpse's skeletal hand was an old revolver. Looking closer, he spotted the hole in the skull. A suicide, then. Well, that was hardly unheard of, though coming out this far just to kill yourself was a bit odd.
As he was prying the gun out of the hand—Mary was going to be smug about this for weeks—he spotted something else on the desk. It was a bit of a mess, all sorts of rotted papers and even an ammo box.
But there was also a small red crystal, a marble about the size of his thumb. Red mist swirled inside, roiling like a trapped storm.
He paused at that. A bloodstone. These were the artifacts that granted classes. You needed one when you hit level 8 to choose a class, and most later class refinements needed one.
Anyone with a class could make a bloodstone. All it took was an effort of will and the sacrifice of a pint of blood. Your bloodstone would match whatever your first class of the reset was. So Mary would be able to make an Archer bloodstone, but if she later became a Gunner, she would still only be able to make an Archer bloodstone.
This was why there were only eight foundational classes. The eight immortal heroes who had saved the world all had incredible, advanced, and overpowered classes, but they could still only give away bloodstones for their foundational classes.
Gunner was actually a Basic-tier class, technically. So were Swordsman, Samurai, Priest, and plenty of other classes. In the Old World, bloodstones for those classes were common. But in the modern world, there were no bloodstones for those classes, so they had to get to them from class refinements, which were less efficient.
Everyone knew the eight types of bloodstones by heart, even Josh. Rogue, Archer, Mage, Knight, Shielder, Shrouder, Mender, and Beastmaster. Three classes for the Attacker role, three classes for the Defender role, one for the Healer role, and one for the Tamer role. In the old world, there had been thousands of different types of bloodstones, and only about half of them were for the Combat roles. Now, after the Fall of Humanity, they were reduced to eight combat roles. No more.
Josh shrugged and pocketed the bloodstone. He had left his own stones back in the outpost. Monsters ate bloodstones whenever they could, so keeping them on you could be a bad idea. Of course, maybe if he had kept them on him, he would have already encountered a monster and managed to level.
Anyway, it didn't matter. Bloodstones were cheap as dirt. It was considered polite to create a couple new bloodstones for your class soon after you first took it, to make sure the supply never went low. Josh could get a full set for the price of the box to carry them.
He finally got the gun out of the corpse's hand, then winced and cursed as he felt something sharp against his palm. He looked down to see a few tiny splinters sticking out of his skin.
“Again?” he muttered. “How did that even happen?” He glared out the hole in the wall, as if he could see anything.
It was sheer luck that he happened to be looking out the hole when the monster jumped through it.
Josh recognized the monster at a glance. It was a large hairy bat, the size of his head, with glistening sharp claws at the end of its wingtips and glowing red eyes. It was a common monster out here at the border, a natural animal corrupted by the power of the Jungle. Even if he didn't recognize it, he would be able to tell that it had clearly advanced at least twice. That meant it had to be at least level 16, but hadn't hit level 24 yet. Most monsters advanced every eight levels, like humans.
While he didn't really need to, he used his Identify skill on it almost by reflex.
Chiropteran Hunter Level 21 Monster Aw, isn't it cute? Look at those beady little eyes! This little guy is a tracker and a predator, still mostly adapted to hunting mundane animals. But ever since it was transformed by the Jungle, it's learning how to hunt bigger things! Such as humans. There's nothing cuter than when this little guy has successfully taken down prey ten times its size. Which it can do. Easily. Fun fact: Chiropterans often bathe in the blood of their prey while their victims are still alive! Isn't that adorable?
Josh was frozen for several long seconds. The System's unnecessarily verbose and graphic description was only part of it. He couldn't stop staring at that number. Level 21. Then the monster screeched, and he ran.
Yesterday, a level 21 monster would have been nothing to him. In fact, a level 40 monster would have been little to worry about. He had been a level 39 Hunter, a combat class that he was experienced with, and had fought worse odds.
Today, he was level 7, and unclassed. So he ran.
He slammed the door behind him, and the monster screeched again with the impact. Josh was nearly bounced away just from that, but he forced himself to hold it. He shoved a screwdriver in the handle. It might buy him a couple seconds. He ran again.
“Hey!” he cried as he ran on the catwalks over the factory floor. “Monster! Monster loose in the building!”
The reclaimers on the floor looked up in shock. But when they saw the crazed bat burst out of the office, they all cried out. They dropped their clipboards and their notes and ran.
“Oi, come on!” he yelled. “One of you daft lot has to have a combat spell already!” He knew for a fact that Mages started out with a basic energy bolt.
He cursed them even as he looked around for anything he could use as a weapon. Could he trap the monster somewhere? Drop something heavy on it? He gripped the railing, his heart beating a drum in his chest. He only had one hand free. Should he drop—
He blinked, then looked down at the gun in his hand. Oh, right.
Josh took a stance, aimed, and fired at the bat flying straight at him.
Josh didn't have much experience with guns, and he didn't have a class to help cover his deficiencies. The bat jinked left to dodge his first shot, then right to dodge his second, and then dove—
His third shot hit it straight in the chest.
The monster fell to the ground, flapping wildly, trying to ignore its own wound and take to the air again. Chiropterans didn't have very high Constitution. A single shot would never do so much damage to a boar. But it was still level 21, so it could take a few hits.
Josh stepped forward. Once he was within a few feet, but still out of range of its flailing, he took aim again and fired. He emptied his gun into it, the shots echoing around the building. After a moment, red mist gathered out of the corpse, slowly turning white. He breathed in deep, and the white mist flowed into him.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 8! You have eight attribute points to allocate. Warning: You may not allocate your attribute points until you choose a class.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached a milestone! You may select your first class.
Josh dismissed the notice. He'd pick his class in a moment. He shook himself and took a few deep breaths, willing his heart to calm. Once he thought he could walk without shaking, he reached down, grabbed the corpse, and hefted it in his arms. There were some uses for monster corpses.
As he walked down the stairs onto the main factory floor, Paul came running in.
“What in the name of the Eight happened?” he demanded.
“Monster got in,” Josh said with a grunt. He glared at some of the workers he recognized. “Your boys were just brilliant, by the by. Maybe make sure they're all up to spic and span?”
Paul scowled at the workers. “Half of you have Attacker classes!” He shook his head and turned back to Josh, looking up at him. “You get hit? We can have a Mender look at you.”
Josh shook his head. “I'm good.”
“You sure? Infections are no joke.”
“Nah, it didn't even get me.” He nodded down at the corpse in his arms. “Is that armorer bloke still at the outpost?” They didn't have the true Armorer class of course, because that was a Crafter class. They only had Attacker, Defender, Tamer, and Healer classes. Still, even without the assistance of a class, monster leather made decent armor.
As it turned out, he couldn't take the corpse back to the outpost, because they were about to set half the Jungle on fire. Josh put the bat in a box on a cart, then sat down to watch the show.
Mary, as she had said, had earned the right to make the first shot. She drew back her arrow and held it. A moment later, a Mage snapped her fingers, and the head of the arrow burst into flame. Mary loosed the shot, and it arced beautifully into the line of trees, just beyond the electric fence.
Half a mile of the Jungle burst into flame, seemingly all at once. A massive wave of heat and air pressure pushed out, a gust of wind that threw up every loose object. Hats, unsecured papers, and even one of the smaller reclaimers were all thrown up in the air. Everyone laughed. The truck belonging to the City operative, parked at the corner of the factory, had its back open so that the occupant could watch the show. The operative himself stood next to the truck, smiling at the flames.
They didn't have to worry about the fire spreading. The Jungle was frustratingly difficult to burn. In fact, it was unlikely even all the pitch and oil they had used would be enough to ensure that this patch would stay on fire long enough to turn to ash. They'd probably have to come back with axes to remove everything before it regrew, then they'd burn the bare earth again. Even then, they'd have to keep an eye on it to make sure nothing sprouted up.
The Jungle was always hungry.
Mary was the loudest, whooping in laughter. It seemed she had earned her spell.
This was the Burn Line, or at least the first step for expanding it. Just cutting down the Jungle did little. Its magic lived in every plant and every speck of moss. You had to burn it, then burn it again, and keep doing it until it stopped growing back with visible speed. Then, finally, you could say that the land had been reclaimed.
One daffy thing was that all the ash and churned up earth of the burned-up Jungle actually made for nicely fertile ground even without the magic. It would just take a few months before this part of the land was green again. That could be a problem, because the Jungle could take root again, but that was why they were always pushing the Burn Line forward. By the time this part of the land regrew, the Jungle would have been pushed at least half a kilometer off.
Josh smiled and turned to his class selection. It was then that he remembered that he didn't have his normal bloodstones, just the one he had found in the office. He sighed. Well, if it was something annoying, he could always ask the other reclaimers to see if they had something better. What if it was a Defender? He hated the foundational Defender classes.
Then he saw the notification, and froze.
You are currently unclassed! Once you choose a class, you may allocate your banked statistic points.
You have ONE (1) class advancement resource in your possession.
You have ONE (1) class choice. Seek out additional class advancement resources to expand your choices.
CLASS OPTIONS: Woodcrafter (Crafter). Primary statistics: Perception, Sensitivity. This is a Basic Utility class of the Crafter role. Build objects, equipment, and structures from wood.
Josh stared. He stared for at least a full minute before his brain started moving.
There were eight types of bloodstones. They were all Combat classes. Three for the Attacker role, three for the Defender role, one for the Tamer role, and one for the Healer role. Switching to a different role was impossible, as far as anyone knew, without using a bloodstone of an appropriate class. Rogue was an Attacker role, but if you combined it with a Knight bloodstone, which was a Defender, you got the Samurai class, which was a Defender.
Different combinations produced different classes, and there were multiple routes to every class. Combining a Shrouder with an Archer bloodstone got you a Veiler, which was still a Defender. Combining a Veiler with an Archer again got you a Hunter. There were other ways to refine your class without a bloodstone, but they required stat score minimums, and didn't change your role.
The point being that there hadn't been a Utility class in eighty years. None of the Eight Heroes had a Utility foundational class.
In the Old World, before the Fall, roughly half the classes and half the bloodstones were non-combat classes, more formally called Utility roles. There were four Utility roles: Crafter, Gatherer, Scholar, and Explorer. Because none of the Eight Heroes had a Utility foundational class, that meant that there had been no bloodstones for them. No one had been able to get a non-combat class for the past eighty years.
This didn't make sense. There was no way that someone had somehow discovered a Utility class and then just... come out here to die!
Then he realized. Unless the corpse was more than eighty years old. The factory had been protected. Monsters hadn't gotten in, even the Jungle hadn't gotten in. If someone had given up right before the end, left their bloodstone behind and then killed themselves...
Was it possible?
Before Josh could second-guess himself, before he could risk the possibility of losing this impossible gift, he made his choice.
CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a level 8 Woodcrafter! You have 4 free attribute points and 4 class attribute points to allocate. Your class attributes are Perception and Sensitivity.
NEW SKILL LEARNED: Craft Wood. Make items from wood, plants, and vegetation.
NEW SPELL LEARNED: Instant Crafting. With the proper tools, complete any known blueprint crafting instantly. This spell can be combined with Hands-Free Crafting.
NEW SPELL LEARNED: Hands-Free Crafting. You may craft a known blueprint without the proper tools. This spell can be combined with Instant Crafting.
He let out a breath. Okay. That... was a bit to take in. Even at a brief glance, he had some ideas. It was rare for spells to explicitly allow combination, for example.
He didn't have time for experimentation right now, though. He stood up and walked over to Mary. She was surrounded by a crowd of smiling people patting her on the back. She grinned and laughed and exchanged jokes. First Archer to earn a spell wasn't exactly a major achievement, but it was worth a handshake.
Josh tried not to show his anxiety, tried to pretend he was just waiting to congratulate his friend like everyone else. He wasn't sure he was entirely successful, since a few people gave him odd looks.
Once the crowd cleared out, Mary turned to him. The smile slipped off her face once she saw him.
“What's eating you?” she asked.
He grimaced. “It that obvious?”
“You look like the time you broke Paul's locker.”
He chuckled ruefully. “It's not that bad.” In fact, it was so much worse, but he didn't see the need to bog her down in minor details right now. He glanced around. “Can we talk?”
Mary threw her arm around his shoulder and gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Fiiine, but you know I hate pranks!” While she didn't yell, she did say it loudly enough for anyone listening to hear clearly. Most of them lost interest at that point. Mary had always been better at stealth than Josh.
Once she had pulled him into a corner of the compound, only slightly overgrown by the Jungle, he wheeled around on her. “Check your party screen.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Okay... why.”
“Just do it. Please?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. Her gaze went distant, and there was a short pause.
He could easily spot the exact moment where she found it, because she froze as still as a statue.
Slowly, very slowly, she spoke. “Josh... what did you do?”
He wrung his hands. “I found a bloodstone.”
He explained, in brief, the corpse in the office and how he suspected it had survived so long unmolested. He also displayed for her the class description for Woodcrafter, so that they were on the same page.
Mary stared at her screens for the entire explanation, as if afraid that his class would disappear if she took her eyes off it.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Let's start simple. Can you make a bloodstone?”
He held out his hand and concentrated. He felt his strength leeching out of his hand, exactly as if he was losing too much blood, and at the same time a pressure built up until it felt like his hand would explode. A moment later, a tiny orb filled with swirling red mist appeared in his hand.
Mary plucked it from his palm while he took deep breaths to recover. Making a bloodstone wasn't hard, but he had just lost a pint of blood, and he was low level. He'd need a minute.
Mary's eyes unfocused as she read the item description. “Woodcrafter,” she muttered. “If I use this with my Archer class, I will gain the... Bowyer class? Huh, and it's still an Attacker role. Interesting.” She handed the stone back to him. “What's the plan from here?”
Josh rubbed his forehead. “I don't know,” he muttered. “What happens if I just admit everything to the boss?”
To her credit, Mary gave it serious thought. “He wouldn't try to steal your bloodstones,” she said slowly. She started pacing. “Most everyone in the camp already has their class. The biggest advantage here is being the first Crafter. No one else can do that any more, which means you're valuable. They can't just kill you.”
Josh nodded along. “I don't think Paul would kill me outright anyway.”
“No, I don't think so either, but with this much money on the line, it's best to have assurances.”
Josh frowned. “Money?”
She stopped and looked at him. “I thought you knew how shiny and valuable this was.”
“Sure,” he said. “I mean, in theory. I don't know exactly what kind of blueprints I can make yet, but even if I'm limited to just wooden tools, having a Crafter of any type will mean new unique classes.”
Mary sighed. “Well, ignoring the fact that it will definitely be more than just wooden tools, the unique classes alone will be invaluable.” She spread her arms. “I'm an Archer. I checked, and I'll be able to use it to become a Bowyer at level 16. Do you know what that means?”
“You'll be able to make bows and arrows,” Josh said, a little lost. Yes, he understood that it would be a valuable class, but archery gear wasn't that hard to make. Their own group had a dozen spare bows.
“Yes,” she said patiently. “But it also implies that it will do the same for other classes. What happens if a Swordsman uses this bloodstone? Will he become a Swordsmith? Gain the ability to make swords instantly? What about a Gunner?”
Josh was getting excited too, but he tempered that emotion. Last time he got this excited, he had lost a major opportunity because he was distracted. “I think we're running ahead a bit. We don't even know what this class is capable of yet.”
Mary nodded. “That means we need to test you.” Then she smirked. “I guess we'll have to chop down a few trees, get you some rubbish to play with.”
Josh snorted. “No complaints on my end.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Not all trees are evil, man.”
“We're in the Jungle,” he said flatly. “Yes, they are.”