After all the Formics were dead, Josh forced down another potion and tried not to puke. “Ugh. My God, I swear this stuff tastes worse every time.” He eyed the nearby giant queen bee. “We got a plan to deal with this one?”

Darius slowly rolled to his feet, trying to preserve his dignity. Considering he was exhausted, covered in ant guts, and smelled like he'd gone frolicking through a chemical forge, it didn't work. “Apid Queens secrete a number of valuable jellies.”

“I'm not sticking around here long enough for her to poop out gold,” Mary said flatly.

Josh nodded. “Same here.” He looked at the queen, frowning. “Should we kill her? Maybe there's some glint already in there with her.”

Darius shrugged. “We won't get much experience. They've already done too much damage to her.”

“Aww, come on!” Ruth leaned perilously close to the giant bee. The monster snapped her mandibles, but Ruth didn't seem to notice. “She looks all sad and pathetic!”

“We're not taking a bloody Apid Queen home with us,” Josh said, flat as a broken drum. “Even if we did have a Beastmaster, it would be an awful idea.”

Ruth looked over and rolled her eyes. “Not that. I mean we should put her out of her misery. The ants were torturing her!”

“Yeah, 'bout that...” Mary frowned. “How smart are Formics, anyway? Did they really capture an enemy monster so that they could farm her?”

“You would be surprised,” Darius said. “I have read literature on pre-Jungle animals and insects. Apparently, some species would enslave enemy insects, and there were even reports of something very much like agriculture.”

Josh stared at him. “Wot mucking books are you reading?” He knew a bit more about the world before the Jungle than most people did, and he had never heard anything like that. Next Darius would talk about monkeys domesticating wolves.

Mary shook her head, holding up her hands in defeat. “Look, it doesn't matter. Let's just kill her, get the experience, and see if she's got anything worth being got.”

Darius performed the finishing blow. He was still lagging a little behind the rest of them in levels, so even with the experience penalties, it was best to give it to him. The queen didn't have anything useful on her, but then Mary and Darius got into another argument on if they should try to haul her corpse back to town for the alchemy materials.

Josh sighed. This would all be so much easier if they had anyone with a [Gatherer] class. Even a Basic-tier class like Scavenger could cut up the monsters and find all the valuable glands and so on. Not to mention the fact that all [Gatherers] had an inventory.

Once again, he cursed the fact that they didn't have any more bloodstones. Yes, the Woodcrafter bloodstone had done loads for them, but he still wasn't sure it was worth all the trouble. What could he do with a [Gatherer] class, or a [Scholar] class?

Or an [Explorer] class. If he had a Runner bloodstone...

He shook himself out of his daze. This was not the time for regrets. He called up the notifications that had been minimized during combat.

CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a level 23 Woodcrafter! You have 1 free attribute point and 1 class attribute point to allocate. Your class attributes are Perception and Sensitivity.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached level 24! You meet the minimum requirements for class refinement. You do not possess any class advancement resources. Would you like to pause your level-up to obtain advancement resources?

Josh selected “no.” New windows immediately popped up.

You have TWO (2) class choices. Seek out additional class advancement resources to expand your choices.

CLASS OPTIONS: Bonecrafter (Crafter). Primary statistics: Perception, Sensitivity. This is a Basic Utility class of the Crafter role. Build objects, equipment, and structures from bone, hair, and hide.

Stonecrafter (Crafter). Primary statistics: Perception, Sensitivity. This is a Basic Utility class of the Crafter role. Build objects, equipment, and structures from stone.

Oh boy. This was more than he had asked for. He hadn't expected a choice.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Guys?” he called out weakly. “I think I need some help here.”

Mary and Darius looked up from the pile of corpses. It seemed they hadn't found anything valuable, though that hadn't stopped them from trying to pry the carapaces apart and dig for the glands and organs manually. Ruth, on the other hand, had the glazed-over look in her eyes that meant she was looking through her own screens.

“You get your advance?” Mary asked.

Josh nodded slowly. “Something like that.” He sent over his options to both of them. “Advancements for stats don't usually have choices.”

“Stonecrafter,” Mary said instantly. “You're going up the tech-tree, yeah? Maybe you'll get Metalcrafter next.”

“Perhaps,” Darius said, his eyes still distant. “I don't disagree, I'm simply not certain that constant advancement up the technological tree is the best option. Bonecrafter, for example, would certainly give you the ability to craft all this carapace into armor.”

“Yeah, and then it's a dead-end because there's no tech that goes from bones to, I dunno, Mechanist.” Mary gave Josh a serious look. “You go with Bonecrafter, then if you're lucky you'll be able to jump back to Stonecrafter next advance. Best case, you're hobbling yourself eight levels. Don't miss the target.”

Josh nodded slowly. He had a specific goal in mind: Mechanist, which would in turn lead to more advanced classes with a mechanical bent. Bonecrafter was unlikely to lead in that direction.

Darius sighed. “I see your mind is set.” He pushed his glasses up. “I do wish we could at least see what his advancement bonus would be. That might influence his decision.”

Mary waved that away. “Nah. Bonecrafter might have some cool trick, 'specially if it's a dead-end. He should still go with Stonecrafter.”

“Who should what?” Ruth asked, walking over. She looked between the three of them, then smiled at Josh. “Did you get your advancement?”

“Yeah.” A thought occurred to him. “Did you?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Nope! Still just an Enchanter! No stat advancements are available to me yet, and I checked what bloodstone advancements I'd get a while ago. I figured it was best to stay the same for now.”

Josh nodded. “Not a bad idea.” Then he grinned. “Me, I'm changing up a bit.” He clicked the option for Stonecrafter.

CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a level 24 Stonecrafter! You have 2 free attribute points and 2 class attribute points to allocate. Your class attributes are Perception and Sensitivity.

NEW SKILL LEARNED: Craft Stone. Make items from stones, dirt, and clay.

NEW SPELL LEARNED: Runestones. Craft a single primary rune into a stone, creating a simple talisman. This talisman provides a weak passive benefit, or can be destroyed for a stronger short-term benefit. Duration of benefit is influenced by Power, speed of crafting runestones is influenced by Flexibility, number of total runestones is influenced by Capacity, and cost of runestones is influenced by Sensitivity.

Josh froze. He could... use runes? Like an Enchanter? Reading the description over a couple more times, he calmed down a bit. He'd have to test it to figure out the limits, but this was clearly nothing like Ruth's ability to craft rune-chains.

He smiled to himself. He felt silly for jumping to such a conclusion so quickly. There was no way that the Stonecrafter would have all the benefits of the Enchanter class on top of its own. If it was a higher-tier class, that could happen, but they were both Basic-tier.

“Hey, Ruth,” he called. She was getting ready to retreat, even as Mary and Darius continued bickering over the loot—or lack thereof. “What runes do you have so far?”

She frowned and took out her notepad. “Well, that's the thing. I'm not sure I actually understood how runes and rune-chains worked all along? The runes on the walls here are written very differently than the magic items I studied. They use far more connector runes.” She shook her head. “It's almost like a full language, but if so I only understand a dozen words.” She brightened. “I'll know more once I master all the runes I've copied down, because I'll get the blueprints and the descriptions for them!”

Josh nodded. “How many primary runes you got?”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh. Uh.” Her eyes went distant as she called up her screens. “Geo, Anemo—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “Plain English, if you don't mind.”

She giggled and smiled. “Right, sorry. Uh, Earth, Wind, and Fire are my Basic-tier elemental runes. Light is an Improved-tier rune. I also have Gravity, but that's an Exemplary-tier rune, so it's more expensive. My body runes are Strength, Perception, Capacity, and Flexibility.”

Josh blinked in surprise. “Wot? Those sound like stat scores.”

She nodded happily. “Yeah, I think that's right! I wasn't sure at first, because I was able to add them to items and they did things on their own. Without enhancing the person wearing it, I mean.” She cocked her head to the side. “Maybe it's the other way around? Maybe our scores are named after these runes?”

Josh wasn't so sure of that, but he supposed it didn't really matter. “Do you mind showing me how to make them?”

Ruth stopped dead, blinking at him. “Uh, what? You want to try to carve runes? Why?”

He grinned.