Chapter Thirty-Six

His Ortus menu opened on its own, blocking his vision before he could check out the cards.

Congratulations! You reached the center of the forgotten forest and undertook the trials of the firsts of their magic. As a result, you earned both the acceptance of the life guardians and the life source crystal. However, your journey isn’t over. To receive the power you earned, you must accept the responsibility of restoring life magic to the world and beyond. In what form you accomplish this goal is up to you, but ignoring your responsibility will have consequences.

That didn’t sound ominous. He didn’t want to find out what those consequences were. The vague responsibility made it difficult to know what his responsibilities were, but he was sure things would become clearer in the future.

Whatever they were, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice to reject. He worked too hard to reach the end of his quest to back out now. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t know there would be strings attached to taking a legacy class.

Mind made up, not that there was much to make up, Arden waved away the message and closed his Ortus menu to view the cards floating in front of him.

The first one on the left had a picture of Arden standing in a forest with vibrant plants and trees surrounding him. Even a few small creatures loitered about. It gave him the feeling of some forest caretaker.

Agriculturist of Nature (Legacy) Level 1

Type: Class card

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Nature

Description: As a holder of the Agriculturist of Nature, you embody what it means to nurture nature. To aid you on your journey, all cards capable of improving nature have greater effect. All nature attuned beings will feel a kinship with you. However, all cards with hostile effects will receive penalties.

A frown formed as he stared at the card. This card would make it easy to take care of his responsibilities, but at the cost of a pacifistic lifestyle.

Did he want to spend the rest of his life being a supercharged gardener? Sure, he loved the forest, but to give up the ability to defend himself or at least severely weaken his offensive potential to become the perfect gardener wasn’t worth it. He needed strength to stand on his own, and this wasn’t it.

Though if the kinship aspect may help with defense. If he created a domain filled with powerful nature attuned creatures, all feeling kinship to him, he doubted anything could touch him.

The problem was that meant he would sacrifice his freedom for security. He wanted to travel and being vulnerable anytime he left his domain wasn’t the answer to that.

The next picture had Arden standing in a similar forest. On one side there was violence, with vines coiled around hostile beings. While the other side had a peaceful environment with cute fluffy creatures lazing about in a field of flowers.

Equilibrium of Nature (Legacy) Level 1

Type: Class

Attunement: Nature

Description: Nature is always in a precarious balance between violence and peace. One can’t live without the other. Without the predator, the prey will strip the land clean. Both have their roles and, as such, both must remain. It falls to the holder of Equilibrium of Nature to maintain the balance. The user receives a bonus to all nature-based cards as long as they act in their role of maintaining the equilibrium. If the user knowingly breaks the balance, they will receive penalties until they correct such imbalance.

This class seemed both more constricting but freer than the Agriculturist of Nature. Sure, it didn’t penalize him for defending himself, but only if he kept the balance. Who knew how hard it would be to maintain the balance?

What if his goals conflicted with the balance? He could see the class confining him in many ways. What if someone wronged him but they were essential to maintain the balance? Would he have to stand by as they wrecked his life?

Too many unknowns to decide yet. He could see himself picking the class, but it was a risk. A risk that could be a curse.

The last card could be best described as chaos. The picture displayed him standing in the middle of said chaos. Spots of violence and peace speckled the picture in a dizzying pattern of disorder. There was no rhyme or reason to the chaos. It was just chaos. However, one thing he noticed was nature always prevailed.

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

A shiver ran through him, just taking in the picture.

Fury of Nature (Legacy) Level 1.

Type: Class

Attunement: Nature

Description: Pushed to its limits, fury brews deep in the heart of nature. For ages, outside forces eroded at nature, leaving few bastions of peace. Nature will do everything it can to protect those few bastions, even if it means fighting a war it cannot win. Aid nature in its conquest. Maybe it will be enough to tip the scales back in nature’s favor. Any card used to further the reclaiming of lands lost will receive a significant boost. However, should the bearer of the Fury of Nature harm the forces they pledged to aid, they will face the fury brewing for millennia.

Arden stood frozen, staring at the card, overwhelmed by the rage radiating off the card. It felt much more powerful than the other cards, but it also terrified him. He didn’t want to tie himself to a war, but he felt for its cause.

Another problem was he got the feeling the goals of such forces wouldn’t simply stop at reclaiming land. They wanted to conquer everything they could and if he took the class, he would need to join the crusade or suffer the consequences. The problem was the other classes also had confining conditions. There were no free options.

However, one thing he noticed was the Equilibrium of Nature didn’t focus on returning nature to the world, which may bring him problems in the future. It felt like the class wanted him to maintain the current status, not letting it get worse but not better either. It was a defensive stance, while the Fury of Nature was purely offensive.

Actually, at that angle Agriculturist of Nature was also offensive. It was all about spreading nature to the world. Still, it wouldn’t make sense for Ortus to grant him a class if it conflicted with his legacy responsibilities, so there had to be ways to progress with all three.

It all came down to becoming pacifistic, defensive, or offensive. Of the three options, he found the pacifistic stance the most confining. As much as he enjoyed watching the growth he created, he still loved the thrill of a fight. He couldn’t see himself giving that up for a boost in growth-based cards.

His attention shifted back to the Equilibrium of Nature class card. Calling it a defensive stance wasn’t quite right. If he was careful, he could maintain the balance while making progress. He just had to maintain the balance.

It was only the balance of Nature not the balance of all things. He couldn’t just go on a conquest making big leaps of progress, but he could still progress. It would be slow going, but his legacy responsibility didn’t say he had to make fast progress.

The problem was how this vague concept of balance worked. What exactly did he have to do to keep the balance? Did he have to defend nature while still maintaining growth? That may prove near impossible in some situations. What if he defended against an assault but because he didn’t maintain growth, it broke the balance and he suffered the penalties?

At the same time, the Fury of Nature scared him. The rage he felt from the card couldn’t lead to a good future. That kind of fury was all-consuming. Nothing would satisfy the fury. He would spend the rest of his life in an endless battle, while eventually he could take a step back with the other classes. Once he ensured things would remain stable, he could take a break or retire if he took Equilibrium of Nature.

The more he thought about it, the more alluring equilibrium was, but the power he felt from the Fury of Nature was hard to resist. It promised a ton of power at potentially great cost. He could shoot up in power quick, but it was an endless grind. Not that he hated the grind.

If one couldn’t push themselves and handle the grind, they wouldn’t embark on the path of being a mage. As an elf or whatever he was, he had a long life to look forward to, even if he didn’t become a mage.

In fact, one of the oldest in his village crippled himself in an attempt to reach grade one. He was approaching the three-century mark, though, unlike his parents, he was showing his age.

The more time he spent away from his parents, the more he questioned them. They had secrets. He knew that even as a child, but he didn’t think they would be so big. No normal village elf would know about this dungeon.

Once he left the dungeon, he needed to have a long talk with them. Though he wasn’t sure when he would see them again. He had a feeling they would be hard to find. For all he knew, they could be watching him right now, though he doubted it. There were powerful beings in this dungeon that would notice them.

The tree spirit seemed to know something about the snake’s situation and her parents, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it knew his as well. Maybe his parents made a similar deal as the snake’s parents. He didn’t try to leave the dungeon, not that he knew how, so maybe they locked him inside as well.

So many unknowns. He hated unknowns. At the thought of unknowns, he returned his attention to the class cards floating patiently in front of him. He needed to decide. What if the cards disappeared on him?

Even with the downsides to the classes, it would be much worse if he didn’t take one. He just needed to decide on which one.

One he could rule out was the Agriculturalist of Nature. It just didn’t fit him. He could see its power and ways he could make sure of it, but he didn’t want to hide away in some garden. A more hands on approach interested him. He wanted to have a direct effect on things, whether for good or bad. Neutering his offensive potential just wasn’t in the cards.

As if understanding his desires, the Agriculturalist of Nature faded away. That left two choices. The question was, how did he want to live his life? Did he want to be a warmonger in endless battle or the one with a hand on the needle controlling the balance? Both were powerful. However, one spoke to him a little more.

He was always a caution person wanting to decrease risks as much as he could. With the Fury of Nature, he had a feeling he wouldn’t have the chance to control all factors. It would be an endless crusade.

Even centuries in the future, he would be in battle if he survived that long. There were limits to how much he loved to fight. He enjoyed a challenge, but fighting for the sake of fighting just wasn’t him.

A sigh escaped him as he came to his decision. It almost hurt, letting the Fury of Nature disappear, but he knew it was for the best. Who knew what the future may hold but as he was now, the fury didn’t call to him.

That left Equilibrium of Nature.

With a firm hand and a calm expression, he reached out and grasped the card. He wasted no time tapping it on his right bracelet to add it to his deck.

The moment he did, a rush of power filled him, forcing a gasp from him as a new sense formed.