The list of possible classes, even basic classes I was qualified for, was stupidly long. People had discovered long ago that while the system was technically sentient and capable of responding intelligently to even poorly worded commands, it certainly was not sapient, creative, or possessing any sort of real personality outside of its overriding directives.

“Screen class list. Eliminate basic classes, any class requiring less than two affinities, and specialized classes for the Unified Planetary fleet.”

That shortened the list a lot, but Kushiel was right… Deep in the lists was the ‘crusader’ class, which required spiritual and physical affinities and a stated moral goal. I decided to experiment slightly, and narrow the search, especially since there were even several rare classes which was surprising. Some of them, however, had names that implied certain connotations I was unwilling to embrace.

“Add Parameters. Eliminate common classes, any class requiring less than three appropriate affinities, and classes marked as criminal by the United Planetary Fleet.” I had forgotten about that. The UPF and I didn’t see morally eye to eye, but some classes, like hypertech smuggler and psychic slaver, were outlawed for extremely good reasons. I was already a hair’s breadth from getting locked in a hole for forces affinity and grabbing something like Hyperwarp Pirate would probably put me farther over the line than even Taera could tolerate.

That still left a huge number. Some of which I had never heard of or had no idea I was qualified for. I was very excited, rare classes available at copper rank were… unprecedented, and potentially could lead to very rare, or even epic classes someday, so I poked at the three rare classes remaining to see what they were and what they offered.

Terraformer-

Trait Requirements: Cross-discipline sorcery. Biomedical or genegineering. Triage or deep medical scan. Convert Energy. Remote forces or astral sorcery.

Affinity Requirements: Spiritual or life affinity, Physical affinity, Earth or technological affinity, Forces or Channeling affinity.

(Hidden Requirements)

Using your own energies and starting with simple life forms (Plankton, microorganisms) you are able to jump-start the terraforming process within a suitable temperature range. You can help build a number of environments with appropriate microorganisms to support more advanced life such as plants and eventually animals within a fraction of the time standard technology or magic would require, taking weeks or months instead of millennia.

Offers the following traits as you advance:

Energy expansion

Life support

Rapid growth

Guided evolution

Matter conversion

2 affinity ranks per level

There it was, the golden ticket. Rapid growth was a simple farmer trait, and life support was normal for many uncommon medical paths. Guided evolution, though? Absolutely a rare trait and one of those game-changers that could bring in countless wealth. If I worked for the Unified Planets and gained enough energy, I could charge ridiculous amounts to terraform planets in the Goldilocks zone, allowing them to immediately begin importing plants and animals rather than waiting forever for basic habitability.

They would probably even forgive my force affinity. I would be far too valuable not to. Even simple matter conversion would be a game-changer if I decided not to become some wealthy supermage… converting silicon and carbon into hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen was obviously the terraformer end game, and it was clear things like my swarm and drone controls could help create a living world.

It would probably take a minimum of a golden core to have the energy that true terraforming would require, but even for my true goals, matter conversion and life support could make a huge difference. Energy expansion, in addition, would dramatically increase my potential energy reserves and would be hugely valuable even if I never used any of the other traits. But was it what I really wanted? I checked the next rare.

Riftwalker-

Trait Requirements: Endurance, Quad Flux, Multidimensional Trig, Biomedical or shapeshifting, convert energy, enchanting.

Affinity Requirements: Physical, spiritual, or sorcery, technology or channeling, forces.

Riftwalkers are able to affect the basic structure of rifts, altering their location within the system’s power rank, basic theme, size, and even potentially the forms chaos beasts are forced to inhabit or the types of resources offered. You can interface directly with the system in the form of a subsapient rift core. In addition, expended cores may be used to create more advanced structures such as subspace gateways, guided dimensional pockets, and subspace habitations.

Offers the following traits as you advance:

Core Access

Basic formation

Rift relocation

Rift link

Oppressive Aura

2 affinity ranks per level

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Still a golden ticket. Core access was unique, but rift link and relocation were already powerful abilities in an archmage’s toolbox. I had no idea what Oppressive Aura was, but I bet it was some way to keep from getting attacked by chaos spawn in a particular rift while you modified it.

The class was powerful and potentially highly destructive, but its potential felt more like a nuclear hand grenade. Core Access was extremely appealing, especially as we hit more rifts, but it fell pretty far outside of the bounds of my own goals. It might be a decent stepping stone to very rare or epic classes, though.

Also, formation magic could be hugely useful on the path to getting or upgrading my own ship. It might be a better stepping stone than Terraformer. I also wondered what it would be like to be bonded with Kushiel, bracing custom-designed rifts together… nope, nope, head out of clouds, I looked at the next offering.

Force Sage-

Trait Requirements: Endurance, Cross-discipline Sorcery, Triage, Convert energy, Force Screen, Healing or Regeneration, Enchantment

Affinity Requirements: Physical, Technological, Spiritual, Force

Force sages are the first step on the path of force mastery. They utilize their spiritual link and force control to turn themselves and their surroundings against enemies, to protect their allies, and to create protections and manipulate force spirits themselves.

Offers the following traits as you advance:

Energy expansion

Stasis

Matter conversion

Field control

3 affinity ranks per level

I thought, maybe, this was a winner. Unlike the prior two, it only offered four traits, but each of those traits was phenomenal, assuming I survived long enough to drive my affinity ranks higher. When I hit bronze, I could come back and take Riftwalker or Terraformer, if I truly needed their specialized traits.

Energy expansion would dramatically increase the amount of energy I had to work with, stasis was possibly even better than life support for saving lives or using offensively, matter conversion had incredible potential and field control… I could barely imagine.

Call me a little bloodthirsty, but I was already imagining what I could do to a bounty hunter’s ship. Imagine stripping their nullification field, and then putting half the ship in stasis while the other half was accelerating. At best, the entire ship would enter an uncontrolled spin, possibly pasting its inhabitants if their inertial dampening failed, and at worst, half the ship would keep accelerating while the other half maintained its current speed…

Totally impossible at my current affinity ranks, of course, but just the idea of hunting the hunters in a way they couldn’t defend against was enough to make me choose the force sage, a class which, with its weirdly specific prerequisites, seemed to be custom designed for me.

Congratulations! You have chosen the rare class Force Sage. You have gained the trait energy expansions and Stasis, and as a copper stage cultivator, you have gained 3 affinity points that you can assign as you wish! At Bronze stage, please choose to advance this class or choose a new class.

I was very familiar with my own abilities, and my technology affinity was sitting solidly at rank 7, which was pretty good for a copper cultivator. My other affinities were lagging behind, however, so I knew I needed to find some way to practice and improve them rather than simply relying on class bonuses. From tin to copper, with regular practice, they should have been sitting at solid fives rather than the pathetic fours that they were currently at with my focus on technology.

I decided to place a point into forces, I wasn’t going to be scared of my own affinity anymore, and one each in physical and spiritual. Technology was my primary job and would go up on its own with training, so I decided to shore up my weaknesses rather than strictly empower my strengths.

After a moment, I called up my node attributes, a listing that was provided by the system itself rather than the simple format of the identification bands.

Class: Force Sage (2)

Profession: Enlisted

Energy: 38 (190*)

Advancement: 80%

Bond: None

Copper Tier

Physical: 6(+2)

Heavyworlder

Durable Frame

Endurance

Technology: 7(+2)

Quad flux

Cross-discipline Sorcery

Multidimensional Trig

Drone Topography

Quantum Milling

Micro-active Swarm

Spiritual: 5(+1)

Biomedical

Healing

Triage

Forces: 5(+1)

Remote Forces

Force Screen

Convert Energy

Enchantment

Energy Expansion*

The little brackets were a trick my father had shown me, that let me know what had happened to my ranks since the last time I had checked my actual status at a node. A lot of people checked their status regularly at a node since it helped them see their own improvements and added to their focus, especially if they had their node notify their band every time they made an improvement.

But refusing to look at your status and improving had a hidden bonus for your willpower attribute. My physical attribute improvements, like build, reflexes, and fitness, were clearly the result of my body’s rapid maturation, and the mental acuity advancement was likely because of both my work and the challenging school, but that willpower enhancement? It was likely the end result of both resisting the wresting of aura control during my training, as well as the secret bonus for refusing to look at my attribute sheet for self-confidence until I had to. But, I sort of had to now.

Build: 8(+3)

Fitness: 15(+5)

Reflexes: 20(+5

Willpower: 20(+8)

Acuity: 18(+3)

My new energy, though, was absolutely staggering. I knew traits had a multiplicative effect on whatever they modified, based on the rank of the affinity they attached to, but a hundred and ninety points was sort of insane.

Force screen would create a rank three… well, rank five defensive shield around a huge area for one minute per energy point spent times my forces rank. At rank 5 it could even deflect smaller shipborne weaponry like chain railguns or debris defenses, but up until now, it had been far too expensive as a defense against small arms fire to be useful compared to activating a defense drone.

But now? I could put the damned thing up and dump my whole energy pool, and it would last for almost 16 hours… if I was meditating, I could easily regain more points than that to feed the shield even in low-essence areas like deep space. I could easily dump enough points to keep a shield around myself while I was asleep, something that made me considerably more comfortable.

I quickly doctored my band to say “Support Pilot”, a very safe uncommon class choice which I already had all of the traits to match. Despite Taera’s assurances, I didn’t want to take the chance of being met by fleet black ops determined to take me out of the picture before I did something insane with forces, like create a new technomancer.

What was super confusing, though, was the wording of the class description. A rare class that was the ‘first step’? You usually found that sort of description on common classes such as atmospheric pilot, or base classes with clearly-defined evolutions, such as cook to chef or brawler to pugilist to martial artist. Finding a ‘start path’ on a rare class… what could their clearly defined evolution become? What new traits would I have to learn or ranks would I have to attain to gain the next step on the path?

I sat up and started working on my drone controls again, checking the battlefield quickly to determine the ongoing situation and repowering some of the defense systems. I was far from the sort of multitasking in real life that I could do in a simulation, where short ‘command pauses’ while distributing orders, and automation of certain tasks like building drone controllers which took all my attention in real life could be handled by the software. That’s why I brought a lot of spares.

For me, even rebuilding an advanced drone body from scrap was a piece of cake compared to running my swarm to create a new drone controller. Not to mention, my tech affinity was far higher than my spiritual affinity, drones were flat-out easier than building and installing a golem core.