Chapter 23
The Class Perk
Only once everything was over and we were back in the confines of Master Groa’s office did she even turn to comment towards me.
“So how do you think you did?” She asks.
At that, I feel like I had done something very dumb. “For the task, I think I did well, though I might have risked too much for the reward.”
At that Master Groa nodded in agreement. “Do you remember why you went out in the first place?”
“To spy on your rival, and find out what spell he was working on.”
At that Master Groa just shook her head. “That was only part of it. Tell me, what was your over arching goal?”
At that my head sags as I realize a bit belatedly that the assignment, I had been given was only minor in comparison to the true purpose I was out there. “My true goal was to help foster a class perk that would help me hide in plain sight.”
At that Master Groa nodded in agreement, “so how do you think you did in that respect?”
“Poorly.”
Again, Master Groa nodded, “yes, you won the battle in spectacular format mind you. Don’t get me wrong, I am personally happy with the outcome, but you did reveal yourself not only as a powerful Spirit mage, but also as a Shade Touched dark elf, which of course places you at the position of royalty. Or at the very least capable of someone who is in position to challenge any of the current or future dark elf queens for their kingdom. That makes you a target. So yes, bask in your minor victory. Congratulations, you did as I requested. You managed to not only find the spell that my rival was working on, but managed to take him down a peg in the social hierarchy. This of course means little to you, if you are not able to appreciate the benefits of this, as you will likely have to be on the run. But you can rest easier knowing that once you are gone, I will have an easier time for a while, until my next rival comes along.”
I wanted to protest, to ask her what her deal was, but she was right. I had been around long enough to realize that I got caught up in the moment. I let my own emotions get the better of me, and rather than planning for the next step, I chose to take as much advantage of that situation as I could.
“Do you think I went too far with the professor?”
“What?” Master Groa said, then waved a dismissive hand. “No, he will be punished, but not for the reason you think. Everyone expects people to cheat here. He just made the cardinal sin of getting caught, worse he got caught by a neophyte. He will lose some social standings, enough to make it so I won’t have to worry about him as a rival again for a while, but nothing permanent will happen to him, if that is what you are concerned about.”
She then paused and said, “actually, you do have to worry about him. While he might not be as jaded as the rest of us here, he will likely remember this and use it as a reason to get back at you. That is another thing you did. Not only did you do a big reveal about yourself, though I guess you being Shade Touched was going to get out eventually, if it wasn’t already thanks to your first day strut. You also made a rival that you will now have to deal with. So congratulations, you both passed your first assignment at Arcanarus University, while making your chances of graduating infinitely tougher.”
At her words, I was rewarded with a quest prompt.
Quest Complete: Spy on a Rival: You were asked to spy on your Master’s Rival and identify what spell they were working on. You found out the spell, the conversion method, and the spells limitations. Reward: Experience Gained, School Notoriety, Personal Rival (Flaw), One Merit: (Still locked).
Experience Gained: 500.
Ding.
Level up.
You have increased to Level 6.
Well at least I now had the benefit of being an even level, which meant I got the full extent of all my free attributes. I ended up getting: +1 Dexterity, +1 Appearance, +1 Intelligence, +2 Free Points, and +3 Willpower. This meant I had 12 Free Points available to spend. It also meant that if I wanted to use them I should start doing so now. The reason being is that I could only use two Free Points a day to increase any one attribute. This was done to prevent people from hording hundreds of free Points and using them all just before entering combat and dramatically changing the course of a battle. This was also done to allow more realism into the game. While boosts of Attributes could be augmented by focusing on skills that enhance said Attribute, there would still be a slow methodical limit to how much one attribute could increase per day. Still, I had no clue on what I should spend my Free Points on. I mean before I would have easily said Willpower as it was one of the hardest to improve, though my Class and Race both give me a constant bonus to that attribute as I am now sitting at 12 points from Class and Levels alone. While this bonus only puts my Willpower at 85, my lowest Mental Attribute, it is no longer as far behind the other Attributes to be of any real concern. Also, my Intelligence is also important, especially as it has only improved by 3 points, but that is now at 90. Well 91 after the inclusion of my soul bound equipment. All this is to say that I am still new to this class and I don’t know anything about what I will need to do in the future. It’s odd, for so long I looked forward to this day, and now that it is here, I don’t know what to do.
“I’d suggest you meditate on how you want your Perk to evolve. I’d say do it here, but frankly I don’t want you causing any trouble.” Master Groa said.
“Trouble?”
“Yes, the various information networks are likely already looking for you as we speak. The most obvious place to find you would be here. Which is why you need to find somewhere else to go.”
I wanted to protest, but she was right. I had messed up. Worse, I had done so in a spectacular fashion.
I nod and am about to turn around, when she stops me.
“While you were gone, I went through the liberty of enrolling you in different classes. In addition to my magical theory class. You will take the introductory to Spirit and Dark magic classes.”
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“Dark magic?”
“Yes, I know you only have a subset of the school, but you must understand the basics. Also, who knows, you might unlock more subclasses of Dark Magic.”
“Has that happened?”
“A few times, though generally there is a lot of work and effort that has to go into such a development. Though your Tier rating in Shadow is promising, generally that means that you should be able to at least unlock the minor aspects of the school as a whole. I will leave it to the instructor to tell you the truth for that particular school of magic, but the general rule of thumb is you can learn spells up to three tiers lower for magic pertaining to the overall school of magic, as you can for the sub-class.”
Hearing that, I nodded. This meant that as a Tier VII Shadow magic user, I would theoretically be able to learn up to Tier IV Dark Magic spells. Normally a three tier drop off in potential would be astronomical, but Tier IV spells were often the most desired for the battlefield. Again, there was that whole proportional damage on a battlefield. So while Tier VII spells sounded cool and were a good deterrent for forces marching towards an enemy location. Tier IV spells were the ones generally agreed upon as being accepted inside cities and residential areas that were being conquered.
Of course, the idea of teaching myself Dark Bolt, or other attack spells just so I could storm a city was repugnant. No, I was more of the type to enter a war-torn city, steal all the valuables and then let the losses get charged to the invading forces.
Still, I must think and meditate. Not only about what I want out of my time here, but out of my class as a whole.
“Thank you.” I say to my mentor, as I leave her office.
Of course, before I even left the room I did a cursory check to make sure the coast was clear. Then I instantly opened a portal to the spirit world and stepped through.
Now to describe the spirit world.
To be honest I don’t know what it looks like. I’ve heard accounts that it is a sad decaying parody of the real world. That the world is the exact same, just shown in muted tones. Honestly I don’t know about that, nor do I really care. To me the spirit realm is alive and vibrant. Every inch is covered with residual energy. Energy that my body natural converts into a form of sustenance that both fills me with energy and makes me feel alive.
I do make my own variant of spirit energy, but there is something intoxicating about the ambient energy just waiting to be absorbed in the spirit realm. I attribute this to the eating out effect. The eating out effect is simple and something mothers everywhere will likely be able to relate to. Effectively it boils down to the idea that I could spend hours prepping food, marinating it, then taking hours to dice, cut, and cook the ingredients. Or I could eat out and pay someone a fraction of the time it would cost for the ingredients and time and enjoy the food more because I was not exhausted afterwards. That is the eating out effect. Basically having someone cook a meal for you means you have not only more time, but more energy and mental capacity to enjoy the meal. That is probably the true difference between why it tastes so much better to eat the free ambient energy of the spirit realm, versus converting my own mana well into spirit energy and then consuming that energy.
My problem is that I stand out too much.
In a magical school hiding my magical signature will not be enough. I almost need to be able to pretend to be someone other than myself.
Also thinking about my reward I gained from my quest, I realize that there is still a Merit I need to unlock. Now the game is nothing if not balanced. For every flaw you gain, you can unlock a merit of equal value. Most of the time people do not take full advantage and just take on a flaw without realizing the game mechanics that are involved behind such a decision by the world. Now I have gained the Flaw Rival, I should also point out the fact that the number related to the Rival is not revealed. Likely this means that I can either work to gain a particularly large merit, such as the True Mentorship of Groa. That is a feat that I assume will be more than a one-point merit, which would then likely cause more tension with Professor Maxine artificially inflating his retaliatory efforts against me to match the bonus from having Master Groa as an Ally. That would also mean I would be forced into more pro-bono quests, as we would be friends and not mentor and apprentice. Right now I was protected by the bonds that bind us as teacher and student. Meaning that in a few days I could come back to Groa, assuming I managed to get another merit unlocked and gain teaching equal to the satisfaction she got from seeing her political rival taken down a notch.
This is all super convoluted, but effectively I have been given a wild card. I can either take the sure bet and go for Master Groa who if I do nothing will likely feel guilty and become my ally to protect me from my rival. Or I can work on trying to unlock a new merit that would be worth as much as a rivalry with Maxine. Again, this world is amazing, and something I truly treasure.
“You have locked off your mind?” Zero asks, pulling me from my personal musings.
“Yes, that was one of the first things I learned here.” I reply.
At that Zero just nods his floating head. Well, his entire body is floating in that way all eastern dragons seem to exhibit.
“That is good, it means others will not be able to spy on you as easily. Though it could still use some improvement.”
“Improvement?” I ask.
“Yes, currently you are using a skill to block off your mind. There is a way to enhance your skills with spirit mana.” Zero states.
“Can you show me?” I ask.
At that the dragon just cocks his head to the side.
“I have been showing you all this time. It is just that you are failing to realize.”
With that admonishment, I couldn’t refute his claims. If he was showing me what he was talking about, then that was something I was clearly missing.
“Fair enough.” I reply, and then try to internalize what he is talking about. I feel that Zero might be trying to offer a hidden quest related to unlocking my merit. If this is what I think it is, then this merit would be amazing. A way to infuse mana into skills, this seems like it would almost be a cheat. Or at the very least a way to bypass most normal standards. This ability added to my Unbound merit would make me a juggernaut with almost any skill imaginable. After a certain point Attributes would no longer be a limiting factor, as my skills would be more than capable of compensating for any deficiencies caused by levels.
“Will this scale with different types of skills? For instance, will infusing Mentally dominant skills be easier to infuse with mana than Socially dominant skills?” I ask, trying to puzzle out how one would infuse mana, into different skills. Again the fact that Zero was apparently doing this all the time and it never showed to my Angel’s Sight, all but screamed that this was an ability that was considered non-magical in nature.
“It will only scale if you think it needs to scale.” Zero states.
With that, I nod to myself. Got it, so effectively I have the ability to make this merit as strong as possible, my only recourse will be how powerful my rivalry with Maxine will be. If that is the only ramification, then I am all for this being as powerful as possible. While I do not doubt that Maxine’s power is great, he is just listed as a Rival for the moment. This means that he is strictly in the non-combatant section of the spectrum, which is something that I appreciate. Now killing him would lead to an enemy of equal ranking, basically the game’s way of saying I escalated this on my own, as such I will now have to deal with the consequences. Though I have no intention of making an enemy and honestly I like the idea of having a rival, it makes it so I have someone who will actively push me to get better faster, lest they undermine me at every turn.
This should be fun, I think to myself as I focus on the idea of sending mana to infuse my senses. At first I focus on the basic skills, the ones that I use almost constantly, those being Alertness, and Magical Awareness.
I get to the point where I can see flashes of light pulsing within my mental vision of the surrounding area. At that, I know that I am close to what is being expected, so I take it a step further and begin trying to incorporate more and more of my skills. I try juggling for a bit, focusing on letting the mana infuse my arms and limbs while first rotating three rocks from my pocket clockwise, then counter clockwise. Then with that done I can see the energy seeming to have an actual effect on my movements as well. From there I pull out a parchment of paper and stare at it, focusing on my reading skill to see if it has any benefit to reading.
After a few seconds, portions of the text do seem to glow before my eyes. With a start, I realize that the highlighted portion are the top 5% of the document, you know the key words that tend to get underlined while reading new books. These are the sentences that the product you are using thinks are the most significant, not necessarily the sentences that are the most significant to you, but it is a start.
From there, I then work on other physical and mental exercises. I focus on using Mana Circulation and Concealed Mana, both. If I can increase any skill with the infusion of mana I would want these types of skills to be improved.
Before I know it, I am running the full gambit of skills through this trial, trying to unlock this merit that Zero spoke about.
I am so focused on this particular course of actions that I forget about time, and instead just focus on getting as many of my skills through this process as possible. There are obviously some skills like Swimming, Free Falling, and Herbalism that I can’t do due to my surroundings. However, I can work on Acrobatics, Tumbling, and Running to name a few.
I focus on improving all of these skills and improving them with mana that before long I get a system message. Though to be honest it wasn’t quite the message I had been hoping for.
Class Perk Unlocked: Skill Infusion: All skills will be infused by the Void Walker essence, allowing the wielder to receive a 7% bonus to their skill’s base level in the mortal realm, and a 15% bonus while in the spirit realm.
At that I pause, and think to myself that this was such an amazing bonus. While I was super happy to receive the bonuses, I realize this is now the way my class will evolve in the future. The Void Walker, a skills based class? I think to myself, but then realize that is part of the benefit of being the first one to have a unique class, you literally got to direct the growth of the class.
For a moment, I wonder if I should continue pushing forward with my skill improvements, but then decide against it. Having yet another merit that improved my skills in addition to my one and only class perk would be overkill. No for a Merit I needed something different, something more. The skill bonus was perfect as a constant class related perk. But now I had think, how exactly do you unlock a Merit in the first place? Now that was a question I really wanted to have answered.