Chapter 2

Norman watched his son collapse and cursed himself for not standing closer to catch the boy’s fall. He remembered his own class upgrade and how weak the assigned skills had made him feel; he should have anticipated that Tom would faint. It was far from unheard of. Although not so common in these parts, where most class upgrades were from Commoner to Farmer or Villager.

It also confirmed what he’d suspected from the moment his son had called out this morning. Tom was not destined to be a Weaver. Nor a Trader, nor even a Merchant. Whatever class Tom had unlocked, it was something more potent if it was enough to cause the boy to loose consciousness on his upgrade.

Turning his son onto his back, Norman patted the boy’s cheeks to see if the stimulus would wake him. Tom groaned, and a moment later opened his eyes.

“I’m level twenty-five,” he said. Then he frowned. “No, wait, that’s not right…”

“Let’s get you home and in bed, Tom,” Norman said, and he lifted the fourteen year old to his feet, supporting him as they walked back the way they had come. “What class did you unlock.”

“Controller,” the boy said groggily. “Display status.”

Name

Tom Weaver

Health

100/100

Age

14

Mana

189/189

Race

Human

Stamina

100/100

Class

Controller

Strength

10

Level

1

Dexterity

10

Constitution

10

Endurance

10

Norman frowned as the system displayed his son’s status publicly. Three things caught his attention. The first was that he had never heard of the Controller class before. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, as while there were common classes, there were also rare, ultra-rare, legendary and unique classes out there.

The slightly more expected thing he noticed was that most of his son’s defined attributes were listed as ten. The system defined them as four when a child was presented to the stone, usually on their fourth birthday, to gain their system in the first place, and they increased slowly as the child grew. They were redefined as ten upon reaching adulthood, whenever the system determined that would be. The numbers assigned by the system were useful for examining a person’s growth, but less useful for making comparisons from person to person.

Similarly, Health and Stamina were defined simply as Constitution times ten, and Endurance times ten, respectfully. So the math all checked out. Tom was an adult now.

The thing that didn’t make sense, and Norman couldn’t wrap his head around, was that Tom had Mana. And a lot of mana , since unlike Health and Stamina, a unit of mana was standardized.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Technically everyone had some mana in their bodies, but it would take a mage’s specialized equipment to detect it. Norman remembered hearing that the average person had approximately two to five mana; far too little to do anything with. Compared to that, one eighty-nine was a ridiculous sum.

“Norman,” Sue said nervously.

“Tom, hide your status before someone sees,” Norman whispered urgently.

“But,” the confused boy said.

“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” Norman promised.

But they didn’t. When Tom walked through the door to his house, he simply lurched into his father’s reading chair and passed out again. His parents, seeing the boy’s exhaustion, decided to leave him as he was, and instead went into the kitchen to try to plan his future, given this unexpected development.

Reluctantly, they decided that they didn’t have enough information, and Norman went to find Lukan, one of the village elders, and also the schoolmaster. If anyone would have heard of the Controller class, perhaps it would be him.

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“I’ve looked through every tome in my possession that discusses classes in any level of detail, and I can’t find a single mention of it,” Lukan said as Tom opened his eyes. He was in the sitting room in his home, where he had collapsed after his father had helped him walk home. His parents were talking to one of the village elders in the kitchen. Judging by the orange glow coming in through the windows, it was evening. He had slept almost the entire day away.

“No hint at all?” Sue demanded.

“Nothing. I’ve penned a request for the library in Tuksan for them to review their records of rare classes and send me whatever information they have on the matter, but it might be some days before the message comes through,” Lukan answered. “Did the boy say anything about his abilities before he collapsed?”

“He said something about being level twenty-five,” Norman answered, “Although he is clearly level one, just as he should be for having just gotten a new class.”

“Curious,” Lukan said. “But I wouldn’t read too much into it. I’m going to return home. I’ll let you know as soon as I receive any information from my correspondence.”

Tom closed his eyes again as the elder left, not particularly wanting to gain the attention of the schoolmaster, even if he hadn’t done anything wrong. Technically, as an adult, the elder no longer had the authority to punish Tom anymore regardless, but as an elder Lukan could still make life difficult if Tom gained his ire.

His sleeping act didn’t work on his mother, however. When she entered the room, she immediately noticed that he was awake.

“So, Controller,” she said. She sounded … not terribly disappointed, but maybe a little bit. “Does the system give you any sort of idea what kind of class that is? Are you some sort of Mage, my son?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered honestly. “The Core Stone said it was assigning me eight abilities, but I passed out before I could really see what they were. Let me check … wait, my system is different now.”

Fumbling around with his mind, he tried to toggle his interface back to how it had been before, but it was stubborn and not nearly as flexible as it had been when he had been a Child. Growing frustrated, he eventually came to the realization that it would be easier to adjust to the new layout than to customize everything back the way that it had been. Which was ironic, since once he found his skills page, one of his skills was literally “Customize.”

“So I still have Analyze,” Tom began, listing the one skill that he’d gotten as a child. He’d learned it helping his parents in their business. “I’m no longer a Student, nor does it list me as an apprentice Weaver or Trader. But my skills are Claim, Level, Expand, Reduce, Evolve, Summon, Spawn, Customize.”

“Do they come with descriptions?” his father asked.

Tom frowned, playing around with the options in his head. “If they do, I can’t figure out how to access them,” he said after a few moments. “My new interface is all clunky. It’s very frustrating. It was so much easier to get it to do what I wanted when I was a Child.”

“Well, keep playing with it,” his father encouraged. “Although I suppose until we know what your class does and you figure out how to use your Skills, we might as well just continue like normal.”

“I’m sorry,” Tom said. “I know that you were both hoping I’d get one of your classes and carry on the family--”

“There’s absolutely nothing to be sorry for,” Norman interrupted him. “We might have all been expecting that to be the path your life followed, but the system seems to have other ideas for you. Your mother and I support you, Tom, no matter what.”

“That’s right, Tom,” Sue agreed, stepping next to her husband and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “We’re in this together. And it’s like you said this morning, it’s not like there are any bad classes. We just need to figure out what Controller does, and then get you lined up with the right sort of apprenticeship. Our plans might have changed, but we still love you the same.”

“Thanks,” Tom said. Then he shook his head. “I’m going to take a walk, see if I can clear my head. It’s still a bit foggy from the class upgrade.”

“Do you want your mother or I to come with you?” Norman asked.

“No. I’m going to try to see if I can’t stumble on how to use my abilities while I’m at it, so it might be best if I’m by myself,” Tom explained.

“You should eat first,” his mother said.

“I’ll swing by the orchard,” he promised. “I’m in the mood for some fresh Worthmus fruit.”

With no reason to stop him, his parents blessed his departure with their consent, although his mother insisted that he put on a jacket, since the sun was nearly set and the evening chill would be coming soon.

Tom left them behind, jogging briefly to work off some of the energy he was feeling. While he had spent most of the day unconscious, it wasn’t due to exhaustion. Rather, he felt a strange sort of energy throughout his body. He knew that his strength going from seven to ten didn’t actually mean he’d gotten any stronger, but he felt that he had. At the same time, his displayed dexterity had decreased, but if anything his fingers felt nimbler. As a test, he pulled a coin out of his pocket and tried doing a few of the dexterity exercises his father had taught him.

Yes, he was faster and more skilled, the coin flashing through the exercises with a speed and certainty that he hadn’t managed before. He began looking around for some way of judging his strength, but he couldn’t find anything that would really give him a good measurement.

As he promised his parents, he made his way towards the village orchard. Worthmus trees were strange, in that nobody new how they reproduced. They fruited, but their fruits, while delicious, were seedless purple things the size of a fist. There were eighty trees in the village orchard, and a few more orchards like it scattered throughout Tilluth Valley. According to village tradition, the orchards preceded the settlements of the valley. Considering that Worthmus liquor and preserves were one of the valley’s chief exports, they’d plant more if anyone knew how.

Another characteristic of the Worthmus tree that was particularly useful; it was always in season, to some degree. The fruit appeared as small white berries, then grew to their full size over the course of a few weeks, eventually pulling their branches down slightly as they turned purple when ripe. Even in winter, the tree continued to fruit, although it was an early autumn at present.

Walking beneath a low-hanging branch, Tom plucked one such fruit from just above his head and was about to bite into it when his system chimed at him.

Spawn Worthmus Tree?

Tom stared at the fruit in his hand, because he actually understood what was happening. The fruit was interacting with one of his skills; Spawn. And because of that interaction, he could feel the shape of the skill. He knew how to use it. He pushed at the skill and felt it resonating with the fruit. He knew, instinctively, that he had to push a little harder, a little harder --

The fruit turned insubstantial in his hand, becoming a bright purple ball of light. It flashed away from his control and buried itself into the ground three feet away from him. He stared as, from the spot where the fruit had vanished, a sapling emerged, growing at a visible rate until it stalled out at the height of his thighs. Its velvety leaves stretched out, clearly defining the species of the sapling as being the same as the adult trees surrounding it.

Tom laughed. He considered planting more, of doubling the size of the orchard in one night and catching everyone by surprise, but he held himself back for two reasons. The first was that he knew the village elders wouldn’t approve of him doing something impulsive like that. Oh they’d be grateful that he could expand the orchard, but they would like some say in where the new trees were planted and some other such nonsense like that.

Mostly, however, he held back because spawning that sapling had cost him twenty mana. It wasn’t something he could do infinitely. He wondered how fast his mana regenerated. With full mana he could plant nine trees at once, but how long did it take for him to go from empty to full? An hour? A day? A week? He supposed he’d just have to wait and find out.

He felt along the edge of the Spawn skill, and he was surprised to find that he could do more with it. Pressing more mana through it, he pushed and pushed. It took significantly more effort than it had with the fruit, but eventually another purple flash of light shot out of his hand and into the ground, and from the spot it landed grew yet another Worthmus sapling.

He laughed again. He didn’t even need the fruit! Although, he reflected, it was much easier to spawn the trees with the fruit than without. That had cost him eighty mana just now! Four times as much!

Well, he needed to test to see how fast his mana regenerated anyway. Reaching overhead, he plucked another fruit from the adult tree above him and bit into it, the sweet taste filling his mouth.

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