Chapter 3
“Well, that’s one of eight skills sort of figured out,” Tom muttered to himself as he chewed on the rind of the worthmus fruit he was eating. Now that he’d actually used the skill, he’d followed the activation back to the skill’s menu, and it had “Worthmus Tree” highlighted in bright blue. Unfortunately he didn’t know much more about his Spawn ability, other than what he had just accomplished. He would continue experimenting, but he was down to eighty-nine mana. Enough to spawn four more trees if he used fruit, or one more if he simply forced it, but he chose to wait.
A chirruping sound came from nearby, and when Tom looked up, he saw a Tree-cat. They weren’t exactly cats, more like giant flying squirrels with eyes the size of saucers. This one had swirls of black and gray covering its body. Like the tree the creature was currently climbing, the Tree-cats were unique to Tilluth Valley. They were mostly tame, so when Tom held out his half-eaten fruit to the creature, he wasn’t surprised when it began licking the juice off the rind.
Then the creature’s tongue touched Tom’s skin, and a jolt went through him.
Claim (Unnamed) Worsican?
A second one of his abilities had activated, and Tom immediately pushed mana into it. It didn’t take much, a mere ten mana total, but once the skill activated both he and the creature suffered a jolt, like the time Sevin had played a ‘prank’ by dumping a bucket of near-freezing water over Tom’s head two winters past. He dropped the fruit offering in his surprise, and the Tree-cat – was it’s official name a Worsican? He thought that sounded familiar – dropped to the ground to pick it up. It didn’t dart away, instead patiently eating the fruit cradled between its two clever paws.
More importantly, however, Tom had a new icon flashing at him in his interface. He mentally toggled it, and he was surprised to find that the system now considered the Tree-cat he had whimsically Claimed to be his familiar. More, he could feel a bond between himself and the creature. It was a weak thing yet, but it was comforting and, well, familiar.
“Your name is Klein,” he told the creature decisively, and the system updated with his words to show the creature’s status.
Familiar
Klein (Worsican Tree-Cat)
Health
40/40
Stamina
40/40
Strength
4
Dexterity
4
Constitution
4
Endurance
4
Plucking another fruit from the tree above, Tom debated what to do. He had Claimed the creature on a whim, but now that he had he found that he wanted to keep it. As the two ate Worthmus fruit together, he decided that there was nothing else to do but simply go home and tell his parents about the two abilities he had sort of managed to figure out so far. He finished the fruit first, as did his new familiar.
“Come on, Klein, Let’s go home,” Tom said, and the Tree-cat leapt onto his shoulder, wrapping its bushy tail around his neck. The thing was awfully friendly. Was that the magic, or just the way that it had always been?
Regardless, it allowed him to scratch behind its ears as he walked home. That strange energy he had felt earlier had abated some, and he realized that what he had been feeling was his mana. He was currently at 80/189 mana, having spent one hundred ten points exploring his new abilities and having apparently regenerated a single point of mana just a few seconds before he looked.
“I wonder if there’s anything I can do to get more Mana,” he said to Klein. “One point every five minutes or so seems awfully slow. Although I guess that means I can plant a tree every hour and forty minutes, so maybe that’s not so bad. Assuming that I use a fruit as a base that is.”
The Tree-cat just chirruped in his ear happily.
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“So what did you get?” Sevin asked for the seventh time. It was late morning, and his neighbor had begun pestering him the moment he’d left his house that morning. The news that Tom had unlocked his class had spread through the village, but the unique nature of that class was yet to be disclosed to any but Elder Lukan.
Sevin was a older than Tom, having turned sixteen and unlocked the Commoner class early, to the surprise of most of the village. He was a flaxen-haired youth, but more rugged than dandy. He worked hard in the fields and in the militia, which showed in his muscle tone. But he had a mischevious streak a mile wide.
“What do you think I unlocked?” Tom challenged, scratching Klein’s head. The creature was riding his shoulders once again.
“Some sort of beast-master? Is that why that thing is following you around?” Sevin asked.
Tom stopped to consider. “Actually, you might be right. The truth is that I have no idea what sort of class it is. I’ve got eight abilities, and I’ve only sort of stumbled into how to activate three. One of them might be a taming sort of ability. Since I used it on Klein here, he hasn’t left me alone. I sort of figured out how to start using another ability on him, but I don’t have enough mana to finish using it. I’m not sure what it does.”
The ability in question was Evolve, and he had tried casting it on Klein the night before, only to run completely dry on mana. Running out of mana, it turns out, was a lot like running out of breath, energy, and mental strength all at once, and Tom was determined to try to avoid it in the future.
“You have mana?” Sevin asked, uncertain that he’d heard his friend right.
“Didn’t I mention that?” Tom asked, grinning because he knew that he hadn’t.
“Oh man, I am so jealous. I know I’m not smart enough to be a mage, but I wish I’d unlocked something, anything, other than Commoner,” Sevin commented.
“Yeah, I know. That’s why you joined the militia,” Tom pointed out. “If you get enough experience with that subclass, maybe you’ll be able to unlock Soldier.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sevin said, frowning. “It’s so disgusting though. We’re supposed to clear out the Burrower’s nest twice a month, but every time I’ve gone they haven’t let me actually do anything. The older guys do all of the work; they make me stay by the exit in case anything makes it by them and try to escape. You’d think that clearing a dungeon would be more exciting, but they’ve done it so many times that it’s just like any other chore.”
“It’s an important chore though,” Tom reminded him. “If the burrowers reach maturity and get out into the fields, they can ruin entire crops. And if they get big enough, they come after the village children.”
“I know. I remember the one that got loose when we were little. It went after Ada, remember?”
“Yeah. Lucky she ran to her father and he put it down before it could hurt anyone else. I don’t envy her that memory.”
The boys were walking out on an errand for Tom’s parents; some of the farms nearby had already sold its crop of flax to their business that spring and Tom was to make the rounds, checking on the expected yield and quality of the crops.
Stolen story; please report.
“So you have one ability to tame creatures, and one ability that you’re not sure what it does yet,” Sevin said. “But you said that you figured out three of them.”
“Oh right. So get this; I can Spawn Worthmus trees,” Tom said.
“No way,” Sevin challenged. “Nobody knows how to plant them.”
“I didn’t say that I plant them. I Spawn them. It’s one of my abilities. Here, watch,” Tom said, and he held out his hand and tried to activate his ability as he had the night before. He wasn’t carrying any Worthmus fruit, instead planning to spend the eighty mana it took to spawn a sapling without one. However, his skill refused to activate. He frowned and pulled up the Spawn menu, and was surprised to find that rather than being highlighted in blue, the Worthmus tree was grayed out.
“I guess I’ll show you later, I think I either need to have a fruit, or be in one of the orchards to do it,” Tom said after contemplating the problem for a few seconds.
“Or your just full of bull dung,” Sevin challenged.
“I’ll prove it to you later. I should have realized that I couldn’t just do it anywhere, there has to be some limitations on an ability like that. I’ve got to check to see what else I can spawn, but fortunately the skill seems to give me some feedback when I touch something that it can work with,” Tom said.
“Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you,” Sevin teased.
“Whatever. I told my parents about it last night and they’re going to talk with the elders about it today. Before long they’re probably going to be asking me to Spawn entire new orchards for them,” Tom said. “Although it seems that I can only do nine trees at once. And I think I’d rather not do even that many, running out of mana is really unpleasant.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sevin said, frowning. “You’ve got a really weird class, you know that?”
“Yeah. Elder Lukan couldn’t find any mention of it in his books,” Tom agreed. “Aside from what I’ve been able to figure out myself, I have no idea what it’s supposed to do.”
“It’s pretty cool that it let you tame this little guy, at least,” Sevin said, reaching out to pet Klein. The Tree-cat barked at him, and he flinched. Tom laughed and pushed the older boy’s hand away. When they made skin contact, however, he felt a skill light up. The same one that he had failed to activate on Klein the night before.
“Um, Sevin?” Tom said nervously. “I can Evolve you.”
Sevin looked at him blankly. “You what?”
“When I touched your hand just now, I felt one of my skills activate. Or tell me that it could potentially activate, at least,” Tom explained.
“What does it do?” Sevin asked, growing interested.
“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “I tried to Evolve Klein last night, but I ran out of mana. I was already low from Spawning trees, however, so I don’t know if I could have managed it if I’d been full.”
“Evolving doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” Sevin said, chewing his lips. “It’s not an attack spell, is it?”
“No, I’m pretty certain that it’s not,” Tom said. “I mean, it doesn’t have an instruction manual with it, but I’m pretty sure whatever Controller is supposed to do, it’s not a combat class. I don’t think I have any attacks. But I think we should test it on Klein before we--”
“Let’s do it,” Sevin said, grabbing Tom’s hand. “Evolve me.”
Tom looked at his friend blankly. “We have no idea what it will do to you,” he protested.
“They say that you have an instinctive understanding of your skills. You said that it’s not an attack, and ‘Evolve’ means ‘make it better,’ right? So Evolve me. Let’s see what it does.”
The two bickered for several minutes, but Sevin knew exactly how to talk Tom into doing something stupid, and eventually the younger boy relented. Taking his friends hand, he began channeling mana through the newly unlocked skill. The night before he had channeled nearly one hundred mana into the skill targeting Klein, only for the skill to fall apart unsuccessfully, and Tom was expecting the same thing to happen this time. He pushed and pushed more mana into the skill, and he was surprised when it suddenly took shape and flooded out of him and into Sevin all at once.
His friend cried out in surprise and broke their contact, falling on his butt.
“I’m sorry, are you okay?” Tom asked, but Sevin wasn’t looking at him.
“No way!” Sevin said. “You unlocked a new class for me!”
With their original chore completely forgotten, the two raced back to the village square to find out what Sevin’s new class would be. Tom had watched several people claim new classes from the stone, including Sevin when he had upgraded from Child to Commoner. It was normally a very dull affair; one simply walked up to the stone, touched it, and after a minute or so they would relax and walk away. Or proudly announce to the gathered audience what their new class was, although considering the rarity of anything other than Commoner or Villager in Tilluth Valley, an announcement was generally not necessary.
Which was why the stone suddenly shining brightly and engulfing Sevin in a blue light was so unexpected. It was bright enough that Tom had to shield his eyes. The other villagers who had been minding their own business cried out in surprise and began to gather around the Core Stone to witness the unexpected happening.
Moments passed, and eventually the light faded, revealing that Sevin had been changed. He appeared even more rugged than before. His muscles, already fairly impressive, were bulging underneath his clothing. His jaw was more angular, and the peach fuzz that the teen had been trying to coax into a beard for some time now was a bit coarser. Overall, he looked like he had aged five years in a moment, in the best possible way.
“Display status!” he shouted, and the system obliged, a screen hovering in front of him for everyone to see.
Name
Sevin Wells
Health
210/210
Age
16
Stamina
180/180
Race
Human
Strength
19
Class
Warrior
Dexterity
12
Level
1
Constitution
21
Subclass
Pikeman
Endurance
18