Chapter 4
For all that Sevin’s class change was even more dramatic than Tom’s had been – Tom had never heard of such a light show before – Sevin was far from exhausted once it had finished. The same could not be said about Tom; Evolving his friend had left him with only four mana once the skill had snapped into place. Although mana exhaustion was different from physical exhaustion or mental exhaustion, it was a very unpleasant feeling, and he wanted little more than to go home and sleep it off, even as his friend was bouncing about, showing off his new ability to Leap, Dash, and Charge.
While Sevin had possessed the Militia subclass previously, the difference between a Commoner Militiaman and a true Warrior was night and day. When Sevin used his new abilities, he didn’t just move fast. He blurred , moving too fast for the eyes of anyone to follow easily. Each skill only cost him a single point of Stamina, according to him, but despite the low cost he couldn’t continue to show off indefinitely.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Elder Lukan called once he was on the scene, having been dragged out of his study by the commotion. He glanced around at the impromptu crowd, and his eyes were piercing as he said “It’s barely nine o’clock. Surely you all have something better to do than watch a young man make a fool of himself?”
The elder’s scorn put a bit of a damper on the celebration, and one by one the onlookers pulled away to return to their daily chores. When it was just the children left, the Elder sent a few of the younger boys to fetch Harvold, the leader of the militia, and the other village elders to discuss the development.
Tom and Sevin tried to slither away, but Elder Lukan was having none of that. They were expected – required – to give a full accounting of Sevin’s Class Evolution before the full village council. Which was an hour in forming.
If there was any upside to this delay, it was that Tom’s Mana regenerated slightly, and by the time he was giving his account of the morning he no longer felt like he was about to pass out.
----------------------------------------
“Never seen anything like it,” Harvold summarized. He sat with the village elders in the common room of the inn. He hadn’t witnessed Sevin’s spectacular transformation, but he had put the teenager through his paces afterwards, and the results were intimidating. He knew that there was a world of difference between a Subclassed Militia and a true Warrior Class, but the reality was beyond his expectations. At level thirty-four, Harvold could keep up with Sevin’s new motions and reflexes, but only just. And the boy was Level One! “By the time he’s level ten, I won’t be able to keep up with him at all. By the time he’s level twenty, it would take more than just our militia to put him down. I can’t even imagine what he’ll be like at level fifty.”
“You think he’ll reach level fifty?” Elder Yulk asked. “How?”
“Same way anyone does. Delving,” Harvold said, taking a sip of the brandy that he’d brought with him. “Don’t expect a boy with a class like that will stick around here for very long. The local dungeon won’t be a challenge for him like he is now. The burrowers are barely a threat to begin with. A nuisance is more like it. That boy is made for slaying dragons, not over-sized rats.”
“And the other boy?” Yulk asked. “Can Tom Evolve anyone?”
“He says no,” Elder Lukan said, stirring his tea. “He says there is a very definite feedback on his skill when he can activate it, and it didn’t activate on any of us, nor the other children we had him experiment on. Damn fool of him to activate a skill like that on a person without knowing what it would do.”
“He says he only knows the effect of three of his of the eight abilities he gained from Controller?” Elder Rolts said, his inflection making it clear that the statement was actually a question.
“Claim appears to be a creature taming ability,” Lukan confirmed. “While Spawn appears to enable him to plant Worthmus trees. I have no idea how the names correspond with the purported effects of the skills, but I’ve seen the saplings he claimed to have planted last night myself. He refused to demonstrate the ability once again, claiming that he was too low on mana. I believe him nonetheless.”
“Considering what he did to Sevin Wells, it’s best not to doubt what the Tom Weaver claims to be capable of,” Yulk agreed. “The question is, do we encourage him to continue exploring his new abilities, or do we forbid it?”
----------------------------------------
Tom examined his status. It had been hours, and he’d regenerated his mana, so he was feeling much better. He was back in his bedroom, waiting for the elders to finish discussing the situation. A part of him was annoyed, feeling like a naughty child waiting to be scolded for a prank. Another part understood the gravity of the situation. He had triggered a Class change. More than that, actually; Class changes don’t usually come with a makeover.
He sighed, fluffing the pillow beneath him as he contemplated the situation. Klein jumped on his chest and began to purr. He hadn’t known that Tree-cats did that until Klein had crawled into bed with him the night before.
“I wonder what you evolve into,” he told his new pet. Seeing no reason not to find out, he stroked the familiar and began pumping mana into it.
Once again, the skill fizzled out without activating, leaving Tom completely drained. Groaning at the unpleasant sensation of running out of mana, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“I promise, no more testing on people,” Tom told the collected Elders, holding up his right hand as he made the vow. “Honestly I’m not certain I want to evolve anything anymore until I get more mana anyway; it takes almost everything I had to Evolve Sevin, and running out makes me feel queasy and weak.”
The old men stared at him sternly, but he’d agreed to their terms. Lukan wanted to swear him off experimenting altogether and spend his time simply planting new orchards, but the others had pointed out that they could only request that the boy expand their present orchards. And that, if the boy thought about it, he might demand payment from the village for doing so. Better to assign the boy a quota of a few trees per day and then give him time to experiment with the rest of his time, and hopefully keep his mind off little things like remuneration for his extremely rare skills.
“Is there anything else?” Tom asked, and after the old men glared at him for another few minutes, he was dismissed. He met Sevin outside the inn. The newly minted Warrior was splitting wood.
“I have so much energy,” Sevin explained. “It’s hard to sit still.”
“I felt the same way after my class-up,” Tom admitted. “I couldn’t sit still. Except in my case I think it was the Mana in my body. In your case, I guess it might be the Stamina.”
“Yeah, yeah I think so,” Sevin agreed. “Can’t seem to burn it off no matter what I do.”
“Hopefully you’ll get used to it,” Tom said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry! This is great!” Sevin said. “Check it out!”
Sevin used a Skill, and his weapon blurred , chopping through the log he’d been aiming for and the splitting stump together. He blinked after he realized what he’d done, having ruined the splitting stump. “Oops.”
“I thought that you were a Pikeman,” Tom said. “How can you use skills with an Ax?”
“It’s called Empower Weapon, not Empower Spear,” Sevin explained. “I think it works on anything. Well, no, I don’t think it would work on a dagger or something small. But anything with a bit of heft and reach to it.”
“It’s crazy that you’re this strong at level one.”
“The system is still using my Commoner stats as a reference, I think, so whatever you and the Core Stone did to me more or less doubled my strength,” Sevin said. “And that’s not even counting the new skills I have. I think I have more than you do, but just having them isn’t enough. I need to figure out how to fight for real with them. Not just sparring either.”
“How are you planning on doing that?” Tom asked.
“How do you think? I’m going to go up north and clear out the dungeon,” Sevin said. He took another swing of his ax and left it buried in one half of the split splitting stump. “I’m leaving tonight.”
“Did you ask Harvold about that?”
“Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” Sevin answered. “They’re just burrowers. It won’t be a problem. It’s only been a few weeks since the last time the dungeon was cleared anyway, so it won’t even be at full capacity. And it’s not like they organize a response, I’ll be clearing it out room by room just like always. Three or four at a time tops. I can handle that easily as I am now.”
“Let me come with you,” Tom said, uncertain where the words came from. The moment he spoke them, however, a determination filled him, and he knew that he simply had to go into the dungeon with his friend.
Sevin stopped and looked at him, frowning. “You sure? You’ve never been much of a fighter, you know. I can probably keep you safe, but I--”
“I don’t plan on fighting,” Tom explained. “It’s just … I can feel something north of us. From the direction of the dungeon. It’s calling out to me. I don’t know. It’s an instinct, and I think it has something to do with my class.”
Sevin smirked. “Usually I’m the one coming up with stupid ideas to get us both in trouble. Go say goodnight to your parents. I’ll wake you up after midnight, and we’ll sneak out of the village together.”
----------------------------------------
King Fenard stood in the map room, examining the blinking stone the corresponded to the Village Core in the northeastern most corner of his kingdom. His expression was that of absolute calm and control. Inwardly, he seethed. The Watchers had been negligent in their duty; nobody was certain how long the stone was flashing before it was noticed. It might have been an hour, a day, a week? Surely not that long, but the Watcher responsible was sobering up in the cells beneath the castle.
Tomorrow, he would meet the headsman. Fenard didn’t enjoy ordering executions, but for such a serious dereliction of duty there was no other course of action. The room still stank of liquor from the bottles which had yet to be cleaned away. If it hadn’t been for Fenard’s habit of checking on the map room once in a while, it was entirely possible that the blinking stone would have equilibrated and the alert would have gone completely unnoticed. The King should not be doing the Watcher’s job for them.
“A Controller, loose in my kingdom,” he said under his breath, and he shuddered despite himself. Then, in a commanding voice, he addressed the room. “How long will it take to send a response team?”
Yecha, head Watcher and Fenard’s Spy-mistress, turned from the discussion she was having with his subordinates. Despite her position, Yecha preferred to dress in bright colors and silks to the blacks that his father’s spymaster had preferred. Fenard was ill-pleased with Yecha at the moment for employing a drunkard in such an important position, but while he’d find some way to express his displeasure, he couldn’t afford to punish her for it at present. He needed her services too much. Even if she dressed like a courtesan, she had her fingers in every pie and an ear to every door in the kingdom.
“That depends on your authorization,” she answered in a silky smooth voice. “The nearest city is Tuksan. If we send word to them and have them send out guards to apprehend the new controller, it would be three days.”
“Assuming the worst, the Controller could have turned the entire valley into a fortress by then,” Fenard objected.
“We could send the Winged Knights, but that would add a day to the response,” Yecha continued. “However, if the valley is filled with dungeon spawn, they would be better prepared to deal with it. The fastest response, however, would of course be to send in The Vanquisher through the Way Gate.”
“Yes,” Fenard said. “Do that. All of it.”