Brivaria had to think about this. There were classes and there were race-classes. Any time there was a race or species name in the class name meant it was a race-class. Those were special and tailored to the race of the creature taking them. Prior to the incident that landed her on the planet, she’d had the “Angelic Templar” class which was then changed to the “Winged Templar” class. She’d gone from a race-class to a regular class which made a little more sense in hindsight given the whole Infernal Seed… thing.
Giselle had a race-class but that she didn’t have any other class selections was bizarre. One normally gained their class advancements at levels 10, 20, 30, and so on. At least, that was how it worked for angels and how she understood it to work for everyone else. Angels, humans, and even demons seemed to work the same way. Brivaria had never heard of the System behaving in a different manner. She fully believed everything Giselle said but this was uncharted territory for the angel.
“Yes, would you mind if we discussed your skill options together?” Brivaria’s question would have been insulting to Nyx or Kseniya but Giselle was overjoyed.
“Oh yes. Please. There are so many choices. I don’t know what to pick.” Giselle looked up at Brivaria with big, doe eyes of the literal kind as she spoke. She’d known the angel for a few hours and already trusted Brivaria more than anyone else in the world. It took an effort of will to resist reaching out and hugging the poor spirit.
The fact that the so-called “civilized races” of the planet were preparing to hunt and kill this sweet, innocent creature upset the angel more than she had words to express. This wasn’t a monster. This wasn’t a threat. Worse, someone knew Giselle was sapient and they still planned to murder her. It was wrong, it was evil, and Brivaria wanted to punish those people.
“Ooh, that got a reaction, did it?” came a certain demonic whisper in her ear along with a laugh. Akashic was present and listening, it seemed.
“Brivaria?” Giselle asked, suddenly nervous as the angel had gone quiet. The winged girl went back to gently stroking the deer’s fur.
“Alright, let’s go over your options together,” Brivaria replied. Giselle all but vibrated in excitement.
The discussion was hours long. The angel returned to her angelic shape complete with tiny wings once her mana replenished. Trixie, Brivaria, and Giselle huddled in the tent. The golden sunchaser and hind shared the large cushion that was Trixie’s bed on the road while Brivaria sat next to them. Akashic made another appearance sitting opposite the angel with her own normally-large bat wings in miniature form. To the angel’s surprise, the demoness not only stayed during the conversation but elected to give actual advice. Brivaria didn’t know why the demon was helping but she did appreciate it.
Of the 14 unspent skill points, two went into giving Giselle a way to disguise her true nature. It was a regretfully heavy investment but she wasn’t going to survive on Zlithia if she was forever marked as a creature capable of giving +10 levels upon being eaten. The first and foremost goal was preventing anyone from knowing who or what she was.
To that end, they selected Disguise Race and Disguise Mana. These weren’t foolproof solutions to the problem. Disguise, stealth, and other obfuscation skills were always opposed by similar divination and revealing skills. The way these opposing skills interacted was often very predictable. The side with more relevant skills or skill upgrades succeeded. If both sides were even then the one whose skills were more focused and narrow in scope succeeded.
If Giselle faced a broad detection skill then she would have two skills to her would-be pursuer’s one. If Giselle faced a narrow detection skill then she would, hopefully, have an even more narrow disguise skill. Again, it wasn’t foolproof but hopefully it would be good enough. Also those were the only two disguise skills the land spirit possessed. Since they hadn’t combined upon being selected, it was the best the deer could do for the moment.
The next point went into Form Change. It functioned identically for Giselle as it normally did for angels. Zlithia was home to a species of Celians known as iveska who possessed the attributes of deer. Giving Giselle the ability to walk among the peoples of the planet in a form they would understand and recognize was extremely important. It was a lot easier to hide someone in plain sight after all.
They tested Form Change out and Giselle transformed into a young adult, iveskan woman. She was tall, possessed radiant golden hair that put Brivaria’s own blonde locks to shame, and resplendent antlers. The angel wasn’t certain how antlers were viewed in iveskan culture but the long, flowing ones that Giselle gained were beautiful to Brivaria’s eyes. Unfortunately they were not conducive to putting on clothes and Giselle felt weird in her new form so she shrunk back to her normal form and got back on cushion. Trixie watched Giselle change and then change back. The confused dog looked at Brivaria, as if to silently ask what was going on, and Brivaria scritched the golden between the ears.
A fourth point went into shoring up what Giselle could eat and what benefits eating gave her. The spirit needed skills to defend herself but the two had a priority system worked out. First were the skills that would keep her from being located, then the skills that would let the spirit exist as a normal creature, and finally the combat skills. Since Giselle wasn’t unlocking new classes with levels, it made more sense to load up on survival skills early and combat skills later. More importantly, Giselle was unlocking more skills as they went.
Mortal Diet (Passive)
You may consume and process food as a mortal. In doing so you will regain a small amount of health, mana, or stamina. If you are able to consistently behave as a mortal, you will instead recover a small amount to all three stats. Recovery scales with level.
When Brivaria first came to Zlithia after the incident, she instinctively knew she needed to eat and was thankful her people packed her some rations just in case. At the time she’d chalked it up to a quirk of the Form Change process she’d undergone but, as the weeks passed, the question of why she needed to eat lingered in the back of her mind. It wasn’t until the revelation of the Infernal Seed came to light that she understood—demons needed to eat. The need to eat, to consume, to gain sustenance from the world itself was born of the demonic influence. She’d quickly found she loved to eat though she did wish she had a skill like Mortal Diet to make it more appealing.
With four skills now selected, Giselle found herself with new options. Every skill gained could unlock new skills. This was due to the way the System handled level requirements. If one tried to level to 50 and then spend their 25 skill points on level 50 skills then they would be disappointed. While they might have the attributes of their level, they would only have their original class selections available. Most theorized this was so no one was tempted to hoard skill points for better options. Even though Giselle had no class selections to impede her path, it seemed the same for her. Every five skills was a new tier unlock which would make her last 2 skill points the most valuable as they would be level 40 and 42.
For the next set of skills, they focused on strength with Affinity (Strength) and Infusion (Strength). Normally, the Affinity line of skills were relatively rare but Giselle had a slew of them available to her. Plants, nature, retribution, growth, and many more filled her skill list. If Giselle understood the path she wanted to walk then taking any one of them would have been greatly beneficial. Since she didn’t, the two decided to pick one that would be neutral to her growth but still beneficial. Affinity (Strength) would influence her skills in a simplistic “make skill better” fashion.
Meanwhile Infusion (Strength) would function akin to Brivaria’s Infusion (Light) skill. Giselle would be able to expend mana to empower any weapon she wielded in her Celian form as well as her horns or hooves in her natural form. It was very important to Brivaria that Giselle have skills that applied in both forms. Her natural form put her in danger today but the angel hoped it wouldn’t always be that way. Also, the way Giselle squeaked with delight upon activating Infusion (Strength) and realizing her horns had taken on a golden glow made Brivaria smile.
Heart of the Herd was also taken. This was a group skill that wasn’t particularly good on its own but would give Giselle a small boost in abilities as long as her herd was with her. It was sort of like a System-approved party skill which Giselle could add and remove people from. Brivaria had never seen or heard of such a skill. Granted she was the person taking the skills other people told her to take, not the one who knew all the skills so that was no surprise. It seemed really good for life on Zlithia.
Level 30 allowed for Iron Skin which was upgraded by Affinity (Strength) into Great Hide. This skill would let Giselle be relatively durable whether she was naked or armored. Brivaria was a little bit jealous. The Demon Hide trait she gained from shapeshifting was better in most ways but far more limiting since it required her to be demonic enough to qualify for specific demon traits. Giselle’s skin would now give that boar’s hide a run for its money regardless of what form she took.
Weight Control (Self), Size Control (Held Item), and Weight Control (Held Item) came next. Giselle already had Size Control (Self) and the angel was surprised those four skills didn’t combine. They were still missing pieces apparently. Giselle could make herself larger or smaller, heavier or lighter, and then do that for whatever she was holding. She could turn a knife into a sword and then make it heavy enough that it would be a challenge for others to pick up, let alone block in combat. Anything the spirit wore in Celian or deer form would grow or shrink with her as well. All in all, it was a very simple set of skills that could also be very powerful with some creative use.
Those three in hand, the two were left with three skill selections to take. Level 38 was Battle Instinct. Giselle didn’t have Brivaria’s long history of combat experience so the skill was tremendously valuable to the young deer. Combat aid skills were highly divisive, even among angels who were in a position to train all of their intervention specialists. Many felt that relying on the System for things that could be learned was a waste. Others argued that lapses in judgment happened and a single skill that imparted knowledge and combat intuition could be both a great asset in training as well as a safety measure against mistakes. Brivaria normally agreed with the former viewpoint but felt Giselle’s current situation was worth making an exception for. Battle Instinct wouldn’t turn Giselle into a great warrior overnight but it would immediately give the deer what she needed to defend herself.
Golden Restoration would be the deer’s level 40 skill. There were many good options so the discussion on this one had taken some time. It was specific to Giselle’s race-class, similar to Heart of the Herd, which made it powerful and rare. While not all of them were useful to Giselle’s specific situation, all of them were worth discussing. Golden Restoration was a rapid recovery skill. Rapid recovery skills typically made health more effective. When health was lost to restore a creature’s body, a rapid recovery skill could make the restoration faster, more efficient, or otherwise better in some way. What surprised the angel and what made her encourage Giselle to take it was the exact nature of the skill.
Golden Restoration (Passive)
When you or members of your herd expend health to heal injuries, healing will continue after the health expenditure ends. Additional healing scales with endurance.
This was easily one of the best skills Brivaria had ever seen even before factoring in that Giselle could spread the effect to allies. Health stopped healing a person when they were no longer in danger of dying to their wounds. The System didn’t care if someone was in great pain or unable to fight back due to injuries sustained in battle. There were plenty of instances where the System prioritized healing something that was technically life-threatening but not urgently so or failed to heal something that needed immediate fixing. A skill that could not only get the System to stem the bleeding but further heal the wound and did so for free was amazing.
“I am tired,” the little spirit said abruptly while curling into a ball. The discussion had taken a toll on Giselle. The little spirit had nearly died, been rescued, and then spent literal hours talking about System things. Brivaria was amazed Giselle had held on this long.
“I’ll watch over you while you sleep. We can talk about your last skill later,” the angel said while stroking the doe’s fur.
“I would like that very much. Thank you for helping me,” Giselle replied. “You’re so nice.” The angel’s tiny wings fluttered at the praise.
“You’re nice too. Sleep well, Giselle. Trixie and I will be here when you wake up.” Both deer and dog shuffled off to dreamland leaving Brivaria and Akashic alone.