"CRAP CRAP CRAP"

Snow scattered into the air everywhere as Lindle ran and dove for cover behind the scarred tree, putting it between him and the danger as the sounds of combat erupted, the squealing of the giant wooly razorback chasing him getting cut off with a yelp as Rosato slammed his large metal shield into its face.

Lindle scrambled to his feet and peeked around the thick trunk of the pine tree, watching as the knight engaged the monster. He hadn't even seen the man move from his position. His armor flashed as the kitsune expertly blocked blow after blow of the monster's furious tusks, driving the oversized beast to the ground and dispatching it with a single stab to the neck with his longsword.

Around them, the other three adventurers fought the rest of the monsters' pack. Dorothea impaled one beast with a swarm of summoned shards of ice as Chip fired rays of glowing holy light from his hands that burned and blinded. Theodore cut up the boars in a hard-to-follow blur with a pair of daggers, bleeding out a group of them at the same time and keeping the attention off the two spellcasters.

Rosato turned and gave Lindle a scan, searching for injuries, but Lindle had managed to move before they could get fully surrounded. Lindle gave him a thumbs-up to show he was fine.

The warrior nodded before he turned, rushing back to rejoin his companions and repeating the shield bash maneuver on another wooly razorback that hadn't seen him coming.

Lindle took the opportunity to reach inside his alchemy pouch with his hand and mentally grab hold of his Mana Points at the same time. He was just here as a porter, but he wanted to help, and moreover, danger like this was half of the reason he was out here in the first place.

Killing monsters before you got a class was one of the more common methods of gaining a feat according to the adventurers he had questioned, they had told him stories of taking down a monster as children and earning the feat that gave them access to their first classes. What was important was that for each of them, the way they beat the monster influenced what kind of feat they received.

If he could use one of his more dangerous potions on one of the razorbacks and kill it, he might be able to get a feat relating to combat alchemy and unlock a class to match. Of course, he didn't want to die in the process, so he had come up with a plan.

Lindle watched as the party kept the focus of the boars on them, one of the razorbacks slamming into a tree, wood shattering in a spray as a chunk was taken out of the large pines. He was big and strong for his age, but Lindle couldn't match these things physically. If he got close, at best, he could make a good distraction for a few moments getting trampled before his HP stopped holding him together and he ended up like one of the toys they gave to the tamed wolves back home.

Lindle suppressed the invasive mental image, it wasn’t the time for dark humor. He finished forming the mana structure, aligning his points in a shape he had practiced over and over and connecting them with mana lines. Whispering the name of the spell to himself to reinforce the connection between the spell's concept and the structure as he ignited the spell structure to release the spell effect. "[Levitate]."

He felt a sense of weightlessness overcome him as he started floating, gravity no longer holding him down. Kicking off the ground at an angle to gain height, he stopped against the side of one of the pines, holding onto a branch.

He picked out one of the boars bleeding out but still standing as it prepared to charge Dorothea, her back to it. Lindle pulled out a vial of alchemist's fire. Taking aim, he started to cycle his Aura Points through his arm. He wasn't as good at learning Techniques as spells, they involved a lot more instinct, but he still took the time to learn [Throw].

He launched the vial at full force. It flew fast and in an unerring straight line, shattered against the skull of the razorback. Now exposed to the air, the alchemical fire burst forth violently, knocking the boar to its side squealing as flames covered its body.

Lindle tried to hide a wince as he heard its pained shrieks. He didn’t particularly have the stomach for violence, but he took a deep breath and calmed his nerves. He watched as eventually the boar expired after over a minute, he kept an eye on the rest of the fight, but it seemed that the adventurers had it handled.

With him out of danger, Rosato had taken the majority of the monster's attention and killed them one after another, his sword carving out big bloody lines and slamming aside boars several times his weight. The kitsune knight's face was one of total focus as he barked out orders to his teammates. The spellcasters were blasting out destructive spells of holy fire and dangerous-looking constructs of ice. Lindle didn't even see Theodore except for a few moments when he appeared on the back of one of the boars before disappearing, the boar slumping over dead.

In just a few minutes a herd of over 30 razorbacks were decimated. Some of the less injured boars ran but nobody gave chase. Wiping his longsword clean in the snow Rosato looked at the base of the tree Lindle floated by. "Lindle?"

"Up here!" Lindle answered, waving as the party saw him.

Rosato's eyebrows shot up in surprise as he looked up at Lindle hanging from the tree branch, a smile growing on his face. "Taking a page from Theodore's book huh? Good thinking there kid, come on down," he called out. Lindle grinned down at him, feeling a rush of pride at the compliment.

Lindle pushed off the branch and floated towards the ground, slowing himself down as he touched the ground and letting the spell end, landing with a crunch in the snow. As the adrenaline from the battle started to fade, Lindle's hands shook slightly from the lingering tension. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. The aftermath of the fight was a chaotic scene, with scattered bodies of the fallen razorbacks lying in the snow.

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Dorothea brushed off bits of snow from her robes, walking over to Lindle with a smile. "Was that a [Levitate] spell?" she asked him, her eyes sparkling with approval. "I didn't know you were training to be a mage."

"Ah... I'm not, I just learned a handful of tricks here and there." Lindle answered awkwardly. "I don't have enough MP to be a mage..." Lindle could feel his mostly empty MP pool inside him, that one spell having taken up over half his points.

When he was younger Lindle did have dreams of casting powerful spells and summoning spirits like the shamans and druids, but no one had ever taken interest in him as an apprentice. No point in training him to learn spells if he was destined to be a destructive and powerful warrior right? [Levitate] had taken a lot of time and effort to learn, especially out of a scroll by himself, but the sheer utility of the spell made it worth it.

He had a lot more appreciation for the versatility of alchemy and other craftwork his mom and her colleagues did now. Transforming a pile of reagents into a bottle of stored potential with his own hands had a certain satisfaction.

Dorothea's face fell in exaggerated disappointment, but she smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder. Rosato approached and spoke. "That's right, you want to be an alchemist of some kind right?" He pointed a thumb at the smoking corpse of the razorback Lindle had bombed with a knowing smile. "Did you get the feat you wanted?"

Lindle chuckled, feeling even more awkward now. "You could tell?" Rosato gave him a laugh. "Most of us have done something similar, and I've met a few battle chemists before. Go ahead and check." Lindle gave him a grateful smile.

He turned around and pulled up his status. Ignoring his stats he went to look at his feats and see if a new one had appeared. In the traits sections of his status, he could see the three traits he already had.

Traits

- Giant Blood (Bloodline).

The blood of Giantkind runs through your veins. Increase base HP and AP pools by 50%. Decreases base MP pool by 50%.

- Human Blood (Bloodline).

The blood of humanity runs through your veins. Increase the effectiveness of all stats by 10% when working in tandem with those you consider your community.

- Apprentice Alchemist (Feat).

You have demonstrated your competence as a student in the art of alchemy. Increases the amount of finished product you can produce when performing alchemy by 50%

At the bottom of the page, he could see a fourth trait.

-Alchemical Bomber (Feat)

Alchemical products crafted by you, when thrown, are more powerful. Such alchemical products can affect your target through skin contact even if they normally need to be delivered by another method to be effective, if such products already function through skin contact, their effects are enhanced.

He got one! And a powerful one at that. But more importantly... Lindle opened up his class selection status.

Class Selection

(Only the 3 rarest classes that you qualify for will be available for selection).

- Giant Champion

- Jotun Shaman

- Colossal Barbarian

Disappointment flooded Lindle's body. No change. His shoulders stiffened, as a hint of familiar anger also appeared inside him. It was bad enough that every time he saw his reflection he knew he was looking at the spitting, if much smaller, image of his father, but because of his blood, he would most likely be stuck with a class that put him on a path similar to that of the man that had abandoned him and his mother.

No, Lindle shook his head. He still had a few months until his 15th birthday, and they hadn't even reached their destination yet. There were still plenty of chances to qualify for a class that would let him pick his own path.

Taking a few deep breaths, he dismissed his status and turned back around, seeing the glow from Chip's hands begin fading as he finished healing Rosato and Theodore. Lindle hadn't seen anyone get injured, but he supposed with their higher Health Pools any bruises or scrapes were much less noticeable. HP would keep your body together and functioning when you got hurt but afterward it was important to take care of anything that might lead to infection or be exploited as a weak point.

Chip raised his hands towards Lindle when he approached, the air felt noticeably warmer around the glow, it felt oddly homey. "Are you in need of some healing my boy?" Lindle was a little curious, he'd never needed magical healing before, but he heard that depending on the method it could feel really nice. But that wasn't a reason to waste Chip's magic. "No, I got up there before anything touched me."

Chip laughed, his smile turning a little knowing after Lindle's slight hesitation, why were all adventurers so perceptive?! Oh, wait. Their Dex stats were all in the 20s or more.

"I'm glad to hear that my boy, much smarter than these fools throwing themselves into danger and needing me to fix them afterwards." Chip said.

Rosato got up from his kneeling position giving Chip a fond smile. "Oh shut it." He turned to Lindle and spoke. "If you're ready, we're ready to continue, how are we doing on time?"

Lindle nodded and pulled out his map again, slightly more crumpled now after being shoved hastily into his pocket. They had been trekking for several hours now since they had left Glacerhine, taking the route through the taiga forest. The moon was on its way down in the sky, giving them only a few more hours of moonlight.

Luckily this was the first encounter they had since leaving, so they had actually made good time. “We should be another six hours from the ruins if we continue along this way at our current pace, and we can set up camp there.” He pointed out a nearby area at the bottom of a cliff that would provide cover from the worst of the elements and wasn't inside any known monster territories, Humphrey had helped pick out some locations that would be safe to hunker down in when dark fell.

Rosato took a look and nodded in approval. “That seems good, we’ll set up camp and delve into the ruins early tomorrow.”

Dorothea deflated a little, a disappointed look on her face. Rosato put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re excited, cousin, but it’s just too dangerous to delve exhausted and at night.” Lindle just observed silently. Rosato gave him an encouraging smile. "Let's push on."

Lindle gave him a smile back before leading the way again, the three... oh wait, he looked back again and firmly counted Theodore, four. Four adventurers followed him as they walked through the snow.