Chapter 45: A [Class] for Verity

Crimson and Rhea had just arrived in Falst from Lupaken, and he was instantly accosted by guild staff who dragged him before Lars like a kitten being hoisted by its scruff.

“We can’t let you participate,” he had said, “your abilities significantly out pace your contemporaries. It would be bad if you were to completely dominate the competition without a [Class].”

“I have one.” He’d responded, still being held by the back of his shirt in the air by the guild staff who’d caught him.

Lars had grunted, “It’s about time. High-Grade, I assume?”

Crimson had awkwardly shrugged, “Something like that, I going to keep the details to myself. Is there truly no way I can participate?”

A nod from Lars saddened him, but after that, he’d been allowed to stand on his own once more. Lars had other problems on his plate - though he’d declined to state what they were - and so gave Crimson a request to substitute for him as a commentator for the event.

The pay was phenomenal, 10,000 Royals, and he had seen the physical pain it caused Lars to state that amount. A burst of inspiration hit him in that moment, and he made an offer: if they could let him directly participate in the tournament somehow, then he’d accept a decreased pay. He didn’t care about winning or any of the prizes, the opportunity to learn meant a lot more to him, so he further offered to decline any prize money or material rewards. It had given Lars a lot of pause, then he’d been informed that they - the Guild and the Royal Family - would discuss it.

—————

Sitting in the Guild Library, Verity watched as Crimson’s eyebrows climbed his forehead as she told him about what he’d missed. He’d been mad when he heard about the theft of the [Holy Crystal], happy to hear that Emma had been willing to help out, and confused by the other revelations she gave him.

Verity’s story continued, “…the writings I lifted from Damus’ office indicate that he was acting under some kind of order. There’s a cypher that’s slowing Rei’s progress in understanding what was going on, but he was ordered to take a puzzle box from Rei’s office. He did so the day before Rei and Emma explored the [Hallowed Graveyard] for me, so they kidnapped him so I could gather what information I could.”

“While I’m curious about the puzzle box,” Crimson said, looking deeply into her eyes, letting her see the confusion that rested there, “I am more concerned about a fundamental aspect of this situation. How is Damus doing things that should violate his oaths? He should be crawling on the ground under a mountain of penalties.”

Verity shrugged, “That stood out to me too, but I can’t pretend to know enough about the oaths he’s made to understand how difficult it would be to break his oaths.”

“About as easy as me convincing you to drink ale tonight.”

After a moment of processing, Verity said, “Gods, how has he not broken his oaths yet?”

“That’s why I’m asking. The God of Truth has the easiest oaths of any to break. There’s no way he wouldn’t be hit with some kind of penalty for even telling half truths. Those oaths become more intensive as you get stronger, so Damus being over Lv. 50 should find them very easy to break on accident.”

Verity suddenly started, and said, “Wait…Rei told me something in passing. When they were hunting in the [Hallowed Graveyard], Damus seemed weaker than usual. She thought it was more to do with the fact that he didn’t want to be there, but maybe…”

Crimson tilted his head back and forth a few times as she watched him, then eventually said, “Potentially, but the severity is nowhere near sufficient for the violations he’s been performing, not only that, but we should see some kind of physical mark appear on his skin to indicate that he was being punished. It typically covers the face and neck, so there’s no way we should have missed it.”

After another moment of thought, Crimson shook his head and moved on, “So, tell me more about this puzzle box.”

“Rei told me that it was very old, the Temple has been watching after it for decades, and nobody has known what it does.” She said.

“So no-one was able to open it?” He asked.

“No, they got it open, quite easily too, but it was solid all the way through. If it weren’t for the fact that the box would reassemble itself every few minutes, then it would have likely been disposed of, but the deciding factor was that it apparently can’t leave Falst.”

“So Damus is still somewhere in Falst…”

Crimson sat in thought for a second, then said, “I don’t suppose you think he managed to find a way into the secret passages?”

Verity shook her head. She’d been utterly shocked when he’d introduced them to her, there was no way that someone like Damus would’ve found a way in unless someone showed him, and Crimson had thoroughly established that he was the only one who could explore the space. His ability to sense mana and manipulate the magic locks that purveyed the space were unique to him, so there would be no way for anyone to even find the side passages, though the main passages were a possibility…?

Crimson spoke after a moment, “I agree, there’s practically no way he found his way into a side passage, but even you don’t need my help to explore the main loop around the city. Even if he did find his way into a side passage, there’s no way we’d be able to find him. It’s a rat maze down there, it took me months to completely map the space in my head, and it was hard enough to gift me a [Skill] when I got my [Blessing]. I’ll do a loop around the city in the main passage this evening, but I don’t think that I’ll find anything.”

She nodded at his words. There was some wisdom in his statement. It didn’t hurt to check, but a thorough sweep was beyond them at the moment. For one, he’d already told her about the commitment he’d made for the tournament. While his role wouldn’t start tomorrow, he would be expected to be present and involved in other tasks during the qualifiers. There was no time for them to search the entire secret passages - especially because Verity would get lost if they separated, so there was no effective way to do so.

“Now, let’s talk about the most important thing of the evening,” he said, “how’s your progress on your [Class]?”

Verity gave him a massive grin, “I have the [Holy Crystal] and the [Life Crystal], and I just found a seller for the [Purity Crystal] today. I’ve already paid for it, and should be getting it tomorrow. Also, I’ve almost finished studying the spells I need. How about you? You’re probably stuck at Lv.99 [Sword Mastery], right?”

“It’s actually [Advanced Sword Mastery] now. I have my [Class].”

“Gods curse it!” Verity swore.

—————

Crimson performed a sweep of the main passage under Falst, following the corridor around the entire city, but didn’t find any sign of human presence. It had been a while since he last visited, and the dust buildup on the magic locks indicated that they hadn’t been used the entire time.

The entire next day was spent observing the qualifiers. He picked out a few people that looked interesting - ones he hoped to fight - and kept an eye on them. There were only two, so he was extremely disappointed with his observations. The first was a tanned, thin but short human who summoned weapons of magic to fight, the second was a very pale, very tall human with red hair and purple eyes.

There were others who were as strong as or nearly as strong as these two, but it actively infuriated him to watch them. There were thirty year old men and women participating in the Under 10 and Under 25 categories, and it was clear that they weren’t here with good intentions. They had intentionally kept themselves weak to trample on weaker foes, and for that, Crimson couldn’t forgive them.

Admittedly, he hated them more for the intentional stagnation of strength than the fact that they were trying to smurf. He didn’t place much importance on anything else but the experience that would come with participation, so the fact that nobody would die tempered some of his frustration towards the injustice of smurfing, though only a little.

He spent that evening helping Verity with her studies. She was extremely close to done, likely before the end of the tournament she’d be ready to get her [Class].

The following day was as boring as he’d worried. He didn’t feel like he learned anything from the fights he watched, and only a few of them were interesting. The biggest issue came during the final fight of the Under 25 category when his [Holy Interpreter Title] suddenly equipped himself, and he acted like a conduit to share Riskter’s words.

It was an odd sensation, he felt mostly like himself, but he felt another energy surging through him, something other than mana or blood, and his hands shook the entire time. He felt a certain…force, behind his words, encouraging him to say certain things, and discouraging him from saying others. A lot of the specific wording was actually left to him, but not for the punishment. Line for line, that was given as directed.

The rest of the day had been boring, but if he had to list one exception, it would have been right at the beginning of the day, when he’d seen a Dark Elf so compellingly beautiful that it felt like his brain took a vacation. All he wanted to do was drink her in with his eyes. He’d allowed himself to do so for a short time, before eventually, and a bit reluctantly, shaking himself out of it.

It was only when he got a bit of time looking away from her that he felt a bit embarrassed about his undivided attention. He didn’t particularly enjoy people staring at him, he should afford her the same courtesy. She had given an extremely lovely smile at him though, and his beating heart had responded.

Putting aside his own fascination, he was also forced to sneak out with a group of guild staff who’d been hired to help run the tournament. There were a lot of people who were staring at him like ravenous wolves prior to the stealthy maneuver, and he didn’t want to get caught up in their undesirable political games and religious fanaticism.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Once in Falst, he’d immediately ducked into a secret passage and vanished, allowing him to get back to his inn easily, and preventing any of the crowd from catching him. There were more than a couple who tried, but the ones who did had levels low enough for him to dodge their grasp.

All Crimson could pray was that the crowd would have short memories.

His inn was now one shared with Verity, though in separate rooms and she was kind enough to host Rhea for him, in Phase 5. It was a fair bit more expensive, but he was good enough now that even without his [Class] he could earn the 45 Royals it cost for a 2 week stay in just a single day. It would be a rough day, but manageable. Verity had been the one to talk him into it, indicating that living next to the slums was a bit too dangerous for his notoriety.

He had been forced to agree. There had been a run in with the local gangs a few months ago, and they’d slowly become more dangerous to him with each passing day. He’d still stubbornly held out, before giving in the night of his return to Falst. Part of the reason he’d accepted was that Verity had already reserved a room for him since every Inn was full due to the Tournament. Even the dirt cheap one he’d stayed at was completely full.

He still wanted to pretend that he had made the decision, and hadn’t been forced into it.

He and Verity spent some time on the roof of the inn, lit by [Magic Lights] both he and Verity had cast, his with the silver steel color he preferred, and Verity with a pale green light. Her light was a little worse for reading, but she couldn’t manually change the color like he could.

“…like that, see? By focusing on the intonation of this line here, I can actually shorten the next line of the spell!” Verity told him with glee, working on studying her [Rejection] spell.

She’d been repeatedly knocking over a barrel that Crimson had laboriously hauled onto the roof. It was empty, but still heavy, and more importantly, big enough to be awkward to get up flights of stairs.

[Rejection] was her last spell. She’d picked up the [Purity Crystal] early in the morning, and they’d paid a neat little 15 Royal fee to rent the roof of the inn - the most privacy they could get without drawing suspicion. While she wasn’t ready for a [Class], it was time to change her [Affinities] in preparation.

He’d agreed with her decision to invest in more spells, so he would actively dissuade her from recklessly grabbing a [Class] without reaching her goal. At all costs, he did not want her tripping at the metaphorical finish line.

Speaking to the rarity of the [Class] she would get, he expected that her current efforts would get her a Hidden-Grade [Class], but…something felt a little short for an Exceed-Grade [Class]. His [Skill: Class Peak] was whispering to him, something he couldn’t hear, but he got the feeling from it that she might never get an Exceed-Grade [Class]. He desperately wanted to prove the whisper wrong.

Crimson folded his arms and watched as Verity held the twelve ingredients she needed for the [Ritual] in awkward arms. The recipe was ridiculously straightforward, but the conditions to meet it were rough. Fortunately, Verity met the hardest one: not having a [Class]. [Affinities] were an important part of a person’s identity, affecting how they acted and other physical attributes, changing them like this could be dangerous, if certain [Affinities] weren’t lined up correctly, though it was extremely unlikely - less than a tenth of a percent of chance -, Crimson was cautious by nature.

Say, for example, Verity had an extremely high [Affinity] for [Death], this ritual might actually kill her in the same way that Rhea’s condition was slowly killing her. What Crimson had done to Rhea was a much slower process, and he’d laid a lot of ground work to help it go well, but if she’d tried to perform a ritual like this, Crimson suspected it might have killed her - something that hadn’t occurred to him at the time.

The ingredients in Verity’s arms started to glow, a [Shard], [Stone], [Gem], and [Crystal] of each of the three [Affinities] she was trying to increase. They rose up into the air, alighting in a cylindrical pattern around her, the [Crystals] forming a crown above her head. The glow wasn’t harsh or bright, but gentle, enough that it wouldn’t be noticeable when compared to the [Magic Lights] that Crimson had floating around. By pure happenstance they ended up being an excellent cover for the [Ritual].

Starting from the [Shards] floating around her feet, each of the materials slowly dissolved into light of their respective color - Gold for [Holy], White for [Purity], and Green for [Life] - and with a snaking trail like smoke, was absorbed into Verity’s chest and back, right over where her [Mana Pool] was.

The [Ritual] wasn’t long, maybe a minute at most, and when it was done, the light faded and Verity stumbled a bit, so he jolted out of his relaxed posture to rush over and lend her a shoulder.

“I feel like I’ve drunk an entire keg of beer…” she moaned, clutching her head.

“And you’re clearly not at the fun part of that process,” he responded, a bit cheekily. He knew from her comment that she was okay, so his fears were unfounded, and he had the emotional leeway to tease her a bit.

His reward for the comment was a light punch to his chest, and he grinned a little bit.

He extended his focus into the arm he’d wrapped around her shoulder, and extended [Mana] from it down into her body to inspect the condition of her [Mana]. It was still in a turbulent state, the forcible introduction of the new [Affinities] were causing a war between them and the ones that already existed in her body. He hadn’t considered the possibility, but it seemed a consequence of doing the [Ritual] with this many [Affinities] meant that she’d lose any others she’d had before this moment.

Rhinese likely didn’t suffer this consequence, she hadn’t been as greedy as they’d been. He’d need to ask her to be sure though.

“It says,” Verity said with speech slurred by tiredness, “that there are 6 hours before the changes take effect.”

Crimson nodded, that seemed relatively quick compared to all the wait time he’d been hit with after initially getting his [Blessing]. He didn’t like to remember that week very much. Not his finest hour.

Verity continued, “That…just leaves…[Rejection]…”

She fell asleep against him, so he slung her over a shoulder and carried her to her room. At his request, Rhea helped her to bed, and he went to bed himself after washing up.

—————

The next day made up for all the previous tedium, his fight with Fade, and his subsequent de facto victory over the Open category meant that he was riding high on elation, but he had one last thing he needed to do that day.

He’d been invited by the gods to the Temple for…something, it was likely in relation to how he was forcibly stopped from mentioning Exceed-Grade.

There was a small private room in the temple, one that was rarely used, but it fulfilled a very important purpose: it provided a place for all the gods to be prayed to at the same time. The Hall of Nine had the statues segregated from each other, meaning he would have to burn prayers for each statue, which wasn’t realistic for something like this.

It wasn’t truly a prayer, but Crimson still burned a piece of paper that he had written, “You called, I heard” to get the gods attention. It was a polite enough greeting, though not a formal one. It was utilized by favored servants who had a lot of familiarity with their master, and Crimson felt that it was appropriate.

His [Blessing] opened of its own accord as the prayer finished burning.

—————

-Notice: Goddess Melia will be acting as representative.

-Admin Melia: We desperately request that you keep the existence of Exceed-Grade hidden from the general public. You may inform your close allies, but do not attempt to help them reach that Grade. Supporting your [Class] is already straining the System, and we couldn’t handle any others at the moment.

-Admin Melia: Further, we request that you get a few levels. This information is to be kept secret, but the system is designed to allocate resources depending on the User’s Level. We have fought the system to get you the resources you deserve, but it is too difficult to do for more individuals. A second might be fine, but a third or fourth? The consequences would be severe.

-Admin Melia: We have some understanding of your nature, and offer you this deal: should you uphold our requests, then we shall grant your allies two bonus stats per level, as well as the ability to select one additional [Skill] from the selection. We are not able to give them access to Advanced-Low [Skills], but the additional [Skill] they can receive will be worth the repayment. This is, of course, assuming that you will help your allies receive a Hidden-Grade [Class].

-Admin Melia: We shall only offer these bonuses to your direct party members who earn a Hidden-Grade [Class]. A High-Grade [Class] will forfeit these bonuses. Do you accept these terms?

-

-Input: y

-Received.

-Designating…

-Users bearing the [Title: Blessings of Trans’du’Niir] in near proximity to the Primary User will receive an additional [Skill] from [Class Skill] selection and bonus [Stats] each level. These benefits will be removed in the event that the title is lost.

—————

Crimson found the terms acceptable, and it explained the feeling he had about trying to get Verity to Exceed-Grade with her [Class]. It was unfortunate that he would have to give up on it, but the value of not infuriating the gods was worth more. If it so happened that one of his allies somehow got an Exceed-Grade [Class], it would be a happy accident…nothing more.

The best part of this deal was removing the need for him to force Verity to train more before getting a new [Class], since he was certain she’d cleared the conditions for a Hidden-Grade [Class] after finishing [Rejection] earlier that day, there was no need to delay.

He rushed back to the inn in Phase 5 and grabbed Verity from her room. She’d made sure to attend the tournament despite the headache not leaving her, and had stuffed cotton into her ears to reduce the noise of the crowd. It hadn’t been enough, so she’d been resting since she got back from the tournament. It hadn’t stopped her from studying [Rejection] every down second she got though.

It was a bit callous for him to grab her in this situation, but she was just as eager as he was, so when he asked, “You wanna pick up your [Class] right now?” She instantly popped out of bed, clutching her head in pain, and they rented the roof once more.

The barrel was still up there, and Verity settled on it while Crimson plopped down on the ground to watch her. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Verity glared at him and said, “Some privacy?”

Ahh, right. Watching this process would be similar to asking Verity to let him watch her change. He’d forgotten in his excitement.

With an embarrassed blush and an apology, he left and settled on the flight of stairs leading to the roof to wait.

—————

Verity turned back to her [Blessing] after the door clicked shut. Crimson was really quite brilliant up until the moment he was an idiot.

In the past, her [Blessing] had appeared to her like a scroll unrolling in the air. It appeared to people in different ways. Some heard their own voice whispering in their ear, some had to find a mirror to interact with their [Class], and others could only interact with their [Blessing] in deep meditation. Crimson had interviewed a bunch of people on how they interacted with their [Blessing], and while a lot of people had refused to answer his questions, enough had for him to tell her about the result: it wasn’t random, it was based on the perception of the user.

He had described to her in detail how he interacted with his [Blessing], and after a time, her [Blessing] changed to be like his. No longer a scroll appearing in the air, it was now a slate of green translucent metal that let words flow across the surface like water.

Navigating it by tapping the [Blessing], she opened the [Class] selection for the first time in years.

—————

-Recommended [Classes]: [Druid], [Priest], [Sanctor], [Martial Artist], [Drunken Brawler]

-Other [Classes]: [Healer], [Veteran], [Boxer], [Defender], [Guardian], [Berserker]…

—————

Verity grimaced at the list. It was a lot longer than it had been the first time she’d gotten a [Class]. Not only that, but the [Class] she wanted was ‘not’ recommended. Crimson had initially warned her about this crazy path she chose, before swapping over to helping her carry out her desires. It seemed even the gods didn’t want her to choose this path, but she had carved it out herself. It was the path she wanted, the one she needed, so she didn’t hesitate.

—————

-[Healer] selected.

-Confirm?

-y

-Confirm?

-y

-Are you truly sure?

-y

-Accepted.

-Setting primary [Class] as [Healer].

-Loading…

-Loading…

-Data has reached a certain threshold.

-Forcibly increasing the Grade to Mid.

-Loading…

-Loading…

-Data has reached a certain threshold.

-Forcibly increasing the Grade to High.

-User has met the requirements to proceed to Hidden-Grade.

-Proceed?

-y

-[Class] has been set as Hidden-Grade.

-Processing…

-Processing…

-Downloading…

-Installing…

-Loading…

-[Class] has been set.

-User granted the [Stellar Healer Class].

—————