Awakening to the sound of bartering and other shouting, Seth smothered his head in his pillows before reluctantly dragging himself out of bed. Old habits die hard, and Seth was always a lazy sleeper and couldn’t wake up properly in the morning. `How do people wake up at 6 a.m.?` was a question that still confused the man to this day, but enough of that, he was up and ready.
Walking around with the name of a good clothing store he got from that barber yesterday, he quickly found it and bought himself some basic-looking clothing.
Nothing fancy, but something that would place him in a medium-low class household rather than a homeless street urchin. With both new haircut and clothing, Seth was ready to make himself anew.
Now he needed to level up, which was rather easily done by doing activities your class demands. So, for a Tailor, they could make clothing or for a Guard they could patrol for a certain amount of time. The most universal method to level was to kill monsters in dungeons, that’s why adventurers could get so high level.
There were rumours of other ways to level, which would explain how someone could get to level 96, because that would have taken centuries.
Seth was ambitious, but for the lower levels, he was going to level the ordinary method. Firstly, he could get some experience in more thievery and meanwhile, he could also practice with his new skill which looked like this back in his inner soul space: Deft Hands, (Mastery/ Rookie 0/100).
So, Seth went to the busiest place in Darter: Darrow Circus. With too many stalls to count, each with a range of coloured tarps hanging over their overpriced goods. Here was Darter’s busiest trading area and it was certainly bustling with activity.
Shoulders touched shoulder as people pushed each other out of the way in hopes of finding the next bargain, which was a class one could obtain Bargain Hunter, an evolution of the Shopper Class. Seth was astounded by the sheer variety of jobs and classes that seemed to be anything a man could ever do. How the process worked on a fundamental level, Seth hadn't a clue.
Seth, in this hub of commerce, was preparing his hands: clicking them and doing some rhythmic tapping. He once heard that latent skills or the first skill you got was from experience, but Seth could hardly think of something he used his hands fast on, `maybe gaming` he thought.
After preparing a bit and breathing, Seth gave one last sigh of resignation as he gave up his final pieces of sympathy and started.
He moved into a tall man first with a large bag dangling over his shoulder, glasses and worn eyes, suggested he was a Clerk, and no high-level clerk would set foot there. So Seth bumped into the man and activated his latent skill to its highest degree. His hands moved like phantoms as he pillaged the man’s inner coat pockets and before even a second passed they both walked past each other.
Seth stood there, wallet in hand, with an almost puzzled look in his eyes. `Was it that easy?` thought Seth, `Well then` he smiled, `were going to have a lot of fun`...
Wallet after wallet, pouch after pouch, the money rolled in, and by the end of the day, Seth had racked up 40 Silver worth of coins. Seth could hardly believe such a number, that was like a month's work as a Carpenter of the lower levels, and he was level 1.
Seth smiled as he checked his Inner Soul Area...
Name: Seth
Class: Thief/ lvl 3
Skills:
=Deft Hands, (Mastery/ Rookie 8/100)
=Slot 2, (Empty)
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Now that was an impressive improvement. Seth was extremely happy with his growth considering it would usually take days of hard work to level up even to level 2, but he had gone straight to level 3 in one day, To give perspective Oak, his father, got to level 5 in a month and that was considered extraordinary. On his course right now, he would get there in maybe 10 days.
His skill was also decently improved with his dad's being advanced (4000/10000) at level 48, the ranking for that was rookie, intermediate and advanced. What came after? Seth had never been taught that, it wasn't in the class books and nobody had come close to that milestone in his home village and even Seth's father was years of his advancement.
Happy with a day's work, but starving as he never ate. Seth made his way to a restaurant where he ate a lovely meal and maybe grinned too much whilst he was paying.
For now, life was steady, he just needed to grind his way to level 10, and he would start to make better strides towards larger goals. “No wonder they called the first 10 levels, `the levels of repetition,” Seth said aloud whilst looking down at the dark pavement, he sighed a long deep sigh but made his way home all the same.
The moon set over the night sky, it waited till the next cycle for the sun to brighten its surface once more. Perhaps it dreamed of one day creating its own glorious light and only the great law of time could determine if its empty dream would ever be realised.
POV Change: Locke
Elsewhere in the Dark City of Darter, sat in a wooden building that had far too many cracks in the walls, was a youth, sitting in a wooden chair, deep in thought.
Named Locke, this young man had rather miraculously gotten the class Detective right from his awakening, much to the envy of his peers. Locke though, could care less what they think. In reality, he would only serve to benefit the community, not like there was much to benefit in the first place. The crime rate wasn't exactly high, thanks to the country's stringent policies on evil classers.
Looking down at his scarred desk, which was probably older than himself, Locke started to whistle his favourite tune. Like his father, he liked to whistle. It would calm his mind and allow for better thinking and so it was a frequent habit, though it may have added to his colleague's grudge against him.
Whilst he was enjoying his free time his captain walked over and handed him a case, “OI kiddo got a fresh one for ya, a bit of a mystery. One I thought you could enjoy.”
The captain was maybe the only person in the department who didn’t dislike him, he was Locke’s father's colleague back in the day and so he treated Locke with mild respect.
Locke's orange eyes glazed over the case to find tens of missing reports on wallets. Thinking long and hard Locke wondered what skill could make a wallet disappear or what class would benefit from such an action, but, for the first time since he came here, he came up empty.
That did not dissuade the aspiring Detective he used his inherent skill, Detective’s Intuition (Mastery/ Rookie 12/100) which was part of the reason his colleagues envied him so much, it was a top-tier skill after all, and many would kill to learn it. Sadly for them, Locke hadn’t a clue how to teach it, so they were stuck for now.
His mind fell into a calm dark state, he was in his inner consciousness. Whenever he used the skill, he would find himself here, and it was one of the downsides of the skill: he had to be in a safe place so he couldn’t blank out during a fight. That was a quick way to heaven and Locke was keen on living.
In this dark place were many fireflies, they were thoughts, and these fireflies constantly hit each other to create him, Locke his personality and thoughts were determined by these movements, or at least that is what Locke’s hypothesis was.
As these fireflies battled with each other to no effect a bright light shined on one and like a moth all the fireflies charged towards that light. The time it stayed was short, but in that time, Locke gained much inspiration for what it could be.
`Was it a Mugger with a strange inherent skill?`
`Or was it a Magician playing a trick for financial gain?`
`Lastly, could it potentially be that demon class that awakened just recently?`
Thinking of all 3 Locke thought that the 1st was the most likely as it sounded extremely similar to old cases where the crime was similar, the 2nd was the second most likely as all magicians struggled financially and this was an easy way to make a couple of silver. If that was the case, Locke would be unlikely to find them as they did not do it often and then usually left no trace so Locke actually hoped for the 1st.
The third was a random thought but sounded possible, seriously unlikely though as Demonic classes were known to be bloody and sinful. Take the Berserker class that Great Demon Rafael awakened 2 centuries ago, he killed countries of people and was rumoured to reach over level 120 the peak of Master stage.
So, Locke crossed that idea out, concluding it to be absurd to face someone with that level of potential. `Why would they go around taking people’s money? Was that not far below them?`
Almost laughing at such absurdity, Locke decided he would start investigating this case the long and slow way, so as not to scare off his prey. He would find them, Locke did not doubt that, he just hoped for some good experience this time because an easy case would barely give him enough exp to level up, he needed to get stronger. To be more powerful, to better himself and therefore the city he so dutifully served.