A while later Jax smiled to himself softly as he thought of the turn around his luck had taken. He had been able to give new terms to his three companions and he had been as lenient as possible with them. They would share no experience with him, and have an even share of loot. Nia had ironed out the finer details for him but Jax had made it clear to her that he didn’t want a contract that limited the power of others in favor of himself. It’s not that Jax was an altruist, far from it. He just didn’t see the point in him stealing the wealth from the people who actually knew how to use it. The fight earlier had shown the folly of that mindset.

He also now understood how unusual being a system backed faction leader was. Namely because it required the trust of so many other people. They had to literally contract their soul to you. Surprisingly Nia told Jax was the main requirement many people had for breaking through the level 20 bottleneck and achieving D grade. It was simple to get the experience, if one was a tradesman one had to do their trade, and if one was a martial class one had only to kill monsters. The mines or forests had an abundance of monsters. True it was dangerous and oftentimes deadly to search them out to kill, but it was still not difficult, just time consuming if you wanted to do it safely.

Experience was therefore not the limiter that most people found issue with. It was the requirements of class, and the requirements of followers. The requirement for D grade? A paltry 999 souls directly under your command. Well 1000 but you yourself counted so 999 additional souls.

Jax was fucked. Oh it wasn’t impossible mind you, and there were workarounds. You could join someone else’s faction. If you were subservient to another the contract helped out. It cut the number down by a quarter, and some classes even helped this. In fact Nia knew of some classes that got rid of the requirement altogether such as hermit or wandering sage. She didn’t however know their requirements.

Classes, much like Jeff had said earlier tended to present themselves based on one’s actions. You didn’t have to accept a class if you didn’t like the quality of it, but once you met a requirement and accepted a class you were stuck with it until the bottleneck at D grade.

Jax pondered all of this as he sat in the back of the wagon. They had looted the camp, they had also looted the bodies of their opponents. Now he was with Nia in the back of their older caravan, Nia had told him that’s what the wagon was called, and they had spent most of the morning inventorying the items onto a faction list as they traveled.

Nia had become a wellspring of new information about both the world and the system. From this, and his actions he had gotten his first few class options. They were quite unremarkable. His choices were

Leader, Stalker, Quartermaster, and Rebel leader. The first three were basic quality and F grade. The absolute lowest of the low, below even common. A basic quality shirt was pretty much like any shirt you’d get at a Walmart back on earth. Sure it was a shirt, but they were everywhere. The last option rebel leader was a solid two jumps up, all the way at uncommon. But Jax was pretty sure he could do better. Nia had divulged that she had an uncommon class herself called Soul mage. It was seen as… well uncommon to achieve a class like this. The gongs both had common classes. Drug was a barbarian, no surprise there, while Jerg was a merchant. That had surprised Jax given what Nia had told him, but as he thought on it the giant was quite articulate when he wanted to be.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Most of the items they had found on the bodies were basic rarity as well. Nia had taught Jax the trick of getting items to identify themselves, firstly you had to own the item, or it had to be owned by a member of your faction. Secondly you or your system had to have a basic understanding of the magic, if any, that the item held. That was it. It didn’t teach you the items history or background but if you met those requirements you would pretty much be able to identify any important features of any item you found. Armed with this information Jax had spent the entire morning learning that the assassins who attacked them the night before were pretty much penniless. The best item the party managed to get was the blade from the blood hunter. Though to be honest the blade kinda made up for the lack of items by itself.

Spiritual avarice:

Rare. Bound blade, this item serves as a medium for a spiritual class such as a blood hunter. It allows the bearer to imbue spirits into his strikes.

The item belonged to Durg. So Jax would have to negotiate if he wanted it. But he didn’t think it would prove difficult if he decided to trade. The Gong as a people didn’t often care for material wealth. That was part of why Jerg being a merchant was so surprising. One thing the Gong did care for was the strength of the tribe. And to them Jax was now tribe. Not because of the contract. No Jax was tribe because he had sacrificed and killed for the two when he didn’t need to. As Jax pondered that he realized it was true. He hadn’t felt the unnatural pull of the contract when he helped the two of them. He had been under no orders, he had simply wanted to help the giants so he had.

As Jax thought on this, and accepted it he was met with a notification.

New Class Option

Gong War Chief

Uncommon.

Jax smiled and denied the class option. It didn’t go away, it just got added to a new tab of class options called a class tab. Later he could use that screen to do things with his class. Doctors used it to keep a list of patients, merchants to keep a list of goods, and leaders a list of people.

As they finished tallying up the goods Jax turned to his second task of the day, one he had already begun. Meditation. Not in the way the term was used on his home planet, no mediation in this capacity was simply thinking back on events and understanding them. Nia had told Jax that this was essential for unlocking some classes. So Jax pondered the events of the past two days. He had tracked far, and he didn’t know what world he had found himself a part of. He knew he wanted to go home, if only to see his daughters and wife again. Nia had never heard of a world hopper before, indeed she didn’t really know much about other planets, but Jax was sure if he could come here he must be able to return with enough power.

Jax thought on Tyr, on the system, and finally on the spirits who had decided to protect him. He was confident in that now. No matter why they had done so these beings had come here with him, and protected him as much as they could. They were now a part of him his arm was made by them, and he quite literally owed them his life. The void spirit as well. As Jax thought of it he felt a stirring in his chest. It was far more salient than the other spirits, so he would need to figure out how to determine what it wanted. Jax resolved himself to somehow accomplish that, and then he felt a tug as big chest, and a notification popped up.

New Class

Wraith Blade:

A Wraithblade is a shepherd of the dead, and a master of life force manipulation. Gain the ability to talk to any nearby spirits, or spiritual amalgamations. Feel the intent of spirits around you. Gain new forms of contracts called bonds. Through bonds you can harvest enemy spirits to fuel your spells. The energy of hostile spirits must be contained by your bonded spirits. When absorbing hostile spirits you can transform the strongest ones into a wraith weapon. The spirit must be contained by an allied spirit of equal or greater strength.

The mission of a wraithblade is to eventually shepherd his allied spirits to their goals, and as such you inherently know the end goal of any spirit you bind.

Rarity: Legendary

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. I read the prompt, read it again, and then read it some more. This was… not what I had been expecting to happen when Nia had told me to meditate in the past few days. We had spoken and she had told me about a Soul magic class that allowed one to coming with the dead. She said it was an insanely powerful uncommon class. This was way beyond that. I thought for a moment about bringing it up to her, and then decided not to. The class sounded way too edgy for me, but I didn’t really have another option. And what’s more I could feel that the void spirit and the spirits in my arm both wanted me to pick it. I thought for a moment longer and then selected the prompt.