Emma POV
My eyes scanned across the sheets of paper trapped within the book’s cover that lay silently on my lap.
They moved back and forth up and down, looking for an answer that couldn’t be found within its pages.
I already knew the pathway I wanted to go down but the moment I finalized my decision a new much more complicated problem appeared.
My heart was heavy and I was beginning to feel sweat form on my forehead.
Hundreds of simulations ran through my mind.
What I was going to say and how I was going to say it. How he would respond and how I would react to his responses It was all mapped out in my mind so clearly I could almost see it happen in front of me.
Yet still, I didn't feel like it was enough, nothing would be enough. It wasn't like I could see the future anything could go wrong so I was extremely nervous.
I turned my gaze to Rina looking for support but she was just leisurely looking through the book marking down what seemed good to her on a personal notebook she used for class.
On the outside, she looked fine but on the inside, she probably had less of a clue about what she was doing than I did, a fact in which I found some solace.
I then glanced in Norman’s direction.
The plan was simple.
Ask him which pathway he was planning on going down to enter the conversation.
Regardless of what he says as long, as it's not what I want him to pick I'm going to come up with reasons as to why it might be a bad idea.
Then I'm going to slowly repeat this process for whatever specialization he picks while giving him small hints here and there as to where I want him to go until he finally chooses what I want him to choose.
I walked over to my enchanted brother and asked him “So, what specialization are you planning on taking?”
“What do you want?” Norman asked in a flat unaggressive tone as he gave me a look that said “Cut the bullshit I know that your scheming something.”
My plan had just started and it already failed.
“How did you know I wanted something?” I asked trying desperately to cover for myself.
“Typical conversational flow. You don’t normally like talking about yourself for whatever reason so you would normally start by saying what you got in this case what specialization you wanted to pick, in as few words as possible to preemptively stop me from asking “What about you what are you picking?” after I answered your question” He said flatly.
How the hell do you even notice things like that? I didn't even notice that about myself until you pointed it out.
“Everyone has a lot of those little habits so the moment I noticed you weren't doing them I already knew something was up. So again what's the problem?” he said as if it was the most mundane thing in the world.
After a bit of hesitation, I blurted out what I wanted.
“I want to go down the Life Runes specialization branch going from [Soul Warrier > Soul Item > Soul Weapon > Life Runes],” I replied softly while adjusting my body language to look as helpless as possible.
“Yea I understand, Life Runes are overpowered as hell as long as you're able to get a lot of them and control them properly of course.”
“That being said it has a major weakness in that to make Life Runes in the first
place you need someone who went down the pathway of [Soul Forger > Soul Alchemist] which means that you would have to learn and practice a lot of information outside your specialization pathway, which is about ten times as difficult and time-consuming.”
“That was why despite how amazing it sounded I didn't even bother considering them and why I also hesitated to go down the Soul Weapon pathway in general as all the options in it suffer from a similar problem.”
“I am already trying to master too many things at once so the idea of adding even more ambitious dreams to the pile was exhilarating but also impractical,” Norman shrugged with a coy smile.
“Well that’s where you come in I wanted to know if you were going down that specialization anyway so that you could help make my Life Runes for me” I was barely able to breathe out my request mentally preparing myself for the rejection as worry filled my heart.
There was no reason for Norman to help me with this.
We were rivals both aiming for the same position as the head of the family after all.
Who the hell would actively put themselves behind to help an opponent thrive? It's not like I could offer him anything in return for doing this for me.
With all that in mind. I had to try I already knew what I wanted to do more than anything.
Having what could be considered the strongest specialization shown in the book was one of my only options in catching up to my siblings especially since I seemed to have the highest affinity with the family ability and to just let that opportunity go would be the height of wastefulness.
“Sure, whatever it's not a big deal,” Norman replied nonchalantly.
“Really?!” My heart soared.
“Yea, the stuff down the Soul Forger pathway isn’t immediately as useful as the abilities you can find in the other pathway but it's incredibly versatile and widely applicable.
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You can also craft many items used to enhance the effectiveness of your soul. Not to mention the fact that other pathways require devices from the Soul Forger pathway to function at their maximum potential”
“I was already planning on going down the Soul Forger pathway as a secondary specialization which I didn’t spend family points on, just without selecting it as specialization.”
“All helping you is going to do is switch my priorities around a bit which again isn’t a big deal.”
“Even still that puts you at a -”
“If you don't want me to pick the specialization for you I can just not pick it”
“Thank you,” I said quickly before he could change his mind as gratitude completely filled my mind.
“Like I said it's no big deal where siblings there should be a problem with us making minor sacrifices for each other that's what we're there for isn’t it?” Norman suggested as he chased me away.
About fifteen minutes later Rina finally got up and went to Norman to discuss what she would be chosen as a specialization.
She had a habit of always talking to Norman about any little decision she was making which showed me more than anything else that she actually respected him along with the fact that she would get incredibly defensive and upset whenever he criticized her.
It wasn't so much that she needed him to make the decision but more so that she needed to bounce her ideas against someone before she committed to something and Norman was the best person in the mansion for that job.
The fact that she often ended up choosing what he suggested anyway was more of a testament to how well thought out normans suggestions tended to be in comparison to her just following his lead and trusting his input.
Norman’s POV
After changing my plans to help Emma, Rina got up and sat next to me flipping through a couple of the pages in her notebook.
“I want to get some of your thoughts on the paths I’m choosing.
Narrow what I have written down right here into what you think is the top five and then we can go back and forth until we decide which one is the best” Rina said matter a factly as she handed me the notebook she was writing on this whole time.
“You know you could ask and say please,” I said in an annoyed tone which simply got me a confused look in response.
“For someone who loves getting annoyed and offended you sure aren't considerate of other people’s feelings,” I said with my eyes but didn’t speak out loud.
Despite my misgivings when I glanced at the notebook it was incredibly neat and detailed giving each specialty a list of individual pros and cons in their one boxed of section.
Only looking at pathways three columns down to save time and energy.
She then went about crossing out each specialty she didn’t like witting a clean “Redacted” over it.
While removing options she made sure to include at least one pathway from each of the five major paths.
She even added splashes of color and symbols everywhere to make everything look pretty.
It was honestly impressive of efficient and thorough she had been.
Actually, thorough isn't the word we were both incredibly thorough it was just that our processes were different.
While Rina opted to collect all the classes and put them together before slowly removing options.
I on the other hand, simply picked which of the main five looked most appealing and then went down the line from there looking back up to make sure I didn’t miss any good options.
After that, I started looking at all the ends of the pathways from each major group comparing and contrasting them against the first option I picked until I got a set of options where I couldnt decide what was better or worse.
The outcome was relatively similar, but Rina opted to take in and evaluate all the information, comparing everything against everything. I went on an individual basis comparing one option to the one next to it until I found the options that suited me best.
Her final data was very “comprehensive” for lack of a better term giving merits and demerits for every single option but I found her reasoning for each choice shallow.
No thought was given to the options outside of what was directly expressed on the page nor was any thought given to what future advancements may look like.
Judging by what I had seen so far I was sure that every new specialization would expand one of the aspects of the previous specializations.
For example, a Soul Warrior could, in theory, do everything a Blood God could do all the new specialization did was give the ability to store energy and make buffs permanent.
It expanded on aspects of the previous specialization rather than going in a different direction, enhancing certain abilities, or narrowing down on exactly what one wanted to achieve, and this pattern held with the vast majority of advancement pathways I saw.
It was, for this reason, I could reasonably guess what some of the future pathways might have looked like but Rina didn’t seem to give that any thought what so ever instead focusing on how she could apply certain abilities to her current and future fighting style which was commendable to be thinking about so soon.
I flipped through the book a couple of times before I quickly narrowed down the five choices I thought she should pick which were.
The Catalyst Pathway - [Soul Warrior > Blood God > Catalyst]
The blood orb of a catalyst can absorb one particular element gaining the ability to produce and control said element using the power of souls and vitality they have collected.
The Soul Carver Pathway - [Soul Forger > Soul Alchemist > Soul Carver]
You can carve the souls you have collected into useful runes which can permanently enhance items.
The Soul Puppeteer pathway - [Soul Minion > Soul Influencer > Soul Puppeteer]
Your soul minion is now capable of producing tiny treads that can control the actions, emotions, and thoughts of others.
In other to gain initial control of a puppet one needs to pull at its threads for at least two minutes.
After five days of use, the puppet transformation will become permanent.
This influence can be resisted with Will, Carisma, and through the use of specific skills and spells.
Theif Pathway - [Soul Transfigerer > Soul Extractor > Theif]
The souls you extract whole from others can now be absorbed into you to gain some of the target's characteristics permanently.
Tome of Wisdom Pathway - [Soul Warrior > Soul Item > Tome of Wisdom]
Tome of wisdom was a specialized spell book that can use the power of souls to cast spells.
After showing my sister my top five picks out of she nodded slightly. “So which one of these do you think is the best fit for me?”
“Honestly since you can only pick one I think the best option Is the puppeteer,” I said quickly she nodded again without adding anything waiting for me to continue.
“I know you planning on choosing magic as a secondary weapon type but you won't know if you're going to keep up with it once you start or what element you're going to be using moving forward. For that reason despite being amazing, I wouldn’t recommend choosing the Catalyst along with Tome Of Wisdom for that same reason.”
“Thief sounds good but is way too vague and potentially risky after all there is no guarantee that the traits you receive will be any good”
“And finally Soul Carver is overall amazing but it just doesn't sound as good as being able to control a whole other person who can make full use of their stats, you know what I mean.” Rina nodded listening to my explanation intently.
“But Puppeteer overlaps quite a bit with my summoning not to mention it would be extremely hard to focus on controlling so many creatures at once,” she replied tersely.
“Yea that's true but advanced summoners can create minions that basically control themselves and I wouldn't say their much overlap”
“While summoners are considered one-man armies they still require teammates to function, while a puppeteer basically makes the concept of having a team irrelevant”
“But I like the idea of going out with a group of people and fighting together”
“Trust me you don’t. Having an adventuring party and having family members working with you are two completely different things the only reason you crave stuff like that right now is that you haven't experienced interacting with anyone outside of your family yet.”
“You haven't either we've been together ever since we were born why are you acting like your authority on the topic”
“Either way Puppeteer is still the strongest specialization even denying the solo potential” I added at the end without delving into the topic further.
Rina sent me a small frown before picking up her book again and going through the five choices I thought were the best.
I went back into studying the options given in the book. I already knew what I would be choosing but I wanted to get a better idea of the kind of options given and how different specializations developed as you went down said path.
During the afternoon Kent finally called us all back into the tree room right before supper asking us what we wanted to pick.
We answered as I opened my family menu to select and confirm my choice.
Once I selected Soul Forger similar to learning a skill a light bit of information flooded my brain while picking a specialization gave a clearer picture than a skill typically gave the information transferred should only be consisted of the basics.
For example, I learned how to add soul essence into a bunch of materials as well as the basic uses of those materials and what they could do but I was not given instructions on how to complete a single fully made item nor did I even get a hint on the kinds of things I could make with the materials I just learned how to use.
For that, I would have to really on both my ancestors as well as my experimentation.