Zoe’s levels flew over the following months, faster than she remembered the first time she took her Elemental Shaman class. Though it made sense, considering she had much more convenient access to better dungeons now.
But a part of it, Zoe thought, was just her forgetting how quick levels came by when she wasn’t almost three hundred. In the first day alone, she got six levels. Unfathomable for her days prior, and yet as simple as plucking apples from a tree for her once she’d reset.
A small part of her regretted not committing to resetting earlier. Getting back to around three hundred would take no time, compared to how long it could have taken her to get to level four hundred if she was unlucky. There was the fear of having reset a single level before she got her sixth class, but there was no way for her to be sure of that. No way for her to confirm that. A fact that she resented more and more with each passing day.
The years flew by as Zoe made her way back up to level three hundred thirty again, with no signs of reaching her cap yet and Zoe reset her class to try again. Someday, she’d get lucky and finally reap the rewards of her efforts.
Zoe started making trips back to Foizo every few months to spend time with her friends for a while. Never staying too long, to avoid any repercussions on her rental agreement. It made her struggle with money at first a little pointless, she supposed. If she was going to cave and go back home anyway, just running Flester’s Might a few times and pocketing the cash would have been a much simpler option.
But she enjoyed the experience of it anyway, of learning how the city worked, exploring what it had to offer and proving to herself that she could make it on her own. And her adventure in the capital had ended up being a much longer one than she had expected too.
At first, she thought it might be a few years. Spend two or three years meeting people, delving into some dungeons and then check out the castle. But now, she was coming up on almost ten years spent in the capital. There was just so much to do, she could almost see herself staying in it forever.
Maybe that was their plan, she supposed. Make the capital everything anybody could ever want, and your castle would be surrounded by an enormous number of human pawns in the event of an invasion, or talent when there wasn’t.
Though if there was an invasion while Zoe was in the capital, she doubted she’d be sticking around to see how it turned out. Unless they trapped her within the capital somehow, she supposed.
Foizo was doing well, continuing to grow and expand its walls bit by bit as more people moved in. They even had the beginnings of an underground residential area for those so inclined to avoid the sun.
Zoe had avoided visiting her dungeon on the moon — there was lots to do there someday, but if she started spending days travelling the moon every month too she’d never get anything done. In particular with her lower level, her speed was far slower than she was used to. When she’d just reset her class, she felt like a slug crawling through mud compared to her incredible mana regeneration at over level three hundred.
The years more passed Zoe by, with celebrations spread throughout the city every few months. Harvest celebrations, competitions coming to a close, seasonal holidays. It almost seemed that no matter what day it was, there was always at least one district that thought it was an important day worth of celebration for some reason or another.
Her level climbed as she spent day after day deep within the molten crust in the Enkindled Caverns dungeon, the blistering heat becoming more of a familiar friend than the annoyance it once was. Almost every spare stat point she had, dumped into Intelligence for as much magical power she could get. She hit level three hundred again, and then three hundred ten and three hundred twenty.
Zoe delved into the Enkindled Caverns again, her anxiety rising as she crept ever closer towards the limit she’d set for herself at three hundred thirty. It was the better decision. She could feel the progress, she could see herself getting levels at a rapid pace and feel like something was happening.
It was just tedious. And losing almost three hundred levels worth of stats? It was a terrible feeling. She felt frail and worthless every time, until she’d managed to get another hundred levels under her belt at least.
She entered the boss’ arena and flooded it with a flash of chilled water with chunks of frost smashing into the molten golem in an explosion of steam. A thick wall of hematite rose from the ground, blocking off the explosion as the ground quaked around her. Dirt and rocks fell from the ceiling, shoved to the side with Zoe’s Space skill.
*Ding* You have cleared the Enkindled Caverns dungeon. Would you like to claim your reward?
Zoe pushed her approval towards the system, stored away the loot without bothering to check what she got and rushed out of the dungeon. She paid her fee as she left and found a bench to sit down at to check her stat sheet.
Class 1: Earthian (322)
“Please, please please.” Zoe mumbled to herself as she urged the system to show her all of her class selections.
*Ding* The following classes are available;
“YES!” Zoe jumped up from the bench and pumped her fists. A few of the people walking around looked over at the commotion.
“Sorry.” Zoe lowered her head and raised a hand, grinning ear to ear. “My bad.”
Some of the onlookers chuckled as Zoe rushed off down the road back to her home. She had done it! After, she couldn’t even remember how long, she’d finally reached her sixth class! How long ago was it that she left Foizo, committed to getting her sixth class? Fifteen years? Twenty?
She thought back to her time in Flester, and her first few experiences outside when she rapidly climbed through the levels. She often found herself wondering why there weren’t more bright red people around. Dungeons were abundant and power was at people’s fingertips. Why wouldn’t they reach out and grab it?
But now she understood. Those first couple hundred levels were nothing compared to the next hundred. Why spend decades of your life clawing at even more power when you’re already comfortable?
Even for Zoe, with her infinite lifespan, getting her sixth class was a lengthy ordeal. For somebody who wasn’t capable of running dungeons alone, with a limited lifespan, with family to care for back home? It just wouldn’t be worth it, Zoe realized.
She grinned as she opened the door to her home and Cosmic Stepped into the comfortable rocking chair in her living room. It might not be worth it for most, but for her, it was.
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Zoe sat down and brought up her stat sheet. There was a staggering number of options available to her now. New classes, with new elements and themes she’d never even seen before. Spacefaring classes, dungeon master classes. Even some related to the deep valleys in Abyllan and her brief communications with the wanderer.
A small notebook and pencil appeared on the table in front of Zoe, and she got to work sorting through all of the classes. It took days to go through them all, sorting them into different categories. Interesting classes, fun classes. Powerful classes. Classes that seemed to solve a problem she had.
And almost every time she thought she had found what would be the best class available in a certain category, she’d soon stumble onto another one that surpassed it. By the end of her struggles, there were what felt like thousands of classes that all seemed competent in themselves left crossed out on crumpled up pages. Replaced by one that seemed better in all aspects.
Five classes stood out to her, standing a bit above the rest in their own ways.
[Cosmic Explorer] One with the cosmos, a master of space and time, seeking the wealth the cosmos has to offer. Gain increased experience exploring the cosmos.
Requirements: Has the [Cosmos Affinity] skills, has the [Spacefarer] and [Transcendent] feats, has visited at least three celestial bodies, is capable of long distance teleportation, has visited another realm
[Death’s Master] A master of life, destroying that which must be destroyed and mending that which’s time has come too soon. Increased healing power. Increased destructive power.
Requirements: Has the [Healer] and [Transcendent] feats, has at least two [Slayer] feats, has killed at least ten thousand creatures, has healed at least ten thousand creatures
[Creator] A creator of mana, a master of their domain. Increased experience when in dungeons assigned to you.
Requirements: Has five thousand Intelligence, has created at least ten thousand creatures to do their bidding, has the [Dungeonmaster] feat
Notes: The [Dungeonmaster] feat will be removed and merged with the class.
[Bearer of Words] Your words reach far and wide, influencing the minds of those beyond your physical reach. Increased experience while writing.
Requirements: Has written at least one million words
[Enchantrith] A wielder of enchantments, your mana seeps into the objects around you and forces them to your will. Increased maximum mana. Increased mana regeneration.
Requirements: Has at least five thousand intelligence, has the [Enchanting] skill, has the [Transcendent] feat, has enchanted over one hundred thousand objects
Notes: The [Enchanting] skill will be removed and merged with the class.
All of them seemed interesting to Zoe in their own ways. Upgrades to her existing classes with a bit of effort recreating the skills she would be losing, or entirely new options with Bearer of Words and Creator. Zoe thought back to the pain she’d experienced on taking her Cosmic Mystic class the first time and wondered if it was worth taking them all just to check.
Zoe sighed. Of course it was, even if some of them might suck. She looked through the classes again to make sure none of them had strange requirements she’d lose out on if she took one and when she didn’t see any, she went down the list taking each one and checking what they gave her.
Each class she took and didn’t feel the pain wracking through her gave her anxiety — not only because the anticipation grew for the next one, but also because if it didn’t cause significant changes to her then was that a problem? Should she try and find classes that did cause immense pain? Or had she already been adjusted by the system so much that even these classes that were powerful in their own right only required such minor changes to her body and soul?
Cosmic Explorer seemed like a direct upgrade to Cosmic Mystic for her — she lost all of the offensive power that Mystic offered, but in exchange got what seemed to be much more powerful utility. Overall it actually seemed like a weaker class, but much more focused on what Zoe actually wanted. Importantly, it also gave her the Cosmic Vision class so if she was willing to give up the offense of Cosmic Mystic, there was little reason not to replace it with Cosmic Explorer.
Death’s Master was the most painful class to take, but compared to when she first took Cosmic Mystic felt like little more than a pinch. It gave her another sense — life. She could feel the lives around her, the bugs crawling beneath her floorboards and the moss that crept along the bottom of the outside walls. The skills were powerful, but almost exclusively offensive. It seemed to operate on more of an equivalent exchange principle than other healing skills she’d had — take from one lifeform to feed another, rather than using her mana.
Creator was underwhelming, Zoe found. The bonuses were incredible, but completely dependent on her being in a dungeon assigned to her. When she wasn’t? The class did nothing. The maximum mana bonus was enormous, far larger than anything she’d ever seen. But the moment she left the bounds of her dungeon, all of that mana was ripped away. The skills were amazing, letting her mold reality to her vision, as long as she was in her dungeon. If she wanted to live on the moon for the rest of her life, there was little reason to take anything else. But she didn’t.
Bearer of Words was the next class she took and it was by far the weakest class she had, but it did give her a ‘Sender of Words’ skill that let her send messages to people at long distances. The class itself was underwhelming, but the skills it offered solved several problems she’d been having for a while. If nothing else, she made a note to come back to it and try to recreate the skills for herself sometime soon.
And last, Enchantrith was almost a bog standard enchanting class from what she could tell, except with everything tuned up to a hundred. The bonuses were incredible, and the skills offered seemed powerful and versatile. It even let her enchant things from a distance, and rather than an Enchanted Mirror skill, it had an Enchanted Mirrors skill. A small difference, but a very welcome one.
Zoe looked through the sheets laid out in front of her. Bearer of Words was a necessity, but not one she’d be sticking with. Creator was also off the table since it required her to stay on the moon if she wanted any of the bonuses to work from it. As a sixth class, none of the three remaining stood out to her. Did she want to stick with any of those for the next three to six hundred levels? Not really, if Zoe were to be honest with herself.
But something else crept into the back of her head, and she pursed her lips as she looked over her stat sheet. As a sixth class, they were underwhelming. But as replacements to her existing classes? They seemed almost too perfect. Cosmic Explorer would give her better teleportation at the expense of her offensive power, but Death’s Master would replace much of Elemental Shaman’s utility with more powerful offensive abilities.
There was a bit of work to do, recreating skills to keep them when she lost her classes. And she would be remiss if she didn’t show up in Foizo with a sixth class to show off before she reset again. But replacing her classes with these three seemed like almost a no brainer to Zoe. She’d end up with better offensive power and better utility, at the cost of a little time and effort.