Zoe pushed the system to give her the Bearer of Words class again — a temporary pick until she’d managed to work on consolidating her class skills, and the system wracked its magic through her body.

*Ding* You have unlocked the Bearer of Words class. Your body and soul will be adjusted to accommodate the change.

Effects:

- Bearer of Words: Gain thirty three stat points for each level in this class.

- Wordsmith: You gain experience while writing.

- Bearer of Burdens: Stamina regeneration increased by 150%.

- An Author’s Stamina: Health capacity increased by 300%, Stamina capacity increased by 200%.

- Writer: Remember words more easily.

Available Skills:

- Skilled Author: Remember words more easily.

- Notebook: Create a notebook in your hand.

- Sender of Words: Send words to people you are familiar with.

- Words of Power: Imbue power into your words, enacting your will on the world.

- Bearer of Ink: Form a quill and inkwell from your mana.

- Bearer of Books: Store books.

- An Author’s Organized Desk: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

The class was underwhelming — thirty three stat points for a sixth tier class? That was less than she could get at fourth tier with some of her options. But a couple of the skills stood out to her. Sender of Words, Words of Power and Notebook were all interesting. Sender of Words the most interesting by far. If she could learn it as a general skill, and teach it to one of her friends back at Foizo they could communicate whenever they wanted.

Zoe smiled as she settled on her skill choices — rather easy considering the lack of options available. Skilled Author and An Author’s Organized Desk were both useless to her, so she pushed the system to give her the remaining five.

The temptation to just take the other classes now and rush back up to her fifth class just to play with all of her new options was difficult to ignore, but she’d been slacking on her duties until now. Zoe pushed mana into her new Sender of Words skill, focusing on Emma back in Foizo and felt a slight tug deep within her soul, begging for words to be sent.

She reached out and grabbed one of the empty sheets of papers strewn about on the table and scribbled down some words.

Hey! Honestly I have no idea if this is even how it works but I’m going to assume it works like Lila’s class. Actually, it might just be the same class. I can’t remember what she had, if she ever told me. Anyway, I’ve been doing some looping as you know. Sorry, this is Zoe. I don’t know if it’ll tell you that it’s from me. I think it will. I think Lila’s does?

Anyway, sorry, I’m super excited. On this loop, I decided to check out my class options. I know, I know. I said I’d wait till my sixth class, but I just, I felt like it was right to check, y’know? And wow, were there a lot of new options. But I got this Bearer of Words class and it lets me send messages? Anyway, I’ll be back in Foizo soon. Like today, probably. Hope this works, cause otherwise I wasted the last few minutes scribbling all of this for nothing.

Zoe folded up the paper, and pushed mana into her skill again, focusing on Emma. Mana rushed from her hand, surrounding the paper as it was ripped away. There were a few fluctuations in space to Zoe’s eye, but it seemed that the letter was just disincorporated more than anything. Destroyed, not teleported. She waited a few minutes to see if there was any confirmation of her skill being used, but nothing happened.

She shrugged and got up to walk over to Bruce’s house to tell him she’d be leaving for a while.

“Oh!” Bruce said as he opened his front door. “You’re red now.”

“You check every time?" Zoe asked.

“Of course, don’t you?" Bruce tilted his head to the side.

Zoe chuckled. “I barely remember to identify new people, honestly.”

Bruce shrugged. “Habit, I guess. My parents taught me to identify everybody constantly when I was younger. They’d quiz me on the levels of people we passed, and when they first took me out to the forests they’d quiz me on what level every animal we saw was.”

“Ah. Yeah I never had that, personally. My parents never relied much on magic.” Zoe said.

“Huh. That must’ve been different.” Bruce said. “But anyway, whats up? Would you like to come in?” Bruce asked.

“Nah,” Zoe waved her hand. “Thanks though. Give the buns some extra love from me though.”

Bruce nodded and smiled. “Of course, I always do. You going back to Foizo for a while, then?”

“Yup.” Zoe nodded. “Heading out now, actually. Just got my sixth class and I’m really excited to share it with my friends back home.”

“I bet.” Bruce smiled. “Well don’t let me keep you then. Have fun! I’ll keep an eye on anything going on next door.”

“Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate it.” Zoe said.

“No worries. See you later then.” Bruce closed the door after Zoe said her goodbye.

Zoe walked — a jog almost, to the nearest gate and passed through it then Cosmic Stepped through the sky back towards Foizo as quick as she could. In moments, she was back outside her cave, listening to Emma and Joe inside the kitchen.

“You think she got her sixth class and is trying to surprise us?” Joe whispered.

“Of course she did!” Emma shouted. “She’s an idiot. There’s no way she’d just look at her class options after decades for the first time. She must have gotten her sixth class.”

Zoe teleported inside next to them with a smug grin on her face.

“Hey Zoe. Oh. Oh! You’re red!” Joe exclaimed.

“Told you. She’s an idiot.” Emma crossed her arms.

Zoe laughed. “I just got it a few days ago. Took forever to go through all my class options though.”

“That many, huh?” Joe asked.

“How good’s the one you got? Anything cool, other than the message thing?" Emma asked. ”What’s the bonuses? I bet they’re insane.“

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Zoe chuckled. "It’s pretty bad, actually. But, there were a few exciting classes available. I just need to prepare for them a bit more.“

“Explain.” Emma sat down.

Zoe sat down and talked about all of her class options — the boring ones that didn’t make the cut, the strange ones that she didn’t bother checking out. Dozens if not hundreds of different magic classes for each element she used, combinations with all of her other skills. Enchanters and alchemists, and even a few physical classes now that her strength and dexterity were high enough to get somewhat powerful options.

“So you’re going to replace your existing classes, and do all of this over again?" Joe asked. ”Sounds tedious, honestly.“

“Mhm. Actually, do you two identify everybody you meet, every time you see them?" Zoe asked.

“Pretty much, yea. Why?" Emma asked.

Joe nodded.

“Cause my neighbour - Bruce, I’ve talked about him a few times I think, said that his parents really hammered it into him as a kid. Quizzed him on the people he saw, and the animals he saw while they were out foraging. It was a big deal for him as a kid, was that the same for you two?" Zoe asked.

“It’s important for us, Zoe. It tells us how strong somebody we see is. Do we need to be afraid of them? Do we need to respect them? Do we need to acknowledge their improvement, or stagnation? Do we need to be wary of this deer or does it not pose a danger?” Joe said.

“I guess. I just don’t identify as often as everybody else. Sometimes I try to get into the habit of doing it, and I keep it up for a while. I identify everybody I see, every creature I see. Every time I see them. But then the months pass and I get kinda bored of it. Everybody’s basically the same level anyway and levels barely mean anything for how strong somebody is so I don’t see the point, to be honest.” Zoe said.

Emma nodded. “It’s not the be all and end all of staying safe, but it’s better than nothing. Everybody’s got it and we may as well use it. That’s what my parents always said, anyway.”

“Yeah, I get it. I just didn’t know it was that big of a deal to people here, I guess. Never really came up, somehow.” Zoe said.

“Enough about that though. What’s next? You gonna get your seventh class?" Emma asked.

Zoe scoffed. “This took long enough. Getting to my seventh class? I don’t know how long that would take. Hundreds of years? Thousands? No, no way. My sixth class is for getting new powerful classes to replace my third, fourth and fifth with. When I’m eventually satisfied with them then I’ll think about a seventh.”

“Thousands of years, huh?" Joe sighed. ”That’s a long time.“

“And we’ll be right here. What’s your plan, Joe?” Emma asked.

“I’m happy where I’m at. I don’t need much more. I’ll get dragged along with you two and keep doing my best in giving people a safe place to live. Give me another few decades and I’ll see how I feel.” Joe answered.

“Well I for one,” Emma sat up in the chair, holding up her finger. “Am going to someday demand you stay here to watch the cats while I go off on a grand adventure, Zoe.”

“Sure.” Zoe agreed. “That’s fine.”

“You two can go together if you want, I don’t mind watching the cats.” Joe said.

“Ooh! Good idea.” Emma exclaimed. “We should totally go on a grand adventure together, Zoe.”

“You don’t wanna come, Joe?” Zoe asked.

Joe chuckled, shaking his head. “Maybe someday. But I like my slow life, most days. I like seeing the people here, happy, in part because of what I’ve done. I like seeing the city grow and prosper, I like seeing the work we put in the make things safe pay off as much as it does. Slow is good, for me.”

“Well, long as you’re enjoying it you’re winning, I say.” Zoe said.

“Winning? At life?" Joe asked.

“Sure, why not. I’ve been watching a lot of sports lately.” Zoe shrugged.

“Takraw?" Emma asked.

“No, a new one I found. It’s called, I can’t pronounce it. Ollamaliztli? Ollamlitli? Liti? I have no idea how they make the sounds, really. I hear some people call it Poktapok though. There’s this small hoop mounted on a wall vertically and the teams bounce- this heavy rubber ball back and forth with their hips, trying to get into a position where they can bounce it through the hoop.” Zoe explained.

“Never heard of that one before.” Joe said.

“Yeah me neither. It’s pretty fun to watch though.” Zoe said.

“You think we could get some sports arenas built here?" Emma looked to Joe.

Joe breathed in deep as he pursed his lips. “Entertainment is a bit difficult to justify. We already have the dungeon nearby and a park. A sports arena would be difficult, especially since not every sport fits in the same arena. I can bring it up next time, maybe we can find some way to make it work.”

“I could help with enchanting some stuff. We could have some buttons that transform the arena depending on the sport that’s being played, so it could support a bunch of different sports. It wouldn’t be the best at any of them but it might be fun.” Zoe added.

“I’ll bring it up. We can probably fit some smaller ones in underground at least. Anything larger is probably not going to happen any time soon though.” Joe said.

“Alright, alright. So, how long till you take your real next classes?” Emma asked Zoe.

“Well, I’ve got a few skills I want to get as general skills first. A couple from my Elemental Shaman class, a couple from Cosmic Mystic and a few from my new writing class. And then I’ll be taking them.” Zoe answered.

“You gonna stick around here while you do that?” Emma asked.

“Probably not. I’ve still gotta pay rent in the capital, and I was thinking that finally actually learning alchemy would be a good distraction from the tedium of working on these skills.” Zoe said.

“Can I come then?" Emma asked.

“Sure, I don’t see why not.” Zoe said.

“I can watch the cats if you give me a few days to get ready for it first.” Joe said.

“Is your home in the capital big enough for the cats to live in?” Emma asked. “Would be nice if we could just bring them, since we’ll be in one place over there anyway.”

“Mmm. It’s definitely a downgrade over this. It’s a little noisy and smelly at times too, I’m not sure they’d enjoy it. But y’know what, between the two of us we could definitely get a much nicer place somewhere better. Be a bit sad leaving Bruce and his buns, but I can still go visit I guess.” Zoe said.

“When’s your rental agreement up?" Emma asked.

“I think I’ve got four or five months on it. I can check when we get there.” Zoe said.

“Alright, I’ll come with you and then we’ll come back to pick up my boys in a few months for a trip to the capital. It’ll be fun!” Emma said.

Joe chuckled. “I’ll join you for a bit then too. I’ve never been to the capital, it’d be good to come check it out at least once in my life.”

“Sure, the more the merrier I say. We leave in four days, Emma?” Zoe asked.

“That’s fine with me. You’ll be alright by then, Joe?” Emma asked.

“Yup. That’s fine. Just need to get things in order at the inn and I’ll come stay here with the boys.” Joe said.

“Where are they now, anyway?" Zoe asked.

“Probably in their room. Or yours. They like your room a lot.” Emma said.

“Warm, dark and doesn’t smell like anybody since you’re never around anyway.” Joe laughed.

“Fair enough.” Zoe laughed.