Invisible, I shifted into a bat and found I could barely fly without fur. I wove a wind spell to help and propelled myself up in the air. The island was a big one. Millions of years ago, the place where the ruins stood must've been a volcano but the mountain and caldera broke into a ring of jagged rocks that would be difficult to walk. The only access was through a pass on the far side of the island.
On the other side of the broken mountain, I could see a large harbor town and some villages. To reach the ruins, one had to go all the way around the island to reach the pass. That explains why I had so few visitors and those never got past the outskirts of the blighted zone.
I flew toward the harbor. From there, I hoped to book a ship and depart to Auvanini. I hoped "off the coast of Pekothas" didn't mean "on the other side of the fucking world".
I had a useless Luck score of 140. A girl could wish.
No amount of luck would fix one thing. Lamias were considered monsters. Most non-biped creatures were, actually. The Centaurs of the Great Plains where I fought the red dragon, for example, were thought of as intelligent horses by the Pekothian humans. Not to mention Lamias have a greater-than-normal sex drive. While orcs and goblins are a strict-male race, Lamias are a strict-female race. They needed a male from another species to mate and breed, and doing that was a great part of their genetic imperative.
I had no idea if the legends back on Earth were shaped by the real creature or the other way around. It was some sort of paradox like the chicken and the egg.
A few hours later, I approached the settlement under the cover of the night. When "night" meant twenty-three hours per day, that was easy. I landed inside the palisade and shifted into Lily's form. Then I added a fox tail and ears. Then Nenandil giggled and I remembered I was bald. The fluffy fox tail was a scrawny rat's leathery twine and the fox ears just two fleshy triangles.
With my finest thread possible, I wove a fox-eared wig with fae silk and a sleeve to slide over the tail. The strands I made looked just like silky hair or fur. I put on some good clothes that didn't scream wealth and walked out to join the crowd going on with their day. Night, I mean. Age of Eclipse and all that shit. Finally, I set my level to no-show. A girl Lily's age didn't have a System.
I was half-expecting to be kidnapped. I must have a "shit magnet" kind of hidden trait. It didn't happen. I did get some weird and creepy feelings as if someone was staring at me from behind. I didn't know what it was.
To test my disguise, I walked around the streets. Vendors hawked their wares while all sorts of travelers browsed the busy market. There were sailors but also noblemen in colorful clothes, adventurers with their rugged demeanor and weapons openly showing, and priests. I had to hide my disgust as I passed past a party of Bundeus' ecclesiastics and put a contract on all of them.
The races were diverse. I didn't see a predominance of humans. I saw a wagon with an opening on the side like a food cart, with a gnome standing on the counter showing some whirring gadgets to a crowd of well-dressed kids. The gadget jumped and hissed a purple smoke, then jumped again.
"The jumptonator!" The gnome shouted. "This tiny fiend can leap over a tall building! A kid's best friend! A great MP channeling aid! Do you want one, young master? Do you, milady?"
He was pandering to the noble younglings. I saw several silver coins changing hands and some kids running with their jumptonators. One of them excitedly charged his toy through his hands and it jumped to the roof of a house, jumping away again a disappearing behind the house. He started to cry.
A man went to berate the gnome while the inventor, or machinist, or gadgeteer, whatever he was tried to defend himself. In the end, the man bought another jumptonator at a discount for his spoiled kid.
I went away. I bought a bowl of stew from a street stall and asked for a safe place to rest. I kept getting these creepy feelings that someone was watching me. I was directed to an inn, the "Dreamy Mermaid." After wandering for a while I found it. {Lucky Wanderer} must've kicked in.
A room with breakfast and dinner was one silver coin for two nights. Quite expensive but it wasn't a sailor's watering hole. This inn catered to wealthy travelers. I asked to be served dinner in my room and locked myself in by putting my world-famous boulder-doorstop in front of the entrance. Using SP to save the MP I was overcharging with the wellspring, I placed a light spell in the room instead of lighting the candle they gave me.
I sat on the bed and combed my fuffy fox tail with my fingers while I entertained some dark thoughts,
The fairy showed up. She studied my face. "What is wrong, Lakerta?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Who's Lakerta?"
"You are! Since nobody named you in this life, I'll do it. You're Lakerta, the Water Lamia."
I giggled with her. "Lakerta I am. Pleased to meet you, milady."
"What's troubling you, my pretty snake disguised as a Fox-Lily?"
I threw myself back on the bed. "Should I run after Lorna? It's been what? A century? Didn't she move on already?"
"Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. I think she might have found herself a consort. But you'll never know if you don't go. The doubt will eat you forever. But a mere rejection? I know you're strong enough to overcome it. You need the closure and you know it."
I let some tears flow. She was right. I needed closure.
I also needed to murder those priests of Bundeus. Like hell I'd let any cross my path and live. I had to wait for the bustle to die down before I could go after them.
In the meanwhile, I pulled my Profession list to pick which ones I'd develop this life when a message blew me off my feet.
> BY THE GLORY OF WYXNOS, GOD OF LOGIC, CRAFTS, AND SCIENCE,
>
> The Profession System has changed. You no longer gain Skil Points for following a profession. Instead, you gain a Proficiency rating and special abilities every fifteen levels affixed to your Profession.
>
> All your existing Professional Skills will be converted into Proficiency. You'll find that the System will allow you to reach greater heights now.
>
> - Please stand by. Your Skill list is being updated. Your Professions are under improvement.
>
>
>
> Wild Sense (common), Evaluate [Artwork] (rare), Evaluate [Weapon] (rare), Evaluate [Armor] (rare), Appraise (common), Evaluate [Enchantment] (very rare), Evaluate [Jewelry] (rare) are now part of the Appraiser Profession.
>
> Appraiser: You can see the System information of a target, be it an item, person, or monster.
>
> Your Proficiency as an Appraiser is 45. You have three special abilities:
>
> * Personal Information: You can fetch in-depth information regarding the target person.
> * Unveil Enchantments: You can attempt to learn the enchantments in an item you appraise.
> * Estimate Value: You can estimate the average market price of an item in a location you are familiar with.
>
>
>
> (... X skills fused ...)
>
> Physician: You can treat diseases and wounds, restoring people's health without extensive use of magic.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Physician is 150. You have ten special abilities:
>
> If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
>
> * Soul Regeneration: You can spend SP to heal damage and even regrow missing body parts.
> * Delay Death: Patients under your care only die if they have a critical failure on an Endurance test.
> * Silk Sutures: You can use your own silk to stitch flesh and close wounds.
> * Intensive Care: You add your Willpower to the patient's Endurance for recovery and all tests related to healing.
> * First Aid: When you start treating a patient, you halt all HP-draining debuffs and bleeding. You must keep treating for the duration of the debuff for it to be canceled, otherwise all damage will be applied at once.
> * Fast Regeneration: Multiply the patient's recovery rate by 5.
> * Anesthetic Touch: When you start treating your patient, they become sedated and docile. While you work, they feel no pain.
> * Veterinary: You can treat animals as well as people.
> * Restore Blood: Your patients recover from blood losses as you treat them.
> * Fast Treatment: Your medical procedures are five times faster.
>
>
>
> Alchemist: You can process materials, imbue concoctions with magic, and create single-use materials with mystical properties.
>
> Your Proficiency as an Alchemist is 150. You have ten special abilities:
>
> * Glassify: You can spend MP to convert sand into pure glass and shape it.
> * Lightning Electrolysis: You can use Lightning magic to trigger reactions.
> * Refine Blood: You can extract useful materials from blood.
> * Recycle Leftovers: You can retrieve a good portion of unused or wasted reagents.
> * Measuring Touch: You can measure and separate reagents with great precision.
> * Long Shelf Life: Multiply the shelf life of your processed reagents and products by ten.
> * Increased Monster Yield: You can obtain 50% as many useful materials from processed monsters.
> * Dry Reagent: You can convert most reagents into a compact powder form that can later be diluted in a solvent.
> * Transmute: You can convert one reagent into another of equal or lesser value.
> * Separate Reagents: You can extract an arbitrary set of reagents from a solution.
>
>
>
> Jeweler: You can create great works of art using precious metals and gemstones.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Jeweller is 120. You have eight special abilities:
>
> * Precise Cut: Gems you cut are twice as valuable and hold twice as much potential.
> * Reuse Shards: You can reuse the shards of gems you cut up to a very fine sliver.
> * Gold Leafing: You can make very thin sheets of precious metals and seamlessly apply them to objects.
> * Repoussé and Chasing: You can use specialized tools to engrave relief in sheet metal.
> * Lathe Operation: You can use a turning and drilling tool, a lathe, to create precise works.
> * Welding: You can use Fire magic to permanently join two metallic surfaces.
> * Enhanced Enchanting Potential: Jewelry you craft has 20% (or 2 points, whichever is higher) more enchanting potential.
> * Fine Design: Your small hands make your jewelry delicate and with intricate patterns. The value of the final product is increased by 25%.
>
>
>
> Enchanter: You can create great works of art using precious metals and gemstones. You can enchant Attributes both physical and mental as well the basic resources, HP and MP.
>
> Your Proficiency as an Enchanter is 120. You have eight special abilities:
>
> * Enchant Spiritual Attributes: You can enchant a bonus to the spiritual Attributes as well as SP.
> * Resonance Tuning: you can fine-tune enchanted items to avoid resonance conflicts.
> * Wild Enchant: Your enchantments have a 20% chance of adding a beneficial effect (multiplied by (100 + Luck) %) and a 10% chance of removing one effect (divided by (1 + Luck/100)).
> * Resonance Dampener: When you equip an item that may cause a resonance conflict, it instead doesn't activate. This is a personal ability.
> * Enchant Armor: You can enchant armor for resilience and deflection.
> * Enchant Weapon: You can enchant weapons for accuracy and damage.
> * Wondrous Enchantments: you can add non-numeric enchantments to items.
> * Increased Success Rate: The base success rate of your enchantments is increased by 25%.
>
>
>
> Cartographer: You can create precise maps of the land around you and search for resources.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Cartographer is 60. You have four special abilities:
>
>
>
> * Survey: You can determine the presence of resources in the examined area and the underground.
> * Sense Depth: You can tell how deep beneath the surface you are.
> * Sense Height: You can tell how high you are compared to the ocean level.
> * Lair Mapping: When inside a Dungeon or a monster's lair, you have an intuitive knowledge of its layout.
>
>
>
> Diplomat: You know how to negotiate treaties and get your way around foreigners without angering them.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Diplomat is 75. You have five special abilities:
>
>
>
> * Spectral Diplomacy: You can influence the undead.
> * Oratory: Your well-articulated words help clearly convey your point.
> * Friendly: All creatures' reaction toward you is increased by one step.
> * Charismatic: You add half your Diplomat level to Charisma tests.
> * Multiracial: When interacting with members of a different species, you ignore bias penalties.
>
>
>
> Silkweaver: You can create silk threads from your own body and weave them into great works of art. Creating silk uses MP.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Silkweaver is 135. You have nine special abilities:
>
> * Colorful Threads: The silk you make can have vibrant and well-defined colors across a wide spectrum.
> * Speed Weaving: You can make threads and weave them 10 times faster.
> * Detailed Pattern: You can control the embroidery and hue of your silk to create fine patterns. Double the value of the final product.
> * Thread Repair: You can use your silk to repair clothes and fabric items.
> * Iron threads: The tensile strength of your silk is five times that of steel wire.
> * Sticky Threads: You can create threads that stick to a target. Add half your Proficiency to Willpower to determine the difficulty of detaching the threads.
> * Armored Threads: Your threads are five times as hard to cut.
> * Stretchy Threads: Multiply your threads' elasticity by five.
> * Haberdasher: You can weave complex items out of threads.
>
>
>
> You gained the perk; Pioneer Silkweaver (unique): As the first Silkweaver, your silk is 20% stronger and weaves 20% faster.
>
>
>
> Musician: You can entertain and inspire using music. You can sing and play musical instruments.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Musician is 75. You have five special abilities:
>
> * Project Sound: The sounds you make may be heard five times further.
> * Second Melody: You can produce a secondary melody.
> * Craft Instrument: You can manufacture musical instruments.
> * Polyphonic Voice: You can create a diad with your voice.
> * Inspiring Song: Your music can incite one emotion of your choice.
Damn, that was a lot to process. First of all, it seems that Wyxnos was climbing up in life. The gnomes must be worshipping the hell out of him.
The pioneer perks no longer gave Skill points. Half of my Skills vanished, absorbed by these new Professions. I'm glad I dumped all the Skill Points from my levels in the Professions. It helped cement the bonuses. Some even grew stronger than before. I need to test but I don't think the Proficiency translates into Skill ranks one to one. But I experimented weaving a scarf with my silk, it was stronger, harder, faster, and better.
I pulled the Profession selection window back and read the new messages.
> While a Class is what you are, a Profession shows what you can do. Some Professions and Classes complement each other and even overlap. It is up to you to specialize or follow your passions. There is no right answer.
>
> A Profession has levels and requires Experience to grow. However, you won't automatically receive all the benefits of a high Profession level. Training is required to fully grasp the abilities it grants. A Profession will give you 2 Resource points and increase the Proficiency cap by 1 per level. You also receive one automatic point of Proficiency and raise the Proficiency cap by one point every even level. There's no profession stronger than another. You must practice your Profession to increase your Proficiency in its cap. Therefore, they don't have a rarity rating.
>
> At every fifteen points of Proficiency, you may select one special ability for your Profession. These abilities will specialize in your Profession further. Abilities that accelerate Skill growth increase Proficiency gains.
What a load of bullshit. No rarity my ass. Some Professions are clearly better than others. I pulled my log and saw that my Silkie cleaning Skills became spells under House Magic. Other Skills became Perks. Overall, my list of Skills shrunk by two thirds. This new system felt streamlined and easy to grasp. No more fretting over which Skills to pick. While some long-term power potential was lost, for example, an elven smith that devoted centuries to develop each aspect of his craft from the ground up, for most of the short-lived races, that was a boon. I had no idea how hard it was to gain proficiency, but I noticed my Eleon Perk changed:
> Hard Worker (uncommon) - You gain Proficiency 25% faster.
I selected Appraiser and Cartographer. The Appraiser gave 1 HP and 1 MP per level, while Cartographer was 2 HP. I set enough Exp to reach level 30 on both. The Exp table rotated back to 100,000 at level 20 but there was no rank-up.
> You reached Cartographer level 30. You gained 60 HP.
>
> Your Proficiency as a Cartographer is 75 / 105. You have four special abilities. You can select a new special ability.
>
> You reached Appraiser level 30. You gained 30 HP and 30 MP.
>
> Your Proficiency as an Appraiser is 60 / 90. You have three special abilities. You can select a new special ability.
>
> You gained this Ability: Memorize Map: After studying a map for a reasonable period, you commit it to memory. You can redraw the map from memory with perfect accuracy. You can have one map memorized for every ten Proficiency levels.
>
> You gained this Ability: Subtle Appraise: Add your proficiency to the difficulty of detecting your attempts at Appraising a person or creature.
The abilities were mini-perks, basically. Some of them scaled with proficiency, some didn't. But no more logistical nightmare. Better yet, since it was a new mechanic it wasn't restricted by my curses. But the Subtle Appraise explained what were these creepy feelings I got. People {Appraising} me.
I felt tired. Too much information to process. I laid down on the bed and shifted into Silverstreak's form so Nenandil could cuddle with me. SHe frowned.
"Your gorgeous silver hair is gone!"
I clicked my tongue and wove a Silverstreak wig.