Roge collapsed on the bench, having not expected for them to go at it for almost an hour. He’d been swinging place to place with his vines, yes, but he’d never really tested his endurance in his new body and he’d been surprised at how long he could go. Even more shocking was a new popup, the dragon grabbing a water jug out of his inventory as he read it.
Combat Focus Unlocked!
Unarmed Fighting Unlocked!
New Class Available: Monk
Roge spit out his water at that, catching Sean’s attention as he coughed it out of his lungs. “Everything okay?” the tiger asked, Roge wordlessly allowing him to see the popup he’d just received. At his stunned reaction, Roge confirmed what he’d suspected when he saw the notification.
The receptionist who’d given him the advice had said it generally took about a week to unlock a basic Class, though most people had more problems with Monk than anything. Learning the meditative technique for Combat Focus took time and most people needed a teacher to learn how to do it.
But you’d meditated before, so you already knew the basics, a thought popped up, Roge rubbing his head as he looked at the still stunned tiger. “So that was quick. I was expecting to practice for that all week.”
“Was looking forward to it,” Sean grumbled, the irritation quickly giving way to a fond smile. “Just to see if it’s a fluke, let’s try to get you the Fighter Class, as it’ll give you bonuses for your Leaf Armor Skill.” Roge groaned at that, still steaming from their previous training. “After we take a break. I’m not that bad of a task master.” Roge rolled his eyes at that, putting on his shirt instantly from his inventory as he follows the tiger out of the gym.
Roge checked his Status then, frowning at the lack of Skill Tree for the new Class. “Do combat Classes not get a Skill Tree?” he asked Sean, the tiger chuckling softly before answering.
“It’s because you have too many skills from your other Class. Your stats should show you that…? Right. Your screen probably defaulted back to the child settings. Here, may I?” he asked, Roge shrugging as he gave Sean access to his Extended Status. His stats then changed before his eyes, the dragon letting out a sigh at how much better the numbers were.
Status Screen
Name: Roge Youngston
Age: 28
Species: Dragonkin
Class: Novice Draconic Mage (Plant) (2 available)
Strength: 7 (1/0 Skill Slots Used)
Dexterity: 35 (0/3 Skill Slots Used)
Agility: 21 (1/2 Skill Slots Used)
Constitution: 33 (3/3 Skill Slots Used)
Intelligence: 55 (5/5 Skill Slots Used)
Charisma: 16 (1/1 Skill Slots Used)
Abilities – [Unfold]
Skills – [Fold]
Gardening (-) Rank 2
Inspect (-) Rank 2
Draconic Accelerated Growth (Int) Rank 1
Draconic Magic Plant Destruction (Int) Rank 1
Draconic Magic Plant Creation (Int) Rank 1
Leaf Armor (Con) Rank 1
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Vine Wall (Con) Rank 1
Nature Walk (Agi) Rank 1
Nature Senses (Cha) Rank 1
Familiar (Plant) (Int) Rank 1
Plant Infection (Utility) (Int) Rank 1
Combat Focus (Con) Rank 1
Unarmed Fighting (Str) Rank 1
Quests – [Unfold]
Skill Trees -
Gardening Rank 1
Draconic Magic Rank 1
Magic Trait Library (1/10) -
Detox Rank 2
Roge frowned at the new screen, realizing with a start that he couldn’t open his Draconic Magic Skill Tree, it just giving him a ‘No Skills available until next Rank.’ error. “Wait I had open Agility slots, why didn’t it let me get both mobility Skills?”
“Some Classes do that unfortunately. Not sure why,” Sean commented, Roge barely noticing having sit down at their usual table near the bar. “Something to do with not wanting to give all of the Skills from one section to anyone is what’s assumed. Now, back to your original question, you have too many Strength Skills over what you would normally be allowed, so until that is rectified, it’s not going to give you access to another Skill Tree. So we just need to get you trained up in Strength until you reach 21 and you’ll gain access to it. Should only take about a week training and we should do that before getting you any other Classes.” Sean sighed at this, waving over the waitress while giving Roge a small smile. “I was planning on helping you train your Strength to avoid this problem, but you had to be a speedy learner like always.”
Roge shrugged at that, taking a moment to think of a plausible, but mostly untrue, explanation. “It felt similar to when I get focused on a project,” he muttered before ordering from the waitress and giving her a smile as she left. He then looked over the two Skills, flinching at several parts in particular.
Combat Focus: Get into the calm of combat, your combat prowess is increased.
Effect: Increased Dodge and Hit Chance per Rank during combat.
Warning! Due to Static Mind, this Skill Ranks up with expertise instead of experience. No speed learning for mental abilities.
Unarmed Fighting: Increases combat skill with anything considered to be part of your body.
Effect: Increased Damage and Hit Chance per Rank.
Warning! Due to Static Mind, this Skill Ranks up with expertise instead of experience. No speed learning for mental abilities, though muscle memory behaves as normal.
“Well that sucks,” he muttered, sharing the descriptions at Sean’s eyebrow raise. The tiger whistled as their food arrived, timing impeccably with Hops and Marge showing up as well.
“What’d Roge do this time?” Marge asked, an excited and slightly scary look on her muzzle.
“No mental Skill ups for him apparently. Has to earn the training.” Even Hops looked aghast at that, the elf blanching as he gave Roge a pitying look.
“Whatever. Just means I have to work harder and that’ll increase my stats so I don’t have overflowing Skills.” All of them nodded at that, falling silent as the other two ordered and everyone ate. Roge, of course, had to get a bigger portion due to eating for two, barely stopping himself from chuckling at that thought.
They spent the rest of the day training in the gym, Hops offhandedly mentioning when Roge asked that they could take a few days off to train before going back out due to the long Quest. Roge needed it as a new party member and they needed it to see how well the dragon fit into their party. Meanwhile Roge never even noticed the church members stopping by the guild building all throughout the day, each one giving him a piercing look that would have sent shivers down his spine if he’d noticed.
~---~
Paul sorted through the paperwork on his desk, the hawk cocking his head at the different pieces of information. He read the reports on the dragon’s Inspection, the higher levels giving more information than a lot of people knew. He’d gained the Monk Class in one day, and had shown odd behaviors like not knowing anything about how the Skill system worked from bits of conversation overheard. True, it didn’t necessarily confirm the hawk’s theories, but it fit into a certain narrative he had in his head.
Changelings. A blight on their perfect society, the monsters could disguise themselves almost perfectly after consuming a target. Even strange behaviors could be overlooked, as most believed the monsters were a myth or fairy tail. The church knew the truth however, that they were very much real and only had one weakness that made them stand out.
Memories were not something that could be copied, thus the creatures had to come up with a plausible excuse to not remember things, and he had never heard of a changeling going about it in this manner. Purposefully gaining the Static Mind Ability from a strong telepathic monster would make memory loss seem normal. Of course a person would forget most things after a strong enough mental attack and it would make them fit even even more with no suspicion. But he was on to the monster, and would do his best to gather paperwork to expose it.