“So, what’d you get?” Ashara asked eagerly after we got back to our room, leaning in close to look at my card, as if she could read the paper through it. However, Miss Lyrha hadn’t made it so easy to peek. The only part of the paper that could be seen on the card itself was the back.
“Give me just a minute to see for myself, will you?” I let out a groan, focusing on the card to release the paper inside. The same faint light rushed out of the card, transforming it into the paper that Miss Lyrha had handed me.
I saw Ashara reaching over, attempting to steal the paper from me before I had the chance to properly read it. Scoffing slightly, I brought one of my wings out in front of me to slap her hand away. “Now…” I began as she pouted, holding her hand as if the harmless slap had inflicted a mortal wound.
“Primary element, Summon. Secondary elements, fire, wind, life, and blast. Suggested paths, mage or monster tamer. Seriously, it’s even possible to tame monsters?” I couldn’t help but ask in shock, seeing the suggested paths for my advancement.
Magic wasn’t enough to surprise me anymore, not really. I myself had learned a couple of spells, though it was just enough to tell me that the magic was different between Desbar and Deckan. Here, they used spell cards to create their magic, whereas at home we would use strange shapes in our mind. Rumor had it that it was possible to teach people how to use the magic of other worlds, though…
“Your turn.” I said, looking up at Ashara and seeing that she already had her paper in her hand.
“Hmm… Not telling!” She teased, grinning mischievously towards me. However, I simply stared at her with a straight face, until she let out a sigh. “Fine, fine. Primary element, Holy. Secondary are fire, metal, and shield. They think I should become a priest or cleric.”
“Huh… I heard that priests were able to almost freely wield Ashley’s fire.” I muttered, glancing towards Ashara. If I didn’t see her standing next to me when Ashley descended, I really might have thought that she was the goddess incarnated. Even her soul seemed to make her resemble Ashley.
“Yeah… I suppose that’ll be neat.” She said, moving to sit back on her bed, her tail wrapping around her narrow waist.
“You don’t like your choice?” I asked curiously, a bit surprised. Miss Lyrha had said that it was extremely rare for someone’s personal goals to not match their soul, after all.
“Huh? Oh, no, it’s fine.” Ashara assured me with a smile. “Just a bit annoying to have been compared with the goddess even with my soul.”
She laid back on her bed, her chest rising and falling with her breaths. “At first it was just a running joke. On my mother’s side of the family, everyone had a name beginning with Ash. An old religious reason, I think, but eventually it just became tradition. Then my dad comes in, and his last name is Leyrin… So, my parents always called me their little goddess.”
“And with your name, I bet you ended up with the nickname Ashley everywhere?” I asked, hooking my wings back onto my shoulders. With a sigh, I saw her horns bobbing forward in a nod.
“Yup. You can just imagine how they took it when I started to grow up to look like her. You wouldn’t believe how many times they took me to the churches back in Nemra, trying to pass me off as the reincarnation of Ashley.” She brought one of her hands up to cover her face.
“Hells, my parents actually encouraged me to join the Legion, saying that it was the only place I could truly display my birthright. I mean, I love them to death, and it’s great that they were supportive but really…” Suddenly, she began laughing, slowly propping herself up to grin at me. “Who does that? Encouraging their kid to join an expedition to another world where the survival rate is less than ten percent?”
I couldn’t help but blink in surprise at that, staring at her. “I thought you were doing this because you wanted to see new places, and meet all the different types of people?”
“Huh? Yeah, that’s not wrong. I’m the one who brought it up to them. I was just shocked that they not only accepted it, but encouraged me. Most people would… well, I imagine they’d be more like your situation.” She spoke softly in the end, looking apologetically at me.
“It’s fine.” I shook my head, offering a small smile back at her. I knew my mom was worried about me. And, if I can really grow strong enough to make something of myself, maybe I can see her again when I get back home…
“So… what do you want to do now?” Ashara asked, kicking her feet idly. “I mean… we’ve got all day to ourselves, to decide what we want to do with our future. But, I think we both want to go with what they suggested, right?”
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I gave a small nod at that, tilting my head up to look at the ceiling. “Well, we could get started with our training, maybe?” I suggested, shrugging my shoulders. “For you, it’d be pretty easy. All you have to do to become a priest is to believe hard enough, right?”
Ashara huffed out a breath at that, glaring towards me. “Yeah, yeah…” Saying that, she fell back against the bed again, her chest shaking from the fall. “I’m going to be praying for a while then. You do… whatever you want, I guess.”
I raised an eyebrow at that, but simply shook my head. I knew an easy way to train the mage class, but I didn’t have the faintest idea how to become a monster tamer… Given that, I simply went with what I knew, and began to focus on the basic fire spell, forming the image in my mind and letting the flame hover over my palm.
Our improvised training went on for the rest of the night, until we were finally too exhausted to continue anymore, after which the two of us turned in. The next day, the crowd seemed to have become even smaller. From the previous eighty-three, it looked like only forty or so turned up for training.
“Oh dear… oh dear…” Miss Lyrha looked towards the apartment complex, a trace of panic in her eyes. “I hope they took the inoculations like they were told…”
I glanced towards the apartments myself, remembering the assortment of shots that we had had to take during our first few days here. It had been well over a month now, so it seemed a bit too long to simply be a reaction to the shots. Maybe they were just sick? Maybe waking up in the mornings finally caught up to them?
The kitsune woman waved one of her people over, and asked them to dispatch a medical unit to the apartment. Afterwards, she turned to look at us. “Sorry about all of that. We’ll get it taken care of. In the meantime, I’d like everyone to follow me to our training facility.”
She spoke with a gentle smile, though a trace of worry could still be seen in her features. The kitsune quickly turned around, walking us away from the area and towards another large building in the compound that we had yet to gain access to.
“Here, you’ll find an instructor for all of the different classes we know about. They’ll help you on your path to grow, and suggest a few types of cards for you to keep an eye out for. We may have gotten the classes at the same time that you all did, but for us magic has been a thing since the birth of our world. Thanks to that, we were able to quickly discover and train certain classes.”
When she led us inside, I couldn’t help but speak up to ask a question. “What about those of us that are wanting to pursue multiple paths? Do we just take turns visiting the trainers?”
A few of the other trainees seemed interested in hearing the answer as well, but Miss Lyrha put on a somewhat difficult to understand expression. “Well… It’s honestly best to have one main class. You can level up others as well, but the greatest benefit will come from specializing. Especially since we don’t know if there is a limit to how much you can grow.”
“That being said, this is mostly for those specializing in a mystical path. For those that receive physical aid from their class… they will be forced to spread out their training a bit. We’ve found that over specializing in a single class can have long term health risks as a result of imbalanced stats.”
“What’s the highest level that anyone has reached?” Ashara asked from next to me, seeming curious from the kitsune woman’s words.
“Hmm… I think the highest reported is in the low two hundreds. However, he was one of the ones that specialized too much. He gained so many levels in Warrior that his bones and muscles hardened to the point he couldn’t move anymore.”
I couldn’t help but wince as I heard that, glad that neither of my classes sounded like the physical types. I definitely did not want to end up like a living statue. Looking to my side, I saw that Ashara was having a similar reaction to the news, her nose scrunched up as her shoulders tensed.
Soon we arrived in front of the building directory, which told us where each ‘class’ was held. “Now, classes are held all day. Each teacher has their own style, so I can’t really offer any more advice from here… But I wish you each good luck!”
She gave a brief quarter-bow, before moving to walk out of the building, her thick furred tail swaying behind her. The rest of us were left to go over the directory and find our ‘classrooms’. “See you later, Karn!” Ashara called out as she turned to rush down the hallway, while I had to head in the opposite direction.
I had to admit that I was interested in learning how to be a mage, but first I wanted to learn about this monster tamer class. Given that it was recommended to me because of my ‘primary soul element’ being Summon, I had to hope that it was something interesting.
The monster taming class was held on the second floor, and I was surprised to find that I was the only one moving in this direction. Either it was a fairly rare talent, or the other people who would have been joining me for the class were sick in bed… possibly both.
When I entered the classroom, I found a slender kitsune man sitting on a desk, writing something down on a paper in his lap. At the sound of the door opening, his head jerked up and he dropped the paper in surprise. “Oh! I wasn’t really expecting anyone. Are you here for the monster tamer class, or… wrong door, maybe?”
Okay, so definitely rare. “Monster tamer.” I answered as I stepped inside the room, closing the door behind me. The ‘teacher’s’ desk was the only one in the room, the rest of it being open space with a wooden floor, and a single window along the grey walls.
“Mind if I ask… what was your primary?” He glanced towards me as he asked that curiously.
“Summon… why?”
When he heard that, he let out a breath of relief. “Oh, good. People often come here when they really have no talent for taming monsters at all. Summoning, though… that should mean you’re perfect for it!”
“And… what does summoning have to do with taming monsters?” I couldn’t help but ask, curiously.
“Well, you see, the soul elements match magic cards. In our magic system, there are two ways to tame a monster, though I’m not sure how it works for your magic type. The first is to just beat them into submission until they recognize you as their leader. And the other is to use a Summon card on them after they die!”
“I see…” I had the strangest feeling that this class wasn’t going to be as helpful as I had originally hoped, but nonetheless decided to see where it would take me.