Adam was confused, furious, and furiously confused. He didn’t really know what to feel anymore. On the one hand he was completely thrilled that he finally had his Class. On the other hand, his Class was MOTHER. As an orphan for the last eight years he barely remembered his own mother, and certainly not enough to provide him any sort of guidelines on how to be a mother. More importantly, he was a Man! And Mothers were all inherently female. He… he….
“Seriously? What the hells?” he furiously yelled at Szellem. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the man’s fault, he was the only other person present, and he also had the distinct misfortune to have been the one to point out the problem to Adam.
The older man sighed again, looking sad. “Yeah, and those are just the points you can think of now. There’s heaps more of them to go, but they all lead to the same thing. Look beneath your Class listing.”
Adam turned back around to face the wall of text again, searching down the list.
Name: Adam (no surname)
Age: 13
Class: Mother (C)
Level: 1
Class Affinity: 3.2%
Once more he didn’t make it far before disaster struck. And again, it was shrouded in confusion. Without any sort of schooling, training, or even someone who actually gave a shit about his future, Adam knew next to nothing about Classes, let alone Affinities. All he knew was that 3.2% was a very small amount.
Once more he looked to Szellem, simply stating, “Explain.”
“Man, the education for orphans here is a crime.” Another sigh, another sad look. “OK. Under normal circumstances, before a Class gets assigned kids are assessed for some time. And by some time, I mean a few years. This allows the System to get a feel for them before a Class is chosen. Over that time a number of conversations take place here in the mind about which Classes they have available, how well they fit with each, the expectations that come with each Class, and what it all means. Of course no one remembers these discussions, but they happen nonetheless. With me so far?”
Adam simply nodded.
“Good. Imagine a kid who loves plants, faints at the sight of blood, is terrified of all animals, and has never once dreamed of leaving the village they were born in. Do you think this child has a high Affinity with a hunting Class, or a Butcher? Or course not. They don’t have an interest either, so why bother showing them those options. People aren’t even shown Classes that they have less than 75% Affinity with because there is no point. So this kid gets shown Classes like Gardener, Herbalist, maybe even Druid with a caveat that some evolved versions are plant based. Between the kid and the System they work out which would work best, and BAM, Gifted a Class the kid likes and can actually use.
“Now, listen well because this is important. Affinity can change. For people that have a lower Affinity for a Class that they really want, they can still get it, if they can prove their will, drive, and desire. In cases where someone has proven their will to receive a Class that they normally wouldn’t have, they will be assigned that Class, however, they will have to continue to work towards truly being that Class or they will not be able to evolve it to what they really want. If their Affinity doesn’t rise, then their evolution options will be worse. If it gets too low, they might not be able to evolve it at all.
“See, as you grow older your hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes, the basic structures that make us who we are change. These things affect our Affinities for Classes. That’s why all of the initial Classes are simpler, or broader in scope. It’s only after people reach adulthood that they truly have a chance to know what it is they want out of life, although they are still wrong a fair portion of the time. That’s why the Classes are evolved and modified the way they are. It allows for people to make changes to how their Class matches their lives. Understand?”
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Adam stared blankly at Szellem for a moment. As time passed he looked more and more frustrated. Finally he broke. “So, I’m screwed?” he asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “Thanks for that long winded explanation on how I will never get my Affinity high enough to evolve my class into something useful. How can I get out of here so I can jump off a cliff, or throw myself down a dragon’s throat? Might as well end it before years of frustration drives me mad.” His emotions were finally growing strong enough to overcome the fading effect of being inside his own mind. Unfortunately the emotions he was feeling were frustration, fear, despair, and loss. Even with the blanket of the void he was on the brink of tears.
Szellem looked flabbergasted, but quickly shook his head and hands about in denial. “No! No, no, no. You’ll be fine! Let me explain!” His terrified cries broke through Adam’s despair, but only enough to pause his slide into rock bottom. His eyes as he looked at the man were nearly dead, barely a twinkle left from when he first saw he had been Gifted a Class. Szellem patted the air in front of him in, trying to calm Adam with gestures. “Let me explain how this happened first, so that you understand why we have to do things the way we will to fix your problem, OK?”
Adam just nodded mutely. He didn’t have much hope left, but he could stall long enough for an explanation. Besides, as long as Harold was dead, he didn’t mind dying. That thought brought him a little more back to equanimity, realizing he needed to be alive to make sure of that.
“Like I said, normal Awakenings take years, and somewhere in there, usually towards the end, people are Gifted their Classes. But yours was anything but normal. Technically, your Awakening started this morning, so you didn’t have the time to go through the full normal assessment. Instead you spent the morning taking care of children, expressed empathy for the difficulties in their lives, understood them, and then gave it everything you had to try and save them, including attempting to sacrifice yourself. That everything included demanding, subconsciously, that the System give you your Class right that moment. With the day you had had, there was only one Class you qualified for at that point. So here we are.” Szellem spread his arms, generally waving around the void of Adam’s mind and the still mostly unread wall of text to remind him where they were and why.
Before Adam could interject with a rehash of his problems, Szellem continued. “Your situation was definitely not normal, but it was by no means unique. Many teenagers run into situations where they have to forcibly demand their Gift before they are truly ready, so the System has a number of different ways to remedy the situation. Just as changes are sometimes needed for adults after they have evolved their class, sometimes they are needed for the younger crowds as well.
“The major difference between the remedies is how bad the Affinity is. The one measure that always applies when people are in this situation, is the summoning of a guide like myself. We have found that just talking through the situation can calm people down enough to make it work one way or another. It helps that being dragged into their own mind also opens up the path to easier advancement, thus speeding them through the rougher times. Oftentimes, the solution is just time, as people can evolve out of the Class line they are on. This might not result in the optimal situation, but it can be surprisingly beneficial. This is the normal solution for people above 30 or 40%, but still lower than they should have been. Below 40%, we often have to take slightly more drastic measures.
“At these numbers, it is unlikely that Affinity will rise high enough to allow an evolution at all. In cases like that we aim for the other option, Distillation. This is the process whereby the parts of the class that don’t agree with you are shaved away, or altered to allow something new in their place. Take that kid from before. If he had been given some sort of Hunter class afterall, he’d never have a chance to evolve that. Distillation would give him some options though. Hunters normally have an animal pet, but he could change out the animal for some sort of plant. Ditch tracking for herblore, and the bow for a staff of some kind. Put a little more emphasis on the nature elements to lean towards husbandry rather than hunting, and you’ve got a class that leads where he needs to go. Sure he might have to finally leave his village and move to a forest, but a kid like that obviously needs to get out more,” Szellem finished with a laugh.
Adam had discovered that he could simply pull his legs upwards as though he was sitting, and still float comfortably in his own mind. He was starting to regain hope, but it seemed a little too good to be true, and he didn’t trust much anymore. “Distillation sounds good, but there’s got to be a cost to something like that.”
Nodding, Szellem got back to his explanation. “Yes, of course. The cost is that it isn’t a Class evolution. You’ll lose a comparable amount of previously gained experience with the amount of things you remove, and pay a penalty to experience you gain in the future with the things you add. The maximum cost you can incur would be back down to level ten, but you keep the power gains from reaching the level cap. You’ll even gain more power, but it will be reduced from normal as you relevel. You still have to put in the work, so you should still be rewarded.”
“That still doesn’t fix the fact that I have to gain all those levels in the first place with a class that I just can’t use,” Adam pointed out grumpily. He really liked the idea behind Distillation. It seemed to be the perfect solution to not being able to evolve his class, but it didn’t fix the immediate problem.
Szellem smiled again, but this time Adam wasn’t reassured. There was an edge to it he hadn’t seen before from the oddly goofy man. “Don’t worry,” the man said, “we have a solution for that too.” The smile grew, and Adam was positive it was sinister that time. “You get System Assistance!”