Adam chatted with Szellem a little longer, but didn’t manage to pry anything else out of the enigmatic guide. Perhaps he would have done better if he wasn’t still excited over raising his affinity. He still wasn’t completely sold on the idea of having the class of Mother, but it was certainly growing on him. He had no evidence to support the idea that he would have been capable of doing the things he had done if he had had a different class, which was a major point in its favor. However, other than trouble with Harold, all of the other difficult circumstances he had been placed in were indirect results of being a Mother. Without his class, he never would have come to the attention of the duke, who in turn, forced him into the situations he had faced. Situations he likely wouldn’t have survived without the class he had. It was a vicious circle, and he couldn’t see a way out.
Sighing, he decided to roll back into attempting to use Multitask from within his mindscape. There was no more success than previous attempts. He was beginning to think he was coming at the problem from the wrong side. Instead of trying to use Multitask from inside, he would try using it to get into his mindscape.
With that attempt failed, he started flipping through his available skills again. There were only two new skills, and as useful as they looked, he still wasn’t quite ready for the investment. His major concern was that he had gained another level, and was therefore only a single step away from needing to choose his specialty, something he hadn’t thought about at all. Since he was still stuck in his mindscape after passing out, he turned to the only person he could.
“Szellem! Got any advice on this Specialization thing?”
“You do recall where we just discuss that I am your guide for affinity, yes?”
“Sure, but I’m not asking for guidance, I’m asking for advice. Not even advice really, just… a loose definition?”
Adam got to spend the next little while listening to complaints about his education. Once more there were threats targeted at his “teachers”, commentary on the parentage of the orphanage organizers, and even some new verbal abuse of The Queen of the Night’s priesthood and their priorities. It even spilled onto the rest of the gods and goddesses. By the end he was praying that none of the pantheon could listen to anything inside his head, or at least could determine that it wasn’t him who was saying any of it.
When the guide finally stopped his complaints, Adam carefully inserted a qualification. “I know there are certain… limitations on what you can say, but surely a System Guide can speak about the actual functions of the System?” He remembered Szellem claiming to be both his Spirit and System Guide. He wasn’t sure on the difference, if there even was one, but this seemed like the time to get some clarification.
“Seriously a crime, “the white eyed man muttered to himself. It was his most repeated statement about Adam’s education. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then let it out. As he released the breath he seemed to calm greatly. Looking at Adam, he explained, “Breathing exercises. Great for emotional control. They also work wonders for meditation as well. You should give it a shot.”
He seemed so serious Adam couldn’t stop himself. “Uh, yeah. Definitely. You’ll have to show me how.” Somehow he felt slightly dirty after not only agreeing, but asking for assistance. Obviously, the breathing exercises seemed to help Szellem, but he was still concerned. He tried to get everything back on track. “So, Specialization?”
“Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses.” The man tugged on his vest, transforming it into some sort of brown cloth jacket with a long collar and a number of buttons. The leather pants changed to match, and a fluffy sweater over a high collar white shirt appeared. There was even some sort of noose around his throat. It was an odd ensemble, even by the man’s normal standards. Just the change of clothes seemed to double his body weight, although nothing else had changed.
Szellem cleared his throat, standing in a slumped posture, one hand raised forward and the other behind his back. “Now, Specialization is a very important topic. More than anything other than your initial class selection, it will determine your future.” He started pacing, his tone changing more to that of someone absently rambling about a favored topic than that of the oddity he normally represented himself as. “Remember, the more specific your class, the fewer options you will have.”
“Each class has a number of Specializations that they can choose from. Take Fighters for instance. A common melee class, the users of which are as varied as they are numerous. Because of this, they have many more options for specialization that someone with the class of, say, Assassin. Assassins likely have only three options: poison, melee, and ranged. Not being one myself, I can’t tell you the actual names, but the concept is still established. Fighters, on the other hand, will have multiple options across several categories. For instance, armor. Specializing in the armor category would then offer you a choice of which armor you would like to take: light, medium, heavy, possibly other options. Shields are similar, as they also have a number of types. Swords, knives, spears, axes, the lists go on. That’s not to say that you can’t choose a category either. Why specialize in kite shields, when you can take all shields?”
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Adam tried to interject, but the lecturing Szellem snapped a hand up, palm out. “Ah, ah. Hold your questions for the end, please. Now where was I?” He scratched his head and coughed, looking confused. Shortly he brightened up. “Ah, yes. Consequences! Making a specialization choice is permanent, and cannot be changed. Furthermore, it will dramatically affect your evolution options. Even Distillation can’t undo a Specialization, although they do interact differently than evolutions do.”
“Fighters that take a heavy armor specialization will not be offered evolved classes that do not have a heavy armor component. And not in a small way. Heavy armor will be the major focus of the class. It could open up classes along the Juggernaut line, where the heavier the armor the stronger the user, or the Bulwark line which is focused on protection. Interestingly, the Bulwark line can also be accessed through some shield specializations as well.”
“So whatever Specialization, or Spec as the kids are calling it these days, you choose, the most important part is that you need to be absolutely sure that it is something you want to spend the rest of your life doing. One way or another, it will become your future.”
Szellem coughed again, then drank a glass of water that appeared out of nowhere. He attempted to stand straight, but the strange extra weight kept him slumped. With a stern expression he asked, “Questions?”
Adam’s hand shot up, even though he hadn’t had any intention of doing so. While he was looking oddly at his rebellious arm Szellem called out, “Yes, Adam?”
Watching as his arm dropped back behind his head, seemingly of its own volition, Adam bemusedly asked, “What just happened?”
A harrumph sounded from the only other person in his mind. “Boy, if you can’t be bothered to pay attention, then I am not repeating myself.”
“What?” His head whipped around. “Oh! No, no. Sorry, just a little confusion.” He scratched his head, entirely lost as to what was happening, but trying to remember what he was going to ask. “Ah, yes! What do you mean Distillation interacts differently with Specialization?”
The old white eyed man stared for a moment before waving his hand to dispel the odd clothing change. When the smoke cleared, he was back to his “normal” fringed, leather pants and vest. He scratched his chin through his beard. “Specialization is supposed to lock you onto the class based path that you feel is right for you. Distillation is the nearly full rewrite of your class, so obviously the two don’t go well together. Instead of continuing the well-defined path that you originally chose at Specialization, Distillation will make it more of a general role. Take that heavy armor fighter, if you distilled that, whatever your new class would become would follow the basic role that a heavy armor fighter fits.”
Seeing that Adam didn’t quite get it, he shrugged. “There’s not a lot more I can tell you about either of them until the options present themselves. I can make some guesses about how it will apply to you though.” The boy’s eyes lit up, eager to know more. “Your Specialization options will almost certainly follow your skill categories, meaning Love, Protection, Chores, Household, and Discipline.” He stopped talking, waiting to see if all of the hints he had dropped would get Adam to the next logical steps. There were several things the boy could latch onto throughout his lecture, and he was curious to see the results.
Adam pondered the implications for some time. There were a number of issues that everything Szellem had said presented. For one, he needed to choose from his current skill categories to affect his long term class options. Furthermore, he hadn’t exactly been focusing on any one category so far. The good news was that his skill categories were fairly synonymous with particular combat roles. Not that he yet knew which combat role he wanted to take up. Protection was the role he had employed the most so far, along with melee combat, which he didn’t have a category for.
Looking again at his Sky Tome, he realized how close he was to needing to have an answer to the question. Or was he? “Do I have to choose my Specialization as soon as I hit level ten?”
Szellem smiled. It was a good question. “Not at all. Your Specialization is generally determined by your tenth skill point. If your Spec options are as I believe they are, then whichever category you place your point in will also be your choice for Specialization. In the case of a shield fighter, placing their tenth point into a skill that only works with a specific type of shield would lock them into that Specialization, but if it was just a general shield skill then they would Spec that way. It is slightly complicated, but well understood and usually taught by instructors or masters before people even come close to needing the knowledge so that Apprentices have time to plan out their approach to what they want in life.”
As the guide rambled off onto another rant over Adam’s poor education, the boy contemplated what he had learned. Eventually he latched on to one very important aspect of what Szellem had said. Most people actually made a plan for their lives.
Since he had been Gifted his class, Adam had been making instinctual choices on his skills. The fact that they had all worked out as well as they had so far was nothing short of a miracle, but that couldn’t continue. If he could plan ahead of time how his future choices would present themselves, he needed to do so.
A smiled grew wide on his face. And he knew exactly the skill he needed to help him do it right.