Somewhere in Tutorial Block #108
Astrid frowns as she and the team stand on one side of the long wood and rope bridge between one island and another simply watching the group of familiar faces cross it towards them. More specifically, she frowns at one particular face amongst the group.
Great. Of course he’s one of the first people we run into.
“There a problem?” Alara asks when she notices Astrid’s face, but Aidan answers for her, “The guy in the middle of their group has been trying and failing to woo Astrid ever since she entered the Academy. So as you might imagine, she doesn’t like him.”
Alara frowns at that, only to shake her head and say, “Please don’t get in a fight with him.”
Before Astrid can say anything, Aidan says, “She normally ignores him.”
Astrid raises a brow at Aidan for answering the questions in her place, only to shake her head lightly and focus on the group again.
“That’s fine,” Alara says with a nod as she crosses her arms. “Now let’s just hope he behaves.”
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The first thing that catches Astrid’s attention when the group finishes crossing the bridge is the slight tingling sensation at the back of her head that any Class B and above species gets when they’re identified by another. And that has her frowning.
“Not above being rude right off the bat, then?” she comments, feeling more than a little irritated at the intrusion of privacy. And judging by the others’ faces, she isn’t the only one who was identified.
“This is a new dimension, so there should be new rules,” Rodrick states in a pompous tone that doesn’t mesh well with the ruined armor he’s wearing, the other people around him – all children of nobles themselves – nodding their agreement. Meanwhile the leader of their group of six – the crown prince of the kingdom from prior to the Reset – just crosses his arms and frowns.
Since they did it first, Astrid goes ahead and identifies each of the members of their team, getting the unique identifier for Class B species and above from each of them as a result.
{William Sinclair – Class: Warlock – Level 6}
{Charlotte Stirling – Class: Arcane Archer – Level 5}
{Amelia Hawthorne – Class: Assassin – Level 5}
{Henry Montgomery – Class: N/A – Level 5}
{Sophia Lancaster – Class: N/A – Level 4}
{Rodrick Lancaster – Class: N/A – Level 4}
Astrid frowns at their classes and levels, which are all mostly higher than their own, only to shake her head lightly.
They’ve already gotten uncommon and rare classes. Stupid nobles with their noble upbringings simply giving them extra knowledge and more time to figure out the important General skills to increase the number of classes they’re offered.
“William,” Alara says with a frown, addressing the silver haired crown prince. And both Sophia and Rodrick, the Lancaster siblings of the Baron household, frown and begin to complain about her use of his name without a title. But she just ignores them.
The crown prince in question narrows his pure silver eyes as well, seemingly displeased with her informality, but he doesn’t say anything. Probably because he’s not really a prince anymore, considering the kingdom doesn’t exist in this dimension.
Not much authority attached to baseless noble titles after all.
“Alara,” William says before glancing at everyone in Astrid’s team, briefly focusing on Astrid when he finds her to be the highest level of the group. Then he turns his attention on Alara again as he says, “Are you willing to serve under me?”
Alara just scoffs at that, and Astrid holds back a snort of amusement. Meanwhile Rob and Shelly both look conflicted, and Aidan bored.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he states in a simple and straightforward manner before beginning to walk around the group, his own group stiffening for a second in surprise at his lack of action against Alara’s team, only to follow after him a few seconds later. Although Astrid can’t help but notice a couple of them complaining about their lack of action towards her team.
Astrid glances at Alara to find her glaring at the teams back for a few seconds before she turns to address their own team and says, “They’re right about one thing. This is a new dimension, and everyone’s on the same footing now. So I don’t think we can waste time on being polite and not identifying people.”
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Both Rob and Shelly’s eyes widen at that, but Astrid and Aidan just nod their heads in agreement.
“Every encounter could come to a life or death battle now, so we can’t risk not having as much information about everyone we find as possible,” Astrid states, making the unwillingness in Rob and Shelly’s eyes lower just a bit. “We shouldn’t think of identifying someone as rude anymore. Not when it’s a powerful tool to help us survive.”
The world was already harsh enough when the Ascendants ruled over everything and created their own laws, but now that people can get away with anything without anyone enforcing laws over them… some people may want to think of the world as a new chance at life, but what it really is, is a battlefield. A struggle. Just like the stories of the original Initialization of the System.
Astrid shakes her head at the dark thought before opening her status.
Name: Astrid Knight Species: Human(T1) Level: 5 Select Class Health: 50/50 Mana: 90/90 VIT: 5 DEX: 9 STR: 9 MAG: 9 MEN: 5 Racial Skills Active Skills Passive Skills General Skills
Astrid purses her lips for a few seconds and closes out of her status.
I’ll select a class when I reach level 10. That should be enough to get an uncommon or rare class. Wouldn’t be surprised if William only just recently got his class as well since he has a rare one himself.
At this point she’s managed to regain her mana manipulation skill along with her enhancement magic and shadow magic, so she should have everything she needs to get her Magic Knight class back. A rare class.
I wish we could find a better weapon somewhere though. Getting swordsmanship or any other weapons related skill should be the last thing needed to guarantee the class choice.
Astrid is drawn out of her thoughts when she feels the tingling sensation of someone identifying her again, bringing her attention to Aidan to find him smirking at her as he says, “Now we don’t have to worry about figuring out who’s who between you and Lexi anymore!”
Then after a second, the others all identify her as well, making Astrid roll her eyes.
Idiots. The lot of them.
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Alexia Knight
After awkwardly teleporting back and forth by a third of a meter over and over again, taking breaks to hunt a single piranha every now and then, making sure not to kill more than that to keep them appeased, I finally get my new skill to level two. I also manage to get Quantum Bolt to level 2 while hunting the piranhas. So I walk back over to the river cavern again before taking a deep breath as I watch over the running water.
Okay. I will not fall into the water. I am not fish food.
And with those lovely but rather pointless self-motivating words out of the way, I start from the end of the cavern before beginning to run at full speed, jumping once I reach the end of the small platform near the edge of the water. And just as I expected, piranhas start leaping out of the water in a frenzy as I soar above them. But they’re all too slow and end up clapping their jaws on air, missing me while I fly past them.
When I get to the center of the river though, the much larger piranhas start jumping out of the river at much faster paces, and I only barely avoid them thanks to teleporting up into the air, the quantum skill managing to keep my momentum going unlike what a regular spatial magic skill would do. Something I learned while testing it.
After teleporting two meters above where I was moving through the air, I manage to clear the rest of the river without much struggle, moving straight over the large piranhas in the process. And when I hit the ground on the other side, I do it in a roll right before the piranhas of the river rush forward and tackle the ground where I was, sending it falling into the river after I’ve already rolled away.
I quickly roll onto my back, just looking at the river as I pant from the exhaustion and stress that had caused me, but then I can’t help but smile.
Success. And I’m not fish food.