Year 1566, autumn.
As they were pretty sure their correspondence would be spied on, the heroes had agreed to regularly send meaningless letters to each other and to have a code for when Luca would obtain his class. On that date, they would all converge to Dawnheart to meet him and adjust their plans depending on the class he got and the skill that would come with it.
As he waited for them, Luca brought back the teaching hours from a full day to only the morning hours, and he spent all of his afternoons and evenings reading in the royal library. His reading skill had been merged into his class, effectively capping its level to Luca’s level plus ten. It took him a few days to bring the skill to level 20 but by then books passed by him in a blur. The best thing was, he didn’t have to be afraid of missing something as everything was then stored in his mental library.
He especially focused on books containing knowledge that could be useful to the class of the other heroes. The sooner he used [Profound Teacher] on them the better. Helena’s case was both the easiest and the most difficult one: as she would specialize in arcane magic and complex casting, books and theories about her specialty abounded. But at the same time, they were the more obtuse to Luca as they were completely alien to everything he knew about the world. Nevertheless, he worked diligently on the theory behind magic to be able to discuss it with the party’s leader.
Jordi’s case was strange too, but then whose wasn’t? Luca was going to teach them about their class even though he had never put a foot in their fields and knew next to nothing about the realities they faced. Last time, Jordi said he would be a kind of ranger, maybe with beast or druidic magic. So Luca got into reading about plants and nature, the cycle of seasons, the climates, anything he thought could be useful.
The last two heroes were both women. Iria had been summoned by Hetia, goddess of home and love, which had in turn led to her decision to become a Hetia paladin, or in RPG terms, both a tank and a cleric. This is something the other party of heroes felt was very funny as Iria was less than a meter and a half tall and had very little weight or muscle to her name. And so Iria chose to join the other heroes’ party. For her, Luca studied theology intensively while reading all he could about paladins and knights in general.
Lastly, Jane wanted to be a swordswoman. Why? Luca still didn’t understand. But then, there was very little he understood about Jane. Even in the few days they spent together, she rarely said anything intelligible, preferring to talk in aphorism or not even talk at all. So for her, Luca read poetry.
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About two weeks after he sent his letters, the first of his party arrived. It was Helena who came first. She was with a party of about twenty adventurers and had already reached level 20. They went straight to the castle where the king obliged by hosting them. After a small ceremony, she said she and her party were tired from the travel and would like to be allowed to rest. The king obliged and gave them rooms. As soon as she was alone Helena went to Luca’s room to ask him the question that had been harrowing her ever since she received her letter.
She opened the door, cast a look around to check there was no one, added a spell on top to be sure no one could hear her, and then asked: “So what’s your class?”
Luca was happy to see her again. Of all the other heroes, she was his favorite. He liked how she took time to think and to listen to everyone, being both very present but not taking all the space. She inspired him respect and knew how to make him at ease. So he quickly put her up to date.
“That’s a great class you got Luca! Entirely support type, but combined with our hero class and our future colony, definitely completely cheated. Seems like you were on betting on not fighting and using the blessing on civilian class.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Luca beamed at that. In the last two weeks he had told no one about his class but having someone to talk about it to and who understood his choice was a great comfort. He was confident in his choices but being alone was still hard on him.
“So what about you? What’s the detail of your class? What’s its name?”
“[Arcanist Archmage]” she answered smugly. “Sounds great doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t have legendary in it though…”
“You know that “Arch” in Archmage means above and beyond right? So technically it’s better than legendary. You know that right, you scholar?”
They both laughed at that before Helena went on.
“So basically what it does is allowing me to craft spells and charge rituals to create extremely powerful magic. I should soon be able to pretty much throw nuclear bombs around. The downside though is that I have no physical stats and cannot fast cast. So I’m pretty vulnerable. Want to know my skills?”
“Of course, I want to know your skills !”
And they went on talking and theorizing throughout the night. The following day, after a late morning in bed, they started theory crafting about magic and the arcane. Things were much clearer with Helena as her class gave her insight and concrete situations the books lacked. On the other hand, she sometimes lacked a good understanding of the theory and benefited from Luca’s help. After a few days, his [Profound Teacher] skill had leveled up twice, granting him two levels. The bonus experience for leveling legendary skills was just absurd.
By then, they had already discussed most of the things they wanted to discuss about the class and needed to wait for the other members of the party to join them to plan. Helena spent the rest of the time practicing her skills or reading in Luca’s mental library.
The others arrived soon enough and once the official formalities were done, they meet in Luca’s room to plan. After getting everyone up to date and the others’ skills and classes: Jordi was a [Druidic Ranger], Iria was a [Legendary Paladin of Hetia] and Jane [A Swordswoman of the Legends], they got on to business.
“So here is what Luca proposed we do.” It was Helena, as the leader, who explained the plan. “You guys should first abuse his metal library time dilatation and his teaching skill to train. In my case, my [Arcane comprehension] skill, which was already legendary, has been enhanced and gained +1% arcane efficiency with each level, while other skills have gotten up to +10% efficiency just due to his teaching.”
That was a lot if you considered how much each level would add, and everyone in the room knew that. Jordi grumbled a bit at how weird it would be to be taught by a bookworm but that was all.
“Then, once you guys have taken all you could from his teachings, we would depart as a party to found a city on the coast. It would be a two-week journey and we would install ourselves in a minor kingdom that has no heroes covering for it. We’d build a small city where we could do two things. One: prepare the resources for the expedition, Luca wants to try and draw the ships that will take us, but we’ll also need to amass food, steel, and various objects. Two: Luca will be able to teach and prepare the people that will come with us. We can form a small army, train crafters, prepare administrators, and so on. What do you guys think?”
“What about the cost?” Iria asked.
“We’d fund this with what we gain from adventuring. As we had decided last time, all the gold we can take through loot will be useless once we depart from the continent so we might as well invest it now.”
“And how do you think the kingdoms will react to it?”
“They won’t be happy, but since it is purely for the sake of leaving the continent they should let it be,” Helena answered. “Also, we’ll keep Luca’s class a secret, all of those he teaches will be under oath.”
“Well I don’t know about you guys but I’m in.” Jordi said. That was his type, he thought alone and then would reach a decision. Once he had chosen, he would not budge. Trusting his instincts he said.
“I partake in the decision” Jane announced.
“All good for me too. Though we’ll need to finagle the details.” Iria said. “But maybe we should let Luca spend more time here, let him learn from the local high-level crafts. And what about poaching some crafters from here? We’re literally in the capital of crafting and I’m sure we could entice a few high-level individuals with Luca’s boons.”
At that, everyone turned on Luca. Well, I guess I’m screwed.