Elaria had almost instantly locked in the Gambler class when she’d seen the description and the bonuses. The boost in the luck stat was a perfect way to get an increase without having to use the stat points she received from levelling up, which she’d needed to invest in her other stats to boost her fighting power and survivability given the constant combat with monsters she’d been experiencing recently. The ability to have people agree to wagers she proposed was something she probably wouldn’t get much use from, but it was handy to have as a trump card in her back pocket in case she ever needed to goad someone into a bet.
The biggest draw was definitely the class skill, Dice of Fate. It had a relatively short cooldown that would allow her to use it two to three times a day, meaning it wouldn’t be something she was unable to use if she suddenly found herself in danger. It allowed the user to roll a dice, and depending on the number it landed on, she would gain a random boost to one of her stats, or status resistance and damage reduction. The only drawback was that rolling a one would actually make her take increased damage for two hours, but a five in six chance to get a buff was totally worth the risk.
The other options were the only legendary grade classes she had to select from, and the highest graded options in the entire list available to her. They gave slightly better stat increases than the Gambler class, and both had powerful passive abilities too. The description for Shadowstalker was rather enigmatic, but wasn’t it usually the case that the simpler the description, the more powerful the class would be? It still gave her a small luck boost, which was handy, as well as increasing her dexterity and agility, both stats that would give her much finer movement control during battle and outside of it. Hidden Blade was a skill that did exactly as it sounded, providing a huge damage and critical chance bonus when striking from a hidden location or with a secret weapon. While she had been utilising the forest as cover to ambush the goblins, Shadowstalker perhaps wasn’t the best long term class option, as Elaria had little interest in becoming an assassin or thief.
Growing up, Elaria hadn’t enjoyed getting into fights, mostly leaving the fisticuffs to Jacob, who was always ready to beat up any of the village kids who bullied her or who simply had the misfortune of annoying him that day. However, her experience of battle since leaving Reissdown Village had drastically changed her opinion. The feeling of trading blows with your opponent, even if it was a monster, as each of you aimed to eliminate the other, everything on the line and that rush when you managed to claim the killing blow had intoxicated her. Elaria still had a strong interest in magic, and wanted to spend some time researching the topic when she had a chance, perhaps in the capital, she’d heard the libraries in Cloudvale were magnificent, filled with endless tomes and scriptures encompassing topics from politics to pottery and the high arcane arts down the lowest street performance magic.
The last option, Child of Mana, was the strongest magically aligned class Elaria had seen in the entire list. Until she actually began to learn how to manipulate mana and cast spells, the Manablessed skill wouldn’t be of much use, but even the large boost to her intelligence stat would be incredible. The description of intelligence from the Chain was ‘Boosts the processing power of the mind, increases mana pool and mana regeneration and provides an increase in magical damage output.’ While the mana and magic boosts were useless to the current Elaria who slaughtered her foes with sword in hand, the first part, which basically meant she would become smarter, was a general utility benefit that could help her with strategy, decision making and more. The class skill, Manablessed, would provide her with an optimal mana circulation system lacking in impurities or inefficient pathways, as well as allow finer manipulation of her own mana and the natural mana of the world and reduce casting times.
Elaria decided that while Shadowstalker gave great benefits, it simply didn’t match with her vision for the future. She had no interest in being someone who hid in the shadows, living a life of darkness. Between Gambler and Child of Mana, both of which were incredibly powerful options, Gambler appealed more to her, lining up with her previous choices of ability and stat distribution. Zel had said that classes could evolve in the future, so it was possible that the class skill Dice of Fate as well as the bonuses would become even stronger when she reached higher levels. What stopped her from an easy decision was that Child of Mana gave a completely unique benefit that she would be unable to obtain through any other method that she knew of, which was having a perfect mana circulation system.
Most people were born with imperfections in their mana veins, which led to inefficient mana cycling and reduced effectiveness when casting magic - she’d learnt this in a book about basic mana manipulation. Some people even had stunted mana veins, meaning they would never be able to cast their own magic ever, although one could still become a mage by relying on the natural mana of the world, however that was much more difficult to manipulate. Elaria knew she wanted to learn how to manipulate mana and cast magic at some point, and with this as a base, any efforts she made would have double the effect compared to an average person. After some deliberation, she decided to choose Child of Mana for her class. Gambler was appealing, but she already had a luck based personal ability, and she felt that leaving everything up to fortune was a little risky. She confirmed her choice, and was presented with the class quest for Child of Mana.
Class Quest 1 - Child of Mana
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In order to truly receive the baptism of the world and become a child blessed by the mana you must first prove your ability to manipulate the energies of the natural world. Perform a single spell or transformation by using only the natural mana around you, without any assistance from your internal mana.
Reward:
Class - Child of Mana (Legendary)
It was a rather challenging task. Elaria had never even attempted to use her own mana, and she had read that manipulating natural mana was exceedingly difficult. Though the benefits of the class were definitely worth it, and she was sure that with dedication and study achieving either of the objectives would be possible. Having locked in her selection, she returned her focus to the task at hand and quickly checked her fire starting kit to make sure it was working. Her plan for the raid on the goblin fortress was to start fires in carefully selected locations in order to create a distraction and split the goblins into smaller, more manageable groups. If all of them were in one large horde, defeating them would be impossible, so Elaria had come up with this idea to help her with the assault.
It would still be difficult, but she was hoping that taking them out while they were focused on putting out the fires would be much easier than facing them in straight combat with all their energy directed towards killing her. The sun had set while she was deliberating which class to pick, and the time to use Lesser Call of the Treasury was here. She was unsure if anyone other than her could see the brightly coloured, rather loud portals that the skill produced, and so she retreated quite a distance into the forest to prevent any of the goblin lookouts from noticing her. After judging that she was far enough, Elaria took a seat at the base of a tree, and cast the skill. Casting skills was rather simple, all one had to do was mentally select the skill they wanted to use, and imagine using it, and all the heavy lifting would be done by the invisible mechanisms of the Chain. Would magical skills be the same once she had learnt how to use them, or would that require actual effort? It would be rather boring if it was the former.
The familiar whirr as the portal set itself up, once again in a dark forest green, meaning an unusual grade item was coming. Incidentally, that also helped to camouflage the portal against the colours of the trees, although with how dark it had become, the thick canopy above blocking most of the moonlight from reaching the forest floor, it was unlikely any nearby monsters would be able to spot her using the skill. A stylish leather collar, cherry red and decorated with gemstones fell from the portal. Rather than something Elaria would be able to wear, it seemed more like something to give a cat or dog. It reminded her of the kind of fashionable clothing that wealthy people would pamper their pets with back on Earth. Using the Chain, she was able to get a detailed description of the item, and was pleasantly surprised with the effect.
Master Tamer’s Compliance Collar (Unusual)
Equippable Item
This functional and fashionable collar is a must have for any budding beast tamer. If you place this around the neck of any wild beast or monster, it will become extremely docile and compliant towards your commands. Building a bond of trust with your pets is still an essential part of raising them and improving your relationship, but with this collar you can skip the frustratingly slow start that taming a creature often entails.
Any beast or monster wearing the collar will follow your commands, as long as they are reasonable
+1 to Agility and Strength for any beast or monster wearing the collar
Looks like there would be another occupation for Elaria to try her hand at in the future. Despite her many attempts to beg her parents for a puppy or kitten growing up back on Earth, they had never caved in, and as an adult she simply did not have the time to properly care for a pet. Perhaps if she found a suitable wild beast she could try her hand at rearing a pet here in Teron. Maybe one that could function as a mount too, walking everywhere was getting rather tiring. It seemed that even monsters could be tamed, so maybe one of the Silvermoon Wolves could be an option, although it seemed a waste to use the collar on such a low level monster, given that the description seemed to imply it would work on absolutely anything.
She decided to keep the collar on her just in case, putting it into one of her pockets. Stealthily making her way back towards the goblin fortress, Elaria mentally prepared herself for the coming battle. This would be the largest scale and most intense fight with monsters she’d ever experienced, and she knew that nothing that had happened to her so far would compare. Taking care not to alert the goblins in the watchtowers, she snuck over the wooden palisade, and made her way towards her first target - a large building that was the goblins' food storehouse. She had seen them carrying dead animals in, and butchered meat out. It was definitely somewhere they would direct immense resources to if it was in danger, and perhaps it was because the goblins felt safe behind their walls, but there was no guard posted outside. Elaria snuck inside, and quickly set up some kindling, before lighting it up and sprinting for her next target. She was on a timer to get all the fires started before they were noticed. The raid had begun.