As the kill notification popped up, Sylvia was finally able to breathe out in relief at the situation. With a deep sigh, she walked a bit away from the recently killed goblins and took a seat on the ground. There, she tried her best to calm her swirling emotions and steady her breathing.
After around a minute, she figured she had calmed down enough to move on to look at the class stuff, mainly so she would be able to actually level up. ‘Select class.’ At the thought and intent, a pop-up appeared
Available classes:
* Spearwoman
* Lumberjack
“So, it’s based on stuff I’ve done? But I’ve done so much more than that, how come it only shows those two? Ah, of course. Those are what I’ve done as Sylvia, which hopefully indicates that each form can have its own class.” At that realization, she clenched her fist, smiled, and exclaimed: “Yes!” in a low voice. “Lumberjack is out of the question, this form is for battling, so I’ll pick spearwoman.”
Spearwoman conditions:
Kill 10 beings at or below level 10 using a spear: 0/10
Or
Kill 1 being at or above level 11 using a spear: 0/1
“So, it needs me to do something? I suppose that’s reasonable; not much I can do about it regardless. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like the quest is actually all that hard, so I can probably get it done before I head home, at least if I can find enough monsters or beasts to kill.” A sudden rustle a little in the distance had her turn her head. “Hmm. What’s that?”
Just to be on the safe side, she readied herself for a fight, and mere moments before appeared, it struck her what it must be. ‘It’s probably that third enhanced goblin, just in time to not let me get a proper break. Wait, killing this should allow me to get my class, so what am I waiting for?’
With renewed vigor at the lookout to actually obtaining a class, Sylvia began to approach the goblin, who, unlike the other three she had fought up ‘til yet, was of a slightly smaller stature, though still with a sword in hand and both a breastplate and a helmet.
Looking at the goblin’s face, she saw what appeared to be a self-confident smile and lust in its eyes. She had barely gotten a look at it before it made its move. Still well over three meters away, it swung fairly casually. For a brief moment, Sylvia thought its action to be weird, but that thought was quickly dispersed when something slashed halfway through her spear, after which a weak wind hit her.
In a mixture of shock, surprise, and horror, it struck her what had happened; the goblin had used ranged magic, and probably wind magic at that. ‘Shit, shit, shit. How come it can do that? And I have to fight such a thing? Absolutely absu-‘ “-Oh shit.” With that exclamation, Sylvia jumped to the side, just in time to notice a shallow cut appear on her right upper arm.
Although she didn’t know how to fight it, she at least knew one thing: If her spear was destroyed, then she would most likely die. So, she did the one thing she could think off while avoiding the flying slashes, that being to quickly repair her spear with nature magic.
“Argh, so damn close.” ‘If only I could attack with magic as well, but I can’t cast it at a distan… Wait, do I really need to cast it away from me? If it really is so simple to cast magic away from oneself that even a goblin can do it, then how come it keeps swinging its sword?’ By this point, the confident smile on the goblin had begun to be replaced with frustration, making it trade accuracy for speed, which ended up forcing Sylvia to focus more on the goblin.
As the fight passed its second minute, two things had happened to Sylvia. 1, she was starting to feel the exhaustion return from constantly moving about without even having had the time to recover beforehand, and 2, it had become easier to dodge the attacks the last half a minute, as she had begun to get a better understanding of where the attack would end up based on the slash.
With the slightly increased breathing room, a plan, or at least an idea, began to take form in Sylvia’s mind. Over the next half a minute, she had managed to slowly condense enough water to cover the fingertips on her right hand. By this point, the goblin’s breath had also begun to grow unsteady, showing signs of exhaustion.
After dodging another wind blade, Sylvia released her right hand’s grip on the spear, straightened out said hand’s fingers, and swiped her hand upwards whist facing the goblin. As her arm was about to reach halfway up, she focused the thought ‘SHOOT!’ on the water, and to her joy, off it went, heading straight towards the goblin at a decent though harmless speed.
Despite the speed being harmless, the target clearly wasn’t used to having stuff fired back at it. And in what looked like a panicked movement, it swung its sword straight at the incoming water, striking it to little effect. The moment the slight panic formed in the goblin’s eyes, Sylvia took action and ran towards it behind the water. For safety, she had the spear-staff cover the space behind the water in case it did something with magic.
Luckily for Sylvia, the goblin did no such thing, so taking advantage of the opening created by that wild defensive move, she thrusted out with her spear. A satisfied smile formed as she struck gold, piercing straight through the base of the throat which wasn’t protected by the armor. It only took for her to pull out her spear for the notification to come.
Killed Enhanced Goblin lv. 25. Gained exp. Lack of class prevents level up. Exp is stockpiled until a class is selected. Killed 1 being at or above level 11 using a spear: 1/1 Class [Novice Spearwoman Trainee] acquired, returning stockpiled exp. Level has been raised to 16. Gained: 13 Strength, 10 Vitality, 10 Endurance, 14 Mana, 7 Wisdom, and 6 Perception. Obtained class skill |Basic Spearmanship|
“Phew,” -a heavy sigh of relief left her- “that went about as well as possible, and it even helped me realize a way to use magic at a distance. I should probably get home before the other goblins catch up… Or maybe.” For a brief moment, she thought about whether or her new level and class would allow her to take on a potentially large number of goblins, before shaking her head. “Nah, I’d rather not risk it. I’ll just go home for now.”
But before making her way back home, there was one thing she wanted to do, and that was to loot. Like she did with the previous goblin encounter, she grabbed the metal gear and was about to dispose of the armor, before it struck her to at least check the stats. So, she touched the helmet of the goblin laying before her and checked its status.
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Name: Leather helmet
Rating: Journeyman
Quality: Alright (Good) Endurance: +5 (9)
Mana: +3 (5)
Wisdom: +1 (2) Description: A leather helmet made by the journeyman leatherworker Jurrien. The leather was hardened so that it can serve any actual defense purpose. Due to poor maintenance, the quality has dropped from good to alright.
“Damn, that’s actually quite good. If just I could get rid of the goblin stench, then it would actually be a wearable item. Regardless, I’ll take them with me as well and try to work something out back home. After gathering the three other pieces of armor, her eyes moved back to the one metal item she had left, the spear. Excited to finally get a metal weapon suitable for her, she opened its info.
Name: Steel spear
Rating: Journeyman
Quality: Poor (Great) Strength: +2 (10)
Vitality: +1 (6)
Endurance: +0 (3) Description: A steel spear made by the competent blacksmith Ivar. Despite lacking the skills, the creator’s insane passion managed to raise both its rating and quality. Due to incredibly poor treatment, the quality of the spear has dropped from great to poor and is approaching being comparable to trash.
“Holy crap… to think that a metal spear is worse than a stone one. I should really try to do something to it upon getting back home; it’ll be quite the improvement over my current one if I can fix it somewhat.” Quickly, Sylvia turned into Frank, made sure to carry all the equipment, and returned to being Sylvia. Now, with nothing but what she came with in her hands, she made her way back home. On her way back, she thought to inspect both the class and skill
[Novice Spearwoman Trainee]
Rating: Common
Skill: |Basic Spearmanship| Rank-up condition: |Basic Spearmanship| level 25 |Basic Spearmanship|
Level: 1
Rating: Common
Improves one’s ability with a spear.
Effect: Increases damage done using spears by 1%
“Ooh! This is nice.” Her face lit up at seeing something that’d passively boost her fighting capabilities. “Though basic spearmanship giving 1% at level 1 does make me wonder what later versions will give. Wait, does this mean that my current skill level is only worth level 1? Because if so, then it’ll be a pain to level it up. Though I’ll do my best regardless.”
As she thought out loud about the leveling process, she remembered that she actually had one other skill that could level up. “Hmm, I wonder if |Internal Mana Control| has leveled up at all, because I haven’t been notified about it.” Curious, she pulled up the skill and her eyebrows creased in slight confusion.
|Internal Mana Control|
Level: 10
Rating: Common
The ability to control the mana whilst inside of the body.
Sub-skills:
-Mana circulation
-Mana expulsion
-Mana pathway creation
“So, it’s reached level 10, but what does that even do? Unless it’s needed in requirements, I can’t see much reason to care about this leveling up. Regardless, this just goes to show that skills don’t announce level ups.” Shortly after putting the skill away, another thing struck her.
“Wait a second. If the skill is specifically called ‘Internal’ Mana Control, then that should mean that there’s an exterior version as well. That at least appears to confirm that mana can be used outside the body, though I’m still at a loss on how to actually do it. I’ll need to experiment a bit more with it back home.”
Not even a couple seconds after those words had left her mouth, it dawned on her how many time-consuming things she kept piling up. “Geez, there’s so much stuff to do.” An exhausted sigh just at the thought left her. “Hah… at least I can take a bath and relax for a bit once I get back.”
It didn’t take long after saying that, before Sylvia’s thoughts began to circle around potential ways to use mana externally, as she didn’t really have much other stuff to do right now. To begin with, she figured that the best way to start would be to try and control the mana instead of just casting the magic, just like when she learned the internal skill.
To begin with, she focused on the mana in her mana pool and consciously tried to pull out just a small bit of mana, which succeeded. Once she had the small amount of MP, she manually had the mana move down to her right index finger’s tip. This was unlike all other times that she had had mana move around in her body, as there she told it where to go instead of manually controlling it. This change was also reflected in what appeared in her vision.
Sub-skill of |Internal Mana Control|, Mana segregation, has been learnt.
Sub-skill of |Internal Mana Control|, Mana movement, has been learnt.
A light chuckle escaped her as she saw it. “I have a sneaking suspicion that that movement part is about as basic as it can get, yet I didn’t have it until now. Ahh.. the joy of being 100% self-taught.” She then returned her focus to the mana, which was now at the end point of its journey inside her body.
While concentrating enough to completely forget about continuing her walk home, she did her best to keep a feel of the mana and slowly tried to pull it out in a silk-like string. At first it appeared to succeed and slight joy filled her, but as soon as the string reached out more than a couple centimeters from her fingertip, that joy was practically crushed, as that part of the string disappeared into the air.
“So, as soon as it gets even slightly away from the body, it appears to simply dissolve into the air. Now the question is, is it the length of the mana string or the distance away from the body that matters.” To test it out, Sylvia pulled out another mana string, this time with slightly greater ease, and had it spiral around her fingertip.
Unlike the previous time, this time it didn’t disappoint, and she soon felt the mana cover the tip of her finger. Upon opening her eyes, an amount of satisfaction and joy comparable to finishing a difficult craft filled her.
Skill, External Mana Control has been learned.
|External Mana Control|
Level: 1
Rating: Common
The ability to control the mana whilst outside of the body.
Sub-skills:
-Mana movement
“YES!” She exclaimed quite loudly, before remembering where she was, so she quickly quieted herself. “Wait, if the mana can’t go further than a couple centimeters from the body, then how come the goblin could shoot wind-blades off like that? I wonder, could it have anything to do with affinities? Or maybe it’s something else?” Her eyes wandered down to her spear and she shrugged her shoulders. “No fault in trying.”
She regripped her spear in her right hand and returned focus to the mana at her index finger. Then, she repeated the same process from before, this time with even greater ease than previously. And upon having the string move up the length of the spear, she found that the mana could extend throughout the entire shaft without issue, and when it ran into the stop tip, it actually felt as if it moved with greater ease than in the wood.
“Great! It works. Though now I think it’s time I get home, I’m not going anywhere by standing around here and doing this, and I’d rather do this in the safety of my cave.” With those words said, she pushed the magic stuff to the side for a bit and set a good pace home. But, as she exited out forest and was able to get her cave in sight, her jaw dropped at what she saw, followed shortly by anger and frustration welling up inside her.