When TJ woke, it was to the sound of Stanton’s grunting. In a panic, he sat up and looked at his companion. Stanton was still curled up on the couch, only his face poking out of the thick quilt. Though he wasn’t making any sort of a comfortable face, the color wasn’t bad, and he mostly just looked cold. The faint light of morning shone through the windows, and after asking the System what time it was, TJ realized he’d slept pretty well, nearly all the way to 8 AM. He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand while looking at the fire, or the remains of it.
Putting his hand in the fireplace, TJ felt the barest hint of warmth from mostly dead coals. He wadded up a newspaper from by the firewood and, with a bit of Wind Manipulation to stoke the coals, set it alight. The pine needles and kindling and so on that were near at hand were quickly fed to the flames, and it grew to a comfortable blaze before too long. He continued to feed the flames and the wood popped loudly in front of him. TJ didn’t react, instead keeping his hands stretched out to warm them more completely.
As his Vitality continued to climb at an amazing rate, TJ found that he was less and less bothered by the cold or other creature discomforts. He knew that, before the System, he never would have made it through the night in a house that was maybe 20 degrees all night just under a regular, if somewhat thick, quilt. He knew he’d leveled up during the fight with the pukwudgies, but he hadn’t pulled up his Status in a day or so, so he pulled both up in tandem.
Status Sheet
Name: TJ (Thiago Jorge) Harris IV
Race: Human – lvl 6
Class: Neophyte lvl 7
Occupation: Savage lvl 5
Level of Divinity: Dirt (0)
Divine Bloodline: Kukulkan
Health Points (HP): 470/470
Mana Points (MP): 240/240
Stamina: 440/440
Attributes
Strength: 21
Agility: 20
Endurance: 44
Vitality: 47
Toughness: 37
Wisdom: 25
Intelligence: 24
Perception: 28
Willpower: 38
Fixation: 30
Free Points: 4
Skill List: Hidden
Titles: Irregular
Current total Divine Transformation time: 39:15
(End+Vit+Will+Fix)/4. Current cooldown: 0:00
Name: TJ (Thiago Jorge) Harris IV
Race: Coatl – lvl 6
Class: Neophyte lvl 7
Occupation: Savage lvl 5
Level of Divinity: Dirt (0)
Divine Bloodline: Kukulkan
Health Points (HP): 940/940
Mana Points (MP): 240/240
Stamina: 880/880
Attributes
Strength x2: 42
Agility x1.5: 30
Endurance x2: 88
Vitality x2: 94
Toughness x2: 74
Wisdom: 25
Intelligence: 24
Perception x1.5: 42
Willpower: 38
Fixation: 30
Free Points: 4
Skill List: Hidden
Titles: Irregular
Looking at his Free Points, TJ cursed himself. What if he’d put them into Agility last night? Would he have been fast enough to protect Stanton? Or, with Strength, could he have been strong enough to throw off the coyotes faster to help? Then, of course, Intelligence and Fixation would allow him to use more of his Wind Manipulation for longer. TJ sighed as he made the decision to spend his Free Points. But where?
“Someone piss in your Cheerios?” Stanton grumbled as he rolled off the couch and onto the mattress. He grunted for TJ to scoot over and he obliged.
“No. Just feeling bad about last night. If we’d run right away, I could have carried us to safety and not gotten you so close to dying. I’m sorry.”
“Not a lick of that was your fault. We’d made a habit of fighting everything we came up across, and it kicked my teeth in last night. Thanks again for saving my life.”
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“Course. Happy I could get there for you.”
Stanton grunted, looking quite small all bundled in his blanket. They sat in silence, watching the flames and listening to the pops of the burning wood. Maybe five minutes later, TJ’s stomach grumbled and Stanton stood with a grunt. “Figure there’s breakfast somewhere. I think I can smell more eggs.”
TJ joined the older man in standing, smelling nothing but believing him nonetheless. “What do you think I should put my Free Points in?”
“I just put all mine in Agility. Maybe you do Strength? Might be a diminishing return there, though.”
As they walked out of the house and into the street towards what seemed to be the communal building, TJ thought about what to do. Though the idea of putting them all in Strength appealed to TJ, he felt like his Strength wasn’t the problem. The Neophyte Class’s focus wasn’t Strength. If it was, it would give at least some attributes there. Instead, there were none. Following it to just give more Vitality, Endurance, or Toughness didn’t seem to be the answer either, though. The coyotes and pukwudgies over level 5 could break his defenses, but though it hurt, he hadn’t really been threatened by them recently. Instead, he needed to keep them from getting away from him while killing them more easily than he had been already. Strength and Agility could serve him in that way, but more than that, his Wind Manipulation was more and more proving itself to be a massive boon. That meant either Intelligence or Fixation, both of which filled the same problem.
His Intelligence would increase his efficiency for using his Skill while also increasing his MP. Fixation, on the other hand, would also increase the efficiency of the Skill while also, according to the System, being an attribute that every Class and Participant needed. On top of that, it would help ensure his Divine Transformation could last for as long as he needed. In the end, though, only one of the two attributes would see marked change compared to what he would get from his levels. Fixation grew much faster, having started at 1, and was already at 30. On the other hand he was already seeing the limits of his MP. How slowly it recovered was also a problem, and increasing Intelligence was the only way to make a change to either of those.
Without further thought, TJ dropped all four Free Points into his Intelligence, and though he regretted not having distributed them before now, he was glad to have waited for a while. After all, while his Strength and Agility were lower than all his other attributes, he was sure that he would have regretted putting all his Free Points into them before long. Stanton already outmatched him in Intelligence, and that was just after a couple levels in Druid, so a Zealot would quickly outclass him in Strength, even with the boosts from Divine Transformation. This more and more raised the question to TJ about what a Neophyte was best at, but if it was just surviving, then he could still be quite pleased with that.
They’d gotten most of the way to the street where the… firehouse, it seemed, was. The streets were mostly empty, through two of the hunters were a couple dozen paces ahead, almost serving as guides. Now that the sun was up and it was light, TJ took the time to observe the town more than before.
As he’d suspected, there wasn’t a stoplight in sight, just the single main street going through town. A single schoolhouse, a small library, and a couple restaurants stood just off of the highway that ran through the sleepy little town. The pine forest hadn’t been removed so much as planned around in constructing the dozens of homes and small storefronts that surrounded the highway. When they turned the corner past the single grocery store towards the firehouse, a more primary street spread before them. Though it was a single lane, asphalt type road, TJ saw that it, just like the highway, was being reclaimed by nature at an unnatural pace. Strangely, none of the homes showed any sign of supernaturally quick vegetative reclamation.
TJ shrugged, and, with about 100 yards to the firehouse, decided to give the System a clarifying request.
“Please show me the description of the Neophyte Class again. I want to better understand what the ‘purpose’ of the Class is.”
Class: Neophyte. Description: You have seen the Zealot’s simplicity, the Acolyte’s frailty, and the Disciple’s dependence and you deny them all. You are ready to embrace the Divinity within and allow that Divinity itself to fuel you in body and soul. The Neophyte can display the Zealot’s brute force, the Acolyte’s cunning, and the Disciple’s guidance. You are a Neophyte, the apex of your Divine Bloodline. Neophyte Classers focus on allowing the divine to change them, instead of them changing themselves into an approximation of the divine. The Neophyte Class acquisition requirement is deliberately nebulous, as embracing the Divine Bloodline is something that differs from one Participant to the next, as well as from one Bloodline to the next.
Stanton glanced at TJ, his eyebrows curious, but TJ paid him no mind.
“Am I correct in thinking that the Neophyte is different from the other three Classes because, instead of seizing Divinity, the Class focuses instead on… being seized by Divinity? Just letting the Divinity of their Bloodline influence their growth?”
That is not an erroneous understanding to make of the role and Divine Path of the Neophyte Class, though it remains limited in scope and understanding due to your current Dirt (0) tier of Divinity.
TJ sighed and walked into the firehouse while pasting a grin on his face. Not many people looked at him and Stanton the same second they entered, but once a couple people realized the newcomers had wandered in, quiet whispers swept over most of the people eating their breakfast. He’d never really experienced anything like this, but before the awkwardness could settle in, a very elderly lady hobbled over with a walker with a wide, mostly toothless grin cracking her face. TJ couldn’t help but Appraise her.
Disciple, 1
“Alright, honey.” She spoke with a faintly Southern accent. “You two’ll get in line behind Seth and Farid, there’s a server who’s gonna give you exactly as much as you’re gonna get. Don’t argue, complain, steal, or nothing like that, you hear? There’s almost 200 people here, and there’s only the food that was in the grocery store and that we’ve been able to get from nearby houses. There’s not enough food for everyone to eat as much as they want. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good. We’ve got eggs and bacon, again. The eggs are supposed to go bad in the next couple of days, so we’re eating them about as often as we can stand it, and then some. There’s not enough water to shower or anything, and you get two water bottles a day. If you manage to fill them up with something, then you get more to drink. Now, here’s your plates.” She finished, holding two paper plates aloft.
“I’m sorry, grandma, what should I call you?”
“Granny Penny, if you need a granny.” She smiled, the sunken spots in her mouth from the missing dentures somehow endearing. “If you just want a friend, Penelope’s fine. What’s yours?”
Since he still hadn’t taken the proffered plate, she swatted TJ with it just once before he gently caught her wrist and pulled the plates free.
“Thank you. I’m TJ, and this is Stanton.”
“You’re welcome, TJ and Stanton. Happy to have you with us at the end of the world.” Then, with surprising speed, she hustled away and began to collect dirty dishes. Each person she approached got some version of the energetic grandma routine, and Penelope was obviously well-loved by the people in Pine. With her energetic and warm welcome, TJ felt some of the more distrustful and hostile looks be tempered with, if not understanding, at least patience. Then, with plate in hand, TJ got in line behind Farid, grabbing a metal fork from a pile at the end of the table.
“Sorry I didn’t recognize you.” TJ said as he held his plate out for his serving. Just as Penny’d warned, he didn’t get enough food to fill his grumbling belly. “I only really saw your shadow last night.”
Farid was a handsome man with blemishless brown skin and sleek black hair. He was shorter than TJ, though not by much, and his broad shoulders suggested that he was active, if not an athlete.
“It’s no problem. You have a lot of people to meet.”
“That’s true.” TJ walked forward with his “filled” plate, following Farid to the nearest empty table. “Granny Penny said your name’s Seth?”
Seth, a skinny tall blonde man with greasy hair and scars from acne, merely nodded without looking at him. His eyes were sunken and red, and TJ decided not to pry, and instead focused on his meal. Though they were well-seasoned and cooked, he could feel that he’d need some more variety in his diet or else his stomach would be pretty miserable before too long. After too few bites and not enough time, TJ was ready to take his plate and fork wherever they needed to go, but Granny Penny was there too quickly.
“She’ll never let us take care of it.” Farid chuckled.
“It’s my job.” She insisted.
While TJ wondered what he was going to do next, he settled into a comfortable lean against the back of the chair.
“Hey, come with me.” Zig popped out of nowhere and scared the daylights out of TJ.
“Sonuva–! What is it Zig?”
“We’ve got something that needs investigating, and I think you’re the man for the job.”