About ten minutes into dinner, Jaegan couldn’t help but ask a question about our earlier conversation. “Is that book what I think it is?” His tone was borderline reverential. “Is that a real grimoire?”
“That it is.” I nodded before setting my bowl down on the floor. I pulled the book back out and held it like Mom had always insisted, with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, as I flipped through it with the other hand. “Mom’s travel grimoire from her adventuring days. It contains the Spells she considered important enough to have access to if her main grimoire happened to get destroyed. The core of her repertoire, if you will, in addition to a few odds and ends she just wanted to have access to for convenience’s sake.”
“What’s so special about a ‘grimoire’?” Raiju burped and licked the remaining stew from her muzzle. “Is it magic?” Ylsa watched with interest and it was obvious she’d been thinking the same thing as she looked away when I glanced over at her.
“Grimoires are incredibly rare and very powerful magic items.” Jaegan spoke quietly. “The most common, if you can even call a Legendary item that, is what is known as a Spell grimoire. Like what Artie here has from his mother, a queenly gift to be sure.”
I paused my flicking through the tome to raise a finger. “Technically, this is a pseudo-grimoire, as it was created through her Class, not through the System. It works the same, but if she were to ever die,” I didn’t let my thoughts dwell on that, “it would fade within hours, if not immediately. Plus, it’s blood-linked to our family.” I tapped the cover with my free hand. “Only usable by us, unlike most other grimoires.”
“It is as young Arthur says,” the old [Mage] sighed, “though I’ve never heard of such a thing, it only makes sense. The thing that makes most grimoires special is that they let anyone with an [Arcane] Stat cast the Spells within its pages, regardless of if they have them on their Status page.” Ylsa’s jaw hung open, but Raiju nodded along before throwing doe eyes my way while looking at the pot of stew.
I poured her another ladleful before turning back to the group. “With [Skill Dominance], I could absorb these Spells and the System would recognize them as official Skills for me.” I chuckled. “I’d go from an [Arcane Trickster] to a [Spellblade] in a little less than ten minutes. Hell, I’d even get to put the [Path of the Scholar] to use if I grabbed all of them.”
Jaegan’s left eye twitched. “Put what to use? You have access to a Path and aren’t using it!?” He shouted. “I can’t believe you, I thought you just had a martial Path and didn’t want to talk about it!”
Raiju peeked up from her bowl with a stew stained muzzle. “What’s a Path?”
Ylsa put a hand on her old friend’s shoulder to try and calm him down before addressing Raiju. “Paths are what truly separate S-ranked classes from their A-ranked counterparts beyond the extra five Stat points per level.” She grabbed a slate from her bag and drew a circle with three lines coming out at angles from it each ending in another circle. She drew a stick figure in the first circle and a sword, bow, and a sword crossing a bow in the remaining circles before drawing three more lines off each of the secondary circles without bubbles on the other end.
She gestured to her drawing after checking to make sure Raiju was paying attention. “Imagine this figure represents an S-ranked [Martial Savant], they’re the most common S-ranked Class, if you can even call it that, and therefore the most understood. Each [Martial Savant] has a choice at level twenty-five and again at level fifty, should they make it there. Their choices of paths define the way they’ll fight for the rest of their lives.”
She put a finger on the sword circle. “This represents the [Path of the Blade] which doesn’t actually limit them to blades, but it does prevent them from developing new Skills related to ranged weapons. In exchange, all of their melee Skills become far more potent and they’ll develop more of them than they normally should. The same goes for the [Path of the Marksman],” she moved her finger over to the bow circle. “It does the same thing for the Savant’s ranged Skills.”
“Does the last one leave them the way they are?” Raiju cocked her head, her bowl of stew forgotten for the moment as she watched the goliath intensely.
“Not quite,” Ylsa moved her finger to the final circle. “The last option they have is the [Path of the Master]. It forces the person walking it to learn more and more weapons and, for each one they reach a certain level of proficiency in, they gain more Skills and even more Stat points to spend. Two of the greatest fighters in the past thousand years were [Martial Ascendants], but they walked different paths and are known for totally different things. One was a master archer, whose bow was feared around the world for how far he could snipe targets from. The other is a woman who bears thousands of weapons and can use any of them as well as the next master.” She smiled a bit to herself.
“I’ve been told that when an S-ranked person reaches level fifty and then one hundred, they get the opportunity to choose a more advanced path, but I don’t know much about those. One can only assume they do similar, if more specialized things.” She settled back and looked at me.
“If I remember correctly, that female master’s name is Thorna Bladebreaker and she’s a goliath. I think I met her with my grandfather a few years back when he brought me with him to a council meeting.” I smirked. “Any relation? You do look a bit like her…”
“Correct as usual.” She laid a hand against her heart. “Thorna Bladebreaker is my maternal grandmother. I learned to fight from her as a y–”
“You’re descended from the most powerful martial force on the planet and you let us rot in jail for twenty years!” Looking to the side, I found Jaegan had shifted his glare from me to Ylsa. “I can’t believe you two!” For a second, it looked like he was going to storm off, but he sagged in his camp chair instead. “I’m traveling with monsters with no common sense…”
“Goliaths live long lives.” She shrugged. “Grandma Thorna would likely have made me break my own way out anyway, she’s like that. I could have gotten us free at any time and so could you, we just didn’t want the collateral damage from breaking our way out and you know it.”
Jaegan waved his hand feebly. “Still…” He sighed before turning his gaze back on me. “What does your [Path of the Scholar] actually do?”
I hesitated a moment before throwing the System window to him, Ylsa, and Raiju.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
[Path of the Scholar: While all Suzerains can cast Spells, those who walk this path are truly unparalleled in that field. With the ability to see the ebbs and flows of Mana, you will be able to sculpt your Spells to strike foes harder and avoid allies entirely. In addition, Mana costs are reduced by 20% for any Skill or Spell that draws on the Arcane, Divine, or Wits stats.]
He practically frothed at the mouth as he stared at the System window and me behind it. “This is…totally bullshit.” He started to swoon before catching himself. “If you don’t learn all those Spells, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you.” His tone told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t bullshitting. “I’ll still be your retainer, but I don’t think I’ll ever respect you again. With this Path,” he sighed, “no battlefield would be a barrier to you. You could cast the biggest combat Spells into a field of enemies surrounding an ally and free them without thinking twice about it. I’ve lost friends doing just that and you have this ability and don’t fucking use it!”
“You’re right.”
He kept ranting. “I can’t believe you’d waste something so–” He stopped mid sentence and snapped his gaze over to me. “What was that?”
“I said you were right. I’ve spent too long running from my destiny.” I rolled my shoulders back and braced myself. “It’s time to face the truth: I am the heir to the Sunbeam house, and the magic in my mother’s grimoire is my birthright. I need to learn these Spells, to embrace the guidance of my Path, and become the spellcaster I was meant to be.”
“Well said.” The old man sagged back against his seat’s back. “Exactly what Spells are you going to learn from the book? I can’t help but wonder, despite how frustrated I am at how unfair the System can be at times.” He mumbled something else, but even my elven hearing wasn’t good enough to catch it.
Air hissed between my teeth as I let out a long breath. “It’s a bit of a list: [Mage Hand], [Light], [Elemental Barrage], [Elemental Body], [Chain Lightning], [Wall of Fire], [Maelstrom], [Transmute Rock to Mud], [Geyser], [Storm Sphere], and [Elemental Teleportation]. There are a few others in here that I already know, but those are the ones I still need to learn.”
I flinched as a bunch of dried beans hit me in the chest. I looked up to find Jaegan staring at me.
“Really?!” He threw up his hands. “Learn those right now, I’m not talking to you anymore until you get that done.” He crossed his arms and stared at me with unveiled envy and frustration.
Part of me said I should wait a bit to learn the Spells, but I dismissed the idea nearly immediately. That was my old Arcane Trickster-esque self leaking in when I really needed to lean into my new Spellblade role before I lost my nerve.
Over the next ten minutes I absorbed my mother’s legacy. Instead of feeling a loss of independence, I felt a surge of warmth and power. I’d been denying myself this opportunity, afraid to rely on it when in reality, this was her gift to me, to keep me safe and help me along my way as an adventurer and I’d been denying myself access to it in an effort to say I did it all on my own, which was total bullshit anyway. Lone adventurers don’t last long, no matter how powerful they are. It takes a party, even an unbalanced one like mine, to bring out the best in everyone involved.
When I finished, I flicked the condensed System notification panel over to my friends as I reviewed it myself.
[Active Skills - Mastery
Skill Dominance - 31→36%
Light - 99%
Mage Hand - 99%
Elemental Barrage - 99%
Elemental Body - 99%
Chain Lightning - 99%
Wall of Fire - 99%
Maelstrom - 99%
Transmute Rock to Mud - 99%
Geyser - 99%
Storm Sphere - 99%
Elemental Teleportation - 99%]
Mom really hadn’t played when she picked what would go into her travel spellbook, all of the Spells were on the precipice of evolving, just like [Conjure Elemental] had been and it had evolved upon first use for me. I couldn’t help but rub my hands together like a greedy chipmunk as I considered what kind of evolutions I’d be able to get for each of them.
As I considered walking out into the night to test each of the Spells, I caught Jaegan struggling to stand. I sprang to my feet and rushed over to him.
“What’s wrong?”
He clocked me on the head with his staff. “That’s for being an idiot,” he rubbed the spot he’d whacked, “and that’s for finally listening.” He pushed me back to sit next to Raiju. “I’m not done with my dinner and I’m already getting tired, so does anyone have any more questions before I finish eating and go to sleep to try and forget how unfair the damn System is?”
“If a Spell grimoire is the more common type of grimoire, what’s the rarer type?” Raiju yawned and settled in next to my hip.
Jaegan steepled his fingers. “A Class grimoire.” Ylsa gave him the reaction he was looking for, but I looked away and refused to meet his eyes. “Which I’m now assuming our leader knows something of, but I’ll explain.” He turned to Raiju and Ylsa. “A Class grimoire lets someone change Classes to whatever Class it contains, regardless of the System requirements. For example, a [Mage] grimoire would let a [Warrior] with no [Arcane] cast Spells, though I’ve been told they start at one point in the new Stat.”
“Huh.” Raiju’s eyes were getting heavy. “Neat.”
We sat in companionable silence as we finished dinner.
Ylsa thanked Jaegan for his explanation and me for dinner before moving to her bedroll in the corner nearest the doorway. Raiju was the next to leave, and she shot me a meaningful look before padding over to where I had my bedroll, as my usual bed, the [Cloud Carpet], wasn’t able to function on this floor.
Jaegan’s eyes began to droop after talking with him about the Spells I was about to learn for a few more minutes. It took a minute, but I convinced him to go to sleep in his nearby bedroll before helping him the rest of the way. A quick glance at his [Status] as he drifted off to sleep helped cement what I had to do.
[Name: Jaegan “Wallbreaker” Toretto
Race: Human
Class: Mage - Uncommon - Rank C
Level: 33
Emotional Status: Exhausted/Proud
Physical Status: Mortally Wounded (Cause: Spirit Wound)
Current Estimated Lifespan: 132 hours]
Can’t hurt, I guess. With a bit of effort, I manually manipulated [Lordly Aura] and pushed all of its effects solely onto Jaegan and checked his [Status] again.
[Name: Jaegan “Wallbreaker” Toretto
Race: Human
Class: Mage - Uncommon - Rank C
Level: 33
Emotional Status: Exhausted/Proud
Physical Status: Mortally Wounded (Cause: Spirit Wound)
Current Estimated Lifespan: 228 Hours (132 Hours without the effects of Lordly Aura)]
Better than nothing. Now we have a bit less than ten days to save him.
“You’re not dying on my watch, old man.” I clenched the grimoire tightly to my chest, like a child does their security blanket. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Without another word, I wandered out into the snow to see what I was going to be working with moving forward in my new role as a Spellblade.