First, he now knew that there was an actual level cap of two hundred and fifty. Second, he found that when a class was evolved just like with Ren, the class would be reset to level one. Depending on the class's rarity it would then take more experience to relevel. But by being lower level he could in theory go back and fight lower level monsters for experience. They wouldn’t be that great and since he lost none of his original attributes doing so was inefficient. But it was an option.
It also made him realize something else. Once he found out rare classes existed he had been angry at getting only a basic class. But in the long run that might not have been the worst thing. Evolving a class lets one keep all the attributes from before they evolved while resetting their level. As long as one made it to max level after evolving a class they would have more attributes than one that had started with the evolved class. Trading early power for greater power when at the level cap. Of course that required one to get to the level cap. Dren wasn’t sure how hard that would be but from what he knew. Level one hundred had been considered the peak for normal people on his world. He wasn’t sure how much the system changed for this one. But he doubted it would be easy to get to the top.
There was another consideration when deciding whether to evolve or not. The basic classes like Assassin could go straight to the level cap without any roadblocks. Not only that, but they would get there faster with the lower experience requirement. Evolved or rare classes seemed to come with a number of restrictions to progress. Meaning one could end up at a bottleneck unable to level at all.
But a class that has evolved once also had a higher chance to evolve again. A sort of the rich get richer system. So as long as one continued to progress and meet new requirements their power could grow exponentially beyond that of one that stayed a basic class.
Shaking his head that was now full of knowledge he started by looking at the beast tamer class. It seemed odd to Dren that he had been offered a class he pretended to be. Had the system done so because he had pretended or was it from Ren? Or some other requirement he wasn’t aware of. He guessed it didn’t matter. What did matter was what the class could offer you.
“Beast Tamer: This class allows the individual to bond with various beasts and monsters. Once bonded the creature becomes completely loyal to the master. This opens up new powerful evolutionary options for the tamed creature. With plenty of support abilities and the power to increase the strength of their creatures the Beast Tamer can create terrifying monsters of war. But in turn, rely heavily on their companions for their combat strength.”
Dren read the description and then looked at a list of changes. Frowning he found that all his class skills from Assassin would be lost. His passive became the ability to tame monsters and beasts. While the first active was a buff to his tamed monsters' combat stats. It seemed that Beast Tamer was a class on a completely different path than his Assassin had been. That made its position make more sense. He did get three spirit, intelligence, and vitality at each level. But took somewhere around four times the experience to level.
While it sounded interesting. It was too much of a change from his current class for his liking. He had chosen Assassin for a reason. Plus he had taken the House Aranea evolution for Ren. It would suck to now have to rely on her for fighting while he played a more supportive role. A support class supporting a support class, wasn’t likely to work out well. Even more so he would lose out on the bonus to Dex and Agility each level, but kept the multipliers.
Next, he moved to the Profane Blade class.
“Profane Blade: The Profane Order sought to merge all three mortal energies back to their original form. Seeking to grasp that which was not meant for mortals and claim divinity for themselves. Their avarice knows no limits and often they resorted to immoral means to claim what they desired from others. Any that complained or sought recompense for perceived crimes were dealt with by the order’s elite assassin corp. The Profane Blade was the title given to those allowed to join the lowest rungs of the corps. Wielding the knowledge of their order they found new and terrifying ways to silence all enemies of the Profane Order.”
Reading the description made the Profane Runes make more sense, even if Dren wasn’t sure about this whole grasping power not meant for mortals stuff. It sounded like the use of all three resources for the runes was an attempt to make something new. Dren wasn’t sure if they had succeeded but the Profane Runes were more powerful than normal ones it seemed.
Putting that away for another time he examined what the class would give him. First, he found that none of his assassin skills were lost outright. His Assasin’s Eyes turned into Profane Gaze which allowed him to still see critical spots on enemies. But also seemed to show places he could wound to cause damage to other resource pools even. That might open some additional options.
He would also gain an ability called Profane Blade. It was a buff that reserved ten percent of his health, mana, and stamina. Which Dren took to mean it would reduce the max of each by ten percent while active. While it was active each of his strikes did an additional ten damage plus one per level in the class to health, mana, and stamina. He got the feeling that these numbers could crit as well if he hit a critical spot. Doing the multiplier for each attribute depending on the type of spot he hit.
More so there was an active, where he could deactivate the ability and the next strike would do the total reserved amount of each pool as damage to the target’s pool . There was no cooldown either, he could chain them together as long as he was willing to sacrifice ten percent of each of his resources per activation. It was a sickening ability considering his current pools.
For attributes, he would gain five to intelligence, endurance, and vitality per level. No increased multiplier it seemed which was annoying. He would also get four agility and dexterity per level. This class gave a surprisingly large amount of attributes across five of the eight possible ones. It did take something like ten times the experience to level up though.
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The choice seemed obvious but Dren paused to think it over a bit. Profane Blade sounded incredibly powerful and the ideal class for Dren. While the experience increase to level would slow him down, it looked like he would be more than better off. Just to be sure he double-checked and found that Assassin wouldn’t give any more attributes for past level twenty five than they had before. Making it in raw dex and agility half as good as Profane Blade.
His only real concern was the requirements to progress. A bottleneck could easily be the end of his advancement. But at the same time, the long term potential of evolving was just too good. With only a few more moments of internal debate, he selected the evolutionary path. Messages went off in his mind as his attributes went up while his skills updated. But nothing fancy. No flashes of light or anything. It was actually a bit anticlimactic for Dren.
Something in his expression must have changed because Kitty spoke up. “All done leveling up?” Her eyes squinted and she frowned. Dren quickly updated his level. Tossing four levels into it his fake identify screen.
“I just finished now.” Dren said annoyed. Having someone watch you so intently was rather inconvenient.
“Hmm, I thought you would have leveled up more than that. I guess the rumor is true about rare classes leveling slow.” Kitty said and Dren thought he might have messed something up. Experience gains were odd enough to figure out with this version of the system. He sometimes thought he got more or less even for the same level monster. Even across the same type of monster. But unless the system started sharing more details. He just had to take it at face value.
“How is the other side holding up?” Dren asked while eyeing his resource pools. They were too low for him to be comfortable activating his new ability yet.
Kitty’s lips pursed. “They are holding. Those knives you sent over helped some. But when they throw them, only one knife appears. They can’t magically duplicate them like some dense guy.” She paused. “What kind of Beast Tamer Skill is that anyways?”
Dren just kept quiet not having a good response to that and to his relief Kitty let it drop. “That smith has been making more daggers though. They don’t explode like someone’s.” She gave him another look. “But it beats throwing rocks. It is silly we hadn’t thought of that before. But everyone is already used to relying on system tools.” Kitty shrugged. There was more inane talk, mostly from the archer. Dren mostly grunted or shrugged seeming to frustrate the young woman for some reason.
Eventually, it was time for him to head out to the now mostly cleared bridge for the next wave. “Just two more waves then the surge will be over.” Kitty flashed him a smile. “Don’t forget you promised to buy me a drink after.”
Dren frowned up at the archer not remembering making any such promise. She just bent over the wall and blew him a kiss. “What are you doing?” He asked confused by her actions.
Even from his spot at the end of the land bridge, he could see her rolling her eyes. “Jesus Christ. How much more obvious do I have to get? I’m flirting you dense idiot.” She muttered more words but Dren couldn’t make them out. Was she being serious? No, he was sure she was just teasing him. Right? Or was she? Dren had no experience with girls. By the time he stopped thinking of them as “Icky,” he was already bedbound. The closest he had ever gotten to a relationship was living vicariously through the stories he had read. But most of them just seemed to go so… different from this.
They normally started with a guy swooping in and saving some girl while looking awesome. Not, murdering stupid flaming shit flinging monkies. ‘I mean my armor is covered in cuts and holes. Not to mention the foul smelling burn marks all over it.’ He didn’t think he looked the part to attract some girl's attention.
Plus she was a native. He hadn’t forgotten how the system reacted when he got too friendly with the natives. Not to mention eventually the invasions would start in full. Then he got the feeling his status as an invader would no longer remain masked. Despite his train of thought. Recent images of Kitty rolled through his memory. Thinking back she was quite attractive. Without her cloak on, her form fitting armor put her figure on full display. He was rather glad she had decided to take it off at some point. Even if unlike him, her cloak could have provided some protection. Glancing up he saw her putting it on even as he thought that.
His mind started to wander more but was soon snapped back to reality by shrill whooping and wild howls. It was time to resume his slaughtering.
With his resources mostly full again he activated his new ability. Glancing down he found the blades of both daggers in his hands shimmered between bronze, azure, and crimson. As if the colors rippled over the surface of the blades. Checking he found all three pools had decreased by ten percent. When he activated the skill there had been a slight uncomfortable sensation. It wasn’t painful, just uncomfortable. It didn’t go away but did seem to fade into the background. Licking his lips beneath his mask he felt a bit of excitement for this next wave.
*****
Character Status
Name: Dren Race: Human (I) Class: Profane Blade (2) Profession: Enchanter (20) Health: 2700/2700 Stamina: 2700/2700 Mana: 2100/2100 Credits: 6,970 Agility 86 Dexterity 86 Endurance 108 Intelligence 84 Spirit 74 Strength 98 Toughness 98 Vitality 108 Dungeon Competency 60% Solo Dungeon Competency 50%