The strong tingling sensation assailing his mind finally subsided as Griffin’s mind began to accustom itself to the influx of information. The best way to describe in his coding lingo was as if he had clicked on a ZIP bomb and more information than his brain could handle began forcibly infecting it. Except, while he could not stop the inflow of information and not even begin to comprehend a large portion of it, the essentials were not that hard to grasp.
Physically, he didn’t feel any different. He wasn’t smarter, stronger or faster—- disappointingly enough.
But as a silver lining, this time he actually understood what some of the damn system jargon meant. Griffin also wondered if the system was actually called the system or that was the closest way his built-in translator interpreted it for him. Probably the latter.
Griffin understood what his class entailed.
That was precisely why he was so damn angry.
The Analyze skill was the only skill he could currently use, which was nice to have but paled in comparison to the Analyze (MAX) the system had given him ten uses of, half of which ran out identifying random objects because he couldn’t control the skill.
This Analyze he could use, because the necessary ‘metadata’ or it’s alien equivalent, had been downloaded into his brain but…
It sucked.
He had tasted glory and now found himself starting from scratch, with the near useless level 1 Analyse.
That wasn’t the worst part though.
[You have slain a beast calling creature. Would you like to use Skill Thief (Beast) on it?
Available skills that can be stolen:
Swimming Lv. 1
Water Filteration Lv. 1]
‘How in the name of all that is sacred am I supposed to even filter water?’ Griffin thought, before shaking his head. Perhaps the answer to that question was best left unanswered.
‘No,’ Griffin commanded the system and the prompt disappeared.
Griffin wasn’t sure how to break the news to Jun-Ra. On one hand, getting a Unique class didn’t sound all that bad. That was up until you realized just how niche it was.
Being the Master of None was possibly worse than getting the farmer calling.
Firstly, he couldn’t choose the callings he wanted to steal skills from.
Second, he had to kill the creature or…. person he wanted the skill from.
And finally, he had to level the skill he received from scratch.
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“Are you alright?” Jun-Ra’s voice echoed in the sewer, as the latter finished up disposing evidence of the slain crackjaws. And by that, Griffin mostly just meant throwing them back in the canal.
“No,” Griffin replied, his tone hoarse.
“Did something go wrong with your class assignment?” Shen-Ya asked, a tone of concern in her voice.
‘Is she concerned about me?’ Griffin wondered. ‘Probably not. I guess getting a class is a pretty big deal in a world where it decides what you get to do for a living. Things going wrong shouldn’t be a rarity.’
“No. I got the class,” Griffin replied. “It’s just not good.”
“You don’t have to tell us the name or rarity,” Jun-Ra began in a mollifying tone. “But unless you describe its capabilities, we can’t help you.”
“The Gilded Dungeon is not a walk in the park,” Shen-Ya added. “If you’re going to rush it without having enough information on how to use your class, you’ll die.”
A few moments passed by them in silence.
“Fine,” Griffin ended up relenting. “Besides the Analyze that every class gets, I have four skills.”
“Four is standard,” Jun-Ra replied, immediately volunteering useful information. “Three or less is rare, because the odds of getting very powerful skills is higher. Five or more is generally more common for crafting classes and the like.”
“Well, I don’t have skills. I have slots,” Griffin explained further.
“Slots?” Shen-Ya cocked her head in confusion. “What are slots?”
“Well, that’s exactly the darn problem. Beast, Martial Artist, Rogue and Alchemist. I can technically have one skill from each of those callings, but I need to…..Wait, what’s with those reactions?” Griffin asked, taken aback by the way Shen-Ya had flinched and taken a step backwards while Jun-Ra gazed at him with a shock so profound her mouth was open.
There was no reply for a few moments, so Griffin warily continued, “But, I need to kill them for it. And I only get one skill, which gets reset to level 1. So essentially, I have to ruthlessly off three people and one monster, well, the monster is fine, but I don’t have any actual skills to get the job done, if I wanted to. For the record, I don’t.”
“Daoist Thorne, do you know w-what callings are?” Shen-Ya asked, her tone now respectful. As if she were no longer addressing a random hobo she found in the sewers but instead her senior’s senior at work— whatever the cultivators’ equivalent was.
“Uh, no, I guess?” He replied.
“They tell us what our purpose is,” Jun-Ra explained, her tone unfathomably serious. “Why you were put on Aeldfane, our world. If you can take other people’s skills away from them, you are taking away their purpose. What exactly is your calling, I wonder?” Jun-Ra asked, though from her soft tone, it didn’t look like she was expecting an answer.
“To take it, I guess,” Griffin replied with a shrug, providing her the vaguest hint he could. Keeping secrets from Shen-Ya and Jun-Ra honestly didn’t matter much anymore. Without their help, he would have long died. And despite what information they had gleaned on him, which was likely much more than what they had revealed to him, they had not attacked or imprisoned him.
They wanted something from him and they weren’t capable of doing it by themselves.
That was fine by Griffin, as long as they kept information about him to themselves.
“You are not opposed to killing monsters then, I take it?” Jun-Ra asked, her gaze flickering to the dead crackjaws.
“Hmmm,” She muttered. “This might work out, then. Shen-Ya, how much do you have back in the sect?”
“About six hundred Qi Chips,” Shen-Ya promptly replied.
“How much can you loan?” Jun-Ra asked.
“About two thirds that. Maybe a little more.”
“Good,” Jun-Ra praised.
“Wait,” Griffin called out. “What’s the money for?”
“You said you don’t have any skills to get you through the Gilded Dungeon’s first floor,” Jun-Ra replied with a nonchalant shrug. “So it’s time to cheat a little. Consider yourself an investment.”