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Felix frowned at the glowing blue list. "Why are there so many? And why is the text grey?"
Vashof frowned at the screen even more deeply. "The amount indicate classes you should have access to, based on your past experiences before this moment. The ones that are greyed out all mean that you are lacking a single requirement to choose the class. If you are lacking two or more requirements, the class won't be revealed. For the most part, the only thing that these classes all have in common is that their skills use mana."
Felix could feel a numbness deep inside his chest. If even the most basic sounding classes were unavailable to him, what were the chances that other classes might be different. Regardless, he started to press the only choice open to him, hitting the "Display Next" prompt over and over, his eyes scanning through the ever increasing wall of greyed out text with futile hope. Feeling his despair grow as he clicked the prompt for the 6th time, he was about to accept that he was destined to be classless when a flash of white crossed his vision, coupled with a shout from Vashof.
Shaking his head as he examined the list, unable to believe his eyes, he started to smile.
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Felix stared at the orange words. Vashof shook his head once, twice, then standing without a word, carefully walked to a nearby chair, and collapsed into it. The pervading aura of desperation and hopelessness had been replaced with a stunned silence. Felix felt as if time had frozen, his body unwilling to move at all. Vashof let out a long held breath, and the moment passed. Felix turned to the half-orc, only to find that he was already the subject of Vashofs full attention. The door to the room creaked open, and the dwarf from earlier entered, a carefully wrapped Crystal Ball in his hand. As the door closed behind him, the sound of breaking glass caused Felix to wince, the dwarfs reaction to the orange letters resulting in a broken artifact.
"I've never even heard of some of those classes, and yet, the most shocking part is that this will be, to my knowledge, the first time anyone, ever, has had a class revealed to them in a color other than grey or white." Vashof spoke softly, as if afraid that being too loud might chase the words away. The dwarf merely nodded his head, stunned to silence, then as he realized that he was no longer holding the crystal ball, a steady stream of curses escaped from his lips.
Felix smiled, his hand moving to the class. Selecting it without a moments hesistation, he watched as the list vanished, replaced by an announcement that was capable of bringing a tear to his eyes.
Legendary Class gained: Paragon
Skills Gained Attribute Scores Altered Status Updated
Vashof and the dwarf both looked at Felix, Felix looked back. "Well, I guess this is a first for all of us." The dwarf spoke first. "A legendary class. And one that doesn't require mana. There are theories, but this is entirely unprecedented." Vashof nods. "We can hide the fact that your class is a legendary one, should you wish it, but even its name is new to the records. So were many of the others near it, but those aren't going to be visible on your card now."
Felix smiles at the reminder. "Speaking of which, lets get that finished up so that we can head on out to orientation. I'd like to see what new things have happened to me." Bringing up his status excitedly, he frowns at the changes.
Felix BrightStar Title: None Class: Paragon Level: 2 Health: 150/150 Stamina: 100% Strength: 25
Active: Flurry
Counter
Agility: 15 Endurance: 25 Intelligence: 12 Passive: True Strike
Weapon Bond
Will: 40 Unallocated: 5
His sheet had changed so much. Mana replaced by stamina, which was revealed as a percentage instead of a flat amount as per usual. His stats had also experienced an unexpected growth, and even if he had only recieved four skills, he had never heard of a passive skill before. Most intriguing for him was the Unallocated category. At a guess, he could assign those five points to a stat of his choice, which was new to him. Even Illeane had to spend excessive amounts of time to improve her stat points, often through direct training and study. To simply be able to assign the points as he wished seemed too good to be true.
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Vashof seemed to be tired of waiting. "Well, shall we get to the orientation so that you can show us what that class can do, or should we all just stand here in silence while you stare at your status. Since we can't see your status screen, I'd prefer the former to be entirely honest. It will be far more interesting."
The dwarf laughed at that. "Vashof has a point. We shouldn't waste our chance to witness a legendary class in action. As expected of a BrightStar." The dwarf pushed the door open, intent on leading the way to the courtyard, before suddenly stopping and turning back to Felix. "By the way, I'm Silf. It would seem that in the excitement of your test and class revelation, I never introduced myself. Now, follow me."
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Felix looked around the courtyard. The two instructors had moved to stand a respectable distance away, leaving him face to face with a vetern guild member, boasting the scars of many years of experience in the field. The sheer presence of the man was undeniable, and the two other new trainees alongside Felix had started to sweat under his gaze. Felix couldn't say that the adventurers unwavering gaze had no effect on him, but he was used to the overwhelming presence of literal legends that had visited his mother. The sweat on his own brow was a result of the sun beating down on the trainees, he told himself, content to wait for the orientation to begin. Partially bored, partially eager to get it over with, he took to examining the two other trainees alongside him.
On his left, a young man, hailing from on of the northern regions at a glance. Fair skinned, tall and with piercing blue eyes, Felix was fairly certain he would tell them that he came from the Frostspire plains, or one of the neighbouring regions. If that was the case, then despite his youthful and naive appearance, he would be tougher than expected. The ice plains are harsh, and any that willingly live there are not to be underestimated. Someone worth keeping an eye out for if he were to reveal any real talent here.
On his right, a half-elf. Or at least, Felix was convinced the girl was a half-elf. Normal humans didn't have such intense eyes or such smooth skin without some degree of magic involved. From the way the very air around her shimmered, he knew that she had no shortage of magical talent, even if she had yet to learn how to mask it. As intimidating as the aura of magic could be to an unexperienced opponent, brazenly displaying your full might like she was was an easy way to end up dead. Anyone with enough awareness to notice the shimmer would make her a priority target, removing the threat of such high magical potential as soon as possible.
More interesting than even the half-elf however, was the guild member who was clearly going to do the orientation with them. He wore his rank badge openly, revealing himself to be of Gold rank at a glance. But from the amount of visible scars on his arms, and the size of the weapon on his back, he could clearly punch above his weight class by a fair bit. Definitely a warrior class of sometype. Given that his sword was easily twice the weight of the half-elf next to Felix, he was leaning towards the adventurer being either a Monster Slayer or a Battlerager. Either was incredibly powerful in frontline combat, and would explain the weapon size and the accompanying scars.
Felix's thoughts were cut off as the adventurer began to speak.
"Alright. None of you felt the need to ask pointless questions in the five minutes we've been staring at each other. Whether that is due to discipline or because you were too afraid to is besides the point. I'm Marcus. You will call me sir or instructor while we are busy here. I've got the unfortunate job of having to walk you through an orientation that will ensure the first real enemy you fight doesn't gut you and eat the corpse. So lets start at the basics."
Marcus had paced up and down in front of the short line, emulating a drill sergeant on a parade ground. Given that the line they formed was quite short, he had turned a few times in his short speech. Standing firmly infront of them now however, he continued, not caring if they were keeping up with him in any way.
"As I'm sure you know by now, you have a status screen that you can manifest at will. This screen shows you your class, level, name, any titles you might have, your attributes, your skills, your current mana and health levels, and depending on your class, any secondary resources you might have. Do you all know how to access your status screen?"
Pausing a moment for the trainees to react, Marcus continued the moment all three had nodded. "Next is your guild card. This is engraved with your name, adventurer rank, class and should you work for the guild, your spot in its internal hierachy. Beyond that, it can also be engraved with an organization you are a member of outside of the guild. It is common for nobles to designate which house they are from in this manner, just as mercenaries and guilds outside of the adventurer guild official guild do. The card is tied to you, and a magical enchantment on it ensures that should your class, rank or organization change, the card is updated in real time. Do you all have your cards present?"
This time Marcus waited for proper answers from the three. "Good. Now, take your cards out, and hold them in front of you. I am going to teach you how to inspect an item. Before we do that however, we need to break down the main properties of items you will encounter in the world. First, Durability. This is obvious. Second, Rarity. Every item has a rarity. Rarity ranges from Common to Legendary. Each tier is tied to a color. White is Common, Orange is Legendary. Rare is Green, Very Rare is Blue and Unique is Purple. You will encounter many items in your career as an adventurer, or you will not. If the latter case is true, I pray that you survive. Third, Details. Every item has details on it. This includes special effects it might have, what its name is, what its basic use is, how much damage it deals, or how it affects you. Some will have all of the mentioned details, some will not. Some will have more than I have bothered to run through right now. You'll figure it out I'm sure."
Marcus pauses for a moment, watching the three of us carefully. Waiting for any questions, he remains silent for a few moments before continuing. "Finally, some items will have restrictions on them. These prevent you from using them unless certain conditions are met. With all of that out of the way, I'd like you to 'Inspect' your cards now. Simply issue the command out loud while focusing intently on an object, and it will be inspected. Do it now."
"Inspect."
"Inspect."
"Inspect."
Name: Felix BrightStar Title: None Class: Paragon Level: 2 Group: Independent Rank: Unranked
"Now, as I'm sure you've all noticed, you're holding a legendary item, and it's showing you no details, no durability, and no restrictions. Thats because these are designed to not waste your time trying to seperate important and unimportant details from each other. Even though anyone can read the card for the same details as what you can see after inspecting it, they won't see its rarity, and they don't need to inspect it themselves to get the details. Other items do not work the same for the most part. Now, that you're done with your cards, lets inspect something more useful than them. Try inspecting your weapons."
"Inspect."
"Inspect."
"Inspect."
Shortsword Rarity: Common Durability: 100/100
"What you're all likely seeing right now, is more like what you will usually see when you inspect an item. Now, keep in mind, Inspect is technically a skill, and as such, it is treated as such. It can level up, leading to more detailed inspections. You'll have to figure out how to do that on your own however. I'll give you a hint, it's not by using it a lot."
Marcus smiled at the three trainees. This was his favorite part.
"Alright class, now that we have the boring part out of the way. How do you feel about jumping right into the basic combat test?"