The remaining three years flew by. The years were marked by Emily feeling perpetually hungry. She would eat a huge breakfast but by lunch Emily was back to feeling starved. It did help that when she turned eight she was able to access growth and muscles enhancement elixirs.
Elixirs were made by Alchemist classers and were simply magic in a bottle. If the right combination of plants, animal parts, magical cores from beasts, even things like magically infused sand and metal shavings, an Alchemist could use everything to create wondrous potions and elixirs. Potions and Elixirs could heal you, they could cure poisoning, they recharged mages’ mana, those basic potions and elixirs where the mainstay of every adventurer. That was not all they could do, it barely scratched the surface.
There were potions and elixirs that gave buffs to your stats, making you temporary stronger or faster, or have more endurance, there were ones that that made you light enough to almost fly, there were some that gave you temporary immunity to aspects of magic, if you were fighting a flame wolf you needed a potion that gave you immunity to fire, if you fighting a giant elemental bird that shot lighting you needed one that gave immunity to lighting, what potions or elixirs were boundless and amazing.
What the alchemists had come up long ago, using the resources found in the dungeon, was a way to make an elixir that accelerated growth. These elixirs were strictly controlled by Havardr Academy, to even buy and use one you needed to go to the medical building and have not one, but three, healers give you a battery of tests, if just one said you were not ready you had to wait.
That was why, for humans at least, they needed to wait till they were at least eight, so their bodies could handle the growth. Children had died horribly by taking the growth elixir before their bodies were ready. The Academy had shown enchanted recordings of children who had not listened and bought the elixirs outside the academy, most of the class watching had thrown up listening to the screams.
The elixir’s target age was eight for humans and could only be taken once a year to around fourteen when the elixir would stop being effective as someone reached their full growth. The limit of the elixirs meant that adults taking them would grow less than one centimeter and with one elixir costing one small gold nobody used them after they become adults.
The second elixir that became available when reaching eight were muscle growth elixirs, this world’s steroids, and could only be taken twice a year, with each elixir costing three small gold. This time a person had to choose which elixir to take because there were a verity of muscle growth elixirs, ones focused on fast twitch muscle fiber growth, that dramatically increased your agility, there were ones that focused on slow twitch muscle fiber growth, that increase your endurance, the one that focused on strength increased Type IIx muscle fiber growth, finally there was one that balanced all three.
As with the general growth elixir there was a big downside to taking an elixir, once you picked an elixir you had to stay with that elixir. The academy had shown horror videos of what happened if you took different elixirs, malformed people that had a bulging muscles on one side of their bodies and slick muscles on the other, some people developed twitching syndrome and flailed about, some couldn’t even move their muscles were so overgrown. Needless to say there was another mass cleanup as the students lost their lunch; yes the sadistic professors had waited till right after lunch to show the enchanted videos, to drive the point home that elixirs were not to be taken lightly.
Emily had been torn as to which elixir to take. At first she had leaned towards the balanced elixir but then realized that one gave the fewest benefits, less than 20% of what a focused one would receive. That meant she would only be 20% as strong as someone taking the strength elixir, 20% as agile as someone taking the agility elixir, 20% as much stamina as someone taking the endurance elixir. On the other hand she would have a boost to all three while someone else would have only one main boost.
If she did take a focused elixir, which one? She loved being agile and doing gymnastics, she was a girl so naturally less strong then a male, she loved to exercise so increasing her endurance was tempting. There was also the fact that she did not know what class she would receive. If she became a warrior strength was a must, if she became an archer agility was a must.
Emily wrestled with the decision for weeks until finally she was lifting weights when a new scrawny kid came and started lifted more weights than her. It was not fair, a younger male kid, just starting the academy, without any prior training, was already stronger than her. The fact that the kid was one of the goliath races and received racial bonuses to strength, did not matter at all, he was still stronger than her, after all her years of hard work.
Emily stopped working out and marched toward the medical building right then, she was taking the strength elixir.
***************
Today was the day! After five long years of training and studying she was finally getting her first Tier 1 class. Emily sat at her desk in her room that had become home and stared at the lightly glowing ascension stone. Today would be the day that the trajectory of her life was determined.
For some very unfortunate souls they receive an almost useless classes like Tier 1 Runner, they literally ran errands around the city. For the slightly less unfortunate they received Tier 1 Distance Runner that gave a 20% increase in stamina and 15% stamina regeneration unlike the Runner class which only gave 10% stamina increase and 10% stamina regeneration. Some warriors took the distance runner class as their second or even third Tier 1 class just to unlock a better Tier 2 class. Tier 2 Swordsmen Battle Runner gave a huge increase in stamina and stamina regeneration. If you wanted to become a Pursuit Sword Knight though you need a Tier 1 Warrior class a Tier 1 Squire class and a Tier 1 Distance Runner class. The combinations of classes were endless.
Before Emily touched the stone she looked at five years of progress.
Name :
Emily Warden
HP
228/228
MP
842/842
SP
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416/416
Strength
28
Agility
21
Dexterity
19
Vitality
14
Endurance
22
Intelligence
71
Willpower
33
Charisma
11
Luck
6
Compared with when she awakened in the new world her stats have grown by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the elixirs her strength stat was the third highest stat she had behind Intelligence and Willpower. Emily was glad that she was lucky the elixir produced an uncommon side effect of condensing her muscles fibers in a more compact form. For the large majority of males, and to a lesser extent female, the strength elixir produced a body builder look with muscle on muscles. Female get a slicker body builder look, still very muscularly look. Emily was one of the ones who still looked feminine, whose power could only be seen when she flexed her arms and then cut muscles would be revealed.
Emily had grown in height form barely 100 centimeters to 170 centimeters or 5 feet 7 inches. She hoped to grow anther 10 centimeters to be 180 centimeters of 5 foot 11 inches. In this world power dominated although here woman could become so much more powerful than a man if they received a powerful class.
She was proud of bringing her stats so far, the only stat she wished was higher was her vitality, which was her lowest stat. Charisma and Luck where their own separate group. There was no way to increase them permanently, outside a few very rare classes. You could not exercise or train to increase those two stats and had to be content to let them grow naturally.
Taking one more look at her statue screen, Emily picked up the ascension stone and willed her ascension to begin.
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Blinking Emily found herself in the front entryway of the small ranch house she grew up in. Turning she looked out the window beside the door and saw nothing but a black void. Turning back to the room that doubled as the entryway and living room, Emily looked at the small room.
The television was directly in front of her along the wall closest to the door. When the front door was swung open it was actually only a few centimeters away from smacking into the television, across from the television, barely 3 meters away, was a black leather couch along the opposite wall.
Emily quickly harried to the wall and raised her hand to lightly touch the large blown up picture of her and her father hanging above the couch. Even living in a new world for years she still missed him every day. She remembered when her mother abandoned her on a strangers doorstep to go run of with yet another junkie boyfriend, how befuddled her father had looked, how lost. Yet despite everything he had risen to the challenge.
“I love you dad.”
Crying softly she stood there remembering all the great times they had. The times he spent cheering her at martial arts and gymnastics tournaments. The times he spent teaching her how to shoot at the gun range. The one time he and his army buddies had a paint ball fight against her and how she utterly annihilate her father and his friends. The look of shock on their faces! The time they took a vacation to sin city and they were thrown out for her counting cards. Even the time she almost blew up the house trying to make fireworks and trying to convince her dad she had nothing to do with it.
All the memories rushed through her, the good and the bad. Gathering herself, Emily turned and saw the opening to the kitchen, then a meter down on the right, was the start of a small hallway. Walking to the beginning of the hallway only took a few steps. There were two doors opposite each other; one on the right was the bathroom, directly behind the living room, the door on the left lead to her small study. Passed the doors, little more than 2.5 meters away, the hallway ended with another two doors opposite each other, the one on the right was her father’s room and the one on the left was her old room. Emily had the urge to go look at her old room but that life was gone.
Turning left Emily open the door to the study and walked in. The study was the smallest room in the house; Emily could almost put her arms straight out and touch both walls that held bookcases opposite each other. Across from the door a large desk was crammed into the tiny room under anther window that thankfully had the blinds tightly shut.
Again walking only a few steps, Emily pulled out the office chair in front of the desk that had a large computer monitor taking up most of the space on top. Sitting down Emily reached under the desk to the computer and pressed the power button. Booting up the computer, Emily watched as a spinning circle appeared on the large computer monitor.
Finally the main screen appeared and Emily saw only one small icon in the center of the screen. A large shield with crossed sword and magic staff overlaid. Clicking on the icon, Emily waited for the program to open. Another screen appeared, this time with a low resolution of herself on the left next to an animated arrow moving right, it only had a few frames before repeating, pointing towards a greyed out pixel art. The pixel art was herself in what looked like a monks robe with one hand holding a sword.
Curious she grabbed the mouse, moved the pointer to the pixel art, then clicked on it.
Do you wish to change classes to the Tier 1 Warrior Monk? Yes/No?
Emily’s eyes widen in surprise, the monk class was a noncombat religious class. There were many different religions on Terra and each had their own class, priest, acolyte, clergymen, even basic worshipper. There were also evil religious classes like cultist that worshipped evil interdimensional beings. There were religious classes that could go either way, like shamans. That class could lean towards healing or the darker form that used animal sacrifices. Monks were a religious order that practiced mediation and being in harmony with nature and the world.
On reflection, with Emily meditating at least four hours a day, she really was lucky to not get a pure monks class. Emily clicked yes.
The tutorial will be initiated, please put on the VR headset.
A VR helmet materialized in front of the monitor. Blinking Emily looked at the helmet.
‘Is not this a simulation? So using the helmet would place me in another simulation? A simulation inside a simulation? People do believe the real world is just a simulation too, so would that be a simulation inside a simulation, inside yet anther simulation?’
Emily shook her head to clear it of such existential thoughts. Picking up the VR helmet she put it on. Emily found herself in a white room which flickered second later and she was now in a plain room with dark wooden floors and plain white walls. In front of Emily, kneeling with a sword laid on her lap, was a mirror image of herself meditating. Without much thought Emily kneeled, sitting on her feet, she started to meditate too.
Coming to terms with yet another child ending. This time, thankfully, it was not ending because of murder. As much as it pained her to say, the loss of her father and the end of her childhood was less severe then what awaited her now. Before it was moving on, getting a job, and becoming an adult in a safe world. This time it was going out to fight monsters, in a world where people actually had stats and classes, that could overpower you with ease, that allowed you to become just as powerful.
Emily meditated on the changes to come and made peace with it. She became at peace with herself and the world. What would be, would be. Simultaneously Emily and her doppelganger opened their eyes and stood up. Looking at herself they both bowed deeply to each other.
The world faded out.
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You have attained the Tier 1 Warrior Monk