Wichita looked at the shirt in front of her, noting how the lines of the enchantment grew across it. A part of her wished it was more complicated, something of a challenge, perhaps. In truth, it did not even require her attention.

Enchantments that grew themselves were her specialty, and this enchantment was so minor she could have done it at the age of three. Not even Masterwork, the material could not bear a Master enchantment.

Wichita doubted it would offer to keep the enchantment for long. Whatever world these three came from, it was a peaceful one. Even the most foolish nobles would not dare wear something as weak as this here.

What even was the point in thinking that, though?

Wichita sighed, drawing herself from her idiotic thoughts. Fifteen minutes had passed since she had started enchanting, and she was not any closer to figuring out what was going on. Oh, she knew things. The forest’s actions were very much in the open, and it was clear the cat had something to do with them.

That was it.

After spending fifteen minutes thinking over it, she was back here. There was too little information for her to guess if the cat was even real. Even the things she ‘knew’ about how the forest was acting were mere assumptions. [Forgotten Melody] just didn’t give her clear enough information.

The Skill didn’t make any sense. Where was the melody? Wichita had felt some on her first try, but she had only gotten images since. The thought of it frustrated her. Why was it that she was stuck with this? Tully’s class had offered a conceptual mana, two Skills to wield it properly and a boosting Skill.

Wichita had gotten two Skills she could barely use. Even if the System hated her, it made little sense that it would deny her good Skill like this. Even Jace made no sense. The boy did not qualify for the [Unworthy] class.

Switching on [Forgotten Melody] she let herself sink into it.

The forest was calm, waiting. Just waiting. Waiting—Wichita cut it off as her Heart burnt in warning.

What the heck.

There had been nothing, nothing at all, that should have prompted such a reaction from her Heart. And yet it had. What was she missing? What was the bloody forest hiding? The last time she had faced one of its trials, it had been a mess. The four of them had come far too close to dying.

But it had also been easier than it should be. The forest was taking it easy on them. Wichita would not say it in front of others, especially not Jace who had difficulty keeping up. But the forest had been taking it easy on them this far. The challenges it sent them against seemed to be—no. No, she shouldn’t presume. The four of them had faced what, three challenges yet?

This might just be the forest probing how much they could handle before it actually tested them. That…actually made a lot of sense. Yes, she should stick to that theory for now. But it still left an issue.

What the heck should she do?

The forest would stop taking it easy on them…probably. Wichita knew she had to prepare for it. Tully and Rose did not truly need her help getting stronger. Jace she could help. But the one with the greatest problem was her. The [Forgotten Queen] class was, in many ways, worse than the [Unworthy] class. The latter had a known way to improve, a way for her to reach greatness.

Wichita was sure she would be able to maneuver herself into a truly powerful class if she had gotten it. There were dozens of books in the library for that alone. The Enchanting Queen had spared little effort in making sure her species was prepared for more such classes.

The [Forgotten Queen] on the other hand was already as powerful as it would be getting. At least according to what the System said. Wichita did not believe for a second that the bloodline only had the Royal Skill to offer. Increasing classes’ rarity was a known part of the bloodline. The Enchanting Queen herself had written about how the bloodline had increased her Legend class into a version that gave better Skills.

That meant the [Forgotten Queen] was a truly powerful class if it could not be enhanced by her bloodline. And yet it had not given her any useful Skills. A part of it was probably the stats. Fifty was an absurd amount of stats to get each level at Tier 1. Wichita doubted the others got anywhere close, though she would have to ask. Well, Jace might get more, strangely enough. The System was a thing of balance.

The Arcana had researched it over the years, and the System seemed to have a set amount of something it assigned to each class. The Arcana presumed that the something was simply a value instead of an actual form of energy.

The amount of something was decided by the rarity, as far as they could tell. That something was what the System used to give the class Skills and stats. That way the sum total of benefit was equal among two classes of the same rarity.

A long way to say that her and Tully’s classes should, in theory, give the same amount of benefits. And yet there seemed to be a rather large gap between them. Wichita looked at her stat sheet, staring at her class. A class based on Veruna’s plan.

The plan had been simple. Veruna theorized that the reason the Arcana failed the Quest was due to their isolationist, xenophobic and generally genocidal tendencies. Wichita had to agree. The Arcana had gone mad in their search for more power, especially in the Second Age, during what was called the Proof Wars.

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The entire was a story that she would gladly analyze at any given point of time, but she had limited time. What mattered was the plan. Fae magic was what had defeated them in the end. At the last day, when all but thirteen dragons had died off, and every other race was left defeated, was the Dragon Queen born.

A peaceful Tier 8 that supposedly had no combat Skills, she had suddenly broken through to Tier 9. The Arcana did not know how. Fae magic seemed to be the only thing that could accomplish something so absurd. The magic had been accumulating, collecting power as the Arcana pillaged and ravaged the world. Then it burst.

The Arcana found themselves without allies, suddenly outclassed and forced to retreat back to their city. The blame was easy enough to place. Wichita had a feeling there were many in the city that would agree. The Arcana’s brutal ways had caused significant damage, and to repair it they should simply…start helping people.

In truth Wichita was not sure if that would work. Fae magic did not draw power from something as simply as good and bad. But Veruna had thought that it was a worth a try, that the Arcana that escaped the siege should start helping people around the world. Turn their reputation around, raise whoever was oppressed until they had allies they could count on in the fight.

An overly ambitious plan, but she had gone along with it. There had been little point arguing with something so theoretical. Now the System had stuck her with it. The class very clearly revolved around it. So did her Skills.

[Forgotten Melody] would help her identify Stories with enough potential to truly advance with her guidance. [Forgotten Call] would allow them to actually join her…kingdom? What did she actually rule? That was a matter for another time.

What mattered now was that her Skills were too weak. What they did was something she would expect from a class of Fable rarity. Not a Legend class. So what the heck was she missing? Was it just that the System had allotted all the power in stats? The one stat she had and couldn’t really use? Even then, it did not seem enough.

Perhaps there was something special in her last Skill? That was a possibility. In that case, she should level up as much as she could. Perhaps she would finally get a way to defend herself then.

… But she did not know how to do that. Where would she get the experience from? Wichita had noticed that she had started to gain levels faster since she met up with the transmigrators. The timing of the level ups implied that the System was giving her far more experience for helping them than for killing things.

That was helpful, considering that it might be what she would be stuck doing soon enough. Tully was already better than her at killing things, and Rose would soon follow. But it still raised a question about what she should do now. Wichita had spent a while thinking about things, but there might be quite a bit left before they progressed.

A human usually slept as much as eight hours. The forest might not let them sleep as much, but even then she had many hours left. Wasting them did not seem right to her. Training [Forgotten Melody] was an idea. But she wasn’t sure it was a good one. For some reason her Heart did not want her to use it too much, and she was afraid to find out why that was.

Wichita looked at the needle, thinking furiously. What was there around her? Perhaps she could enchant something. There were a number of vines on the trees. The trees themselves. And the cracks in reality. That was it.

There really wasn’t much in this forest, was there? Well the needle was out of mana, and the vines had mana. Wichita fed a little mana into the needle, and sent it towards the mine. There was little reason to feed it hers. There was no sun in the sky, and no clock in her hand to tell her how much long the Royal Skill’s cooldown was.

The needle made quick work of the vines, eating any that it could get its hands on. The cobblestones had long ago disappeared, leaving behind a boiling pool of acid. That did little to prevent the needle from eating the vines. The needle at them all and came back to her hand.

Wichita sighed. What else? Perhaps she should see what the trees were made of. There weren’t a lot of trees that grew in areas of such dense—what. The vines were regrowing onto the trees in front of her eyes. Wichita could hardly believe her eyes.

Perhaps a human would look at it and think it was a disaster. The forest could likely do the same to any tree monster in its territory. Magic couldn’t create life, but it could easily hasten its growth. In this case however, it was lucky. The needle was an extension of her, she got experience whenever it killed things.

The forest had just handed over a farm of monsters that would reproduce however many times she killed them. Just barely able to hold in her excitement, she ordered the needle to start killing the vines as fast as he could. There was no need for it to save mana.

The needle did so with barely contained glee. Three rounds later, Wichita noticed a change. Even if she couldn’t actually see far magic at work without her Skill, she could feel its effects through her mana sense.

Mana moved to block the needle, the acid in the pool rising up like hot water in a geyser. Why the forest decided to do that instead of simply not reproducing the vines, she did not know. But she had to save the needle anyway.

Wichita switched [Forgotten Melody] on without a second's hesitation, trying to sense where the forest’s attention was. The Heart burnt in warning, the Skill tried to make her focus on other things. Wichita ignored them both. The needle was too important.

To the left, she sensed the forest’s Story focus, seeing it like points that glowed in her vision. Telling the needle to move a bit backward, she promptly moved it to the right as a geyser emerged right below it. A geyser then emerged to its right as she carefully kept the needle in place, not letting it continue its trajectory. Continuing the pattern, a geyser emerged right below the needle, but she had already moved it away.

This continued for several moments, Wichita contesting with the forest as she slowly brought the needle back. In the back of her mind, the part that connected her to magic seemed to awaken. A headache built in her head as she seemed to fall into a rhythm. The forest challenged her, its moves became faster every moment, and she could not spare any of her concentration.

And yet it did not block the needle, surround it with acid geysers and prevent its escape before destroying it. This was a trial. And she was winning it.

The contest continued for a few more moments, the rhythm reaching a crescendo. Wichita felt it coming before it emerged. A spiral erupted from the acid, surrounding the needle. Then it started growing closer. But a spiral was not a wall, and she could sense where the holes would be. A few seconds later, the needle burst out of the spirals trap, falling into her hand.

The forest had competed with her in this strange game, and for some reason she had won.

[Forgotten Queen] has reached level 8

The System apparently agreed with her. Wichita would deal with that later. For now, she had a headache to deal with.