Wichita looked at the trees around her, noting their barren branches. This would be…difficult. Just moving about in the forest, even without it acting against her, was difficult. Fighting a beast that probably had the spacial affinity? That might just kill her.
Calling upon her status for what felt like the hundredth time today, she focused on the one thing that might, eventually, give her something to actually stand a chance. The class. A Legend class. Wichita had not checked its rating, but she was sure that was what it was anyway.
A child taking up a legendary sword got a Legend class. A girl being born in an old established house got a Legend class. Veruna dying for her alone would give her a Legend class. The rest of it? Fighting and prevailing against Leirot would give her… Saga at least. Perhaps even Legend by itself. The controller had made things easier. Escaping a crumbling world was another aid.
Yes, it had to be a Legend class. The only problem was, a Tier 1 Legend class did not mean much. Getting a higher ranked class was more difficult the more powerful you got. A farmer picking up a legendary sword might get him a Tier 1 Legend class, but that same farmer would have to kill Kings and nobles to get even a Tier 6 Legend class.
That also meant that the System had the irritating tendency to reserve the good Skills for later. Like right now, where she had not received a single Skill from her class. Wichita sighed, pulling up the class’ description.
[Forgotten Queen]: Forgotten by the world, walks a Queen. Brought ashore in the tides of space she has forsaken the path of combat to follow her twin’s plan. Rise, child of misery, and raise others with you.
Wichita blinked. Veruna was her sister? How…she had no words to describe what she was feeling. The Heart thought she should not feel at all, but she wanted to, she had to. This was certainly possible, and Veruna had considered it true for a long time. Wichita was the one that thought it did not matter.
A common Arcana did not really have any idea who was their brother or sister. The lot of them were born en masse from communal mana wells, without anyone knowing which child belonged to which parent. Even though she and Veruna had been born on the same day, she had felt that naming each other as siblings might attract unwanted ire.
The nobility were the only ones that could really do it. Reserving an entire mana well for themselves, so that only their children could be born there. Even that only after King Savere — her grandfather’s Royal Skill had multiplied the number of mana wells in Arcana.
Then her father’s Royal Skill granted that each copulation would produce at least twins. Wichita wondered what her own Royal Skill would do when it was able to truly show its power.
There was powerful Fae magic at work with the Royal Skills, though they weren’t sure which of the royal family’s inheritances they actually drew their strange powers from. Perhaps both. The Skill was already being useful, and it was known that they only tended to be useful at later Tiers. Arcana’s first King was famous for having a Skill he could only use after reaching Tier 8.
Wichita’s Heart calmed as she turned her thoughts to more ‘acceptable’ things. This was what Veruna had hated about the Hearts, why she had made her plan to begin with. A plan that still did not have any mention of forsaking combat. That would have been foolish given that the city had been at war.
The System had made that part up.
If she were a dragon, she would not have been surprised to see flames coming from her nostrils. The Heart burnt with a ferocity she had not encountered before, and for one she was agreed with it. The System had given her a non-combat class, when she was stuck in a forest. A non-combat class that required other people to grow, also something the forest seemed to lack.
Guessing why was not difficult. The bloody thing hated Arcana, it had been acting against them since it came into existence. The Arcana got the worst classes, most debilitating restrictions and the hardest Quests.
In the name of maintaining the balance of the world.
Raise others in misery, the System said. Where exactly was she supposed to find those people in this forest? And what about her misery? What was she supposed to about it?
Even if they did find someone to ‘raise’ in the forest, she would have difficulty raising them with no skills to her name. Wichita doubted the System would be so kind as to give her even a recruitment skill easily. Fae magic would be needed to get it to spit it out, as was a time honored tradition of Arcana monarchs.
But even the most foolish of Arcana’s royalty had not taken monarch classes as their first, and for good reason. Stories, the driving force behind Fae magic had monarchs as people of power and wealth. A Tier 1 tended to have neither.
A shout of rage threatened to tear itself out from her, but she resisted. That would not do. No, that might attract beasts, even if she hadn’t seen any yet. But this was hardly the first time she had been faced challenges. Leirot had seemed so mighty just a few hours ago. And now he was dead.
I am Arcana. I was born to wield magic and power, and they will be mine.
Wichita took a few steps forward, glancing around at the cracks that were starting to crowd in on her position. The words made her embarrassed now, but they had carried her through her younger years. And if she was being honest, through her older ones too.
Arcana were born with the ability to wield magic, to connect to mana in ways other species just couldn’t. Even if the System denied them that right, it was not all-powerful. Arcana had reclaimed it in the past, and she would do just that. Even if she had to destroy the bloody System to do it.
The cracks got closer to her, forcing her to move once more. The forest would not allow her to just stop, would it? Thankfully she did not need to rest or else she would have been done for already. But back to the topic. The class would not be useful, at least not for a while. That mean she had to figure out other ways to defend herself.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The Royal Skill. The thing had already saved her, if she could figure out how to use it…perhaps it could help.
The first Arcana had mated with both Iridor and Fae to produce children, and then mated her children together to produce the royal bloodline. The only Tier 9 bloodline in the world. Wichita would be surprised if the Skill it granted was simple. But its high ranking also made it that much more difficult to use. To tell the truth, she did not have high hopes about it.
Wichita looked at it in her status screen, as she stepped forward. The Skill was still on cooldown, and it seemed like it would be so for a while. That was another problem with Skills like these, they were powerful enough to often need cooldowns. The Skill would offer a well needed way to gather mana though, considering what had happened the last time she used it.
Mana: 351/353
An increase of almost double. Even if it wasn’t likely to be quite so exaggerated the next, it was still a sizable source of power. And she would need it. The only other Skill she had was [Bloodthirsty Needling] and… Wichita looked at the one needle she had and then at the forest in front of her.
What were the chances it was reliable? With her luck it would shoot at the first monster it sighted. Wichita put it back within the folds of her dress, afraid that it would do just that. There was no monster in sight yet, but there would be.
Fae magic was annoying, inconsistent when it wanted to be, but it had rules of its own. Even if it broke them on a whim, it probably wouldn’t do that here. After all, it would benefit her if it did that.
Now to actually move. Staying in one place wouldn’t net her any rewards, even if it was attractive. Wichita walked forward, sure that a monster would jump out of a tree at any moment. There weren’t any.
The cracks grew less numerous, but larger instead as she walked, as if she were transferring into a new area. A sigh of relief escaped her. There probably were monsters in this new area, but it wouldn’t be as big a challenge if there were fewer cracks. Even monsters would avoid those, making it easier for her to battle.
The forest’s Story was probably weak then, if it was actually making things easier. Or she was underestimating it, and would die to - a squirrel!
Wichita nearly yelped as she saw a tiny purple tail emerge from the otherwise camouflaged squirrel. The little thing was asleep on a tree branch, or at least it appeared to be. The tail hung outside, shaking as if it were swaying in the wind. There was no wind in the forest, at least none that she could feel.
A wind and space attuned beast? Wichita had to be careful. There was too much she did not know. Just because it was small did not mean it wasn’t dangerous, it was better to sneak away before it caught her.
Wichita gingerly stepped through the forest, giving the squirrel a wide birth. The fact that she couldn’t control what effect the mana had on the forest, made it worse. The beast might just sense the disturbance in the mana and wake up.
There were a lot of trees around the squirrel, though she wasn’t sure if those trees did not have any beasts of their own. For all she knew, there was an entire army of squirrels sleeping in front of her at this very moment.
If only she’d had a decent mana sense. Then she would have some confidence. But she could barely sense the squirrel even after knowing it was there, let alone anyone else. Wichita decided to avoid the squirrel by walking behind the tree next to it, using it as cover. Turning thin enough to hid behind it was easy, but her thoughts still wandered. What if the squirrel could see through trees in some manner? Wichita could, so could anyone with a half decent mana sense. A person, or beast, could not really survive in this place without a mana sense.
Assuming the squirrel had one was not an unreasonable assumption. Wichita just didn’t know what else she could do. Lacking mana control was more painful at this moment then it had before in her life. There was little point in waiting however, the squirrel might just wake up on its own.
Walking off, she was careful not to touch anything, fearful that it would cause a mana reaction. The tree blocked her vision as she struggled to keep her attention on the squirrel with her mana sense.
The sense was confusing to her, like a third sense that gave her a vague idea of what existed at the place she was focusing on. The squirrel was slippery to it, like a gust of air that would not — what the fuck. The needle shot out of her dress, heading straight for the squirrel.
The bloody thing was going to get her killed.
The squirrel’s eyes shot open, opening its mouth as it projected it outward. Wichita sensed the image of a full set of squirrel teeth heading towards the needle, and she was not foolish enough to hope it would ignore her.
Growling in annoyance at the needle’s idiocy, she charged its enchantments. Letting them free as it shot right into the squirrel’s trap, she hoped that it would work. The mana distorted, the teeth trying to bite into the needle but finding themselves disappearing instead. Thankfully, the needle was fast. In the blink of an eye it had buried itself into the squirrel’s brain, before it could react.
Wichita felt dread creep up her back as she jumped ahead, looking backward. A leopard was jumping into the air, dodging a particular bloodthirsty needle. The needle turned around to target the leopard without any prompting on her part, leaving her free to stare into the leopard’s eyes.
The beast narrowed its eyes at her, its mana flaring. Wichita felt the power running through it, and knew she was not it’s match. Tier 2. That was what the amount of mana it had within it told her. Of course, she had several times it’s mana thanks to her superior species, but she could not use it. The System would not allow it. Was it too much to hope that the leopard was under a similar restriction?
The leopard dodged the needle with relative ease, yet did not head towards her. A sudden burst of speed had it catching the squirrel between its teeth and heading out, not bothering to attack her.
Wichita just wondered what she could have done if the leopard had actually attacked her. Cried while it ate her? Even the Heart seemed to have been humbled, not even suggesting she follow it.
The only way she could defend herself was with the needle, and if it could do what she suspected her Skill allowed it to much faster. Wichita looked at the needle, feeling it’s enchantments. There was more mana in them than there should be. And it confirmed what she already knew. The needle had a Story of its own, not surprising given its tendency to act by itself.
The needle could also swallow other creature’s mana, using it to enhance its own reserves. Not a common ability, though not for lack of trying. Even she had tried to enchant it into her needles before, to very limited success.
…it had been this same needle hadn’t it. Was that where the Story came from? Wichita had been quite desperate back then, and perhaps some of that had bled into it. Still it didn’t explain why it refused to follow her commands.
Even the Skill puzzled her. The System should have just named the Skill [Mana-eating needle], cause it was just one needle, and it wasn’t thirsty for blood. The bloody thing seemed to want to eat any mana it could get its hands-on.
Skill transformed: [Bloodthirsty Needling] → [Mana-eating needle]