"Seven out of ten.. I'm getting there" Zeke said with a grunt as he pulled out the last transfixed javelin.

Once again Zeke had been honing his aim at the close distance of 10 meters. Another batch of javelins were destroyed and another was created through out the morning practice. The poor target board had been riddled with holes, from the edges to centre, the thing was barely standing. He probably should've replaced it after the last training session, but it still functioned to provide a clear target that allowed his javelins to pierce through and not be damaged. Zeke was also just feeling lazy.

With his weapons retrieved and the board cleared he took his stance by 10 meter mark that was indicated by a little line of bloody-rocks, an aesthetic choice by Zeke.

With practiced motion, Zeke hurled that homemade javelin at the lop-sided target. The moment it left his hand, he knew it was a perfect throw. Sure enough, the blur of pointy death passed through the dead centre of the faintly visible bull's-eye. It managed to pass right through an already punctured hole, causing the thrown javelin to shatter into hundreds of tiny splinters when it hit the hard-packed dirt on the other side, Zeke's abnormal strength was too much to handle.

+ Spearman has reached level 2, New skill awarded

+1 Attribute Point

+ Skill Earned: Aim Lock

After finally leveling a second class to level two, Zeke was able to confirm a few things. Level two will award a new skill and an attribute point and after reading the description of Aim Lock, the skill given was tailored to the individual. Without another person to compare with, he wasn't sure to what extent the skills differed, but he was sure that most spearman wouldn't have got the same skill he received.

Skill, Aim Lock, passive

Any thrown projectiles will receive significantly improved accuracy when aimed for at least 3 seconds.

It sounded less like a skill and more like common sense, Zeke didn't need a skill to tell him that aiming properly was better than not aiming at all. He was depressed at what seemed like a worthless skill, well, that was untill he decided to follow the skill's instructions.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Zeke reached for another javelin from the pile near his feet and took aim again. He waited patiently for 3 seconds to pass as he seized up the target and launched it with all his might. True to skill's description, the javelin passed right through the same hole the previous javelin passed through, once again littering an explosion of wooden splinters on the dirt behind. Zeke had never once hit the same pin-point target consecutively before, not even by fluke from the hundreds of times he had tried. With a somewhat doubtful skepticism he brought up another javelin to his jaw line.

A third wooden explosion flooded the forest, as yet again, the perfectly aimed spear slipped through the miniscule hole in the board.

Zeke whooped the success with a fist pump, once was a luck, twice was a coincidence, thrice was a pattern, the pattern being that his new skill was amazing. The 3 second delay before throwing wasn't too annoying as shorter ranged throws were easier to land anyway, the skill would really show it's strength at longer range. The lack of a mana cost was also a huge bonus, Zeke already felt like his mana was being taxed too hard by super-charged Fireballs and Harden. Passive skills were permanent and didn't require an activation cost, unless you considered aiming for 3 seconds to be a 'cost' of sorts, which Zeke didn't.

With further experimentation Zeke was able to assert what his hit chances were at different ranges while Aim Lock was active.

At the 10 meter and 20 meter range, each throw was always at least a 'hit' on the practice board. 30 meters was a 60% hit rate and the 40 meter distance was a whopping 20%, better than what felt like the less than 1% he had earlier. With the new skill he could ensure that each javelin would remove one threat in a fight, the biggest shame was that Zeke only carried three javelins at a time, any more would make traveling difficult, getting stuck in bushes and such.

With Spearman at level 2 Zeke concluded his practice and turned to a new class, one he didn't have yet, but he felt like he was close to gaining. The class Zeke wanted was wizard, or mage, or sorcerer, whatever it may be called. He was willing to bet that if physical classes existed, so did the magical.

With a quick thought he called forth a tiny and harmless flame at the cost of 5 mana. He wasn't sure what the best method of unlocking the class would be, that only thing he had to work with was 'use magic' much like with Swordsman, use swords.

He figured the best place to start would be trying to improve his accuracy like with the spears. Fireball was already quite easy to aim as it wouldn't stray off course and the drop-off was minor, if he threw it horizontally it wold travel 20 meters before it hit the ground. There was some amount of control on Zeke's part, as he could magically reduce the drop-off at the expense of mana, he could even increase the drop-off if he chose to, for the most part, the magic responded to how he envisioned it and the amount of mana consumed.

In just a couple hours practice of shooting tiny fireballs and recovering by crafting more javelins while his mana ticked up, his aim had pretty much reached 100% at any range, even 40 meters. The afternoon sky had turned to a apricot shade of orange as he sweated away, still unable to unlock the longed for class.

He was on the cusp of unlocking it, he could feel it.

With just 11 mana to spare Zeke thought of one final idea to push him over the barrier of entry. It was something he had secretly wanted to try since he learned to control the flame's temperature, but never had the chance to. To be fair, it was a silly idea, too silly to work, but crazy enough to elicit a miracle.

Zeke circulated all his mana across his form in preparation of the silly idea, deep down, he knew it would be awesome and used that thought to sweep away the embarrassment creeping up. With a shove of mental encouragement, Zeke ignited all the mana he circulated, engulfing his whole body in lukewarm flames and colouring the surroundings teal.

+ 1 Mana (0/53)

"I knew this would feel amazing!" Zeke spoke through the shell of silent fire.

"Now I'm really the God of Fire!"

+ Class Earned: Magus

Magus has reached level 1