Radgar had been spot on the money. There were a lot of notifications. Though not as many as he would have thought given that it had been over six months since he’s looked at them. it seemed like a lot of them condensed down if they were related to each other.

  Tsar’s eyes widened as he read through the bond effect. He was pretty sure he had just discovered something that no one had ever encountered before. The bond must be tailored to the individual and accounts for their actual Classes. It was good to see that his bond had grown because of all the work he’d put in to correcting the misinformation within its pages. The real benefit was that he could take a Wisp and turn it into a laser firing turret now. Or if he found some other better spirit, he could have a lightning elemental spirit that had other powers as well. Wisps just floated around and glowed. Anyways, on to the next notification.

  Tsar wasn’t surprised that Mana Transfer had reached its max level. He’d been using it on his Wisp to make it a battery for him for the past five months, and through the application of mana control he’d already known that he’d gotten the efficiency up to 2 to 1. Greater Mana Siphon was a bit of a surprise. It still used up half of his mana at all times but increasing his regen by 50% was actually a damn good effect. But the most interesting of the skills was Rock Star. It seemed more like a title than a skill. But the system seemed to be fond of silly naming schemes for skills. It was essentially all the skills that made it up but better. And it was also a way that he could increase his mana regen by a further 4.5 per hour. As long as he could sing and play for that long.

  ‘Oh, good god System!’ He knew the system would do something cheeky, but at least it was amazingly beneficial, a hundred more points to his Charisma was welcome any day of the week.

  Yeah, Tsar had leveled up pretty much all of his skills. The only ones that he hadn’t practiced over the past seven months were Create Totem, Create Talisman, Find Hidden Things (which he really didn’t know how to practice), Stealth, Swimming, and Commune with Spirit. But overall, he’d made a huge amount of progress. The very last Notification, thankfully. Was one that he was truly not expecting at all.

  As soon as Tsar read the last Notification, he felt a whomp in his chest as his body was flooded with EXP and more power than ever before as his level skyrocketed. New Notifications popping up as soon as he’d finished reading the last ones. He gritted his teeth and pulled them up.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Tsar dismissed the notifications and held his breath… Nope that was all of them. Was it just him or was the System starting get… Hostile? No that wasn’t it. more like it felt like it was gaining personality and a sense of humor. He could get behind that. His notifications in the past had been droll and dull. Now they seemed to have a bit more to them. Maybe the System just took time to get to know people and started customizing the experience based on the individual. Anyway, Tsar needed to go talk to Radgar pronto. He wanted to talk to him before he evolved and maybe even get his advice about the possible new classes. But first he took a peek at his stat sheet to see how it had changed.

  Ok a lot had changed since he’d last looked at it. He was tempted to use his currently Bound Wisp for his Grimoire of lighting… but he had a feeling that once he assigned the slot, he’d be stuck with the Wisp forever. Right now, he could dismiss the bond with the Wisp whenever he felt like it. but it was a convenient mana supply right now. On further consideration Tsar was probably going to as Iggy if she could supply him with a dozen more so that when he left, he’d essentially have six times the mana pool… and a bunch of glowing lights when he wanted them. His Wisp could turn invisible at will, so it was almost always set to be invisible. On top of that Tsar now had enough skill points to buy two skills from each of his class skill trees. So, he’d need to look into that soon or else he’d forget. It was almost tempting to Bind another Grimoire just to have a mental checklist. But he wasn’t about to waste an Attunement Slot for that.

  His musings over with Tsar called out to Iggy.

  “Hey Iggy. I need to talk to Radgar… and you as well, I guess. Can you move me over to him?” he asked.

  “Sure thing kiddo. We figured you’d end up needing to talk to us after you looked through your notifications. Especially after graduation.” Iggy spoke as Tsar sensed the absurd amount of mana she was using to activate a teleport around him.

  “Hey kid! I suppose you got some good news, and you are about to have to skedaddle so I don’t blow my top?” Radgar spoke the moment Tsar appeared.

  “I guess… kinda? Um… I can evolve now. But I have a few questions. Apparently, I qualify for some new classes now and I would like to get your input on them if at all possible. Also… How come you never told me it’s been over 20,000 years since you’ve had company!??” Tsar nearly shouted that last question. The thought of Iggy and Radgar here all alone for 20,000 years was heart wrenching when he knew the two of them. They were practically social butterflies.

  Radgar looked surprised and seemed like he didn’t know what to say for a moment before he collected himself.

  “Well, honestly I didn’t know it had been that long. The days, months, years, decades and centuries all sort of just blur together… Has it really been that long Iggy?” He asked staring off into the distance.

  “Probably a little longer than that if I’m being honest. You know I sleep most of the time anyway, time doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you two.” Iggy replied

  “Well anyhow, its not really all that important how much time we’ve spent here. And of course, I will try to provide the guidance that I can about potential classes. The ones you already have are a significant increase on your level requirements already though.” Radgar said as he took a sip of wine.

  Tsar nodded and checked out his potential class.

  “[Spell Singer], [Bard], and [Skald] are the only ones that stand out to me.” Tsar said. There were other generic ones like Fighter, Archer, and Defender. But he really wasn’t even interested in them.

  “Hmmm… Spell Singer is a common class among the Elves. It is a magical crafting class with decent combat potential. Bard is a very common class that focuses on party buffs early on, but a high-level bard can use songs and instruments to provide buffs to entire armies if they pick the right skills. Skald is an incredibly rare class. Think I’ve only ever seen two or three of them. It adds a great deal to the EXP requirements… 25,000 if I remember correctly. One of its level one Unique skills is a skill that adds the Charisma count to the Hp Regen stat. On top of that it increases Charisma, Vitality, Constitution and Strength by 10 points per class level. It is technically a battle bard class that specializes in absorbing damage while dealing it back. Borderline Berserker class. They always sang while they fought to provide not only buffs for themselves but also for their party.” Ragnar explained

  Tsar didn’t know what to do about it. The Skald class was just awesome. Adding 25,000 EXP to his level requirements though? He wasn’t sure. It sounded like it would synergize with his current classes though. Adding his charisma to his Hp Regen stat would put his regen at over two and a half points of regen per minute at the moment.

  “If you were in my position, what would you do?” Tsar asked with trepidation.

  “I would immediately take the Skald class. It synergizes with your already existent skills and is a fantastic match with the Sorcerer Class seeing as they both give Charisma and modifiers using it. In fact the Sorcerer skill tree has multiple skills that either give more charisma per level or in some other way add to charisma. The reason I would not hesitate to add the requirements to my leveling is that I already have a lifespan measuring thousands of years as my current race. And it’ll only make my life a little more difficult when I happen to Die and be reborn somewhere and have to grind my way back up. EXP requirements are really just Time sinks. Not really a burden to an immortal… Pseudo immortal.” Radgar explained his reasoning.

  Tsar took a step back in his mental processes. Radgar was right. He was thinking short term. Having the class could add years to leveling plans, but with his current lifespan stat, he could comfortably live to the ripe old age of 7,060 as long as he wasn’t killed. But like he said it would only really be an annoyance to die, a setback that he would recover from… Taking a deep breath Tsar pulled up the Skald window and looked it over.

  “And I thought that Shaman was a restrictive class with its requirements… this is insane.” Tsar said as he mentally clicked to accept the class. Then the new notifications came rolling in. He knew what they were. He was just over looking at little blue boxes today. Ya know?

  Tsar laughed when he read the second skill. Baritone voice was slightly ominous though. Was he going to have to become one of those strong silent types in order to just accidentally influence peoples minds with his words? He didn’t know but he wasn’t going to find out here and now, so it didn’t really matter.

  “Alright well that’s taken care of.” Tsar spoke and nearly hiccupped in surprise at the sound of his own voice. It was rich and deeper than it had been a minute ago.

  “What happened to your voice? It sounds good like that don’t get me wrong, I just wasn’t expecting that.” Iggy said

  “Damn, the effect of all that Willpower is evident already now. As you level up that Class you will probably start to be able to kill low leveled monster by just telling them to die pretty soon.” Radgar chuckled at his own statement. But Tsar was actually pretty sure that that was at least partially right.

  “Well now that that is done… When do you think you are heading off? Not that we want you to leave sooner, but the sooner you do the sooner you can come back. Just don’t forget to be really strong by then and bring a class removal item with you so we can get rid of this damned Berserker Class.” Radgar spoke

  “But before you go! I have whole bunch more Totems and Talismans for you to take with you. Also don’t forget all the weapons and the clothes. Your next evolution is going to be bigger. Most Likely a Frogman or Toadman variant, I’m sure.” Iggy stated

  “Ok mom I already packed everything. Remember… Soul Vault?” Tsar teased

  “Ah but you didn’t get the new totems and talismans yet. And don’t call me mom. I’m to young to be a mother.” Iggy said with that voice that somehow conveyed a mock disdainful sneer along with it. Tsar really wished he knew how to do that. He’d tried mimicking it a lot but just couldn’t seem to do it.

  +++

  A few hours later Tsar found himself out in the meadow surrounding Iggy which was in turn surrounded by a swamp the size of Nebraska. Radgar managed the entire area except for a swath around its circumference that was about fifty miles thick. Tsar needed to make it to that area before he evolved or else his presence would prod Ragnar’s Hermit senses, which would in turn activate his berserker blood rage, which would mean that Tsar would have about half a second to live even if he was over three hundred miles away. Radgar moved so fast that he broke the sound barrier when he wanted to. And by the time he returned he would have to be just as strong. His mission was to level up, grind, level up, grind and continue until he was strong enough to take on Radgar. Then he would find a Class removal item, come back, beat Radgar into submission, and either forcefully take his Berserker class from him, or make it to Iggy’s meadow and leave the item there while he fled so that she could administer the item to Radgar when he calmed down. All of this had been discussed. At a minimum Tsar was going to need stats close to fifty thousand a piece to do this.

  Tsar had a long road ahead of him… Both literally and metaphorically. The best guess that Radgar had as to which way an actual town might be, was to the west. Tsar figured it was as good a direction as any and started running. The only thing he was wearing was the chain of world tree sapling wood upon which two items hung. His graduation pendant, and his Talisman that provided a false screen to people using skills or spells to see his stats. He’d set it up so that it only hid four things. His actual race, which he’d set to Frogman, and the Titles [Self Named] [Legend] and [Hero]. The race part was simply because he had checked his potions for evolutions and only three of them native to the material plane. He was going to pick Mystic Banded Frogman(B+) first. Then he was going to grind. And grind a lot. His goal was to reach the fourth Core threshold of 16,000 stat points across the board before he progressed to A- Tier and did it all over again.

  For right now, Tsar was eating up the distance between him and the edge of the swamp. Once he reached the edge would evolve. Then he would farm some monster souls along the edge of the swamp for a little bit. Then he would set off looking for a town.

  +++

  It took Tsar only two days to exit the swamp. In two days, he’d managed to cover at least 300 miles of rough and unforgiving terrain. Granted he hadn’t gone to sleep that whole time and had kept a steady pace. If he remembered correctly, and he was pretty sure he did, humans back on earth could reliably travel about 30 miles a day in favorable terrain on foot. He’d technically done five times that in heavily unfavorable terrain without sleeping or stopping for more than a few minutes to relieve himself or harvest a few souls here and there. Most of the monsters in the area were E Tier and only gave him 1 EXP for killing them. Anything below E+ didn’t even give him experience. But they still gave him their souls.

  He’d found a place where Life-Mote Tadpoles were spawning. Like actually spawning. Mana itself kind of just… created them in batches of a couple hundred at a time spontaneously wherever there were large quantities of Life affinity mana. Radgar had taught him that. Tsar thought it was incredibly odd that the tadpoles were a sort of natural phenomenon that actually had souls. Well, it was convenient. He’d stumbled upon a large spanking and a single cast of True Spark into the water had netted him nearly three hundred new souls for his collection. And overall, his whole trip had netted him an even five hundred shiny new souls. Raising his regen via souls to 7.45 an hour.

  It hadn’t been immediately obvious when he’d reached the edge of the swamp. The tree cover was still pretty much absolute. But the ground steadily became more solid and the puddles less frequent as he ran. When he finally reached the last of the trees and a view of grassy fields and rolling hills met his eyes, he knew it was time to evolve. He huddled up underneath the cover of the trees and made his selection. Then promptly passed out.

  Tsar was instantly greeted by the notification the moment he awoke. He felt… different. Well, he was obviously different because he’d changed his race yet again. But… he felt like his mind was freer and more open than it had been before. Like there had been a veil that he hadn’t realized was there covering his thoughts. “This must be the difference between natural Sapience and System granted Sapience through stats.” He muttered to himself. Honestly, he should have realized it before. His brain before this point in his life hadn’t actually been designed for the types of thoughts he was having. Now that his mind was in a body that was actually supposed to have a Sapient mind in it everything was Clear. It was like someone had just put a brand-new ram card into a computer that sorely needed it.

  He was enjoying the feeling of his newfound mental freedom when he started to examine his new body. He was large. Probably close to six five. His muscles were perfectly tones beneath a deep green skin that had swirling gold-colored patterns throughout it, making it look like he had gold tribal tattoos across his whole body. His hands were slightly elongated compared to a normal human hand and the pads at the tips of his fingers were slightly wider than normal. His legs and feet looked decidedly human save for being a wee bit on the wide side and of course deep green with tribalistic gold swirls. And his… Member… Seemed like it was a good normal size and shape, but green with intricate swirls of gold.

  Speaking of his dangly bits, he was still naked. He quickly remedied that with a pair of dark brown pants and a white loose-fitting shirt that looked like one of those shirts’ pirates wear in the movies. Tsar was sure that he probably looked ridiculous. Especially because he didn’t have any shoes or boots. Radgar was adamantly against footwear of any kind. It was almost a religion to him.

  With clothes on and wearing a new skin. Tsar looked out over the rolling fields and set off westward.

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