Clouds are so simple, yet so captivating. They are freedom in every sense of the word. They lazily move across the sky everyday without a care in the world. Sometimes people do look up at them and find joy in seeing imagined shapes. Most of the time when people look up at them it’s because they have turned grey and fierce. Rain pours down from them onto the world below and lightning flashes from them like pure power coming into existence.

  This is why Kumo was always fascinated by them. They are peaceful, yet dangerous when the time is right. That’s how she’s always seen herself. She’s a good person, and always will do her best to be, but monsters need to know how dangerous she is. She will always protect herself and the people around her. To those she wants to protect, she’s the cloud providing shade when they need it most. To monsters, animals and people alike, she is the thunderstorm overhead.

  The monsters on her hunt were learning that today. There were almost forty class chosen out today and she was enjoying the freedom to move around the battlefield as needed. Her abilities were well-rounded but wielded by her they were great at finishing the job. The cloud blades were always aimed at the throat.

  Ever since they arrived at the city, she hadn’t been spending a lot of time with Synexus and she was thankful for that. They enjoyed each other’s company, that was obvious, but she always dreamed about the freedom to be just another stranger in the crowd. These hunting trips allowed her that feeling while also strengthening herself.

  She was grateful to Synexus for allowing them both to have this space. He was obviously not completely comfortable in the city; however, she respected him for going out there to figure it out himself. Her father would have glued her to his side if they had ever come back here together. He would have made the excuse that the city could be dangerous for her or something. He never let her figure things out on her own like Synexus was getting the chance to do now.

  The shriek that had interrupted their conversation came from deep within the woods and they both took off towards it. She still couldn’t believe how much success he had with his side business. She also couldn’t believe he had gone out of his way to get her the cloud bag. That was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her, which made her feel bad since she was just thinking this morning about how nice it was, that they weren’t spending every minute together in Gale.

  People need their space though and it sounds like it’s a good thing he had it. At the end of each day when they met up to talk about their daily adventures, they were always more interesting.

  ***

  They finally came upon what had shrieked. It was some type of bat monster which was bizarre since it was the middle of the day. The scene was gruesome. It looked like one of the class chosen had went too far from the group to pick herbs and became prey for this bat. Blood was running down her from a big wound on her torso. Her face was full of fear and pain.

  Kumo immediately went on the attack to get the bat off her while Synexus went to give aid to the poor girl. She knew he had some healing herbs, but that wound might be too much for those. That all didn’t matter right now though. She had to focus on her task which was to make this bat regret its lunch.

  She activated the vortex from her bracers since it was trying to flee. It was dragged back to her as she sliced it with as many cloud blades as she could manage at once. The bat was left with dozens of cuts and torn wings, but it surprisingly had survived the barrage. She dropped straight on top of it, using Cloud Wave. The condensed cloud in her hands blew up causing a massive wave of air. The way she had come down on the bat had directed all that force down into her foe. She got blasted back, but that didn’t matter because she got the kill notification.

  You have slain a Flesh Ripper!

  Cloud Wave has leveled up!

  Cloud Wave has evolved into Thunder Surge

  Thunder Surge: Condense a thundercloud and explode it to cause a loud explosion. The noise emitted from this skill will cause disorientation to any enemy in the vicinity of the surge. The force and noise of this skill no longer affects allies.

  These notifications confused Kumo because she had done extensive research on her skills and class. All the research she had read said that her skills wouldn’t evolve. They would only upgrade. She wasn’t complaining because this new skill sounded awesome, but it was odd.

  She went down and looted the bat because a skill echo had formed while she was checking out her new skill.

  Flesh Rippers (rare): These knuckle weapons act like the fangs of the Flesh Ripper. They rip flesh while imbuing the user with some health from the victim.

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  The fanged brass knuckles went into her bag to be checked out later and she ran over to Synexus and the other class chosen. She was looking better and Synexus said she would be okay. Apparently, he had given her leaves from a new tree he made that had healing properties. She would need attention from an actual healer, but she would live.

  Him and his plants. He could just create new things in an instant. Bring new things into the world that didn’t exist before. She was a little envious of that, however, she wouldn’t give her abilities up for anything else. The clouds always have called to her after all.

  ***

  They took the class chosen named Vyrenia back to the group to get healed and then they continued hunting monsters. It was only when the group decided to head back that they stopped. The sun wasn’t setting yet, but even class chosen got tired and it had been a heavy monster day.

  Since it was still light out and Synexus somehow had this luck with his wealth, they went to the market district. Before they got any real shopping in though, Kumo got him some ice cream because he had never had it. It amazed him even more than the bacon which had her laughing.

  Their first stop for shopping was an equipment shop since Synexus had asked to look at some stuff. They didn’t spend too long here, but they did get a few things like some empty potion flasks, emergency flares, magical rope, a fire starter that was a small eternal flame which only burned wood, and some other odd things.

  After that, she had requested they go to a high-end cloak shop named Cloaked. She had heard about while on patrol and a cloak was an important piece of clothing since it was so versatile. They both got fitted for their own cloak and selected the color, and enchantments. There were already made ones, but since Synexus was paying they went all out. Hers was, of course, the storm grey she loved so much. His was a dark black on the outside and then the inside was silver like his eyes. They chose waterproof, warming, and self-repair enchantments. Unfortunately, the tailor could only fit three on there and those three interacted well.

  They walked out with their new cloaks on to go to their next destination, which was a rare plant shop. Synexus hadn’t realized there was a more upscale market within the market district that was for higher tier items. This was where Cloaked was and the plant shop was a few storefronts down.

  Fancy Plants was definitely a store she would never have gone in alone, but she had to admit that there were some pretty cool plants in here. They walked around until Synexus was able to get a few legendary plants logged into his library skill. Apparently, they were taking longer than normal plants and the shopkeeper didn’t like him touching the plants, so he had to be sneaky. Kumo told him to buy the plants, but he didn’t need to. He told her that he only needed the genes to level up his gene editing skill faster so he could help a seed he got the day before. She said that she’d have to go see this tree in the library to understand what was going on. His skills were dealing with things that Kumo didn’t understand much. At least it made things interesting.

  She had them go into a few more stores after that to get a few more things that would be helpful like potions from the potion shop, some tracking enchanted rings in case they got separated, and proper blankets for when they had to sleep outside again.

  The sun was starting to set, which marked the end of their second shopping trip, but before the sunlight disappeared completely, she got another notification.

  Cloud Cover has leveled up!

  You have leveled up!

  35 stat points available

  Level 8! She immediately had a smile on her face and Synexus instantly knew she had leveled up because of it. It was always a great feeling to feel some progress. She immediately allocated her stat points like she had been. The focus for her was on intelligence for the mana, vitality for the health points, and agility for the speed. After that endurance for stamina was the next priority. At the bottom was perception and strength for her. She would equal them out eventually, however, her two most offensive skills took mana, and she didn’t like it when she ran out during the fight with that damned worm.

  They chatted about their stats and the skills they had left to level up, but her thoughts wandered to how good of a day it was for her. She got a level, evolved a skill, killed some monsters, got her cloud bag as a gift from a person she cared for, and did some shopping for their trip. Happiness was starting to grow inside her more and more each day along with the independence and confidence she gained the minute she left home. She was excited to get boarded onto the Windswept and start an even bigger adventure. The world was going to change her for the better, and her goal was to change it right back.

  Speaking of the ship, a voice they knew called out right before they entered the inn.

  “Hey, Kumo and Synexus! Wait up!”

  They turned to look and realized it was Captain Vorin who was walking over to them before continuing to speak.

  “I thought that was you two! How have preparations been going? Do you need help finding anything?”

  Kumo answered first, “No I think we actually have everything we need. We can leave anytime. Thank you for the offer though.”

  Synexus added, “Yes, thank you. We are mainly exploring the city and attempting to progress some in our skills before the voyage.”

  “That’s good to hear. I’m sorry about the other day. It had been a long day. Normally I’m a pretty enthusiastic guy. I was heading to a tavern to meet up with the other two members of my party when I saw you two. They will be on the ship with us, and I thought maybe you’d want to join us.”

  Kumo and Synexus looked at each other as if attempting to get approval, but finally it was Kumo who spoke, “You know what? That sounds like a great idea. I think it’d be nice to get to know everyone before we set out. Are you up for it, Synexus?”

  “Sounds good to me. I’ve been finding all the different class chosen to be fascinating and it helps to socialize. Lead the way, Captain!”

  Captain Vorin laughed before making one last comment. “I’m only captain on the ship. Just call me Vorin.”

  With that they followed him down the walkway to the familiar tavern with the molten lava bamboo tables to meet the class chosen they would be working with for the next two months. Kumo looked to the night sky at the clouds before walking inside.