Long ago, the goddess Arshanara, the goddess of fire and desolation, of towns and fields set aflame during wars and of raging wildfires that scour all life, fell in love with a dragon. The dragon, Kalist was feared across the empire for his might and temper and for reducing many duchies to ashes. As an elder wyrmlord, he was only a few steps removed from divinity himself and yet he knew to not even dare to resist Arshanara’s advances. Regdren, the Silver Flame was the result of this union. He was Godtouched and had suckled on the teat of a goddess and even as an infant, Kalist feared his might. At Kalist’s behest, Regdren’s race was forcibly changed to that of a human and he was left on the other end of the Catri Empire where he would be raised by a peasant couple.
When he was only fifteen summers old, war came knocking to his idyllic stead. And he answered. When the Catrian Emperor’s men asked for bodies against the invaders from the south, Regdren volunteered with an eagerness he had not known before. His blood, that he shared with a divinity of war and a dragon of violence and destruction had always rebelled against his peaceful life. And once given the opportunity, it was as certain as the movement of the heavenly spheres that Regdren would wage war and make violence. After all, the edicts of the gods manifest in unpredictable ways in all that are touched by them. Even other gods are not immune to this. And Regdren, while mighty, was still mortal.
Regdren rose quickly through the ranks of the Catrian army, his unmatched prowess on the battlefield earning him the moniker "The Silver Flame." He fought with a ferocity that left comrades and enemies alike in awe, his blade burning with an otherworldly fire that could cut through steel and stone. His flame was not of mortal ken and nothing could withstand it but it was only a comforting warmth to those that bore him no ill will. Yet, it was not just his might that distinguished him, but his seemingly unwavering loyalty to the Catrian Empire and its ruler, Emperor Catrian III. The Emperor recognized Regdren's potential and elevated him, entrusting him with command over one of the fifteen imperial legions.
Leading his men in battle, he vanquished the southern invaders and drove them to the sea. And still, his fiery rage was not sated and he gave pursuit to them, to their very lands. Numerous champions fell to his blade and yet his fire was not quenched. Something had ignited within him and only blood could keep it at bay. He ravaged the countryside and set whole towns on fire until the invader king, Xerag, himself was forced to confront him. He bore an armor and spear of gold and rode upon a pegasus. The king had not inherited his post but had seized it through warfare and blood and he matched the Godtouched. For a day and a half, they battled. Mountains fell and new rivers were carved on the landscape before finally, Xerag fell, his very heart plucked out his by own spear and cast into the sea.
And finally, for the first time in decades, the maddening bloodlust had left Regdren and he returned triumphant to Catria. He was given a small city to rule. This town was named Dellia and Regdren's adoptive parents and their people moved to it as their old land had long been destroyed in the fires of war.
Despite his victory, Regdren was haunted by a new spectre. A spectre that only existed in his darkest nightmares and in the whispers that echoed from the shadowed halls of his fort. Visions and stories, of a small settlement by the sea, dreams of fire, wings, and a voice, terrible and familiar, that whispered his name. "Regdren," it said. “Perish.” It promised. The voice clawed upon his mind, raking gauges upon it.
He dismissed the dreams as nothing more than the echoes of a restless spirit. And yet, peace was not his to bed for long. Three trials, Regdren had endured and three enemies he had overcome. And soon enough, the second trial came. And with it, came ruin to Dellia.
-Regdren’s Kindling
“Show me civilian classes. Search for keywords: bone, knife, knives, daggers.” And it worked. I blinked, I hadn't expected it to.
\\Class [KNIFE MAKER'S APPRENTICE] selected
‘No crafting skill? Must have sent the experience to Bone Shaping.’
Oh well. I could work with that, even if no skill changes whatsoever was disappointing. I fished out one of my knives and slightly reshaped the handle.
\\[KNIFE MAKER’S APPRENTICE] is now level 5!
\\Class mastered [KNIFE MAKER'S APPRENTICE]. +1 to STRENGTH
Done. Time to see what's my next highest available class.
\\UNAUGURED ACOLYTE (0/20)
The Unaugured God hides behind a thousand veils and you have peered beyond one such veil. Pledge your service to the god who is not an—
NOPE.
And now I was in a conundrum. What should my next class be? [FOREST RANGER APPRENTICE] didn't take too long to be mastered. Then came the big one. [BONEMAGE ACOLYTE], a level 20 class that gave me +2 to Celerity, Willpower, Attunement, and a +4 to Vitality. It also came with an active skill called Calcify Mana that let me use bones to store mana for later use like personal Aetherite. I just made a point of always charging my knives with excess mana whenever I was close to being full or before going to bed. In a day, it evolved into Calcified Mana Empowerment that also boosted the structural integrity of whatever I stored mana in, based on how much I stored. The knives seemed to have no limit to how much mana they could hold but I still decided against putting all my mana in one until I hit the theoretical limit; every one of my knives had some mana in it. The two bone magic spells, Teeth Spray and Spinal Shiver, weren't bad either. One was a short range offensive spell that pelted the target with fast moving teeth until I stopped casting or ran out of mana. The individual projectiles weren't anything to write home across dimensions about but the collective barrage was formidable at close range. The other was just a wide area temporary paralysis spell that wore off within a second on stronger enemies but still gave them pause. All they took was a bone catalyst, like my knives.
And once again, because of their Godtouched nature, I mastered it much faster than level 15 classes like the one before it. Not instantly like my first two classes but still within an hour.
My next class had been a level 15 again but it had been exceptionally good for my skills. Quick Killer, Dirty Fighter, Neurotic Observer and Find Weakness had instantly consolidated into Assassin's Eye because of [ASSASSIN'S WARD], it also gave me +2 to Strength, Celerity, Acuity and Perception. It also awarded me a passive skill that boosted my Strength, Celerity, Acuity and Perception by half the level of the skill’s level if unseen by everyone, or at least if I genuinely believed I was unseen. It didn't magically let me know if I was being watched, I had tested it with Novas. The problem with it being that it refused to level up unless I pushed myself far beyond any sustainable and safe pace when it was active to make it level.
I had thus only found it useful for sneaking up on the occasional slime or large vermin that plagued the streets. I would have expected the animals to have choked to death due to the pollution but life still endured. But my problems with it were all solved when it absorbed Minor Stealth to become Unseen Slayer. That was impressive as it simply combined the two effects into a passive.
All in all, a lot of my slots were freed and I was grateful for that even though it was not all convenience and improvement. Assassin's Eye didn't activate when needed or anything, it was always active. A permanent stream of subconscious telling me how to kill everyone around me, how to escape, every opening and every weakness of all around me. And when I was in a crowd? It went wild. Cold Blooded had levelled once from just dealing with it constantly.
That certainly didn't help with my reputation as the weird recluse among the other contractors. But it was that or staring at people's throats because my skills labelled them a weak spot mid-conversation. I moved quickly and didn't stay to chat with anyone other than Fahria, who seemed to empathize with me as she apparently had something similar. Not sure how I felt about the fact that she might be thinking about killing me too.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Once I figured out that if I let Medea kill without being detected myself, that gave me some extra experience, that class didn't take too many days either. That mastery had been just minutes ago, followed by my seconds-long foray into knife making.
Not a bad haul for just a bit over a week but in all honesty, I had only legitimately levelled the two level 15s in that time. The bones were a cheat but at this rate, they would stop being useful for me sooner than later. I was fine with that, bones were the domain of those that I had to kill. That I and 11 others had to kill.
In that week, I had also been looking for a cheap place to stay but in New Delport, that was hard. It didn't brainwash its people like Khagra and it was not poor and without any possibility of social mobility like say, the unnamed village I was supposed to be from. And that meant that it was a place of competition and strivers. All the better for the Illustris Council that thrived off it but not so for me.
I wasn't the only one to have dramatically grown. Medea was becoming rather large and that was only going to become a problem in narrow spaces if it continued to evolve at the rates it had been. With Medea even stronger and no pet type classes available to me, I had to choose between a lot of options that didn't really impress me that much. I still had an active slot open and if and if I was lucky, I might get something that was half decent from the get go.
Until now I had always picked classes that were immediately relevant for my survival or those that I knew that I could abuse the Godtouched bones to instantly master. But now that I could afford to think about my long term development. I knew that I shouldn't focus on bones too much because of my task and from what I understood, it was a feedback loop of specialization unlocking better options that caused further specialization. Still, cheap levels were cheap levels. I still wanted to milk my knives for all the levels they could yield.
“So, you have seen how I fight. What do you think I should choose?” I asked Fahria again. She rolled her eyes and dutifully gave the same answer she had given the last time I had asked her.
“Your primary combatant is Medea. Either pick something that lets you contribute in a fight directly without hitting it or something that increases your own survivability. Actually you know what? I think my sector is done. We can leave now and you can agonize over it all night and pick something in the morning.”
Grumbling, I followed the other girl to the teleporter with my thoughts churning. Offensive magic or defensive skills? I opened my class list and sorted it into archetypes again. The system was helpful like that. It didn't show me any requirements for unlocking future classes unfortunately but I had discovered that I could ask for other things. Like when I asked what was the highest level class that I had met at least 30% of the unlock requirements for. The answer was censored with over half of it unreadable but it was still impressive sounding.
\\THE LAST WITNESS OF THE LAST SUNSET OF TEN BILLION SOULS ████
You have witnessed the death of a world and you have survived it. You bore witness to the last moments of a God. All you know has faded, all that exists will fade and yet you remain. Kingdoms fall. Worlds fall. Stars extinguish. The lights of existence dim and go out without an audience to see it happen. Even gods die, even the death of gods die. Creation inexorably hurtles towards oblivion. Death paints a painting upon the canvas of existence and yet you remain. Only you will remain. ████████████████████████████
Hopefully actually unlocking was just a matter of having better stats and skills and not seeing more worlds perish. In any case, I bet I was very far from getting it.
I opened the magic section and began to read.
Hmm.
Elemental Apprentice: Fire
Elemental Apprentice: Water
Elemental Apprentice: Ice
Elemental Apprentice: Wind
Elemental Apprentice: Lightning
Elemental Apprentice: Earth
Elemental Apprentice: Metal
Elemental Apprentice: Nature
Defensively, earth, ice, and metal were the obvious winners, offensively fire and lightning stood above the rest. Fire was out, it was a volatile element that worked best for people that fought solo or as artillery or sniper types. Too much literal friendly fire for anything else. Medea fought up close and personal, it would get cooked! Ice was probably out because of how easy it would be to destroy compared to metal or earth. Actually maybe I should check the defense options if I was leaning that way? It was mostly things like using huge shields or other melee stuff but the three elementalists I had expected were also there, along with the nature one. Maybe for tree bark and wood? I found a mana shielder, like a very inferior version of what I had seen Agitjin make once.
Seeing a familiar shock of brown curls, I slipped out of the guild after him and called out.
“Hey Rev! Can you help me o—” I stopped as Cold Blooded violently activated.
Rev turned towards me, his hair swaying in the telekinetic field he always seemed to have around him. His mouth opened to say something. We were interrupted by a sound that I hadn't heard in years yet could not ever forget, a sound that was somehow even recognisable to me across worlds.
Air raid sirens.
Around me, everyone was rushing back into the guild or to any buildings that were open. Rev grabbed every straggler that was still outside including me with his telekinesis as he raced inside. The sirens never stopped. After a couple of minutes, when no one else was coming inside, the doors slammed shut and the guild went dark.
“What wa—” Rev hissed at me to be silent and I closed my mouth. The sirens kept ringing.
The sound of what felt like thunder itself roaring came out from outside and the building shook. Dust rained down on us. And then, the roar ceased and a minute later, so did the sirens.
“What the hell was that?” I whispered finally.
“That, my friend, was a divine emissary of Arshanara herself. Someone did something that pissed off the High Goddess but not severely enough to warrant divine smiting.” His face looked ashen.
“I… uh see. So would the guild hunt down whoever is responsible?”
Rev laughed. “There's only several thousand culprits if we are looking for someone doing something fucked up in this city. And besides, I would wager that whoever triggered it has already made plans to leave the city. But plans of purging the population aside, did you need something?”
Rev was frowning by the time I had finished explaining my situation.
“Anya, are you just picking classes that have high levels?”
“I shouldn't?”
“I mean it's not a problem exactly but really you should be grabbing things that can modify or consolidate your existing skills. Otherwise you will end up with a ton of mediocre skills you don't have the slots for. That’s basically your problem right now. Your future classes will all be garbage if you keep doing what you are doing.”
“I see, back in my home. Everyone just picked whatever was available until it consolidated into skills that did a lot of things passably well.” I lied, trying not to think about the fact that I could poke Rev’s eyes out at this distance. It was true that in some frontier lands, it was encouraged for everyone to be generalists.
Around them, the crowd was dispersing again now that the divine emissary had left. Rev beckoned me to follow him as we slipped into a small side room. Two chairs and a table waited for them. Once again, Rev just plopped us both into chairs before handing me a notepad.
“Here, just write out your stat screen details here and we’ll see what we can do.” He continued to speak as I jotted down everything but my two divine traits. “No wait, give me your class history too.” I did as told, hesitating for a second before writing [BONECRAFTER APPRENTICE]. His frown was a full on glare by the time I was done. Umm sorry?
“The guildmistress had informed me that your remote upbringing meant that you were never told what to actually do to grow properly. So here is the thing, people grow by experience and I don’t mean the system kind. Let us take elementalists, elementalists grow by studying and even absorbing strange elemental phenomena or seeing great elemental magic be used. To climb higher is to seek mastery over all aspects of it. You branch out when you have no other option or foresee a synergy. For example, our illustrious guildmistress is not a human anymore. She walked the path of metal and lightning to the point that she is just human shaped metal. Her mana regenerates when her own body conducts electricity.”
Okay, cool. She was a literal monster.
“What you have here is a mess and I'm surprised that your pet is as strong as it is considering everything else.” Yeah, very strange that. I would almost suspect shenanigans. “Try to push and expand what your classes give instead of rushing through them. Don't drop any skills that interact with raw mana though.”
“I think I get it. Is there anything that I broke by not doing this from the start and can’t fix?”
“Nope. Nothing time can’t fix at this stage. Let’s see, you mentioned you want to move away from bones despite them being your best skills by far, right?.” I nodded.
“Alright, I don't know if I can help you with that but try to get flesh sculpting or something. You have blood, you have bone, go full biomancer. You can probably also use those skills to improve your pet. Speaking of, I recommend picking the level 10 [SPRITE WATCHER] class. It should go towards unlocking something else your pet might like. But for the future, just try to save some money to visit the archives and see what classes you can work towards.”
\\SPRITE WATCHER APPRENTICE (0/10)
Sprites are one of the weakest elemental forms of life after motes. Fragile and constantly straining to maintain their very existence in the corporeal world, sprites still find it the easiest to slip between worlds and the Sprite Watchers have always watched them in one world or another.
A Sprite Watcher can coax these sprites into her world and give them simple commands. A fire sprite can set weak fires, a wind sprite can pick up small items, holy sprites can speed up one's natural healing rate and so on. At higher levels, spritecallers and summoners can manifest powerful elemental beings more akin to living disasters and can create ever evolving eidolons that rise up to match all that stands against their master.
MASTERY BONUSES:
+1 to ACUITY, WILLPOWER AND ATTUNEMENT
\\Class [SPRITE WATCHER APPRENTICE] selected
\\Skill Call Lesser Sprite Learned
really really like it then take a gander over at my patreon. It has 3 advance chapters over RR but expect that to rise
What should Anya focus on when she eventually hits a bottleneck in her two class paths?
