“Screeeeee.” The retchroot let out a piercing shriek, its hideous jaw vibrating from the noise. It sounded a bit like a harsher and more distorted pig’s squeal to me. The fat creature leapt through the air, frenzied eyes locked on to me. For a single glorious moment, its trajectory was flawless and I could understand why even high level guild classers wanted us for backup instead of facing a legion of them with just a small number of elites. And then Medea's leg split apart, blooming into a set of long, grasping digits that latched onto the writhing creature. It had just enough time to let out another strangled screech before being stuffed unceremoniously into Medea’s waiting maw.

  \\Retchroot Swarmer slain

  And with that, the third wave was eliminated. The second and the third were not as big as the first one we had encountered but everyone was getting a bit tired by now. Exhaustion was creeping for some and even the diminished numbers compared to the first wave could not entirely offset that. If these things bred at this rate then I was surprised that the whole world was overrun with them. Until my Fauna Archive

  The aftermath of this wave was just as ugly as the previous two. The forest was littered with the remains of the rats until Nevoom waved his hand and the carnage squelched and compacted itself into a baseball sized sphere hovering over his palm.. Even the blood that had spurted out was forced inside.

  “Alright,” Nevoom said, sounding completely unfazed and just as fresh as when we had embarked. “Excellent work, everyone. We’ll set up camp here. Take a ninety to rest before we move on. Does anyone have pets, flesh magic, alchemy, or anything else that needs this stuff?”

  A few people including me raised their hands. After a quick headcount and a few swift gestures, the compressed sphere broke into equal shards, each chunk finding its way to its respective claimant. One dropped in front of me, landing with a heavy, almost metallic thud. Judging from the way it almost bounced, the compression had turned it . Medea swallowed it one go and nothing changed. Maybe it's hair got a tiny bit denser but I wasn't sure. It seemed that Medea was plateauing in its growth now. That made sense, the ancient spider-scorpions of the Third Calamity's time evolved constantly and ceaselessly and were considered an existential threat as a result but no one was hunting their modern descendants to extinction. I still didn't know what or how the whole thing went down but in any case, Medea had its limits. Naturally that is. Thankfully I had enough experience now after three waves that I could get around that issue for now.

  \\[MINOR EIDOLON BINDER] is now level 20!

  \\Class mastered [MINOR EIDOLON BINDER]. +2 to STRENGTH, WILLPOWER, and ATTUNEMENT. +1 TO ALL OTHER STATS

  The stat spread was different than it had been for my other level 20 even although I still got 10 points total. Until now every class on the save level has identical distribution but with different stats but not anymore. Well it was neat I guess, I was told that after 30, classes went completely with some imposing stat penalties, others giving far more stats than classes much higher levels than them and so on and so forth. Another reason to not dive headfirst into the highest level class I could.

  \\Eidolon Evolution charge consumed: 15

  \\Eidolon Evolution is out of charges and is now removed.

  Fahria and I stepped back and watched in morbid fascination as Medea began to convulse violently. Its legs seized and stiffened, then buckled, and it fell to the ground with a dull thump. Its tail straightened as a tooth stuck in it popped out. Gres looked our way before turning his face away with a queasy expression. He and his brother were doing some kind of maintenance on their weapons but I couldn't really tell much. Lilim had long wandered off somewhere. I turned my gaze back to Medea. A crack split down the center of its abdomen, the shell opening into two chitinous halves. From within, two pairs of yellow, membranous wings unfurled, wet and glistening in the light. Medea gave them a tentative shake; at first, the wings faltered, moving awkwardly, but gradually they found their rhythm. Medea rose unsteadily into the air before drifting back down. The wings relaxed, folding neatly beneath the elytra, which closed over them until Medea appeared as it had before the transformation—unchanged, yet undeniably different.

  \\Greater Enslaved Familiar’s Bond is now level 35!

  “Has anyone ever told you that your pet is messed up?” Fahria asked when it looked like Medea was no longer changing.

  “Yep!” I answered cheerily. “You have told me, multiple times in fact.” Fahria grumbled good naturedly before her face turned serious and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Now can you tell me why that guy seems like he wants to murder you?” I froze. Who? And why hadn't any of my skills alerted me? I looked around and saw him. Older than me but not by much and he seemed to be watching me with a hard gaze, not a glare but it was not friendly either. He noticed me staring and just into the crowd.

  Cool. Just what I needed. Stalkers.

  Someone had started a decently large fire and a few earth mage had been nice enough to make benches around it. If someone was trying to convince me to pick up Earth Elementalist, they were succeeding.

  The Hunting Guild’s rations turned out to be just that, long lasting rations with no regards for taste. Insane how I was perpetually on the verge of starvation for years until not so long ago and now I was complaining about the taste of food. Oh god, I was becoming a rich brat, wasn’t I?

  A lady in a red outfit with a lute was strumming near the middle of the oversized campfire and I could feel my mind relax and my body grow stronger from just listening to it. Choir Singer? That reminded me.

  “Hey Fahria? I have no active class right now and no upgrade. What do you recommend?” I could have asked Lilim or the brothers but I just met them and while even Fahria didn't know my full stats, she knew more than most. Rev almost knew my full status and Tiamim did but only because I trust Valdima to blow a gasket if they leaked anything.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Endless Hells! This again. Actually you have active slots right? Just pick a hobby class or something for now, everyone has one of those. Maybe singing?” She added after glancing at the red musician. I could see the logic in that, I could use that to get into Choir Singer for buffing Medea. But it was very strange that I had no hobby skills.

  Wait.

  I have no hobbies? That sounded wrong, I knew for a fact that I enjoyed drawing occasionally and I liked reading. Maybe not the best skills ever but they should be skills.

  I had a suspicion but I couldn't confirm it unless I had something to draw with. Fahria had nothing and so I went to the brothers and Lilim and then to just complete strangers. It took me ages to find someone with some pen and paper but once I had some and tried to draw Medea, the notification came.

  \\Skill Sketching unlocked at level 2

  Unlocked, not learned. I was worried that KnifeSketching

  Perhaps I was thinking about it in a too absolutist manner . No need to cut it off entirely or desperately hold on to every last piece of it. I kept the skill for now. I'll decide when I have a dearth of slots. I had a decent amount of actives that I felt were very situational. Improvised Tool UseScavenging and ScroungingSketchingreasonably sure would help everything. Plus I wanted to use magic properly dammit.

  \\ARCANIST PUPIL (0/10)

  Mana is the primordial energy upon which all magic, skills and spells stand. A pupil of the Arcane Arts learns to touch and guide this primal energy. Not the flashiest of mages but a foundational step in the mastery of magic for all.

  At higher levels, arch wizards, mana conductors and such can weave tapestries of mana so complex and subtle as to alter reality itself. Almost all spells and magicks can be reached by just understanding the underlying principles of mana. By mastering mana in its raw form, one can wrench the mana out of the attacks of their enemies, invert and warp spells, destabilize skills and more.

  MASTERY BONUSES:

  +1 to ACUITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTUNEMENT

  \\Class [ARCANIST PUPIL] selected

  \\Skill Mana Sight Learned

  //WARNING: Passive skill slot limits exceeded. You can replace a skill or refuse to equip your new skill. Unequipped skills can’t be equipped again for a period of time determined by their power. Unequipped skills do not confer any benefits but exist and count for consolidation purposes only.

  A passive skill that would let me see mana flow better. This was perfect. I just had to dump a passive. Unlike my active skills where I still had a slot open and did not care for two or arguably even three skills, my passives were generally nice.

  Assassin’s Eye

  Big Knife User

  Cold Blooded

  Pain Tolerance

  Fauna Archive

  Greater Enslaved Familiar’s Bond

  Mana Direction

  Unseen Slayer

  Blood Bag

  Blood BagThat would be awesome. My three mental passives were too good to be without and Mana DirectionMana SightUnseen SlayerFauna ArchiveBig Knife User

  “Now you will no doubt have superio— Miss Anya, are y” Tres had wandered close at some point and was saying something but I couldn't hear him. My vision swam and a dull pain throbbed deep in my very being when I acquired it, I almost fainted as everything turned into a blinding white. It was burning. Burning my eyes, burning my brain, burning my soul. It was possible that I might have cried out in pain, it was possible that I just blanked out for a fraction of a second, the intensity of the light made such distinctions meaningless. But what was meaningful was that it gradually, not slowly but gradually dimmed until I could see mana even from behind shut eyes. Pale white strands that curled like smoke in the air. Indistinct shapes emanated and absorbed it freely with seemingly no logic.

  \\Mana Sight is now level 9!

  “Nya! Anya!” Someone was calling to me. That voice sounded familiar. Did I know her? Another sharp spike of pain in my head roused me back to awareness. I was still on the same earthen bench and the light streaming in from the thick canopy didn't seem noticeably different. There was the familiar taste of blood in my mouth. I groaned and opened my eyes to Fahria’s usually composed face inches away from me. It wasn't very composed now. I could see Tres and Gres also leaning in anxiously. The mana overlay was still there. Frowning, I tried to see as I normally did and the mana just faded into the background. Yeah, this was intense but cool. But I would definitely ensure I was lying down before taking another sense based skill.

  “No really I'm fine. I honestly don't know what happened.” I protested but no one looked convinced. Apparently no one and literally no one ever had a reaction like that to getting Mana Sight

  I had a suspicion that it was just my Godtouched traits that I had seen. Traits that were magically hidden from the rest. It was getting absurd how badly I kept messing up the keeping a secret identity thing. I resolved to try to get attention until I had enough money to visit the archives and read about all this stuff. Valdima or Tiamim didn't warn me about this stuff but I could write that off as them not knowing that my Knife

  Now only if I could make a reasonable sounding excuse.

  \\Mana Magic spell list unlocked

  \\Mana Magic spell list

  Mana Bolt: 50 mana

  I needed something to test my new spell and skill on too. But first an excuse. I… just didn't have any that sounded believable because I genuinely did not know how to explain it without revealing my traits.

  “I believe I can answer that.” Someone drawled. I started. It was the same guy who had been staring at me earlier.

  “Who are you?” Fahria demanded.

  “Ahem, apologies. I'm Jijik. I consider myself somewhat of an expert on magical beasts. Spider scorpions all contain an atrophied connection to their progenitor and you might have glimpsed that because of your bond. Witnessing the mana of an ascended one is obviously not a pleasant experience.” Yeah that made sense, more so than my Godtouched theory. Yay for paranoid motivated reasoning. But that raised another more immediate question.

  “Why the fuck were you spying on me?”

  Jijik smiled.

  “I was fascinated by your pet. Anyways, try not to look into the mana flows of your pet too closely. That's all. I shall bid you farewell now.”

  I glared at his retreating back. He was lying. How did I know that? Because for a moment, a whisper had spoken in my ear. A whisper that was smooth like Jijik’s voice.

  “I just wanted to see the person who caused the largest guild seizure of red powder in recent history.”