Chương 10: Chapter 9

"This'll be expensive," the groundskeeper said, surveying the devastation of his royal garden with the look of a man surveying the devastation of his royal garden.

"Suspected as much," Corin said, nodding grimly.

"Do I get any credit for killing the fungus infecting it?"

"None whatsoever," the groundskeeper replied with a flash of annoyance.

"That Sporemother could have been continuously harvested for Spore Extract. Lord Ashvale won't be pleased to hear that - along with, you know, the inferno."

"You'd have to get through an army of squirrels first," Corin countered, and the groundskeeper shook his head.

"Even I could get through an army of squirrels," the groundskeeper replied, then looked at Corin's charred arm.

"Was setting yourself alight part of your plan?"

"In my defense, the plan at the time was mostly 'don't die'," Corin said, before being distracted by the man's hands. New gloves, fine leather, coincidentally also a little charred.

"That Sporemother," Corin added carefully, "did you find anything on the remains of it?" The groundskeeper shrugged, putting his hands into his pockets.

"Couldn't say. Fire took most of it."

"Right," Corin said." Most." You know exactly what I'm talking about. But I'm in no position to argue. Corin simply sighed instead.

"So, what is this going to set me back?" The groundskeeper did some quiet arithmetic, glancing between the smoking ruin and Corin's bag.

"Let's just say I hope they dropped a lot of Gildeds." [DEBT - LIONEL] Owed: 15gc Asset total: 3gc 83sc Noble reimbursement: 3gc Total remaining assets: 83sc Debt due date: 3 days They did, in fact, drop a lot of Gilded Acorns, all but one of which went directly into the groundskeeper's hands. Three gold, gone in a flash.

He did, however, still have the paltry bounty from killing all the squirrels - 84 of them in total, after the blaze ended - along with the gathered ordinary acorns, giving him just under 300 copper, or 3 silver: a cute but ultimately pointless addition to the 50 silver garnered from the one remaining Gilded Acorn. Ordinarily, he'd be absolutely elated with 53 silver, but it felt considerably smaller measured against his total debt.

Thus, he was left with a half-gold for his efforts, along with perhaps a hundred scrapes, cuts, and bites, as well as a decidedly-crispy right arm. The battle would have been easy if he had just a single AoE skill, but all he had was a minor proficiency in hammers - and not a particularly good hammer. If he wanted to progress at all, he'd need a class... but classes cost money. A lot of money. And since he technically had far-less-than-zero money, advancement wasn't exactly on the table.

Still, if he could find a class for a single gold, the cheapest tier available, he'd have far better luck with whatever forlorn quests his Foresight brought him next. At F-rank, the Guild would allow a maximum of 50 silver as a loan for advancement. That meant he could put up 50 of his own silver, go another 50 into further debt, and walk away with an actual class. But was it worth the gamble? Only a few days left to pay his debt. Would a class bring him closer to that number, or further away?

Hell, if I have a class I'll at least be able to fight off Lionel better. Corin abruptly laughed at the thought. He had no chance against Lionel. He headed toward the alchemy section, getting a cackle from Greta after she saw the state he was in, though she was kind enough to give a minuscule discount on the smattering of various cheap herbs and roots he bought from her to make a salve. At least he didn't have to buy a frothfrenzy potion, that would've put him into serious debt.

With that, he got his trusty gristle-bread-salty-water stew and trudged up to his bed, applying the salve over his various wounds - meaning he covered his entire body. That left a disappointingly thin amount over his total surface area, but it still nevertheless provided a slow trickle of much-needed healing. Thereafter he returned to his hamsterly ways, curling up into his bed of hay while being strangely happy that his exhaustion would allow him to sleep through the aching pain all over his body.

The sleep came fast. [~ur▒udy: passive XP ▒ewor▒ +1% per un▒in] The words flashed with every ache of his red eye, and he abruptly awoke to write it down, glancing at the message three times before sleep took him once more. He awoke several hours later, feeling some degree of respite from his prior aches and pains, then looked at the message again. As usual, he had no idea what it meant, but it at least did appear somewhat-intact.

He knew those gaps could mean any amount of words or characters resided in them, so he figured it was best to start with, well, the start:'~ur▒udy:'... nope, nothing there, but the 'passive XP' implied it was from some kind of class, right?

'ewor' was similarly unintelligible, but the '+1% per un▒in' at least had an actual number in it, for whatever that was worth. Hmm... I've got no goddamn idea. But, if it's a class, then maybe that's a sign. Maybe I really should shell out for an actual class. Corin shook his head, then pushed himself upright, stretching deeply and attempting to shake out any aches and pains that still lingered, to little effect. Grabbing his trusty hammer and bag, he headed toward the Guild's Advancement Hall.

The large archway proved an imposing sight, made more so by the two equally imposing guards flanking it.

"What business do you have here?" one guard asked Corin, looking him up and down like he owed the guard money too. Corin awkwardly pointed at the sign above the archway, echoing its words.

"Class advancement." The guard glanced up at it.

"... Fair enough. You may enter."

"Much appreciated," Corin said, as the other guard pushed open the massive door, revealing a cavernous hall lined with towering stone plinths, each etched with a different class sigil, faint light pulsing from within the stone itself. It felt more like a temple than a Guild hall. Corin hesitated at the threshold - faith had been faithfully absent from his life - then shook his head and headed inside.

For half a second, the light from the nearest plinth seemed to catch strangely in his red eye, there and gone before he could be sure he'd seen it. Yselle, a Guild clerk he'd exchanged maybe three words with over the years, looked up from her desk - her reaction briefly making it clear that she would have preferred it to stay that way - before returning to base-level decorum. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Can I help you?" she asked, as Corin approached the desk, placing 50 silver on the top of it.

"I'd like to advance, please," Corin said.

"Whatever's cheapest." Yselle glanced at the 50 silver, and he spoke again before she could.

"I know. I'll be taking the other 50 on credit. I've hit level 10 already."

"Well, one gold will certainly get you the cheapest - and only the cheapest," she said, scooping up the coins.

"Do you have a class in mind?"

"Not at all," Corin replied.

"Could you give me a list of all the Common classes?"

"It's written up there," Yselle said, gesturing toward the wall. There, a long list of classes ranged from Common all the way to Legendary, something even Lionel could never hope to afford. Common alone had over 20 entries, each listing its basic information, along with accompanying passives and skills.

Corin walked up to the wall and studied them carefully, keeping the message in his mind all the while: [~ur▒udy: passive XP ▒ewor▒ +1% per un▒in] He felt overwhelmed looking at them, realizing that he truly had no idea which he should actually pick.

"Any suggestions?" Yselle let out a little sigh, then stood up from her seat and looked up at the wall with him.

"Well, you've got your basic starting {Common} classes: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Acolyte, Cleric, etcetera etcetera etcetera," she said, rubbing an invisible stubble in thought.

"Most people stick to those. Tried and tested, predictable pricing, predictable results. Then you've got the more ramshackle ones," she added, gesturing vaguely toward the far end of the wall, "which can run you anywhere from dirt cheap to more than most adventurers see in a year, depending on how the Guild's feeling about them that season."

"I'd say the basics account for around 60% of total choices for first-class advancement, though all except for Cleric will cost you at least 2 gold instead of 1. Cleric's subsidized," she added, as if predicting his question.

"Can make a decent amount of money as a Cleric, always a valuable class to have in the Guild." Corin was well aware of the benefit of becoming a cleric. You could work in the infirmary or simply as an aid on various quests, always away from the frontline - until you suddenly weren't. Regardless, it was a profession he'd considered himself, if he could ever afford the single gold price tag, but it was no longer a viable option.

He needed something that could help him solo whatever quest or endeavor his Foresight threw him into.

"Ok, aside from Cleric, what other of the {Common} classes are worth a gold?"

"Hmm, well, you've got Skirmisher," she said, gesturing towards its skill loadout.

"Probably your best bet, pretty versatile if you don't mind staying at range."

"I see," Corin replied, not really feeling it.

"Then you've got your Footman, not half bad," Yselle continued.

"And this Scrapper class is half bad, but better than nothing."

"How about this one?" Corin asked, pointing at one on the far end of the list.

"Oh, that one's all bad," she said, waving it away dismissively.

"Journeyman's a jack of all trades, master - or even adequate - at none. Would be a nice class to have at level one, but of course, you can only advance from level ten onwards, save for special Guild dispensation. Whatever it offers, you can specialize in it better through other classes." Corin peered closer at Journeyman's description. He quite liked the idea of being a jack of all trades. He'd essentially be forced to be one, given his Innate.

"What does its passive do?"

"Quick Study. Flat +15% XP bonus," Yselle replied.

"Not bad, really, the best of Journeyman's skills. But it's hard to take advantage of it, with the skills provided." Corin heard her - but also didn't, not really. The XP bonus in the text flashed in his mind instead, accompanied by the familiar pang behind his red eye: [~ur▒udy: passive XP ▒ewor▒ +1% per un▒in] ~ur▒udy. Jo ur neyman. Quick St udy? He immediately moved towards the text, studying the skills on offer. In truth, they didn't sound bad: Spark, Bolt, Minor Heal, and something called 'Tether'.

An AoE, direct damage, heal, and utility ability. A true jack of all trades. A weak jack, sure, a pretty damn pitiful jack, but a jack nevertheless. And something told him it would become a lot more valuable, come next Turn.

"I'll take it." Yselle's surprise faded fast into something closer to procedure. She pressed her palm to the plinth, murmured something under her breath, and the stone beneath Corin's own hand flared to life, light pouring up his arm and settling somewhere behind his ribs. The sensation was immediate and total: a torrent of information, skills unfolding in his mind like something remembered rather than learned. [Class Acquired: Journeyman] [{Common} Feat completed: Acquired a class! Guild standing increased!] He staggered back a step, staring at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. Two years of nothing, and now this: real, tangible, his. In truth, he'd never used an ability, ever. He'd been born with quite an impressive amount of Intelligence and Wisdom, but had spent two years unable to do anything with either. You could purchase individual skills with gold or get them off {Uncommon} and above creatures, both things Corin was normally completely incapable of.

But now, he could finally use his mana pool for something other than rumination. He brought up his Skills, inspecting each closely: Spark - {Common} School: Lightning (Hybrid) A scattershot burst of energy, striking all targets within a short radius. Applies a stack of Charge on hit. Cost: 5 MP | Cooldown: 10s Bolt - {Common} School: Lightning (Hybrid) A concentrated bolt of energy dealing direct damage to a single target - and detonating any Charge stacks on it, arcing to every other Charged target nearby.

Cost: 5 MP | Cooldown: 10s Minor Heal - {Common} School: Restoration Restores a modest amount of HP to the caster. Cost: 10 MP | Cooldown: 15 minutes Tether - {Common} School: Spatial Creates a temporary tether of solidified force, anchoring the caster to a target. Can bear physical weight. Cost: 5 MP | Cooldown: 5s He walked up to a tree, holding out his hand to test his new spells - then remembered the fiery endeavor he'd caused yesterday, and figured it was probably not the best target to practice on.

Instead, he found a decidedly more-inanimate, less-flammable boulder to test them on. Holding out his hand once more, he focused on summoning energy from his fingertips, imagining the rock had said something particularly cutting about his mother. [Spark cast!] For the first time in his life, he cast a spell. Spark shot out a scattershot of lightning, covering a radius of around three meters upon casting. More than enough to blanket the boulder and its surroundings. [Bolt cast!] Bolt thereafter shot from his fingers and slammed into the boulder, leaving an almost-perceptible singe, though it seemed the boulder, being inorganic, had not accumulated a Charge and thus had not been detonated. [Minor Heal cast!] Minor Heal brought him up 15 HP in an instant, enough to cover the 12 he'd still been down since yesterday's festivities. [Tether cast!] Finally, he shot out Tether, a thin, taut line of shimmering force lashing out from his hand and lodging itself onto the boulder.

He gave the line a few experimental tugs, but the boulder didn't budge. Well, they can't all be winners. With each spell costing 5 mana, save for Heal at 10 with a much longer cooldown, that left him with 15 mana out of a total of 40 after casting each. Mana recovered slowly, not as glacially as HP regen tended to be, but slowly all the same. It was quick enough that it'd likely be full again by the time he took on his next quest, at the least.

He still had the 2 stat points he'd received from leveling up, and now had the difficult task of deciding where to place them. While he considered placing them in Wisdom for extra mana, he ultimately wasn't sure he wanted to be a caster once he'd really risen up the Adventurer ranks, thus his continual placement into Strength and Agility. He briefly glanced at his Luck stat, always comically low, and let out a little laugh.

Luck was explicitly said to only govern battle-based odds, such as critical hit chance, but he'd always figured it amounted to the rest of life too, judging by how his had turned out; though he managed to not waste any placement into it regardless. Still, with his second near-death experience in a week, he decided to place both into Vitality, bringing his total HP to over 100. That seemed a decent cushion for whatever bullshit life was planning on throwing him next.

Then, he checked how his total readout was looking: [CORIN VESS] Level: 11 Rank: F Class: Journeyman {Common} STR 12 AGI 14 VIT 9 INT 13 WIS 10 LUK 3 HP: 105 / 105 MP: 16 / 40 SKILLS Spark {Common} Bolt {Common} Minor Heal {Common} Tether {Common} PASSIVES Quick Study {Common} PROFICIENCIES Hammer Proficiency – Apprentice [43%] Alchemy – Novice [49%] INNATE Foresight {Epic} – Novice [60%] Something caught his eye, surprise shuddering through him. Foresight had never had a percentage. Not once, not in two years.

It did now. Foresight was leveling.