Chương 65: Chapter 50: Choices (Part 3)

The window faded away. Grub was about to get up, but another window quickly popped up to replace it. [As part of your Class Selection, choose one Spell or Skill.] [Proceed] Grub blinked. That hadn't been mentioned when he spoke to Dravak and the others. He stared at the message for a moment, half expecting the line to vanish. It didn't. The System, apparently, was being generous. He mentally selected [Proceed] and watched as another set of options unfolded beneath the prompt.

[Skill / Spell Selection] Spells Earthen Skin Stone and packed earth gather across your body, forming a protective layer that reduces physical damage for a short time. Duration increases with Spell level. Range: Self | Duration: 10 Seconds | Cost: 5 Mana Earthsense Attune your senses to the earth, allowing you to detect movement through the ground around you. Duration increases with Spell level.

Range: Touch / Radius 100 Feet | Current Duration: 5 Minutes | Cost: 5 Mana Dust Veil Create a dense cloud of dust that obscures sight and disrupts movement. Enemies within the cloud suffer reduced vision and slowed movement. Dust cloud duration increases with Spell level. Range: 30 Feet | Current Duration: 10 Seconds | Cost: 10 Mana Skills Efficient Channeling Your familiarity with directing Mana through the earth allows you to cast more efficiently.

Earth Spells cost 20% less Mana, rounded down, with a minimum reduction of 1 Mana. Rhythm of Stone Repeated casting of the same Earth Spell allows your Mana flow to settle into a stable pattern. Each consecutive cast of the same Earth Spell reduces its Mana cost by 10%, stacking up to a maximum reduction of 50%. Mana cost reduction is rounded down, with a minimum of 1. This effect resets if a different Spell is cast or after one hour without repeating the Spell.

Steady Mind A calm and disciplined mind allows Mana to recover more easily between actions. Mana regeneration is slightly increased while you are not actively casting Spells. Grub studied the list carefully, letting his eyes move slowly across the options instead of rushing himself toward a decision. He considered the Skills first. Efficient Channeling was the simplest improvement among them.

Every Spell he cast would cost a little less Mana, which by itself would stretch his reserves further than they currently reached. It would soften the edge of the penalty he suffered from Miscast, which made the option more appealing than it first appeared. The reduction was relatively small on any single cast, but over time those small savings would add up. Rhythm of Stone was more specialized, though potentially far stronger in the right situation.

He often used the same Spell repeatedly while working with the Builders. If the Mana cost kept falling each time he repeated the Spell, his reserves could last far longer during that kind of work. In a fight the benefit could matter as well. If something refused to die quickly, casting the same Spell over and over would become cheaper instead of draining him. His thoughts drifted briefly back to the badger that had attacked him the other day.

A Skill like this might have kept him from exhausting his Mana so completely from experimenting with Stone Fragmentation, leaving him vulnerable. But, the moment he switched to a different Spell, the advantage would vanish. It was too narrow. He wanted to keep his options open instead of incentivizing himself to only cast a single Spell. Steady Mind was subtler than the other two, but no less practical.

Faster Mana recovery while resting between casts would help during long hunts or while working inside the cavern for hours at a time. None of the Skills were necessarily bad choices. Each of them offered real advantages that would make his magic easier to use over time. But, none of them addressed his main problem. He was still a frail goblin. One good hit from a strong foe and he was toast. Right now, survival mattered far more than efficiency. So, Grub shifted his attention to the Spells.

Dust Veil would turn a fight messy very quickly. Wolves and Warriors both thrived in confusion, and a cloud that blinded enemies while slowing their movement would give the tribe a clear advantage in close combat. He could easily imagine an enemy stumbling blindly through swirling grit, only to emerge to find spears and teeth waiting. It could also buy him time to escape, or create distractions. Earthsense offered him a different kind of strength.

By touching the ground and casting it, he could carry a quiet awareness with him for several minutes afterward. Anything that moved nearby would send vibrations through the ground, allowing him to sense it even if his eyes were turned elsewhere. That kind of awareness would be valuable while hunting, traveling through the forest, or even working inside the cavern. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But both of those Spells addressed the danger before it arrived. His gaze drifted back to the first option. Earthen Skin. He didn't need to read it again. Plans failed. Hunters slipped on loose stone or wet roots. Wolves mistimed their charges. Spears struck badly or broke at the wrong moment. Enemies survived longer than expected and closed the distance when they should have been dying. And when that happened, the only thing that mattered was surviving the moment. Earthen Skin might give him that moment.

The Skills would make him better over time. Dust Veil would make a fight more chaotic. Earthsense would make danger easier to detect. But Earthen Skin would keep him breathing when, not if, something finally went wrong. Grub reached out and made his choice. [Spell Acquired: Earthen Skin - Tier 1 - Level 1 - 0%] For a moment nothing happened. There was no flash of light, no surge of power, and no strange sensation spreading through his body. The System window simply vanished from his vision. None came to replace it.

Grub frowned slightly. He waited another breath, then another, expecting some sign that the Spell had taken root, but nothing came. He flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders, half expecting something to feel different. Then a quiet thought surfaced in the back of his mind.

"Cast it." He reached for the Spell and found that the knowledge was simply there. He didn't have to puzzle it out or search for it. The pattern of Mana rose in his thoughts as naturally as remembering how to close his hand. Mana gathered in his chest and flowed outward through familiar channels. A rough thin layer of packed earth formed across his skin, spreading over his arms, shoulders, chest, and legs like a second hide. It settled quickly, solid but flexible when he moved. His face and neck remained bare.

"Good to know," he thought. Grub noted it immediately and filed the detail away. Earthen Skin wouldn't protect those places. Still, the rest of the layer held firm. He flexed his fingers once, feeling the faint weight of the earthen shell around him, then stepped closer to the cavern wall and tapped his forearm lightly against the stone. The impact produced the dull knock of stone against stone. Grub released the Spell with a thought.

The hardened layer loosened at once, collapsing into loose dust that slid from his skin and drifted quietly to the cavern floor. He stood there for a moment afterward, frowning faintly. Because he hadn't learned how to do that. The knowledge had simply appeared. When he thought about the Spell again, the instructions were still there. The pattern of the Mana. The timing of the cast. The way the earth appeared and hardened around him. It felt… familiar. Too familiar.

As though the understanding had always existed somewhere in the back of his mind, quietly waiting for him to notice it. That thought unsettled him more than he expected. The System hadn't taught him. It had simply placed the knowledge there in his mind, so subtly that he couldn't even point to the moment it appeared. Thinking further upon it, hadn't the same thing happened to the Warriors that had become the Medics and Builders? They had spoken about how natural the change felt for them that day at the stream.

Grub sat and grappled with that realization for several moments. The idea made something in his chest tighten. The System could place knowledge in someone's head without warning, without effort, without them even noticing when it happened. One moment the Spell hadn't existed, and the next he understood it as naturally as breathing. And now that he thought about it, this wasn't even the first time it had done so.

When Stone Chip had become Stone Fragmentation, he hadn't stopped to question how easily the new Spell came to him. He had simply used it, the way he always had, as if the change were nothing more than an extension of what he already knew. He hadn't even considered where the knowledge came from. The System could change what he knew, and do it so cleanly that he barely noticed. That was… unsettling, to say the least. His gaze drifted briefly back to the System windows in his mind, offering him seven Classes.

At least he hadn't surrendered everything to it. Earth's Disciple wouldn't stop the System from granting him Spells. The knowledge would still appear in his thoughts whenever he gained one. But the direction those Spells eventually took would not be dictated by the System alone. That part would remain his. The way he used them. The strange directions they might grow if he experimented long enough. Grub let out a slow breath. The unease didn't disappear fully, but the thought steadied him.

Choosing Earth's Disciple had been the right decision. After another moment he pushed himself to his feet. Dravak had told him to return once the decision had been made. Grub brushed the last of the loose dust from his arms and turned back toward the main fire. Grub walked into the firelight near the main hearth. Dravak looked up as he approached, his attention shifting from Kesh to Grub.

"Well?" the Chief asked. Grub stopped a few paces away.

"I chose my Class," he said. Dravak's eyes narrowed slightly.

"And?"

"Earth's Disciple." The name lingered in the space between them. Throk let out a short, disbelieving breath.

"The earth teaches you now?" he said, his tone edged with skepticism.

"You plan to sit and listen to the dirt until it tells you how to fight?" A few nearby goblins gave quiet chuckles. Grub glanced at him briefly.

"Something like that." Throk shook his head slowly, unconvinced.

"Sounds like a slow way to die." Kesh, standing a short distance to the side, did not laugh. Her gaze remained fixed on Grub, thoughtful. Dravak leaned back slightly, considering.

"What does that make you?" he asked.

"It doesn't force me into a role," Grub said.

"My magic stays as it is. How it grows depends on how I use it."

"So you remain flexible," Dravak said.

"Yes." Dravak studied him for a moment longer.

"And the other paths? Were they any good?"

"They would've made me stronger in one direction," Grub replied.

"Healing. Building. Control. Leading. Riding. Destruction." Throk's brow furrowed. His lips moved slightly as he counted through the list, then his eyes narrowed.

"Those were all separate Classes?"

"Yes." Kesh lowered the slate in her hand.

"Seven choices." The nearby goblins had quieted again. Even Dravak's expression shifted, the change small but unmistakable.

"You were offered seven Classes?" he asked. Grub nodded.

"Four ordinary Classes and three Special ones." Throk looked toward Kesh.

"Is that normal?"

"No." She considered Grub for a moment before giving a slight shrug.

"But it isn't entirely surprising either." Throk's brow remained furrowed.

"Seven Classes aren't surprising?"

"He has served as a healer, worked beside the Builders, hunted with the wolves, advised the Chief, and fought with Earth magic." Kesh's gaze returned to Grub.

"The System had more than enough to draw from." Grub wasn't certain whether he liked the idea of the System watching closely enough to draw anything from his life, but he left the thought unspoken. Throk huffed.

"And you turned down the one built for destruction?"

"I turned down being pushed into it," Grub said.

"I'll still get stronger, just not in a direction the System chooses for me." Throk looked him over again, measuring him differently now. Dravak tapped his fingers once against the arm of his seat.

"That kind of freedom cuts both ways. A path that doesn't guide you won't correct you either."

"I know." Dravak held his gaze for a moment longer, then gave a small nod, as though settling the matter for now.

"A blade that can change how it moves is harder to fight than one that only cuts one way," he said.

"But a blade without direction can still break if it is used poorly." Grub inclined his head.

"Then I'll make sure it isn't." Dravak gave a final nod.

"Did the System give you anything else?"

"A Spell," Grub said.

"A defensive one." Kesh went still. Throk's skepticism disappeared beneath sudden interest.

"It gave you a Spell when you chose your Class?"

"Yes." Kesh glanced toward Dravak.

"You were offered a Skill, weren't you?"

"Yes. The System gave me two choices," Dravak said.

"Throk and I received nothing beyond the Class itself," Kesh explained as she saw the confusion on Grub's face. Throk grunted.

"Seven Classes and a Spell. Lucky little bastard." The quiet around the hearth deepened. Several of the goblins nearby were no longer pretending not to listen. Dravak regarded Grub for another moment.

"What does it do?"

"It hardens the body with stone," Grub said.

"For a short time." Dravak gestured toward the open space near the fire.

"Show me." Grub stepped forward and cast. The earthen layer formed across his body, settling over his arms, chest, and legs like a second skin. It held firm as he moved. Several nearby goblins turned to look. A few leaned in slightly, curiosity piqued. One of the wolves near the entrance lifted its head, ears pricking forward. Dravak watched him for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Throk.

"Hit him." Grub's breath caught. He turned instinctively toward Throk, a flicker of alarm cutting through his focus as the command registered. The words came too quickly, too easily. For a split second he considered stepping back, raising a hand, saying something to stop what was about to happen. He did none of those things, because he didn't have time. Throk was already moving. A grin spread across his face as he stepped forward, as if he had been waiting for exactly that instruction.

He drew back his arm and drove a punch into Grub's chest. The impact landed solidly. Grub's foot slid back half a step against the stone, the force carrying through him, but there was no pain. Only a dull, contained shock, like something heavy striking packed earth. Throk jerked his hand back immediately and shook it once, his grin faltering as he stared down at his knuckles. He flexed his fingers, then let out a short breath through his nose.

"That felt like punching a wall that moved," he said.

"Not bad." Grub released the Spell, and the earthen layer broke apart into loose dust and fell away from his skin.

"It doesn't cover everything," Grub said, giving Throk a look.

"The face and neck are still exposed." Dravak grinned.

"Then don't let an enemy hit you there." Grub inclined his head slightly, and refrained from rolling his eyes at the excellent advice. Throk rolled his shoulder and gave a short grunt.

"Better," he said.

"At least now you won't fold the first time something reaches you." Kesh stepped closer, her eyes moving over the place where the Spell had been.

"It changes how you can position yourself in a fight," she said.

"You can afford to stand closer to the danger, at least for a short time."

"Within reason," Grub said.

"Within reason," she agreed. Dravak leaned back again, the matter already decided in his mind.

"It will keep you alive longer," he said.

"That's the idea." Dravak's gaze shifted briefly toward the cavern entrance, where the wind pressed against the barricade without effect, then returned to Grub.

"You chose your path," he said.

"Now you will need to prove it was the right one." Grub met his eyes.

"I will." Dravak turned his attention back to the tribe.

"Then get back to work." Grub stepped back from the firelight, the conversation finished. Around him, the cavern continued in its steady rhythm. Builders worked stone. Medics moved between hearths and sleeping pallets. Wolves shifted near the entrance as the cold pressed against the barrier and failed. But something had changed, just slightly. A few eyes followed him now in a way they hadn't before. As he walked, Dravak's words echoed in his mind.

"Flexible," he thought as he turned to rejoin the work. He grinned to himself.

"Or undirected." Time would decide which.