Chương 86: 85: Wizard Part 1

Once we were all done eating, I told Seamus I'd talk to the farmhands to get everything he needed taken care of, then told Rupert I'd meet with him in an hour to learn my new classes and begin my lessons. We agreed to meet in his cabin to start with since it was guaranteed to stay private. Zack told me he'd head straight to see Seamus and get to work on the work he wanted done in the forge.

I told Stephen and Laeth to go ask Emily if she needed any help with groundwork in her garden, and if she didn't, they should swap out straw in the barn. The soldiers didn't consult with me about what they were planning for the day, and I didn't ask. They weren't part of my homestead chain of command. When I was done with that, it was already around 10 a. m. That kind of time creep was basically a given on a farm. You could say you only planned to take an hour on something, then it would inevitably take three.

That was where my "one day at a time" motto kept me sane. If you wanted tasks done at a set time, this wasn't the proper line of work. I knocked on Rupert's door and heard him say, "Come in!" I took my boots off next to his and stepped into his cabin. He had the fire roaring, making his cabin almost too toasty for my taste. He was sitting in one of the two rockers in the room, reading from a book that looked similar to my almanac, but the cover was red and blue, with golden lettering.

My own almanac was light brown leather, with almost black lettering on the cover. He didn't get up. Instead, he motioned me toward the other rocker in the room. I sat down and said, "Well, how do we do this?" He smiled and produced not just one, but four scrolls from a pouch on the floor next to his chair. He set them down on the table between us.

"These are yours. Don't activate them yet. I'll need to explain things. First, you've never changed classes before, correct?" I shook my head.

"Okay," he said.

"Two big things to know. First, you can only change a class once every twenty-four hours. So make sure you don't need to plant, or do something that requires your farming bonuses for crop yield or something when we're going to work on things."

"Got it," I said.

"Second," he started." You're only actually replacing your Tier 1 class. Your Tier 2 Homesteader class remains. You keep the stats, and mana bonus of your highest class. So, you'll still have however much mana you have with your Tier 2 Homesteader class. This is super helpful for you. Obviously this is a big deal, otherwise getting a second class would be a real pain in the back side. I had to do a bunch of little things that kind of sucked when I started out.

Most spells take a thousand mana to use, minus any perks.

At level 1 I had eighty-five. I had to take a channeling perk you won't have to choose, but you still should. It'll help you level, and be helpful if you go the Earth Wizard route."

"Oh wow," I said.

"So if I got Wizard to tier 2, and I replaced my tier 2 homesteader class would I temporarily drop my stats?"

"No to the first part, yes to the second," he grinned at me.

"The theory is it's a soul thing. Your stat bonuses, and mana pool are linked to your soul somehow. So you'll keep those. You won't get more mana from leveling wizard at tier 2 until it's a level higher than your previous high level though."

"What about leveling up a combat or support class instead of your main? Can that work too?" I asked.

"Yes, almost any class can potentially evolve." He replied.

"Now, let's talk about the Wizard class. We need to move on. The way most people become Wizards is… they're born rich." He laughed at his words, then said, "Their rich parents send them to one of the elite colleges in the capital when they're young. Usually fourth sons if they have them, but often anyone past the heir. The heir gets a nobility titled main class, they can't ever change from that without messing up a whole lot of stuff."

He pointed to one scroll and continued, "That middle scroll is the Scholar class. Assuming a kid has a mana pool. When he turns sixteen, and it's always a he unless someone manifests the Wizard class naturally, he'll be given the Scholar class. The Empire doesn't care much for gender equality," he said with a shake of his head.

"The scroll helps people who wouldn't otherwise get a Wizard class learn the things they'd need to learn the Wizard class in a reasonable amount of time. Someone who would already be close should learn it by the time they're twenty. Someone on the lower end, by twenty-five at the latest. If they don't have any talent, they can still become librarians and scholars."

"So do I have to have that class? Or can I just get a Wizard class on its own?" I asked.

"That's the important question," he said, a smile on his lips. He pointed at his own chest with his thumb and said, "I was a natural Wizard. I was given the class when I touched the stone at sixteen. I don't have the Scholar primary class. I do have the Scholar support class though. It's one of the few classes that can be a support or primary class. You should take the support class, but it isn't super useful without a library and formal schooling." It was my turn to laugh.

"This all sounds complicated." He shook his head.

"Only because the nobles have messed with classes so badly. I believe that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of classes in the old days. Some of the restricted books talk about classes that don't sound like they're just evolved versions of classes we still have today. I think that classes were more interchangeable, too. It makes no sense to me that everybody basically has one of only four or five main classes. Why wouldn't a Shopkeeper just have a Shopkeeper main?

Why would they have Laborer or something silly like that?" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. He took a deep breath and gave me a pained look.

"A vast majority of all non-nobles have either a Farmhand, Laborer, or some sort of water related class like Fisherman, or Sailor."

"That's pretty crazy," I said.

"I guess it doesn't really affect people since they can still get their strength and constitution bonuses because those are related to just leveling up, not an individual class?"

"Aye," he replied.

"But I think that different people had slightly different types of bonuses in the past. Most of the early Archwizards were described as bookish, and weaker than their sword-swinging brethren. Warriors can still be stronger. Bigger muscles give you a bigger base strength, but even a weak Wizard is physically stronger than a Knight if they're enough levels higher, now."

"So you think that stats were messed with too, just not to the extent that classes were. What else was changed?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"Well, the obvious one is how hard it is to evolve. I'm sure you've read about that already though. That's info in the secret section of the Order stuff." He said. I had read about it, but I was still interested in his opinions on it, so I asked him.

"Well," he said.

"I don't know how the mechanism they use works, but it's pretty clear they put some sort of hurdle in place. I don't know if people in the past were able to evolve without doing something big, or the System just needed to decide they had enough mastery, but it's clear there were a lot more people who at least made it to a second evolution in the past." I had been ruminating on this myself lately, and I thought I knew what was going on.

I took a deep breath and said, "Alright, we're really getting sidetracked here, something I'm really prone to doing. But, I think the System is a sort of artificial intelligence computer program." Rupert stared at me blankly, "A what?"

"Alright," I said.

"So on Earth, we have devices called computers. They're machines that run programs. The programs are run off of sets of instructions built into the programs. I was a farmer, not a computer programmer, so I'm not going to be a pro at explaining things. But, I think the System sounds a lot like a super advanced version of one of the computer programs." Rupert interrupted me.

"And these programs you have can be changed?"

"By anyone who knows how to read the code that makes up the instructions," I said.

"And if Merlotus set things up right, you don't even have to know how to change the code. Heck, we have games that you can play on the computers that have extensive customization. You can change the difficulty settings with a quick click on the right area. We also have some games that can have a UI just like the ones we have access to." Rupert looked stunned.

"I wonder if I could talk to the bishop about this. Too bad he's already gone. I think he has a support class that lets him connect with the Prime System Stone in Londinium. It's a support class some Priests can have." We'd gotten completely off course, but I felt like we'd made a genuine breakthrough. Rupert was on board with my theory. It seemed solid to me. It wasn't even a huge leap based on things like the UI and the way things could be manually changed.

The only thing that was crazy was how Merlotus and Arthur made things. The Merlin myths had him traveling between worlds. I couldn't remember the Arthur stuff as well, but even if he wasn't a realm traveler before he met Merlin, it wasn't a stretch to see him traveling with Merlin to other places. I wondered why Earth had never developed a System. Any theories I might have there would be wild speculation. We needed to get back on track.

"Alright," I said.

"I'd love to speculate on this stuff some more. But that's probably an evening conversation in my study. I have blackberry cordial and tea and you're welcome up there any time. Right now I need you to explain the Wizard class to me." He laughed and smiled with an eager glint in his eyes.

"You're right. I just love this conspiracy stuff. Especially since it's real."

"Where were we?" he asked himself.

"Oh yes, Scholar class. So, first thing is you're going to take the Wizard scroll and see if you can activate it. If you can, then we'll skip the Scholar main class. You'll get mostly the same benefits from having it as your support class. The level 20 options are the only real difference. If it seems stupid, then it is. But I think the fact it can be a main and a support is pretty firm evidence for my many classes theory."

I went to twelve years of regular schooling, and another four years of college, so that was good to hear. He continued on.

"If you can activate the Wizard class, and you should be able to, you have ninety mana per level, right? That's what Bruce told me." I nodded. He looked at me in wonder.

"By the System that's absolutely insane! I have eighty-five. Johnstone, the Trade Guild guy, has eighty. He got the class from the stone just like me. You would have too, if you hadn't been given Homesteader from a scroll. Seventy-five seems to be the cutoff. But natural aptitude is also important, so seventy-five isn't a guarantee." He looked at me with a malicious smile.

"Bruce gets seventy-four. I give him grief for it all the time. He and Neil think they're superior to me because they're from noble families. But Neil is at seventy mana, those two both had to be Scholars first."

"Are they both jerks to you?" I asked.

"I'd think being a natural Wizard would be seen as the bigger deal." He shrugged.

"Well, I wouldn't say they're jerks. But they're from noble families. They'll always think they're superior to me. I'm good enough they can't actually discriminate. But I was happy to come back here."

"Alright, we're getting sidetracked again!" Rupert said with a laugh.

"There are four possibilities for you when you take the Wizard class. You'll be given the choice between Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water."

"That's different from most other classes. Although I only got one choice for my Mechanized Cavalry combat class." I said. He shook his head.

'True, special classes only get one choice, but are then more powerful. Speaking of which, you'll probably almost never use your War Wizard class since you have that special one. But you should still take it. But the Wizard class has a specialization, then three subclasses within that specialization." He saw me nod, so he continued on.

"Once you choose an elemental specialization, you'll have some real difficult decisions to make. Most people go for power. A few, mostly those who are paid to do so by the empire, go for a healing class. Both Water and Earth have good healing options. Wind doesn't have one at all, and the Fire one is, …unpleasant for most people." He shuddered at that.

"There's a third option that far too few people take, although Johnstone took it. Being a support class that makes people's lives better."

"So like Johnstone's ability to find wells and stuff," I said. Rupert nodded.

"Right. Now, he's still a semi-effective battlefield Wizard because of his War Wizard class. If you choose that route, you're probably not going to be a true War Wizard, but you have your tractor so it doesn't really matter."

"Has the bishop, or the emperor said anything to you about what they want me to choose?" I asked.

"About that." He said.