“Talk!” Eleniah suddenly demanded, leaning forward over the table. “I’ve run out of patience! Tell me what happened yesterday!”

Kay looked up at her, his fork halfway down to his plate. “Mah mouf if ull”

“Well, swallow it and talk!”

Kay choked on his food as he tried not to laugh.

Eleniah scowled at him. “It’s not funny! You Said something about a Blood Mage and then passed out!”

Kay managed to recover and set his fork down. “Okay, okay. You remember the job I went on yesterday?”

He told her about the request from the village, going there and asking about the bird monster, laying the trap, and killing it. Then he told her about getting back to the village and how it was worryingly empty and quiet, finding everyone in the center of the village, and fighting the Blood Mage. She paid close attention to the last part, especially how he managed to break free of the mage’s Blood Puppetry. Finally he recounted everything that happened with the Guard, Captain Armis, the Councilmember, and the Graceful Success guildmaster.

She was frowning when he finished. “… That’s… well, not great.”

“Which part?”

“The bit with the Councilmember. Danyees is one of the obvious Nelam supporters, but he hasn’t been that vocal until now. The fact that he’s being this open…” She shook herself. “We can come back to that. You managed to shrug off the Blood Puppetry skill of a higher tier Blood Mage than you. Did you get a skill? Probably one with ‘Domain’ in the name?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” He asked, a bit surprised.

“My cousin is a Water Manipulator, and she got a skill called Water Domain that blocks anyone else using water magic or water manipulation in an area around her. There’s a rare skill that works sort of like Blood Puppetry that’s water based and her Water Domain blocks it, so my first guess based on the description was you got something similar.”

“It’s called Domain of Blood. Same thing as your cousin’s skill.” Kay pulled up and looked at the description again. “The description of it is kinda different. It’s like it’s talking to me personally instead of some third person reference.”

“Some skills are like that, but I don’t really have a reason.” Eleniah tapped on the table as she thought. “That skill basically makes you an amazing Blood Mage hunter. Get that skill to level twenty and every nation in the world will want you to train people in it.”

“How am I supposed to level it though? I’d have to be hunting down Blood Mages all the time, and I don’t think there are that many.”

“There are more than you think.” She replied. “But you could also train some Blood Manipulators and work on locking their abilities. Using students to train certain skills is pretty common, especially if you want to keep certain parts of a path secret.”

“Oh. Well, it’s good I got Blood Manipulation to level twenty then, I can finally train people.”

“What?” Eleniah leaned forward excitedly, a bit smile on her face. “You didn’t say anything about that earlier! You’re tier three now!”

“Well, technically I’m not.”

“Huh?”

“I wanted to wait till you were here before I tiered up.”

Eleniah’s smile became wider. “Really?”

Kay glanced away and tried not to blush. “I’ll just go ahead and do it then.”

He pulled up his notifications and accepted the option to upgrade from Apprentice Blood Manipulator to Blood Manipulator. A moment passed, and then the sensation of a deluge of mana rushing into him swept over his body. He was both expecting it and used to it at this point, so it didn’t almost knock him out like the first time he’d experienced the feeling. He waited until the rush died down, then pulled up his status.

[————————————————————]

Name: Kenneth “Kay” Davis

Race: Outworlder Human

Age: 24

Highest Tier: III

Total Tiers: 8

Class Slots: 8 Combat Class Slots/5 Non-Combat Class Slots

3 Combat Class Slot Used/1 Non-Combat Class Slots Used

Classes:

Combat:

- Blood Manipulator: Tier III -

Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 20

- Apprentice Swordsman (Bastard Sword): Tier II -

Skills: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) - Level 19

- Novice Polearm Wielder (Halberd): Tier I -

Skills: Polearms (Halberd) - Level 9

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Combat

- Bloody Healer: Tier II -

Skills: Blood Transfusion - Level 8

Healthy Blood - Level 6

Blood Regeneration - Level 4

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Class Skills: Identify - Level 3, Appraisal - Level 3, Inspect - Level 2, Punch Daggers - Level 4, Writing - Level 5, Reading - Level 5, Running - Level 5, Sprinting - Level 4, Domain of Blood - Level 1

Titles: Class Line Progenitor, Class Creator II

[————————————————————]

He was a little disappointed that he hadn’t managed to get Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) to level twenty yet, but his last few fights he’d used his halberd instead of his sword, and Polearms (Halberd) was almost to ten, so it wasn’t that bad.

“You’re tier three!” Eleniah cheered. “We need to celebrate! What do you want for dinner?”

“What?” He glanced up startled out of his thoughts. “Oh, uh… pizza?”

Eleniah coked her head at him. “What’s that?”

“… Fuck. No pizza?” Kay sighed, a sad frown covering his face. “I was hoping some other Outworlder had managed to make it here.”

“It could have happened.” She offered, “I might just not have heard about it. What is it?”

“You take dough and put a tomato sauce on it, cover it in cheese, add toppings, like meats or certain vegetables, then bake it.”

She took a moment to think. “I haven’t had anything like that… But you’re a tier three now, you have a few hundred years to try and make it.”

He turned and looked at her. “Shit, I totally forgot about that.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. Just take it day by day. Looking at the future too much can make you crazy.”

He took her advice and pushed it out of his mind. “Yeah, so no pizza. We could do burgers?”

“I don’t know that one either.”

“It’s a meat patty, usually beef, between two buns, generally with pickles, lettuce, and tomato. Plus mustard and ketchup.” He sighed again. “There’s probably no ketchup. I can do without mustard, but a burger without ketchup is a waste.”

“So it’s like a meat sandwich? That doesn’t sound very fancy.”

“It’s not a fancy meal, it’s just good. You seriously haven’t heard of burgers? That and pizza would be the first two things I’d introduce to a world in terms of food.”

“Well, I spent most of my life in an island nation. Most of our food is fish or seafood. There aren’t a lot of cows, so beef was a rare thing to get to eat.”

Kay nodded along, then paused. “Wait, you’re from an island nation. And your cousin is a Water Manipulator with Water Domain? Is she crazy powerful?”

“Oh, yeah.” Eleniah replied emphatically. “People are terrified of her. There are all kinds of Water Manipulators and Water Mages out there, and she can shut them all down.”

“Damn.” Kay started off down that train of thought, then managed to shake himself off the tangent. “Anyway, how about you make something nice from your home for dinner?”

Eleniah smiled. “I can do that, let’s go shopping.”

As they stepped out, Eleniah tracked the conversation back. “So, since you’re tier three now, we can talk about the bottlenecks.”

“You mean tiers three and five? Didn’t we talk about it before?”

She shook her head. “Only the basics. There’s more too it. Technically, every odd numbered tier is a bottle neck. Tier one is the age bottleneck, tier three is the creativity bottleneck, tier five is the compatibility bottleneck, tier seven is the unknown bottleneck, and tier nine is referred to as the deific bottleneck. Tier one is a bottleneck because you can’t get to it until you’re of age, thus the name for it. Tier three is called the creative bottleneck, because you have to be creative to get beyond it. Your skills start to level slower and slower and the only real way to get them higher is to figure out new ways to use them. That will let you level your skills, and potentially get other skills or classes.”

Kay stepped aside so that he didn’t bump into a small group of people walking the opposite direction. “Like when I got Blood Transfusion and the Bloody Healer class?”

“Just like that.”

“But that’s a tier two class.”

“Being creative with your skills can be rewarding at lower tiers and levels, you just need to do it at tier three and above if you want to advance.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Kay flushed at how he sounded when he said that.

“You bet it does.” She smirked at him. “Tier five is the compatibility bottleneck because of the combinations.”

“What?”

“Tier five is called the combination tier. It’s when classes get combined into one class. Your classes need to be compatible with each other in order to combine into one, stronger class. Not that you’ll have to worry about that, since most of your classes are probably going to be blood based in some way.”

Kay stopped in place. “Classes combine?” He asked.

“Yup. If or when someone gets to tier five the class slots issue becomes less pressing. It’s definitely important before then, especially because the more tier four classes you can combine into a tier five class, the stronger that tier five class is. When you combine classes it frees up all of your slots but one, so you can start building more classes again.”

“So… The biggest reason I need to keep that one title to myself…”

“Yup, you’re going to be able to make some crazy tier five classes. Combining into tier five isn’t like branching off then upgrading, so you’ll have to level skills up again to get the classes back like regular people, but you’ll still be able to do it a lot easier, since you can never lose your base path class.”

“Can you tell me more about tier five?”

“Of course.” She started pulling him along, getting them walking again. “My tier five combat class is called Indomitable Fist. My base class was Brawler, which is based mostly on punching attacks, with a few grapples mixed in. I added a few Martial Artist classes and made Indomitable Fist, which is considered a hybrid between Brawler and Martial Artist. It’s heavily focused on hand strikes.”

“What kind of skills does it have? Wait.” Kay frowned. “Most combat classes only have one or maybe two skills right? What happens when you get to tier five.”

“The combined class has all the skills under it. That rule is only really until tier four. Tier five classes also get a skill named after the class itself, or at least a name that’s obviously related.”

“So you have a skill called Indomitable Fist? What else?”

She smirked at him. “I’ve taught you better than that. It’s rude to ask someone about their classes and skills.” Kay scowled at her and she laughed. “I’ll tell you when we get back. It’s not something I want to go over in public.”

“Alright, I can accept that. What about tiers seven and nine?”

“Tier seven is the unknown bottleneck, because no one knows what you need to do to get passed it. The only tier eights known to history have all refused to tell anyone how they got to that tier. All the current tier sevens have been stuck there for a very long time.”

“Damn.”

She shrugged. “They have time to deal with it, what with the lifespans they have. So it’s not that big a deal.”

“Alright, so tier nine.”

“Tier nine is a myth. There are no confirmable records of anyone ever getting there. Tier eight is the highest tier ever provably achieved. There are rumors and legends of people getting that high, but nothing concrete. Tier nine is called ‘the deific bottleneck’ because of the legends. Supposedly if you make it past tier nine and on to tier ten you become a god.”

“A god?”

“Supposedly.” She cautioned. “There a lot of religions out there that worship such and such god that used to be a mortal, who got to tier ten. But there’s no proof.”

“Huh. It’s something to think about though.”

Eleniah shrugged again. “I guess so? I don’t believe in it, so I don’t think about it too often. My theory is that if anyone ever made it that far, they were like a god they were so powerful. Then legends spread from there.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah. Anyways, go to that stall over there and grab some of their freshest crab.” She pointed at a food stall in the market and handed him some coins. “The freshwater crabs here aren’t the same as at home, but they’re good enough. Then meet me by that stall and we’ll get some fish. I’m going to make you a great celebratory dinner!”