Liliana collapsed onto her bed with an annoyed groan. Shopping had been an ordeal. She’d gotten everything she’d wanted or needed, but she’d had to deal with Emyr every step of the way. The other noble seemed to take a specific level of delight in getting under her skin and he was far better at the game nobles played than she. It had been an effort to not shove her foot into her mouth, or to straight out toss a [Light Burst] into his face.

It made it worse that part of her enjoyed his company, even found his behavior at times amusing. But she couldn’t let herself let her guard down. She’d almost made a fatal mistake. During their time away from the manor, Liliana had forgotten she was talking to Emyr Bealstal, son of a Marquis and fated hero. She’d forgotten he was like any other noble in this world. Only out for himself, and willing to step on anyone it took to get where he wanted. Most especially someone like her.

He was also destined to either be her death, or to have a hand in it. She didn’t know if she could change the fate of this world so much that the Heroes weren’t a threat to her, and it was a gamble she didn’t want to take. A risk with an unknown reward was a foolish risk. She remembered her father in her first life telling her that, though his advice had been because she’d gotten addicted to gacha games and he was trying to get her to stop spending all her allowance on them. Back when they had the spare money to give her an allowance.

The other part of why she was irritated was because she hadn’t found a single chance to slip away from her contingent of guards or Emyr to investigate the city. She couldn’t hunt down the people who were NPCs in the game and see if they needed the same help they did in the game.

She did not know if the side quests or quest lines existed at all, and if they didn’t, she wasn’t sure how events themselves would change. In a game, many events didn’t happen until a player triggered them by accepting a quest. Here, there were no quests to accept. Meaning she didn’t know what events would or wouldn’t trigger.

Will that Orc attack in Newvale still happen in the winter? Or the potion shortage created from the incursion of Raindeers blocking the area the apothecary got her herbs from? That goblin dungeon, is it still going to spawn? Or will that poor family lose their daughter because a Dream Eater latched onto her? Liliana fretted over the events she’d played out in the game, biting into her lip as she thought. A sharp spike of pain and the copper taste of blood filled her mouth as she bit through her lip. With a wince, she sat up and rubbed at her lip, already healed from her regeneration. The pain had cleared her head, though.

Can’t worry about everything. I have enough to focus on as it is. Honestly, I shouldn’t care about others right now. I need to keep myself alive, Liliana decided, though the thought left a sour taste on her tongue.

“Lelantos,” Liliana called out for the tiger resting in the courtyard. He’d nearly bowled her over when she came into her room originally. He’d only calmed down when he was sure all her body parts were still attached.

The tiger perked up and padded into her room with a yawn before sitting before her. With a thought, Liliana reached her mana out to the cuff on her wrist. It was a pretty silver; the metal shaped to resemble a serpent with a blue gem held in its mouth. As Liliana’s mana connected to the cuff, a mental list of her items appeared in her mind, and odd though it was, she’d had hours of practice with the device in the carriage. She called out the summoning stone, and it appeared on her palm.

The stone was a deep sapphire blue, the same color as her eyes and Mana. She had attuned it to herself and now all she had to do was attune it to Lelantos and he could reside inside of it in a suspended state. He’d still have some idea of what was going on through his connection to her, but it was more of a dreamlike quality, from what she’d learned researching the stones.

“Channel some Mana into this,” Liliana instructed as she mentally sent the image of what she wanted done. She held the stone to Lelantos’ forehead and after a moment she could feel him channeling some of his mana into it. Withdrawing her hand, Liliana could see iridescent threads swirled with the deep blue.

“Lets see if it works,” Liliana murmured, and she focused on the stone, mentally trying to pull Lelantos into it. After a few moments of struggling to grasp it, something clicked and she could feel the stone pulling Lelantos’ very being into it. When she opened her eyes, the tiger was gone, though her Bond let her know he was safe in the stone.

It took another few minutes to push her Bond out of the crystal. Lelantos stretched when he emerged and didn’t seem to have anything against the stone. Liliana nodded happily as she draped the chain attached to the stone around her neck. The stone rested comfortably over her collarbone, and it was warm against her skin.

“Whenever I leave my room, I’ll take you with me,” Liliana informed Lelantos, getting an approval back from the large cat. He laid out on the floor by her bed and seemed to settle down for another nap. The lazy creature. Liliana shook her head as she laid back herself.

She opened her Skill and Spell sheet, looking at the new abilities she’d gained from her shopping. [Leap] was a repositioning skill that Liliana had gratefully bought. It’d also been one of the cheapest. [Pierce] was the other skill she’d bought, and it empowered any stabbing weapons, along with a temporary armor-piercing buff while active. It had been a bit more expensive, though nothing on her spells. [Barrier] was a Light skill and had cost twice the cost of the skills.

[Soul Strike] had been the only Soul spell in the shop and had been priced accordingly. [Encouragement] was a Life skill. It would let her buff someone else, and she planned to use it on Lelantos the next time they went out to level. It gave a small amount of a boost to Strength and Vitality, based on Charisma. She had looked for any healing skills, but there had been none, not too much a surprise. They were generally class skills, and those couldn’t be made into skill or spell scrolls. Still, it hadn’t been a bad haul. She’d gotten 5 new abilities to use. And had drained a good portion of her funds for them as well. She had thought of saving some of the gold she’d been given, but after the shopping trip she had barely fifty gold left.

She had considered picking up one of the grimoires in the store, but even one of them cost 3000 gold and they’d been for affinities she didn’t have. She could go to a church and get an affinity added at any time, but that also cost a good amount of gold, along with the time needed to either discover spells or buy them. Which came back to her issue of needing yet more gold.

Liliana sighed as she buried herself under the blankets on her bed. She came back to the age-old problem, money. And not having enough of it. She fell asleep to dreams of charming a dragon and being gifted his hoard.

“And now onto Ranks,” Miss Beckett droned on, and Liliana resisted the urge to slam her head into the desk. How could someone make something as interesting as leveling, classes, stats and ranks boring? Truly, the woman had to have a [Monotone] or [Boring] skill!

“What do you know about Ranks?” Miss Beckett asked, her tone implying she didn’t think Liliana knew much of anything. Liliana smiled sweetly at the woman.

Meta-Knowledge don’t fail me now!

“Ranks are useful for determining the evolution state of a Beast, and for humans they enable class Evolutions,” Liliana said proudly. In the game that had been their use, you couldn’t get a class evolution until you Ranked up. You could change your class at any time to another one that was unlocked for you at your last Rank up, though you’d lose any class specific skills or spells. But to get better classes and evolutions of your current one, you had to increase your Rank.

Ranking up was easy at low levels, but higher up you had to usually complete a specific story quest to progress your rank. Liliana knew here they were tied to Magic Power and Control, though the exact amount was vague and she wasn’t sure how that worked for physical classes.

“And?” Miss Beckett asked, unimpressed. Liliana’s brow furrowed at the question. What else was there to Ranks?

“First, do you know how to increase your Rank?” Miss Beckett asked and Liliana narrowed her eyes. It felt like a trick question.

“Leveling?” Liliana answered, though it was more of a question.

“Wrong,” Miss Beckett snapped out and Liliana tilted her head, unsure how that was wrong. It was how she’d raised her Rank so far.

“The first few Ranks, 10, 9, 8 and 7, are raised by leveling if you wish to simplify it. What they’re actually raised by is your Magic Power and Control level has nothing to do with it. However, at those levels, your Magic Power and Control usually raises naturally enough. Past that, the requirements to Rank Up are higher, and many find themselves stuck at a cusp level struggling to raise their Power and Control to pass the hurdle,” Ms. Beckett explained and Liliana’s eyes widened. The books hadn’t put it like that. She could get stuck at a level if her Magic Power and Control weren’t high enough?

“The necessary Power and Control to progress to Rank 6 is 2,000, for 5 it’s 5,000, 4 is 10,000, 3 is 18,000, 2 is 28,000 and finally rank 1 is 40,000,” Miss Beckett listed out the numbers and Liliana hastened to write them all down. When she was done, she stared at the numbers before her, trying to comprehend having forty thousand Magic Power and Control. Sure, classes could give you stats to help, but still. That was a number unattainable by stat points alone.

“So you see why one of the biggest walls in Ranking up is one’s Magic Power and Control,” Miss Beckett drew Liliana’s attention. A question was burning in her mind, something didn’t make sense.

“But not everyone is a magic user. What about physical classes?” Liliana asked. She couldn’t imagine Silas pumping a majority of his points into Intelligence or Wisdom. The man was simply too strong and hardy to not have a good deal of his points in Strength, Vitality and Endurance.

“Usually if someone has picked a physical class path such as Warrior, they are offered a class evolution at rank 7 or 6 for a class that combines their Mana and Stamina into Energy. It’s an evolution of the Mana core that focuses their Mana on directly empowering their body. However, once it’s done it cannot be undone, and they lose the ability to use any Spells or skills that require Mana,” Ms. Beckett explained, her droll tone holding a sense that she thought Liliana should know this.

“At any point someone who hasn’t picked such a path can also switch, though I’ve been told the change to an Energy core is painful, and worse, the more Mana one has. Those who chose to not pick this route and maintain a physical class are rare, but they can raise their Control and Power through exercises for such things, os it’s still possible,” Ms. Beckett further elaborated and Liliana’s face paled at the thought. She had her share of pain already, and would rather avoid any more.

“The benefits of Ranking up are many. Every Rank up extends one’s life separate from their Vitality stat. A rank 10 can expect to live to 100, a Rank 9 to 120, a Rank 8 to 140, Rank 7 to 160, Rank 6 to 200, Rank 5 to 250, Rank 4 to 320, Rank 3 to 400, Rank 2 to 500 and Rank 1’s can live to 700 years old even with nothing in Vitality,” Ms. Beckett droned on and Liliana’s head spun. 700 years? That was… how was that possible? Did Mana enhance someone’s body so much?

How old was her father? He was Rank 4, on the cusp of 3. His life expectancy was at a minimum of 320 years!

“On top of the Class evolutions, which are only obtainable by Ranking Up. There is also the skill and spell level cap. At ranks 10 to 8, they can only get to level 55. Your skills and spells will also not evolve unless you’ve reached the necessary rank,” Ms. Beckett explained, and Liliana mechanically wrote down the information. In the game, Ranks had meant little more than the opportunity for better classes, but in the actual world, they were so much more.

“The last reason Ranks are important are Rank skills and spells. You only get one of these skills or spells per level and they are only obtainable, starting at rank 7. They are skills or spells that are given from the System based on how you spent the previous Ranks. They are usually unique to the person, and cannot be copied. These skills and spells are called by the less… refined ‘Ultimate’ skills.” Miss Beckett’s nose scrunched as she used the term, as if she found it utterly distasteful.

“They can change the tide of a battle. There have been times that someone has used a Rank 2 or Rank 1 Skill and won a war in a single night.” Miss Beckett completed the lesson on Ranks, and Liliana looked at her notes. Ultimate skills and spells she was used to, but those were given by one’s class in the game. And not customized, it made her wonder what kind of Skill or spell she would get with her Rank 7 rank up coming.

With my luck, I’m going to get a Light Ultimate skill… fuck, Liliana thought with a small wince at that. She had only just gotten a Soul spell and hadn’t had any time to play with it the night before, and today she’d been rushed to Miss Beckett’s class. Which had been giving her actually useful information, as opposed to learning about how much money a city typically made in taxes per year.

“Now I expect you to have a thousand word essay prepared for tomorrow on Magic Control and Power exercises,” Miss Beckett finished their class and Liliana winced. The woman had provided her with a book on the matter, a book that was not in the manor’s library. She was half tempted to sneak into the woman’s room and abscond with any other pertinent books she may be hiding from Liliana.

Liliana gathered her notes and the book and happily left the room, her head aching with the information she had learned today. They’d also discussed the various stats and how they affected one outside of the obvious. Such a Vitality increasing one’s lifespan, though less than Ranking up.

Charisma could apparently improve one’s singing ability, since it apparently made one’s voice more entrancing, which Liliana wasn’t apt to try. She didn’t want to end up with a Bard class option at any point. With a mental shiver from memories of how many times she’d died playing the game trying out that class, she shoved the very idea away.

Dexterity improved fine motor control, meaning it was necessary for Crafters, artists and musicians. Those were just a few examples of how stats helped not just in battle, but in everyday life. Speed could even make someone think and process things at a higher rate, which Liliana hadn’t noticed at first, but when she compared herself now to who she was three, almost four, months ago she could see she learned at a faster pace. It also made sense, as one needed to be able to process information while moving at higher speeds as well.

“So it’s true,” a voice drew Liliana from her musings. She looked up to see Alistair staring at her, his face ashen. Without thinking, Liliana reached out for her summoning stone with her mana. In a second, it was primed and ready to release Lelantos if Alistair tried anything.

“You actually awakened, and you’re level 39. The tiger thing, that’s true too?” Alistair demanded and Liliana took a step back at the anger on her step brothers face.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice cold and hiding the tremble in her body. Alistair was stronger than her, sitting at level 54 now. Almost hitting the level necessary to get into the Academy.

“You thought you could mock me? By hiding it? How long have you been laughing at me behind my back?” Alistair demanded, crowding into her space. Liliana resisted the urge to step back again as she met his gaze, her own filled with a cold that eclipsed the fires of his anger.

“Brother, I never knew you cared so much,” Liliana responded with a sickly sweet tone, belying the ice in her gaze and face. Alistair’s own face clouded, and he stepped back, looking at her like he didn’t know who she was.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing. Awakening and running around like a feral beast, but you’re a shame on our family,” Alistair scoffed back off more as he saw Liliana reach for her summoning stone, the threat clear as she fiddled with the stone. For the first time, a bit of fear leaked into his gaze, and Liliana relished it.

“Whatever spell you’ve put on Emyr, too, you’re like a poisonous weed. Slowly ruining this family,” Alistair finished as he turned and walked off. Liliana watching him with a touch of amusement.

Oh Alistair, you haven’t seen what I’m capable of yet. This family will fall to ruins, of that I can assure you, Liliana promised as she waited for him to disappear from sight before moving to her own room.