Devil’s Foundry Chapter 12: Level Up!

The last thing to deal with was my class up.

Over the course of setting up the newly renamed Lady’s Port (and setting it’s first ship The Little Mistress out to sea), I’d finally maxed out all five of my skills. Ever since then, I’d felt a sort of pressure on the back of my neck, like I could finally push beyond the level 10 barrier I’d been sitting at for so long.

No one from my crew in Silverwall really knew much about the class up process. The Northern part of Vecorvia was kind of a backwater, I’d realized. Everyone who had a bit of potential either went south, or one of the two big groups snapped them up.

Silverwall itself certainly wasn’t going to help me with the process, and all I knew about the Watch was that they stole my armor.

How lucky that I’d stolen a princess who’d been taught about such things as a matter of her education.

“It is as you say.” Ishanti and I were seated in my office, I behind the desk and she in front of it. “Raising your level and all attendant skills to level 10 is what allows you to class up and unlock a new class. It is said that in the south, training to such an end is more readily available, but here, most are farmers or miners.”

“Not exactly conductive to level grinding, I take it.”

“Just so.” Ishanti nodded. “It is normally recommended to not class up immediately, but instead, upon reaching level cap, attempt to accomplish a great deed, so as to meet the requirements for a better second class. But of course, there is also the chance that one will simply perish in the attempt.”

“So most people take boring classes?”

Ishanti gave a demure shrug. “Rather, one accepts the best class that they have unlocked over their time reaching level 10. There is near always something interesting there.”

I hummed. That seemed to track with my anecdotal evidence. Delilah had possessed a mage hunter class or something, and she didn’t seem like the type to risk her neck for ‘power and glory’ before unlocking her next class.

If she’d been more driven, she’d be here, and I’d be a headless corpse rotting beneath the gallows.

“So what can I expect once I do class up?” I asked.

“The process is said to have two parts.” Just another bit of proof that Ishanti had been kept from getting stronger. Why else would they teach her about this but not let her actually reach level 10? “First, you will be prompted if you wish to reset your first class. This will not disallow you from taking another, and is oft useful for those who rose to level 10 very slowly with a common class and wish for another chance at an uncommon class.”

“Prestiging huh?”

I rolled my eyes. “Electra, you promised you’d behave yourself.”

Electra shrugged from where she was leaning against the wall. She hadn’t quite maxed her stats, but she wasn’t far off. “Just saying.”

“No one else here knows what ‘prestiging’ is.” I waved a hand. “Anyway, I don’t suppose you can see the other potential options beforehand?”

“You cannot,” Ishanti said.

“Not going to bother with that then.” I steepled my fingers. “My demons are far too useful, and now that I don’t need to use up all of my mana regeneration clearing trees, I can actually put more projects into action. Getting rid of my biggest force multiplier would be a waste.”

“Just so.” Ishanti folded her fingers in her lap. “Most who unlock an uncommon class arrive at the same decision.”

I tilted my head, looking at her for a moment. I realized that I’d never bothered looking at her class. I focused.

I blinked. “Are you also near your class up?”

She looked slowly to the side. “I have not been allowed to gain a fifth skill, my Lady.”

I sighed. “Of course it was something like that.” I waved my hand again. “Take whatever skill you like. You’ll be more able to defend yourself if you’re not stuck at level ten.”

Electra chuckled. “What, not doing the classic villain thing where you’re worried about your minions getting stronger than you?”

“I only have one minion,” I said. “And she’s perfect.”

Electra coughed to cover a laugh. “If you keep raising those flags, people are gonna start expecting you to do something about it.”

I sniffed, looking away. “Anyway, you’re allowed to do whatever you want with your class, since most of your aid has been organization. I don’t imagine Lady-in-Waiting has done much for your job as my secretary.”

She gave a little dip of her head. “Nothing I am unable to replicate with my own ability.”

“Good.” I nodded. “The sooner you class up the better, then. We need more specialists around here, if we’re gonna hold our own in the long term.” Right now, a small handful of fighters was enough, but if any of the bigger powers in the area turned their attention to us in earnest? I’d want all the help I can get. “So, the first part of classing up doesn’t really apply to the two of us, what about the second part?”

“It is much like unlocking your first class, only instead of it occurring one at a time, all the classes you qualify for are listed at once. You must simply pick one.”

“No descriptions?” I raised an eyebrow.

Ishanti shook her head. “Just the same unlock information as all other classes.”

“What an annoying system.” I huffed.

“Like whoever came up with this setting didn’t want to bother.” Electra laughed. “That’s cool though, the Isekai that’re just numbers all the time are way more boring in my opinion.”

I sighed. “That’s nice.”

“No, for real!” Electra waved her hands. “It’s like they try to serve up a working man’s dopamine rush from *ding* monkey brain progress, but completely forget about the characters and the story.”

“Then why do you read them, Electra?”

She blushed. “Just because I know something’s bad doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.”

“And there we go.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Is there anything else about the class up process, Ishanti?”

“Not to my knowledge, my Lady.”

“Welp.” I stood, brushing off my legs. “Nothing to do but pick out my new class, then. It’s not like we really have time to wait.”

“Sure you don’t want to go hunt down a big-huge-o-saur or something?” Electra giggled at her own joke.

“Tell you what, you wrap it up for me, and I’ll take a swing at it.” With that, I took a deep breath, and pressed back against that feeling of pressure.

System message

Would you like to class up?

I picked yes, and immediately another, much longer box popped up on my screen.

System message

You have qualified for the following classes!

For Leading Men into battle, You have unlocked the “Captain” Class

For establishing your own settlement in the Republic of Vecorvia, you have unlocked the “Noble” Class.

There were a bunch of other common ones like that. I skimmed past most of them, since the rest weren’t even as interesting as those two. Normally, I’d take a closer look, but after talking with so many people in this new world, it was pretty clear that rare classes were the way to go.

So I started looking for puns.

For Establishing a port city in your name, you have unlocked the “Port Lady” Class.

I snorted at that. So I’d be Lady Via, the Port Lady of Lady’s Port? Not bad, system. Still, while it would be no doubt very useful for running Lady’s Port, it probably wouldn’t give much help beyond that.

Well, unless all the active skills were stuff to do with boats, there would definitely be something there. But it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.

For defeating a tenth of your foes in a single engagement, you have earned the “Decimator” Class.

I raised an eyebrow at that. Were they talking about the ambush at the farm? Still, that gave me a number for the total amount of bandits. Seventy-eighty was more than I was happy with, but nothing we couldn’t handle.

Well, it might also be 40 or 50, depending on how the system counted ‘defeated’. Either way, nice Latin pun. Love those.

My only concern was that it would have some weird percentage limitations, but even then, if I started each battle by taking out a tenth of my enemy’s force?

Armies in these kinds of engagements would route at about that many casualties. I’m sure leadership classes like Captain or General changed the math, but still, from the description, it was probably a very powerful ability.

Last, I found:

For commanding powerful servants to victory despite your diminutive size, you have earned the "Little Mistress" Class.

I wasn’t sure this was a pun, but really, with a class named after my de facto flagship, and with the allusions to ‘commanding’ and stuff, well, it was definitely a rare class.

The only question was if it would be some weird BDSM thing, just like Decimator would be some weird count to ten nonsense.

Beyond that, from the description, Little Mistress clearly had something to do with commanding people, and offered much less by way of actual attack options. Hopefully I’d get skills like ‘do this but better’ instead of ‘bondage etiquette’ though. For a moment, I was tempted to take a more normal class, just so I knew what I was getting into.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything cool like mage slayer. It was all stuff like “city planner” and “hunter” and things that wouldn’t be very useful to me.

So I was left with one of two mystery boxes.

“If I don’t like my class, can I just select another one?”

“After picking a new class, if you discard it, you must unlock any new classes again as normal,” Ishanti said.

I clicked my tongue. “No wonder no one swaps if they can help it.”

One and done then. The only question was what did I need more? Direct Power, or Command and Control?

When put like that, the answer was pretty clear. The most useful part of my current class was the ability to summon demons. If I could buff them, my actual combat power would compound on itself anyway. On top of that, it was versatility that had gotten me this far. I didn’t need to smite hosts arrayed against me, I needed to get this city off the ground before any great host showed up to take it from me.

I selected Little Mistress.

System Message

Congratulations! You have reached level 11 with Demogogue!

You have unlocked a new Class Little Mistress lvl 1!

You have unlocked a new skill! !

I smacked my palm against my face. “God dammit.”