Chapter 21: What the Future Holds

Verity jolted awake in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat and trembling. Trying to slow her heartbeat and breathing she slid out of bed and over to the sink in the room.

She stripped off her clothes and began to aggressively wash herself with cold water while muttering to herself, “It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.”

The room was too dark to see herself in the mirror, but she knew that if she could see it, her face would still be warped in fear, there was no comfort to be found, no peace, but she had hope.

She imagined herself as the perfect healer once more and promised to herself that she would never let that dream come true, and she would never let it haunt her. She would see it again, but it would become her strength, not her fear.

After a moment of reaffirming that, she realized she was shivering from something besides fear as the cold air in her room brushed against her exposed and wet skin, and she allowed herself to feel the cold for a long moment, before drying off and returning to bed.

She had the dream once more.

———

Crimson was up first thing in the morning, as per usual. Over time, he noticed that he was sleeping less and less, and it wasn’t a matter of cutting down his sleep schedule, it was just that he found that he needed less sleep to feel fully rested than in the past. Four hours of sleep every night felt comfortable and he literally couldn’t sleep more than five, it felt like trying to sleep twelve hours instead of the normal eight.

It was part of the reason why he’d started to guess that he wasn’t human. Humans in this world still needed 8 hours of sleep every night. Those with a higher [CON] stat could ignore that requirement fairly easily, but it didn’t change the fact that they needed that much sleep.

For a young, teenaged human like Crimson had assumed he was, he needed closer to ten hours of sleep a night, not less than half that amount.

Doing a little research, he found that humans and dwarves needed a little more sleep than most other races, approximately between 8 and 9 hours, while Elves and Dark Elves needed 6. There was no information for Uluu or High Humans, and as far as the Fairy Races go, he only had an extremely small sample of information for Dryads in the form of Midori - the Dryad in Abel’s party [Everwood]. She slept just as much as the rest of her party, so he couldn’t really nail anything down.

That was the first thing that really made him question his race and other things only added to the question. He barely needed to eat anything and the amount and variety he needed had only decreased more over time, bit by bit. He could eat just bread every day for weeks and be fine, which was especially weird since the human body needed a lot of nutrients to function properly.

That said, he still tried to keep a decent diet and get the nutrients he thought he needed - no need to risk scurvy or any other heath problems - and was content with where he was health wise.

He was the strongest, fastest, most flexible, and most informed he’d ever been! Yet…he’d hit a wall in his growth.

He’d hit walls before, they just needed him to push through with training and he was fine, but the current wall wasn’t one that could be solved with simple training, and he could feel its effects in a bunch of different areas.

First, he couldn’t make any progress on [Amzair], the body tempering book he’d been working on for the better part of a year, almost since he’d arrived in this world, yet he couldn’t get to chapter 3, his body literally couldn’t handle it due to his lack of stats.

There was the same problem with magic, once he’d mastered all the basic spells he’d tried to branch out and learn the ones of just slightly better quality, but had been unable to. It was like the time he’d tried to unlock the mana locks by grabbing each pin individually instead of his pin cushion method, he got a headache and a low grade fever as his head just couldn’t manipulate or control the mana like he needed to. To add insult to injury he still hadn’t been able to learn the movement type spell [Resonance].

Fortunately, he’d been able to continue making progress on fighting styles which brought him a lot of comfort…until he realized that bringing out the power of those styles was different from using the motions.

He’d been able to master [Twin Steps], [Vengeful Flash], and even reached chapter 8 of [Cruel Tempest], but he couldn’t go any further on those, they should have been more powerful than they were in his hands, anyone using the styles would be able to use them to do more than he could, but he just couldn’t utilize them properly. Out of frustration and a desire to actually utilize the forms he was using properly, he picked up some easier katana styles that focused on different aspects of fighting and easily mastered them: [Rumbling Mountain], [Creeping Vines], [Primal Jaguar], [Wandering Brook], and [Troubled Mind].

It was only possible for him to master them all so easily because he’d been working on much harder styles. Similar to lifting weights, after lifting 200 pounds it was easy for him to lift 50.

[Rumbling Mountain] was a heavy style, focused on smashing through an opponents guard and dealing damage. Really nothing special because everyone he faced was stronger than him.

[Creeping Vines] required him to practice a bit of hand to hand combat as it used grabs and kicks to ‘creep’ behind the opponents guard and kill them. It was why he’d been able to stand his ground against Verity in the fight they had.

[Primal Jaguar] was a ferocious style relying on controlling distance, quickly charging in and backing away to harry the opponent until they died. [Twin Steps] made it all the more powerful.

[Wandering Brook] was an elegant style of smoothly transitioning between attack and defense, it gently led the opponent into where they needed to be to cinch victory. He liked how much control it gave him during fights, it also just felt cool to use.

Finally, [Troubled Mind] was all about feints and disrupting the enemy, it was most useful on an enemy with ‘human,’ or near ‘human,’ intelligence, but it had some chapters on using it for monsters. This was the single most scary style for any of his students to face. Even Mars hated facing it - even if Crimson still couldn’t get more than one hit in during their bouts.

Crimson also had one set aside that he planned to start learning [Giant Slayer], a style all about fighting monsters, something he needed a lot of experience with.

None of the styles he’d been learning as of late had been ones that he’d grabbed from the Guild Library, but they were all from the Astral Library. None of the ones in the Guild Library had a high enough quality to bother with.

Four of the five he mastered and the one he was going to work on were all just below [Twin Steps] as far as difficulty in learning and practice, but matched it in quality. [Troubled Mind] was actually a little harder to learn since it required learning a lot about things Crimson hadn’t utilized before. It had been very fulfilling to learn how to use.

Admittedly, they all shared the same problem as the previous styles Crimson had learned, he couldn’t bring out their full power! He tried to content himself and bury his frustration, and acknowledged that he needed to get the [Blessing] to be able to go any further…

He’d forced himself to be fine with that until yesterday.

Being so hopeless, helpless, and useless just drove home how his efforts were worth as much as hot air in the summer without that [Blessing]. He didn’t doubt his training would be useful when he got it, but that was ‘eventually’ and he wanted something he could do ‘now.’ Immediately.

Those feelings had bubbled over and he had shouted at Verity, something he wasn’t proud of, and she had given him an answer that wasn’t an answer, but it was SOMETHING.

Fine, he couldn’t progress forward with the styles he already had, but his approach of learning different styles -going ‘sideways’- was something he could do immediately. He could also put more effort into learning about production [Classes] and preparing for which ever one he wanted to take. He could put more effort into teaching others and his experiments, and he could do something that actually made him excited: he could learn how to use a wider variety of swords.

His main weapon was a katana, and he was passible with a longsword, but what about great-swords? Rapiers? Khopesh? There were so many different sword types and he only knew how to use a few. That wasn’t even counting the fact that he’d done nothing to practice with daggers, and he already knew that he wanted a stiletto as a sub-weapon, yet he never truly trained with one.

Well, he would. He would practice with everything he could get his hands on until people thought he was a monster. He’d learn more about hand to hand combat, and learn at least the absolute basics of every other weapon he knew of, then he would take all the skill he’d built up and all the styles he learned to improve his ability with katanas - he’d create his own fighting style! He would grow stronger!

With a vicious grin, Crimson arrived in front of the Guild and sat down on the step to wait for Emma, as per his usual routine.

While waiting, he checked the status of his mana. He’d been spreading it throughout his body and it had been going well, not fast, but well. It had been especially slow as of late after he’d filled the majority of his body with it, but based on his estimations he should be done with it in time for his birthday.

That meant there was another problem to tackle: Verity.

After yesterday, she’d have a much better idea of what kind of [Class] she wanted, but he wanted to go over the positives and negatives of the three basic types of healer [Class], then he’d take a step back and let her polish herself, only offering help when she needed it.

It was probably best if she learned [Treatment] for each of the basic affinities: [Holy], [Purity], and [Life] which would also help her get a better feel for which one she preferred, then it was a matter of securing a spell book for [Lesser Healing] of the affinity she settled on. He’d also help her track down the materials she required to perform the [Rituals] needed to increase her affinity to the chosen affinity.

After that it was just practice. It was hard to be certain exactly, but unlocking a [Class] was only the first step. It was best to continue training before actually accepting the [Class] to increase the [Grade] of the [Class], something a lot of people hadn’t realized were directly proportional since there were some people who naturally increased the [Grade] without extra training, but even that could only go so far.

By his own estimation, Crimson would certainly qualify for a High-Grade [Swordsman Class]. He might need to do a little training first, but he was at least qualified for a High-Grade [Class]. Keywords being ‘at least.’

He’d come to suspect as of late that there was something higher than ‘High-Grade’ and if those suspicions were true, then he would not settle for anything less. Even if his suspicions turned out to be false there was no way there wouldn’t be a pay off for doing extra training, so it was all worth it.

While he was ruminating, he heard some familiar footsteps, they weren’t Emma’s, but Verity’s. Looking over, he saw that his deduction was correct as Verity quietly sat down next to him.

The silence between them was comfortable as they waited for the Guild to open.

———

Crimson stood in front of his class, he was explaining proper party etiquette for dungeon exploration and he honestly couldn’t tell if his audience was rapt, or zoned out - he couldn’t tell in the slightest. Either way, he knew at least some of it got through, so he didn’t worry too much.

To finish, he actually passed the lesson over to Verity who confessed some past sins regarding a monster train in the [Hallowed Graveyard], kind of a warning to those who don’t think anything of his lesson. However, they didn’t call them a monster train in this world, but a monster rally.

He casually sat down among his students next to Lena and Mortimer. Mortimer was one of his most…amusing students. He was hard working and reliable, but had an issue with arrogance that sometimes made him rough to work with.

His long hair was a muted orange color and his eyes matched his hair in color, framed by weak cheekbones, a very pointed chin, and dark skin. If it were Crimson’s old world, he would be described as having a skin tone reminiscent of the Hispanic ethnicity. He was only a little shorter than Crimson and showed strong signs of getting taller than him in the not too distant future. He was quite lanky and had zero sense of balance or coordination, but he also had a pretty good head for magic; he had just paid the Guild and the sessions to awaken his mana would be starting soon.

Crimson would not personally be awakening his mana since he didn’t really want to gather any more attention than he had, but he did plan on assisting him when he started to learn magic, he had been the one to make the suggestion after all.

He couldn’t say that he knew too much about Mortimer personally, but the kid was certainly a sponge for his lessons. If he worked hard he’d really go far.

Lena was similar, but opposite in a lot of ways to Mortimer. She was tiny, very tiny for a girl her age, but she didn’t look young, which was really weird. Height wise, she could qualify for being ten, face-wise she looked more like she was in her early twenties. It was an odd conundrum, but after waffling back and forth for a long time, Crimson decided that she didn’t qualify as a loli, just short.

Her height aside, she was a White Tiger-type Beast-Kin with white hair and fur which was long and straight down her back, and blue eyes that constantly caught the eye. She had a very balanced face that she always wore a calm expression on, and she was well loved by everyone.

She had a strong understanding of how people worked and of the material they worked on, she often acted as Crimson’s teaching assistant during classes, and she had even informed him that she planned to take an [Instructor Class].

He’d joked that she was after his position as teacher of the Brass Class - she immediately agreed.

Contrary to what most people might expect, Crimson had welcomed her as his replacement with open arms. He didn’t plan on working as a teacher forever and he would eventually have to leave Falst, so having someone to step up was comforting.

So comforting, as a matter of fact, that he’d already handed in his resignation letter to Lars, the final working date was two weeks before his birthday in two months. Lars had been quite confused why he’d handed him the letter so early, but Crimson just shrugged and said that he wanted him to know.

The Guild Master was also made aware that Crimson was grooming a successor for the position, so there was no hard feelings about the matter, though he did push for Crimson just to keep the position since he’d done a pretty good job with it so far.

After he dismissed the class, Crimson turned to leave with Verity to head to the library when he was stopped by Lena.

“Crimson?”

He turned to face her, “Yes?”

She smiled up at him confidently, “My sixteenth birthday is in five days, I won’t be able to come to class for a little while because of it.”

Crimson looked at her in surprise, then smiled warmly, “Congratulations! Make sure you don’t take a [Class] too fast. Practice and train before you do to increase the odds of the Gods blessing you with an amazing [Class].”

Lena nodded vigorously with her ears twitching and her tail swishing, “Of course! I’ll be here tomorrow and the day after, but starting from then I’ll be gone for a week.”

Crimson cheerfully agreed and left after wishing her well again.

————

Verity sat in the library, quietly waiting for Crimson to show up. He stopped to talk to that tiny girl about something, and she’d felt a little uncomfortable just hanging around eavesdropping, so she’d left ahead of him.

There was a lot that she’d learned the day before that stuck with her, and the thing that had been ringing in her head for the last couple hours had been that random tirade Crimson had about living in a world where nobody knew if there was gods. It had been seemingly random, out of place, maybe even pointless, but Verity figured that there was something, a lesson, that she could take out of it, and she had a decent guess.

It was Crimson encouraging her to make a choice then stand by it - stand by what she believed in, and to ignore what anyone else had to say. Well, ignore might be a bit too extreme, but she could just interpret it to mean that she shouldn’t care about what other people think of her.

Maybe it was also an encouragement to take the [Priest Class]?

While wondering that, Crimson silently took a seat, making her jump slightly. He was too quiet!

“Did your little after class chat go well?” She asked.

“Very well, Lena is receiving her [Blessing] this week, hopefully I’ll have a replacement soon.”

Verity nodded slowly, she knew that teaching took a lot out of Crimson, he had so much he was working on at all times that she had no idea how he didn’t just die of exhaustion. Teaching was also a source of frustration for him, after having watched him a long time she recognized that he was a teacher of the hard working students, he didn’t really have the ability to change someone or to get them excited about learning like some teachers did, but he put a lot of effort into those that put effort into themselves.

Those who studied under him and were willing to work hard would go very far as he encouraged and directed those efforts, but he refused to force anyone who was lazy to work hard. He was unwilling to push someone who didn’t want to push themselves or to teach someone who didn’t want to be taught.

It was his biggest failing as a teacher.

Because of the way Crimson taught, there were a lot of people who couldn’t keep up with his method for one reason or another, but for those who were willing to work and strive, he would happily adapt and work with them.

From Verity’s position as one of his ‘students’ she felt he was an amazing teacher because she fit into exactly the category that he could work with. She worked hard and put in effort so he put time an energy into her and they both saw respective success as they worked together. Their relationship had been like that from the time they’d started sparring together as he gave her advice on how to fight better.

Admittedly, she had been quite arrogant so there many times she refused to listen to his advice, but when she did, mostly good things happened.

Interrupting her reverie, Crimson sighed to himself as he was writing something down. It was a sigh that was loaded with frustration.

Inspecting the upside down characters carefully, she slowly read out what he’d written:

———

Fighting Styles

[Giant Slayer] Longsword (adapt for katana usage) [Stinging Nettle] Rapier (very traditional, need to find nontraditional) [Shattered Earth] Great-Sword (possible integration with longsword forms?) [Nobility] Longsword (should potentially move up in priority, excellent style, potentially modify [Wandering Brook] using it. Need to borrow copy from R.)

Note to self: need to inspect AL for more style books, these are only the ones I remember off the top of my head. Should I develop a priority list for sword types or try to learn all of them to the same basic level? How far should I push my growth in those other sword types? I also need to address my funding concerns. Goal: become a monster with the sword, fulfill requirements for highest-grade class. High Priority.

Magic

Verity - get copies of [Treatment] for her (talk to High Priestess Rei?)

Note to self: I’m completely deadlocked with magic, the only way I can really preform experiments is through others, Verity as…primary test case? Also, I need to investigate the skillful use of the spells I have as a potential road for development. Goal: preparation for a Sub-Class, lower priority.

Production

[Alchemist] an excellent potential road for growth, lacking in funds to fuel that kind of growth, lacking in resources. Might have to set this one aside. [Enchanter] There’s something here, not sure what it is, but I have absolutely zero interest in a standard [Enchanter Class], but there’s some compelling potential for rare types of the [Class], needs more investigation. [Blacksmith] yeah, not happening. Interested, but the requirements for a facility are even worse than for an [Alchemist] in some ways. [Tailor] simple and easy, no extreme requirements, but growth would be slow. A boring option, not going to take this one simply due to lack of interest…doesn’t change fact that I will continue practicing.

Note to self: I’m also in a deadlock here, I have justifications for and against pretty much every production [Class] out there, and no way to narrow it down completely. I’ll see what happens in the future, maybe something will change to influence my decision. Also, there are some production [Classes] I would normally expect to see that I haven’t found any trace of, more research needed, AL?

———

Verity sat back in surprise, there was some things written that she couldn’t understand, but she couldn’t believe that Crimson didn’t just…know, what he needed to do. He had to really think things over and prioritize. It wasn’t something that came to him instantly.

Crimson sat there tapping his finger on the desk staring at his list deep in thought as Verity started to laugh to herself.

How often did she need to get the same messages before she finally understood them? Work hard, put in effort, stick with it, and never settle. He didn’t, and he tried to teach her those things several times, hopefully she finally got it this time.

Crimson glanced up at her and they made eye contact, she felt a bit of weight behind those eyes, but unlike when she first met him that weight wasn’t trying to crush her, it was just there.

“What’s funny?” He asked.

She shook her head, “Nothing, I just realized that I should listen when the Gods are trying to teach me something.”

He nodded, “Sure, they can see a lot more than we can, if they choose to they can give us quite good advice.”

“Speaking of good advice, I’d like you to give me some. What’s the difference between the three basic healer [Classes] you keep mentioning to me?”

He looked at her with an expression of genuine concern, it was even in his aura!

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She demanded, “It’s a real question, and a lot of people don’t know, not just me!”

He looked at her with a bemused expression that clearly communicated ‘you sure?’

“Yes! I’m very ‘sure!’”

“Well, okay then. Do you know what the three basic healer type [Classes] are?”

Verity winced hard enough for even dense Crimson to see it, then said, “[Priest]…[Pure~] something…plant something.”

Crimson shot her a pained grimace, “[Priest], [Pure Hearted], and [Druid]. Each has a respective tie to [Dynamic Affinities]: [Holy], [Purity], and [Life].”

She quickly defended herself. “I knew that much at least, I just didn’t know the [Classes] because I’ve never needed to know them, Ruth was a [Priest] so that’s the only one I know about.”

“Okay,” he said, “since you don’t know anything I’m going to start by dispelling a notion that a lot of people have: no, there isn’t one among these three that’s more powerful than the others, don’t ask me to tell you which one is better, none of them are, they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

“Any differences between the three’s capabilities comes down to individual differences, not differences between the [Classes]. If you have a higher affinity for [Holy] then [Priest] will be more powerful for YOU; the same is true with the other two [Classes] respectively. The grade of the [Class], [Titles] you have, your [Stats], and your equipment all have an influence, but once you take these external factors away they are evenly matched.

“Their healing ability is about the same, so if [Affinities] or personal preference isn’t making the decision for you, then you should look at the secondary abilities of each [Class].

“[Priest] has spells strong against the undead and other [Profane] enemies, as you should know from Ruth, [Pure Hearted], and [Druid] are the same for their opposing attributes - [Corruption] and [Death] respectively. Though, I must admit after telling you that: you shouldn’t use that knowledge as the final decision, just a factor.

“The real thing you need to be aware of is that [Priests] are considered the highest damage dealers of the three, their [Golden Light] has a strong boost in attack damage and burning away profane things, they can just do the most to hurt their opponents of the three, they can also use their faith for interesting miracles.

“[Pure Hearted] are better at defense, they have the ability to create barriers and defend the people they’re looking after, it’s also the best [Class] at removing debuffs.

“[Druids] are the tricky ones, they’re the best at inflicting buffs and debuffs and they even have minor control over plant life, ah, you’d probably know ‘buffs’ and ‘debuffs’ as ‘blessings’ and ‘curses.’”

Verity closed her eyes, trying to process all the information he just threw at her, then opened them after a second of thought, “What priority should I assign to determining which one I should work toward?”

He thought for a second, then said, “Preference, [Affinity], secondary focus, [Skills], [Titles], then [Equipment].

“Clarification? Secondary focus is the stuff like [Golden Light] and [Barriers]?”

Once Crimson had confirmed it for her, she opened her [Blessing]. Out of the air in front of her, a scroll popped into existence, it looked like one made of paper in perfect condition, but when Verity touched it to unroll it, it had a texture more like smooth glass, and it was completely weightless.

————

-Name: Verity

-Race: Elf

-Age: 46

-Affiliation: [Adventurer’s Guild: Black Gold (Bronze)]

-Active Title: [Empty]

-Titles: Capricious, Haunted

-Health (HP): 100/100

Regen/s: 1.5

-Magic (MP): 130/130

Regen/s: 1.0

-Fatigue (FP): 40

-Status: Fatigued

-Class: [Empty]

-Sub-Class: [Locked]

-Sub-Class: [Locked]

-Status:

Strength (STR): 14

Agility (AGI): 11

Constitution (CON): 11

Vitality (VIT): 15

Intelligence (INT): 13

Wisdom (WIS): 10

Perception (PER): 14

Willpower (WIL): 15

Charisma (CHA): 13

Luck (LUC): 60

-Affinities

-Elemental

Fire: 6

Water: 5

Earth: 4

Wind: 6

Lightning: 5

Metal: 5

Magma: 5

Ice: 5

-Dynamic

Holy: 5

Profane: 5

Purity: 5

Corruption: 5

Life: 5

Death: 4

Mana: 5

Void: 5

-Skills

-Racial: [Aura Viewing] 2/10

-Class: None

-General: [Martial Mastery] 8/100

————

Verity didn’t bother reading the rest of her [Blessing], choosing instead to focus on the things that Crimson mentioned. As far as her personal preference, she didn’t really have any, he’d cut that off with the mention of them all being equal in healing ability. She didn’t have any [Affinity] to any of the three, which meant that wasn’t a factor.

She didn’t understand enough about the Secondary Focus of each [Class] for that to be the deciding factor, nor did she have any relevant…anything! She was pretty much a blank slate.

Verity let out a long sigh, flicked her wrist to make the scroll containing her [Blessing] disappear, and let her head drop onto the table, Crimson had gone back to staring at his list, in that moment, she could feel that they were both united in their frustration about the future.

It was a bit comforting.

After a bit, Crimson got to work on other things, less than an hour after that, he stood and informed her, “I’ve got to go work on requests, find all the books on this list and read them, they’ll help you learn more.”

He handed her a piece of paper with a long list of books on it, then stepped out, leaving her on her own.

She screwed up her determination and started reading the books on the list, looking for ones that seemed short or easy, but was surprised to see a little note from him at the bottom of the list, ‘Keep Highday free to meet with me’ is what it said.

She was a little confused why he didn’t tell her in person considering they were just together, but decided to accept it.

The next day, she got the bill for the stuff they broke and they had to pay 86 Royals each.

The day after that, on Fallday, she got another note, ‘Meet me in Phase 6 at 5 in the morning tomorrow.’

On Highday, she got the shock of her life as Crimson interacted with a statue to open a hole in the ground.

There were secret passages in Falst? How awesome!!!