When I finally logged in again, I had lost ten hours of grinding and the meat in my inventory had spoiled. Four of the original members of the guild had not spoken to me during training, not unless they had to. And they kept sending me weird looks. Even Kira, who was the only that was talking to me more than perfunctorily. The other members had picked up on the weird air, and any question regarding the arrest was answered with a short answer of “It was a mistake”.

Someone had made sure that all the media covering game related news was running the story of me being arrested. Well not by name, but the general theme was that the guild leader of Blue Lotus was brought in for questioning in relation to suspicions of hacking. Even though the news also mentioned I was cleared of all suspicion, and that Perennial had issued a statement that ensured the public that no one could hack their game, the story that most still took from it was that I was somehow cheating.

A fact that quickly became clear to me in game. The first player I passed spat on me and called me, “Cheating motherfucker.”

It was not my first time being spat upon, had a student or two that did it, but it was still humiliating, and for just a second I considered putting his head through the table. Nevertheless, I controlled the urge and just moved on.

After paying a visit to the guild warehouse to get the rabbits and other useful material the others had collected the day before, I made my way to my usual spot. The new competitors across the way was already there and doing some business. Even though it was early morning in the game, it seemed that there were more player activity than before. Pulling up some names with Inspect I saw that there was quite a few new players around.

Setting up my stand, some of the players started shouting profanities at me. After a few minutes of me not reacting in any visible way, they grew bored and went back to hunting rabbits. At first Lord and Lady Dust was just laughing and smirking at me, but they started frowning when I pulled the first seagull out.

To be honest, the number of rabbits and seagulls I was getting from the guild was more than enough to keep me occupied now that I was branching out in skills. After filling the new squad, maybe I should consider getting an assistant. Maybe Ed’s father was not interested in being a fighter, or maybe Phil’s mother would be willing to help butcher. I could not remember if she was involved in the family business or not.

I ignored the idiots that seemed to be all over the place, and just concentrated on butchering seagulls and rabbits. A few minutes later first Nise and then Phil joined me. There was not a lot of conversation between the three of us. Not because they thought I was delusional for believing to have lived in the future, they did not even know that tidbit of information, but because that was how we usually were. Just sharing a few words now and then when needed.

It took me nearly two hours to butcher all the seagulls, but Phil was happy for the feathers. “Thanks for the feathers, but I’m running out of glue.”

“Sorry, I only have of very poor quality,” I said with a frown. The earlier batch I had made had turned out to only be a lot of very poor quality.

“Yeah, that’s too few crafting points. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s hard to produce below average quality for you, I would not even be using the poor quality.”

“Let me just butcher these rabbits, and I’ll start grinding some bones,” I said and chopped off the head of the black rabbit I was butchering.

“Sure thing, still need to make arrow shafts, so won’t be needing it for a few hours,” Phil grunted as he pulled a new log out of his cart. I was finishing the last cut on the rabbit, and almost let out of squeal of joy. The rabbit had dropped a rabbit’s foot. The black one was the only one I needed for another attempt at making a lucky charm. I almost pulled out the chalk and started doing it there and then.

However, one of the Dusts always kept an eye on me, and the fact that you could make charms out of trophies was not something I wanted to reveal to someone that was out to hurt me, if not physically then financially. I packed it away, and grabbed the next rabbit, continuing as if nothing of importance had happened.

The fact that it had also dropped its horn was very important. It meant I had ten black horns and could finally try to make the poisons. Or at least the powder needed for the base solution of all poisons. Pulling out the horns and the mortar and pestle, I immediately attempted to craft the dark elemental powder.

Dark Elemental Powder

Alchemy Level: 2

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Lowest Quality: Below Average

Highest Quality: Below Average

Best Possible Quality: Below Average

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 55%

Flawed - 30%

Success - 15%

Base experience: 25 XP

With bated breath I stared at the event log, I needed this to be a success. Who knew how long it would be before I would have another ten black horns for a new try.

>You’ve finished crafting: Dark Elemental Powder.<

>Rolling for outcome: 18.<

>You’ve achieved a Flawed Success. Awarding 39 Alchemy XP.<

>Quality has been downgraded to Poor.<

It was not the roaring success I had hoped for, but it would have to do. There was another more imminent problem that prevented me from starting to craft the poisons. I probably did not have enough mushrooms to get the full twenty five uses out of the powder. That meant I would have to find some more plants of the poisonous variety. The next hour I wracked my head trying to come up with any plants used for poisons, while I ground bones to dust. Or almost dust, since it was bone meal the granules were a bit bigger than that of dust.

All the poisonous plants I could recall was rare and as far as I knew did not grow around Blackport. Maybe in the more dangerous regions of the island. A thing I did remember was that many real world plants had made its way into the game as well. Especially the poisonous ones. Looking up things online was not helping a lot, but it did give me a list of stuff to look for. Since Phil had been to the edge of the forest, I started to ask if he had seen some of the different plants. He had to look them up as well.

“Well I think I’ve seen the oleanders quite a few times, think I might’ve seen that monkshood or wolfsbane a single time,” he replied.

“Thanks, just what I needed. I’ll be joining you at the edge of the forest today,” I gave him a toothy grin.

“Poisons?”

“Oh yeah, will work great for Robin and your arrows,” I said, “Could you watch the cauldron while I run and buy some gloves?”

“Sure thing,” he answered and waved me away as I ran to Beryon’s alchemical supply store. He ought to have some gloves that could withstand the poisonous plants. I had been lucky that the mushrooms had not been poisonous to the touch.

My unpopularity was clearly shown around noon, when no one queued up with me to buy food, despite the long wait at the other stand. It was not until I pulled out some carrots and started to make food buffs that we got any customers. Even though it was only five out of the thirty attempts to make them that succeeded to the degree of holding a buff. It was still something we could provide the other stand did not.

Even with the food buffs, it was a bit of a struggle for Nise to sell the rest of the food without, because the Dusts were doing it cheaper. I was already selling at a loss if you factored in failure rates as well, and only a copper over the standard value I could get if I sold to NPC vendors. However, Nise’s sour bombs and Phil’s arrows were extremely popular and sold like hot cakes.

It irritated me, no doubt about it, but in the end there was only one thing to do and that was to ride it out. More than a few customers threw dirty looks at me, and a couple even insulted me after buying my food. I pulled up an interface meant for note taking, and started noting down names. Right now I could not afford to alienate customers, but one day Mr. TooSexyForU and HeartVixen would find that the prices would be much higher for them; an asshole tax. Maybe I should make a tax for stupid names as well. I bet if the names allowed numbers and symbols their names would have been 2Sexy4U and <3Vixen or something.

The seven other members of our guild arrived shortly after noon, hungry for food as well. Trying to start some small talk with the older members, I said, “I had expected to see you earlier, now that you don’t need to train in the morning anymore.”

“We’re still training,” Kira answered after a few seconds, when none of the other replied, “It might not gain us anything except for a little XP by now, but it’s a good way to train Meditation with the double regen buff. And we’re learning something more important. How to control our movements better and hone our instincts.”

“If you can call being poked with a stick honing your instinct,” Blaze muttered darkly.

The conversation sort of petered out like that. Sara— no Maid Marion, kept shifting her gaze from the other guild members to me, with a puzzled expression on her face. The silence was not a good one, so instead of trying to drag the old members into the conversation, I turned to Marion and Petals. Despite knowing the answer, I still asked “So how many times have you managed to run the Sewer Dungeon?”

“Only two times, take some doing when there’s only two of us, and Marion is so low levelled,” Petals answered, before quickly turning to Marion and said, “Not that it’s your fault.”

“It’s okay, I’m a noob,” Marion laughed, “Though I probably know more of the gaming terms than Ain— sorry, Robin. She has never been one to be playing games.”

“Which games did you play?” Ed asked with interest.

“Only the free ones, you know the old classics from the twentieth and twenty first century,” she answered with a smile that hinted of fond memory.

“Yuck, playing with a virtual keyboard and mouse. Not having the game react when you think about it, so crude,” Blaze complained.

“Growing up in an orphanage, it was all I had access to, not that Miss Elleby allowed us much time to watch movies or play games. She wanted us to read, she had these two old books from the twentieth century,” Marion said.

“Only two?” I asked with a frown. When I had been there she had a collection of well over a hundred books.

“Yeah, though she had more when I first got there, I think she’s selling them. Or maybe some bugs ate the paper,” Marion answered with a shrug.

“Paper? How barbaric, don’t they know how few trees that there are left?” Phil mumbled.

“They were printed a few hundred years ago, long before it became a rarity. Back before the large air scrubbing plants,” I said.

“How did you know that?” Marion asked suddenly.

“Well, I grew up in the same place you did.”

“No, impossible. You can’t be much more than a decade older than me, I would remember you,” Marion protested.

“I was lucky and was adopted when I was ten,” I said and remembered my parents with a smile.

“Oh. Well the world is certainly small,” she mumbled.

“Not that small sweetie,” Robin said, “He was the one that sent me to Miss Elleby when my parents kicked me out. But I didn’t know about his connection with her before yesterday.”

“Oh, so not only do I’ve to thank you for getting me out of that box, but also for introducing me to the love of my life,” Marion said with a large grin, especially the last part.

Blushing furiously, Robin protested, “Stop it.”

“But you’re so pretty when you blush,” her girlfriend teased.

“Anyway, we’re going to head out to grab materials, so pack it together,” Ed commanded.

“I’m going with you to the edge of the forest,” I informed him.

Looking at me suspiciously, “Why?”

“I need to find some poisonous plants, so I can try and make some poisons for Robin’s arrows.”

“Cool, what kind of poisons?” Robin immediately asked.

At the same time Kira queried, “Can I get some as well?”

“Sorry Kira, but it need to puncture the skin and enter the bloodstream,” I answered with a pointed look at her tonfas.

“Need to pick up some throwing knives,” she muttered loudly. Seeing that we overheard she quickly added, “When I got a free skill slot.”

“What kinds?” Robin prodded me in the side with a finger.

“Silence and Blindness poisons at the very least, and what else depends on what we find. But all of it depends on luck of course, I might fail a lot.”

“What’s a silence spell good for?” One-Eye asked.

“Abilities don’t require a verbal component for the most part, just intent. But spells on the other hand requires you to at least say the name out loud,” I explained.

“I just thought that was Blaze being annoying as usua—” One-Eye started.

Blaze took exception and protested, “I’m not annoying!”

“Anyway,” I said loudly, interrupting the discussion that was about to start. Giving both a stern look before I continued my explanation, “Since they require you to say out the name, a poison that takes away your voice is a good way to silence a wizard. At least in the low levels. As you get to higher tiers, it becomes harder to suppress a mage’s powers.”

“Interesting,” One-Eye muttered. With that out of the way, we quickly packed up and left for our daily trip to harvest lumber, sour joys and hopefully some poisonous plants.

The trip had been successful, but not so for the subsequent dive in the Rabbit Warren. The Rabbit Warren had been without any further time dilation, but that was to be expected with a 50% chance of that happening. We had ended up in the plains, meaning I had nothing to do but butchering rabbits. At least I got some XP and a few more rabbit’s feet.

It was a completely different story for the trip to the forest edge. While I did not manage to get as many sour joys as normal, I did manage to get my hands on some oleander, but no wolfsbane.

We had also been set upon by a trio of wolves, all level fourteen. If not for Kira kiting one of the wolves, and Ed burning three manastones to summon an earth elemental to be off tank, whenever the previous elemental died, we would probably all have died. In the end they succeeded, though One-Eye nearly bit the dust again. It was easy to see that his instincts had become better honed since the first time they logged in.

The rest of the day had passed without anything noteworthy happening. The trip to feed the poor went off without any interruptions. Phil’s statuettes was still well received, and I saw a few of the older kids playing wargames with them. None of them, not even Firan who was immensely curious, mentioned that I had not been there the day before.

There was one point that prevented me from staying though, and that was that Lady Dust was trailing me. She had been observing me the entire time I was cooking. I really wanted to work on my poison and try to make another Lucky Charm, but not with her looking over my shoulder. That meant I only had one option: The Crafter Society.

Making my way to the south, next to the auction warehouse, I entered another warehouse, only a bit smaller than the auction warehouse. It was the crafting hall where you could rent space to work. One silver an hour for the shared space, and one gold an hour for a private crafting room. Without too much of a grumble, I paid the attendant and received the key for a private room. The value of the charms was worth it. The Lucky Charm I was using had no standard value, but was worth at least ten platinum at auction.

There were three projects I intended to finish while in the crafting room. Making another Lucky Charm, crafting poisons and butchering the three wolves. I would not be able to finish all three tasks, the wolves would simply take too long to butcher. So I focused on the others.

First up was the hopefully new Lucky Charm. The percentages for succeeding had not increased much, except for the one percent provided by the Lucky Charm. Drawing out the diagram did not take long, and I already had the extra manastone needed. Placing the six rabbit’s feet in the diagram, I almost started channeling the spell.

It was then that I remembered that the powder needed thirty minutes in the cauldron before I could use it. To save time and be efficient, I quickly set that up. Firestone in the alchemical cauldron, the alcohol and powder in it. It would need half an hour to be done, plenty of time for me to finish with Greater Transmutation.

Turning my attention back to the diagram I finally started channeling, and pulled up the overlay.

Rabbit Foot Charm

Greater Transmutation Level: 0

Recipe Used: No

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Combined Crafting Points: 90

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 65%

Flawed - 22%

Success - 11%

Exceptional - 2%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base Experience: 90 XP

Mana Cost: 45

The one percent increase meant that Flawed Success got a two percent increase. It also meant I had a total of 3% less chance of failing, but alas it mattered not.

>You’ve finished trasmutating: Rabbit Foot Charm.<

>Rolling for outcome: 48.<

>You’ve Failed. Awarding 32 Greater Transmutation XP.<

It felt like someone had cut the strings holding me up, I almost crumbled like a marionette without strings. Sure I had managed to gather more rabbit’s feet since I had created my Lucky Charm, but that was changing. Trophies only dropped if your skill were 5 or less level above the creature you were butchering. With my newly promotion to Butchery level 8 meant that I no longer would get the feet from level 1 and 2 rabbits. Normally that was. Thanks to the Lucky Charm I still had a 1% chance, but it would still get harder in the future to get the feet.

Hating the RNG, I sat down meditating, to recover my mana, the only thing that could be recovered from that spectacular failure. Not only had I lost six rabbit’s feet, I had also lost six manastones. All for a measly 32 XP. It sucked big time, but it would be like that until I got it levelled up.

I tried to shake the failure off me, and started grinding the dried mushroom and oleander, in preparation of exploding potion bottles. When the liquid was done, I tried to create my first poison, one based on the oleander flower with very poor quality. Because there was a possibility of levelling up, I chose to use the worst quality first.

I was going to make five attempts to craft the poison with the very poor oleander.

Dizzy Poison

Alchemy Level: 2

Recipe Used: No

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Lowest Quality: Very Poor

Highest Quality: Poor

Combined Crafting Points: 15

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 10

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 43%

Flawed - 36%

Success - 18%

Exceptional - 3%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base experience: 50 XP

The first potion exploded in my hand, but the second was an Exceptional Success. With great enthusiasm I started familiarizing myself with the new area of poison making.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Dizzy Poison

19

Effect #1

Duration

Strength

Effect #2

Dizziness

1 second

1

100 to Unlock

Another effect? From what I had read it would probably be vomiting or damage. Since it cost too much to increase the strength, the only thing I could do was invest my points in duration. It cost me five points per extra second, meaning as long as I got a Success with this combination of materials, it would be just as good. The poison I ended up with had five uses, lasted four seconds and was worth ten silver. Probably more like a gold or more if I sold to the players.

The strength of the poison must refer to the level of Poison Resistance needed to have a chance to withstand the poison, or the strength of the spell or potion used to cure the poison. Poison Resistance was a skill, but unlike most skills the resistance skills required special trainers to learn. There were also spells that could emulate the effects of the skill.

I continued to finish the first batch of dizzy poison, which resulted in a single Success and two more exploding bottles. It made me happy that I had chosen to up my Vitality the last time I levelled up. Next was a batch of five brown-eyed cup, also of the very poor quality persuasion.

Blindness Poison

Alchemy Level: 2

Recipe Used: No

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Lowest Quality: Very Poor

Highest Quality: Poor

Combined Crafting Points: 15

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 10

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 43%

Flawed - 36%

Success - 18%

Exceptional - 3%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base experience: 50 XP

The first potion exploded in my hand. Again. However, the next three were normal Successes, followed by a Flawed Success. I discovered a pattern, it seemed that all poisons had five uses, and started with 1 second duration. Though the brown-eyed cup had no additional effects to unlock.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Blindness Poison

15

Effect #1

Duration

Strength

Blindness

1 second

1

The cost to increase the duration was the same, and the value of the poison was also the same. Except for the Flawed Success which only lasted 3 seconds and was worth seven silver and ten coppers, instead of ten silvers.

Trying the batch of 4 stammerstools next, I found it followed the same principles as the Blindness Poison, except that it caused muteness instead of blindness. And out of the four, I only managed to get one success. Afterwards I moved on to using some poor quality materials. Besides five extra crafting points, there were no difference.

When I finished crafting the 19th vial of poison, I got my level up in Alchemy and meaning that I was halfway to being a level 8 character. Happy, I started humming while finishing the last six portions of poison. Whether it was the humming or just the RNG being nice, I got a Success and an Exceptional Success on the next two poisons. It however turned out that the extra five crafting points the Exceptional Success provided was useless. Because once the duration hit 5 seconds, the cost to increase it had gone up. How much, I could not say for sure, but my guess would be it would cost 10 points to increase the duration from 5 to 6. It provided good XP though.

It was the last four attempts I was worried about, because I used below average quality material, it lowered my chances significantly.

Silencing Poison

Alchemy Level: 3

Recipe Used: No

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Lowest Quality: Poor

Highest Quality: Below Average

Combined Crafting Points: 25

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 56%

Flawed - 28%

Success - 14%

Exceptional - 2%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base experience: 50 XP

Whether it was because of nervousness, or my hand instinctively knew that it had a high chance of feeling pain, it started to tremble a bit. My luck continued though. First a success, followed by a Flawed Success. Like the Exceptional Success from earlier, I could not use the last five crafting points in the normal Success, so it ended up being just as good as the Flawed Success. My continued luck translated well into the last two attempts. A repeat of the two attempts I had just made, just a Dizzy Poison instead. A little miffed I wondered where that luck was earlier. Could definitely had used.

It had been a good haul though. I had gotten a skill level up, and the poisons I had created should make Robin happy for a while. All told, they were worth almost nine gold if sold directly to the vendor or Robin. If I was to sell it to the players outside the guild, maybe twenty gold. However, I was not ready to introduce poisons to the general populous of Blackport. Especially not while my reputation still was in tatters.

I reckoned it would die down in a few days, but right now it was just fresh in everyones’ mind. After leaving the crafting hall, I headed to the main square. Since I would be grinding the entire night, it was a good place to work. Only downside was that I could not light a fire and make more glue. At least I could grind the bones and prepare for the next day. More importantly though, it had guards stationed there around the clock. Meaning that someone had to have a deathwish if they wished to off me.

After setting up my tables, I started in on the wolves. It had been a tough one to price in contribution points, in the end I only gave 100 for each, or the equivalent of five silvers. Sure their pelt might be worth something, and they had a lot of bones and meat, but besides that, they did not provide anything else. Well they did provide some blood, but it was from a non-magical creature, so it was not worth anything really. Except if used for blood sausage, but I did not have the other ingredients for that. So if I got the blood, I would empty it into my water barrel, which I would then empty into the sewer. The slimes down there needed something to do until they got slaughtered.

I would most likely be losing money, but the amount of XP they provided at the moment was very attractive. When I pulled out the wolf and started butchering it, it did draw more than a little attention, but no one commented or approached. Well they might have commented, but not what I could hear.

Forest Wolf

Carcass Level: 14

Butchery Level: 8

Carcass Size: 4

Effect of Butcher Knife Set: +1%

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Quality based of Skill Tier: Below Average

Chance of Higher Quality: 0%

Chance of Lower Quality: 10%

Possible Loot

6 kilograms of bones - 95%

6 pieces of wolf meat - 85%

2 liters of wolf blood - 70%

6 extra pieces of wolf meat - 55%

6 extra pieces of wolf meat - 45%

6 extra pieces of wolf meat - 35%

1 forest wolf pelt - 25%

Base experience: 560 XP

Stamina Cost: 120

It took me almost an hour to skin all three of them. The first one took the longest, because I had to figure out how to separate the pelt from the meat. Unlike the rabbit, I could not just peel it off. Several times I considered stopping and going to the Butcher to ask for advice, but in the end I remained stubborn and persevered. Two of them provided everything, while the last only left out the pelt. However, the most amazing thing was the 2884 XP to my Butchery skill.

The pelt was worth a pretty silver, well three of them actually. Meaning that if a wolf provided everything it was worth a total of 90 coppers, ten less than what I paid for it. That was without including the blood, so it might actually be worth a bit more. All things considered I thought I might start offering a bounty on five silvers for wolves. Would not pay a whole lot of extra for each level above a certain threshold, even if the higher levelled done brought more XP. They simply did not have enough value compared to what I was putting into them.

With the three important tasks of the night done, I settled in for a long night of grinding, but I was interrupted by Ed coming to find me. It surprised me a bit to be frank. When he stepped up to me, he looked at me for a moment, “We need a word in private.”

Looking around, I saw a nearby guard and asked him if he would mind looking after my stuff, while I was gone for a minute or two. He gave a grunt that I took as accept.

“Well, let’s step into your office then,” I said in a lame attempt to be funny. All it earned was a headshake, before he started walking to the inn. Following him inside, he led me up to a room, probably his for the night.

“Okay, let’s say that you’re fro—” Ed started.

Quickly interrupting him, in case that someone was recording this now that I had been accused of cheating and hacking, I said, “We know what I claim.”

He gave me a measuring look, before nodding. “Fine, let’s assume your sources are correct. What class do you think I should take?”

“You just hit level ten?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Congrats. Let me just check something,” I said and quickly pulled up the interface. I wanted to see if someone had gained a class in Blackport yet. They had not. While a first in the city would be an okay achievement, there was already someone who had claimed it for the kingdom. There was also something else to consider, but for that I needed the answer to a question, “What is your Summon Elemental, Summoning Magic and Shared Senses level?”

“Fourteen, twelve and nine respectively. Why?”

“Do you think you could get all three of them up to level twenty before hitting level fifteen?”

He considered the answer for a minute before finally saying, “If I don’t focus on anything else, maybe. Why is it that it only requires six skill points to go from level ten to eleven?” he asked.

“Every ten level the requirement to next level is half of the level plus one. A soft reset to keep the skill point requirements manageable.”

“So from twenty to twenty one it requires eleven points?”

“Correct,” I said with a smile.

“Okay, so it requires forty points to reach level fifteen from level ten. That means in thirty nine points I need to gain twenty five of them to be in those specific skills. It’s not impossible, but going to be a bit of a grind,” he mused out loud, “Why do you want me to do that, and what does that have to do with my class?”

“If you can do it, you should be able to unlock a special class. Elemental Summoner, it’s a secret class, which means they’re stronger than the classes you got access to now.”

Considering it, he asked, “Is that like Aragoth’s Champion class?”

“No, that’s a hidden class. There are basically three tiers of classes. The basic ones that you can pick up with the guard, or the imperial soldiers. Then you got the hidden ones, like the Champion. It requires you to complete a quest chain and you can only obtain it from a select few NPCs. Then you got the secret ones. They’re granted by the Gods if you don’t have a class and fulfill certain requirements. The hidden and secret ones are about equally powerful,” I explained.

“So I could get a world’s first, if I pick that route?”

“Two, if you beat me to your class before I hit level ten. One for being the first Elemental Summoner and one for being the first to get a secret class,” I grinned.

He frowned at that, “So we’re in a competition?”

“If I could guarantee that you got it, I think I would. Despite us butting heads I believe that you’re the right man to lead our dungeon raids, but I can’t stop grinding my skills, and I get my class as soon as I hit level ten.”

“What class is that again?”

“Pacifist, it just requires me to not have gained any XP from killing or hurting sapient creatures.”

“So if you punch me, you’d lose the chance of getting the class?” he asked. I just nodded as a response. Then he switched gear, and asked, “If I don’t want to wait, what are my options?”

“There are different options. A general wizard or mage would be the basic choice. Which would allow you to branch out. From what you unlocked with the soldiers you could choose a Conjurer or a Summoner. The Summoner is focused on what you’re doing, while the Conjurer is more focused on summoning items instead of creatures.”

“What’s the difference between the Elemental Summoner and the Summoner?”

I needed a minute to think, “The Summoner can choose all kinds of summoning spells for his class skills, like Summon Woodland Creature or Summon Imp. The Elemental Summoner restricts himself to Summon Elemental.”

“That sounds like a bad idea to wait then,” Ed commented with a frown.

“If it was someone other than you, I would agree,” I said. Seeing the confused look on his face, I continued, “You like how you can control the elementals pretty easily?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s the good thing about Shared Senses. But if I want them to do anything without micromanaging, I need to waste some of the summon points I get to assign when I summon. They need to be spent on Combat Instincts.”

“Yeah, it might seem like a waste, but it’s one of the good things about Summon Elemental compared to the other summon spells. You get to design the elemental when you summon it, decide which skills and abilities to invest in. You don’t get that with the other summon spells, and at some point in time, you can actually control the elemental as if it was your own body with Shared Senses.”

At that information he frowned, “Okay, I see your point. But the micromanaging is hard. When I’ve to give orders to the others as well. I can’t do that while in Shared Senses.”

“Not yet, when you go up a tier, you can choose if you want to hear or speak in addition to see. Or even feel if you want. When you become a Master with the spell you can do all four things at the same time. At grand master you can possess the body, making it even easier to control. You can’t do that with most other summoned creatures, because they got a will of their own,” I explained, hoping he would go for the Elemental Summoner. It would attract attention, but so would me becoming a Pacifist, but it was a powerful class in the right hands.

“I need to think about it,” he finally said.

“Sure thing, it’s your choice. If you choose one of the other classes you’re sure to get one extra upgrade point for being the first to pick a class in Blackport,” I said before leaving the room and the inn. I was happy to see that nothing had been stolen in the time I had been gone. When I apologized for my tardiness to the guard, he just gave me another grunt. Chuckling I started on the grinding that had been interrupted.