Chapter 9: Gear

"Warrior!" I answer my anxious-looking parents. "I want to learn the Warrior class!" I say with determination. They're quite concerned with the first class I take because any other subsequent class will be influenced by the first class I learn. For example, if I learned the smith class first before learning the warrior class, there's a chance that the future advancements of the warrior class will be limited to how I specialize the smith class. Of course, like everything else in life, there are exceptions.

I've thought about what class I wanted to take in the past few days. Information online about classes and their requirements are incredulously scarcer than I expected. However, I did manage to gather a bit of information from it.

To get a class, one must complete a set of tasks that are related to that class and its purpose. Warriors need to learn how to survive and fight. Mages learn about magic and all things associated. Archers are all about hunting and supporting. Craftsmen are naturally required to make stuff. I've also read about there being a Mentalist class too and they practice psionic stuff like mind reading and whatnot.

The tasks are dependent on the individual, meaning my tasks are not necessarily the same as another’s. They can be similar though. Almost all classes are a stemmed from these basic classes, apart from those born from unique classes which is an entirely different tree.

The world has a mentality about affinities, so information about classes isn’t really scientific. I picked warrior because of my skill, but to be honest it can be used with any of the classes. But I also have my that would make it less scary to be in close range. I’ll be getting more than one class anyway, I have six years to waste before school so getting another class or two should be fine.

Dad sighs in relief and mom smiles at me before caressing my cheek, "Then we'll do all we can to help you become the best warrior in the city." Huh, I kinda expected them to be concerned or nervous since it's kind of a dangerous profession? I guess I'm still not used to the common sense of this world.

"So then, do you want to learn under me? Or do you want to take an apprenticeship somewhere? We can look for one we can trust, son." He looks calm but I can see his feet tapping from anxiousness.

"I want to learn from you, dad." I've thought about this one too, it's honestly easier to just learn from him. "Dad already knows my skills, plus learning from him would be less risky for my skill."

He sighed and looked relieved before freezing after hearing mom's giggle and smirk. "*cough* Then we'll perform the oath of apprenticeship."

The oath of apprenticeship is not some fancy thing like a ritual or ceremony with sacrifices and whatnot, it's really simple. He takes out his plate, like the one I got from my awakening. It looks quite a lot different though, seemingly made out of glass with a black tint. It's the first time I've seen it. Mom notices and answers my curiosity.

"Your plate will be changed to a different material when you rank up, Cas, that's why dad has a crystal card and you still have the lowest one which is wood. It goes wood, then stone, then metal, then crystal." She explains and then shows me her card as well, which has the same features. "Mine is crystal too Cas" She smiles proudly pushing her chest up with pride. So they're like the topmost rank I guess? Maybe that’s why they can still kill me instantly even after getting an upgrade on my skin.

"The colour also represents your strongest class, whether it's as a combatant or not. It's coloured black if you're combatant, and white if you're a non-combatant. There's also grey if it can't be classified as either of those."

I nod in understanding and take out my boring wooden plate. I glance at it in disappointment. I'll get one of those fancy crystal plates someday...

The oath is basically making your plates touch before thinking about the terms of your agreement. Apprenticeship is a special kind of quest, one where the Obelysk, or whatever generates the windows, helps with determining the tasks for the quest. Normal quests are also like that, but the rewards, punishments, and tasks are determined by both sides.

Reward(s):

Warrior Class

Apprenticeship

You have taken apprenticeship under Julius Newton, born of the D'varf race, who will guide you with the necessary steps to obtain the Warrior class.

Punishment(s):

None Task(s):

Hidden Progress:

None

Huh, so that's how it looks like. It's the first time I've seen a quest window, but I know they exist. I've asked my parents about what the windows are and who makes them, but no one really knows. The main theory is that it comes from the celestial stones like the Obelysk. At the end of the day, they said it's just an auxiliary tool for us to survive better but we should not make it a necessity. It's really useful though. I can't imagine how easier life would've been in the previous world if I had this.

"We start tomorrow, I'll have to get the stuff we need for your training. We'll have to first find out what kind of warrior you will have the most affinity with. Get a good rest for today's son." I nod and for the rest of the day, I did nothing but laze around and playing with my skills. The and is amazingly powerful, but I get tired after 10 minutes of using it.

[A week later]

"*pant pant* Can *pant* Can we rest for a bit? *pant*"

"We'll stop here today. Let's wait for mom to bring us lunch here." I don't bother to reply and just hobbled over to the side where a jug of water and some towels are prepared. He's been training me for a week now. Well, I say 'training' loosely, all I've learned essentially is how to get beat up. It’s just my annoyance talking though, actually, I’ve learned a lot of stuff so far. And it’s only been a week.

Since the first day about a week ago he wakes me up at around sunrise and feeds me this hard bar of different types of rocks smashed together, kinda like a breakfast bar. And when I say hard, it's HARD. That's coming from me who literally eats rocks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Anyway, after that, we run for an hour or so around different parts of the city, introducing me to different places and landmarks which will be quite useful. Hospitals, clinics, malls, markets, guardian stations, and a few more. I don’t know why they have this much though, the tower’s pretty packed with the same services.

Then we go towards this warehouse-like building that's around the size of 3 basketball courts. Inside is just a grey room, with pillars supporting the ceiling and a circular arena in the middle of it and various facilities on the sides. There's equipment scattered all around the arena, different kinds of wooden weapons here and there.

He gives me a new weapon every other day. Like on the first day he gave me a sword then showed me all the basic slashes and stabs and blocks which I then mirrored the best I can. He also shows me footwork and stances and all that combat stuff. I learned a bit from self-defence class back on earth, but that feels like a lifetime ago.

The next day we move onto sparring lessons, mom stands on the side to cheer me on and also for emergencies. At first, I was afraid of hitting him and pulled back my slashes and stabs, but then he noticed it and told me to attack his arm full force. He said we won’t continue until I do as he said, so I slashed downwards as hard as I can. The wooden sword broke in two without him flinching. My hand hurts though, but from then on I never pulled back my attacks.

The day after sparring he gives me a new weapon, and we do the cycle all over again. I've already asked him why we're doing this and he told me, "We need to know what type of warrior you're a natural at.". As I said before, this world has a mentality of affinities. Today was the training day for a Scimitar, we've been going through one-handed blades since last week. If we have to go through all the types of weapons available then we'll be doing this for months.

Ughhhhhh I thought this would be more exciting.

[POV Julius]

My son is a genius.

Basic classes take a long time to learn because of tasks like this. Tasks like surviving in a specific environment for a set amount of time, or creating an unbelievable amount of ingots, or even just eight-hour meditation sessions every day for half a year. Currently, his task is to try out every weapon we can until we find his ‘weapon’. This is quite a common task for warriors because almost every warrior has a weapon most compatible with them. There are cases where a warrior has more than one weapon. This would be taken into account though, as the task will not be completed before discovering all of them.

My son, however, is breezing through weapons like the wind. What would normally take a kid more than half a week to learn, he takes a day. Enough to be able to spar only using the basics. However, it feels… off. He does everything perfectly like how I showed him, and his instincts are not bad. Maybe it’s inexperience? I guess no matter how much of a genius a person is, they’ll still be nothing without it.

He needs to be stronger, the incident with the mysterious stone and his skill are both amazing. This doesn’t bode well for the future, his destiny would contain an unbelievable burden if fate decided that he obtain these skills this early. This world strives for eventual balance, fortune and tragedy go hand in hand. Plunged in darkness, it spawned the different deific stones that grant us access to the Status Screen. This gave us an edge, and quite a powerful one at that which eventually led us to turn the tides. However, at the cusp of victory, dungeons popped up and more powerful monsters appeared to balance the scale once again. Like this, his fortune will possibly end up turning in the future.

I will make him stronger. I will protect him until he gains the strength to do so himself!

I lower my stance and put the spear in my hand in front of me, unyielding to whatever obstacles the future will throw towards us. "Five minutes are up son, ready yourself."

[3 months later]

"Haahh... that's the last one right?" Cas looks at me while sitting on the ground. We've gone through all of the general types of weapons: one-handed, two-handed, dual-wielded, polearms, gauntlets, and even chain weapons. There are also times we finish testing a weapon in a day due to it being similar to a weapon we’ve covered before.

"Yes, but we st-"

He suddenly lays down flat on the ground, thrusts his fists up in the air, and shouts "FINALLY!!!!!!". I might have overworked him a bit due to my eagerness... but he did finish the first part in less than half the time it took me. But... there's a problem.

*ahem* I cough to grab his attention. He turns towards me with a questioning gaze and I look towards him, troubled to tell him the truth. "As I was saying, you will have a week's long rest after this. Resting well is also an important skill for warriors. I have no tasks for you until next week so make sure to enjoy this free time."

[POV Cas]

"I'm so boooreeddd!!!" I miss my truck... maybe I could get a mechanic class or something and I could design trucks? Carriages are getting sleeker and sleeker but at the end of the day, they're still carriages, just more aerodynamic. Maybe I could revolutionize the automobile industry someday…. I let my thoughts wander due to my boredom. I can't believe I actually miss getting beat up every day. I guess getting beat up does sound better than having nothing to do for days. I can't even practice skills since Dad says 'Rest' all the time. But I do sneak some since doing chores slowly sucks.

Mom sits on the couch I'm laying on and caresses my cheek. "Awww if you're so bored why don't you help me with the shopping?" I sit up and ran upstairs to grab my hoodie. I still can't do that thing Mom does, where she can telekinetically grab something out of a different room. She says I’ll eventually learn it for sure because we have the same intuition enhancement and that's apparently important for that technique.

We walk for half an hour towards a town marketplace. It’s like this open market that has a lot of different stalls selling different stuff. There’s a plethora of different stuff here, mostly food and necessities. And at last, I finally saw where mom and dad buys the rocks I munch on every day. It’s like this emporium of rocks, each shelf populated with various types of boulders and pebbles labelled with the names, nutrients, origin, and the price. I don’t bother learning the names as they’re too long-winded. I just name them in my mind depending on their taste. So I bought a lot of bacon and pancake rocks. Well, Mom bought them, but still.

We also went to a gadget place, where she showed me different kinds of interesting technologies. There's the phone one we have, the anti-spying tech, a floating board to carry stuff with like luggage or materials, and a lot more. And apparently, mom bought me here to buy headphones, which was getting popular recently.

The headphones are awesome and they go well with my hoodie. Mom’s are smooth, sleek and bright yellow, and mine look rocky and crystalline and are coloured matte grey. While it can play music like a normal pair of headphones, it’s amazing feature is that it has . By emitting a low and almost imperceptible hum, the telepathic wave of music or audio can piggyback on it to produce music directly in the mind’s ear. It’s also wireless and rechargeable through the plate or charging boards.

Man, this thing really is a universal battery, no wonder they didn't buy me any gadgets before turning six. Although, I suppose no good parent would do that anyway. Actually shouldn't it be a bit too early for six-year-olds to get a phone?

We head home and take care of the groceries before dad comes back. We have dinner and I go to bed shortly after. Before falling asleep, I check my status screen.

Status!

Name: Castiel Newton

Race: D'varf / Efir’esh

Titles: Julius' Apprentice

Otherworlder

Bearer of Blessings

[email protected]$##$! Eater

Classes: None(Shown)

Status: Healthy

Physical: 79F

Endurance: 62F Mind: 7E

Magic: 47F

Traits

Semi-earthen Physiology Lv 21

[Material Transmutation]

Aetherial Manipulation Lv 13

[Force]

Sensory Enhancement(Ocular, Intuition) Lv 4

[Ocular - Status | Intuition - Magic]

Skills(Active)

Accelerate Lv 5

[Body Acceleration | Mind Acceleration]

Minor Telepathy Lv 9

Getting beat up is a good way to train your endurance, not a pleasant way though. I kinda neglected my skills, it wasn’t allowed during sparring. I did use whenever dad told me to practice alone... no one was watching anyway. I continue my reverie while listening to some music before getting called downstairs for dinner.

The training break ends tomorrow! I wonder what the next task is? I put on my headphones and listen to some music before falling asleep.

[POV Julius]

"I didn't anticipate that this would be a problem." I hold my head in my hands as I explain to my wife. "We can't find his affinity, it's like he doesn't have one!."

"What do you mean? I've watched your spars, he's learned the basics quickly and perfectly, right? You even said he's an unprecedented genius because he learns the basics within the span of a day, enough to be able to put up a fight with someone his level. How can he have no affinity?"

"That's the problem! His affinity with every weapon we've done was far too consistent, it was practically the same with every single one. I noticed it before but I thought it was because he was just a genius, but every single one of the moves is mechanical. Like a machine was doing them instead." I put my head between my hands in frustration.

I feel her hugging me and caressing my back. "Hmmm… maybe don’t teach him the basics and instead go ahead to sparring?."

“We’re out of weapons to test! I’ve made him test every melee weapon I know, the damn task is still not done!”

“Then it might be a weapon you don’t know. He’s fast, Julius. Trust him to find what he needs.”

"But how's he going to get through the trial like that? What if he chooses the wrong weapon?"

"I just told you, you have to trust him."

"*sigh* I just want what's best for him you know..."

"I know, I want the same too, Julius. But when you went through your trial, didn't you also know what's best for you? Trust him to know when the time comes too."

"...you're right Phen." I kiss her forehead. "Thank you."

"Anytime, you fragile pebble." She giggles and we go to sleep in each other's arms. I will make him stronger.