Linus woke up to find that Archie had replaced Luke on watch duty at some point during the night. They exchanged nods but didn’t say anything else, waiting for Luke to wake up and give them instructions. While waiting Linus pulled up all the repressed notifications from the previous day, glad to see all the hard and distasteful work had paid off.

Sneaking has increased (8/10). Plant Lore has increased (18/20). Sneak Attack has increased (2/10). Sneaking has increased (9/10). Blades has increased (3/5). Sneak Attack has increased (3/10). Blades has increased (4/5). Minor Regeneration has increased (4/20). Leadership has increased (7/10).

Plenty of increases in all his [Amatuer Rogue] related skills, hopefully he’d be able to max out [Blades] and then pull it into the class during its next evolution. Then he pulled up his full status to see how he was doing with all his classes and skills.

Status Name: Linus Class Slots: 6/7 Tiers: Top - 2, Total - 9 Classes and Skills Gardener (Tier 2) Plant Mage (Tier 2) Life Mage (Tier 2) Plant Lore (18/20) Growth (18/20) Heal (4/20) Precision Pruning (15/20) Enrich (9/20) Invigorate (9/20) Germination (4/20) Mana Manipulation (11/20) Minor Regeneration (4/20) Improved Yield (12/20) Mutation (4/20) Noble Progeny Amateur Alchemist Amateur Rogue Leadership (7/10) Extract (9/10) Sneaking (9/10) Concentrate (5/10) Sneak Attack (3/10) Non-Class Skills Napping (5/5) Persuasion (5/5) Writing (2/5) Repartee (5/5) Mental Resistance (5/5) Analyze (5/5) Arcane Lore (5/5) Inebriation (5/5) Mana Blade (5/5) Altered State (5/5) Increase Potency (4/5) Blades (4/5)

While his recently acquired [Life Mage] class needed a lot of skill increases before it would be eligible for evolution the rest of his classes were all nearing that point. Heck even [Leadership] in his neglected [Noble Progeny] class had leveled up, not that it mattered since he likely wouldn’t have any evolutions available, not being his father’s designated heir or having an independent title. By the time he was done reviewing all his stats and musing about potential future classes Luke had woken up.

“Morning Linus and Archie. Any signs of pursuit while I was asleep?”

“None that I’ve seen, hopefully we lost them with the efforts last night.” Archie responded.

“So what’s our plan for next steps?” Linus joined in.

“Well the way I see it is we have three options. First and what I recommend is we get our bearings and continue on foot until we make it to the outpost. It’ll be rough going for a bit without our equipment, we’ll need to forage and hunt as we travel, but it sticks to our plan. Second is we double back to the town we left, from there we may be able to secure more supplies depending on our money situation and alert the local authorities to the bandit camp. If we can afford horses we’ll have to wait for the camp to be cleared or else risk ambush again.” Luke hesitated, prompting Linus to ask.

“And the third option?”

“We return to the camp ourselves, systematically pick them off until they are all gone or flee into the night. Either way we’ll likely be able to recover our supplies and then some from their stockpile.”

“So the options are walking forever and potentially starving, going backwards, wasting all our money and having to wait, or risk life and limb to fight a bunch of lowlifes and get on with our lives?”

“Pretty much.”

“Sir, may I just point out they have all your alchemy equipment, seeds, plant clippings and yeast. Assuming we even have enough money for horses and food we definitely won’t be able to replace those items.” Archie finally chimed in.

“Shit,” muttered Linus. “It looks like we are going to be busy killing some bandits, besides that bookie has it coming. No honor anymore.” Luke sighed as Archie nodded along. It was going to be a couple of long and bloody days.

The next several hours were spent discussing strategy, skills and backup plans. Their first goal was to get their hands on a bow and quiver full of arrows for Luke. Without his main weapon he was significantly constrained in the skills he could bring down on the bandits. They also planned to try intercepting patrols and sentries to whittle down the numbers before they even approached the camp again. None of them were frontline fighters so ambushes, traps and ranged attacks were their friends. Archie would provide support with the throwing knives and run interference with the stolen sword while Linus would start off acting as a rogue before transitioning into a healer role to keep them all alive.

The last thing Linus did before they headed back towards the bandit was review his available classes. He had one free slot left and would feel dumber than his brothers if he died with it unfilled if he had anything that could have saved him. The majority of his available classes were useless for their current circumstances or no longer had a skill available for them to be formed with. In fact he only had one combat adjacent class he could pick.

Apprentice Blood Mage A class focused on blood based healing and manipulation skills. Primarily self healing with added combat prowess. Warning! Original class skill no longer available, please select from alternate available skill(s).

While he had never seen this type of message before he had heard weird options became available as you picked up classes previously rejected or combined classes later on. Undeterred he viewed the alternate skills.

Alternate Skills Available - Pick up to two Heal (Life Mage) - selection may damage current class Minor Regeneration (Life Mage) - selection may damage current class Mana Manipulation (Plant Mage) - selection may damage current class Mutation (Plant Mage) - selection may damage current class Altered State (N/A) - skill may adjust to new class Napping (N/A) - skill may adjust to new class

Immediately Linus ruled out the first two. Damage to current class sounded ominous and crippling their only healing class before entering into what was practically a suicide mission was a hard no. The next two were tempting, [Mana Manipulation] would probably give him [Blood Manipulation] or something similar and who knows what [Mutation] would end up as, but again the damage to current class stayed his hand. As for the other two he was a bit confused on how they qualified for the class but both were skills he was willing to lose for improved odds at survival. Decided he selected [Altered State] and [Napping] then accepted the new class.

Apprentice Blood Mage Accepted! Altered State becomes Blood State. Warning may result in reduced skill levels Napping becomes Recovery Coma. Warning may result in reduced skill levels

Fuck, he should have expected skill level loss but he didn’t and what the heck was with these new skills? He’d never heard of either, quickly pulling both up to investigate.

Blood State (Active) (1/10) Able to transform part of body into blood. Extent of transformation increases and cost decreases with level. Recovery Coma (Active/Passive) (1/10) At will, or against will when heavily injured, slip into a coma. Greatly increases healing rate while in coma, rate increased and duration decreased with level and available blood. Warning! - completely unresponsive while in coma.

Whelp it was pretty much the worst case possible, both had dropped to level 1 and neither of them looked helpful for combat. [Blood State] could be really useful but sounded like it would need levels and a steep learning curve before it could be applied, meanwhile [Recovery Coma] definitely helped his survivability but only if it happened after all the enemies were dead and his friends could drag him off to safety. Plus if he went into a coma he wouldn’t be able to heal either of them.

“Hey guys, just a heads up I accepted a new class. It doesn’t really change our strategy but the skills are weird adaptations and one of them could complicate things. If I get too damaged I’ll slip into a coma, so before I forget take these wound treatment powder and pain reducer pills I made. Also even if it looks like I may be dead, please don’t bury me and if possible don’t leave me behind.” Silence met Linus’ announcement, Archie and Luke exchanging glances to see who wanted to go first. Archie gestured with his hand, as if to say by all means go ahead.

“What kind of idiot picks a completely new class with alternate skills right before going into combat? I cannot believe you are the Duke’s son! That was reckless and stupid and I can only hope it doesn’t end up biting us all in the ass.” Luke yelled at Linus.

“Not your best idea sir” Archie flatly added.

“Well I’m sorry but I was hoping for a bit more combat power. Currently we have a Ranger without a bow, a butler without even a combat adjacent class and me pretending to be a healer and a rogue at the same time.”

“So your plan was to add more to the mix? With a brand new class with [Amateur Rogue] and a newly evolved one with [Life Mage]? I get your point but it was the wrong choice.” Luke responded.

“I guess I didn’t think it through.”

“I guess you didn’t. Now let's hear the exact details of the new class and skills then review our whole plan to see how they may impact it.” Everyone sighed at that, including Luke himself.