Going back to the currently weak and crying princess I whispered into her ear, “I can help you but it will cost you everything.” Ahe stopped crying and just stared at me.

“So does that mean you are a devil or was it some corny attempt at a proposal?” Realising my words could very well be misconstrued I replied with words I regret to this day “I would be a pretty pathetic demon if I had to hide from you in a cave and as for a proposal, maybe if you grew a few inches.”

I began reciting a bullshit tale, "An old dracon summoning me to read an ancient book written by someone in the fourth layer. The book contained an in-depth study of classes and items and that the old man was dumb enough to leave me alone with it, so I destroyed it after memorizing it." I explained that because he wanted the knowledge he did not kill me but instead seal me in that cave hoping I would eventually break and tell him what he wanted and finished the story with the fact he never returned.

The princess looked at me as if I was a moron "You expect me to believe someone needed you to read a book?"

I replied with as much fake honesty as I could muster, "It was blood bound to humans from a particular bloodline." Seeing as she was still viewing me as a fool, I asked her if she had any identification ability.

"Of cause I do!" When she admitted it I slightly changed my Ki pattern to allow her to view some basic information. Upon seeing my level and strength stat she was stunned. Time moved slowly as she did the maths before she finally accepted my story and asked for help. I made her swear a death oath that she would never reveal what I was going to teach her.

Deciding to exploit this opportunity and help her at the same time I chose the Witch of Curses class. This class like my Resurrection Seed class was of pheonixian design. There were several such backup classes designed to allow a pheonixian to gain power even in a world without both dragon and phoenix bloodlines. The Witch of Curses class was particularly beneficial as it had access to potions and poisons I could not make myself.

The next several hours were incredibly painful, for her. I watched on as she performed the de-levelling ritual a total of twenty one times. Every time she would lapse into unconsciousness I would wake her up so it could begin again. "This fucking hurts!" she swore as she regained consciousness for the twelfth time. "You must be enjoying watching me suffer?" To which I replied, "Just a little." Only as she reached level one did I let her succumb to blissful slumber.

While the princess slept I began weaving her a wreath and making a new batch of potions needed for my next trail. If I was going to have to suffer it, was nice to have some company. The only reason I had enough materials was my natural disposition to horde anything listed by identify as semi-rare or higher and I was carrying hundreds of herbs, over a thousand of mana crystals, multiple pouches of powders and at least 30 vials of potions.

Some of you might be wondering where the hell I was hiding all this? Well, I know space magic and can craft things. Anyone in my situation would make a storage bag as soon as they were able. My bag, in particular, was of phoenix design and was not limited by size or mass. As long as a person had the required mana they could store or retrieve any item. The only downside was the mana cost scaled with size and weight making it a tool used only by those with a massive mana pool.

The princess awoke and realised upon seeing me that she was not waking up from some horrible nightmare, but that the nightmare was unfortunately reality. After gathering herself she asked, "what’s next?" I handed her an unfinished the wreath. "Take this and coat it in a mix of your blood and mana crystal power."

"Why?" I had a smug smile and slight laugh as I retorted "Because it is a wreath of growth, it will double any stats you gain before level five."

Her eyes widened upon understanding this was the same flower wreath that she had laughed at back in the cave. Seeing as I still needed some items to complete her class ritual we headed to the East, into the Narith dynasty and towards a mid-level danger zone.

It was somewhat dangerous bringing a level one elf into a dracon danger zone with monsters averaging level 30 but after using the goblin dungeon core to fashion a second disguise pendant and teaching her the somewhat less effective mana version of my Ki shielding she appeared to be a level fifteen female dracon. The difference between the mana and Ki versions of the information shielding is that the Ki version, once set up becomes a natural part of its flow while the mana version must be maintained through concentration. Similar to the difference between a passive and active ability.

After three weeks of travelling with the princess bared from levelling, we arrived at our destination. The trip was long and boring with the princess normally acting like a mute combined with us both actively avoiding people and marching from dawn to dusk. It was obvious that despite the princess reaching out for help, she did not want to be in this situation and was still dealing with grief. I, unfortunately, couldn't help as neither my previous like or the pheonixian knowledge included a psychology 101 course. The best I could do was provide a safe place to rest and some hot food while ignoring her occasional angry outburst.

Even the landscape we passed was nothing of note. Consisting of the same open fields, purple forests and red corn that was found in the south. It appeared that unlike my home planet with ice caps and a tropical belt, this entire planet was a constant climate. This made it perfect for growing rare plants but caused a distinct lack of biodiversity. I understood that mana could either stabilise or exaggerate the climate of a planet but knowing and seeing were two different things.

Unlike the earlier danger zones, there was no town located at the forest entrance only a sign warning people of the danger lurking beyond. This zone was known for one reason and it was the exact reason we decided to risk it, almost every creature found here was poisonous. Entering the forest it became clear it was different from any other I had encountered so far. The normal purple trees gave way to a dark green variant with a thick canopy and vines littering the branches. "fFucking snake!" I screamed. If it was not for identify I would have walked straight into a Tree Serpent pretending to be a vine not even five steps from the edge.

After relieving the reptile of its head I placed its corpse in storage. It would make a decent component for the ritual since the primary ingredient in the Witch of Curses transformation was a poison concoction strong enough to kill the person in one second. If it was too weak the ritual would fail and the drinker would die while if it was too strong the user would die before the ritual could begin. It was a delicate balance with death on either side. Luckily the pheonixian version of identify could confirm the poison damage perfectly.

After finding a few more decently levelled poisonous creatures we retreated to a clearing outside of the area. Upon setting up the ritual and concocting the poison the princess became nervous. "Are you SURE I need to drink a combination of deadly poisons to get this, ever so important class?" Confirming with me for the fifth time I replied with the same answer I gave the other four, "Why would I drag you halfway across the continent just to poison you to death in a forest?" After a long pause where it seemed she was going to ask again I preempted, "Just get in the circle and drink the dam poison!" She reluctantly took her place within the circle and drank the poison.

She immediately fell to the ground as the circle came to life. Vibrant lights of purple, blue and green swirled around her. The pale skin, worn from worry and travel slowly gained a subtle purple hue as it was restored to its original healthy glow. Her fingernails darkened to black and extended while a small green rose-like pattern formed on the back of one hand and a dark blue skull formed on the other. As the lights receded so too did the colourful changes. I understood from my knowledge that each one of these represented a skill that had been gained and it made me wonder just what appearance I had during my transformation especially considering mine somehow painted the entire clearing in a rain of blood.

Abusing the fact that she was unconscious I used a combination of mind magic and identify to view her stats.

Name

Emily Von Silva

Age

21

Level

1

Statistics

Strength

10

Dexterity

10

Constitution

10

Mana Control

1

Curse

1

-

Status

Health

100

100

Stamina

100

100

Mana

10

10

-

-

-

Alignments

None

Class

Witch of Curses

1

The master of potions and poisons

Class Skills

Living laboratory

Passive – Immunity to poison

Active – can create and purify poisons and potions from stored chemicals

Venom Talons

Passive – poison stored inside the body can be injected

Active – produce 10ml of a known poison or potion every 24 hours

Sigil of life

Active – extract medical and poisonous properties from a plant or corpse

Passive – extracted properties are stored in the body

Sigil of death

Active – Mark one target for death every 24 hours, doubling poison damage and curse effects.

Passive – Gain Curse statistic

Skills

Energy Syphon

1

Draws any available energy from the area increasing regeneration

Familiars

Nature Elemental

12

Passive – Gain Nature Affinity at level 50

Active – become one with nature healing health and recovering mana, once per 24 hours

Titles

Legacy Elf

A pureblood elf with a royal lineage spanning a millennia

Doubles stat gain on Mana Control and Constitution

I couldn't help but vent, "Seriously, this class is absolutely broken! If it was not for the fact mine could evolve I would feel cheated and what's with that bullshit Legacy Elf title?" I was honestly kind of dismayed by the difference in titles and class skills. My reborn body made with a crappy ritual barely gained anything while the princess had a twin element stat doubler form birth. Though I guess successfully ruling for a thousand years deserves some kind of reward, a pity the prince had to go and fuck this up for future generations.

The end result of this was a walking, talking alchemy lab perfectly capable of creating complex potions and poisons. She would eventually be capable of producing concoctions from nothing as long as she had experienced them once. With control over poison combined with magical curses, this class was designed to be as deadly as it was useful. The supreme example of a beautiful flower hiding deadly thorns.

As the princess roused from her slumber I explained the changes she had just experienced. while she was looking over her new stats with a dumbfounded look I laughed and called out, "Bon appetite princess, time to give those new skills a test run." Dumping my entire collection of plants and potions on the ground for her to extract. It was rather interesting to watch as the plants placed in her left hand withered to dust as the sigil softly glowed and when the plants were finished she began drinking the potions.

Apparently, when ingesting a potion she had the option of either storing it or purifying it so I had her consume and purify the potions we needed for the next step. I had to stop myself from laughing at the comical sight of a loli drinking a liquid just to have the same coloured liquid be drip from their fingernail into a new vial.

While the improvements in the potions would only increase their potency by between ten and fifteen percent the main goal was to limit any contamination that might cause a problem during their interaction. After four hours the princess was exhausted but in front of her lay twelve potions of strength, four potions of dexterity, six potions of purity, two potions of rebirth, ten potions of constitution and four potions of forging. Enough chemicals to complete two rituals of body reinforcement and bone reforging.

Deciding to rest for the rest of the day I cooked a dinner consisting of a grilled snake and assorted mushrooms with natural honeycomb for dessert. After travelling for so long I was finally beginning to become a somewhat decent cook and identify always allowed me to check for poison and edibility. This saved me more than once since some of the flora on this planet had developed a counter to humanoids by becoming poisonous after cooking. The heat somehow changed the chemical structure from harmless to deadly.

Despite the multiple weeks we had spent travelling together the princess had never really opened up to me, even back in the cave or our meeting in the forest were short conversations focused mainly on using each other. For some reason, the ritual today and the resulting class removed some of the stress she was feeling and lowered those barriers. In a rare show of real emotion, she spoke about her family, her life up until then and what she had originally dreamed about doing in the future. I sat silently as she vocalised the frustration and dread she had bottled up inside her before she cried herself to sleep. For all the tough exterior the truth is she was a young sheltered girl who had lost her family, friends and home.

I woke up the next day to a red-faced Emily demanding I forget about yesterdays ordeal. Apparently unbeknownst to us, potion purification has a mildly intoxicating effect. Purifying a few potions would not be a problem but purifying almost forty potions so constantly for over two hours was the equivalent of drinking wine for the same duration. I had honestly thought she was becoming friendly when in reality she was only getting drunk.