Just when Eggi was about to join the Saturday morning wrestling mania, a teacher and two school security guards came and dispersed the commotion. Fortunately, none of them was dragged to the counselling room. They only got an earful about how dangerous those wrestling moves are and that it should only be done by professionals.

Just then, Eggi realised that Pras had been long gone, successfully avoiding the lecture.

Eggi went for the Japanese language class with Ega, Fathan, and Alvin. Fathan was the only one who got into a different class because he registered too late. He was too busy dating a girl from another class, who ironically dumped him a few months ago.

This was also the trigger why he was very keen on joining Clashing Realms.

The day turned hellish when basketball practice started. Preparing them for the tournament, their coach gave them a brutal practice regime. It was hard enough to make Eggi’s muscle more sore than being resurrected by a spirit guide.

Bringing his whole body and bag was a torture, thus he could only lumber towards the cafeteria. He hoped that he could reach the cafeteria before passing out.

However, the day was not so kind to him.

“Eggi.”

Mana suddenly called right when Eggi was halfway towards the cafeteria. She seemed calm and relaxed. She had changed her outfit to a t-shirt and training trousers. Eggi didn’t know that such trousers would be comfortable being used to play badminton.

As usual, Mana seemed too fit for a person with medical ailment. She also appeared a bit more cheerful than usual.

While easily catching up to Eggi, she continued, “So, apparently my deskmate still uses chatting applications.”

“Duh, how do you think he communicates with us? Telepathy?”

Mana gazed questioningly at Eggi, she questioned him instead, “What is wrong with telepathy?”

“Because we are not psychics. Anyway, what’s wrong with chat apps?”

Mana raised her index finger brilliantly and answered, “I can ask him about chemistry, so I do not need to bother you anymore or borrow your notes.”

Eggi growled at his childhood friend. “ I was right, you did have ulterior motives when you asked about his social media.”

“My, the ulterior motive was about the chatting application, not the social media stuff.”

“I don’t care. Ulterior motives are still there.” Eggi sighed heavily. “If you’re not genuinely interested in someone, you better be careful. People could misunderstand your intent and whimsy actions. Don’t make people think you are just using them or toying with their feelings.”

“Oh, my.” Manna frowned. “What does chemistry have to do with this? Or you think I should give him something in return if I ask for his help in chemistry?”

“That’ not what I meant”

“Then what?”

“As I said, what if he misunderstood your intentions?”

Mana’s gaze turned empty like the void of outer space. “Please talk in human language.”

“I am using human language.” Eggi snorted. “What if he thought you had feelings for him?”

“Ahahahaha,” Mana laughed. Her right hand was waving up and down gesturing the ridiculousness of the words she had heard. “My, my, no one would fall in love with their rival.”

“Oh boy, this rival thing again.”

“What is wrong?” Manna tilted her head in confusion. “Is it not normal for someone with such academic achievements to be my rival?”

“It’s normal, as normal as rivals could fall in love with each other.”

“My….” Mana shrugged nonchalantly. “Whatever assumption he might have later, that is his problem, not mine. There is no point in us thinking too much about the words and assumptions of others, except for positive criticism.”

Eggi groaned. He knew exactly how it was not just her face and physical appearance that made so many people fall for Mana. It was not rare that her steadfast and at-my-own-pace personality had entangled so many suitors.

It was the same personality that had also crushed so many hearts. Eggi sometimes wonders how Pras was so infatuated with her. However, he at least knew one thing he could set straight.

Before entering the cafeteria, he warned Mana, “I might’ve only known them for a few months, but I consider Pras and the others as my best friends. You and I have been best friends for years. But, don’t you dare toy with Pras’ feelings.”

Mana didn’t answer and just mumbled to herself. She even split from Eggi to straight up buy food when they saw Pras, Ega, and - magically - Pitoy already sitting on a table discussing something. Eggi chose to put his bag first.

But before going to look for food, he asked Pitoy, “Why are you at school? Tennis club is not practising at school, right?”

“Too lazy, I took the day off.”

“No comment.” Eggi shook his head and walked away.

Miraculously, he returned to the table at the same time as Mana. Also, Mana weirdly asked Pras this time.

“Uh, hello deskmate, may I sit here?”

Pras frowned questioningly. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” Mana sat right away and quickly started eating her meal. Eggi wondered if his words earlier had caused Mana to be more docile.

“You didn’t buy any drink?” Ega suddenly asked. It was then that Eggi realised Mana only brought a glass of ice with her meal.

Mana swallowed her food. Calmly she answered Ega, “Because I am a paladin.”

“Huh?”

“We drink, just-ice.”

No further sound was made. Mana continued her meal while the others were stunned. Mana broke the silence when she suddenly choked on her food.

“Here, I haven’t drunk this,” Pras, as swift as a husband on standby, opened a bottle of tea and passed it to Mana saving her from certain demise.

“Oh, my.” Mana sighed in relief after she chugged the tea given to her. “Thank you, dauntless deskmate, that was a great save.”

Dauntless deskmate… Eggi wondered how many adjectives could Mana fit to that awkward callsign for Pras.

Pras impassively extended his hands to Mana with the palms facing up. He demanded, “8,000 rupiah.”

“Dude, that tea was just 5,000,” Ega protested instead of Mana.

“Supply and demand,” Pras retorted calmly. “Mana was in dire need of the thing, but I only have one here and I kinda need it, so it’s normal for me to increase the price.”

Ega groaned. “You capitalist asshole.”

Meanwhile Eggi was left wondering why Pras didn’t try to act as normal as possible around Mana.

“How about this?” Mana gave a counter offer. “Since you also need it. I will return this half-drunk bottle and pay you 3,000.”

“Gross,” Pras hissed. “That's an indirect kiss. Do you want to start another pandemic? Fine... 7,000.”

Eggi and Ega almost choked with Pras’ answer, they quickly drank their respective drink to avoid being overcharged by Pras.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Mana suddenly blushed after hearing his answer, she quickly took back the tea bottle and gave Pras the money he asked. She mumbles, “F-forget what I said.”

Eggi was dumbfounded. Ega as well. What on earth just happened?

“Pras, anyway,” Pitoy finally said something, he was largely indifferent about the whole situation, “What do you think about this build?”

Pras, seemingly happy with overcharging the person he’s supposedly infatuated with, turned to Pitoy with such a great mood. He quickly assessed the path calculator on Pitoy’s phone.

“So you’d get a bit on the Pyrotechnique path and go full points on Blazing Strength? But still leave some on Winterfury?”

“I still need to use some cold magic to disable people and I already spent a custom ability slot for [Winterblades].”

“Why don’t you do full pyro damage with Blazing Strength?”

“Can’t really do that, Pras, I need some variation on the heat magic to break some pesky magical defences, though I kinda have other options for that, but I’m still unsure.”

Eggi didn’t understand much about wizards. So he kept his mouth shut and just listened. Also, if he decided to talk, Mana would probably pester him about the bear form again.

“How about Enlightenment?” Mana spoke up. She put her tablet in the middle of the table for everyone to see the freshly opened path calculator.

“That’s what I’m about to say but I’m afraid I can’t really deal that much damage with that path,” Nubram answered.

“On the contrary, based on what Kyrsta, a friendly wizard friend, told me,” Mana objected in a calm manner, she started to point some talent bonus shown in the calculator, “by spending 100 points on Enlightenment path, you will get to activate the The Enlightened path mastery bonus.”

“What does it do?” Ega asked absentmindedly. As usual, he likes to jump into other people’s conversations.

“From what I know, it gives additional effects based on points spent on other paths,” Pitoy answered. “For my case, it will give 0.5% longer disabling effect of cold spell for each point spent in Winterfury and 0.5% increased damage done for each point spent in Blazing Strength. Both maxed at 40 points.”

He turned to Mana, “But that bonus is not as much as what 100 points on Blazing strength give, a 30% additional heat spell damage.”

Mana nodded, “Yes, but you have to differ between additional spell damage and damage done. The calculation for Blazing Strength mastery bonus is additive, so from 130% you will go to 160% which is only around 23% damage increase and only for heat spells. The Enlightened will have your 130% multiplied by 120% which is around 26% increase. This is not considering the multiplication was done on top of all other calculations.”

“So it kinda gives more overall damage?” Ega frowned. “Then why don’t people go for this path?”

“The bonuses,” Pitoy answered, “Blazing Strength has stronger individual bonuses in terms of power and it is better with heat spell variations and penetrations given by Pyrotechnique.”

“But you already took Winterfury,” Mana assured calmly. She then pointed again at some talents of the Enlightenment path, “You have some beneficial abilities here like [Flash] that can blind people for a moment, spell penetration, spell casting speed, and… buff cleanser effect.”

“Because the Enlightenment path focuses on the study of the nature of energy, thus they learn how to mess with it,” Pras added.

“Sasuga loremaster,” Mana praised mockingly, but cutely, with some clapping while the others were still confused by what Pras meant. To be honest it was just Eggi and Ega who were confused, Pitoy seemed to understand.

“It also has the increased total intelligence talent bonus,” Pitoy mumbled in agreement. “And also give additional effects based on dexterity. So I would really depend on intelligence and dexterity stats later on,”

This part, Eggi quite understood what it meant. It was about the stats of a character which is divided into main stat, supporting stat, and derivative stats.

Main stats were mainly strength for physical power, intelligence for mental power, and agility or dexterity for swiftness. Agility is only available for melee class and dexterity for ranged.

Supporting stats were divided into vitality for defences and HP, capacity for MP and energy, and regeneration of course for the regeneration of the two former stats.

Then, what players often put their attention to were the derivative stats. These are the stats like armour, physical defence, magical resistance, HP, MP, physical damage, spell damage bonus, critical strikes, and others. These stats gained numbers based on main and supporting stats as well as direct bonus from an item.

Eggi used to ignore those stats early on in the game, but lately he started to feel the effects of items dropped from creatures.

And what Pitoy had said regarding the bonus talent on Enlightenment stat had proven that such stat bonuses from equipment needed to be carefully selected the later they are in the game.

“Similar to mine,” Pras added. “I kinda need to increase my intelligence as well to get an additional bonus from Predator’s Tactics. There is a bonus to my and my pet attack power from vitality if I spent some points in Beast Mastery. I’ll probably go with it a bit after I am finished with Predator’s Tactics.”

“Oh, that is certainly interesting, deskmate. Numerous late game equipment for hunters do increase vitality and intelligence by quite a lot.”

Eggi mused to himself that the stats distribution was kinda different. For panther-form-based mystics, he saw stats revolving more around agility and strength. Of course each class and path would give different effects to the derivative stats based on the main and supporting stats.

Pras nodded, ”Yeah, I have to say the path trial on the early game was kinda misleading because it only shows the strength of each path if we only focus on that path. But the class trainer told me that it shouldn’t stand alone. We kind of need to mix and match it.”

“That is what makes it fun, deskmate.”

Ega nodded, “Kinda agree, there will be a meta build of course, but… it doesn’t mean a bit of creativity couldn’t work”

“Whew, same here. Thanks for the advice, guys, I think I can picture my character better now.”

Eggi didn’t answer much and continued munching his meal. However, under the table, he secretly opened up the site to the path calculator on his phone. He checked a bit and almost choked when he realised the only other form that could benefit a lot from agility and strength was none other than the bear form.

Eggi sighed and drank some orange juice after swallowing the last spoonful of his meal.

He whimpered to himself, low enough that no one else heard it, “I guess bear it is.”