Author's rant corner: Was going to write a rant about current situation but instead of bothering you with the details i'll just put it bluntly: whenever i'm done with one thing, the next comes looming around the corner...

_______________________________

A few minutes passed while everyone was focusing to recover as swiftly as possible. Suddenly Zaran frowned and said "Nuvahn, what drops did you pick up from the necromancer?"

"Two books, just a second I will toss them to you." Nuvahn said as he took two books out of his storage ring and threw them towards Zaran, who caught them very stylishly.

Zaran took out the black leather book first. The cover had three words in red letters engraved upon the black leather "Tome of Necromancy" Below that was a real skull of a small animal that Zaran couldn't quite recognize. Zaran flipped open the cover and before he could read the first page of the book a message greeted him.

Do you wish to change your class to Necromancer?Warning: Changing to a forbidden class can not be made undone and has everlasting consequences!Upon changing your class to necromancer you can no longer use white magic! As a consequence all your learned white magic spells will be made unavailable. The majority of npc's will be unwilling to converse with you, reducing the amount of quests you can obtain. Having the ability to summon an army of minions, experience gained is reduced with every additional summon. The experience gained can not ever be lower than 1% of the original value.

Zaran quickly yelled "NO" in his mind and the message disappeared. Another message greeted him.

Without changing your class to Necromancer you can not use the spells in this tome, however you can still read the tome to gain a greater understanding concerning Necromancy. If you at any time change your mind and wish to change your class to Necromancer, close this tome and reopen the first page.

Dispelling the message, Zaran started reading the first page.

Page 1:

Using this tome changes your class to the forbidden class 'Necromancer'. A Necromancer specializes in skills to summon, buff and heal the undead and on the side dabbles in black magic spells. This tome contains a vast array of basic, intermediate and even advanced necromancy spells and is useful for any necromancer, be it someone who has recently started necromancy or an already accomplished necromancer.

Seeing as the rest of the first page was general information on necromancy, Zaran started to flip through the remainder of the pages at a leisurely rate. Even though he didn't want to become a Necromancer, just flipping through the book and reading the information, requirements and effects of a spell allowed him to understand how most of the spells worked and devise counters for a fair amount of them. While not all of them could be interrupted, some however could be countered or dealt with in a specific way.

Having finished the book Zaran found that the spell "Branding of the dead" was the most interesting one. Depending on the level of the Necromancer, the necromancer could form a permanent contract with one of his summons. Upon contracting with one of the summons the summon can no longer die and levels along with the necromancer however it still perishes if it's health is depleted. Once its health is depleted, any additional damage that should have been received by the perishing summon is dealt to the necromancer instead. This means that if a 300 health summon was hit by a 1000 damage attack, the necromancer would be dealt 700 damage. A huge deficiency of this spell is that you cannot contract anything that is stronger than oneself, but Zaran liked to imagine that there were ways to bypass this. Regardless, this spell allowed you to level a set of summons in the way you wanted which would be a very huge benefit regardless of any side effects.

"None of us can use it, what do you girls think should we sell it?" Zaran said as he finished the book and passed it to the girls, whose eyes widened as they both simultaneously cried out in surprise. "EEHHH!!! A tome of necromancy?!?!? We've struck a jackpot!!!!! This sells for tens of thousands on the auction house!"

"Oh? Is it that rare?" Zaran asked.

"Yeah! It's a drop that can only be gotten from named necromancers and there are very, very few of those in the game! Thus far out of a hundred million forum users only two low grade necromancy books have been reported to have dropped! Both were pushed onto the auction house and sold for a few thousand euros each!!

And those books only contained the basic necromancy spells! Just imagine how much someone would pay for a complete tome like this!"

"We've really struck it good then... Seeing as none of us can use it, why don't we sell it on the auction house for the next twenty four hours and split the profit between the four of us?"

"No need to split the profits with me." Nuvahn immediately said. "My parents are rich enough for me not to have to worry about money for the rest of my life..."

The rest of the group looked at Nuvahn with a wry smile. It is not like they were poor but ten thousand euros was still a big deal to them! Yet this guy treated it as if it was nothing...

"Well, then let us divide however much we get by the three of us." Zaran said with a wry smile.

"Fair enough!" Irina said. "What about the other book that dropped?"

"Let me see!" Zaran said as he took a closer glance at the blood red book.

Demon summoning tomeDescriptionThis tome contains forbidden knowledge that allows one to summon a demon and make it fight for them. The skills listed in this tome can only be learned by someone proficient in black magic.

"Same as the other one, not interesting to any of us, unless one of us is going the black magician slash necromancer route." Zaran said as he gave the book to the girls.

Their eyes widened again. "Another tome! This one sells for a lot too!"

"How come you girls are so knowledgeable about this stuff?" Zaran asked confused about how they could tell it was worth a lot or not from a single glance.

"Well... when we were looking for gear for me we were scrolling around the forums to get information from other people and then we learned there were three types of skillbooks. Those being, scrolls, books and tomes. Scrolls hold limited knowledge and only offer beginning skills, introductions to a class or even just a part of a skill. Books offer the full package of beginner information along with some degree of intermediate knowledge. Tomes are generally the epitome of knowledge in a class." Sylphie explained. "Thus if it is a tome that has dropped this early in the game we know it is going to bring in a lot of money on the real money auction house."

"I see... but doesn't that mean if we find a tome we can just learn the high leveled skills immediately?" Zaran asked.

"No... higher leveled skills are hard to learn and someone needs high talent in that art to even learn them. With our measly amount of mana or ki could we even hope to activate a true intermediate class skill?" Irina said, adding onto what Sylphie was saying.

"I guess that's true. If you look at my created skills, the majority of them need improving if I want to keep using them. The damage I can deal with them is quickly starting to become insufficient after all." Zaran remarked, thinking about his own situation. He now realized that he really had to work on his skills far more if he wanted them to remain relevant in the future.

It is a feeling that has grown stronger during his stay in the sewers. Before evolving his ki he already started feeling that the damage his skills were dealing was growing weaker and if it continued for too long he would need to fight for minutes just to deal with normal monsters.

Getting back to the topic at hand, Zaran turned to Irina and said "I will put these tomes on the auction house and at the end of the auction I will just transfer your share to your account. Is that fine with you?"

"Yup! Totally fine with me!" Irina said with a pleasant smile plastered to her face.

"With the profits both you and Sylphie should browse around and look for upgrades for your gear. As for me and Nuvahn we'll work something out in that department." Zaran said, giving a meaningful nod towards Nuvahn at the same time.

"Suits me. All I really need is a stronger weapon at the moment." Nuvahn lazily said as he tried to suppress a yawn. He had been awake for a long time now and was due for some much needed rest.

Noticing this Zaran frowned and whispered to Nuvahn. "How long have you been awake?"

"A good twenty six hours by now."

"... Time for you to get some rest then." Zaran said. It was nearing 20:00 for him so it wouldn't be too unreasonable for him to sleep now. Not that Zaran had any responsibilities, but he still felt that he should somewhat keep a normal sleeping pattern going.

Zaran closed the whisper box and said to the girls. "Let us head out of the sewers, then I will head to the auction house to sell the tomes. In the meantime you girls can sell all the loot we got to the merchants and head towards your class's guilds and try to get new skills. After we finish our business in the city we should all get some rest before we head into the sewers again... My job here is not done yet."

"Okayy.. but Zaran I have work tomorrow so...." Sylphie said whilst biting her lip.

"Yeah me too..." Irina mumbled dejectedly.

"Oh well... hmm... Then me and Nuvahn will head into the sewers by ourselves tomorrow. With the necromancer gone both of us should be fine after we acquire some new gear. I will have to figure out a way to keep the both of you near our levels." Zaran said, pensively stroking his chin as he had another trouble to deal with.

He did want a reliable party and Irina and Sylphie were both people he could blindly trust. As for other people... he did not dare to say he could! How many of the skilled people he would deem worth to party up with would be aligned with other gods? The chance was simply too high for him to take it. Thus he had already decided to add Sylphie and Irina into his party.

However he did forget that both of them had jobs, unlike himself who could fully devote himself to the game.

Now he had to both figure out a way to keep the girls at his level while simultaneously improving their skill at a rapid rate. While they had not been moving all too badly in their battles, compared to Nuvahn or himself, the girls weren't even remotely close to the skill the two of them had showed.

"Sorry..." the girls both said sorrowfully.

"It's okay. I will figure out a way!" Zaran said as he patted Sylphie's golden coloured hair.

"Now let us get the hell out of here because that sleepyhead needs to sleep!" Zaran said, pointing at the yawning Nuvahn with a huge smile plastered on his face.

"Ok~ay!!! Let's get going sleepyhead!" The girls said playfully as they walked up to Nuvahn, grabbed hold of his arms and dragged him forward.

"Hey!!!!" Nuvahn said as he swiftly broke free and grumpily said. "I can walk by myself!"

"Suuuuure!!!!! You were so full of energy that you were about to fall asleep." Irina playfully said.

"HMph!" Nuvahn let out a low harrumph as he trotted forward towards the sewers exit, followed by the girls who skipped along happily while teasing Nuvahn some more.

"This should open Nuvahn up to the girls." Revealing a sly smile Zaran turned towards Kirin and Cindarrah and commanded. "Come, Kirin, Cindarrah, let's not fall behind!"

"Okay!!" Cindarrah's lovely voice resounded through his ears as she jumped on his shoulder, whilst Kirin already sped after the group. Not willing to be the last to exit the cave Zaran shot after the party himself.

Half an hour of running later the party exited the sewers. "Right let's party ways here. Nuvahn, how long do you think it will be for you to be online again?"

After thinking about it for a bit Nuvahn slowly said "ehh.. about six hours... Eight at most."

"Okay. I should be back before that myself so let us meet up as soon as you get on!" Zaran said.

Nuvahn nodded and instantly logged out. The girls and Zaran first stopped at the nearby river and jumped into it to clean their selves from the filth of the sewers before making their way to the city again.

As they entered the city, Zaran parted ways with the girls and walked towards the auction house, ready to unleash another uproar among the population!