Learning Experience(s)

Meanwhile certain entities were deep in discussion regarding recent events.

“Have you heard?” asked a gently glowing woman.

“About what?” replied a man whose robes dripped onto the large throne upon which he sat.

“She’s worried about the new Unusual-ranked Class”, cackled another man as he threw his legs over the arms of his own throne.

A few of the other beings’ present turned towards the conversation. “What? Why?”, one asked eventually, “for all their called ‘unusual’, higher-tiered Classes do end up with that rank on occasion.”

“This one’s a beginner Class, the one who has it is still only Level 1”, the glowing woman replied leaning forward in her seat.

The others murmured at this revelation.

“What does the System have to say about this?”, asked an older figure stroking his beard as he did so.

Say about what?

A ball of light, the same colour as the screen appeared among them, causing all conversation to come to a halt as they turned to stare.

Please don’t stop on my account.

“Very well, what can you tell us about this Class and the person who has it,” the old man the other figures nodding their heads in agreement. The glowing woman leaned in closer, looking particularly interested in what the orb had to say for itself.

I don’t recall being required to explain myself to you, but what I will say is, that class’ potential is something that is required.

“What do you mean potential?” the woman blurted out, causing the old man to turn an exasperated look her way. The orb’s light flickered as it pondered this question.

“Really Asteria, that’s what you’re worried about?” interrupted the man from earlier who still had his legs draped over the arm of his throne, a wry grin on his face as he teased his glowing counterpart.

The shadow god is right, I have said this before, but I am not the threat, and neither is the boy.

The orb pulsed as it floated over to Asteria’s throne.

His potential bothers you because of the bad blood between him and one of your Paladins does it not.

Asteria crossed her hands on her knee, as she attempted to look the orb in the eye, an action made only the more difficult by it’s obvious lack of any such feature.

“You would be correct”, she admitted, “I am worried he may bear a grudge towards my worshipers”.

Then I suggest you make steps to remedy this.

Asteria’s face paled as she felt a pressure descend upon her, pushing her down into her throne.

You may be called gods but remember this, I make the rules not you. When I forced your worlds together all those years ago, you all tried to stop me and not one of you succeeded. DO NOT TEST ME.

Having delivered its final message, the orb disappeared, and silence reigned briefly in its place.

“We need to know more about this boy’s ‘potential’, the old man finally said resting his head on one of his hands, “Larchius can you look int it for us?”

“Sure thing old man,” said Larchius as he finally brought his feet down from their casual position, “I’m find him pretty interesting myself”, with this said he too disappeared, shortly followed by the other gods leaving the old man sitting alone.

His head still resting on his hand the old man sighed to himself.

“I’m getting too old for this”.

***

As dawn broke the next day, and Kyle and Fi started to break their fast they tried to decide what to do next.

“So, what’s the plan? Do we start looking for something to fight here or go elsewhere?” Fi asked as Kyle stirred some oatmeal that was cooking.

“Don’t really want to do that”, he replied, “while there are some monsters living in the fields they aren’t really a threat to anyone, or at least they never really bothered us when my parents were still alive.”

Fi nodded, the tip of her tail coming up to rub her chin as she did so, thinking for a while she finally said, “Well I did here about a Zone that was forming in a forest nearby from the last travelling merchant who came through town, it’s a few hours out of our way, but we aren’t exactly in a hurry to be anywhere”.

Kyle nodded at this he knew a Zone was a spatial fluctuation caused by the magic given off by a powerful monster, a Zone could be much larger inside this fluctuation and contained many other monsters that either served this powerful monster or simply lived inside it’s area of influence to absorb some of the magic it gave off.

After they finished their meal the two broke camp and headed in the direction of the forest that the Zone was forming in. A few hour later the two stared at an impressive sight, over the forest sat a large dome that coloured the forest below a murky purple.

“Looks like the merchant was right the Zone has already formed”, remarked Fi as she tried to make out any movement within, “the monsters near the edge shouldn’t be too powerful yet but we should be careful”.

Kyle nodded as he walked closer feeling an unpleasant chill as he passed through the barrier into the Zone. Looking around he was somewhat surprised. The purple colour he had expected wasn’t present, looking back he saw that the area he had just came from was now same colour as the forest looked previously and he concluded that the purple was caused by the dome itself.

Turning back, he approached the forest looking around carefully as he did so, noting the deep shadows that lay within. As he did so he noticed a small round lump which was slowly moving around, Fi quickly launched herself into the air and identified it.

Immature Spine Hog

Level 2

HP: ???

This monster has been mutated from its original form after encountering large quantities of mana, and now possesses short spines along its back as well as the sharp tusks that it uses to gore its opponents.

Kyle equipped his chain, and after whipping it around a few times cast it towards the hog, only to swear as it bounced off the beast’s tough hide. Squealing in surprise it looked around before charging at the boy. Kyle dived to one side as it passed but one of the spines caught his right foot as he did so.

“Fuck!” he swore, as he rolled to his feet, glancing down briefly at his injury. With a mental poke he unleashed his Lash skill which sent his chain whipping through the air to score a hit on the hogs’ flank as it came around to charge again.

Squealing once again from the blow it barrelled towards Kyle who in a fit of desperation grabbed his chain further down the links before wrapping it around the monsters’ neck as he leapt on top of it feeling his flesh being pierced the barbed spines as he did so.

Eventually its eyes bulging the beast expired but Kyle wasn’t in much better shape his flesh pierced and torn many times during his short stint as a pig jockey.

“Well that didn’t go as planned”, said Fi as she landed next to him.

“No shit,” he deadpanned as she quickly removed some simple bandages form her inventory before removing the spines still imbedded in her friend.

“My HP must be getting pretty low”, he said wincing as Fi continued her work, its too bad I can’t see how it looks while I’m fighting.

“According to Alistair I should be able to do something about that when you get your next class, but until then we’ll just have to deal with it, if need be I’ll tell you if its getting too low”, she replied remembering something Thomas’ companion had told her.

“That’s a relief”, Kyle said picking up the bandages and attempting to wrap the worst of his wounds, “it’s a little nerve-wracking, flying blind like this, by the way what’s my HP at now?”

“You got down to around 42, those spines caused a slight bleeding effect which didn’t help, and your injured foot has caused a slight drop to your Agility, but now that you’ve used those bandages your health regen outweighs the bleeding damage”, she replied.

“Oh yeah that was sealed before wasn’t it, wonder why?”

“Thomas said something about it being to prevent someone without a class from trying to fight before they’re ready, though that seems a little dangerous to me, by the way you have some new skills available to unlock, would you like to take a look?”

“Sure, got nothing else to do anyway”.

Due to your actions the following Skills have become available for purchase.

Skill Name

Skill Description

Basic Riding

Level 1

Progress 0% to next level

This Skill decreases the difficulty of riding more powerful mounts.

The User gained access to this Skill by attempting to ride a more powerful beast.

Current Bonus: N/A

Basic First Aid

Level 1

Progress 0% to next level

This Skill allows the User to more efficiently stabilise Physical Status Effects.

The User gained access to this Skill by attempting to heal many injuries.

Current Bonus: N/A

“Well one thing’s for certain, I’m not purchasing the riding skill any time soon”, said Kyle cringing.

“Fair enough, by the way you gained about 11% of the experience you need for your next level up and a few more to your light armour Skill and weapon proficiency”.

“Alright guess we’d better wait here a while, so I can heal up, and I need to think about what do about the lack of damage my chain did anyway”, Kyle said as he settled in to wait.