I decided to avoid the route I’d taken last time. I had no desire to run into more monkeys at this point. I started to put a mental map together, with the monument as South. I now had the clearing with the berry bushes to the west, and was moving towards the east along the clearest path between the trees.

As I walked, I kept an eye out for any interesting flora that I might be able to test my new inventory ability on. I picked up a few shoots and mushrooms that my Survival Lore indicated were edible, trying to keep an eye on my surroundings at the same time. I didn’t want a repeat of the surprise attack from yesterday.

Soon I began to hear a low roaring coming from further east. Curious, I cautiously approached the direction, and in a few minutes I saw the forest cut off by a rock face stretching off to the north, with a waterfall tumbling down into a large pool in front of me. I was excited by the prospect of water from somewhere other than the beach. I rushed over to the nearest edge of the pool.

The water was still wonderfully clear, though small aquatic life could be seen flitting about inside it. My Survival Lore tweaked and let me know that was a good thing - if there was nothing at all in the water, I’d be a lot leerier about drinking it. As I crouched in front of the pool, I tentatively scooped my hand into the water and brought it towards my face and took a small sip of the remaining water as the rest trickled down my arm and between my fingers.

It was slightly sweet tasting in the way that water is when you’re thirsty. I quickly brought both my hands together, scooping more out and drinking fully. Having a clear source of water was yet another weight I hadn’t even noticed off of my shoulders. I sighed in relief, though the sound quickly caught in my throat as I heard the subtle sound of something swimming in the water approaching me.

I tried to keep my breathing steady as I slowly began to get up, opening my eyes and spotting a sinuous figure snaking through the water. Unfortunately, my attention was completely caught up by it, so I didn’t notice its companion before I felt the teeth sink into the outside of my right thigh.

You have been struck! -1 HP (11/19)

I hissed in pain as I saw the striped snake pumping its venom into my right thigh the wound itself wasn’t that painful, but the venom made me seriously nervous. I reached out to try to swat it off, but only hit air as it released and coiled back up. I backed away from both it and its companion that was now making its way out of the water.

It quickly reached me, and I had just enough time to weakly stomp out at it before it attacked, more to try to keep it at bay than anything. That action proved useless, as I had essentially proffered up a limb instead, and found myself with a nasty pair of puncture wounds on my left shin.

You have been struck! -1 HP (10/19)

More burning from the bite mark, though I wasn’t feeling any adverse effects from the venom yet. Maybe I’d been lucky, or maybe adrenaline was saving me from the worst of it. I didn’t know, but I did know that I now had another attack to avoid.

I managed to pull back outside of the striking range of the snake to my right and it snapped out uselessly. Pressing my advantage, I retaliated with a hefty stomp and managed to catch it just as it was returning, with my heel right on its head.

You have struck ??? for 2 HP!

You have slain a Venomous Water Viper! You gain 200 Essence.

You have enough Essence to level up an available class.

Apparently the snakes - or rather, vipers - were agile but pretty frail. I was more worried about lingering effects of their venom, but it wasn’t something I could afford to worry about at the moment. I had over extended myself to stomp on the now dead reptile, which left me wide open for the reprisal of its companion.

You have been struck! -2 HP (8/19)

You have resisted Venomous Water Viper’s Venom.

A tiny portion of my mind noticed that I suddenly found myself with more information that I had previously, but this wasn’t something I could allow to distract me at the moment. The viper had been smarter and retracted almost immediately after its attack, but I followed it, leaping forwards in grasping it with both hands right below the head. With all my strength, I squeezed, and felt a crunch between the heels of my hands.

You have throttled Venomous Water Viper for 4 HP! (-3/1)

You have slain a Venomous Water Viper! You gain 200 Essence.

You have enough Essence to level up an available class.

I dropped the remains of the snake and quickly looked around for other potential opponents. Nothing but the rush of water could be heard, and the clearing and pool were once again still. I took several gasping breaths before I rolled up the legs of my pants to inspect the wounds. A small amount of blood leaked from the punctures. I recalled something about using bandages and sticks as a tourniquet against snake bites, but that seemed to be information from my previous world. My Survival Lore seemed to indicate that since I had succeeded against the initial effects, I was fine. The disconnect between latent understanding of the world and new knowledge was more than a little jarring.

After a few minutes of sitting next to the pool, calming down and adjusting my breathing, I concentrated and activated my inventory function before I reached over to the corpses of the vipers one at a time and sent them inside. Finally, I called up my Status and accessed the Class section. I wanted to see what options had opened up for me to level, since I knew I wasn’t at the 1000 required for the next level of Human Paragon.

Searching for Available Classes…

Displaying Available Classes:

3 Classes Found.

Human Paragon (0/1000) Commoner (0/500) Warrior (0/500)

Ah. So it seemed like I’d unlocked the Warrior class. Curious, I probed further.

Warrior

-------------

The warrior is a combat oriented class with a low barrier to entry and minimal requirements, apart from the desire and ability to defend, retaliate, and attack to protect yourself and others. Focused on physical combat, either ranged or melee.

Key Ability Unlock Requirements: None

Embodiment Unlock Requirements: Engage and defeat an enemy in lethal combat in order to protect yourself or others.

Abilities: Warriors come in various shapes and sizes, though they primarily benefit from improvements to the physical abilities of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.

Resilience: Warriors gain 10 HP per level, and have a stronger fortitude than most.

Proficiencies: Warriors gain a full bonus to attack equal to their class level. Warriors are capable of wielding all simple and martial weapons, as well as all armor and shields.

Skills: Warriors gain 2 Skill points per level.

It seemed like Warrior was an incredibly basic class, but it was cheaper to improve than Paragon, and better than Commoner. To be fair, I’d never checked Commoner, but something visceral told me that it was an absolute waste of time.

The class panel also gave me some more information - I hadn’t spent any time thinking about my leveling future, both because I’d been too busy trying to find the items required to survive, and I wasn’t sure what I’d do outside of the Paragon class. It seemed more like a supplementary class than anything, and I didn’t have much direction. Worth it for a foundation, but I didn’t know how much of a future it had.

At least Warrior gave me another avenue of expansion, and the process hinted at a couple of other very interesting pieces of information.

Unlike what I had initially expected, leveling requirements seemed to be class-specific, as opposed to cumulative. Meaning that while Level 2 of Paragon would cost 1000 Essence, Level 1 of other classes might continue to be 500 Essence. I’d have to wait and see, but if this was true there might be a way to still grow strong despite my limited ability scores. There seemed to be methods to unlock classes that weren’t directly related to my key ability scores. This meant there might be other classes I could unlock now if I performed the correct activity, and also that there might be classes in the future that I wouldn’t unlock even if I had the correct score based on not performing a specific action needed in order to do so.

Long story short, there was more to classes than met the eye.

For the time being, I decided to invest the essence into Warrior. An extra 10 HP would be very welcome in case I ran into another encounter on the way back to the beach, as would a stronger attack. I sat down, concentrated, and pictured “something” flowing into the concept of the Warrior.

New Class Selected

Warrior

Congratulations! You are a level 1 Warrior.

12 HP

2 Fort

4 Skill Points

1 Attack Bonus

The slightly larger than expected hit point and skill point values surprised me, but then I remembered my feats and achievements. Knowing I could expect that little boost when I level a class was a nice surprise.

Satisfied, I took another drink of water, rolled my pant legs back down, and decided to head back to the beach to regroup and plan my next steps.

Status

Name: ???

Age: 18

Heredity: Human

Soul Level: 2

Essence: 200

Favoured Class: ???

Classes:

Human Paragon 1

Warrior 1

AC 10, touch 10, flat-footed 10

hp 31 (20/31)

Fort +2, Ref +0, Will +2

Speed 30ft.

Melee weapon Savage Unarmed Strike +1 (1d4)

Size: Medium (Bipedal); Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Base Atk +1; Grp +1

Str: 10 (0)

Dex: 10 (0)

Con: 10 (0)

Int: 10 (0)

Wis: 10 (0)

Cha: 10 (0)

Traits: Able Learner, Educated

Feats: Toughness, Dauntless, Savage Unarmed Strike 3/3

Skills (Favoured - *) (12/16):

* Acrobatics - 1

Appraisal

Arcane Energy Lore

Arcane Energy Manipulation

* Athletics - 1

* Autohypnosis - 2

Bluff

* Concentration - 2

Crafting (+)

Cryptology

Diplomacy

Divine Energy Lore

Divine Energy Manipulation

Escape Artist

Handle Animal

Healing

Intimidation

Investigation

Ki Lore

Ki Manipulation

* Knowledge (+)

System - 1

Linguistics

Martial Lore

Mechanical Lore

Mechanical Manipulation

Natural Energy Lore

Natural Energy Manipulation

* Perception - 1

Profession (+)

Psionic Energy Lore

Psionic Energy Manipulation

Sense Motive

Sleight of Hand

* Stealth - 1

* Survival Lore - 2

* System Lore - 1

* System Manipulation - 1

Abilities:

Unbound (Legendary)

Adaptive Learning (9/10)

Equipment:

Mask of the Unbound (Lvl 2)