Lucas opened his eyes and found himself starring at the familiar environment. As he regained his senses, he deduced he was back at his old home, actually laying in his bed. The memories of the last event came flooding back, as if they wanted to make sure Lucas didn’t thought he dreamed them all. He collected himself and got up, seeing the familiar figure sitting in his armchair in the living room. He approached Margaret, which stirred from her sleep hearing his footsteps.

“Good morning, sleepy head. Had a good night sleep?” she asked him, smile widening with every word spoken.

“How long was I out?” Lucas asked

“Ten hours or so. When you fell down inside the barracks, the rest of the party rushed you out. Since then, we guarded you from anyone wanting to try his luck at taking ownership of the settlement” Margaret explained. Lucas cursed himself for his negligence, completely forgetting he was the new owner of his home town.

“I guess Bruce is furious” he said, with Margaret nodding her head, confirming the fact.

“He stormed out after checking you, muttering about “foolish youth” and about your complete lack of responsibility” Margaret explained, without even pausing to take a breath. “What happened anyway? You killed the old fart and after a minute or so, you collapsed” she asked. Lucas went on to explain to her what had happened. At the end of the tale, Margaret clapped.

“Congratulations. You got a mighty new upgrade. Me, on the other hand, I lag behind you guys quite a bit” Margaret ecstatically said. The amount of positivity the medic spread got to Lucas and he found himself smiling widely, muttering his thanks to Margaret. He then asked her for a moment, seeing as he wanted to review the flood of prompts that appeared when he accepted his new class.

“Congratulations! You have successfully upgraded your class. Your level is retained”

“Skill upgraded: Duelist’s grace is now Doom infusion”

“Skill upgraded: Death by the thousand cuts is now Strikes of doom”

“Skill lost: Stinging cut”

“Skill lost: Battle dance”

“Skill upgraded: Mana punch is now Doom – infused punch”

“Skill upgraded: Spin strike is now Blade spin”

“Skill gained: Soul-shattering strike”

“Skill upgraded: Aura detection is now Aura severing”

“Title awarded: Class Advancer”

Lucas analyzed the implications that only two skills that went unchanged were “Guiding strike” and more surprisingly “Infused piledriver”. Seeing the theme, he expected that it would get some shinning new update with a fancy name. But, it looked like he would have to work harder to get the legendary skill, which was probably the only thing missing from his growing toolkit. He muttered “Status” and the menu appeared, carrying all that Lucas was.

Name: Lucas (surname N/A)

Class: Blade of Doom level 45 (Skill points available: 9)

Attributes:

Strength: 47

Agility: 85

Constitution: 25

Intelligence: 31

Willpower: 30

Perception: 52

Charisma: 30

Luck: 30

Health: 1175

Stamina: 6120

Mana: 930

Skills:

Sharpsight

Aura severing

Doom infusion

Dodge

Strikes of doom

Soul – shattering strike

Punch parry

Doom – infused punch

Infused Piledriver

Guiding strike

Battlerush

Blade spin

Bulwark of balance

Equipment

Exquisite Naga steel coral breastplate

Exquisite Naga steel coral shoulder plates

Exquisite Naga steel coral gauntlets

Ceramic – laced gorilla gloves

Exquisite Naga steel coral leg guards

Gladius of the Viridi

Ring of the Abyssal Depth

Quests

Titles

Monster Slayer

Colossus Muncher

Home – schooled

Scenario dungeon diver I

Vengeance Bringer

Class Advancer

Agility was surging upwards, and with his new class, it would only need him three new levels before it hit one hundred. He was getting extremely powerful and now he could even sense himself, due to his new found knowledge of auras. He first navigated to the skills submenu, wanting to see what his new skills do.

Sharpsight (Uncommon)

With a lot of hard work, every duelist who wants to have some worth learns how to read patterns of mana, allowing him the ability not only to read basic information about the enemies but to tap directly into the patterns of they mana usage, allowing for better prediction and evasion of enemies attack. Ability to get the information increases with Perception, reading of mana patterns increase with Intelligence

Cost: None

Aura severing (Rare)

You can sense the aura of your opponents, but due to your harnessing the power of doom and despair your opponent are emitting when they are facing you, you are able to sever them from their aura, causing massive pain directly in their soul, stunning them. The duration of the stun is increased by 2 second for every point of Intelligence.

Cost: 100 mana

Doom infusion (Rare)

Tapping directly into the power of doom and infusing your body with it allows you to temporary boost yourself to face off even against the strongest enemies. When activated, it gives the user +5 in all stats.

Cost: 100 mana, Duration: 30 minutes

Dodge (Common)

Dodge is epitome of the age old mantra: “It is better to not be hit than to be hit”. Allows the user to quickly react and avoid attack and grants limited preconception where the attack won’t land. Agility buffs the quickness and distance of the roll, Perception broaden the scope of preconception of the safe spots.

Cost: 20 stamina

Strikes of doom (Rare)

Being truly the weapon of ultimate end for your opponents, it is fitting that your strikes are able to cause massive damage. When activated, this skill allows your blade to directly harness the fear your enemies have when facing you, empowering it. The damage strikes cause is buffed by 1% percent by every point of Strength, critical damage is buffed by 0,1% by every point of Agility.

Cost: 35 stamina per strike

Soul – shattering strike (Rare)

When the Blade of doom appears, his enemies tremble, knowing full well not even their souls are secure against the mighty swings of his weapon, fearing absolute shattering of their essence if any of the attacks connect. This skill allows the user to empower his sword to hit not just the physical shell of his opponent, but also the metaphysical one, leaving enemy stunned if the attack connects. Damage is buffed by 0,5% percent for every point of Strength, duration of the stun is increased by 1 second for every point of Agility.

Cost: 450 stamina

Punch Parry (Rare)

People thought that it’s only possible to parry with a weapon, but you decided to prove them wrong by punching an opponent attack into submission. Blocks enemy attack and stagger them for 0,5 second for every point of Strength.

Cost: 50 stamina, 50 mana

Doom – infused punch (Uncommon)

Every swing of the hand can become lethal when infused with the power of doom, power that is harnessed from the fear of everyone who stood against it, not mattering in the slightest have they survived the encounter. This skill allows the user to empower his fist, striking his opponent and taunting him. Damage done is buffed by 1% percent for every point of Intelligence, taunt duration is increased for 0,2 seconds for every point in Strength and Charisma.

Cost: 100 mana

“Infused Piledriver (Epic)

While some fighters chose to use movement and momentum as a defensive and evasive options, you went in different direction. Using momentum from you movement, you ram into enemies, piercing trough their defenses with your mana infused weapons and doing a massive amount of damage. Bonus damage for critical hits. Agility buffs speed of movement and damage done by 1% per point.

Cost: 150 stamina, 100 mana”

Guiding strike (Rare)

Fighters of repute oft find themselves in combat against heavily armored opponents in their foolish hope that a mere armor can stop a skilled sword. With this strike you shatter their hope and break their spirits. Automatically hit weak spot in enemy armor, applying critical damage. Weak spot noticing increase with every point in Perception, critical damage increase by 0,1% for every point in Strength.

Cost: 300 stamina

Battlerush (Passive)

Every step of the fighter must be made to outplay his opponent with battle, and speed is essential in achieving that goal. This passive skill allows the user to increase his speed with every step during continuous movement, sharpening his reflexes to avoid anything that will stop his movement. Agility increase the acceleration by 0,2% per point.

Blade spin (Rare)

Harnessing the power of doom is sometimes able to empower a weapon to such a degree as to take a mind of its own, a powerful abyss hungering for more, striking by itself at the hearts and souls of unsuspecting enemies and increasing their fear, further empowering it. This skill allows the user to empower his weapon to hit three enemies in the row. The weapon itself will not be able to distinguish between friend and foe, so the user has to be careful of his position before activating it. Damage done is buffed by 0,5 percent by every point of Strength, critical damage is buffed by 0,1% percent for every point of Agility.

Cost: 150 stamina

Bulwark of Balance (Epic)

An established fighter never loses his footing and he never allows an opening to his enemy. This skill prevents the user from losing his balance as a consequence of enemy attacks or the movement of the user. Duration of this skill is always equal to the half of the Agility of the user, measured in seconds.

Cost: 300 stamina, 150 mana

Lucas didn’t have much to say about his new skills, noting that the full set of them consisted of nothing but rare skills. They were exactly what class has promised in its description, an incredibly efficient way of killing everything that he wanted to kill. He also noticed the thoroughness of the System, erasing any mentions of his previous class, even with the skills that were unchanged. There was one notable fact, however. He finally got his first skill that struck multiple targets and with the insane amount of stuns he got, he finally had efficient way of dealing with numbers. He was fairly certain that routs like the one troopers had were going to become less, if they happened at all. He then quickly navigated to the titles submenu and found his new title.

Class advancer

You have successfully upgraded your class to Advanced class, marking a big step on your path of progression. + 5 skill points

Anyways, he needed to find Bruce so he returned to Margaret who then led him to the old Loremaster. What happened next was quick, Lucas navigating to the settlement menu and appointing Bruce as governor. After that, they went once again over their plans. For the short term, it was clearing the debris and finishing the count of the death toll from the last gambit of the General. From there, their priority will be reestablishing the Town guard and building a brand new Adventurer’s guild that would find its headquarters in Hangman’s row and undoing the damage mercenary unit did to the reputation of the settlement, trying to once again draw travelling merchants and adventurers to the town. One of their long term goals included building a full – fledged academy dedicated to studying the System, hoping to groom new generation of the Loremasters, but also serving as the starting point for every young individual to learn about the System and not fall to the propaganda the General used. Their other long term goal was to grow Camp Hearth to one million citizens, finally matching the real power the settlement had to the strength it held in the mythology of the post – System humanity. On more personal level, Lucas needed more training, growing pile of question he needed Bruce’s help with becoming even bigger with his new class. He needed to spend his free points, his skill points and also he needed to develop even more coordination and teamwork with his party, gathering from Margaret all of them are interesting sticking around. There was tasks a plenty and Lucas had to wonder will he ever have the time to be his old, careless self.

“Probably not” was his final thought on the subject before he got to work, debris still laying all around them.