24

Alignment

Rian flinched, finding himself standing inside the hut at Elmguard again. The nullshard crystal doused the canvas walls and the three NPC class trainers in faint blue light. Stumbling in place from sudden dizziness, Rian repositioned his feet to keep himself from falling. There was a lingering sense of rotation, of spinning, as if an electric field had surrounded him—as if every particle in the air was spinning in one direction. Toward him.

And then, with no sense of rebounding, it stopped. Like a key turning a lock, everything fit into place at once.

Your Alignment has changed to “Goam”!

Your Class is now “Fighter”!

Your Max HP has increased! (236→472)

Your Max MP has increased! (199→265)

You have learned Fighter’s Intuition!

New skills are available: Charge Punch; Vital Strike; Earthen Harmonics; Parry.

Ignoring the game text, he stared down at the nullshard, glowing more faintly than he remembered.

“Did I…just do what I think I did?”

The sound of applause broke his line of thought. Approaching him was the Form Expert NPC, Dan. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’ve succeeded, Cobalt. By obtaining your alignment, you may now harness a fraction of the power that Goam once held.”

“Wait, so—I didn’t just go back in time and murder a god, did I?” As awesome as that sounded when he said it, guilt was settling in. He hadn’t known what was going to happen during the fight, but he knew from the lore that each of Miriad’s gods had died in the past, in the Undoing.

Dan looked at him as if he didn’t understand. His confusion quickly passed. “All that matters is that you’ve passed the test. I welcome you to our ranks, as a fully-fledged Fighter. I’m sure you’ll make a fine pupil.”

Opening an inventory, Dan retrieved a set of folded clothes: a white karate uniform—similar to what Rian had been wearing in the instance—and what looked like a long ribbon of cloth. But even as Dan handed him the equipment, Rian’s thoughts were only on the fight.

Goam had been injured before Rian had even gotten there. It was hardly a fair fight. They’d sent him, somehow, into the past to fight Goam when he was at his weakest.

Maybe he was overthinking it again. He couldn’t have been the only one to fight and defeat a memory of Goam. The sanctuary was just an instanced area for the job advancement test, which meant that Goam was merely an instance of himself. That’s all it was, Rian supposed. He hadn’t really killed someone.

Looking cheerful, Kat came up to him. “See?” she said. “Told you it was nothing.” Visha stepped out from behind her, rubbed up against her leg, then looked at Rian pensively.

“That was pretty intense,” Rian said. “I was kind of scared for a bit, at the start.”

He almost placed his hand atop the folded clothes, to put on the new equipment Dan had given him. But he stopped short. When he looked down at himself, there was an aura surrounding his body. It wasn’t the fiery blue that had encompassed Goam, but a flowing gold. The aura moved along his skin. He shifted the pile of clothes to one hand and watched as the aura gathered into his empty palm until it was a shining glob of light. It materialized into a glassy cube, like the colorless ones he’d seen once or twice before, but this one was a polished, radiant gold.

You have received 1 Gold Tesseract (Untradeable).

[!] Class Skill Points

Once players have attained their Alignment, they will accumulate temporal power. Upon job advancement and reaching a level multiple of 5, this power will manifest into a Gold Tesseract (Untradeable), which can be used to learn a new class or subclass skill. When consumed, a Gold Tesseract will also retroactively level up all previously learned skills. Choose wisely!

“And there’s the big choice you have,” Kat said, gesturing at the tesseract. “I’m not too familiar with Fighter skills, though.”

He put the gold tesseract away, then equipped the new clothes first. His Beginner gear seamlessly disappeared into his inventory, and even his Brass Knuckles weapon was replaced by a hand wrap made of cloth.

+1 Weapon ATK (3→4)

+1 STR (13→14)

+2 DEX (11→13)

Your Max HP has increased! (472→477)

Your stamina has increased! (71→91)

-2 Armor (4→2)

A slight trade-off on armor. Putting the items on, he could feel the stat increase resonating throughout his body. He checked over the items, but there was nothing to them but some modest number raises.

Putting away his old equipment and closing the page, he brought up his skills. Among the four grayed-out skills was one that had already been learned. It had automatically leveled itself the moment he’d advanced to Fighter.

Fighter’s Intuition (Level 1 [MAX])

(Passive)

Instincts reaffirm a Fighter’s natural combat abilities. Damage inflicted by punches or kicks +25%.

Everyone probably had something like this passive skill—a little extra heft to their intended weapon type or style of attacking. It seemed meant to encourage players to pursue what was standard for their class, but it didn’t entirely close off the other options; it just made them slightly less viable. With a bit of extra work, he supposed, it was possible that a Fighter could use a staff or a magic user could wield a sword. The only disadvantage would be the lack of bonus damage from their class’s passive, but there were probably ways to make up for it through ingenuity.

Another thought struck him: there wasn’t anything mentioning a “level requirement” for any of the equipment he’d seen. The items themselves had levels, but that didn’t mean there was a requirement.

He asked Kat, “Is there anything keeping me from equipping items higher than my level?”

She was kneeling and scratching Visha’s chin. “Penalties,” she said. “I mean, you can equip higher-level stuff, but it’s really hard to make the stat penalties worth it. Takes a lot of finagling. Every item in the game has a tiny fragment of one of the Four inside it. That’s why equipment can give you stats—it’s the energy of Goam, or whoever it happens to be, giving the item a kind of ‘spiritual inertia,’ which determines the level of the item. So you have to have a certain amount of resilience to wield stronger items without them, well, weighing you down.”

“So I’m wearing pieces of dead gods on my body?” Rian said. “That’s pretty metal.”

Kat nodded in agreement. “It’s a lore thing.”

Entry added to lore book: “Fragments of Their Strength”

Progress to next lore achievement: 50%

You have gained experience! (+18)

He opened his skills page again.

Charge Punch, Vital Strike, Earthen Harmonics, or Parry.

According to the skills system, whichever one he picked would level up each time he leveled up any other skill. So, naturally, the most useful skill was the one he should pick first, as it would always be at least one level higher than the rest. His decision here was a matter of prioritizing skills in the order of their usefulness—in PVP. Against Kat. Against someone way better than he was.

Charge Punch was incredibly strong for now, but without the other skills to provide some much-needed synergy for its setup and release, it seemed lackluster. Vital Strike only served to slow enemies down, and though he could see the huge utility there, it wasn’t going to help him upfront. Parry was a good choice, considering it was his only form of defense. Still, overall, if he was going to rely on evasion as his source of damage mitigation, then Earthen Harmonics provided the most benefit. With the movement speed bonus it gave, it not only made it easier to dodge, but it also increased his damage somewhat by increasing the speed of his hits, which meant more power behind them.

He reached out to select Earthen Harmonics but hesitated.

These skills maxed out at level ten. If he only gained one skill point per five levels, then there was no way he could max out everything.

[!] Skill Points at Level 40 and Beyond

After reaching the level cap, players will begin accumulating Ascendant Levels, which do not provide stat bonuses but will provide Gold Tesseracts at regular intervals to continue leveling skills.

Oh. That was reassuring, at least. He dismissed the notification. Thanks, game.

He selected the skill he wanted and allocated his single point.

You have learned a new skill: Earthen Harmonics.

Achievement unlocked: “A Power that Compounds” (Learned a class skill)

Earthen Harmonics (Level 1)

20 MP

Cooldown: 3 minutes

Allowing their spirit to become aligned with the earth itself, a Fighter moves swiftly. For 1 minute: while grounded, movement speed +5%.

It seemed the skill’s effect would scale with each level, as he recalled from the fight with Goam; there, at a max level of ten, it had given a massive +50% to his movement speed.

“It may be in your best interests,” Dan said, “to pursue the art of crafting one’s own equipment from the many fragments bestowed upon Miriad by the Four. If you’d like, I may offer guidance and, until the next step in your ascension, act as a mentor.”

“That’s okay,” Kat said, taking Rian’s hand again. “He’s already got one.”

She began walking toward the entrance, bringing Rian along before letting go. At the entrance to the hut, a shadow lay over the beaded strings. It was the silhouette of a rather short person, floating above the ground.

Rian could practically feel Corvis staring at him. Then he remembered his final interaction with Goam: he’d known about the Mark. The only people who could see it without consigning Rian to death, Corvis had said, were those who were servants of Yindra. He doubted Goam fit that criterion, but Goam hadn’t really seen it, had he? The guy was half-dead to begin with…

As he approached the entrance, Rian silently prayed that Corvis didn’t know what had happened.