Chapter 10: Red Mage

Job… system?

While I had been an avid gamer in my past life, I'd never really dabbled with MMOs or eastern RPGs, so the concept of a job system was pretty unknown to me. I dismissed the pop up with a thought, either way, now wasn't the best time to be going through my stats and modifying things, I was in the middle of a battle royale. It could wait until I got to safety, whether that be after the battle royale had ended or until I was out of immediate harm's way.

I needed to make a move to get out of the immediate location, there was no doubt that more people would have sensed the massive manna battle that had gone on here and would be on their way already.

I fell back on my propulsion, now sure that I could control it a little better after using it so much in the last fights. I jumped hard and boosted myself up into the air and used the elevation to take stock of my surroundings once again. My eye was immediately taken to the mountain ridges up to the North. With only 15 minutes left on the clock, I was sure there would be some sort of a cave I could hide out in.

With my mind made up I let myself fall back to the ground and then took off in a sprint, using a small burst of propulsion with every step to increase my speed just a little bit more. Slowly, and then all at once, a grin pushed itself across my face. From the moment I had woken up in this new world, I had been forced to learn a bunch of information and had been through battle after battle. Not once had I just been allowed to enjoy it all.

I was alive.

I had insane new powers that my previous self would never have dreamed possible.

But most importantly, I was alive! More alive than I had ever been before.

Within a couple of minutes, I had reached the base of the mountain. The scale of the thing was seriously impressive, more so due to the fact it had seemingly been materialised out of nowhere in mere seconds by whatever magic and technology was powering the entire arena. I scrambled up the side until I reached the edge of the treeline. I couldn't see any caves from where I was standing, so my best bet would be to make my way up to the peak.

I was off again and made record pace sprinting up the mountain's craggy cliff faces. The more I used my propulsion the more confident with it I became, which in turn allowed me to push more and more manna through each step to become faster still. My journey to the peak was abandoned, however, when about halfway up the mountain I found an outcrop of stone. The platform was perfect, with the rock to my back and a wide view of everything in front of me there was no way that anyone would manage to get the jump on me.

I took a long breath and then brought BB out of our synchro mode.

<That was a pretty mediocre showing, you know,> BB snarked immediately as if it could have done any better in my situation. <I mean come on Jacob, almost getting your ass handed to you not once but twice in rapid succession? Really showing how green you are, aren't you?>

"Oh shove it," I muttered under my breath while making sure to keep my eye on the horizon just in case my power was suddenly needed again. "I ended the synchro mode early for a reason, BB. What's this job system stuff?"

The window for the job system opened up once again, and I still couldn't really make heads or tails of it. Listed were a bunch of job titles in alphabetical order, ranging from anything between bakers to battlemages. Each had different requirements, so a lot of them were greyed out for me, meaning my options had gone down from what looked like millions to merely tens of thousands. Either number was too overwhelming.

<Okay kiddo, so you know how you levelled up after fighting the mannachoid and automatically earned your manna propulsion ability?> BB asked, most of the joking tone gone from its voice.

"Yeah, it was a pretty nice boost, but you never got the chance to explain why I received such a specific ability."

<Well, the reason is all on you,> BB explained. <In that fight you were jumping around a whole bunch, so my automated upgrade algorithm determined that the best thing it could do to make you a better combatant was to upgrade your aerial maneuvering and overall speed. With me so far?"

I gave a nod.

<Right, good. So the Job System is kind of an extension of that, only it has a little bit more input from you,> BB explained. <You can switch jobs any time you're out of a combat situation, but when you do you'll have to re-spec everything. Every time you level up you'll earn an active and a passive ability point, passive points will be assigned automatically by the algorithm, but actives are your chance to pick what you think would be most beneficial to you.>

"It's really weird when you go all professional like that, ya know," I snorted as I figured out how to switch the job list from 'all' to 'available'.

<Oh shove it,> BB said. <See anything you like at the moment?>

My browsing had stopped on a job class called "Red mage". While I had always considered mages to be pure magic casters that would stick to the back lines and lob ranged magical attacks at people from a distance, it didn't seem like that was the case for the Red Mage.

A jack-of-all-trades warrior, this option would give me the ability to fight with melee weapons just as easily as I would be able to fight with magic. I'd even be able to do a little bit of healing with this Job, which was something I hadn't even considered manna being able to do.

"For now, at least, I'll be going with the Red Mage!"

And with that announcement, everything changed all over again.

Tendrils of red arcane energy seeped from every pore of my skin and slithered over my entire body like a cocoon over a caterpillar. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I opened my mouth in a silent scream and the energy rushed in. On the edge of my consciousness, I could feel that my clothes were being torn apart, recycled, and changed into something new. My mind was being assaulted with information and training routines. Suddenly I understood the basics of how to wield a dagger, how to wield a sword. The two weapons materialised on my body, a sword in a sheath on my back and a dagger strapped to my leg. Trainers transformed into boots and on my head sat a hat.

As quickly as the energy appeared it dissipated. I dropped to one knee as I tried to catch my breath, only to have it taken away again by my revamped stats page.

[NAME: Jacob Lyre]

[LEVEL: 6]

[HP: 800/800]

[MANNA RESERVE: 3000/3000]

[ACTIVE ABILITY POINTS: 10]

[PASSIVE ABILITY POINTS: 0]

[ABILITIES:

ENERGY BEAM - FIRE A RAW BLAST OF MANNA AT YOUR OPPONENTS FOR DEVASTATING EFFECTS

MANNA PROPULSION - USING YOUR MANNA YOU CAN NOW CREATE LOCALISED AREAS OF FORCE AROUND YOUR HANDS AND FEET FOR UNPARALLELED AGILITY

BASIC MANNA CONSTRUCT - USING YOUR MANNA YOU CAN NOW GENERATE SMALL OBJECTS MADE FROM CONCENTRATED MANNA

GRAVITIC FLUX - USING YOUR MANNA YOU CAN NOW CREATE LOCALISED FIELDS OF HIGHER OR LOWER GRAVITY]

[SKILLS:

MANNA FACTORY - YOUR BODY IS A MANNA GENERATION FACTORY, GIVING YOU OVERWHELMING STRENGTH AND POWER

CORONA SHIELD - YOUR MANNA IS SO STRONG THAT IT CREATES A POWERFUL PHYSICAL BARRIER AROUND YOUR SKIN IN COMBAT DRAINING 1 MANNA EVERY 2 SECONDS

PHYSICAL BOOST - YOUR MANNA WEAVES THROUGHOUT YOUR PHYSICAL BODY, GRANTING YOU INCREASED SPEED, STRENGTH AND DURABILITY IN COMBAT DRAINING 1 MANNA EVERY MINUTE

SWORDPLAY - YOU UNDERSTAND BASIC SWORDSMANSHIP AND CAN HOLD YOUR OWN AGAINST BEGINNER SWORDSMEN

KNIFEMAN - YOU UNDERSTAND THE BASICS OF DAGGER USAGE AND CAN HOLD YOUR OWN IN A KNIFE FIGHT

TEMPORAL ACCELERATION - YOUR MENTAL STATE WILL MATCH THE SPEED AT WHICH YOU TAKE ACTIONS TO COMPENSATE FOR ADDITIONAL SPEED]

Things were about to get a lot more interesting.