Chapter 24: Anticipation

Chapter 24: Anticipation

Threshold reached. 250 XP.

Your Level has increased to 5.

Due to achieving Level 5 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:

-You have gained 1 Endurance.

-You have gained 2 Conjuration.

-You have gained 1 Intelligence.

-You have gained 3 Stat Points.

-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 5.

-You may choose a Talent to obtain.

My eyes grew wide with excitement as I looked over my Leveling benefits. Not only had I Leveled up twice in a single day, one of those Levels had gotten me a new Talent! I resisted the urge to sit down and begin meditating immediately. I at least needed to check on Erani first.This chapter's initial release occurred on the n0vell--Bjjn site.

“You good?” I called out as I walked over to her, wincing in pain as I stepped over the corpse of the Anacap I had killed.

“Yeah,” she called back. “How about you?”

“A bit cut up,” I said as I lifted my shirt to reveal the puncture wound in my gut. It was still seeping blood. Luckily, the Anacap’s claws were small enough that it was a narrow hole, and my Health had kept it from going in far enough to damage my internal organs, but the bleeding would be a problem. “Do you have any bandages?”

“Yeah, I do,” she walked back over to our campsite where we had originally been eating lunch. I had honestly completely forgotten that we were supposed to be taking a break right now, our backpacks off and lying next to the logs we had been resting on. She reached in and brought out a kit with basic medical supplies. “Take off your shirt.”

“Ooh, how forward,” I winked as I stripped the blood- and sweat-soaked cloth off of my chest.

Erani blinked at my comment, cheeks turning red, and froze in her advance toward me, obviously unsure of how to respond.

I laughed. “How is it you’re a badass Spell-slinging Sorcerer one moment, but then seconds later you flounder against a single flirtatious comment?”

She stammered before finding her voice. “I told you to stop messing with me like that!”

“Fine, fine, sorry,” I held up my hands in surrender. “You just bring it out of me.”

“Here,” Erani rolled her eyes and began wrapping gauze around my wound.

“Thanks.” I winced as the cloth made contact with the hole in my body. “But seriously, that was awesome. Well, and a little scary.”

She blinked. “What was?”

“Uh, no idea yet,” I chuckled. “I know nothing about my Class, remember? That includes Talent choices.”

Erani blinked. “Shit, you’re right. I kinda forgot about that, honestly. It’s been such a huge part of my own experience with my Class, it seems insane to think you can’t plan ahead. What was the Class you were aiming for before, again?”

“Swordsman. My instructor was one, so I wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

“Well, you’ve got a pretty melee-focused fighting style now, so at least all that instruction wasn’t wasted.”

“To an extent,” I laughed. “So, what, you’ve pre-planned every single choice you’ll make already? Seems a bit boring, doesn’t it? What if something happens and you have to change your mind?”

“Well, it’s not boring precisely because I don’t have anything pre-planned. I know everything that’s coming up for me, but that doesn’t mean I’ve set anything into stone yet. Hells, I already told you about how I don’t even know what my next Spell Choice is going to be. And I get that at my next Level.”

I shrugged. “Well, at least you’ve got some excitement.”

We continued walking, looking for a nearby spot that would be good to rest. I really was looking forward to finishing my sandwich. And making my Level-up choices, of course. A whole new Talent – I could only imagine what they would entail.

Currently, my only Talent was Time Loop, which was a pretty weird one. Normal Talents were static and didn’t get any better as you Leveled, and also, of course, didn’t mess with the flow of time. They also weren’t always an activated effect. Some were passive, like permanently increasing your Health/Minute by a certain amount. Some had more generic effects, while others were incredibly specific. Warlocks, for example, famously got offered Talents in the later Levels that would increase the effectiveness of one specific Spell they’d taken, and nothing else.

“So, you said your sister’s an Enchanter, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Though she’s mainly working as a researcher. Doesn’t do much selling of Enchanted items unless it’s for some special reason.”

“Why’d she go with the Class, then? Couldn’t she have just stayed Unclassed, if she wasn’t going to use it?”

“Well, the way she talks about it with me, it feels like she considers Enchanting to be more of an art than a means of profit. She’ll pretty often come up with some combination of enchantments that, functionally, are pretty useless. But it’s still neat. One time, she figured out how to use an Increased Weight Enchantment, a Vulnerable to the Elements Enchantment, and a Wind Enchantment to create a self-launching cannonball. Of course, it was insanely expensive, and pretty redundant with simple Force Enchantments, but still pretty cool to see in action. Honestly, I feel like she just wants to have a ‘hobby’ that still feels productive, research-wise.”

“Seems like an expensive hobby,” I chuckled.

“I guess being a researcher pays well,” Erani shrugged. Then she looked over at a flat rock sitting by a road, and gestured to it. “Wanna stop here?”

“Sure,” I said.

We sat. The rough stone wasn’t incredibly comfortable, but felt a bit more civilized than sitting on the ground. Not that I could really talk about being ‘civilized’ – I could still taste the raw, stringy monster meat I’d had a few days ago.

“Well,” Erani said, “I’m gonna finish my lunch. I’m sure you want to be left alone to manage your Levels, anyway.”

“Yeah, let me know if there’s any trouble.”

“Sure. And let me know what you end up getting. I’m a bit excited to see the choices you’re offered.”

“Yeah,” I smiled with anticipation. “So am I.”

It was time to pick a Talent.