Chapter 183: Experiment

Chapter 183: Experiment

It took a while for Jadis to get through the explanation on how her ritual class worked. Sabina and Bridget had a lot of questions, and skepticism, regarding both the nature of the rituals as well as the benefits they imparted. It helped to have everyone else with her to back up her claims, though. Aila was particularly convincing since she was willing to not only share the name and general nature of her arcanist class, but she also revealed the details of her lewder skills. All of them together were enough to convince the two that Jadis’ rituals were genuine and not some kind of weird sex cult thing.

Well, maybe the mercenary company kind of was some kind of weird sex cult, if she looked at it from a certain point of view...

Cults aside, Jadis got through the ritualist explanations and then promptly moved on to the Mirror Knight explanation, a hurdle she knew would be hard to jump. To her surprise, Sabina had no issue at all accepting the fact that Jadis was actually just one person. She had apparently suspected some kind of class that offered synchronized benefits, but duplicate bodies made sense to her too, so she took the info in stride. Bridget had more trouble with the concept, not that Jadis could blame her. It was a weird claim to make and it took a lot of different tests and examples to prove to the orc that her multi-body skill wasn’t some kind of trick or illusion.

The true sticking point of the whole discussion though was the idea that she could affect their potential class options. While the possibility of getting a rare and powerful class was intriguing, the idea that it could potentially bind them to be near Jadis in order to gain the greatest benefits of the class certainly caused some hesitation. There was also the fact that since only three classes were offered at unlocking, having at least one replaced by a Jadis class could mean that they weren’t getting an option for a different class that they might have been working towards their whole lives.

“How sure are you about this whole Nephilim class thing are you?” Bridget asked again, her brows furrowed and her arms crossed in a stance of serious contemplation.

“We’re not sure at all,” Jay answered with a shrug. “But the two of our group who have leveled since getting involved with me, Aila and Eir, both received Nephilim-related class options. Powerful ones, but definitely on the, uh, sexual side of things.”

“Yours is powerful too?” Bridget turned to look at Eir.

“It is,” the elf affirmed. “It has a great deal of potential, even at low levels, though I’d rather keep the details private.”

Jadis could see the curiosity burning in Bridget’s dark eyes, but she didn’t press Eir further. The cultural taboo against prying into class details was strong enough to keep her from demanding more information, even though she clearly wanted to. Instead, the orc stewed silently for a while, chewing on her lip with one fang.

“What do you think would happen if we didn’t perform a sex ritual before reaching level twenty and unlocking our secondary classes?”

Jadis turned her attention to Sabina. The smith was tapping her chin thoughtfully with one finger, a far away look in her gold-glazed eyes.

“Would simply being in constant contact with you be enough to tip the scales in favor of a Nephilim-centric class or would that not be a strong enough influence? I know performing rare and unusual feats can lead to unique class options since that’s how Bridget got her class and how many others have gotten strange classes like my father who has the class called ‘Fashion Smith’ but I don’t know if just being around you three—or just you? Just you. Would being around just you be enough to grant a unique class?”

“I have no idea if that would work,” Jay admitted. “It hasn’t really come up yet. I mean, we’re really only basing this whole Nephilim class thing on Aila and Eir. It could be a coincidence. I fucking doubt it, but it could.”

Sabina rocked forward on her chair, putting her elbows on the table and her chin on her fists. She stared intensely at Jay, her eyes ablaze with a curiosity that put Bridget’s ember to shame.

“I want to test it. Can we wait to have sex? I want to have sex because that large of a stat boost would be amazingly beneficial and also you’re very attractive and I’ve been interested in getting to know at least one of you a little closer since I met you but I kind of thought maybe not since you were clearly dating Aila and you two make a cute couple and I don’t want to come between that but since I saw the bed situation I’ve been thinking that maybe there was room for me too so this is really a good turn of events for me.”

Sabina took a breath.

“No, you’re right, it is extreme,” Dys said, pulling the orc’s attention back to her. “And you’re right, we did just meet a few days ago. I’m perfectly fine with you wanting to take your time and figure out your feelings about it. Again, I don’t want you to feel forced. In fact, I wanted you and Sabina to know about all this even if you don’t ‘join’ us since we’ll be working together as a team out in the wilderness for a while. Better we be upfront with you now then let you stumble across what we’re doing later.”

“Do you want to hold off on the fast leveling until you decide?” Syd asked from further away. “I mean, since you don’t know if you want to risk the Nephilim class or not. It really won’t take us long to get you a few levels. We got Aila to level twenty in like a week, so we have plenty of time for you to decide before we head out on our expedition.”

“Maybe you want to see what happens with Sabina, first?” Jay put forward the idea to see how it would land. “Let her be the guinea pig, so to speak?”

Bridget’s contemplative face screwed up in confusion as she looked up at Jay.

“What’s a guinea? And what do pigs have to do with anything?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Aila smoothly interjected. “Sometimes she uses phrases that have to do with Nephilim culture. Just ignore them.”

“It means ‘test subject’ or something like that,” Jay explained a second later. “No offense.”

Sabina evinced no issues with the comparison, though her face still glowed with embarrassment.

“Alright, yeah,” Bridget finally said with a deep breath. “I’d like to wait on making a decision then, for now. I wouldn’t mind seeing what happens with the chirpy here, first, either. Uh, I mean that respectfully, yeah?”

“It’s fine,” Sabina waved Bridget off. “If you were more forward and wanted to test what’ll happen I would let you go first since its kind of a gamble on what the effect this will have on my class options if any but since you aren’t and I know I’ll die from curiosity if I don’t try it I’m trying it and hopefully it’ll prove to have an interesting result but even if nothing comes of it I know I plan on sticking with this company for a long time and if the level speed stays consistent I might hit CLR sixty in a matter of months rather than years and that means a chance to get a Nephilim tertiary class presuming we have sex before then which I think is more than likely since I do kind of want to jump her and also the attribute benefits and also—”

“Sabina,” Eir politely cut the smith off, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Slow down. You need to breathe.”

“Right, okay,” Sabina said, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling. Nodding at Eir, she turned to meet Bridget’s gaze directly. “Right. In summary, you should wait. See what happens with me, since it could make a difference in what you decide.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bridget said quietly, looking slightly taken aback by Sabina’s confidently presented advice. “I think I will. That, uh, okay with you all? Can I let Sabby here test the waters first?”

“If you two are good with that, then it doesn’t bother me,” Jay answered firmly.

The rest of the team gathered at the table nodded and spoke their agreement with the decision as well, some even offering advice and support of their own. Kerr’s advice was soundly ignored for reasons of licentiousness, but Jadis could see that the two newcomers were appreciative of the encouragement.

All in all, Jadis felt like the discussion had gone well. Neither Sabina nor Bridget had been upset or offended by Jadis’ class skills and subsequent offer, just reasonably cautious. In all honesty, Jadis had expected at least one of them to object to the proposal. Considering how many women she’d now met who were at a minimum bisexual, Jadis was starting to wonder about the sexual dynamics of Oros. Or maybe she was thinking about it too hard? Her patron deity was the god of fortune, after all, so it made some sense that he was helping her ‘get lucky’.

Jadis winced internally at her awful pun. But hey, at least it was only in her head where no one else would ever know about it. And if D happened to be listening in on her internal monologue with his godly powers, then he deserved the psychic damage that would come from that terrible play on words.