Chapter 272

Cain wakes up well before dawn, well-rested and clear of mind. The perfect state to make decisions. First, he puts his remaining skill points into [Commander] and [General Staff], completing the entire Puppet Master Skill tree and making his puppets intelligent and autonomous, within the limits of their orders. 

The change is evident right away; not only do the Puppets say good morning when they see him, but they also notice that he’s distracted and take over making breakfast without orders. 

[Hidden Skull Unlocked] 

[Blessed Summoner] A fully skilled Lord General of the Puppet Master class may Summon one target of base Legendary Quality. 

Cain gasps in shock, startling the Puppets who have begun serving breakfast, their maid uniforms rustling from the brisk efficiency with which they perform their daily chores. 

[The Puppet Master is a broken class, but isn’t that a little too much? Many of the Legendary Summons can nearly match me on their own; adding them to my summons is just insane.] Cain thinks to himself, making the merged Seraphim Inquisitors laugh. 

[Just wait. You’ve got a new class coming. If the Laughing God favors you, it might be even more ridiculous.]

All sorts of incredible opponents flash through Cain’s thoughts as he eats breakfast. Every one of the Legendary summons has a situation where it would definitely be beneficial; there are no bad options among them.

The rest of the group filters down over the next few minutes, awoken by the maids for breakfast. Even Damien leaves his office downtown and joins them after a while, making sure Cain isn’t going to be late to court. Officially it’s a Regency Court, as King James is underage, but as the only surviving Royal, he has the only say in who the Regent will be, and he appointed himself as Regent until his Reign is no longer contested and he is officially Coronated.

In Skyview that is no less than six months from the previous King’s passing, so he still has nearly a month to wait. In practice, he’s already the Monarch, and has been for a while, but according to Damien some of the Nobles are sticklers for tradition, and others simply want the time to attempt to have him dethroned. 

[Truly living up to the reputation of the chaotic nations.] Cain sends to the others in party chat as the old werewolf finished his explanation of the state of Royal affairs. Since things are beyond his knowledge, but he does get all the official messages intended for the rulers of territories, so he’s managed to keep fairly well informed. 

Although it’s acceptable to show up at any point in the morning, it’s considered polite for new Nobles to be there before the proceedings start, so they can meet and greet the others and get acquainted with the subtle details of etiquette that remain unknown to those outside the nobility. 

“I’ll be ready. I want to take a minute to look over my class options before going. If there’s a suitable option, I’ll upgrade before I leave.”

“Excellent idea. A third advancement class is always impressive to see. But who will you bring? The custom is the Noble plus two, usually their consort and an assistant.” Damien points out that Cain doesn’t make a social faux pas.

“I’ll bring Misha and Mythryll in with me. The other Companions will be otherwise occupied.” He’s planning to merge with all of the Companions, but there’s no need to explain that to the administrator. 

Damien bows in acquiescence and the maids usher him into a chair and serve him breakfast. Despite their appearances, the scene somewhat reminds Cain of his grandmother’s house in his later life. Nobody leaves without being fed. Damien looks pleased with the arrangement as well, werewolves are always at least a little bit hungry, and the sight of cute Elves in maid costumes is much better than the stack of paperwork on his desk. 

Having Svetlana around has made his life much easier today, she’s currently working through the monthly accounts, and she’s much faster at math than he is. That will take half of his daily work away even if she doesn’t do any other paperwork and focuses entirely on the budget and the Valley’s security. 

Cain opens the class change menu and finds he has a variety of options to choose from, with the default Avatar for each lined up in a row in front of him. He immediately dismisses the two highlighted in green as life skills classes after a cursory glance. He doesn’t intend to be a full-time inscriptionist or a bureaucrat.

That leaves him with four valid possibilities. 

Cain starts from the left, the Avatar has been portrayed as a tackier version of his human appearance with a lot of flashy gold jewelry.

The class is [Enslaver] and comes with an innate ability for mind control, skills for various mental magics, plus up to six more Lieutenants. It’s not a bad option, and a very powerful looking class, but not Cain’s style. 

The second class shows his human form in a crown and a brightly colored royal outfit complete with a fur-trimmed cape. The [Puppeteer Monarch] class has a skill tree that’s very similar to the General side of the Puppet Master Skill Tree all over again.

Almost every skill grants increasing numbers of summons, but with the addition of a damage buff and two Dukes, who would have most of his abilities, even the ability to Summon Supporters. 

It’s noted as the direct progression path of the Puppet Master, and Cain can see why. He could create an actual army with that class. By nature, it looks like the most probable upgraded class for him to take. 

The third is noted as a hidden class [Risen Overlord]. The class upgrades all [Puppets] to his current level by default, and the skill tree is a combination of offensive skills, both magical and melee, as well aura abilities. It’s a pure damage output class and a nearly perfect one.

Towards the top of the tree, his summons would gain access to the new class skills, letting all of them use the high damage melee abilities and spells. That would be an incredible buff for his Puppets. 

Between that one and the Puppeteer Monarch, it’s a pretty close call; they’re both fantastic in their own way. But there’s one left. This one doesn’t show him in human form but the miniaturized version of the Ancient Form. 

The Avatar has a sinister look to it, like this class is innately evil, but given the nature of the Ancient species, that might be unintentional.

[Ancient Flesh Crafter] is the name of the Unique Class generated by the advancement token and it is every bit as ridiculous as he had hoped. 

Cain can’t help but laugh in shock while reading the brief description, [The Ancient Flesh Crafters are the pseudo scientists responsible for the creation of most of the planet’s sentient species.]

That did nothing at all to dispel the impression of unfathomable evil the default Avatar gives off; it just adds overtones of a mad scientist. 

Looking through the class abilities, the innate class skills seem simple at first glance but Cain is certain they are far from mundane in practice. 

[Modify] reshape a living being or create a Unique Puppet. Can be used to grant the target one ability known by the Flesh Crafter or his active summons other than [Malleable Form]

Simple in theory, but in practice, he could modify Mythryll to breathe fire or Misha to teleport like the Oath Breaker. The second of the innate class abilities is similarly deceptive, and just as unbalanced as the first. 

[Primal Echo] Summon a shadowy assistant that can use the Flesh Crafters abilities and spells at half power. 

Other than the two innate skills, the class only has five more—four that can be freely chosen and one that requires all the others. 

[Ancient Wisdom] lets Cain give a skill known by an active Summon to himself and his entire party. It has stages of upgrades, from lesser through Legendary summons abilities. 

[Useful Dolls] upgrades Puppets to his level. Simple, but powerful when combined with the other class abilities. 

[Living Dolls] resurrects a target into the body of a Puppet under his control and traps their previous body in a stasis gem. There’s nothing in the description about what happens if they’re killed again, or the spell is ended, which Cain finds a bit concerning. 

[Greater Merger] would allow him to gain all the spells and abilities of one merged target. 

Once all of those are at their maximum rank, a skill called [Ancient Horrors] is unlocked, increasing the quality of his Golem Type summons by an additional level and renaming the spells. 

If these are the sorts of abilities the Ancients had before the system existed, it’s no wonder that the other species felt threatened by them. The ability to create life or reshape living things into new hybrid species is incredibly extraordinary and equally morally questionable.

Cain assures himself that he will use it responsibly, but there’s still that bit of self-doubt that tells him he’s going to abuse that ability at some point, and not just a little bit. 

It’s by far the best of the options by the time he gets to level 300. The single skill of Ancient Horrors is enough to put it over the top. Sure, he doesn’t get many more summons, if you don’t count the fact the Primal Echo can use all his skills, but the abilities of the ones he does have will skyrocket.

Puppeteer Monarch and Risen Overlord aren’t bad options, though and deserve a bit of consideration about the path Cain wants to follow in the future.

Cain carefully weighs the options and decides that the ability to give every one of his summons and party members an extra power wins out over numbers. Cain chooses the [Ancient Flesh Crafter] class and waits for the notifications.

[Abilities Gained] 

[Class Changed] 

[Welcome Flesh Crafter] 

Cain is eager to try out his new abilities, dismissing the Seraphim Inquisitors and trading them for the Legendary Seraphim he faced inside the dungeon. The two girls said it was synthetic, but the system recorded it as the real thing, so he hoped his experiment would work. 

[Might I ask what you are planning on doing, Ancient?] One of the cloned Seraphim asks in his mind. 

[I’m teaching Puppets to Summon the Heavenly Host.]

[Please don’t. Do you know how hard we’ve worked to maintain the balance between the species? Having constructs calling forth Holy Armies will end very poorly for us all once the greedy ones find out.]

[Well, they don’t have combat skills, and they have lousy mana reserves, so the options are rather limited.] Cain explains. 

[Why not Dragon Breath? Everyone is impressed by Dragon Breath, and you’ve got two of them right over there, bothering the Werewolf.]

That’s not a bad idea, Cain decides. He should have thought about that right away. Cain inspects a maid-type Puppet working in the kitchen and uses [Modify] to give her Laura’s Dragon Breath. The puppet’s eyes change slightly, becoming slotted like a cat’s, but otherwise, it looks the same. 

[Modification Successful] 

Oh, very nice; he’s got an ice-breathing Maid Puppet here now. Cain does the same to another one and finds that the first one reverts to normal. 

[Modification Successful] 

[Puppets Cannot Interact With The Interface]

Oh, maybe that’s it. They can’t select to keep the ability, so the next time he uses it, they revert. That’s a bit of a bummer. Maybe it’s different if he makes a brand new one with Dragon Breath by default?

This unique ability will need some practice, but he’s running short on time; they’ve got to get to the Capital and meet the Oligarchs.