“Annnd that’s a wrap,” Liliana sing-songed as she finished off her latest Horned Hare. She dropped next to the body and set to Skinning it, the progress she’d made in the skill obvious when the pelt came off without damage. She took the Core and horns and dropped them into her bulging bag. Once she’d started getting pelts good enough to sell her bag had filled much faster than before.

“Guess it’s time,” Liliana murmured as she wiped her hands off on her bloody pants. She sat down, back against a tree and naginata leaning next to her. She looked around and verified that she was alone before she finally let the notifications wash over her. She’d been sitting on her latest level-ups for an hour. She had expected to hit level 20 today and had discussed class opportunities with Silas the night before. He’d known she was heading out after the Horned Hares starting today and knew she’d be hitting level 20 most likely.

Liliana had a good idea of what classes she’d get, most everyone got the basic set at first with some special ones thrown in if you’d done something to trigger it. Silas had told her most likely she’d get Warrior, Ranger, Mage, and maybe Healer since she had [Regeneration], it was also a given she’d get some kind of Noble class. Which were functionally useless if you wanted to use them for combat as the bonuses they gave all had to do with estate management. Which was something Liliana would likely never do, but it was a class that was offered to anyone who had been raised as a noble.

There was also the possibility that her status as a reincarnated soul and her interactions with Vita would prompt some kind of obscure class options. Liliana knew what she wanted though, she remembered a specific class path from the game. It wasn’t often gone after in the game because it required grinding a useless skill there, [Dancing]. A skill she had gotten whether she wanted it or not. The class also required a certain amount of Charisma, a stat frowned upon by most meta-players as it had no damage bonuses. If Liliana was remembering right, and of course she was, she should trigger the starter class on the path. Unless the System was feeling nice and gave her some rare class. With a silent prayer to the System, Liliana opened her notifications.

You’ve reached Level 20.

+20 Stat points

+8 Stat Points from boon.

Your Class has been unlocked, 4 Common Classes are available. 1 Uncommon Class, 1 Rare Class.

Liliana grinned at the notification, she could guess the 4 common classes, and the Rare Class would be her Noble class. The uncommon one was what intrigued her though as it was not expected. Liliana focused on her Classes to get the list to come up for them.

Available Common Classes:

Warrior

Mage

Ranger

Healer

Available Uncommon Class:

Dancer

Available Rare Class:

Duchal Daughter

Liliana immediately denied Duchal Daughter, just the name stung her. She focused on Dancer, as it was the class she’d hoped for. She had played a Dancer class a few times in the past, they were typically a class that focused on speed rather than strength in fights.

Liliana focused on the class to get more information on it.

Dancer:(Warrior Subclass) Class Requirements: Level 25 in a weapon, level 15 in Dancing. 35 Endurance, 35 Speed, 35 Charisma, 25 Dexterity.

A Dancer uses the skills they’ve honed on the dance floor to the battlefield. Pirouetting around enemies and slipping past attacks. They are only ever in one place long enough to strike before twirling off in a dizzying swirl of flashing steel. Rather than a focus on brute strength, a Dancer focuses on hitting the weak points on an enemy to bring them down.

+3 to Speed Per Level, +2 to Endurance Per Level, +2 to Dexterity Per Level, +1 to Charisma Per Level.

Liliana blinked at the information. It was...a lot of information given, more than [Identify] usually offered her. In retrospect it made sense. Classes had a huge impact on how one fought so it made sense for you to be given enough information to decide on how your future would go. She hadn’t expected so many stat increases though. She had known that classes could increase the stat points gained. It wasn’t done in the game, classes just affected the skills you could learn, but she had read that here classes could impact your stats gained. The typical beginner classes didn’t offer much, rarer classes offered more stat gains. Some rare classes apparently could also remove stat points as well in a trade-off, though those were extremely rare.

Liliana checked the Warrior class just to be safe as it had originally been her first pick.

Warrior: Class Requirements: Level 20. Level 10 in any weapon. 20 Strength, 20 Endurance, 20 Vitality.

The Warrior is a fighter who runs first into fights, letting the strength of their blade decide the end of a battle. Warriors focus on strength to overcome any obstacle, unwilling to stand down until either they or their opponent is dead.

+2 to Strength Per Level, +1 to Vitality Per Level, +1 to Endurance Per Level

Liliana nodded, that was more expected. The Warrior class gave some stat improvements but not as many as Dancer. However, for her purposes, Dancer was a much better choice for her over Warrior. It gave her extra stats in three stats she regularly used, which would leave her more points to distribute to other stats that she’d need. It wasn’t the perfect class for her, not by far, but it was good enough for her right now. Liliana accepted Dancer as her class.

You’ve met the Requirements for the Skill [Dance of The Daystar], would you like to accept the skill?

You’ve met the Requirements for the Spell [Tempo], would you like to accept the Spell?

Liliana stared at the notifications for a moment, not expecting to gain a new skill and a spell so soon. She had known you generally got a skill or a spell with a new class but it was still startling. She focused on the first skill to see what it was, its name was far more flowery than her other skills and spells.

Dance Of The Daystar: (Light) Taking energy from the light of the Sun you empower your movements and blade in a dance of flashing steel and blinding light.

Speed increased by 35%

Weapon Damage increased by 20% of your Magic Power

150 Stamina per Minute

100 Mana Per Minute

Channel

Liliana pouted at yet another Light skill. She wasn’t escaping the affinity anytime soon. She was lucky that Life skills were usually focused on buffs and healing, otherwise, she’d probably be getting as many of those. She wanted Soul skills, but those seemed to be far rarer. She didn’t even have an idea of how to do Soul rending or mending spells, which she should be able to learn at her affinity. Yet since she had no idea about the how of those skills or spells she couldn’t even use her [Mana Manipulation] to try to force a skill.

Still, it was a good offensive skill. Her best one all told and if she was careful she might be able to layer it with [Enhancement] in a pinch. Though the Stamina cost could end up seeing her passed out if she wasn’t careful. The fact that it was a Channel was also useful, it meant it wouldn’t stop until she canceled it. Based on her current Stamina regeneration she could keep it going for a long while provided her other actions didn’t drain her Stamina past her regeneration rate.

Liliana focused on the new spell she’d gotten next.

Tempo: Set a beat to your battle with your movements, slowly disorientate your opponents through the mesmerizing movements of your body and weapon. The longer Tempo is active the more confused the opponent becomes, and the harder it is for them to break out. Effects increased based on Charisma.

Opponents with Higher Intelligence are less affected.

80 Mana Per Minute

Channel

Liliana grinned at the new spell. It wasn’t light for one thing, which immediately made her like it. It also wasn’t exactly an offensive spell as it didn’t do damage itself, but it would help her tremendously in battle. Being able to throw off her opponents and confuse them would always work in her favor, and could even let her fight higher leveled creatures with less risk. Though she’d need to be careful to avoid anything that might have a high Intelligence.

Liliana finally directed her attention to her Status Sheet and the waiting skill points. She hadn’t touched them since she hit level 16 and she had four levels of points to distribute. She’d managed to get an extra point in Speed, Strength, and Endurance over the four levels as well. She took her future levels with Dancer into account, she was going to avoid putting points into the stats that would get the bonus this time so that her other stats could balance out well enough. Except for Dexterity, which had fallen behind considerably over the last few days. She wanted to avoid any kind of min-maxing, that was fine in a game but this was her life. Min-maxing left too many weaknesses that were easily exploited in real life. Ignore your Vitality for Speed or Intelligence? One punch and you’d be down. Ignore Endurance for Strength and Vitality? You wouldn’t last any kind of battle. No, a balanced spread with focuses on a few stats would serve her well. Allocating her points to bring up Dexterity and balance the rest of her stats Liliana looked over her new sheet with a nod. It was nice to see so much progress from the past few days. She’d started this week at level 1, now she was at Rank 9, Level 20 with her own class! She felt positively giddy as she traced the new words and numbers on her stat sheet.

Status Sheet

Name

Liliana Rosengarde

Age

14

Level

20

Class

Dancer

Race

Human

Rank

9

Health

380

H-Regen

+3.8/1.1sec

Mana

400

M-Regen

+4/1.1sec

Stamina

410

S-Regen

+4.1/1.1sec

Magic Power

410

Magic Control

460

Experience: 13,500/44,100

Vitality

38

Endurance

41

Strength

47

Dexterity

30

Wisdom

40

Intelligence

40

Speed

41

Charisma

40

Unallocated Stat Points: 0

As Liliana closed out the sheet the heat from the essence integrating with her body hit and Liliana grit her teeth through the uncomfortable feeling. She’d gotten used to it but it didn’t mean it was enjoyable to dump four levels of stats on herself at one time. She was lucky she still wasn’t at a point where the essence needed to force physical alterations to her yet, though she was probably approaching that point with her Strength. She’d need to ask Silas when she needed to worry about that. He could probably give her a good estimate for it since he spent a good amount of time training guard recruits who dumped points into Strength regularly, though all of them boasted far more muscles than Liliana ever thought she’d have.

When the essence was done merging with her body Liliana dismissed her sheet and looked around, freezing when she met a pair of amber eyes staring at her from a few feet away. [Identify] immediately went to work and gave her information she hadn’t asked for.

Red Fox

Level 26

Red Foxes specialize in Light or Shadow magic, using them to cast illusions that trick and deceive prey and opponents. They slip masterfully through the shadows to strike where least expected.

Rank: 9

The creature met her stare and blinked slowly before it lowered its head to continue what it had been doing while Liliana was focused on her stats and class change. It had been eating the corpse of the Horned Hare that Liliana had killed. Liliana stared at it, waiting for it to do what every other wild creature she’d run into had done and attacked her. Yet the fox seemed content with finishing its free meal.

I need to be more careful about where I level, if the fox has wanted to hurt me it could’ve gotten off an attack before I even realized it was here. Liliana mentally chided herself for her negligence. She knew she should probably leave the clearing and get away from the fox. It was six levels higher than her and since it seemed to use magic often likely had high Intelligence so her new spell wouldn’t be that effective against it. Yet she couldn’t make herself leave. This was the first wild creature that hadn’t immediately wanted to attack her and she was curious.

The fox finished the last of the hare and stretched, looking once more at her. Blood coated its muzzle but Liliana was more intrigued by the spark of real intelligence in its amber eyes, and the way its coat looked criminally silky under the sun’s warm rays. The fox slowly started to pad over to her though it froze when Liliana instinctively grabbed her naginata. As her grip tightened the fox’s fur bristled and I showed its fangs.

Making perhaps the dumbest decision since she’d woke up in this world Liliana let go of her naginata. Immediately the fox calmed and it took a few more steps until it was barely a foot from her. The creature laid down, placing its head on its paws as it looked up at her with wide eyes, and Liliana got a distinct feeling that it was begging.

“Do you want more Hares?” Liliana asked, voice soft to not spook the fox. The fox’s head rose at the sound of her voice and then it tilted it adorably, much like a puppy. As if it was trying to decipher her words.

Would a binding contract work to let it understand me? But I don’t want to use it on a low leveled fox. There were different kinds of binding contracts though. The most common are the ones I want to use with high-leveled creatures where both parties share power. But there are also contracts where it was little more than a transaction and they were temporary. Perhaps that would work here? Just a temporary one where we can understand each other? It could be useful if the Fox knows areas where there are more Hares for me to kill, and it gets a meal out of it. Liliana considered the fox as it stared at her and made her decision. She was only partially swayed by how soft and tempting the fox’s fur was this close.

With slow and careful movements Liliana held out her hand to the fox. After a moment of staring at the hand, the fox crawled forward and pressed its cold nose against her palm. As soon as it made contact Liliana activated [Bonding Contract]. A light blue circle filled with runes and symbols appeared on Liliana’s hand where the fox’s nose touched and then a second appeared under the two of them, many times large. Mentally focusing on what she wanted from the contract, a guide through the forest and to new creatures for her to fight and a scout. She watched as new symbols and runes etched themselves on the circle. She added in what she would give the fox, the corpses of whatever she killed after she removed what she wanted from them. Runes and symbols filled in more of the blank space and the light of the circle grew, almost blinding as Liliana added in the final part. The contract could be canceled at any time by either of them.

The contract specifications done Liliana accepted it and the light became so bright she had to squint her eyes. The world seemed to pause as she waited for the fox to accept, panic filling her that maybe it wasn’t smart enough to understand a Bonding Contract and she’d end up with her hand bitten off because it thought this was an attack. The fear was assuaged when she felt the contract be accepted, the light reached a peak and then cut off.

In front of her sat the fox and for a moment a small blue circle floated over its forehead before it seemed to sink into its fur and disappear. Over the back of Liliana’s hand floated the same circle that sunk into her skin with a feeling like she’d had a mild electric shock before it too vanished.

Liliana looked at the fox, her first bond, and felt a faint sense of connection. It wasn’t as strong as she’d been told it would be with the more involved contacts but she could get a sense that the fox was pleased.

[Bonding Contract] has reached Level 2!

Liliana snorted at the notification before she waved it off and focused on her new...friend?

“So, can I pet you?” Liliana asked, her fingers twitching for the opportunity. The fox yipped a sound that seemed far too similar to laughter to be a coincidence before it stepped within petting range and Liliana finally got the sink her fingers into its fur. The fox sat down as she combed her fingers through its fur, marveling at how smooth and soft its fur was. Her fingers practically disappeared into it. She never wanted to let go and she had to restrain her urge to pick up the fox and cuddle it for hours. Bond or not she didn’t think it would like that.

Eventually, the fox seemed to get bored of her attention and it stood. It moved away and yipped, giving Liliana the feeling of it asking her if they could go now. It was odd, she could get a sense of what its noises and body language meant now. She had expected something like telepathy like she saw in fantasy books back on earth but it seemed she just became able to decipher the creature’s natural way of communicating, she wondered if it was the same for creatures that were bonded fully?

“We should give you a name, feels weird to refer to you as ‘the fox’” Liliana informed the fox, she sensed it was a he now that she focused. The fox tilted his head and yipped, he was confused as to what a name was.

“It helps identify who you are, rather than what you are,” Liliana explained to the fox as her mind considered an appropriate name for her newest friend. The fox seemed to somewhat understand her explanation, though how much translated she wasn’t certain.

“Well since Red Foxes use light and shadow magic and you’re going to be guiding me, how about Polaris?” Liliana asked the fox. He seemed to consider the name before he gave an accepting yip with his head raised high. Liliana giggled at the fox’s antics, he seemed like a mini nobleman with his head held like that.

“Alright Polaris, let’s go find us some Horned Hares,” Liliana instructed and with an excited yip, he jumped up and ran in a circle for a moment before dashing off into the forest, Liliana following behind him.