[47]

It was the morning of my second Seventhday. Ugz peered down from the bed, watching over my shoulder. I could feel his nervousness reflecting my own. With great care, I slowly lowered the dust of my last essence crystal into the magic circle below. Unbidden, the magic drew the words of the enchantment from me. I closed my eyes to concentrate, hoping that I would not screw up a second time.

A tug from my core pulled an etheric strand loose, and I felt the energy in the world around me responding. Swirls and eddies of essence flowed down like smoke to the magic formation on my bedroom floor. I practically shouted the last verse of the spell when the curse took hold.

“Whooooohoooooo!” I shouted, jumping on the bed and tossing Ugz in the air in victory.

Raxx stuck his head in a short time later, catching me using my familiar as a slow dance partner.

The Harak yelped in laughter.

“Did it work?” He asked, staring down at the chalk circles and runic writing.

“Yep!” I said, leaping down from the bed to pick up the cup off the ground. A second later, I handed it to Raxx.

“What’s it do?” Raxx asked, sniffing the ordinary-looking mug.

“Try casting detect magic on it.” I said, grinning like a fool.

Raxx complied. A moment later he said, “Nothing.”

I pumped my fist. “Only a detect curse spell should find it. Not everyone has that one.”

“C’mon. Don’t make me ask again,” Raxx said, handing the cup back to me.

“This baby gives whoever drinks from it the hiccups and flatulence for a couple minutes.” I said with pride.

Raxx’s snout opened, showing his fangs in a smile as wide as my own.

Without saying another word, we rushed into the kitchen together, and he began chugging ale.

Each second waiting felt like an eternity. The two of us looked back to the cup, looking for a sign, then—

“HIC!” Raxx belched. Air blasted out his ass soon after.

“Double win!” I cheered.

We fell to the floor laughing like school children. Just when Raxx seemed like he would get a hold on things, gas would rise again and a storm of farts and hiccups would come out of both ends. The Sea Dog’s hyena-like laugh made it a hundred times funnier to me.

“We h-HIC!, we have-HIC!, h-have to HIC! use t-this on HIC! Joy!” Raxx said, snot leaking out of his snout from laughing so hard.

That sobered me right the hell up.

“No, no, no, no. We must never use this on Joy. Trust me.” I said seriously, imploring my message to sink in.

“Why? HIC!” Raxx asked, turning his head quizzically, wiping off drool with his vest.

“I’ve seen what she can do with an alchemy lab. You do not want to get on Joy’s unpleasant side, like ever. Trust me on this. She will win a prank war; it’s best to just not get into one.” I said.

Over the past week, I spent more time at the Wildlings' house-training alchemy and herbalism. Alchemy became more than a class skill, turning into a genuine hobby in large part because of Joy’s teaching. She knew so many recipes that I wondered if that was where she spent all her skill points.

I knew I would not be at her level soon, but I was rapidly catching up. My A ranked skill in read and write, filled in a lot of gaps, and I had already made it to rank E in alchemy. Herbalism was not far, hitting E the day after. Even Joy had to admit to being impressed with that result.

That was not the only area I had improved, either. The intensity of Ashmere’s training continued to push my advancement on multiple fronts. All my spells, including the new one Magesilk Attire, were at Rank two. I focused on bringing it and Identify Disease up at the expense of my other three spells because of how much energy it took from me.

My Strength, Willpower and Intelligence also all increased by 1. Agility increased by 2, likely benefiting from combat training as much as physical fitness.

The increases to my attributes happened so rapidly that I could feel a difference in nearly every aspect of my life. Muscles grew larger and longer, adapting to my growing physical characteristics. Constitution singularly rose to the top of the heap by my personal design, and I could feel its changes distinctly. Not just during physical exertion, either. My skin looked healthier. Breathing was easier too, almost like I could suck the entire world into my lungs. Energy was more bountiful, and that affected my psychological state for the better.

More pronounced were my ever-expanding mental attributes.

Presence, like its physical counterpart Constitution, had me feeling tougher than I ever felt. I recovered from Elaine’s admonition with record speed, processing my feelings and confronting the lies for what they were. Presence helped me understand that there was a friend in her that could have developed into more had circumstances been far different. Maybe one day we might meet on different terms and try again. But for now, I pushed the future Duchess from my thoughts in a way that was not avoidant.

Just as interesting was the increase of my Perception attribute. Though it did not grow along with my other attributes, I was still adjusting to its prior advancement. My baseline Perception at 1 was probably about average compared to most people. However, at the current rate of 7, the world opened to me in sharper detail than I ever could have imagined. Sounds, colors, and smells were more vivid, blending to form a detail focused cognizance. Unconsciously, my senses oriented themselves toward things that my conscious mind would find salient. Interestingly, my ability to discern Ugz’s temperament grew correspondingly with it. His moods were less alien than I had originally believed, as I grew to understand boredom was at the root of most of his issues, including hunger. Who has not wanted to eat when bored?

Finally, my Willpower continued to be exceptional by any metric. None in the spell casting class could cast for as long as I could, buckling under mental strain long before me. Thus, it was disappointing to me that none of my spells were of the offensive variety. People said that the [Monsterslayer] class, like Reynold and Tedric assuredly had, could cast fire spells that wrecked destruction on their foes. With Willpower like mine, I would be an unstoppable force wielding spells like those. I could only hope that eventually I would get a spell that used the attribute to its fullest.

At Introduction to Classes, I learned that like Rank D skills, Attributes at 7 were a threshold that took considerably more effort to increase. Anything in those ranges was best served using the respective points it took to increase them. This meant that I had to think more critically about the person I wanted to be in my ascension.

My poleaxe skill took a sudden jump to Rank E and I finally acquired the Hand-to-Hand skill. Master Rohan forced anyone at E or above from the training dummies and into the sparring pits, where I frankly got the tar beat out of me. Thankfully, Reynold and Tedric, like Elaine, were no longer seen around campus. It was ironic to me that the two went to Ashmere primarily for each other.

Raxx, seeing that I was struggling with sparring, began giving me extra lessons before class each day. We got up an hour earlier each morning to face off in the stone floored backyard of the safe house. The Harak was a gifted fighter, seeing my major problems with footwork right away. After a few days of extra training with him, I no longer felt like the worst person in the class. I hoped to reach rank D before the end of the month so that I could finally use my skill point to advance to C.

As for the dungeon, with Ugz at my side, I passed through F-1 with almost no challenge. In his origin form, Ugz could run beneath the notice of the undead, scouting out their location across the entire town. From there, it was a simple affair of quietly stalking from group to group and cutting them down. Haunt, for whatever reason, drove the warlock at the end completely insane. He died with a single poleaxe to the brain, not even presenting a challenge to anything but my ear drums. It was anticlimactic after the first time, but at least I finally got the Stealth skill out of it.

Finally, my Monster Lore skill made it to rank E.

All in all, I was damned pleased with my second week at Ashmere.

Name: Harald Horste

Ascended Class: Hexcaller

Rank: 5

Essence: 1,400/1500

Attributes

Strength: 5

Agility: 5

Constitution: 7

Intelligence: 4

Perception: 7

Willpower: 7

Presence: 7

Boons

Flawless Face: Your face is unforgettably perfect. Your looks will draw the opposite sex in; however, you can never wear a disguise or hide in a crowd.

Know thy Enemy: Those that hold spite toward you cannot hide it from you with deceit.

Abilities

Fate Shielded: You are immune to curses.

Evil Eye: You can inflict Hexes with your eyes and can see in perfect darkness.

Summon Familiar: Call a beast to permanently aid you. Never Alone: Extend the range of your connection to your familiar, and summon them to your side, from anywhere, once a day.

Hexes

Haunt (Rank 2): Curse a person with minor auditory, visual, and olfactory hallucinations for 24 hours. This will make it difficult for the person to get restful sleep. Usable on one person at a time.

Hypnotize (Rank 2): Cause someone who is looking you in the eye to enter a trance. May not work on someone with a higher will than you. Will break three seconds after losing eye contact.

Tongues (Rank 1): Curse that causes a person to spout nonsense for fifteen seconds. Usable one an hour.

Spells

Detect Magic (Rank 2)

Detect Poison (Rank 2)

Darkness (Rank 2)

Identify Disease (Rank 2)

Magesilk Attire (Rank 2)

Charms

Hidden Weapon

Skills (1)

(Class) Herbalism: E

(Class) Alchemy: E

(Class) Enchantment Curses: F

Reading and Writing: A

Contracts: D

Math: C

Knife Fighting: E

Cooking: E

Skinning: E

Tracking: E

Poleaxe: E

Wilderness Traversal: E

Monster Lore: E

Stealth: F

Hand-to-Hand: F