“You’re crazy,” Blake told Rueban, “I don’t know what a recording is, but no one is going to pay that much just to let you do research, they’d have to be crazier than you. And putting a dungeon core in your forehead? That can’t be good for you.”

“Oh, of course not,” Rueban said with a rueful laugh. “It’s been terrible for my health. It punches a hole in my aura, letting unfiltered mana into my brain. I think it is driving me mad, certainly killing me. And I can’t just remove it, it’s grown tendrils into my brain. That’s why I need to research anything unusual, strange or different for possible solutions. It’s too bad I was too squeamish to cut myself open and stuff the dungeon core inside, that might have been better, except for all the pain. Also we don’t tell them it’s for my research, we tell our investor we will be selling them the dragon. I’ll just do my research before we hand him over, well whatever is left of him. As for crazier than me?” Rueban laughed again, ignoring the horrified look Blake was giving him, “That gives me the perfect idea for whom I should seek out to be our investor, I know someone just crazy enough to agree!”

“Thank you, master Eric” Karla whispered, hugging the coin to her chest, “I’ve never had money before,” she admitted, “thank you so much.”

“Don’t mention it,” Eric said, a bit embarrassed. “You deserve it.” he told the emotional cat girl, patting her on the shoulder. Karla looked like she wanted to hug Eric but didn’t dare.

“Ahem,” Leonard interrupted, “So classes?” He mused. “Well, its been a long time since anyone has made a new class among humans. Usually it’s handled by the priests, they are also the ones in charge of purifying dungeon cores, though I understand that enchanters like Rueban can also do it. Anyways, I don’t know that much about how making a new class works, but I can say that every class has three affinities that largely define what it does. My class, when I started out as an adventurer, was “Emberspark Mage”, which just means that my three affinities were magic affinity, which is the root affinity for any mage, then fire and thunder affinities which are advanced affinities that require magic affinity. Magic affinity gives me the most stat growth, because all basic affinities give good growth, but the two advanced affinities give me specialization bonuses to any fire or thunder spell I use. That doesn’t mean I can’t do any other magic; magic affinity is all you need to use most spells, it’s just that my fire and thunder spells are much stronger than my other magics.” Leonard explained, then turning to Karla he continued.

“Karla here is a dragoon, she has both melee fighter and ranged fighter as her basic affinities, which means she gets good stat growth for having two basic affinities, in time, she will be quite strong from melee fighter affinity and quite agile from ranged fighter. That’s a popular duo to take for general warrior classes, though some substitute ranged fighter for the defense affinity which makes them more difficult to injure. Her third affinity is spear, that gives her an increased learning speed with spears, and more importantly, bonuses to damage with her spear and unlocks her ability to learn special mana infused spear skills. It’s important to remember that affinities don’t teach you anything, you still need to learn the spells or train your skills. They just make it possible for you to learn their associated special skills and spells, or make general things like using a spear more effective.”

Leonard’s glance fell on the silent half elf, and he continued, “Ashe here started out as a hunter, which has ranged fighter affinity, wilderness affinity, and bow affinity. He gets special abilities with his bow, and the wilderness affinity gives him bonuses to tracking and stealth related skills. Wilderness affinity is also an affinity in that it doesn’t require anything, but it doesn’t give as much bonus stat growth as ranged fighter. It’s what we call a specialized affinity in that it’s useful because it makes him better at his job. A lot of professional classes have a specialized affinity, so you will see merchants with the trade affinity, blacksmiths with metalworking affinity, etc. For those that don’t want to gain levels by fighting beasts, specialized affinities allow them to gain levels just by doing their jobs, but don’t offer much stat growth.”

“Eric is a noble, which has both the melee fighter and magic affinities, which gives him great stat growth, but he also has the specialized command affinity, which is restricted to those with titles of nobility. That affinity gives him extra stat growth, to his charisma mostly, a reduction in exp cost per level, and gives special bonuses to anyone who is in a party with him, once he’s high enough level. He can also gain experience just by managing his lands since it’s a specialized affinity like that of a craftsman, just like Ashe can gain experience just by surviving in the wilderness. Command affinity is a powerful affinity, but the restriction means only a few people can pick it. All of the most powerful affinities have some sort of restriction.”

“Of course you don’t stay with only the three affinities you start out with, you can gain new ones or upgrade existing affinities as you increase in level. I upgraded my magic affinity to wizardry affinity when I hit level fifty, which is why my proper title is court wizard, not court mage, for example. When and how you can upgrade your affinites is more than just level though, you have to accomplish certain things, or meet certain requirements. The wizardry affinity is restricted to those who have met the requirements. The restriction for a heroic affinity is that the person needs to be doing something that could be seen as saving the world or at least a country to unlock a heroic affinity. They have to be on a heroic quest. Which is why you only see heroic classes when the world is in grave danger of some sort. The saint affinity is only available to those who have been chosen by the gods, stuff like that. People work very hard to figure out what unlocks the more powerful affinites, and usually that information becomes a closely guarded secret. I’m not even allowed to tell you what I needed to learn and accomplish to unlock the wizardry affinity, other than it also requires level fifty, but it certainly wasn’t easy.”

Leonard paused in his lecture. “So, that is about as much as I can tell you. Picking three affinities is the core of creating a new class, but I have no idea which ones you might want. Well, except for this; I understand that dragons are too heavy to fly if they don’t use magic to reduce their own weight, so you should pick whatever allows dragons to do that. It’s not an affinity that humans can pick though, so it must be restricted to dragons. I’m not sure how that works exactly, but I’d think it would be very powerful in the hands of someone who could use it in more creative ways than just making yourself lighter.”