Chapter 11: Class

Dad suddenly rushed me, his wooden sledge trailing behind held by his left arm prepared to smash at me in full force. I widen my stance and lower my centre of gravity, preparing to dodge his swing. As he closed in I dodged to the side, away from his downward swing and back off to create distance between us.

*BANG*

“Use your shield and block! Don’t dodge!” He shouts while running towards me again. I look at the small crater he made with the hammer and thought to myself, F#ck that. And backed off again from his swing.

“BLOCK!” This time he instantly appeared in front of me, but his swing was slow enough for me to get my shield in the way. And I did so. The pressure from Dad’s impending hammer coming straight towards me from the left made my knees weaken a bit, but I braced myself from the impact. Instinctively, I angled the shield just enough to deflect the blow upwards and lessen the impact towards me.

*clang!*

After deflecting I stepped to the side then bashed dad’s now open leg with my shield, using the full weight of my body make him lose his balance. His knees buckle forward and he falls as I backed off as fast as possible, running towards mom just in case he rushes again.

“Stop bullying Cas, Julius!” She hugs and hides me from dad, like a mother hen shielding her chicks from the rain. Dad just looks at me stupefied from our exchange earlier.

“Did you learn that from anywhere?” He asks me. Did I? I mean I’ve watched shows and movies before with shields, but like sword-fighting, it’s actually very difficult to do in practice…

“I don’t know? I don’t think I did… we never practised shields, Dad.”

He’s lost in thought for a moment and I just awkwardly stay in my mother's arms. I ask Kern to turn back to it’s floating rock form so I can free my kinda tired arm. I just deflected that swing and my arm is already sore, dad could’ve broken my arm if I didn’t do that. The realization hit me like a hammer and I look at dad, unsure of what to feel about him now.

He didn’t even hesitate… I mean he never really used his all in our previous spars, I know that because Mom isn’t going crazy when we do it. She knows he won’t hurt me and I know that too… still, this is a bit much, right?

“Let’s spar again, son.” Four words I thought I would be excited to hear again after that week-long vacation. Now it just fills me with dread. I wish I hadn’t gotten a shield…

[2 spars later]

I roll backwards as dad smashes Kern to pieces, leaving only the bracer and a plate-sized piece remaining. My arm hurts! I think it’s broken!

I release Kern and it transforms back to a rock, only tinier this time. Before it was around the size of my fist and now it’s less than half of that. It looks kinda cute tho. I pet it with my right palm and it sends back a pulse of positive emotion. They’re essentially like babies right now in expressing emotion, but they do understand me more than babies do.

I hug my left arm and Mom gives me a piece of candy. “What’s this?” I ask her while unwrapping the candy. I popped it in my mouth and it tasted like strawberries. It’s been years since I tasted it but wow, I’m already so sick of that fake strawberry flavour

“It’s from your Aunt Dels, it should help with your arm.” She eats one too, “Plus it’s very tasty!”

“Congratulations Cas!” Dad came up to us and sat on the ground. He was tidying up the mess we made in the backyard, it’s smaller than warehouse we used before so we kinda broke stuff. Except for the garden area, no matter how sweet Mom is, she will still probably kill us if we stepped on any of her plants.

“Congratulations?”

“You’ve finally found your weapon.” He says as a matter of factly.

“Weapon? My shield?” I look to my three new companions who’re just playing around chasing each other in the backyard.

“Yes, haven’t you noticed? We didn’t train in the basics apart from footwork which you already know, but you still sparred better than when you were using the other weapons! Of course, it’s still rudimentary, but your intuition with it is amazing enough to fight normally. We’ll work on that for the rest of the apprenticeship, now that we know your weapon.” He says while patting my head.

So all those months sparring with random weapons was just him trying to find out which one was ‘my weapon’? So much wasted time!! I tear up inside, thinking about how much more training we could’ve done if we did this rite thing earlier.

“Anyway, we’ll go rest for today. We also need to find different types of shields for you to try. And we have to find out if having a single-handed weapon will be detrimental for you.”

*groan* I should’ve just learned how to smith…

[2 Months later]

I lean on the sewer wall in exhaustion after making sure the last monster is dead. After getting my shield, the next two tasks were to train to a certain stat value in Physical and Endurance, and learn how to use Aura, which is kinda like the body version of Magic. Dad explained that it’s basic use is to strengthen yourself physically, but there’s apparently more to it than that.

The final task was to kill 10 F-rank monsters, which are monsters that can be taken on by an F-rank adventurer, either in a dungeon or in the wild. Dad brought me to the worst dungeon available, the sewers. I was a bit hyped for the trip, even though it seemed like a cliche first dungeon run, but I never actually thought about how s#@tty sewer dungeons actually are, pun intended.

Reward(s):

Warrior Class

Apprenticeship

You have taken apprenticeship under Julius Newton, born of the D'varf race, who will guide you with the necessary steps to obtain the Warrior class.

Punishment(s):

None Task(s):

Find your personal weapon

Increase physical statuses into high F-ranks

Learn

Defeat 10 F-rank dungeon creatures Progress:

100% Complete

“FINALLY!” I screamed as I saw the quest completion window in front of me. Tears ran down my eyes uncontrollably, but it’s not because of the satisfaction of finally getting a class, nor is it because of the sadness of nostalgia towards the past training sessions with my dad. No, it’s because of the horrid fumes wafting my face in this [email protected]#ned sewers!

“I’m proud of you son. You’re one of the fastest I know to finish an apprenticeship for the Warrior class!” He walks towards me and I lunge at him to hug him. Although it’s actually so that I can use him to shield my nose from this terrible smell, he doesn’t have to know.

While walking towards the entrance of the sewer dungeon we see other masters and their apprentices' training here, as well as some union students heading further down the dungeon. Mom said dungeons are born when too many monsters die in a certain area, or too much magic was used at once and letting it fill with miasma.

The sentient races were tilting the scales of the world by almost eradicating the monsters in the world, so dungeons were born to make sure that they will never truly be erased. While they’re a threat towards us, they are also important in the ecosystem of this world. Kinda like the carbon dioxide and oxygen cycle, except its magic and miasma.

Status!

Name: Castiel Newton

Race: D'varf / Efir’esh

Titles: None(Shown)

Otherworlder

Bearer of Blessings

[email protected]$##$! Eater

Classes: Warrior(Shown)

Status: Fatigued, Injured

Physical: 2E

Endurance: 96F Mind: 8E

Magic: 47F

Traits

Semi-earthen Physiology Lv 22

[Material Transmutation]

Aetherial Manipulation Lv 17

[Force | Infusion]

Sensory Enhancement Lv 7

[Ocular - Status | Intuition - Magic]

Skills(Active)

Accelerate Lv 6

[Body Acceleration | Mind Acceleration]

Minor Telepathy Lv 13

Minor Aura Manipulation Lv 3

[an hour later]

We get home from the sewer dungeon and I took a two-hour long bath, trying to remove the stench I got from that place. I’m never going there again, they’d have to drag my dead body if they want me to go there! F#$kin sewers. I grumble in my thoughts while scrubbing away with my iron wool. My stone plates are inconvenient at times….That’s a nice increase… but what now? I got the class now but I still have a long time before attending the Union… The Union is basically this world’s version of a university, it started as a group of guilds working together to teach and train the younger generation. I don’t know much about it yet, but Mom said they offer a lot of classes there for a plethora of topics. She once taught in one so she knows quite a lot.

After bathing, I go downstairs and wait for dinner to come by just watching the television. They upgraded it to a newer model so there are more channels now. Still, entertainment is a bit scarce and bland so I just watch the news. It’s mostly about the ongoing war with the barbarian tribes outside of the barrier though, and a few cases of kidnappings and murders here. Some notorious underworld gang supposedly popped up here recently… hope I didn’t raise a flag accidentally.

Mom calls us for dinner and I finally asked the question that’s been bugging me since earlier, “What now?”

They both looked at me in confusion so I clarify, “I already have the Warrior class, what do I do next?”

“Well,” Mom thinks about what to say for a bit and dad just keeps eating. He’s kinda bad with this stuff anyway and he knows it. “What do you want to do? You finished with that class so fast you have all the time in the world to do anything you want in the meantime.”

“Hmmmmm… can I learn another class?”

“Anything you want sweetie. But you have to tell us first what class is so we can find someone we can trust.” Dad pitches in, “We were adventurers back then you know, so we know a few people that can teach you if you want to learn something outside of what we can teach you.”

Oh, so they were adventurers, that never came up before. I mean I kinda got that already before, since they had S ranked plates and are probably unbelievably strong. Uncle Robert and Aunt Dels are probably also S ranked if that’s the case.

“Can’t I just take an apprenticeship exam?” I ask.

“That was back then son before you got that transformation skill and that daeriar skill. It’s too dangerous right now” Hmmmmm… that’s a good point.

“Well, I’ll think about what I want, I guess.” I shrug and continue thinking about it.

[5 Months later]

“”

A small rod of earth rises in front of me after calling out the spell name and ‘will’ my magic towards the spell array in my mind. I’ve decided to learn both the mage and the ranger class from Mom.

It took some time to persuade her to let me try to get both, she eventually agreed since I kept nagging about how boring it is doing nothing anyway. So we’ve been using the same warehouse dad and I used, and I saw Uncle Robert at work making these giant magic circles inside that can apparently help me relax and control magic.

It still took around 4 months though, which is not bad, but quite slower than expected given that I have the enhancement. It’s more akin to discovering a new mouth you can control, then learning a language using that barely controllable mouth. The problem I have is my preconception of what magic control is going to be like due to having a past life.

“Yes! You did it Cas!” Mom says accompanied with a hug as always. I was able to cast basic spells in the warehouse before, but this is the first time I’ve cast one outside in our garden.

Reward(s):

Mage Class

Apprenticeship

You have taken apprenticeship under Phenea Newton, born of the Efir’esh race, who will guide you with the necessary steps to obtain the Mage class.

Punishment(s):

None Task(s):

Learn about the basics of magic

Learn

Successfully cast a spell without any aid

Create or modify a spell without any aid Progress:

55% Complete

At least she didn’t hide it as dad did. I’m really worried about that last one though... 55% complete? That last task is 45% of the total?! Ughhh...

“It’s thanks to you, Mom!” I break off the , which is more like a rod, and smashed it on the ground. It broke up like a piece of chalk and I stumbled forwards. “It’s so much weaker...”

“That’s fine, it’s your first time casting it outside of the training area. You’ll be able to do better with training and practice don’t worry.”

“*sigh* Now for the hardest part right?”

“You can do it Cas! It’ll be easier than you think!”

“Will it really?” I look in suspicion. I remember dad saying she’s a genius in magic so I take her saying 'easier than you think' with a grain of salt. “What was your spell. Mom?”

“Oh, I didn’t get that task,” I tilted my head at her statement. Then why’d you said it’s gonna be easy?

“My final task was finesse-based, to use the exact amount of magic for a spell to be effective. Unlike your task, which is creativity-based, I had to practice all the time to complete it faster.”

“Oh, I want that one, Mom. Mine’s too tough, I have to make something new? Hadn’t there been hundreds and thousands of mages already before me? How am I supposed to do this?”

She pats my head with a silly look on her face, “Don’t worry, you have a lot of time right.” Winking at me, she walks away giggling to herself. “Come on then, we still have your ranger training!.”

I grumble, thinking about how much of a mistake this was again. I should’ve just been content with the warrior class… Dad and I still spar from time to time, though he lets me use my skills so that I can get used to my own fighting style.

We walked to a gun range to train for my ranger class, which is basically like target practice right now. Like the warrior class, we’ve been using a lot of ranged weapons. Hand-thrown stuff, bows and crossbows, guns and rocket launchers, and even siege weapons.

Isn’t it weird for gun ranges to have all of this stuff? Like really? Ballistas and cannons? Aren’t those operated by more than one person anyway? Fantasy logic… or is it reality logic? I just get lost in my train of thought as I missed target after target with the sling bow.

[POV Phenea]

My son is a genius.

No matter how well he aims, nor how long he takes to aim, it always boils down to a 50/50 chance for him. After 10 meters, distance doesn’t matter anymore to him. As long as the projectiles can reach he can hit with 50% accuracy. Well… except for guns that have a good spread or ammo that explodes. He’ll hit the targets without fail, whether directly or by collateral.

I’ve been trying to figure out how he does this, but even with all my experience, I have no idea. When a person becomes a veteran ranger, they develop a sense of where a bullet will hit, some can even predict where the attacker will aim. But with Cas, even I can’t figure out if it’ll hit or not.

“Cas,” I call out to him who is concentrating on hitting the targets with that sling bow. He turns to me and I almost feel my heartbreak with just the thought of telling him what I’m about to. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ll learn the class like this.”

“What do you mean, mom?”

“Well…” I pause, hesitating. I guess it’s better than having him wasting his time.

“Your accuracy is… bad.”

“But I’m hitting them sometimes, right? That’s what matters in the end when fighting against monsters. Also, I'll probably get better it eventually?”

“Yes, but that’s only if you’re alone. When you fight outside, you’ll usually have teammates you trust. If you can’t trust yourself to hit your shots more than 50% at a time, how can they trust their backs to you?” I pause, hammering the fact into his head. "Also, your task is to be at least 90% accurate with any weapon."

"But I did that with explosives and shotguns! I hit them all!"

"You did, but you weren't accurate, Cas. You only hit them because of the weapon, not because of your skill."

He looks down, seemingly disappointed at himself. I rush to hug him and patted his back. “It’s okay Cas, I’m sure you’ll be amazing as a Warrior anyway, and also you’re learning magic! You don’t need to aim like a ranger with magic!”

I lift his face up but he was actually lost in thought, and not crying nor sad. Shaking his head roughly, he hugs me back while saying “Thanks mom, but I’ll try to find a way to fix this first before giving up!.”

I sight and just nod at his determination. He’s going to have to learn through mistakes I guess, that stubbornness is amazing but it’s also bad for him. He needs to know he can’t do everything...