“Remember that your choice of species and race will unlock further class options, often exclusive and much more powerful ones. So don’t pick a class just yet, if there is a class you really want then you pick a race that supports it and see if that class is still the best one around.” Volos said.

Darryl nodded and looked at the first recommendation.

Fortunate Fool

This class can only be unlocked by the AI’s recommendation. Don’t feel too cock-sure about what this means for you, I’m not limited to just one crawler. Also, you need to have one of a selection of achievements to unlock it, in this case Death Flag!

Every season we’ve got a crawler with the wisdom of an algae, the luck of a gambling addict, the motivation of a gold fish and the self-preservation of a gremlin, who manages to outlive 99% of their contemporaries because of a single stroke of good luck or some kind of Syndicate-defying plot armour! This year my money is on the idiot who drove a convertible van into the dungeon!

You’re probably not quite fortunate enough to be a natural Fortunate Fool, but you can piggyback the success of these glorious idiots to survive the way they did! The Fortunate Fool turns survival into a joke, and danger into a mild inconvenience supported by a ’90 sitcom laugh track.

Picking this class will increase the experience gain of all wacky survival skills by 10% and increase their level cap to lvl20. You will gain +4 Constitution and +3 in the What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Skill. You will be required to select a subclass on the 6th floor.

“This doesn’t seem like a very potent class.” Darryl said. “It sounds exclusive, but…”

“This is actually a really good class, kid.” Volos said. “+10% experience gain and a level cap extension for a whole subgroup of skills may not be a lot for a race, but it’s a huge deal for a class. While picking a new race isn’t necessary for survival, a good race is a much bigger deal than a good class.

“There are very good classes, like Thomas’s, but the reason you normally pick a race before looking at your class options is because the former defines your build while the latter just supports it. If you stay human then you can focus more on your class build, and there are special builds and hidden components in place to make sure that humans aren’t much weaker, but don’t expect the list of boons that you got for your race.”

“Gotcha.” Darryl said, and looked at the second recommendation.

Cross-dressing Shield Maiden

This class is for straight men only, unlocking it requires you to have at least 10 Constitution and have at least 10 levels in any shield-bearer skill. Selecting this class requires you to put at least 25 points in Constitution and 15 in Strength.

Men love to go to war! But as they don’t like dying, they load themselves up with armour and wield a shield. As things progressed and men got more of a preference for big guns and stupid weapons like the Spiky-Wheels Monster Truck, a shortage of shieldbearers began to appear. So women were allowed onto the battlefield as Shield Maidens!

As more and more women were needed to replace men in holding up a board, the shield-wall soon became exclusively for women. The men were barred from the pillow fights and college-level experimentation happening behind those thick plates of steel, condemned to the sausage fest departments! So some brave voyeurs set out to gain access to this exclusive part of the military, by cross-dressing! They donned their wigs, put mascara on their face (and this time they didn’t call it war-paint), and stuffed their bras even more than the women already did. And then they set out to enter Valhalla!

You gain Stalwart Protector at 5th level (Already obtained) and your level cap is increased to lvl20 for Shielding and Stalwart Protector with +5% level progression for both. Spells cost an additional 25% mana to cast. Your damage is decreased by 25% for any weapon not wielded along with and/or not meant to be combined with a shield. You will be unable to gain the benefits from any legwear that isn’t a skirt and any piece of armour specified to be male-only. Your Constitution and shielding skill effects will increase by 2% for every woman wielding a shield in your party within 50m, or 2.5% if she thinks you’re female.

Note: Changing your gender to woman without changing your physical appearance, or vice versa, will grant additional boons. You cannot pick this class after fully changing your gender to female.

“That’s…” Darryl said. “That’s pretty good for the build I have in mind, and the ridicule seems mostly silly and optional rather than mechanics-enforced. They’re just offering more boons for going with the theme.”

“It is. Elise can wield a shield with her new class and build, even if dual-wielding slashing weapons is a more optimal build for her class.” Volos said. “If you don’t mind the description and wearing a skirt or kilt, this isn’t a bad class at all considering you already got both skills that you’ll want to train past lvl15. You’ll only be missing out on the unlocked skill as you already got it, but that’s it.”

Darryl nodded and looked at the third recommendation.

Last Minute Hero

You unlocked this class by having the Fashionably Late, Morbid Kill-Stealer! AND Swooping in to Save the Day! Achievements.

The definition of a decent human who’s effectively helping other people, is someone who is where they need to be when they need to be there, or at least gets there quickly once the alarms start blaring. The definition of a hero is someone who swoops in at the last possible second and prevents the worst case scenario! Because the latter is a lot more noticeable, dramatic and with higher stakes, the hero is beloved even though the guards solve and avoid ten times more crimes with much less collateral. Don’t linger on the fact that the hero could’ve saved a lot more lives and prevented much destruction if they showed up earlier, guards are boring!

You get to be this hero! Picking this class ensures that the pace of your progress, power gain and even travelling speed will be closely monitored and influenced by yours truly to boost you just enough for a dashing hero to pull off a completely unexpected victory! No more feeling like you’re not the hero of this Isekai adventure, even if you’re actually still just one of millions of crawlers each and every one equally irrelevant in the eyes of me, Borant and the crowd!

You gain a tension meter, which will temporarily increase whatever attribute you need most according to the level of tension! Your powers also increase according to the amount of allies nearby at critical health, the power difference between your side and the enemy’s, the narrative stakes and the amount of viewers currently watching you! You gain +3 Quest Magnet and +5 Damsel in Distress Radar. This class will put you on a shortlist available to the public that is guaranteed to give your viewer count a boost!

Darryl thought back on the achievements that made this possible. Him and Ben entering the dungeon at the last minute before it closed gained him the first achievement, his miraculous survival with the Corpora Boss before taking the Tutorial got him the second, and Maestro throwing his party into the fight between the Frenchmen and the Woolf got him the third one.

He made a mental note to see if his other Corpora boss battle achievements unlocked anything else, those were some very rare achievements he managed to get at the time.

“Wait. Is this class really offering me to become a protagonist?” Darryl asked.

“Yes. Kinda.” Volos said. “But I should mention that it has been three seasons since someone with a class like this one managed to get past the fifth floor.”

“But it’s a protagonist! I’d be literally destined to win!” Darryl said.

“And there’s the catch. You may think that you’ll be destined to win, and the class is designed with exactly that in mind, but you don’t actually have plot armour. If you’re very popular, go where the AI wants you to go and know how to keep the tension up, then you’re indeed all but destined to win. If you generate enough tension, and that’s not a guarantee.” Volos said. “But it’s also a very finicky class, which won’t be available unless you pick a normal-looking race. Any of your three racial recommendations except maybe the Dummy will lock you out of this class, you’d have to roll the dice on picking a race you hope is normal enough. Only your base human race is assured to keep it.

“So you’d have to pick a race that is intentionally weaker and mundane to get this class, and lose out on the combat and survival skills of your race and class both. Notice how there isn’t actually anything in your class that will make you better at combat? Or even stat increases? You’ll be relying on just the weapons and skills you gained thus far, and the third floor monsters get a jump in power and potential to balance them against the people that picked a more powerful build.

“Worse, what the description doesn’t mention is that your tension meter can also go negative, and will be negative most of the time. Not a big issue while you’re asleep, but grinding will be a lot harder. Unless you’re always going full-throttle running around to help crawlers and NPCs, you’re going to fall behind. If you have a dry spell of events for even a few days, you’ll fall behind. If you’re not actually popular, you’ll fall behind.”

“So, it’s bad?” Darryl sulked.

“It can be good. Sometimes one of the final ten survivors of a season is a protagonist like this.” Volos said. “But you’re not already popular and the AI doesn’t outright favour you like some people, so you’re more likely to die early when you pick this option. You’re not starting this class well, and especially the 9th floor is hell for these guys. Even more so than other crawlers, because it won’t be about you. Eventually you run out of crawlers and NPCs to help.”

Darryl sighed and thought about it. From the one hand, the Last Minute Hero was very appealing. Ben would probably pick it regardless of the risk, as it was still outright meta powers that didn’t suck. But Darryl knew that he wasn’t very outspoken, the centre of attention. And he had never been popular, before or in here.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t pick this class.” Darryl said. “Shieldmaiden sounds good, let’s see if we can get a good race to go with it.”

Volos switched back to the race selection. “If you’re not planning to be popular and become a tank for your party, then the Coal Engine is a good choice. They are very easy to unlock and have a LOT of great innate immunities and advantages. But they’ve been done to death, show hosts don’t like them with their hard to hear grumbling voices, and they tend to burn the heavy capacity seats that hosts have to get for them when invited on a show.”

“I see. Sounds good. Are there other good tank or shield classes?” Darryl asked.

“Plenty. If you want to stick to shields, I can remove a lot of the bestial and monstrous species that cannot equip those. Shall I?” Volos said. “Or shall I single those out so that we can look through them before we get to the shield bearers?”

“I don’t think I want to become a monster like that face-wearing centipede we saw before, so let’s just skip them.” Darryl said. “Don’t want to take too long picking a race and transforming.”

“Very well.” Volos said. “Removing all species that cannot wield shields, and we’ve got 82 options left. The 19 at the top are the ones with shield-buffing skills and anatomies.”

A figure appeared before Darryl, who he knew was supposed to be him only because he saw the Darryllified species before this one. The bronze man was shaped like an Adonis with a few muscles and features missing or different.

He had a well-defined six-pack for example, but they ran off to the sides like ribs and on his back they ran up to cover his spine. He had no nipples or a belly-button and his genitals were folded into his skin with but a thin seam showing that there was anything there at all. There was a pop-up hovering over it asking Unfold? Y/N

But the part most unlike Darryl was the helmet, a typical Greek hoplite helmet that fully covered his face. Which apparently was this species’ face. Two dull blue lights looked at Darryl with disinterest, below a green and blue fan of feathers.

Copper Talossi

To unlock this species, you need to have at least 15 Constitution, have the Shocking! Achievement and have the Vanquisher Pass.

When the other species explored the galaxy and found Primal tech from a precursor race older and more advanced than theirs, they also started to connect the dots with some of the weird shit they found before! Species that can technically exist, but would be impossible to evolve into their current form from scratch. Let alone be the last remaining species of their branch, leaving no evidence of their missing links behind!

The Talossi are one such species! Creatures that consist of one metal element for about 89% yet move around fast enough to wreck societies and slay heroes, creatures capable of reproduction to distinguish them from the regular androids and constructs. An artificial species made by the Primals to do a whole slew of different things. They’re probably meant as resource collectors for their respective element, but often double down as society destroyers, to terraform a planet or to keep it in its current uninhabitable state!

Copper Talossi are one of the more lightning-resistant Talossi variants, conducting the stuff well without being as soft and heavy as the noble metals. They’re less pompous, too! Lone wolves and usually designated as guardians of ancient relics, they are powerful and hard to take down!

You will gain +3 Strength, +6 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -1 Dexterity, the Talossi Body benefits, Greater Lightning Resistance and Minor Acid Resistance. Copper shields and armour will automatically merge with your body and sometimes implement the stats over your whole frame.

“The Talossi are a great species, especially for a tank like you. They’re similar to the Coal Engine, but slightly harder to unlock because of the Vanquisher pass and their achievements, and more of a people pleaser. They don’t look like a chunk of rock. Better against shattering attacks but lesser against slashing and such. And they still need to breathe while lacking the fire damage upon touch thing.” Volos said. “That Talossi Body is a summary of a lot of species benefits, including resistance or immunity to a lot of poisons and venoms, resistances to a lot of elements especially under certain circumstances, the way you’ll heal will be different, your diet changes, etc. The full thing is about four pages, I believe.”

“It looks good, and about what I was planning to get.” Darryl said.

“Let me select all the Talossi we got.” Volos said. “You’ve got fourteen, a good amount. They all need a Vanquisher Pass and high Con, so you get a lot of them or none at all. Copper is the only one with something special for shields, but don’t get too hung up about that one. They usually balance the Talossi against other races by making that ‘sometimes’ once in a blue moon. I wouldn’t actually recommend the coppers, because in my opinion the most important factor of these species is the Moh hardness and your density.

“Titanium is the best Talossi option in general, because they’re so hard and light. They can take a lot of punishment without being unable to cross bridges and stand on second floors. But you didn’t unlock that one. The best one you have is the Uranium Talossi, but that one is a solo build for very obvious reasons.”

Volos opened the next tab and the Talossi in front of them turned to a dark grey with the eyes and crown glowing a radiant green. The first few paragraphs were identical to the Copper version, and the AI outright skipped narrating those this time.

Do you want to be cuddly? Have lots of friends? Well too bad! The Uranium Talossi are thrown at planets to make sure they stay uninhabitable! They continuously find new Uranium reserves or enrich the regular stuff into the interesting isotope, ensuring that their presence is always radiant even if their personality isn’t!

You will gain +4 Strength, +5 Constitution, +1 Intelligence, -2 Dexterity, the Talossi Body benefits, radioactive immunity, Radioactive Response Skin and Greenlight Aura.

“You’ll be very heavy, but your radioactivity is fairly straightforward.” Volos said. “Everything around you will slowly die to the non-venom poison you’re continuously emitting. Everything that attacks you will chip off some uranium and burst out more gamma rays than usual, killing everything around you even faster. And potentially kill them with metal poisoning, if the radiation doesn’t do them in.

“If you pick this race, you could focus entirely on defence. You just have to walk around and let mobs attack you, vicinity and touch will see to their demise. NPCs die from this as well, and give you experience all the same. You can just walk through cities without direct aggression, and a few days later you’ll be getting experience notifications.

“There are a few obvious downsides, of course. Unless your party members have radiation immunity too, you will be doing this all alone. You won’t be getting a lot of views or enter game shows, because your method is slow and boring and you cannot turn off the radiation. Not even around admins. But when talking about surviving and optimising, this one is your best Talossi.”

“Not that one. For the obvious reasons.” Darryl said.

“I figured as much.” Volos said. “For the others, I’ll arrange them by Moh hardness. You unlocked a few options like the Ceasarian Caesium Talossi which may sound good on paper, but they are incredibly soft. Copper is doable, but why pick it when you’ve got harder options? Same goes for a lot of other options here.

“You only have three options above a 4.0 Moh hardness: Palladium, Platinum and Cobalt. Platinum will see you attacked and poached for your body being literally made out of improved gold, if not by crawlers then by NPCs. I wouldn’t recommend it despite the lightning resistance.

“Palladium is a good one, being not too dense and you won't be as vulnerable to oxidation as other Talossi. And they will unlock certain Paladin classes by namesake, which can be quite good if it helps you unlock a good class.

“But I’d personally recommend the Cobalt Talossi, as they have the best hardness to lightness ratio for you. And, more importantly, they are more social, which is an unmentioned but extremely important detail. Talossi, being an artificial species with their behaviour programmed into them by the Primals, will affect your mental state a lot more than the other races.

“If Ben would’ve gone Drow pickpocket, he wouldn’t actually become a kleptomaniac by default. He’d be urged to, but it would still be his personal choice with just a little push of his species instinct. And if Elise would’ve chosen the Minos, she would’ve gained agoraphobia because it’s a trait but she wouldn’t be feeling uncontrollable urges to find herself some tunnels and hunt people in them.

“But Talossi, those are going to change you. Borant never changed their mentality or control their thoughts, Syndicate rules don’t allow that with biologically born lifeforms, but the original species was already altered with certain behavioural patterns and under the same ruling Borant isn’t allowed to take those out.

“The Copper Talossi being described as a guardian of treasure is a huge deal. One time a crawler found a celestial-tier artefact and they just sat down and protected it until the timer ran out. Their innate instincts overtook common sense and the crawler’s objectives, because the item was just that precious and powerful. It won’t happen with regular treasure, but get potent enough and…”

“I see.” Darryl said. “What’s the Palladium’s personality?”

“Lawful Good/Stupid paladin.” Volos said. “They protect, they honour and they can be entertaining, but they attack their allies just as easily if someone breaks the paladin’s rules. If their oaths aren’t troublesome to the party then a paladin can be a great asset, but there have been paladins who just disallow coexistence with another crawler’s whole build resulting in the party disbanding. And a Palladium Talossi tends to add a few of their own non-mandatory oaths on top of that.”

“And the Cobalt?”

“The so-called Goblin Talossi are the most social of the Talossi, and one of the few that live in groups. Most Talossi live alone and don’t want to socially interact more than necessary, but the Cobalt Talossi usually live in groups of 20-30 of their kind and can coexist closely with other races. Their innate personality is a lot more flexible, adaptable and manageable than any other.”

“That’s good. And they’re also a good choice, you said?”

“They’re amongst your best options for durability and weight, yes.” Volos said. “Keep in mind that this choice won’t get you an audience of Talossi, they don’t watch TV, but otherwise it’s good.”

“Then let’s keep that one on the shortlist and look through the other races real quick. But this one sounds like a winner.” Darryl said.

Fifteen minutes later, after not finding anything as good without being emotionally unacceptable, like the clown, Darryl selected the Cobalt Talossi again. The deep blue metal man appeared before him again.

“Just to be sure, that pop-up above his crotch isn’t actually going to be there, right?”

“Looks like you’re already getting used to this place, and how you should be thinking.” Volos laughed. “No, that’s an overlay thing. But you’re wise to ask.”

“Alright, let’s do it.” Darryl said. He selected the race and the figure before him split into three dark blue Talossi. The one he saw before, a thinner and more feminine one labelled ‘non-gender’ and an Amazonian figure with broad muscles on a still feminine frame. Darryl selected the male version, and the menu automatically jumped to his class options.

“Now, let’s see if you got a better class after choosing this race.” Volos said.