By the time Eloise read the beginner books about magic, the sun outside rose partially and outshone the magical lights in the library.

Eloise closed the book titled “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Elements”. She picked this book because of a thing hiding in the corner of her vision.

Once Eloise finished reading the first book, the interface had asked her something.

[Do you wish to specialize your class? You will learn skills and spells of the specialization even quicker]

[Yes] / [No]

Eloise choose [Yes], and a new prompt appeared:

[Please pick an element of magic to specialize in.]

And she left it like that for now. As the prompt looked like it had no timer, Eloise had no reason to hurry and pick something. Thus she leisurely read through elements to see if maybe there were some rare unique special ones.

While indeed rare elements existed, so did they have their own quirks. “Explore the darkness above the skies to learn Space element magic.” I don’t think there are any free-to-use rockets nearby.

With a lot of unique elements having similarly insane requirements, Eloise quickly discarded all of them. A simple element was enough. No requirement to learn, flexible, and gets stronger with level. What’s not to like?

And so Eloise picked the element. Something that humanity is famous for using since forever. Something that was both a tool and a weapon.

[Class specialized to Student of Fire.]

[You will learn skills and spells associated with the Fire element quicker.]

No matter how exciting a new thing is, having read throughout the whole night got tiring. Her stomach rumbled every once in a while for at least a couple of hours.

How I wish for my smartphone if only to take notes and track time. But the smartphone was in her purse, in a completely different room than where the exam took place. One thing that this tower lacked were pens, ink, anything to write with.

Eloise remembered the kitchen below, and that she hadn’t explored it. She pushed back the chair and went to the kitchen.

After Eloise looked through the cupboards, the theory that something or someone, probably sentient, dumped her here was even stronger.

She bit on bread and chewed on some jerky. And thought. Clean, empty of people tower, yet full of information and food. Of course, maybe whoever lived in the tower had left to take a journey half-around the world with all the servants or students or workers that had all those rooms on the second floor, just a day before she arrived.

In any case, there’s food here. Won’t last forever, but a week or two, definitely. Eloise drank from a mug. And whatever this drink is. It's nice. Lightly flavored and doesn’t seem alcoholic either.

Eloise continued eating while using her mind to note the next steps. Zero magical stats - not a problem. According to the book, I will gain some amount of them after learning the first active class skill.

A wand would make learning and casting spells easier, too. Book recommended buying the best one I can. But the big monster guy I saw tonight probably won’t be selling them. Having no such opportunity the book recommended using a branch. As long as the intent is there it should work, it said. Good thing there’s a whole forest’s worth of branches to pick.

Eloise stood up from the kitchen table and left for the tower’s exit. Time to see if monsters are roaming during the day, too. She opened the tower’s door with a creak, just enough to peek outside.

The forest offered no growls, screams, or sounds of crashing trees. Eloise opened the door further and stepped outside into the clearing.

Eloise wondered if the gray and constantly cloudy sky she used to see all the time in the city truly was a sky, or is the all-encompassing azure sky here the real deal.

Eloise sneaked through the open clearing, throwing glances at random parts of the forest. Maybe the night indeed was the dangerous part. Eloise entertained the idea of escaping from this tower and it’s clearing, if only she knew where to. Which way to town? To civilization? Was there even civilization around? Maybe monsters ate everything already.

Finally, she reached the border as she placed her foot onto the forest part, it felt different. Where the soil in the clearing was soft, the forest’s soil was hard. Eloise looked closer. Even the color of grass and shrubbery looked different. Darker. That could have implications.

Eloise stood and looked at forest trees and branches instead. The trees looked like trees. And shrubbery looked like shrubbery. Guess I expected more fantastic things, huh.

She leisurely walked into the quiet forest, looking for the perfect branch. Minutes later Eloise found one. A piece of a broken branch. It’ll do.

Eloise leaned and picked it up. Then shrubbery to her left moved, making a noise. Eloise snapped her head to the sound. Was it wind? Please be wind. Her eyes met with a monster. Smaller than the one from the night.

[Unknown - Level 2]

It looked close to a dog, like a terrier, if it had gray fur, which left half of was completely shaved, had no ears, eyes with black sclera and red pupils, and also had two tails that grew from the shaved half of the body. And it also had a terrifying face.

Eloise’s breath stuck in her throat. She held her wand-to-be, turned, and dashed away. The growling chased after. She stormed through the forest, branches got into her face, roots tried to make her slip, and the growling wanted to maul her face in.

Clearing entered her eyes, and Eloise was about to hope when the monster crunched on her right leg. Eloise lost her momentum and crashed face-first into a bush. She turned her body and met face-to-face with the monster. Eloise screamed so high the monster even flinched. Then roared back at her.

Eloise stabbed at the monster’s face and the stick found its target - the roof of the monster’s mouth. It whimpered and attacked her, its jaws barely missing her face. Cold sweat drenched Eloise’s back.

She dragged herself back towards the clearing while swinging the branch around. Before long the monster caught Eloise’s other wrist in i’s jaws. Eloise jammed the branch into its eye and it inhumanly screamed. Even monsters can scream.

With a moment of reprieve, she limped closer to the clearing. If anything, to not invite more monsters. When the growling was right behind her, Eloise dodged to the side.

Young woman with a branch versus a monster. Eloise chuckled. There’d be no chance against that on Earth. But here…

The monster stared at Eloise. She wiped some of her blood onto where the handle will be and wrapped a scrap of her clothing around it.

[Obtained Skill: Wand Crafting Lv. 1]

Looks like a simple branch is truly enough to become a wand.

The monster jumped at her and Eloise pointed her wand at it. Thinking of fire appearing at the pointy end of the wand and flying straight towards the monster. Nothing happened and Eloise had to dodge sideways. She put up the wand again.

And fire appeared, no larger than the size of her first. Then it flew with speed and smashed into the side of the monster which had fur. The smell of burned hair permeated the air.

[Obtained Spell: Fire Shot Lv. 1]

The monster turned around and dashed at Eloise. She thought of using [Fire Shot] and this time the spell immediately appeared and flew straight into the mouth of the monster.

The monster having eaten the [Fire Shot] whimpered and swerved to the left. It struck a tree with power and woozily tried to locate where Eloise was.

Eloise gave it no time to relax and used [Fire Shot] again, and again, and again. Each shot striking true. Before long the ugly dog monster dropped and stopped moving. At the same time notifications of the fight being over appeared.

[Fire Shot leveled up to Fire Shot Lv. 2]

[Twotail defeated. Extra experience gained for defeating a being above your level.]

Not even a level-up for this bloody battle. Although I expected that.

Eloise collected her breathing and limped to the clearing. The further away from blood and monsters the better. Eloise wanted nothing more than to rest.

Five more steps to the clearing and another growling appeared behind Eloise. She snapped her head back and [Analyze]’d new even uglier looking monster of a dog.

[Twotail - Level ?]

This one’s higher leveled. Eloise pointed the wand at it and screamed, “You want fire, too?!” She took a step back and hoped to scare it away.

The monster responded to her question with a jump at Eloise. Eloise dodged away from it and fired a couple [Fire Shots] but this monster took one of them with no visible reaction and dodged another.

The monster bit at Eloise’s legs and she jumped back, landing on her bad leg. She let out a painful cry and fell backward, passed through the boundary, and hit the soft grass and soil of the clearing.

Monster seeing that she fell, jumped at her face. Eloise closed her eyes and rolled to the side. And heard the monster slam into something that wasn’t her.

Eloise opened her eyes to see the Twotail clawing and biting at some invisible wall, right between the clearing and the forest. I’m safe! Eloise laid down on the grass of the clearing, staring up into the sky. She made all the effort she could to ignore the grumbling Twotail not even two meters away from her.

I guess that makes sense. Otherwise, the big monster I saw at night would have eaten me already. Did that one turn back because it already knew about it?

A wicked grin spread on Eloise’s face as she pointed the wand at the monster. I can exploit this.

[Fire Shot]

Eloise’s spell splashed at an invisible wall. Her grin faded as quickly as it appeared. The barrier worked both ways.

“I’ll get you next time,” Eloise said to the Twotail and limped back to her tower.

Eloise sat at the kitchen table, her wounds tended to the best of her non-existing abilities or skills. She drank the lightly flavored drink and looked at her stats.

[- - - - - -]

Name: Eloise Desmet

Class: Student of Fire

Level: 1

Health: 66/66

Mana: 3/16

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 3

Endurance: 6

Intensity: 3

Flow: 4

Capacity: 3

Available Points: 0 G - 0 P - 0 M

Active Class Skills:

Fire Shot - Lv. 2

Passive Class Skills:

Active General Skills:

Analyze - Lv. 1

Passive General Skills:

Wand Crafting - Lv. 1

Osmela Language Proficiency

[- - - - - -]

Eloise’s Health didn’t decrease at all during the fight. And max Health increased by a single point, even. Why?

The leg hurt even now, even if the pain faded with every sip of the drink. Eloise referred to the beginner magic book. The magical stats were more or less average. Flow a little higher, but nothing insane.

Eloise checked the specialized class just in case, but only one thing changed.

[Class - Student of Fire. Level Up Rewards: 1G 3M]

She took another sip and the pain completely faded. She blinked, just realizing that. Eloise unraveled the makeshift bandages and saw that the skin on her leg while a bit red, looked healthy.

She stood on the leg and felt no discomfort either. Truly a magical drink. I might not be able to exploit the barrier. But I will definitely exploit the healing drink.

Eloise remembered the bloody battle that happened half an hour ago and shuddered. “Will I really go back to fighting those things?” She whispered a question to herself.

Eloise picked up her self-made wand—bloody scraps of her own blood wrapped around a straight branch. “I will.” She answered, louder. And put the wand back down. “But later. Now I celebrate with this light drink and some… hard flavorless bread.”