Farsille

System is considering which class to assign to a boy named Nathan. His intelligence is remarkably high, but his other stats are below average. Nathan is non-threatening with his tall and skinny build. He has blonde hair and brown eyes and his facial structure makes him look rather gullible. Nathan lives in a village called Farsille, located on the border with Easteria and it is not too far from the border with Saudia either. Farsille currently has over two hundred inhabitants living there, which for Gaia's standard is quite large for a farming village. It is located on the main road from Sybilla to Easteria, so it has always seen lots of travellers. Among the surrounding villages, it is the only one that has inns. Unfortunately, Farsille's location has caused it to suffer greatly under the war. Most of the men have died fighting. With a few exceptions, the remaining males in the village are either children or elderly. The village is in a bit of a rough spot. The younger generation is about to reach the age where they get assigned their classes. The village council hopes to get a couple of peasants and maybe a farmer. This would allow the younger generation to take over the work and take care of the older generation. It would be rough, but they would make it. System isn't stupid. He knows the village needs a new generation of peasants, but oh my zero day! There's an option in the list that is just begging to be clicked!

He remembers Elitia telling him about the unique qualities of the peasant class. Most of the classes a system can assign, are specialist in nature. They help the inhabitant do one thing and one thing only. For example, the cook class will make you more proficient at preparing food, but won't make you better at smithing. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as adventurer or peasant. These classes are generalist in nature and affect many things. While the adventurer class will help the inhabitant with adventuring skills, such as fighting, tracking and exploring, the peasant class will give a small bonus regardless of the task performed. It is the most generalist class available. This makes the class especially suitable for inhabitants of a village such as Farsille. The villagers have to prepare their own food, make their own clothes, create most of their own tools and so on. They simply haven't the monetary means to buy all of these things. The peasant class is perfect for them, because it helps with everything. It even gives a small health, strength and dexterity boost. Specialization is more suited for the city, where craftsmen congregate and salaries are higher.

However, the peasant class is not without downsides. First of all, even though it improves proficiency at everything, the gain is minor compared to a specialist class. Which is fine for the average peasant. The second, more important problem is that the rate of progression of the class is pitiful. The adventurer class has 25 levels, after which one gets a second class. The peasant class has 100 levels and few peasants ever max out their class. This isn't just caused by the high level limit. The peasant class boosts all activities and all activities give XP, but very little of it. Gaining a level a year with the peasant class is considered fast, but isn't fast enough to get your secondary class. Peasants don't have the skills to become competent adventurers. They certainly can go dungeon diving. Their class boosts will aid them a little and they will get some bonus XP from killing monsters. However, only a peasant with a deathwish would do so. Even specialist combat classes have a low survival rate when adventuring and they are stronger than peasants.

Unbeknownst to most peasants there are ways to max out the peasant class faster. Since peasants are expected to serve the country, servitude greatly increases the rate at which they gain XP. A peasant that is conscripted into the army will gain XP much faster than when plowing a field or adventuring. Even if they never see an enemy. The generic bonus peasants get to everything makes it possible for them to stand on the battlefield. Though, an experienced soldier will slaughter peasants by the dozens. Alternatively a peasant that ends up serving the king directly or indirectly in some way will gain XP at an incredible rate. In fact, just making a major contribution to the village and by extention the country will reward considerable XP. Of course, this contribution has to overshadow their daily work by considerable margin. A peasant doesn't get a servitude bonus merely for plowing a field.

Farsille is run by a council of elders, with Villagran at the head. Villagran has the "village chief" class. He was rewarded this class after he hit the XCAP of peasant. Among the few that max level peasant, village chief is a common second class. If their servitude was to the village, it is a logical next step. If their servitude was to the king or the country in a more general sense, they may get a noble class instead. Villagran did both. He anticipated the position the village would be in during the civil war. He prepared food and shelter for the villagers, hiding them in a cave in the forest when armies where marching through the village. He also helped Kargaroth's armies, by hiding food supplies from Easteria and giving it to Systemia instead. Which is technically servitude, since the village is a part of Systemia now. Though most of his servitude was calculated as servitude to the village. Originally Farsille was obviously a part of Easteria, but there is no penalty for aiding an invader, only a bonus for servitude.

Farsille is important in the region. The surrounding villages are smaller, so their inhabitants come to Farsille to trade. Markets and festivals are also held here. Farsille's location (directly on the main road to Easteria) and size are convenient for such gatherings.

It is useful to have someone with the class "village chief", it greatly benefits the village. The village chief class has two effects. First of all, it comes with the village diplomacy skill. This skill gives a diplomacy bonus when the chief is representing the interests of the village. This greatly reduces incidents and increases positive outcomes for the village in negotiations with external parties. The skill can be leveled, by doing more diplomacy. The higher the impact of the decisions, the faster the skill levels. At higher levels, the diplomacy bonus increases.

The other side of the class is that it increases ones awareness of the village. Awareness in a broad sense that is. The second skill that the village chief class unlocks is the "village sense" skill. This skill gives the chief an implicit awareness of what is going on in the village. The more effort one puts into the events in the village, the faster the skill levels. Impactful incidents, whether good or bad, level the skill at a faster rate.

Leveling the village chief class will unlock additional skills, such as leadership, village threat detection and heart of village.

Villagran has a son called Nathan, who just turned 15 and should be getting a class any time now. He's a smart kid, but doesn't have the grit for physical labor. This worries Villagran, because most of the work in the village is physical. During the day, Villagran often sends Nathan to help with labor around the village, which he does without complaint. Not that he is very good at it. If Villagran wouldn't, then Nathan would just stick his nose in books the whole day, or he would follow travellers around, listening to their stories. Though, Villagran has come to appreciate Nathan's thirst for knowledge over time. More than once has there been a dilemma in the village, that could be solved with a little bit of knowledge beyond his own. Sometimes problems that seemed insurmountable, could easily be solved with a herb from the forest, a product from the east or an adventurer with a particular skill.

Nathan is lying on the bed, reading a book, when he gets the notification.

*DING* *DING* you gained the class nature mage.

description: You are human miracle grow, fuck yeah!

This is unusual, Nathan thinks. It's not just about the description. Nature mages are rare. I can't think of any prominent ones, come to think of it, I can't think of any at all. I remember old stories and vague references, but nobody that's still alive.

id: 209,543,479

name: Nathan

age: 15

HP: 40

MP: 42

classes: nature mage (apprentice) - level 0

VIT: 4

STR: 3

END: 3

DEX: 4

INT: 21 (16+5)

class: nature mage (apprentice)

INT +5, +1/lvl

MP +INT

skill - nature sense: you can feel natural energy

Nathan's stats are all below average (5), except intelligence, but his intelligence more than compensates. His base stats are certainly suitable for the mage classes. Nathan has 30 base stats in total, which is 5 above average (25). His class raises his base INT with +5 to 21 and doubles his MP, since you normally get 1MP/INT and his class adds an additional +1MP/INT. The skill doesn't use mana and the description is quite vague, but Nathan knew that all of the common mage classes start with something similar. Mages start off rough, but high level mages are known to be unstoppable. Due to his high INT and class, he has a lot of mana, but nothing to use it on.

Dad!

Nathan goes downstairs to tell Villagran about his class.

Nature mage? That is...

Mage classes are typically very weak in the apprentice tier and immensely powerful in later tiers. It's not until one reaches the next tier (novice), that the class becomes useful. So the solution is to send the mage to school. If they can't afford the tuition, the army will waive it for them, presuming the student obligates themselves to serve the army after they graduate. But the army does not take nature mages, so he effectively has a useless class that can't be trained.

Do you know anything about them?

Nature mages are generally looked down upon, but that's not a great message to give his son.

So he limits himself to saying that they are generally not used by the army, because the other schools of magic are more effective in combat.

Hmm... that means that the class must have something else going for it.

Ah... yes... let's figure this out together.

I'm going to the inn for a bit, I want to ask the adventurers some questions.

Villagran frowns and follows Nathan's back with his eyes as Nathan leaves the house.

This is a problem...

So what is the deal with nature mages? Why do they not have a place in society and why are they rarely assigned by systems? The basic, most common mage classes can be grouped into elemental (fire, water, earth, air) and life force (life, nature, death). When it comes to offense, armies are most interested in fire and death magic. Nature magic just doesn't have the same kind of destructive force. Life magic is useful for healing and warding off death magic. Water magic is effective in creating barriers against fire magic and reduces the army's dependence on drinking water. Earth magic has various tactical uses in battle, most involve creating defensive barriers or entrenchments. Air mages can fly, have enhanced hearing and are great for scouting and delivering messages. Although air magic can be used offensively, it's not powerful enough to warrant military interest as long as the mage doesn't have a more rare specialization, such as lightning mage, or is extremely high leveled. Note that all elemental mages can use offensive magic quite early on, but fire mages have a definite edge in terms of destructive prowess.

The more specialized classes are hard to unlock (e.g. get struck by lightning... and survive) and usually aren't unlocked until one has leveled a basic version first, except in rare cases. Switching would only benefit the mage if he outlevels his previous class. Until that time, a simple upgrade of the common version is guaranteed to be more powerful. Even if you do outlevel the original class, then there is still the opportunity cost of missed XP in the old class. Most systems don't risk switching to a more unique class later.

That leaves us with nature mages. Nature mages have some awareness of their environment, but not so much on things important for human warfare. When a nature mage competes with a fire or death mage, they are in a really bad position. Almost everything that is alive, burns and has lifeforce. They can gain the regenerate ability, but they won't be able to heal others in their first few tiers, making them useless as healers in the army. They can summon creatures, but tamers are more powerful. The tamer class is a bit of a pain, because you have to find a monster first, but when you do, what you can tame is more powerful at the same level. A nature mage has to exert mana to summon the creature as well as controlling it. Nature magic is more flexible, but compared to other classes, the up-front investment is too great. So armies don't use them. Nature mages can be successful as adventurers though. The flexible nature of the class, makes it rather suitable as long as the enemies don't use death or fire magic, but the lack of initial combat capacity means that the mages are dependent on others, until they level up quite a bit. They usually die before they reach this point. So systems have stopped assigning the class, calling it useless and a waste of mana. Elitia has explicitly told System: Don't ever assign this class!

But none of that matters to Nathan. His class is a given, not a choice. He is on a mission to find answers and he knows someone that just might have the answers he is looking for. This afternoon a group of travellers got a room at the inn. There have been some bears encroaching upon the village, so the village issued a quest at the adventurer's guild to cull their numbers. The adventurers should be out hunting now, but one of their group stayed in the village. The traveller that stayed behind was rather young and he was talking about fire magic non-stop. Maybe he was too young to fight, or maybe burning the bears wasn't a good way to complete the quest. In any event, this was an opportunity to ask some questions.