[Name: Marcus Lieberman]
[Age: 18]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Hell Ranger (Lv 100), Mage (Lv 30)]
[Rank: Diamond]
[Strength: 327 + 198]
[Vitality: 324 + 198]
[Magic: 344 + 112]
[Perception: 343 + 518]
[Speed: 325 + 518]
[Dexterity: 320 + 112]
[Class Skills: (Hell Ranger: Swift Blade, Absolute Blaze, Hellfire Aura, Blink Step, Healing Aura, Pinpoint Hardening, Mass Surveillance, Unseen Veil) (Mage: Basic Elemental Magic, Magic Missiles, Dispel)]
[General Skills: Diamond Mana Core, Identify, Deception, Levitation, Advanced Equipment Repair]
Seems like I’ll have to make a decision again.
As Marcus scanned his current stats—pre-rank up, of course; he still was an iron-rank [Mage]—he felt a slight sense of elation. He had only fought once, but with the amount of kills he racked up, with more than a dozen of the skeletal dragons killed, Marcus gained enough XP to blast to silver rank. It was quite impressive, and he imagined the monsters deep below would have even more impressive XP returns.
He looked briefly at Stella and Alice. Both of them were still lightly chatting to each other as they retrieved the monster cores from their fallen foes. Stella seemed to be lamenting that her levels simply weren’t budging upwards. Only Alice seemed to be in good spirits, as she said that she leveled up thrice since they entered the dungeon.
That, indeed, must be why Marcus was having an easier time than Stella, to be fair. Even if, largely, his XP requirements to level up seemed to be at most doubled compared to back then, at the moment, he was still only at level 30 for his [Mage] class. That meant the advance forward would be much, much faster. Stella, on the other hand, would require stronger and stronger enemies to push forward.
It was something Marcus experienced too in hell, where he had to kill increasingly more powerful demons and at higher quantities than before whenever he leveled up. It was the only way he managed to reach level 100. Quite frankly, he actually was starting to feel a little bit let down now, knowing this world probably didn’t have enough powerful enemies out there to push him upward to max out his [Mage] class.
Still though, now that I’m at level 30, I just need to pick a class advancement, and I can rush upward easily.
It was the rule of this world. Whenever one reached the limit to his rank, one would need to rank up in order to resume XP gain from enemies, training, item consumption, and everything else. As such, he would have to make the choice now. The available ones, though, as usual, still seemed…a little underwhelming?
Class Advancement Options Available!
- Mage (Generalist): To walk the path of a mage, one must learn all spells there are to be learned. Generalists are the jack-of-all-trades, master at none, yet flexible in everything.
- Fire Mage: Life is sustained and destroyed by temperature. To be a fire mage ensures the mastery of control over heat and cold, and thus, the mastery over the pillar of life.
- Earth Mage: The soil and world we all walk upon is our greatest treasure. Bend it to your will, and you shall create the finest structures and sculpt the landscape to your needs and desires.
- Spell Breaker: You hone your craft of being an absolute rat to mages. Your strongest spells are those that break others’ spells, and you may even master the ability of being untouchable to a fellow mage’s spell, which shall elicit frustration in their minds and great satisfaction for yours.
To be fair, Marcus did feel the urge to laugh about the last one. It was certainly an interesting choice, one that he would not pick, because while he did say that he intended to use magecraft as a specialized tool to piss on anyone who couldn’t be killed by his blades, Marcus still had enough love for magecraft that he wouldn’t devote his entire life to a class about bastardizing it.
Magic was too lovely and too beautiful and placed on too high of a pedestal in Marcus’s mind for him to be able to pick the [Spell Breaker] class. Certainly, it was still interesting, though, but he’d stop at that. On the other hand, upon checking the generalist [Mage] class, Marcus realized that it still gave him stronger bonuses than the last one.
It would be upgrading all of his base [Mage] skills, and he would gain a new skill on top of that, called [Conjure Barrier] and [Rapid Invocation], both of which would be quite useful for most of his spells. First of all, barrier spells were quite difficult to create. Marcus actually tried asking Siris about how to make one normally, and he even had a long reading session researching about them, but unfortunately, it was likely that creating one would take Marcus weeks or months.
It was because, unlike offensive magic, defensive magic required understanding offensive magic types and analyzing how each of them worked before training yourself in invoking spell circles specifically designed to counter them. This, of course, also meant that during fights, mages conjuring advanced barriers usually utilized divination spells to rapidly analyze incoming attacks. Initially, Marcus thought that barriers were simply barriers similar to a shield. It was not. A barrier conjured to block a fireball wouldn’t be able to block a rock barrage, for example.
Stella was therefore ingenious, considering how she successfully used multiple variants of [Barrier] spells while Salvador Magath was spamming various types of magical attacks at her. Well, specialized [Barrier Mages] were generally regarded as geniuses. To defend was harder than attacking; it was something extremely true in the world of magecraft. In fact, most [Mages] would just try to avoid attacks or utilize enchanted armor (that was preset to resist all types of magical attacks) during fights.
Reading through the description of the [Conjure Barrier] spell, it seemed that he could bypass that problem by having the system do all the work, as was usual with all skills that doubled as a spell. This must be how those who weren’t specialized at defensive magic managed to conjure barriers anyway, though of course, it would be significantly weaker.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
On the other hand, [Rapid Invokation] seemed extremely powerful. It would boost Marcus’s ability to invoke a spell circle. Considering his relatively lower DEX stats, this would be very helpful. The other classes, like [Fire Mage] and [Earth Mage], also did have nice extras with them, but Marcus still didn’t like the idea of overspecializing in offensive magic when he already had his [Hell Ranger] class.
In general, Marcus thought that he was pursuing magic as both a tool to complement his old fighting style and for his hobbies. He wanted to learn and master most spells of all types of magic, because the world of magecraft was too awesome for him to only focus on its most narrow section, and unlike normal [Mages], who would have to find their lane and stick to it hard in order to survive, Marcus was no such thing.
He had Stella by his side, whom he trusted dearly with his life. And he was Marcus Lieberman, someone with the strength to defeat the Death God himself. The obvious was thus clear.
I choose the generalist mage class.
“Marcus?” Stella suddenly turned to him. “You’re glowing blue.”
“He’s ranking up,” Alice said, eyes wide.
Marcus, on the other hand, just nodded, as he felt a cool surge of power coursing through him. “Yeah, I’m going to be silver rank soon. Can you guys cover me for a few minutes?”
“Absolutely,” Stella nodded. “In fact, now that I think about it, since you’re doing that, how about we take a stop here to rest? I’ll be the one to cook!”
Stella was going to cook.
Marcus naturally agreed without hesitation in a split second.
[Name: Marcus Lieberman]
[Age: 18]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Hell Ranger (Lv 100), Mage (Lv 30)]
[Rank: Diamond]
[Strength: 327 + 204]
[Vitality: 324 + 204]
[Magic: 344 + 120]
[Perception: 343 + 524]
[Speed: 325 + 524]
[Dexterity: 320 + 120]
[Class Skills: (Hell Ranger: Swift Blade, Absolute Blaze, Hellfire Aura, Blink Step, Healing Aura, Pinpoint Hardening, Mass Surveillance, Unseen Veil) (Mage: Elemental Magic, Improved Magic Missiles, Dispel, Conjure Barrier, Rapid Invokation)]
[General Skills: Diamond Mana Core, Identify, Deception, Levitation, Advanced Equipment Repair]
Marcus placed another spoonful of Stella’s most hearty stew in his mouth as he absentmindedly scanned his gains. The savory taste of well-cooked salt pork thrown straight into a pot of tomato sauce, potatoes, herbs, and spices—which they managed to carry using Marcus’s bags of holding—blended in well with Marcus’s satisfaction at his new abilities.
His stats had improved well beyond what he’d gained during iron rank. His most important stats for magecraft, [Magic] and [Dexterity] had the moderate +24 points class boost, which would do wonders with his mana supply, circulation, speed of spell invocation, and spell control. The rest had the standard low +12 class boost, which was enough to be mildly noticeable for Marcus when he tried out swinging his rapier a few times earlier.
“You seem to be quite satisfied over there,” Alice said, holding a bowl full of stew. “Enjoying the meal?”
“Of course,” Marcus smiled, turning to Stella, who was silently and thoroughly munching her food. “Quite frankly, I wonder if she has the knack to become a chef too. Geez, is there anything you’re bad at?”
Stella swallowed her food before answering, unlike Marcus, who spoke even while chewing. “On the contrary, my cooking does not match the skill of the royal palace’s head chef. For one, he’s superior at baking than I am. He also cooks steak much more perfectly and evenly, and I only know how to do it well in a few cuts.”
“Stella, you’re comparing yourself to the top guy in the country when it comes to cooking,” Marcus blankly pointed out.
“So?”
He facepalmed. As he had suspected back then, even if Stella wasn’t the most competent [Saint] due to her defeat with the Death God Cult, she was still quite the diligent perfectionist. It must be why she managed to absorb Marcus’s lessons and training like nothing; within a few months, she was now his near equal.
Training your replacement when they were overqualified to begin with sure sounded scary. At this rate, Marcus’s use was running out. He would have to find somewhere where he would be superior to Stella, if she could already overpower him stat-wise, magic-wise, and, of course, in cooking.
Maybe I should master being the best guy at cleaning shit? She seems a bit overly afraid of cleaning things without magic, so maybe there’s an opening there.
No, that was a stupid idea.
Alice on the side just laughed upon noticing the awkward atmosphere between the two. Marcus shook his head, returning to stuffing himself with the best stew he had in a while—as he preferred Stella’s cooking to whatever the hell the palace gave them, even if Stella insisted that it was “better”—while Stella still seemed completely oblivious as she tried asking what Marcus thought was wrong with her comparisons.
In the end, the trio finished eating on the side of the dungeon’s walls, satiated and full. Unfortunately, they had been fighting for hours already, so they were somewhat tired. Marcus suggested that they should clear the floor below too to be sure before resting, but that was when Siris appeared out of nowhere, chastising everyone for not being at bed during bedtime—as if they were in an environment with a bed around them—before casting defensive spells and traps on the stairs leading to the next floor.
Once that was done, the Great Spirit disappeared quickly. Marcus could only scratch his head at it all before the trio went to the corner where they had a fireplace set up. Alice let out a yawn before lying sideways near the wall. Marcus sat with his back rested on the wall too when Stella scooted beside him.
“Hey,” Stella spoke up. “Are you tired?”
“No, not in particular,” Marcus said, frowning. “I get that Siris placed a lot of spells beforehand to protect us, and [Mass Surveillance] confirmed to me that there are no monsters attempting to go up here, but still, someone has to keep watch.”
“Definitely not me,” Alice groaned and yawned. “I’m so tired. I want a full three-hour rest.”
“Yeah, go rest,” Marcus said. “You too, Stella. You two fought the most, while I held back.” He smiled at her. “I think I can take the guard dog role.”
She poked his cheek suddenly. “Never call yourself a guard dog.”
“What else then?”
“A knight. I prefer you as my knight,” she beamed at that idea.
“Whatever you say,” Marcus chuckled. “Just rest. I’ll keep watch.”
“Thanks, Marcus.” Stella then fully sat beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder, yawning a bit. “Let me lean on you again today.”
“Actually…” Marcus was about to suggest something to her when he noticed that she was already asleep. Her breathing was soft and gentle, controlled, almost so fragile, and her weight was fully on him. His mind practically blanked out as he looked at her face.
So pretty…
Taking a deep breath, he decided to prepare his lap, taking care not to disturb her. Then, he gently let her head rest on it, before running his fingers throug her silvery hair.
There, there. Heh…I can finally pay you back after what you did for me that night.
She had been fighting hard, just to earn money to pay for her charities. It was an exceedingly noble task that many people of her station wouldn’t even bat an eye on. That was why…
Rest easy now, Stella. I’ll be here for you from now on.
