Chapter 602 - Spatial Class Up (Patreon)

The library flickered and rippled, the books on the ground floor being replaced by an entirely different set. If I wanted to, I could grab any one of the nearly-infinite choices, from [The Mother of Modern Medicine], all the way to a pink or white class.

It wasn’t surprising that Librarian stayed exactly the same. She was a reflection of my soul, who I was inside. I hadn’t changed too much in the time it had taken to select my last class, no matter how much introspection I’d just done. Perhaps when I was younger, when a long introspection session could possibly change who I was, there would be a change, but… I was older, and I had reaffirmed the path I was already on.

“Shall we?” I asked as I offered Librarian my arm, taking the chance to lead for once.

“Let’s!” She said.

I decided I wanted to tour the near-infinite halls of the library. Arm-in-arm with Librarian, we toured the halls, looking at the endless classes being offered to me. From Water to Miasma, Mirror to Void, from Light to Dark, Storm to Brilliance, every element was on display by the thousands. 

“Remember when I wanted to come here just to read for days?” I sighed wistfully as I trailed a finger over the endless spines, enjoying the feel of the ridges.

“You still can.” Librarian pointed out. “There’s nothing stopping you, and it’s been a few years since we’ve last gotten a really good book.”

I looked around and debated if I could afford the time. I could, there was no crisis, no pressing need to be elsewhere, and the Cataclysm had been hell on [Authors]...

I hope I didn’t just jinx it.

I grabbed a book at random and sat down, disentangling myself from Librarian at the same time.

“Sure! Let’s do it! Want to get me a few thrillers?” I asked, glancing at the book I’d grabbed.

[Tanner - Acid]

I lifted an eyebrow, shrugged, and got to it. It was a red class, but it was a story, and I was always looking to learn more.

It wasn’t particularly exciting or thrilling. Vat after vat of chemicals, a nice skill to selectively smell - it would help me, but the gods have mercy on my neighbors - and a small, satisfying career.

A book was a book, but it was disappointing that it didn’t light a spark in me, didn’t get the inferno of blazing passion worked up. Not all the books would be a hit, and I counted that one up to a miss, no matter my current mood for reading.

“Here!” Librarian dropped a significant stack on me, and I trusted that she’d curated the heck out of it to give me only the best.

“Thank you.” I told her with beaming eyes, then got down to it. Book after book, tale after tale sped by under my eyes as I greedily soaked in all the stories, my soul gently watered by narration. I made a mental note as I dropped the epic of [Princess-Knight] Elaine, an orange tale. I should absolutely save the stories for the next time I was classing up in a time when there were fewer books.

A balance, a carefully stocked reserve for when I needed it. 

Just one more book couldn’t hurt though, I had so many…

Seven books later, and Librarian was wagging a finger under my nose.

“Elaine, I’m cutting you off here. You do need to pick a class, and those stories are just as good.” She tried to be stern, but her voice crackled with mischief. 

“Okay! Let’s goooo!” I bounded out of the chair and up the stairs, the world of my soul letting me always feel fresh and energized. 

The setting was ever-changing, and I couldn’t wait to see what the library would look like for this one. I burst through the doors with all the energy of an over-sugared toddler, greedily drinking in the sights.

The room was small, and basically all crystal. A staircase was carved into the back wall, I could see my legs on the floor, and the place was lit by a dozen lanterns topping small crystal pillars. The center of the room had a crystal book open in front of a chair, and I lifted my eyebrow in surprise.

“Only one class?” I asked. She gestured with a smile.

“Go on, take a look!”

I banished my concern, having complete faith in myself. 

“We should totally get a cave like this.” I joked to Librarian as I walked over, who naturally got it and snorted.

I sat down at the crystal book, only for a modest list of options to spring up in front of me, like an illusion. I instantly recognized the written list for what it was - all my classing up options, in one neat display.

“Cool.”

[Librarian of the Lost]

[Hoarder of Dragons]

[Sage of Eternity]

[Dragonbone Witch]

[Archmage of Runes]

Clean sweep, five dark purple classes. Nothing black, nothing light purple. I supposed the range of dark purple was massive in the first place. 

“No [Loremaster] classes?” I asked Librarian. She shrugged.

“There are, if you scroll down the list quite a bit.” She said. “Three pages down on the table of contents. I doubt we’ll take it.”

I let it be with that knowledge. She knew me best, and I’d probably find what I wanted without endless scrolling.

That would happen later, when I wanted to read a few more adventures of me!

Librarian of the Lost: The Librarian of the Lost is the keeper of all knowledge. From forgotten to common, mundane to esoteric, from the deepest, darkest secrets of Pallos to basic information about the System, the Librarian has it all. More than a keeper of knowledge, the Librarian is an administer of knowledge. When one is seeking answers, the first place they should turn is a library, and it will be your job to steer them straight. Not all knowledge is currently written down and known, and part of the Librarian’s job is to fill in the gaps and the blanks from known knowledge, properly extrapolating. The Librarian doesn’t just keep knowledge, she helps find it. From whispers of forgotten lore to cryptic writings, piecing together fragments of history and the present, the Librarian channels their discoveries into writings, then shelves it along with the rest. At their heart, the Librarian is a mentor to wayward and curious souls, guiding seekers to their answer. +512 Strength, +512 Dexterity, +512 Speed, +512 Vitality, +1024 Magic Power,  +1024 Magic Control,  +1024 Mana,  +1024 Mana Regeneration per level.

Librarian’s eyes were sparkling as I read it over. It made sense! A librarian was at the heart of me, the soul of my being, and not only was I currently working as a librarian now and then, I was even offered a class around it! I had a strong pull towards it just on that bias.

It was a solid class, going far deeper into the knowledge and information side of [Sage of Tomes]. It retained the wizardry aspects, along with the Spatial sorcery, but they wouldn’t improve. Technically, my Tower and Library would merge together, giving me a new skill slot, which was an upgrade. But the skills offered were all memory and knowledge related, along with improvements to Astral Archives. There was one great skill in the list that jumped out at me. [Fill In the Outline of the Story]. It was a skill to make connections, deductions, and let me “fill in the blanks”. A modest [Thinker] skill, one that promised growth and endless knowledge. It promised to synergize strongly with my senses. It would only be as good as the information fed into it, but my senses made that information potent, high quality, and comprehensive. I was reminded about Arachne, who was able to look at pieces of information and make logical leaps to ‘fill in the blanks’. It was a cool skill, one I wouldn’t mind having, and I could see why it was at the top of the list. 

Experience gain promised to be slow. The beating heart of the class was being a librarian, and only “typical” librarian work would get me experience. In short, Auri would be dragging the class along. I was fine with that, just like I’d be fine if Auri took a slow leveling class and I needed to provide the experience to level her. 

The skill did seem to have a downside. It was either on or off. If it was on, it would be constantly filling in the blanks, a never-ending trickle of knowledge and information whispering in my ear. There were a few versions of myself that went quite mad under the influence of the skill, unable to handle it. If I usually left it off, what would be the point? I’d possibly need a general skill to help support me, or Luminary Mind or Astral Archives to evolve. Probably the first one. 

Made me wonder if I could take the skill and fuse it into Luminary Mind… 

Only one class down, and my imagination was afire with the possibilities!

Onto the next class. I stared at the crystal book for a minute, trying to figure out how to swap books before giving up and asking for help.

“How do I get back to the list?” I asked, feeling stupid. It had to be easy, I just… couldn’t see it.

“Like this!” Librarian waved her entire hand in front of the book, like she was wiping it clean.

Okay, fine. I wasn’t an idiot, that wasn’t intuitive at all.

Hoarder of Dragons: The undisputed master of resources, logistics, and the art of efficient storage. The Hoarder of Dragons stores the most dangerous substances known to elvenoid kind, and keeps quiet how often she’s able to directly acquire them herself. The Hoarder can quickly and efficiently rearrange everything they’ve stored, and their storage expands to people as well. A master of logistics trapped in a single spot is almost useless, and not only does the Hoarder bring her storage with her, she’s able to create beacons to rapidly travel around. Their storage is a fortress, nearly impenetrable even to those with skills to slip into unusual spaces. +512 Strength, +512 Dexterity, +512 Speed, +512 Vitality, +512 Magic Power,  +512 Magic Control,  +1024 Mana,  +2048 Mana Regeneration per level.

I figured killing a dragon would turbocharge my class offerings. I didn’t think the next level, and that illicitly storing nearly an entire dragon would also get me a good class, but here it was. 

This was a logistics class. The fact that my hard-won wizardry would go away was quite the negative, but I wasn’t willing to dismiss the class out of hand. 

In exchange for losing the wizardry, my tower skill expanded and got cranked to 16. No longer would I have a simple tower, no, it would be an entire castle. And not a small one. Fortunately, it was primarily geared towards storage, with warehouses packed tight like legionnaires in the courtyard. The whole castle theme was a little confusing to me at first until I saw the skills.

I got portal skills. I could open a gentle, high powered portal to my pocket dimension and have people live in the castle. Food would be an issue - the boundaries of the pocket dimension ended at the castle walls, we didn’t have sunlight or farmland - but I could run an entire keeps worth of people inside. 

I could drop portal anchors as well, and “quickly” move around the world. Just like the entire sixth legion had teleported across the world, I could do a similar sort of trick. An anchor in every major city, and I could move an army as quickly as they could march in and out of the portal. Or just pop over for lunch.

Oh! With my skills, I could live in perpetual daylight! I could keep moving with the sun, always in time for lunch, visiting friends and family scattered around the globe. It was unclear if I could drop an anchor at the School, but I was sure I could get a mobile anchor going with enough time and effort. 

The idea made me realize that no sentinel in Exterreri had a similar skill, and helped frame just what level I was working at. 

It got even better. The skill included the ability to automate certain tasks. I’d need to both define the automation and provide the mana for it, but it wasn’t nearly so harsh on the knowledge requirements as pure, ordinary spell casting.

There were naturally downsides.

The portal was the only way in, and the mana cost was staggering, to say the least. It was as easy as thinking to close it, but I wouldn’t be able to pop in at a moment’s notice and grab whatever I needed, then teleport back out a moment later. Similarly, since my [Tower] and [Library] would merge, all my books would end up in a grand, ever-expanding library. No easy spells mid-combat, no subtly grabbing books during boring meetings and re-reading them. Then again, that last point was somewhat mitigated by [Astral Archives] letting me perfectly re-read them in my mind, but it wasn’t the same.

I’d almost passed up on the skill that had eventually turned into [Tower of Knowledge], and it was one of my keystones now. I wasn’t going to easily pass up on a class that promised to expand it by leaps and bounds, not without careful consideration.

Sage of Eternity: You are an eternal presence. The sun rises, the sun sets, and you remain. The tide comes in, the tide goes out, and you remain. Empires rise and nations fall, and you remain. Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even the myth is long forgotten, and yet, you remain. You eye the wheel of time, and contemplate breaking it. Throughout years, throughout eons, you are a witness, the repository of knowledge, the eternal sage, absorbing knowledge and dispensing wisdom. Carry on, and witness eternity. +2048 Magic Power, +2048 Magic Control, +1024 Mana, +1024 Mana Regeneration per level.

That was dramatic. I was currently the [Sage of Tomes], and it was the natural evolution. A marriage of knowledge and learning, books with magic. I liked it! There was the same merger of my library with the tower, and it had the same portal [Hoarder of Dragons] did! I could let people into my [Tower-Library], except there were no world-spanning anchors. I did gain the ability to move things in and out of my tower at will though, no need to go in. A smaller size, worse in one way and more flexible in others.

That was the only major skill change though. Everything else got better, yes, but there were no big shake ups or shuffling around. I already had the skills this path offered.

It naturally fell high on my list.

Dragonbone Witch: You have survived through the ages, and your greed for the secrets of magic knows no bounds, undaunted even by the Dragons, the lords of destruction. First you raided a lair and stole knowledge, and now you have slaughtered a dragon and bathed in its blood, stealing its power. Since you first began to walk Pallos you have desired nothing more than the ability to do everything, as greedy as a dragon. Now, at long last, your achievements have brought this ancient goal into your grasp. Infinite flexibility, the full breadth of the System's capabilities awaits you. The Gods writ power and possibility into the dragons' very bones, and now it is yours to command. +1024 Magic Power, +1024 Magic Control, +2048 Mana, +2048 Mana Regeneration per level.

It took me a bit of time to parse the class, and I was torn between grinning and facepalming. 

On one hand, it was about the most flexible class I’d ever heard of. From what it wanted to do to how it gained experience, nearly everything could be justified if I did it with panache and style, which I wanted to do already. ‘Keep being yourself’ was a draw, as was ‘and do it with style.’ I loved it! Who wouldn’t?

It took careful reading to realize I’d lose [Reality, Writ as You Will], and instead get a [Dabble] variant. Except it was the most flexible skill I’d ever seen. I could do anything I wanted… at a sharp, sharp penalty. If regular sorcery was a one to one ratio of mana to effect, wizardry was closer to eight to one on a good day. Sympathy was even worse than that, closer to 32 to 1 on a strong link and good source. This was more like 64 to 1 - atrociously inefficient. 

It would be like “only” having 50,000 magic power. About as much as I’d had on my [Oath]-boosted healing when promoted to a Sentinel in Remus. 

Bloody gods. 

All of my preparation work would be unneeded, and something like that was fantastic for illusions, both visual and auditory, communications and the myriad of other ‘small mana, huge effect’ skills. At the same time, it was all minor utility, and rare was the ability that a smart [Runesmith] hadn’t made at one point, nor had clever [Wizards] not put together. Often, the issue was one of power… but then again, that was the mindset I was in. I held so much System-granted power in my mind, rare was the obstacle that I couldn’t simply go through, and when presented with a challenge, my usual method was generally to ask how I could hit it harder. I wasn’t a clever trickster, a cunning youth tumbling my way through a fort with nothing but a skeleton key, a flask of bad wine, and my wits. 

Not needing to spend endless hours writing down spells sounded quite pleasant though, at the trade-off of losing a few of my power-required spells. The first ones that jumped to mind were my spellbreakers and cancelation effects - I wouldn’t be able to use them anymore, but in exchange I could conjure up interesting materials that were tricky to write out in the various wizarding languages, like some of Auri’s more interesting flames, or the divine thunderbolt I’d seen in the School’s Museum of All Things. Of course, those came with the same power caveat. I’d only be able to cast it at a fraction of what ‘normal’ sorcery would cost, let alone sorcery boosted by skills. I didn’t know what [Sunrise Halo] was going to turn into, but anything that needed blasting would be better served by my Radiance.

It was a strong offering.

Archmage of Runes: The Archmage of Runes is the master of ancient symbols and arcane inscriptions, wielding magic with precision and power. The Archmage is familiar with over two dozen schools of magic, thoughts, and runes, and etches their spells not just onto paper, but onto the very fabric of reality around them. Mandalas are folded into pocket dimensions, always available and never burning out. Endless enchantments are available. Preparation is the name of the game for wizards, and with Archmage of Runes, every preparation is rewarded for the rest of your life. Unwavering discipline and deep knowledge will make you a force to be reckoned with. From scribing runes of description to weaving protective wards, the Archmage of Runes stands as a testament to the enduring power of magic. +2048 Magic Power, +2048 Magic Control, +1024 Mana, +1024 Mana Regeneration per level.

This was the wizardry-focused class. The loss of leveling from reading was almost enough to make me immediately ditch it, but it did have a neat skill. I could engrave runes in a pocket dimension attached to myself, and cast directly from them. It was like [Dragonbone Witch] in that I could seem to do nearly anything without casting, but I would have to trace out the runes myself. Only once though!

I’d already done something similar when I’d engraved runes into all of my bones. From my often-used invisibility rune on my sternum, to the tiny, never-used fireball sigil sitting on my chin, I’d already found great value in having spells permanently with me, always a thought away. This took that all the way up. I could have all the spells, and I wouldn’t even need to remake them every time I used them! They came ‘full powered’, unlike [Dragonbone Witch’s], and it was nearly enough to make up for the missing reading aspects.

I had some serious thinking to do.

[Hoarder of Dragons] was immediately a top contender. The poor experience or not, logistics on that scale was mind-boggling. I lost a little in the combat department, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Being able to perfectly protect my friends and family mattered quite a bit to me. I didn’t think for a second that Iona would stay in during any sort of danger, and the same was true of most everyone else I knew - but quite a few people could benefit from it. A perfect bunker, infinite moving around, what was there not to like? The leveling would be slow, but as [Sage of Eternity] pointed out, I’d been around a while. Survived a lot. I had a companion bond to help with the experience, and I was pretty much at the point where I could brush off most meetings I didn’t want to be in. What were they going to do to me?

[Librarian of the Lost] had me leery. The skill was so good, but almost every single mental skill came with built-in protections, to stop people accidentallying their brain. Given how my mind was the seat of my soul and the center of my being, I was cautious of the downsides. I had plenty of other excellent offerings without risking madness. 

The greatest threat to me was my own bad choices. Why not make a good choice here?

[Sage of Eternity] was the easy choice, the affirmation of the prior choices I’d just made. Part of me wanted to rebel at taking the same choice again, but there was no shame in continuing to walk the path. There was shame in not choosing, analyzing, and thinking through all the options.

[Dragonbone Witch] was far weaker than [Archmage of Runes]... but I simply adored the aesthetic. I’d been threatening to try out every job that existed throughout my many years of Immortality, why didn’t I start now? I already lived in a cabin high up on a mountain, deep in the woods, it didn’t take too much more to throw on my school robes, dust off my broom, and start cackling when people came by. Could be fun! I needed a cauldron, first and foremost. Get some nice stew recipes… I was supposed to be classing up, not getting this distracted over dinner!

Focus.

[Archmage of Runes] was solid, but it wasn’t like I ran out of spells. Proper prior planning prevented piss-poor performance, and as distractible as I was, that maxim had been drilled into the core of my being. I’d run out of spells now and then, I occasionally didn’t have exactly the right tool for the job, but that was a lack of imagination and properly making the right spells on my part, not because I’d failed to prepare enough copies of a spell. On the other hand, my spellbook was a big weakness. If I was in an inferno, or otherwise in some sort of area of effect skills that prevented me from bringing out my spellbook or instantly destroying it, I was locked out of my spells. This mitigated that weakness. The skill was super cool, I’d love to have it… but I liked the rest of my skills more.

[Sage of Eternity] and [Hoarder of Dragons] were my two finalists, and I loved how both of them could help keep the people I loved safer. 

When it came to leveling speed and stats, [Sage of Eternity] won out both times. 

My [Tower] could already store quite a lot. The question was boiling down to: Did I want to store a small town’s worth of people and equipment? The moving around the world quickly aspect was almost moot - I could fly and travel fast enough on my own that portals weren’t significantly changing anything. I could step from one half of the world to another in thirty minutes, or in four hours. 

Then there came the number of people I could have inside. Did I really want more than a small, cozy household worth? Although, honestly, the [Tower’s] storage space was vast. It was more than a cozy number of people, it rivaled the bunker we’d crammed hundreds of people into! Sure, that had been incredibly cramped, uncomfortable, and not terribly sustainable, plus I might not be properly calculating how deep the grain storage was, and it had been laid out to be a bunker, versus the more vertical behavior of the [Tower], but it wasn’t like I was lacking for volume. At 104 levels, I could cram in over 200 families and still have enough space to feed them for a few months. That assumed I was packing everything and everyone in like sardines.

How many people would honestly want to live like that? How many people would want to live in the [Castle], should I take it? It didn’t exactly have sunlight, and I didn’t want to be the face of a great organization, nor did I want to be the [Doormaker], endlessly called back and forth to open portals around for people. It just wasn’t who I was.

Huh. I wondered if that was part of why the skill was so damn rare and hard to purchase - the people that had it didn’t want to do it. Kinda made sense, my Immortality skill was like that as well.

If I went full community with the skill, I’d become an eternal servant to them, constantly opening portals around the world for them to trade with and obtain food. It’d be a hecking interesting life, to be sure, but I wasn’t sold that I wanted to uproot everything and do that. A small community at best.

I also recoiled hard at the idea of moving armies around. It might be pedantic, I might be slicing hairs, but I believed there was a world of difference between following around armies and providing aid and succor to them, and all they encountered, and actively enabling armies to blitz undefended positions. It crossed a line I wasn’t able to define well.

More than that, it would paint a target on my back. I already had one, but there was a difference between ‘can turn any battlefield, can quickly travel between them’ and ‘is a global tactical threat to everyone at all times. Can drop an army into anyone’s palace.’ It wasn’t going to stop me taking the class or the skill… but I wasn’t going to advertise the full extent of my abilities, nor let anyone, new Exterreri or not, dictate my use.

I’d probably let Night through if he asked me nicely, but at that point there was no true difference between the two classes. Either way he needed to come in, then I needed to let him out again.

Both [Castle] and [Tower] would work to keep everyone I wanted safe and sound. When the next war rolled around - for there was always another war, another conflict, greedy assholes couldn’t be content - I could open the door to all my friends and family, along with some communities, and let them in. [Hoarder of Dragons] got me to the first person faster, but some quick math suggested that simply flying all over the world to pick everyone up would be quicker in the end. I shied away from the ‘portal plus flying’ math and attempting to think of locus points that would let me pick up multiple people clustered nearby, and…

Yeah, the math there was crazy. 

Both classes let me build a home that was nearly impervious to Immortal Wars, and secure my friends and family. 

Rather, was that much extra storage worth giving up the entire field of wizardry? I’d worked my pretty ass off for that designation, and spent decades improving it. I went to the Monastery to study under one of the great masters, just to get a good Spatial wizardry class! No, the ability to store so much extra wasn’t worth giving all that up. It might be a sunk cost fallacy, but by all the gods and goddesses, I’d worked too hard and too long at it to give it up.

I could still reacquire it in [Dawnbringer]... I should get offered the chance to move it over on classing up, given how it was still an exploration and discovery class, with the ability to pick up all sorts of magic-related skills, so it wasn’t a total bust there.

The two classes were tying pretty hard, which was making me loop back to the stats and leveling as a tiebreaker. [Sage] was winning out there. Plus, the ability to access everything inside the tower immediately.

That, and like… [Sage] was just more exciting to me. It spoke to me. A castle, all to myself, with all my friends and family was super exciting, and the fact that it had the grandest library ever was nearly enough to cause a heart attack from all the excitement, but that was all a side-effect of being the [Hoarder of Dragons], not the actual raw, beating heart of the class itself. I’d turned down power for the right path before, and being a [Quartermaster]/[Doorwoman] was like… sure, I’ll try it out at some point in my journey, but I didn’t want it to be an entire class. No matter how epic and literally the stuff of legends the [Castle] was. 

Maybe I could evolve the [Tower] down the line to be closer to it. It would take time, and it wouldn’t be as kick-ass as a fully evolved [Castle] would be, but it was a fun direction to start pushing things. [Sage] was a sorcerous class in the end, and it wasn’t like [The Dawn Sentinel] where I was capped on the skills I could get. I had a starting point, I had an ending point, I had a vision. The System allowed all things. If I worked my ass off, if I used my skills in the right way, trained them into the configuration I wanted, I’d be rewarded.

I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, and with hard work, mana, and the power of love and friendship, by Ciriel, I was going to do it!

Okay! Excellent!

“[Sage of Eternity] please!” I asked Librarian, then scrunched up my eyebrows as I tried and failed to pick the book up.

“Wait, hang on, how do I check this out?”