Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe wandered around the streets nearby for a couple hours before she went back to pick up her clothes. The same man was smiling behind the counter when Zoe walked in and traded her clothes over to Zoe’s storage item. She walked back to her room at Oaniga and stood at the edge of her unreasonably long bed, then summoned her clothes from her bracelet and laid them out.

All three of her new additions to her wardrobe were… interesting. The bikini top looked like two gray bat wings, with bits of white fabric hanging like frost dripping from their wings. Thin blue straps that somehow looked wet attached the two wings to each other and around her neck. While the bottom had a fuzzy green fabric at the front covering her important bits, with similar blue straps that did nothing for her rear.

She’d never owned a bikini before, either wearing shorts as a child before she understood what her feelings really meant. Or, as she grew older usually cuter swim shorts and a shirt. But never a bikini, let alone one that left her behind so exposed. It excited her, like a step she’d always been afraid of taking was just thrust upon her as though all the fears and anxieties she had about it were pointless.

The dress was sleeveless, and had a similar theme going on with the same thin wet blue fabric making up the bulk, with a deep gap in the shape of a bat wing reaching down almost to her belly button. Across the slit were white threads that glinted in the light like icicles reaching across the gap. Just below was green pleated fabric that barely reached her thighs at all, with strips of brown fabric laid into the pleats that looked almost like trees waving in the wind as she walked around.

Zoe wasn’t a huge fan of the dress. And it was her fault, she knew. She should have been more specific with her request. She should have clarified that she didn’t want her bare breasts almost completely on display for the world to see, should have said that she wants the dress to reach at least almost to her knees. It made sense if she asked for something cold themed that they’d make something she’d be cold wearing. Or maybe he just thought her skin colour was already intentional for the same reason, and thought she’d want to show it off.

But whatever the case was, the dress felt more like lingerie to Zoe. It was comfortable. More comfortable than anything else she’d worn before, by a massive margin. The fabric was soft and felt incredible on her skin, it didn’t pull on her hairs and didn’t seem like it would pill at all.

It just didn’t feel like the kind of thing she’d like to wear, walking down the street or sitting at a nice restaurant to eat. In the first place, dresses that were so short meant sitting without having your butt touching the chair was borderline impossible. You had to make a decision between sitting awkwardly to stretch the dress below you or pulling it out from below you so it wouldn’t tug on your shoulders.

The suit was nice, at least. Made of a similar but much thicker blue fabric, with frosty threads hanging from the seams. At the front near the middle was a singular button in the shape of a small bat, which left a deep ‘V’ neckline that Zoe didn’t mind.

Zoe half expected when she picked it up to see a gaping hole in the back, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was just a normal looking suit that looked like she was covered in the ocean itself, which she enjoyed. The neckline was quite deep and left much of her upper torso uncovered, but it wasn’t nearly as egregious as the dress’s gaping bat hole was, and she could easily wear a shirt under the suit jacket if she liked too. Something she couldn’t do with the dress due to how thin and tightly fitted the fabric was.

She left the suit on and stored the other pieces away in her bracelet again. It was a bit of a whim, buying the clothes anyway. That all she got was a suit, some lingerie and a bikini she might enjoy wearing someday was fine. She got to see what somebody else thought would fit her, and it was a pretty fun experience anyway.

Another two months flew by in Korna, with Zoe focusing most of her time on using her skills while she sat in her room at Oaniga. More and more as she stayed there, she found herself enjoying the extra space. She didn’t have to worry about other people getting in her way — or her getting in other people’s way. It was quiet, comfortable, and she had all the space she needed to practice her magic in peace.

She could sit in one of the many lounges, with her magic flowing around her and not worry about it offending people because the nearest person would be sitting to far away for her magic to be affecting them in any meaningful way. At one point she almost thought the rich folk had a point, but laughed the thought off. Of course they didn’t, all of this empty space could have been homes or a nice park, where she’d still have just as much personal space without all the gaudy gatekeeping.

Staying at Oaniga was slowly draining her hoard of gold so she’d need to find somewhere cheaper soon or at least start making money again, if she wanted to stay above her comfort level. Which was quite wealthy now, she realized. Floating around in her bracelet was just over two hundred fifty gold — almost sixty spent in the few months she’d been staying at Oaniga.

Korna might be more expensive, but at least in Flester that was enough to buy almost two houses outright! But somehow, the idea of dropping below two fifty made her feel like she was being irresponsible with her wealth. It was an unsustainable drain, but most of that was wasted away on the numerous restaurants at Oaniga, which was more of an avoidable cost anyway.

Over the two months, she managed to reach level sixty five and stopped progressing anymore, meaning she was ready for her third seasoned class. But it also raised an important question she hadn’t even thought about before.

Getting the third seasoned class was never going to be the difficult part. Worst case scenario — which was almost what she ended up with, she’d need to get to level sixty six. No big deal, really. But her final seasoned class could end up being as early as level eighty eight if she got lucky, or almost two hundred on the other side of the scale.

And the issue was that once she committed to working on getting her fourth and final Seasoned class, it wouldn’t be worth resetting anymore. She couldn’t just take Seasoned Cinders now, get up to one thirty to see if it was a low roll and then reset.

The massive time investment it would take to get there meant it would be worth at least trying the next level. And then the next level, and then the next. And with each level she got, the chance that her next class was just one more level away would get larger and larger as the pool of possible level caps shrunk.

Whereas checking her Seasoned Torrents level cap would only take a month or two if she focused on training her skills as much as she could.

It was a bit of a toss up, but with her class currently at almost the maximum level it could have been, she decided it was worth trying for something lower. Each level she took off now would take off three maximum potential levels much later on.

Zoe focused on her class, reset her Seasoned Torrents class, and then spent another month and a half focusing on all of her skills. Her level climbed up to the sixties, and settled in at level sixty five once more.

She focused on her class again, reset her Seasoned Torrents class again, and then spent yet another month training her class to its cap but with far more frustration. Her level once more climbed up to the sixties, but this time stopped at sixty one.

Was sixty one good enough? What level would be good enough for her? Fifty, she decided. If she took Seasoned Cinders at level fifty, then the highest level she’d need to get would be one fifty. She’d done that before, she could do it again.

Thankfully, it didn’t take her long to reach her goal. Her very next attempt capped out at level forty nine, and as winter fell on Korna, coating it in a light jacket of bright white snow, Zoe pushed the system to give her the Seasoned Cinders class.

She had five hundred forty stat points to play with and put one hundred each into strength, dexterity and intelligence. The remaining two hundred forty were put straight into Vitality.

Resetting her classes had been an interesting process so far, for Zoe. It almost brought her back to the frustration that came from randomized progression systems in the games she played back on Earth. But instead of grinding out some gold for a chance to tier up her equipment’s stats, she spent her time enjoying life and let the system rip apart her body and soul in the hopes she’d get a little lucky.

Zoe wasn’t quite sure which would be a healthier addiction.

Over the course of her Seasoned Torrents grind, she went and visited the Korna Botanical Gardens a few times. It was effectively a very large, well cared for park with some touristy bits added on. The differences between it and some of the public parks around Korna were slight, but very important.

The walkway was a better maintained, and more comfortable to walk on. The flowers and trees on display were intentional and organized, and even changed around every week or two for something new to see. There was a gift shop where you could buy flower arrangements, or floral treats. They had a lavender fudge that was to die for, in Zoe’s opinion.

And it all made the botanical gardens a much more coherent experience to walk through than any of the public parks in Korna were. But for sitting down and relaxing, Zoe enjoyed the public parks much more. There were so many more animals in the parks that fluttered through the trees or scuttled around in the dirt that added to the ambience and drew her away from the city.

The biggest problem with her decision of merging the Seasoned Classes was the lack of her Chrono Enchanter class. It wasn’t a very strong class compared to her other options, but the utility it provided was second to none. Getting used to seeing the wisps of light from Mana Sight was difficult, but having to get used to seeing the world without it after having it for so long was even worse.

She felt blind, in many ways. A whole part of the world that used to be as natural to interact with as anything else was completely cut off to her. She spent some time trying to get a Mana Manipulation general skill, but had no idea where to even start. Mana Manipulation was the basis of how she’d managed to get any of the other general skills.

Zoe had some control over mana without the Mana Manipulation skill, but it was like the difference between somebody with a jet engine and somebody blowing out a candle on their birthday cake. They were both interacting with Mana, but Mana Manipulation was far more powerful than anything she could hope to do.

There was also another class that interested Zoe, if her Seasoned classes really did merge together. The transcendent feat didn’t have a class itself, while all of the individual feats that made it up did. There were a few explanations she’d come up with while she had time to think.

The first was that similar to her Seasoned classes, she’d need to get all of the Transcendent classes at the same time. And the second was she might end up needing to have over one thousand in each stat at the same time to unlock the class. If her Seasoned classes did merge, then she imagined the Transcendent class would follow.

But, while there were only four seasons, there were six separate stats. And her first class was already taken by Seasoned Frost — or whatever the combined class would be, so she’d need to get her eighth class before she could even find that out. It might even only be possible if she somehow took one of the transcendent classes as her first selection.

Which meant as soon as she did manage to merge her Seasoned classes, she’d be free to pick up any old enchanting class again. There was no point in worrying about that many classes when she had no idea how to even get to her seventh or even sixth anyway. All she had to do was get a few more levels, and she thought it might be fun to see if there were any nearby dungeons she could explore to help her get there a little quicker.

It would be interesting, Zoe thought, to see how fighting would end up working without Enchanted Mirror. Most of her offensive capability had come from flashing powerful enchantments onto her Earth or Frost and firing them off at her opponents.

Without Enchanted Mirror she could still make the same enchantments. But the difference between a thought with the mirror against a second or two with her Enchanting skill could be the difference between success or defeat.

For that matter, she hadn’t even checked if Enchanting came back. She’d been so busy using her class skills to get up to her cap as quick as possible that it never crossed her mind. Zoe brought up her stat sheet to check, and saw Enchanting had returned at level fifty two. Right where it was when she got her Chrono Enchanter class, she imagined. It sounded right enough at least, and if it was supposed to have accumulated experience while she had the class then it would have been far higher.

At the very least she didn’t lose progress, and would still be able to prepare some projectiles ahead of time. All she had left to do was find somewhere that would help her get to level one fifty again and she’d be done with the tedium for a while.