Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe laid in bed for a while longer, thinking about what she had left to do in Korna. Knowing that the little village she left behind had grown so large to warrant being spoken of all the way out in Korna made her want to rush home immediately and see everything that’s changed. To talk to her friends about what it was all like, and how everything came to be.

First was of course her level, being stuck at level twenty two would be no good for the journey back. Even if people would leave her alone when she was alone, it just didn’t seem wise to run the whole way back at such a low level. To Gafoda from Flester, maybe. But to Foizo from Korna? With her Alacrity reset down to such a low level now, it would take her at least a week, probably even two to make the journey.

The only other thing she had to do in Korna was find Nora and make sure she was okay for Emma’s sake, and then she was free. There were lots of other things to do in Korna, of course. Shops she hadn’t explored, restaurants she hadn’t tried. But Zoe could always come back, Korna wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Zoe stretched across her bed and then sat up to look through her class selections before she thought of something a little unusual. Overlevelling was a thing — with how long she’d been just sitting around stuck at level twenty two, as soon as she took a class she’d probably get a few quick levels.

But, with each class giving an experience penalty, how did that work with overlevelling? If she waited around for a few weeks at level twenty two, would that get her a higher level after she took the class than if she took the class immediately? Nothing Zoe had ever read about seemed to indicate one way or the other, but with how she understood the system to work it seemed like a possible option.

If having another class would give her an experience penalty rather than just increase the experience needed for a level, then it was possible. Patient Decider’s description said that it applied the first class experience bonus permanently. But what did that mean for the experience penalty that each class after had for her?

Was she exempt from the experience penalty that each class brought, because it was being overwritten by the first class bonus from Patient Decider? Or did each class have its own multiplier, but only the first class was a positive multiplier? The first class gave one and a half experience, the second class gave ninety five percent, the third ninety percent, and so on?

There wasn’t really a way for her to ever check, without someday finding whoever it was that made the system. But it didn’t hurt to hope it worked that way and spend a week or two exploring Korna a little more before she took her next class. She might even be able to get a better enchanting class if she worked on some requirements.

Past enchanting classes required wisdom or experience, and while wisdom wasn’t something she’d be able to get any more of without waiting around for a few centuries, experience was. If she spent the next few weeks levelling her enchanting skill as much as she could, she might be able to get it to one fifty or possibly even two hundred if the experience penalty applied to her skills as well.

Zoe spent the next two weeks working on her plan, spending most of her time at The Weary Rest enchanting whatever objects she could get her hands on, or sometimes just exploring Korna a little more. More and more people seemed to be taking up the latest fashion trend, the brown armoured suits seeming to flood the streets as people jumped on the bandwagon.

Her Enchanting skill got up to one fifty seven by the end of the two weeks, and her bracelet was full of little knick knacks that she looked forward to showering her friends with once she got back. Zoe chuckled at the pun as she let the water pour out from a blue gem she’d enchanted, and then stored her last present away in her bracelet.

She sat down on her bed and brought up her list of available classes. She wasn’t going to be picky, after perfecting her first class she didn’t have much desire to put quite so much effort into another one just yet. But something good would be nice. Ideally, it wouldn’t have a second element.

The time aspect of her Chrono Enchanter class had never been very exciting anyway, the only bit that she even used was Time Affinity — which in hindsight might not have even been worth taking since so few of her skills were time aligned in the first place.

Getting a proper fleshed out enchanting class seemed like a much better option, but really the most important part for Zoe was first and foremost that it provided Mana Sight. She hoped that all enchanting classes would do so, but she had no way of guaranteeing that. But whatever she got, it would be enough to at least get her back home to check on her friends.

Her class list was getting obnoxiously long at this point, hundreds of simple classes that required a certain skill, and then upgraded versions of them for thresholds at each skill level. Even more of those simple classes that just required skills at various levels plus relevant stats at different breakpoints.

What was interesting to Zoe as she looked through her list though was that the Seasoned classes were still available — or at least just the autumn variant at the moment. Seasoned Persistence wasn’t available, and even as she urged the system to give it to her for her next class, nothing happened.

Would she be able to get it again if she went through the whole process once more? She didn’t particularly want to, but it was an interesting thought.

Chrono Enchanter was still there and available, and the familiar class tempted Zoe to just fall back on what she knew to be fun and exciting. But there were a few new ones that grabbed Zoe’s attention, as well.

[Master Enchanter] A pursuer of mana, imbuing objects with powerful effects. Increased mana regeneration. Increased maximum mana.

Requirements: Has the [Enchanting] skill at level 100 or higher.

Notes: The [Enchanting] skill will be removed and merged with this class.

[Patient Enchanter] A pursuer of mana, a winner of no races but willing to take the time to refine their craft. Increased regeneration. Increased experience from the passage of time.

Requirements: Has the [Patient Decider] feat. Has the [Enchanting] skill at level 100 or higher. Has the [Meditation] skill at level 100 or higher.

Notes: The [Enchanting] skill will be removed and merged with this class.

[Everlasting Enchanter] One with mana, a well of power that fills objects with powerful effects. Increased maximum mana. Increased mana regeneration.

Requirements: Has the [Endless] feat. Has the [Enchanting] skill at level 100 or higher.

Notes: The [Enchanting] skill will be removed and merged with this class.

All three seemed acceptable to her, though Master Enchanter a little less so. It appealed to her because of its simplicity. It would just be an enchanting class, no fancy frills, no fancy effects for her to have to get used to. Just pure, powerful enchantments at her fingertips.

But, it really didn’t beat out Everlasting Enchanter if she were being truly honest with herself, either. There was no way it was really a candidate, as much as it was exactly what she was hoping for when she started looking through her class selections.

Which meant it was down to the other two. If she followed her decision before, then Everlasting Enchanter was the obvious pick. However; Patient Enchanter also had something like Temporal Continuance, which was a strong argument for taking it.

Was it a strong enough argument? Maybe, when combined with the higher requirements as well. Though, what was the difference between the Endless and Patient Decider feats, anyway? Was Endless considered a harder to get feat? It didn’t seem like it should be, from Zoe’s perspective. But from the system’s perspective, was half of a species’ lifetime as significant as reaching one thousand wisdom?

Probably not. So Patient Enchanter had higher requirements then, with the bonus of a Temporal Continuance type effect, but the downside of having a time alignment, probably. Also the winner of no races mention concerned her a little. The descriptions the system gave rarely seemed to be too relevant, but they did at least have a consistent flavour. If the class said she’d win no races, it was likely it wouldn’t have anything like Enchanted Mirror.

Was she willing to give up Enchanted Mirror for more powerful enchantments prepared ahead of time? It had worked out well enough for her exploration into The Pit, but not being able to flash enchantments onto things in a moment was a noticeable slow down.

Zoe decided the sacrifice wasn’t worth it, Enchanted Mirror was by far the most important skill her old enchanting class gave her. Maybe there would be other skills that would be more significant, but she didn’t know what they were and now wasn’t the time to experiment with something she wasn’t excited about.

She pushed the system to give her the Everlasting Enchanter class, and grimaced as the system’s power raced through her.

*Ding* You have unlocked the Everlasting Enchanter class. Your body and soul will be adjusted to accommodate the change.

Effects:

- Everlasting Enchanter: Gain twenty stat points for each level in this class.

- Mana Sight: You can see mana.

- Mana Spring: Mana and mana regeneration boosted by 200%.

- Mana Incarnate: All mana effects are boosted by 100%.

- Enchanting: Imbue objects with the essence of your being.

Available Skills:

- Mana Affinity: Increased Mana affinity

- Mana Storage: Excess mana will be stored and can be used to fill enchantments.

- Mana Manipulation: Manipulate the raw mana of the world to your will.

- Mana Surge: Press into the world around you with your endless well of mana.

- Enchantment Amplifier: Imbue objects with excess mana to amplify their effects.

- Everlasting Enchantments: Imbue objects with excess mana to preserve their effects.

- Enchanted Mirror: Stores an image that can be reflected onto an object.

- Enchantment Bestowal: Your enchantments may bestow their effects to their wielders.

- Immaculate Enchantments: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

Zoe smiled as the colourful wisps of mana appeared in her vision once more, and then checked her level — forty six already, and with a slight nudge from her the system brought up her class selections again. Did that mean that her theory worked, or would she have made it to level forty six from Temporal Continuance II anyway?

She turned her attention back to her skill choices. The class seemed powerful, and with its increased focus on enchanting even provided some much desired utility. Enchantment Bestowal seemed amazing, but was probably not something she’d end up taking in this class. There were just too many powerful skills available.

Mana Affinity, Mana Manipulation and Enchanted Mirror were all must haves, irreplaceable skills that she’d missed having so much over the last year or so while she’d been working on her Seasoned Persistence.

But the remaining two were much more complicated. Immaculate Enchantments would be nice, as she was currently swapping out her Adaptive Elements in Seasoned Persistence to be able to clean herself every day. But Everlasting Enchantments and Enchantment Amplifier were both very interesting too.

Zoe pushed the system to give her Mana Surge and then focused on using the skill. She felt her mana rush out of her body and slam into the world around her. The bed shuddered and creaked from the force, while the blankets and pillows on top of it were thrown around like a violent gust of wind had just rushed past them.

It was a nice skill, but with herself as the focal point it seemed a little reckless. She summoned a ball of frost and enchanted it with the skill to see what it did as an enchantment. It behaved much the same, but drained the mana from the enchantment far too quickly to be particularly usable. Maybe if she combined it with Everlasting Enchantments and Mana Storage it could make an interesting bomb. But she wouldn’t be able to fit those skills in without replacing one of her most important skills, so it wasn’t possible.

One day, she’d like to make a more powerful enchanting class that had a couple extra skill slots too. For all the system’s awkwardness and oddities, being stuck with so few skills when she had so many amazing ones available was the worst part. She wanted all of them, why did she need to be restricted to only five? She double checked her stat sheet just to be sure and saw five empty skill slots as she expected.

She shook her head and got back on track. Two skill slots, and she had to choose between Everlasting Enchantments, Enchantment Amplifier, Enchantment Bestowal and Immaculate Enchantments. Or really, Immaculate Enchantments could be looked at as Adaptive Elements instead since that’s what she’d get in return.

The simplest was Immaculate Enchantments. There was no reason to keep swapping skills in Seasoned Persistence when skill levels mattered more for her there than in her enchanting class. Swapping Immaculate Enchantments for a low level Mana Storage would be a much bigger improvement than swapping it for a low level Adaptive Elements.

Which meant her last skill slot would be a flex slot with low level skills, and she just needed to decide which skill she wanted levels on most. Zoe thought on it for a moment, and decided Amplifier made the most sense. Everlasting Enchantments was a close second, but more powerful enchantments called to her just a little bit more than longer lasting enchantments.

Zoe finalized her skill choices and then turned her attention to her next class. Part of her wanted to just go through all of her classes again, maybe she could even take Patient Enchanter for the best of both worlds. But a much larger part of her was tired of dealing with all of the system’s nonsense, and she pushed the system to give her the familiar Seasoned Gales class, bringing her level up to fifty three. It would be good enough until she got back home at least.