Frostbitten Wayfarer

Joe and Emma both laughed, and then Joe explained the process. It was similar to assigning stat points, she just had to focus on the class that she wanted and urge the system to give it to her.

She sat in her chair and turned her focus inwards, urging the system to give her the class she chose. The system did, and the experience was unlike anything she could have expected.

What she thought would happen was a fun notification telling her all the new fun magic she could do. A painless, happy process. Maybe an addicting surge of power that flooded through her and invigorated all of her.

What actually happened was she collapsed on the ground and screamed in pain as every piece of her was restructured by the system to fit its idea of the class she chose. Power did rush through her but it ripped apart every single thing that made her what she was, every fragment of her soul and body was ruptured and rebuilt in a new, stronger form.

And then the pain washed away, and she was greeted with a notification. Zoe took a moment to breathe and get back in her chair. Joe and Emma were standing over her with worried expressions on their faces while they asked each other what was happening.

“Are you okay?” They asked when they saw her getting back into her chair. They both grabbed an arm and helped her up.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think. I chose my class and it hurt. A lot.” Zoe sighed as she sat back in the comfortable chair.

Both of her friends let out a sigh of relief and sat back in their chairs. Oliver was back up on the stairs, staring down at the scene from a distance.

“So? What’d you end up choosing?” Emma asked.

“Hold on, let me look through this notification.” Zoe said.

“Awww come on, I wanna know. Tell me, come on. What’d you pick?” Emma pleaded.

Zoe shook her head and turned her attention to the notification that she got. Emma continued pestering her in the background while Joe laughed but Zoe tried to ignore them.

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

Effects:

- Seasoned Frost: Gain ten stat points for each level in this class.

- Aura of Frost: You radiate cold energy.

- Temporal Continuance: You gain experience through the passage of time.

- Regenerator: All regeneration effects boosted by 200%.

- Frozen Tempo: All cold and time aligned effects are boosted by 100%.

Available Skills:

- Cold Affinity: Increased cold affinity.

- Time Affinity: Increased time affinity.

- Frost Manipulation: Manipulate the frost with your will.

- Frozen Arsenal: Command the frost to clad you in armour and weapons.

- Frozen Echo: Create an echo of frost that copies your movements.

- Adaptive Frost: Your frost will infect all it can reach with a slowing effect.

- Restoration: Apply a regenerative effect that mends recent damage.

- Haste: Apply a buff that increases quickness.

- Alacrity: Permanently increases quickness.

- Eternal Elegance: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

Zoe shared the details with Joe and Emma. Both of their eyes widened in shock as she went through the effects.

“Regeneration effects boosted by two hundred percent?” Joe shouted.

“And a full hundred to everything your class does? That restoration skill is going to be insane, you need to take it.” Emma said.

Joe nodded his head. “Two hundred to regeneration, one hundred to it probably being time aligned. That’ll be potent. What about the Aura though, can you disable it? I wondered why your arm felt so cold when we helped you up.”

Zoe turned her focus inwards to try and find a switch for the aura. It took a few minutes but she found she was able to dial the intensity of the aura up or down. She nodded her head to Joe.

“Good, you should keep that off in town. People won’t appreciate it.”

Zoe nodded her head, “Okay, how many skills do I get anyway?"

“Five for the first. I say you take the affinities. Always take affinities.” Emma said.

Joe nodded. “They’re usually a safe choice. I agree.”

“Hold on. So Restoration and the two affinities. That only leaves me with two skills then!” Zoe shouted.

“Yeah but those are the three best anyway!” Emma shouted back.

Joe laughed. “Try some of them out, you can switch them whenever you want. You lose the levels but they’ll be level one now anyway.”

“Okay, I’ll start with Frozen Arsenal, Frozen Echo, Alacrity, Haste and Eternal Elegance then.” Zoe said.

“No, skip the cleaning spell. They always get different names but they’re basically all the same.” Joe said.

“Okay, so Frost Manipulation then too.” Zoe said.

Emma and Joe both nodded.

“Cast Haste on me, I wanna zoom!” Emma pleaded.

Zoe focused on her class skills and urged it to give her the skills she’d selected. She got notifications for each one being unlocked but dismissed them immediately. It wasn’t exciting when she was the one who gave them to her.

The first thing she noticed was how slow everything around her felt all of a sudden. Alacrity, she realized. It wasn’t an active skill, it just always increased her quickness, and her perception came with it apparently. It felt like she had James’ haste spell cast on her, but there was no end without her disabling the skill or replacing it.

Zoe focused on her haste skill and tried to cast it on both her and Emma. After a moment she felt a chunk of mana rush out of her and cover both of them.

*Ding* You have been affected by the [Haste] skill. Increased quickness for five minutes.

The world around her slowed down again as her perception skyrocketed once more. Both of the quickness effects at the same time was a bit much for her at the moment, but maybe with practice it could be useful. She reached for alacrity and disabled the skill.

“Woooo!” Emma ran around the lobby of her tower. “I’m so quick! You should come on all my hunting trips and buff us all.”

Zoe laughed and turned her attention to the next skill, Frozen Echo. Rather than a surge of mana, this one felt like a continuous drain. Every movement she made, a mimic of her formed from translucent blue ice followed close behind. She wasn’t sure how useful it would be, maybe it also hit things when she tried?

“Hey can I hit one of you two?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah! Hit me!" Emma ran up to her and bounced around from foot to foot.

Zoe drew her fist back and then punched her friend in the shoulder. The echo of ice followed a moment after and then Zoe cancelled the skill.

“Did you take damage from the echo too?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah. You did fifteen damage and then the echo did seven. Maybe half of your damage? Not bad.” Emma said.

“Does it work with arrows? What happens if you fire a bow with it?” Joe leaned forward in his chair.

“Good question.” Zoe said and turned her attention to Frozen Arsenal.

She urged the magic to form a bow of ice, and a translucent blue icy bow appeared in her hand. She put her hand on the string formed from ice and conjured an arrow of ice.

Zoe walked outside and aimed her bow at a spot in Emma’s yard then turned on her Frozen Echo skill and fired the arrow. A moment later her frozen echo also fired off an arrow and they both hit the same spot.

“Not bad then, but it looks like it might only be very useful for combat. Is that what you want to focus on?” Joe asked Zoe when she walked back inside.

“Hmmm,” Zoe pondered for a moment. “Probably not, honestly. I enjoy hunting, and I kinda wanna go explore that dungeon mountain nearby. But I think I mostly just wanna have things that are fun.”

“Well do you think the echoes are fun?” Emma asked. “Haste is fun. You should totally keep haste.” She kept bouncing around.

“No, not really. They’re kinda cool I guess but I don’t think they’re ‘fun’ necessarily.” Zoe said.

“Okay, echoes are a no then. What was the last one you’re trying now? Manipulation?" Joe asked.

“Yeah.” Zoe said and summoned a ball of ice to her hand with the Frost skill. She moved it around in her palm and floated it around her body.

It felt much easier than it had before, but she wasn’t sure how much of that was because of frost manipulation, and how much was because of the class bonuses.

“It feels easier than before but I don’t know if it’s because of the skill, honestly.” Zoe said.

“Try switching it out with something else and see how it feels?" Joe suggested.

“How do I do that?” Zoe asked.

“Same as taking a skill, just direct it towards the skill you want to replace.” Emma said. “I did it with my cleaning skill when I got my third class.”

“Okay,” Zoe said and tried to replace Frost Manipulation with Adaptive Frost. The skills switched out, and Zoe was given another notification that she dismissed.

She tried to manipulate the ball of ice around her again and there was a very slight, but noticeable increase in difficulty. Was it worth spending a skill slot on it? Probably not, Zoe thought.

“Still feels fine. I notice the difference but it’s really small.” Zoe said. “I replaced it with adaptive frost, either of you two up to testing it out?”

“Sure. I can do it. Don’t think she’d be okay with the slow effect anyway.” Joe said.

“Nope! Not if I don’t have to. Gimme haste again please? Pretty please?” Emma begged.

Zoe checked her mana

Mana: 230/500

“Sorry, Emma. I’m running low on mana.” Zoe said.

“Awwww,” Emma groaned and sat back down. Oliver came over and hopped up on her lap.

Zoe pressed the ball of ice towards Joe and into his outstretched hand. The ice spread from where it touched him and started to cover his hand in a layer of frost.

Joe squeezed his hand. “Feels a little tight. Doesn’t do any damage, but I’d have a bit of trouble cooking dinner with this affecting me.”

“Okay, so another combat skill. Probably not that one then either.” Zoe said.

“So what’s the final verdict then? The affinities and restoration for sure. And then haste. You need haste. That’s super fun.” Emma pleaded.

“I think I’ll take the arsenal. It’s a combat skill but it’s kinda fun and I can see it being useful outside of combat too. Which leaves one then, if I’m definitely taking both the affinities.” Zoe said.

“You are,” both of her friends said in unison.

“It comes down to haste or alacrity then. Do you want a permanent effect or a temporary effect you can share with others?” Joe asked.

Zoe smiled at Emma. “I guess I like sharing.”

“Wooo!” Emma cheered. “Get your skills in and buff me up! Come on!” Emma begged.

Zoe laughed and swapped in her finalized selection. She summoned the ball of ice again and found it even easier to manipulate with the cold affinity buff than with the frost manipulation skill.

“You two were so right. The affinity skills are super noticeable. I don’t know what time does yet but probably helps with restoration and haste maybe?" Zoe said.

“Oo, yeah buff me again!” Emma put Oliver on the ground and jumped up.

Zoe gave Emma haste again and watched her run around a bit.

“So, what’s your plan for your stats now?” Joe asked.

“Huh? What do you mean?" Zoe asked.

“You’re level twenty-two. You should have a bunch of stat points to use.” Joe said.

“Oh! I hadn’t even checked my stat sheet yet!” Zoe said and brought up her stats.

Stat Points: 140

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Vitality: 25

Endurance: 20

Intelligence: 50

Wisdom: 50

“One hundred forty stat points. Honestly I don’t really know what to use them on. I think maybe getting to fifty vitality would be good?” Zoe asked.

“That’s a safe bet, more health is never the worst decision.” Joe said.

Zoe shook her head. Fifty vitality was a good choice, so she dumped twenty five more points into it. The familiar power rushed through her and made her existence more assured. One hundred fifteen left.

“I think I still wanna be mostly magic, so maybe I bring my strength and dexterity up to fifty and put the rest into my intelligence and wisdom?” Zoe asked.

“Not a horrible idea. That would get your magic stats up to seventy five then?" Joe said.

“Mhm. With a couple extra points for endurance, maybe.” Zoe said.

“Sounds good to me!” Emma agreed.

“Alright, I’m gonna go with that.” Zoe said, and started spending her stat points. It was her first time levelling the rest of her stats, and she was excited to see how they felt.

Strength was the most noticeable. It hurt a little as the power rushed through her and settled in to her muscles. Dexterity was almost unnoticeable, she mostly noticed the difference in feeling afterwards. How her fingers moved so much more precisely, and how much easier it was to track Oliver’s whiskers as he turned his head around to watch Emma.

Endurance felt like she was satiated, like there was a hunger clouding her that she hadn’t recognized that was just ripped away.

Zoe brought up her full stat sheet to finally see what she’d been working at for so long.

Name: Zoe Mara

Race: Human

——

Stat Points: 0

Strength: 50

Dexterity: 50

Vitality: 50

Endurance: 25

Intelligence: 75

Wisdom: 75

Health: 500/500

Stamina: 250/250

Mana: 377/750

——

Class 1: Earthian (22)

- Identify (41)

Class 2: Seasoned Frost

- Cold Affinity (1)

- Time Affinity (1)

- Restoration (1)

- Frozen Arsenal (1)

- Haste (1)

——

General Skills:

- Vampyric Regeneration (24)

- Vampyric Senses (46)

- Vampyric Resistance (21)

- Vampyric Immortality (3)

- Vampyric Charm (54)

- Vampyric Empathy (44)

- Gathering (24)

- Archery (46)

­- Meditation (67)

- Cooking (17)

- Dagger-fighting (39)

- Tracking (29)

- Stealth (27)

- Frost (41)

- Enchanting (27)

- Alchemy (1)

Resistances:

- Mental (7)

- Poison (14)

­- Pain (5)

- Heat (1)

- Fire (1)

- Cold (5)

­- Disintegration (2)

- Time (3)

- Space (1)

- Water (1)

- Earth (1)

- Gravity (1)

- Ice (1)

- Wind (1)

- Lightning (1)

Feats:

- Patient Decider

- Master of Seasons

- Slayer of Frost

- Skilled

“So, what’s next?” Emma asked. “Pick your next class? You should be able to already.”

Zoe laughed. “No, I think I’ve had enough of this for one day. Soon though, there’s no pressure to get the perfect one right away anymore.”

“What’s your plan now? You wanted to go to that dungeon, right?" Joe asked.

“Yeah, I do. I think I’m gonna try and climb moaning point.” Zoe said.