TT:E C11

The fourth in the row of five class options was wearing long robes that covered most of Maeve’s body. Her hair was loose and looked like it was getting swept back by an unseen wind. One of her hands was stretched out, a glowing red energy gathered in her hands and her mouth was open as she spoke or shouted something. A spell perhaps? This class had every hallmark of a magic user, and that had Maeve excited as hell.

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Class Option: Sorcerer

Rarity: Uncommon

Technically, there is no such thing as magic, there is only the interaction between Quezeuq Energy being directed by a sapient and the rest of reality, causing various effects. To a normal person, that’s magic, especially because the actual amount of studying needed to understand the briefest glimpses of the theories necessary to understand the science behind magic takes a a very long time.

Sorcerers are the most basic version of magic casters who are aided by the System. Magic is hard. Wizards have to study to understand spells and how to make them work. Mages have to study and research the laws of reality to learn how to bend them. Sorcerers take the easy way out and get the System to do all the hard lifting for them. Spells and abilities are all built in to the class without any work by the Sorcerer. Just add mana and a spell is cast. Sorcerers can specialize in as many ways as there are kinds of magic, which is many, and always growing as more secrets of the multiverse are discovered.

Sorcerers gain the following stats per level:

+2 Int, +2 Wis, +1 Will, +2 Free Points.

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Immediately Sorcerer jumped to the top of the list. Higher rarity, more stats, and above all access to magic. In the multitude of games they’d played together, her younger brother Malachi had always been a mage, and Maeve had often taken other paths in order to shore up the strengths and weaknesses of her familial party. She’d never cared, it had always been more about spending time with her brothers than getting one role or the other, but that wasn’t to say she didn’t love the idea of being able to cast magic herself.

“Tell me about mana, please. That’s the first time it’s come up. I’m assuming that its a resource I’ll have to cast spells and such with if I take a magic class, but how does it all work?”

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When Quezeuq Energy is contained within a sapient being and used to improve that person, the energy begins to take on a “flavor” as different paths are taken toward improvement. The four standard flavors are power, stamina, mana, and force. The maximum amount a person can hold of each of their flavor of energy is based on the first associated stat, and how fast they regain it is based on the second. Those connections are:

Power: Strength, Constitution

Stamina: Agility, Dexterity

Mana: Intelligence, Wisdom

Force: Charisma, Willpower

There are other “flavors” of energy, but they are rare and difficult to utilize in comparison. It is also possible to utilize more than one flavor at a time, but that is also difficult and unlikely to encounter.

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“Alright, so there are four main resources and some other ones I shouldn’t worry about unless I run into them. I guess a warrior would use power to fuel their abilities, the rogue and ranger use stamina, and of course the sorcerer uses mana. Is force for like, social based classes?”

The System didn’t respond.

“Alright, guess that’s a ‘you have to figure that out yourself’. Let’s check out this last option. She looks pretty awesome.”

The final class option had Maeve standing with both arms stretched out above her head. One was filled with a light green energy that seemed to be spreading out in waves, while the other hand had a dark purple color and seemed to be radiating pain and displeasure. The Maeve figure looked calm and in control while she stood there, clothed in an outfit that had hints of both the sorcerer’s robes and the half-armor half-clothing getup of the rogue. Actual Maeve got the feeling as she checked out the copy that the class option version of her was somehow looking in two different directions, like she was multitasking or watching a larger event and keeping track of multiple people in it. The entire ensemble was very intriguing and she was quite looking forward to seeing the offered class.

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Class Option: Enchantrix

Rarity: Unusual

English is complicated. It isn’t the worst language the System has to deal with, but it doesn’t do itself any favors. In this case, the System is annoyed by suffixes. An Enchantrix is neither an Enchanter not an Enchantress. The System is aware that it is taking a suffix primarily used to refer to women and using it in a gender neutral way, but this is not that important to it.

Enchantrix is a sorcerer-type magic caster class that focuses on both buffs and debuffs. While not as directly powerful as a dedicated buffer or debuffer and lacking many forms of direct damage, the Enchantrix is a fantastic part of any group. A buffer can only strengthen their team, a debuffer can only weaken the enemy, an Enchantrix can do both at the same time, multiplying the difference between sides in a conflict. An Enchantrix may specialize in particular forms of magic or focus on growing the scope of their spells to wider and wider ranges, among other options.

As this class is mildly specialized from the beginning, you will be locked out of some options at higher levels. An Enchantrix will never be able to cast spells that directly destroy castles or be able to teleport an army to the castle, but they can take the army that is there and make it nigh unbeatable while weakening the defenders such that they can’t lift a weapon.

Sorcerers gain the following stats per level:

+1 Con, +2 Int, +3 Wis, +2 Will, +2 Free Points.

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“Fuck, that is perfect for me.” Maeve whispered. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about it, this was the perfect class for her. In battles, at least battles in the various video games she’d played, she was never the flashy mage throwing fireballs or the huge warrior smashing people to bits, she was support, in one way or another. She didn’t need to be the main star or the best damage dealer, she needed to make sure her side won. The best way to do that was to control the flow, and this class seemed tailored for that kind of action. Boosting allies at key moments, weakening enemies at the same time… There wasn’t any need to deliberate.

“I pick Enchantrix.”

The five frozen statues of Maria vanished and the gray space felt like it was shrinking in toward her. The unsettling sensation of walls that weren’t there closing in on her stopped after a few seconds, and new screens appeared.

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Before initiating your first level up and applying your class, you must pick your starting skills. Skills are generalized fields of expertise that correspond to Quezeuq Energy being utilized to amplify your abilities in that field. Skills have levels that represent the size of the amplification, skill levels of generally raised through use of the skill, and some rare items. Because of the nature of the System’s management of how Quezeuq Energy is directed through your body, sills related to your class, called class skills, and skills related to your profession, called profession skills, are stronger than skills separate from either, called general skills. There is no limit to the number of skills that can be learned from each category, but it is recommended that you don’t spread yourself too thin. There is a limited amount of Quezeuq Energy in your body at each level, and the more skills you have the less each is strengthened by their skill level.

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“Okay, so too many skills means my skills will be weaker. That sounds like a resource management thing… which makes sense if you think about it. There’s no such thing as infinite energy, so I can’t just get stronger in every way all the time. Also, what’s a profession?”

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Professions are “mini-classes”. They provide direction and benefits similar to how classes do, but weaker. The word “professions” has been used in translation to English because a vast number of people take crafting professions or similar varieties focus on creation or other non-combat roles. It is possible to take a combat profession that supplements your class, but professions grow much slower than classes, meaning it is quite easy to out pace your profession and make any direct benefits to your class obsolete.

Professions must be unlocked in a safe zone and cannot be unlocked before reaching level ten.

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“Gotcha. That follows along with a lot of games I’ve played, so I get the gist. It’s like being a miner or a blacksmith in the big MMOs, but I can also pick up a profession that’s basically a sub-class, but theres a chance of that being useless if I do that and don’t pay enough attention to it.” Maeve took a deep breath and nodded. “Alright. The class pick was obvious, but here comes analysis paralysis. Hit me with those tasty, tasty skill options.”

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As an Enchantrix you may pick five from the list of available starting skills. You may not pick more than two types of magic. The available starting skills are:

Shadow Magic

Body Magic

Force Magic

Curse Magic

Sound Magic

Affliction Magic

Mental Magic

Disruption Magic

Transmutation Magic

Situational Awareness

Magic Resistance

Multitasking

Detection

Tactics

Composure

Lingering Spells

Mana Control

Positioning

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“… Dammit this is even worse than I was expecting. I have to choose five of these? And only two kinds of magic? Ugh.” She read through again, but found a majority of the options just as appealing as any other. “Can I get an idea of what kind of spells I get from each kind of magic?”

There was no response.

“Damn. I’ll come back to the magic then. There’s no way I’m taking less than the maximum of two magic types, so that leaves me with three choices from the rest.” She took her time with each option and tried to figure out what they did. All of them but a handful seemed to be less magical and esoteric and more knowledge and learning based. “System, you said I can level skills by using them. Can I learn spells by getting good enough at the skill?”

An very small screen briefly appeared and disappeared, with the only word on it being “Yes”.

“Great. I can work on most of these and try and get the skills, but I have no idea how I’d learn three of these, so I’ll take Magic Resistance, Lingering Spells, and Mana Control. That just leaves me with two types of magic to pick from.” She looked at the list again and groaned. “But I want all of them!”

“Alright, what do each of these do?” Maeve muttered. She focused on each of the magic types, attempting to pull up some kind of description or primer. Nothing happened and she moved to trying the same thing with the other skills available for her to choose, with the same results. “System, can I get an explanation on what each kind of magic is capable of and what the skills do?”

There was no response.

“Damn. Is this one of those subjects you’re going to make us figure our ourselves?” She grumbled, but quickly suppressed her annoyance. “Can I learn more magic types later?” If she couldn’t, she was only picking five magic types and getting the rest of the skills manually, or however else you got skills outside of class selection. It might make sense to think that since magic types were skills they were learnable like the System had told her skills in general were, but something about the explanations she’d gotten so far told her that was wrong.

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Yes and no. You have chosen a sorcerer-type spell casting class, which means you technically cannot learn magic. The System directly interfaces with your body to control Quezeuq Energy flows, and molds them to allow spellcasting. It is possible to gain new magic types through leveling up, reaching certain milestones, System rewards, and other means, but study and practice will not allow you any access to other magic types at an appreciable rate.

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“Can you explain the ‘technically’ and ‘at an appreciable rate’ parts, please?”

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The System acts as an aid to streamline the use of Quezeuq Energy as a means of empowering oneself. It is possible to utilize the old ways of personal empowerment to advance outside of System assistance, but it is not recommended to attempt. Using the System artificially increases the difficulty of the old ways, which were already difficult to being with. Use of the System is also significantly less dangerous.

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“That’s related to the uncontrolled mutations you told us about before, right? Alright, you’re keeping to your stated goals of helping people as far as I can tell, so I’m not going to try and delve into these ‘old ways’ unless I have a lot more information. Not that I even know anything about them to even start.” Maeve took a deep breath and clapped her hands together. “Picking magic types. What do I think each of these can do?”

Body and mental magic were the easiest ones. Body was likely a buff magic type, with spells like haste or strengthen. It might also be able to do slow or enfeeblement effects as debuffs, but she was going to assume it was for buffs for now. Mental magic was the opposite, leaning toward debuffs in her head with a few potential options she could think of for buffs. Clouding someone’s mind, making them enraged, or just not being able to process what’s around them cames to mind, while doing the opposite to her allies. For the other magics everything she could think of came a lot closer to wild ass guesses than informed ones.

“I guess, affliction magic isn’t that hard to figure out,” Maeve spoke aloud, using the act of actually saying what she was thinking to help her work through the problem. “Specifically what types of afflictions are possible is the issue, but that sounds like all debuffs all the way. Sound and force are confusing, because I don’t know how those fit into a buff debuff style. I guess I could send different frequencies of sound waves into people’s ears, but that sounds like, ha sounds like, a direct attack. Same thing with force, all I can think of are magic missiles and shields, which aren’t buffs to me.”

She quickly read the rest again. “Curse magic is like affliction magic in that it has to be mostly if not all debuffs, but curses aren’t really debuffs, are they? They come with debuffs, but debuffs fade over time and curses don’t. Disruption magic means squat to me without knowing how magic is classified, which is my whole problem, and the only thing I know about transmutation magic is from table top games, and transforming things into other things isn’t really a debuff either.” She sighed, “And shadow magic could be slows, I guess? I just don’t know enough.”

Trying to decide without knowing enough information to really hash things out felt like torture to her, but she eventually pushed past her discomfort. “I’m not taking mental or curse magic until I have more information, and potentially not ever. Ignoring everything else, the potential social stigma would be a giant hassle. I don’t want anyone we run into accusing me of mind controlling or cursing them. Disruption and transmutation are out for information reasons, I can’t think of anything that I’d do with them. That leaves body, force, shadow, sound, and affliction. Affliction might not have as bad a stigma attached to it as curses and mind control, but I bet it looks nasty, so out for previous reasons.”

She sorted the last four options mentally for a moment, before nodding. “Body, force, and shadow. Body is easy, I can actually think of spells that I can do things with, plus it should work well with everyone. We’ve got a minimum of two people in heavy armor with weapons, making them move faster or hit harder is big. Shadow is hopefully spells that tangle people up, which would be great. And the class description didn’t say I can’t do direct damage, just that I’d be worse at it, and force sounds like a better hit people magic than sound does. My picks are… Crap! That’s six skills, no!” Maeve clutched at her head. “Dammit, I got caught up in picking three after I picked three of the non-magic types.”

Growling curses under her breath at herself she went back to the full list again. “I can’t sacrifice the three non-magic skills. The only one I can think of a way to learn is magic resistance, and that might involve getting hurt by magic, which is a no go.” She debated for a few seconds more before going with her gut. “I have friends who can hit things, I’ll focus on helping them for now and get offensive magic later. I pick Magic Resistance, Lingering Spells, Mana Control, Shadow Magic, and Body Magic.”

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Your first class and starting skills will now be imparted into your body. As this will be the first time that your body is directly enhanced by Quezeuq Energy, the process will be uncomfortable and mildly debilitating for a short period, hence why the System requires you to be relatively safe before beginning the process. This temporary space will now end, and you will be returned to true unconsciousness. This will take just a moment.

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