Class Quest V: Lose a hundred liters of blood(78/100)!

  Bloodmetal pricked and crawled over his skin like stitching threads. Multiple interwoven strands pulsated across his skin in a living patchwork. The newest way to train his bloodmetal, he decided.

  Every time he used his talent, Bloodmetal, it changed. At first, it could only do simple things, like forging weapons and constructs. Then, when he used skills with it, it began to take on the property of his skills.

  During his recent misadventures in the Inverted Forest, Bloodmetal underwent a subtle change. It could, out of nowhere, memorise shapes far better. For instance…he could shape one vine—shape, size, and definition, then move onto the next, and the next, continuing until he reached the fourth vine.

  Only then did the first vine lose shape.

  Only one thing could have brought this change to his talent...the Memory Crystals!

  He’d brought out many along with him. Now, he went through them one by one, like they were Instagram reels. Similarly, they were fleeting and meaningless. But he learned new things from time to time.

  One of the crystals showed two soldiers speaking about their prospective combat class choices and what they were hoping to get. And that gave a lot of insight into what Zayn had to do going forward.

  Combat Classes, as he understood, were acquired at level 10, and upgraded at level 50 again, and at level 100 once more. The kind of class options one acquired had a lot to do with Feats and Racial upgrades.

  Like the Card of Intelligence he’d gotten from Northwalker, other feat cards could be earned, exchanged, and acquired.

  If someone with the Mage class wanted the Wind Mage upgrade, they had to get Feats related to Wind, such as Windstrider. The more the better. If they wanted something else, like Attack Mage or Warlock, they’d have to find Feats related to damage and attack.

  “So, I get like…what? Flame Rager?” He muttered to himself. Not that it didn’t sound appealing, but he didn’t want to narrow his path on fire.

  “Yeah, I can worry about that later.”

  He watched his blood trickle over his skin as anticipation rose within him. Soon, a notification greeted him.

  Class quest—Bloodletting—completed!

  You already have 8 skills! If you want a new skill, you would have to let go of one of your existing skills.

  The chosen skill will be turned into a limited use Skill scroll. The power of the scroll will depend on the rank of the skill.

  He let go of Crimson Claw without any hesitation.

  Immediately, it felt like someone had plunged a sword deep in his chest and sliced his heart in half. Thankfully, much less painful than when he first awakened his class. It came and went like a flash.

  Class skill – Repository (Initiate) unlocked!

  A small protruding organ sat beside his heart, like an auxiliary gland. Interconnected to his heart and bloodways through several new aorta-like channels and veins. Inside, dense globules of blood drifted in slow circulation.

  It flashed green from time to time.

  Repository: You can now store blood of other races, up to a 100% extra blood.

  Racial Blood: Fae 33/57%! The racial blood is being regenerated at a rate of 1% blood per 67 minutes.

  Siphoning blood through wanton killing had grown tiresome by now. And it wasn’t sustainable in the longer term: he couldn’t just kill people for blood.

  57% being the ceiling was interesting, though the mystery was unveiled rather quickly.

  Racial Genus: Fae (E) – 57.33/100%. Unlock full racial genus for faster regeneration and cacacity.

  Suddenly, he was struck with the impulse to head back into the copse. But then he stopped. He still had a bit to go before he unlocked the full genus sample of Fae.

  Northwalker has sent you a text!

  Northwalker: You lost a hundred litres of blood already? Do you humans on your planet have a regeneration trait? No wonder you tank everything.

  “Of course not.” Smugly, he said. “My talent lets me control my blood flow by letting my blood bind to metal. I call it Bloodmetal.”

  Northwalker: You unlocked your talent this early? That’s weird.

  It wasn’t weird. He was just talented!

  “The quest dictated that I had to lose 100 litres of blood. So, I did, I just let my blood seep out of my body, which counted as blood loss. With Bloodmetal, I could reabsorb it after a few seconds. Just within a few hours, I cycled out enough blood.” He explained.

  Northwalker: Wow! See! Those extra points in intelligence are putting in work.

  His blooming face immediately darkened.

  ***

  Skill scroll—Crimson Claws—has been acquired!

  Crimson Claws (Iron): An AOE burst skill capable of bursting through walls.

  Use left: 5. Charge 300 points of mana to activate the spell circle.

  Zayn observed the sleek patterns on the scroll made out of leather of an unknown beast. Interestingly, all the memories regarding the skill vanished from his brain, and the times he used it became fuzzy, as though they never existed.

  That meant the system could at any time…remove his memories if it chose to. Something about that didn’t quite sit well with him.

  Well, at least he had mana now.

  Like a tangible, real stat that allowed him to hold mana.

  Mana : 40/134. Regenerates 10 mana per minute.

  “But I am not even a mage?” He was in total disbelief. And 134 being the maximum capacity was such an odd number.

  It ruffled his feathers.

  Northwalker: Who said only mage classes have mana? Those weird red energies you have are a particular higher order of mana. And it is normal to have multiple sources of energy in classes like…yours.

  Closing his eyes, he revelled in the feeling of mana coursing through his body, relishing it. And he found out how affinity worked.

  It basically determined the maximum amount of mana he could safely convert into flames. If he had 1% affinity, he could safely convert 1% of his mana into a flame. If he tried to draw more without mastery, it could cause a backlash and damage his channels.

  Even 1% of mana could be devastating if someone had decided to burn all caution and had a decently big mana pool.

  Northwalker: Once you get out of here, you can get a proper induction technique and get much more mana. My clan’s signature technique, Overflow, gives about 80 to hundred points in mana for every point in Intelligence, and once mastered, it can go up to 200! On the other hand, basic induction techniques like the one you get from the tutorial can only give you 30-40 mana per point, and 50 at maximum.

  Zayn paused. Observing his own mana reserves, he suddenly felt poor in comparison.

  Mana: 120/134…Recovers fully within 10 minutes.

  After a quick calculation, he realized his mana pool was pitifully small, even compared to the basic mana induction technique. He had 20 points in Intelligence, so he got about 7 mana points per point.

  “But this is good enough.”

  Having mana itself was a boon enough. He wasn’t the type to lament over things.

  Once he left the dungeon and got a proper induction technique, he would have much more mana.

  That realization made him smile again.

  Charge: 22/25

  Mana : 121/134

  What could he even do with mana, outside of making fire?

  All his skills were powered by charges anyway. Unless…

  His eyes lit up. Quickly checking through his skill tabs, and among the skills he’d long stopped using, he found a startling change.

  Skills have been recalibrated to match the host!

  Summon Thorn (Apprentice) - Summon vines from underneath the ground in the form of thorny spears. The number, speed of summoning, their strength, and size depend on your energy source.

  Cost: 1 charge, or 10 mana per thorn. No cooldown.

  He rose with the velocity of a 27-year-old child who’d been gifted a GameBoy and wanted to try all the games at once.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  With a thought, he summoned spears, but this time with mana. The summoning was instantaneous. Vines erupted out of the ground and shot upwards with him at the centre, almost like a cavalry of spearmen striking out in every direction.

  While not as thick and massive in size, he could summon some six to eight of them at once and control where the vines erupted out of, which made this skill much more economical and dangerous. An excellent sneak attack.

  His other skills changed, too.

  Both energy types had their advantages.

  Mana, as a source of energy, wielded much more flexible and malleable results compared to Charge, but Charge was more suitable for explosive bursts of power. That solved the energy issue he’d been having for a while. He had to pick and choose which skills he could use with Charge, but now, he had more leverage and less to worry about.

  Newly analysed skills!

  You can unlock the following skills!

  Rooted Immunity (Initiate): Root yourself to the ground. When you are rooted, you are immune to status effects such as stun, poison, corruption, and fire. You take 20% less physical damage, and physical regeneration effects are 20% more effective. While this skill is active, you can’t move from your position.

  Cost - 30% Fae(E) Blood.

  Hand of Protection (Initiate): Summon a nature’s hand to erupt around you, and enclose you within, enclosing you within a wooden armour. When this skill is active, it protects and absorbs damage equal to 300% of your health points.

  Cost: 30% Fae(E) Blood.

  Ensnaring Field of Death (Initiate): Your summoned vines and constructs become capable of binding and ensnaring enemies upon exposure to stimulus. This skill is automatic and once begun, can’t be stopped.

  Cost: 15% Fae(E) Blood. This is an upgrade of Entangle!

  Summon Wood (Initiate): Connect to nature and call it to fight for you. Summoned wood constructs must be maintained with a continuous supply of mana. The number of summons and their strength depend on your status.

  Cost: 15% Fae(E) Blood. This is an upgrade of Thorn Burst!

  Sporogenesis (Adept): Your body becomes the house of spore production. The spores you produce can be used to grow vegetation or to destroy it. Orders can be stored for up to 1 minute, and if not activated, they will lie dormant until you are within 5 meters of them and reactivate the order. Reactivation costs additional mana.

  Cost: 30% Fae(E) Blood.

  He exhaled long.

  Current reserves of blood only allowed him to choose one of the skills, or upgrade two of them. Rooted Immunity was immediately crossed out. That’s only really useful…in certain scenarios. He didn’t ever see himself using that, given that he only had limited slots of skills.

  Hand of protection was…cool, and he could certainly see it being a supremely useful skill. Heck, it read almost like a Power Ranger transformation. A hand coming out and wrapping him in an armour, if he understood that right, would be the dream skill.

  But the other options were stronger. Ensnaring Field was scary to think about. And Summon Wood was great.

  But…he chose Sporogensis!

  He was curious.

  It could be an supremely abusable skill, especially for this terrain.

  You have 8 skills! You must let go of one skill to choose the new skill!

  This time, he let go of Thorn Burst. He immediately felt it turn vague and leave his mind. It turned into a scroll in his hand.

  Sporogenesis has been acquired!

  Sporogenesis (Adept): Your body becomes the house of spore production. The spores you produce can be used for the growth of vegetation or for destruction. Orders can be stored for up to 1 minute, and if not activated, they will be dormant until you are within 5 meters of them and reactivate the order. Reactivation costs additional mana.

  Cost: 1 charge, or 100 mana, per skill activation.

  Cooldown: 1 minute.

  He immediately got to test it.

  Using Charges, he let spores out of his skin. The process was uncomfortable, like pressure venting through his pores, but what happened next was incredible. The grass and vegetation around him began to be split apart by a red burst of energy. Like an AOE wave, everything within a few meters of his position was turned into a death zone.

  A circle of shaved land had appeared with him as the center.

  One of the trees also nearly got torn apart, decaying rapidly, and then came down with a crashing noise.

  The problem was that he hadn’t commanded the spores to do that.

  He tried it again, to be sure. And yep: they got destroyed again.

  Charges did whatever they wanted, without heeding his permission.

  That changed with mana.

  The spores made with Mana showed restraint and didn’t activate until he gave an “order”. He could command them to grow or wither at will. He could also give mini suggestions, like, “Make me a seat.”

  The spores forced the grass to grow and twist into a mound for him to sit on. Not quite pretty or elegant, but it did listen to his orders…to some extent. He couldn’t say, “Burn and make a cup of tea for me," as that was too much information. But he could make it do simple things, such as "attack", "defend". He could even lift himself with vines, sparing himself the need to walk.

  Grinning at the possibilities, he stared at the lake with many...many...ideas.

  Things would go to shit soon, and he would have to run for his life again, but in this moment, he found peace, sitting here. A growing desire spoke within him to go out of this dungeon. To explore the world outside, visit different races and “steal” their skills.

  No.

  He wouldn’t steal skills for long. In time, he would become so powerful that others would line up to give him their skills.

  And he would most graciously accept their offering!

  In Eldera, he could become whatever he chose.

  Anything he chose to be.

  ***

  Alone, Faeria of Abatorah marched between the shadows of burnt trees, inside the forest of memories. Eyes desperately searching for a silhouette amidst the trees. Her mind was still in disarray. She found herself facing more questions than answers.

  The events of the fateful day persisted in her mind, retelling what had happened, over and over.

  The last time she’d been here, the trees didn’t have this inexplicable stench of rot. Nor had their ruptured bark wept a liquid she would not dare touch—even in this hollow form.

  Or in any form.

  Decayed vines stretched from the trees and snapped towards her like the jaws of a viper. Their attacks cracked against nothing but the ground as they passed through her.

  Umbral Redirection (Initiate - Low) active!

  Watching her signature skill return to Initiate hurt a bit. It brought back memories. Back then, it had helped her divert countless sneak attacks. It was impossible to beat her with mere numbers and assassination attempts. Many tried, none succeeded.

  Its second effect was what earned her name, allowing her to store the kinetic energy for later use.

  Shadow storage has failed.

  But even that had been stripped bare of her. Now unreliable.

  Still, Faeria of Abatorah knew the shadow. Knew darkness and death. She wasn’t like her sister, cradled by the World Tree of Salamor. Instead, she watched from the shadows of the forgotten depths, became molded by the darkness of the Rose Court—until she was death’s scion. Until she was the Shadow.

  But even the shadows here… were alien. They shifted in an unsettling manner. Danced a silent, almost ominous tune—an antithesis to the Element she once thought she knew.

  At times, she’d stop and stare at the decayed pieces of armour that snuck out of the humanoid trees like overgrown tumours. Smaller roots spawned around the rotten logs like bodies, desperately holding onto their past.

  Not every single one of the Faekind had lost control. Not entirely, at least. Those who lost control had all turned into Undead treants. Became woven into the twisted cycle of his machination.

  A part of the curse.

  Perhaps, if even more time had passed, the ones that remained too would’ve succumbed to the madness. But things had changed, for better and worse. She was free again after an insurmountable amount of time.

  For what purpose?

  Everything happened for a reason—Fae believed. Her entire life, she had despised that notion. Spat on their reliance on fate. And yet, as she neared her destination, she hoped that this was destiny.

  Eventually, she found the silhouette she’d been searching for so long.

  He stood tall, imposing, still holding that spear in his hand. His posture seemed battle-ready. Just like that day, he seemed ready to jump into the fire and face the demons and gods for her.

  “Second,” Faeria muttered softly, in her tone a mix of relief and regret. “I have returned.”

  Even in death, he retained his calm, as though he had seen through it all long before it transpired. As though he had willingly walked to his death.

  “You’d asked me not to take on that quest from the Lord Monarch. You told me… that it was a trap laid out for us. I didn’t listen.” She muttered softly, rubbing his cracked, wooden face. “I am sorry.”

  Even knowing it was a trap, he had followed her in, as always. More loyal than even her own shadow. Where had that gotten him? Where had that gotten the Fae?

  She pulled onto her Umbral storage, making use of her dwindling shadow reserves to cloak herself. She didn’t dare to steal shadows of the things here, lest she attract the curse to herself.

  Her eyes darted to the spear in his hand. The tip that once curved like a dragon’s fang no longer held its previous sharpness. The shaft that once glowed with molten ember light had dulled with time.

  With a twist, she pulled it free.

  Ironwyrm (Silver-degraded): A life construct crafted with the help of a legendary Fae craftsman. Contains the soul of the Ironwyrm, a half dragon-serpent that guarded the underground kingdom of Akardia.

  She held it tight, trying to feel the glacial coldness, trying to feel him.

  “After I end him, I will bury your life construct in the heart of Salamor, in the highest branch of the World Tree.” She said. “I will vouch for you in front of the God Monarch, so that he reincarnates you with the highest of honour.”

  She spat out words nobody believed in, not even her. Even the Monarch might not be capable of breaking them out of here. If he could, they would not have been stuck here for an insurmountable amount of time.

  Like the spear, she took all their weapons inside her shadow dimension, collecting their last sign of existence, along with her. In hopes that maybe this time they would be salvaged.

  Suddenly, words spurted in her vision.

  SystemAdmin007: A touching reunion, indeed. Too bad, he’s already lost most of his sanity. You're late. Far. Too. Late.

  Faeria had never heard of overseers speaking to people in this manner, but times had changed. Everything had become alien. System admins were meddling where they shouldn’t, putting their hands into places where they didn’t belong.

  SysAdmin007: Paradoxically, you are also in time! The universe conspires to bring the right people together at the right time. You. That ignorant, stoneheaded guy. The ‘Gravekeeper’. The curtain on a show that remained veiled for millennia is about to be unveiled. A poetic fate indeed. And how grateful I am to be here to witness it!

  “Get to the point, overseer,” Faeria harrumphed. She hadn’t liked any of the overseers in the past. She was starting to hate this one already.

  SysAdmin007: How cutthroat… Well, I guess I was supposed to bring you out of the dungeon by now, but it wouldn’t be satisfying that way.

  “Bring me out?” She found herself confused.

  SysAdmin007: Covenant 3. Clause 31 — Any artefact, weapon, or life construct that gains sentience is to be offered the same tutorials as all sentient life forms.

  “What does that have to do with me?” Her voice got lower towards the end.

  SysAdmin007: There was once a famous thought experiment that interested me greatly. Say, if two newborn souls had the same experiences—the same memories, the same events, the same things happen to them—would they be the same person, or would they be two separate individuals?

  Faeria stared. Her hollow frame hummed in warning. Ironwyrm glowed in her hand, shadows swarming around it.

  SysAdmin007: In the end, I decided that they were different people. Others also agree with me. You didn’t last time, but that’s alright.

  Faeria clutched her head. In her mind, memories one after another rose up.

  A sense of déjà vu.

  She saw herself—another her—having the same conversation, not once. Not twice, but many times. Too many times to count.

  Many times, she had awakened, out of the chains Orin had caged her in. But every time, the result would be the same.

  Every time they would lose.

  Every time!

  SysAdmin007: For the sake of argument, let’s say that you are Faeria. You are not Faeria’s life construct that gained sentience. Let's even ignore that you are not even the original ‘life construct’, just a copy that had been cloned by the system—

  “I am!” Heat rose behind the hollowness of her armour. Her chest heaved. The spear in her hands faltered and nearly struck the ground, but she held it at the last moment. “I am Faeria—”

  Quest created!

  Objective — Exist for 1 second!

  Ding! Quest completed! Rolling out rewards…

  A crystal manifested out of thin air, reforming into a cuboid shape. In it played a scene she had seen too many times. Worlds falling to the apocalypse. She barked, “Why are you showing me this—!”

  Then, her words got stuck, her armour shaking. She almost found herself faltering.

  In the recording, she saw an immense tree, broken in half, sticking out of a planet’s atmosphere. Her mind trembled. Because it took her a moment to recognize it. Perhaps because she refused to. Her voice cracked in despair, “The life matrix… is broken.”

  Figures that resembled the Faekind stood upon it. Some that resembled Monsterkind. Standing shoulder to shoulder. Signs of interbreeding among them apparent. A mix of anger and confusion bloomed inside of her. She heaved, “They are?”

  SysAdmin007: They are born of the Fae, yes. Your descendants, that I assure you.

  Faeria fell dead silent.

  SysAdmin007: Now, what role do you seek to play? You have two choices: ‘Faeria’: lament over your past, or save what little remains of your race.