“So, have you decided on what you want?” Joe asked.

  “Kinda.” Zoe said. “I want a space class, for sure. Something to let me explore the universe, finally. But I think that would make the most sense to have for my seventh class, so it would be powerful enough to actually have much of an impact. I’ll check one out if I have one right now, but I don’t think I’ll find one I want to keep. It needs to be really, really good.

  “So for now, I might stick with a mix of what you two have suggested. Something to make me a little faster, a little stronger, would be nice. Something to keep me safe would be nice. I don’t really need more magic, more skills. I need class bonuses that actually have a noticeable impact. So I’m gonna see if I can find a class that gives a decent bonus to my physical abilities. Some speed, some strength. Lots of health and stamina. That kinda thing.” Zoe answered.

  “Any specific thing you want? Archery, swordfighting? What you looking for?” Emma saked.

  “Whatever shows up. I have a few ideas from last time I looked through the list, and I’ll go through some of the new stuff I might have. Just gimme a second.” Zoe said, her eyes glazing over as she brought up her class selections.

  As before, there was an overwhelming number of options. Thousands of classes with an enormous variety — most having something to do with magic in some way, or related to her vast number of skills. There were quite a few new ones for her as well, relating to the new accomplishments she had since last time she checked her sixth class options.

  Hundreds of new classes for the skills she’d managed to get, many that required specific levels in different combinations of skills that she’d levelled over the last decade. A massive list of classes thanks to her new Well Versed feat and several new ones thanks to her different stat distribution, and even one class with a requirement that surprised her.

  She spent almost an hour looking through all the options, and then shared the ones she thought were acceptable with her friends.

  [Overachiever] A seeker of power, stopping at nothing to achieve their goals. Clawing their way through the mud to grasp at the next whiff of might. Increased experience gain. Reduced experience penalty.

  Requirements: Has five classes, is under level two hundred.

  [Unbroken Warder] A defender of all, a sentinel placing their powerful body between civilization and the demons without. Increased health regeneration, increased health.

  Requirements: Has at least two hundred fifty thousand health, has least one thousand Vitality, has at least five hundred Endurance, has over five hundred total resistance levels, has at least fifteen resistances, has the Unbroken feat.

  [Endless Warder] A defender of all, a sentinel fending off the never ending hordes of death’s thralls and mending the damage that has already been done. Increased health regeneration, increased healing power.

  Requirements: Has at least two hundred fifty thousand health, has at least one million mana, has healed at least ten million damage, has over one million mana, has over five hundred total resistance levels, has at least fifteen resistances, has the Healer feat, has the Endless feat.

  [Transcendent Pursuit] A creature of speed itself, time bends around you as you race across the lands. Increased speed.

  Requirements: Has at least one thousand Dexterity, has at least one thousand Intelligence, has the Transcendent feat, has the Time Affinity skill, has the Alacrity skill

  [Unseen Arrow] One with the shadows, unseen and unheard. Increased physical affinity.

  Requirements: Has at least one thousand Dexterity, has at least five hundred Strength, has at least five hundred Endurance, has at least level three hundred in the Archery skill, has the Stealth skill

  Notes: The [Archery] and [Stealth] skills will be removed and merged with this class.

  “I thought you didn’t want classes like your enchanting classes that give up a class effect to replace skills?” Emma asked.

  “I do, but it sounds kinda cool, anyway?” Zoe suggested.

  Emma nodded. "It kinda does, yeah.“

  “Endless Warder seems like you’d enjoy it the most. Or Transcendent Pursuit.” Joe suggested.

  “Probably. I’m interested in the other two though, I wanna at least see what they do.” Zoe said, as she pushed the system to give her the Overachiever class.

  The class bonuses were lacking — fewer stat points than most others she’d seen at similar levels, and absolutely no bonuses to her vital pools at all. Instead it had three separate class bonuses dedicated to her experience gain and one that reduced the experience penalty.

  Even the skills seemed lackluster, with only five available — four if she didn’t count the standard cleaning skill that she had no use for. And each of the four just gave her experience for different tasks. Letting her spend mana while she killed things or used her skills or travelled for experience gain.

  It was interesting, but ultimately Zoe decided it would be better to take some other time if she ever decided to go for her eighth class. She pushed the system to give her the Unseen Arrow class instead, and frowned as she looked through the class bonuses.

  Two of them were taken up by skills she already had, leaving only three for actual class bonuses. The stats were nice, and it gave her a hefty boost to her Stamina and speed, but with only three bonuses to work with it seemed quite underwhelming.

  The skills were much more fun, however. With an assortment of nine to pick from not including the cleaning skill — five of which were just different effects she could use on arrows she fired. The remaining four were a Shadow Affinity, a Shadow Bow that she could summon, and then two skills that helped her meld into the shadows.

  Zoe summoned her todo list and made a note to come back to this class at some point to try and recreate its skills. If she could somehow work backwards and get a general Shadow skill from them, then that could be a very fun skill to have when combined with her Light skill. She got a little distracted thinking about the fun light shows she could create with a complicated mess of enchantments, before she continued on looking at the two warder classes.

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  They were both quite similar with a massive bonus to her health and decent bonus to her health regeneration. Unbroken Warder gave her a stamina bonus as well, while Endless warder gave her even more mana regeneration. Both gave her powerful defensive skills — with either a focus on physical defense or magical defense which were interesting and might make useful enchantments, so Zoe made a note to come back to both of them at a later time to steal their skills.

  The last class she had to take was Transcendent Pursuit, which was the most painful of them all to take. Not quite on the level of some of the other classes she’d taken before, but far less pleasant than any of the ones she had available at the time. The system wracked through her, ripping apart her muscles and rebuilding them in its vision.

  As soon as she took the class, she felt different. The world around her seemed to move at a sluggish pace — similar to when she first took her Alacrity skill, but with how fast her Alacrity made her now it was incredible to see such an enormous boost to her speed. The class bonuses were excellent — lots of bonuses to her speed, stamina and stamina regeneration with very minor bonuses to her health and mana regeneration.

  The skills were full of passives — another Alacrity, and other similar skills that boosted her speed in their own various ways. The few active skills the class gave her were all also for speed. One that gave her a massive boost of speed, another Haste skill and a Temporal Shift skill that supposedly let her slow down time to move even faster.

  “What do you think?" Zoe asked when she finished filling in her friends. ”I’m leaning towards Endless Warder, honestly. Or Transcendent Pursuit.“

  Joe chuckled. “See?”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “I said you were probably right, it’s just good to check things out, alright? You two should do that more often, too.”

  “I’ve been better.” Emma pouted. “I’m taking basically every class I can now.”

  “I’m happy with what I’ve got.” Joe shrugged. “What classes did you not like, then? Lets rule the bad ones out before you make a decision."

  “Overachiever sucked for my situation.” Zoe said, to Emma and Joe’s approval.

  “And honestly, I think Unseen Archer also sucked. But it’s high priority to come back and steal its skills cause they seemed good. I might do that on one of my loops when I try to get my seventh class. But the class effects were really bad since it took two of my skills away for it.” Zoe said.

  “What if you get your seventh class on your first try?" Emma asked.

  Zoe scoffed. “As if.”

  “She’s got a point, you know?” Joe added. “It would be very lucky, but if you get your seventh class on your first try, you’re going to take your seventh class right away, right?”

  Zoe nodded. “Probably.”

  “So then you won’t be able to keep switching out your sixth class to try and get all the skills you want. You’d have to redo it all over again.” Joe said.

  “No, I could just replace my seventh class with it and try then.” Zoe said.

  “Could you?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t see why not?" Zoe answered.

  “What if something goes wrong? What if you find a seventh class you really, really like. But it happens to only be available once?” Emma asked.

  “Literally no classes I’ve ever seen have worked like that before.” Zoe laughed. “I don’t think that’s worth worrying about. I’d have to get stupidly lucky to get my seventh class on my first try, and then end up with a class that works differently to literally every single other class in the world.”

  “What if seventh class is the highest tier, and you can’t reset once you take it?" Joe asked.

  “Mmm. That’s a fair point, but I don’t really think it’ll work like that. And again, that’s assuming I even get my seventh class on my first try. That’s only like a five percent chance, it’s so many what ifs laid on top of each other. I get it, it’d be better to do it right now. But I have so many other things to work on too, still. I’ll get to it, one day.” Zoe said.

  “Your choice then. I think you’d be best just taking a break from all the levelling for a bit and work on collecting as many skills as you can, personally.” Emma said. “It’s kinda fun, too.”

  “You’re collecting the skills, too? I thought you were just getting classes.” Zoe said.

  Emma breathed through her teeth sharply. “I’m just collecting the classes. But it’s fun! And basically the same thing.”

  Zoe laughed. “Sure.”

  “So,” Joe said. “The warders and the speedster class. Which of the warders do you like less?” Joe asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think Unbroken, but it could also be nice to have a more physical oriented class for once. I d think it would be good to round myself out like that a little bit, since I’m not really struggling for magical solutions to problems. It’s just that there’s also Transcendent Pursuit that fills in a similar gap and seems much more fun, to me.” Zoe answered.

  “So its between power or speed, for the physical classes then.” Emma said. “You’d rather have the speed?”

  “I think so. I’m already honestly pretty defensive as I am since Death’s Master gives so much health and my healing is already so powerful. I think if I was going to get some kind of physical benefit, I’d prefer if it was more speed focused.” Zoe said.

  “Do you really need speed? You can already teleport so quick, and you’re planning on your seventh class being even better at that.” Joe pointed out.

  “That’s a good point, actually. I think that the speed class would kinda be overshadowed by my seventh class when I get a good one, but Unbroken Warder probably wouldn’t be. It would also be much better for when I get my seventh class and do travel the universe to keep me safe if something happened.” Zoe said.

  Joe nodded. “Could be worth getting the skills, though.”

  Zoe scribbled in her notebook, making another note on her todo list to grab Transcendent Pursuit at some point to steal all of its skills as well.

  “Okay, then that just leaves the two warder classes. You prefer Endless Warder?” Emma asked.

  “I think so. I think if I just want to be safe, then Endless warder makes the most sense. I’m already magic focused, so having something that takes advantage of that would be beneficial. But then I’m not getting any physical bonuses which I do kind of want, honestly.” Zoe answered.

  “You could wait for something better, if you wanted? Spend some time getting all the skills you want, level some of your current ones a bit and see if you can meet some requirements for better ones? I bet you’re pretty close to some arbitrary level bracket in some skills. Hundreds or fifties, usually. Can get some of those and check again, maybe you get a really cool water warrior.” Emma suggested.

  Zoe pursed her lips. “That’s probably the best option. I’d really like something in between these three, honestly. Something that makes me faster, stronger and maybe has some modest bonuses to my mana regeneration at least.”

  “Then take Unseen Arrow and get to work stealing some of those skills.” Joe laughed.

  “Yeah, alright. You’ve convinced me. I’ll take a break for a bit and work on some skills, I guess. I’ve been wanting to take some time to work on trying to replicate the class effects themselves, honestly. Just haven’t really gotten around to it.” Zoe said, as she pushed the system to give her the Unseen Archer class.

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