“I know I promised I’d steal all the skills from the next class I got, but do I really really have to?" Emma whined, kneeling at the floor in front of Zoe.

  “Of course. You said you were going to, and I’m gonna hold you to it.” Zoe tilted her head back and looked down past her nose at her friend.

  “Can I just skip doing it to this one and do it to the next one I get?" Emma begged.

  “I don’t mind if you just don’t take this class you seem to hate. You’re the one forcing yourself to take them all in the order you got. But the deal was you steal the skills from the next class you take.” Zoe grinned. “Not my fault you’re choosing to take a bad class. Just get a better one, dummy.”

  “But I’ve had such a good streak going, Zoe. I’ve taken every single class the system offers me, in the order I see them, for so long. I can’t just ruin it now!” Emma whined.

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “Fine. I want you to have fun doing it anyway so this actually works out in my favour. But if I find out you’re intentionally doing stupid things to get bad classes so you never have to hold up your end of the deal then I’m gonna have to tell Oliver about your lies.”

  Emma gasped, clutching her hand to her chest. “You’d never! Little Olly bolly?"

  “Yup. The one and only.” Zoe nodded.

  “Alright that works.” Emma stood up and fell down on the couch next to Zoe, resting her legs up on Zoe’s lap as she stretched out across the couch.

  “What’s the class you got anyway? Why’s it so bad?" Zoe asked.

  “Guess.” Emma said.

  “I dunno. Did you really get a Master of the Toilet class? Did I will that into existence?” Zoe chuckled.

  “You did. You jerk.” Emma frowned.

  “No way, really? Seriously?" Zoe leaned forward in excitement.

  Emma scoffed. “No. You think classes work like that? I mean, okay, maybe they do. But no. I got another stupid alchemy class.”

  “Skills any good? Alchemy classes sound fun, honestly, probably have some fun skills.” Zoe said.

  “I dunno. Haven’t taken it yet. If you were gonna force me to steal all the skills from the first class I took, I was gonna have to break my streak. My beautiful, precious, very important and highly regarded streak. But every other alchemy class I’ve taken looked boring. Normal mana manipulation, mana surge, mana affinity. A cleaning skill, some stuff to keep the cauldron warm and different things you can imbue into your concoctions. Lingering effects are a big one. Lots of lingering effects. All super boring, I don’t wanna be an alchemist for the next year, Zoe.” Emma shook her head. “No way.”

  Zoe shoved Emma’s legs off her lap and walked over to the kitchen to work on dinner. Nothing special, Zoe decided. Just a simple salad with a citrus dressing and whatever vegetables Zoe happened to have in her storage bracelet.

  “Huh. Sounds kinda like what enchanting classes do. I wonder if there’s an alchemical mirror or something for instant potion effects.” Zoe wondered aloud.

  “There is. Kinda. One of the classes I got had this thing where you could brew potions and then consume them with the skill and it would let you apply that effect with the skill to people. It used up some of the potion to do it though so it wasn’t an infinite potion skill or anything. Seemed neat at least, but you couldn’t just go buy a potion to use with it. You had to actually make the potion yourself, which I’m not about.” Emma explained.

  “Huh. That does sound neat, at least. Could you store multiple potions like that or just the one?” Zoe asked.

  “I didn’t see it say any limit, but I could only do it with one at a time. The other one just vanished, somewhere. No clue where it went.” Emma chuckled. “I like to think somebody somewhere else just got randomly doused with a really awful stink potion.”

  Zoe laughed. “You brewed a stink potion?"

  “Yeah. Duh. It lets me apply the effect to people at a distance. I was gonna ruin your life. But the second potion I brewed was one to get rid of the stink, and then the stink potion part was gone and I wasn’t in the mood to make another potion so it never ended up happening.” Emma giggled.

  “I’m so damn lucky you did it in that order. You totally would’ve just stunk me up if you did it the other way.” Zoe chuckled. “Want some salad?"

  “Yeah, I probably would have. What’d you put in the salad? Did you just cover it in ifosa juice again? Cause I’m not really a fan of that. I like them but they’re so sour.” Emma’s face puckered.

  “No, I mixed it with some oil, some sugar and some herbs. Tastes kinda alright, I think. Wanna try some?” Zoe asked.

  “Sure.” Emma said.

  Zoe summoned a spoon and dipped it into the salad dressing she’d prepared then floated it over to Emma with her Space skill.

  Emma licked the spoon and shrugged. “That’s not bad. I’ll have some salad then, thanks.”

  Zoe dumped the rest of the dressing into the bowl, along with another handful of leafy greens and assorted chopped vegetables then portioned it out into two wooden bowls she formed with her Wood skill. The two girls enjoyed their dinner and spent the rest of the night relaxing with the cats.

  When morning came, Emma left to work on finding another interesting class and Zoe stayed behind to think about what her next goal was. Realistically, the classes she’d have by now would be good enough, Zoe knew. And if she was going to spend years more trying to get the perfect sixth class, then it made far more sense to work on that while she replaced her enchanting class and got back to where she was.

  No, Zoe decided. The point wasn’t to get the perfect sixth class. It was just to get her seventh class at all. She’d already decided she wasn’t keeping her enchanting class — her fourth class at the moment, so who cared if her sixth class was a little suboptimal?

  Zoe brought up her class options for her sixth class and browsed through them. Part of her thought about waiting to check them out with Emma and Joe, but a much larger part of her wanted to just get on with it already. Her seventh class was just around the corner — seventh! She’d never seen another human with anything past six before. They existed, Zoe assumed. She wouldn’t be the first, but it would be a very exclusive club she’d be joining.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The list of skills continued to grow and frustrate Zoe with each time she looked through them. Even though she recognized so many of them and could move on with just a quick glance, there were just so many class options that even just a brief moment on each ended up taking hours on end just to pick out the ones that were new or interesting.

  And who knew how many different classes Zoe was missing as she skimmed past the thousands of options. Maybe Emma had a point in taking each and every class she could, at least she wouldn’t end up missing one with interesting bonuses.

  By mid afternoon, Zoe had picked out the three that seemed most interesting to her, and wrote them down on pages from her notebook that she laid out on the table in front of her.

  [Elemental Enigma] An enigma, embracing the elements that surround them. Increased elemental power.

  Requirements: Wields at least twenty elements, has the Transcendent feat

  [Arcane Watch] A defender of the weak, fending off the hordes that lurk within the darkness with their arcane might and impenetrable defences. Increased magical power. Increased regeneration.

  Requirements: Has at least one thousand Intelligence, has at least one thousand Dexterity, has at least one thousand Strength, has defended against at least one hundred thousand attacks with magical creations, has defended a civilization from the denizens of the dark, has confronted the denizens of the dark, has the Light skill

  [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

  Elemental Enigma wasn’t quite what Zoe was looking for, but it sounded interesting regardless. What was most interesting about it to Zoe however; was that she didn’t think she had twenty different elements at her disposal. The only difference between this time and the last time she checked her class options was that she now had the shadow skills as general skills.

  But even counting those, she only got to nineteen at most, if she was being generous. Seasoned Persistence had five, Cosmic Explorer and Enchantrith both had one and Death’s Master had two. Beyond that, she also had Wind, Earth, Water, Fire, Wood, Flora, Space, Light and Shadow. That brought her total up to eighteen, and if she wanted to be generous she could consider the Vampyric skills to be an element of their own, which might give her nineteen.

  Which meant that at least one of her skills was considered an element that Zoe wasn’t aware of. Physical, maybe? Were her different fighting skills considered a fighting element? She thought of conjuring spears with her Elemental general skill and shuddered. Even the people behind the system wouldn’t be that insane, she thought.

  Maybe her writing skills were considered an element? Was Bearer of Ink considered to be a part of the ink element, perhaps? That made far more sense than the physical skills, but Zoe had just assumed they were a general mana skill, akin to alchemy or enchanting.

  Or maybe it was her Foizo on the Moon skill. Was dungeon master an element she could combine into her Elemental skill? Zoe giggled at the thought of it.

  Ink seemed to make the most sense to her, unless it was counting one of her elements twice for some reason. Maybe the Seasoned Persistence time and her general Time skill were different, somehow? She shook her head, that didn’t make much sense.

  Arcane Watch was an interesting class as well, boasting almost exactly what she was looking for with maybe a little bit more of a focus on light and darkness than she had wanted. It required a hefty investment into her physical stats but seemed to still bolster her magical abilities somewhat.

  And Transcendent Pursuit was back because being fast seemed fun. She could watch higher level sports ball games and even see what was going on. There was some amount of temptation to just going fast, even if it wasn’t quite exactly what she wanted.

  Zoe’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden surge of panic smashing into Zoe’s Empathy as Emma appeared in the middle of the room.

  “Zoe. Where are the cats?" Emma asked, her voice quivering.

  “What? What’s wrong?" Zoe asked, feeling her nerves growing under the intense anxiety.

  “Find the cats. We’re leaving. Now.” Emma said before she stepped into another room.

  Zoe jumped to her feet and ran through the house, checking every room and crevice with her Cosmic Vision as she looked for the two boys. Emma found Oliver upstairs in her room, while Zoe found Fennel purring away in his dreams lying on the floor in the bathroom.

  “Sorry buddy. Emma’s panicked so something’s going on.” Zoe whispered before she grabbed the cat and Cosmic Leaped upstairs to Emma.

  Emma took Fennel and stored him away in her cat storage yurt then held her hand out. “North west. Right now.”

  “Teleport across town? You sure?” Zoe asked.

  Emma nodded.

  Zoe grabbed her friends outstretched hand then Cosmic Leaped them as far as she could to the north west, catching them in the air with suits of vine covered earth. She gasped at the gnarly scene taking place outside the capital’s walls to the south east. Even so far away, and with the walls as tall as they were, the situation looked bleak.

  Outside the capital’s walls to the south-east, as far as Zoe could see, the forests were covered in an undulating darkness that was being narrowly corralled by massive flashes of magic. The walls themselves seemed safe at least, with bright blue flashes erupting from them whenever a stray splotch of darkness or magical barrage threatened to pass them. But how long would the magic that powered them last? Could they hold against whatever it was that was attacking them?

  “Oh my god.” Emma gasped.

  “I thought you already knew about it?” Zoe asked. “You seemed so scared.”

  Emma shook her head. “I just heard the announcement. I went and visited Bruce for a bit then on the way back, Lionel told me the city was under attack. He said things were under control but if we wanted to flee, we should leave to the north west.”

  A flash of movement raced past Zoe and Emma a few dozen feet below them as somebody else flew through the air away from the commotion.

  “What do we do? Do you think we could help?" Zoe asked.

  “I dunno. Maybe? You might be able to. My classes aren’t very good right now, though. And if it’s happening here, then is it happening elsewhere? Is Foizo okay?” Emma asked.

  “Good point. Let’s go.” Zoe said as she Cosmic Leaped them back towards Foizo. The corruption didn’t seem to follow them, with the forests and villages looking the same as they always did. Away from the capital, there wasn’t even the slightest hint of the terror being wrought upon its citizens. Carriages trotted along the road, groups of wandering folk hid away in the trees. Villages carried about their lives like nothing was happening.

  In minutes, Zoe and Emma were floating above Foizo’s familiar walls. The forest looked healthy and clean, the walls seemed peaceful, with guards walking their routines, staring out at the wilderness surrounding the town.

  Zoe Cosmic Leaped her and Emma into Joe’s inn, startling the two patrons enjoying their meal in the dining area. Kenzie was sitting behind the counter and smiled at them as they appeared.

  “Hey,” Kenzie said.

  “Hey. Is Joe around?" Zoe asked.

  Kenzie shook her head. “He just got called to the council for some important meeting apparently. Probably be back soon, usually doesn’t take long. Want some food?"

  Zoe sighed. “No, thank you though. I think I’d rather go crash this meeting at the moment.”

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