Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 50

“So,” Eleniah spoke from her seat in the dark secret lair of her publicly accessible office that everyone in the school knew the location of, “What’s your Status look like nowadays?”

“Why are the lights off?” Kay asked, “And why are you talking like that?”

“Like what?” Eleniah growled in what she probably thought was a deep and powerful voice but really just sounded like she had a cold.

“Seriously, what are you doing?”

She groaned and reached over to flick on a light. “You aren’t any fun. We’re talking about the deep dark secrets of the power of one of the newest and most intriguing arrivals to the scene of international politics! There should be some mystery and gravitas to it!”

Kay glanced up at the magic lights that came on, “You know, I’m really glad we have these kinds of things.” He reached over and poked the crystal that served as her desk lamp. “Having fire for lighting in enclosed spaces like this would be a big problem.”

Eleniah slowly stared at him, her expression blank. “What?”

“I mean, we’ve built a school inside a cliff. And we’re adding more and more buildings inside of it. Government buildings are going to be inside a bunch of rock; we’re putting my house there-”

“Your palace.”

“I’m not calling it that. And even more, stuff is going to end up inside and under tons of stone. If we only had fire for lighting we’d suffocate a ton of people.”

“… So you’re just ignoring my ideas now?”

“When it involves you talking like you ate half of a frog while trying to gargle syrup, yes, I am.”

“Bah!” Eleniah exclaimed, throwing her feet up on the desk.

Lauren stifled a laugh from her spot behind Kay’s chair, and Kay himself rolled his eyes.

“We are lucky to have them,” Eleniah eventually agreed, poking the lamp a few times herself.

“Why is it always crystals though?”

“Huh?”

“Magical lights always seem to come out of crystals; why aren’t there other things that make magical light?” Kay complained, “Why aren’t there other sources of magical light.”

Eleniah gave him a suspicious look, “Is this another instance of you whining about things being weirdly similar to stories from your original world? Cause I still don’t have any answers for you there.”

“I mean, kind of? I do want to know why all of our magic lights are crystal based, though, now that I’m thinking about it.”

“Because the material has to be translucent to let the light through,” Lauren answered.

Kay twisted his neck around to look at her.

“The easiest kind of light enchantment puts a small amount of magic that makes a light source inside a material and then lets it glow.” Lauren continued, “So the material you use has to be translucent to let the light out. Crystals occur naturally, so for a long time, they were the only option until glass-making became easier. I’m pretty sure that glass magical lights are still a little more expensive in the area, but that’s because there are big crystal mines to the east a bit and some of the stuff for cheap glass making has to be imported to this area.”

“How do you know that?” Eleniah wondered.

“One of my cousins does light enchanting, and she likes to talk about it a lot.”

“Why not do enchantments on the outside of stuff that glows?” Kay asked, “Then you could use any material you want.”

“Apparently, it doesn’t last as long? She told me one time that it’s the same spell, but there’s a way of tying it to the material when you put it inside that makes it last a lot longer, like decades versus a few days.”

“Huh,” Kay looked up at the crystal embedded in the ceiling, “I should talk to Murunel about finding a source of crystal if we can. Oh, and did your cousin come with you when you came here, or does she work somewhere else? We probably won’t need a ton of people for other places, but if we keep expanding into the cliff here, we’re going to need a lot of crystals. It’d be better to recruit-”

“No!” Eleniah leaned across her desk and started waving her hands in Kay’s face. “Stop! You can bring it up at your next leadership meeting or with the representatives during the next session or something. You came here to talk about pushing to tier five, and we’re doing that now!”

“Sorry,” Kay looked away from her glare, “I got distracted.”

“That was obvious. Now, tier five. Look at your damn Status and tell me where you’re at.”

[————————————————————]

Name: Kenneth “Kay” Davis

Race: Outworlder Human

Age: 26

Highest Tier: IV

Total Tiers: 41

Class Slots: 11 Combat Class Slots/7 Non-Combat Class Slots

6 Combat Class Slot Used/5 Non-Combat Class Slots Used

Classes:

Combat:

- Expert Blood Manipulator: Tier IV -

Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 38

- Expert Swordsman (Bastard Sword): Tier IV -

Skills: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) - Level 39

- Expert Polearm Wielder (Halberd): Tier IV -

Skills: Polearms (Halberd) - Level 34

- Expert Blood Shaper: Tier IV -

Skills: Shape Blood - Level 39

- Blood Melder: Tier IV -

Skills: Meld Blood - Level 31

- Simulacrum Creator (Blood): Tier III

Skills: Create Simulacrum (Blood) - Level 29

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Combat:

- Bloody Healer: Tier IV -

Skills: Blood Transfusion - Level 35

Healthy Blood - Level 39

Blood Regeneration - Level 38

- Cartographer: Tier III

Skills: Spatial Determination - Level 29

Expanded Sight - Level 30

Sharpened Memory - Level 28

Stable Footing - Level 30

Drawing - Level 30

Cartography - Level 30

- Expert Mapmaker: Tier IV

Skills: Effective Communication (Drawing) - Level 31

Drawing - Level 32

Cartography - Level 34

- Blood Enhancer: Tier III -

Skills: Enhance Blood - Level 29

Blood Boost - Level 30

- Blood Lord: Tier IV -

Skills: Leadership - Level 31

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Class Skills: Identify - Level 5, Appraisal - Level 5, Inspect - Level 5, Punch Daggers - Level 5, Writing - Level 5, Reading - Level 5, Running - Level 5, Sprinting - Level 5, Domain of Blood - Level 5, Create from Blood - Level 4

Titles: Class Line Progenitor, Class Creator VII, System Access (Minor), Blood Lord of Avalon

[————————————————————]

Kay read over his Status out loud, summarizing in a few places to cut down on the amount of time he took. Only Eleniah and Lauren were actually in the room with him at that moment. Even with the Blood Guard being his personal troops and trusted to keep him alive, keeping the number of people that knew the details of his Status limited was important. Eleniah had tried to add a little too much pomp to it with her dramatics, but the rest of his detail was outside the office, and Lauren was using more silencing charms to keep things secret.

“Okay, you’re in a pretty good spot for most of your Classes to push to tier five, so I’d say you were right in bringing it up now.” Eleniah commented, staring into space as she mentally pictured his Status, “Most of your Classes are tier four already, and the rest are peak tier three so pushing them to be ready to combine won’t take too long…” She silently thought for a moment more, “The real question is, at this point, what Classes are you trying to combine?”

“Isn’t it best to combine all of them if I can?” He asked, “I thought making your tier five Classes out of as many Classes as possible made the end result more powerful. That’s ignoring whether or not they synergize; I know you’ve talked about how that’s important a lot.”

Eleniah waved her hand in a ‘maybe’ wiggle, “That’s one of those topics that gets more philosophical to answer. Most people agree that more is better, and it’s definitely more flexible, but there are arguments that a tier five Class is a tier five Class, and the number of Classes you put into it doesn’t change how powerful it is. Personally, I think that putting more base Classes into your tier five does make a more powerful Class, but I believe there’s a diminishing return once you get past a certain number, and that’s completely ignoring Master Classes. No one is trying to say Master Classes aren’t powerful. Pushing your one tier four Class so hard and getting so good at the Skills involved that the System recognizes you as a master in whatever it is you’re a master at is a big fucking deal.”

“Why isn’t that something more people do since you brought it up?” Kay asked, glancing down at a few of his Classes with his Status still up, “Wouldn’t getting to master in a bunch of Classes make you really strong?”

“Takes too long.” Was Eleniah’s quick answer, “You have to actually master the Skill or Skills to get a Master Class. Becoming a true master at something is a lot harder than leaning on the System to combine a bunch of Classes and turn you into a powerhouse.” She pointed at herself, “Plus, it’s easier for people like me who want to do more than one thing or who change what they want to do over time. I wouldn’t have been able to get my tier five teaching Class if I hadn’t used some of my Non-Combat Classes that took up slots to make my Indomitable Fist. Taking slots that were full and getting them open to use for something can be a massive game changer for some people. Also, for you, it really lets you maximize the fact that you can basically print new Class Slots. There’s no way to guarantee every single Class you get hasn’t been taken, whether its actually from another Class Line and you didn’t realize or its a hybrid from more than one line and you’re not the first person to ever get it no matter which version of the hybrid it is, so having more slots open lets you be a little more aggressive at getting new Classes and pushing yourself higher and higher.”

Kay nodded along to her reasoning as she talked, “Alright,” He said when she’d finished, “I’d been thinking in terms of combining everything, but what do you think I should do?”

“Combine all of the Blood Manipulator Classes together with Blood Lord, then work on the weapons and map-making Classes separately.”

“Why?”

“A combination of the synergy involved and how much time and effort you’d have to put into making sure the others combine. Sure, you could combine everything, but there’s a lot less synergy between a bunch of Classes from the same Line and Classes from outside it. It would take a long time to make it happen, and with how worried you are about Avalon becoming a target for the other powerful people and nations out there, which I agree with, by the way, it’d be better to get the power boost now and get more tier five classes for your other… um… oh, archetypes for your Classes.”

Kay looked at her with a slightly confused expression, “It sounds like you’re saying you could combine any Classes if you tried for long enough. Isn’t Class synergy really important for tier five?”

“Oh, it’s incredibly important. But yeah, if you put enough effort into it you could probably combine any Class in existence with any other one. I met a man once who combined a swordsman Class with an archer Class.”

“What? Then synergy isn’t important if you can combine whatever you want.”

“No,” Eleniah took her feet off the desk and leaned in closely, “It’s important. Just because you can combine anything doesn’t mean you should. Classes that synergize with each other combine easily and work together easily. If you just combine your blood Classes, we can probably get you to tier five in a few months, not counting any time to get all the right classes to peak tier four. The guy I just mentioned, the swordsman archer guy? It took him more than a decade to combine those two Classes.” She stood up and started pantomiming actions as she lectured, “Classes that combine to tier five have to work together in a literal sense. You have to be able to do things from all of the Classes you combine simultaneously. That’s one of the few things we understand with absolute clarity about the tiers for tier five and higher. You don’t have to be able to perform every Skill from every Class at the same time, but you do have to be able to do one from each at the same time. How easy do you think it is to do a sword Skill and a bow Skill at the exact same time since those were the only two Classes that combined for him?”

Kay actually thought about it for a moment, “Well, you can’t really swing a sword and fire a bow at the same time, so it sounds impossible…?”

“It’s not impossible, but it’s incredibly hard. He ended up getting a special kind of projectile made that counts as both a sword and an arrow and started training to use that. Eventually, he figured out the right combination after years of trying and got good enough at using it that he was able to level up both Skills also after years of practice. So now he’s a tier five. Except!” She leaned in towards him again with one finger raised, “He’s now a tier five with an esoteric fighting style and ammunition that he has to custom order every time he needs more because he’s the only person who uses that exact kind of sword-arrow things. He’s limited in a lot of ways because of that. So synergy is important. If he had had a third Combat Class slot or even a Non-Combat Class slot that could have bridged the gap somehow, he would have had it much easier.” She frowned as she continued, “Because the exception to the ‘everything must be able to be used simultaneously’ rule is when it comes to archetypes. If he’d had some kind of soldier class that could combine with both swords and bows, he’d have become a tier five that was a soldier that used multiple weapons. Or, like, if someone had some kind of cooking or dining-related Class. You can’t eat a fancy meal at the same time you’re making the same fancy meal, but you can combine Classes related to both sides of the eating and making divide because they meet in the middle of the ‘fancy meal archetype’.”

She sat back down and threw her legs up again, “For you, combining Classes from the same Line plus a leadership Class should be a breeze. You can totally lead while boosting someone, fighting, or healing. But can you fight wit Blood Manipulation while also making a map? You can make a map with Blood Manipulation, but can you also heal with Blood Regeneration and Blood Transfusion? Can you do those same two healing Skills while using a sword? Can you use a sword and make a map? With work and effort and a lot of time, sure? But it wouldn’t be reasonable to try all that when you also have a growing nation to lead.”

Kay looked from Class to Class on his Status, comparing the different Skills associated with each. He agreed with Eleniah, it would be a lot harder to try and combine some of his Classes with the new specific knowledge of why synergy was important. “Why are you only talking about the specifics now?” He asked Eleniah, “Why not bring it up earlier?”

She snorted and shook her head, “Because I’ve had people I’ve taught in the past decide that they were going to combine some certain Classes and make themselves incredibly powerful, so they started making sure that their ‘ultimate combination’ worked together from the beginning. They ended up either crippling themselves early on by painting themselves into very weird builds that weren’t as awesome as they thought or dying because it’s really fucking hard to fight a monster and bake something at the same time.”

“Was… was that a real example?” Lauren asked tentatively.

“Yes. I stopped actually being that person’s mentor after they didn’t listen when I told them that they were making a really bad decision.” She sighed and shook her head, “He wanted to be some kind of bread wizard. I still don’t really understand what his whole plan was, but he died a few months after I stopped teaching him. I decided that it was better to just tell my students that it was important and then give them the details when they were powerful and experienced enough to not die or fuck themselves some other way if they did decide to do something irregular.” She gestured at Kay, “So that’s why.”

“… I can’t really fault your logic if that’s something that’s actually happened,” Kay told her slowly, “I think I’m fine with what you’ve suggested.”

“Good! Maybe we can get you a punch daggers Class of some kind and then set you up for a three-class combo Weapons Master Class. Or hell, we could find another weapon that you’re good with and do that instead of punch daggers. I know they’re a kind of weird weapon outside of really close fighting or assassinations. Or, well,” She waved her arms above her head, “There are all kinds of other things we can do with your other CLasses since you have so many slots.”

“How can I get a Master Class from combining Classes?” Kay asked quickly.

“What? You can’t.”

“Then how can you combine three weapon Classes and get a Weapon Master Class?”

“… I don’t understand the connection between the two topics.”

“How is a Weapons Master Class different from other Master Classes?”

She stared at him with narrowed eyes, “You’re putting emphasis on… Oh! Is this another translation thing? A ‘master’ is someone who’s skilled at one particular thing to the point of mastering it, while a ‘master’ is someone who’s really good at several related things.”

“Argh!” Kay slumped back in his chair, “That sounds like the same word to me!”

“Oh, well, language barrier aside, it’s two different things. Weapons Master Classes are more of those archetype tier-five Classes I was talking about. They meet different weapon Skills in the archetype of ‘being good at weapons’. You have to have at least three Classes with weapon Skills to combine into a Weapons Master Class.”

Kay made a disgruntled expression. “You know, all of these exceptions and weird rules give me mixed feelings. They totally help reinforce my theory about the System, but they’re also kind of janky sometimes.”

Eleniah shrugged expressively, “It’s just something to live with. We do our best to live in the reality that there is and try and understand the rules as we interact with them.”

“Yeah,” Kay sighed, “That’s life. Anyway, any ideas on what to do from this point? I know which Classes I’m looking to combine and which ones I need to level because of that, but how should I go about doing it? I have a few ideas, but what are you thinking of?”

“I don’t know, something that involves leading people while also fighting, healing, and boosting yourself and others?” She leaned back so her chair was balanced on two legs and folded her hands in her lap, “Probably some big expedition again, so you can do everything at once and save time. Have you heard back from the Adventuring Guild about those high-tier Ancients you ran from? I bet we have enough people to take them out at this point, and it’d let some of the people from the first trip go get some revenge.”

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