Dragon God’s System

Paladin, rogue, and ranger were out. I had already discarded the idea of working with animals. As for rogues, they knew little to no magic. As for paladin, I doubted I would be able to pick up a piece of armor, much less wear heavy armor. Even carrying a shield would be difficult. At least the ranger was a magic user, although not enough for my tastes. 

The fighter said nothing about magic, which dropped them to the bottom of the list. As for clerics, I definitely don't want to serve some god. Despite a few choices I obviously didn’t want, at least I had some choices that possessed magic. “Thank you for that,” I muttered. Of course, I would be quite the odd spellcaster since I didn’t choose arcana earlier. 

I tried to click on each class, but unsurprisingly, no additional information showed up. Although I kind of expected the results I would get, I was still annoyed. “Stingy system. You could at least tell me more about the choices. I almost feel like I am making some of these choices blindly.” 

I was definitely feeling frustrated with the lack of additional information the system was withholding from me. It hadn’t even bothered to explain the difference between training and classes. I didn’t even see all the classes I would have expected to see. For some reason, not having the bard class annoyed me. 

Bards were spellcasters, and I loved to sing. While I was afraid that my voice would be just as bad in this life as it was in the previous, I still might have taken the chance. In fact, I had a vague memory of a toddler telling me, “That will be enough of that,” when I started singing. In fact, I think my wife and kids used to turn up the volume on the television whenever I sang. “Wait, that isn’t right. Didn’t my teenage son always encourage me to sing to my teenage daughter? Oh well, at least my son recognized my talent, even if all the others didn’t recognize genius when they heard it.”

While bard would have been amazing, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to sing or play an instrument to use magic anyway. Then again, weren’t bards originally poets and wordsmiths? William Shakespeare was called the Bard of Avon. In fact, Celtic bards were also storytellers. I used to love reading stories and even wrote a few. Bard would have definitely been worth considering if it was an option, but of course, it wasn’t.

After taking a moment to redirect my thinking and focus on the next choice, I thought about the druids, who were also missing from the list. Druids were able to shapeshift and do magic from what I could remember. That would have been really cool. Maybe I could have used those shapeshifting abilities to turn back into a human. Then again, I guess I don’t really need druid to turn back into a human. Any spellcasting class would probably allow me to turn back into a human once I had learned the appropriate spells. 

As for the ritualist, that sounded like someone who needed rituals to cast magic. I could easily imagine being in a fight with an army of the green kobolds and having to politely ask, “Please wait a few hours while I cast this spell. Don’t worry, I am attuned to magic.” Who knew what that meant? As for the ritualist, I really didn’t see any reason to choose them over any of the others. In fact, they were worse than the wizard and sorcerer. Because of this, I added ritualist to my list of declined classes. 

Instead of only having one or two good choices, now I was overwhelmed with wonderful options. “Feast or famine, flood or drought,” I muttered. “Oh well, I shouldn’t complain.” Still, it was hitting my Achilles heel. Making decisions was something I had struggled with in my previous life. 

Deciding to look at each one in turn, I started with the sorcerers. Innate spellcasting would free me from having to beg the gods for magic or having to study. For some reason, the idea of doing a lot of studying didn’t appeal to me any longer. Having innate spells sounded nice, but it also sounded like I wouldn’t have the same variety of spells as the other classes. 

That made me think about the arcanist. It was a little disappointing that arcanists have to study so much. Then again, they did sound like they had the widest variety of magic since they could cast any spell. That really appealed to me, despite the need to study. I had spent so much time in school in my previous life that the idea of studying annoyed me. However, arcanists were obviously more versatile than the others since I could cast any spell I studied. 

Being a wizard would give me the chance to decide what spells I wanted, but I might need a teacher and would definitely be limited to the spells I found in spellbooks. It would also require studying. If I was going to study, why not become an arcanist? Also, I somehow doubted that I would be able to find a lot of spellbooks, which would make learning new spells difficult. Then again, maybe I could be the next Sorcerer Supreme. 

Summarizing my thoughts, I marked off sorcerer and wizard. Arcanist was a maybe, however. Moving on, I thought about the other class that sounded like an arcanist. Shamans, at least from what I remembered, studied both arcane and divine magic. I was also fairly certain they dealt with spirits too. As for seeking divinity, that seemed exactly what I was looking for. So, shaman was in first place, followed by the arcanist. 

I had saved the eldritch mind class for last to think about. I had mixed feelings about it. While it did say mind in the name, which made it an attractive choice for me since I was so focused on intelligence, it didn’t say what type of spells I would have. Could I only cast arcane spells? Would I be limited in the number of spells I could learn, similar to a sorcerer? Would the spells be themed, such as a pyromancer?

Still, there were a lot of unanswered questions about it. Despite this, I finally decided that it was tied with shaman for second place, with arcanist having the lead. Each of the classes had some drawbacks. Still, this was a new world. Who knew what I would encounter? I needed a class that would allow me to thrive and not just survive. 

Finally, I decided that I should choose from the most versatile options. I had already missed the chance to learn arcana when I thought I couldn’t learn magic spells. I decided right there and then that, in the future, if I ever discovered who designed the system, I would definitely give them a piece of my mind. I felt that I had struggled to make a lot of decisions in my past life. Not wanting to repeat past mistakes, I decided to trust myself and become an arcanist. 

Pointing dramatically to the empty air, I said, “I choose you Pika-Eldritch Mind!” Immediately, the pop-up screen disappeared, and the old screen updated again. I blinked, frowned, and then looked up at the heavens as if asking why I did some of the things I did. “I am an idiot. Why did I choose eldritch mind? I just did a complete 180° turn and chose eldritch mind over arcanist and shaman. Why did I choose it? I didn’t have enough information about it. Did becoming a kobold do something to my mind?”