Ebony's Fable

“What do you think about that human, dear?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean… he’s clearly suspicious.”

“...”

“The journey from Plainston is too far and dangerous for an unclassed to make it. A human that appeared out of nowhere, wearing clothes of make that even you don’t recognize and claims to have lost his memories and doesn’t even know Elcrian? That’s a classic convenient lie otherworlders use to hide their ignorance and you know it. He’s obviously had a space mage help him or teleported here through other means. What motives would he have to get close to our village, our family?”

“You think too much honey. All we know is that Ebony saved Clovis’s life and you know he’s no liar. That’s more than enough for us to offer him our greatest hospitality.”

“Clovis is still too young and he’s gullible just like you dear. Almost anyone can trick him if they want to.”

“Like how you trick me into marrying you?”

“...”

“I know you mean well Halvis, but he’s also a young boy and got stranded in a stone-cold forest alone, unclassed even!”

“Roya, you’ve seen that ice blade. How dense the ice mana in it was. It’s impossible for an unclassed human to make that, something about it is weird. I don’t even think I could come close to duplicating that. Someone must have helped him, someone who had extremely high mastery over ice magic. Perhaps even the boarlet was set by him to go after Clovis while he played hero to gain our trust. They have bad eyesight so it’s not too hard to lose them in the dark.”

“Enough Halvis. I know you are thinking for our safety but I will not have you speak poorly of our son’s saviour before even given time to understand him. He has clearly been very polite so far. Don’t worry so much Halvis, what could he do to harm us? He’s just an unclassed and even if he had a hidden guardian protecting him it doesn’t mean he means us harm. Good will is repaid by good will Halvis.”

“...I know I know, but you’ve heard the stories about how otherworlders treat us…”

“We can only find out if the stories were true by experiencing and observing him ourselves. You know better than to judge an individual by their collective.”

“...Haa…we’ll just observe him for now I guess… I did not trick you into marrying me, I charmed you, with my skills, dashing looks and my unending love for you.” Halvis gave up on persuading his wife and added with a smirk.

“You wish. That human child will turn out more dashing than you, his ice blue hair and pitch black irises matched with that cold expression of his would send chills down any young woman’s back.” Roya beamed back with jest.

“Oh no! My wife’s turning into a child predator!” Halvis played along. Going on to planting a kiss on her, feeling just a tinge salty over the comment on the young human's looks.

“Jealous?” Roya asked smugly. Inwardly overjoyed seeing her husband’s reaction.

❅❅❅

Name: Ebony Rime

Class: N/A

Sub-Class: N/A

Profession: N/A

Health: 60/60

Stamina: 60/60

Mana: 100/100

Strength: 5

Vitality: 6

Constitution: 9

Endurance: 6

Agility: 7

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 10

Perception: 7

Generic Skills:

Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 51

Lesser Stealth Lvl 5

Identify Lvl 12

Sheer Cold Resistance Lvl 26

Running Lvl 25

Treading Step Lvl 27

Humming Lvl 15

Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 27

Icebody Enhancement Lvl 20

Mental Mapping Lvl 1

Single-handed Greatsword Mastery Lvl 16

Kicking Mastery Lvl 22

Mana Weaving Lvl 11

English Lvl 8

Elcrian Lvl 5

Spiritual Meditator - Requirements: Meditation type skill Lvl 50

Ice Mage - Requirements: Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25

Meditative Ice Mage - Requirements: Meditation type skill Lvl 50 & Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25

Apprentice Swordsman - Requirement: Any type of sword Mastery Lvl 10

Runner - Requirements: Running Lvl 25

Quick Traveller - Requirements: 2 Movement type skills Lvl 25

Humming Traveller - Requirements: Any Movement type skill Level 25 & Humming Lvl 10

Apprentice Enhancement Mage - Requirements: Any Enhancement Magic Lvl 10

Ice Enhancement Mage - Requirements: Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25 & Any Ice Enhancement Magic Lvl 10

Apprentice Ice Swordsman - Requirements: Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 10, Any Ice Enhancement Magic Lvl 10 & Any type of sword Mastery Lvl 10

Relentless Swordsman - Requirements: Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 50 & Any type of sword Mastery Lvl 10

Meditative Ice Swordsman - Requirements: Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 50, Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25, Level 25 Movement type skill & Any type of sword Mastery Lvl 10

Meditative Ice Enhancer Swordsman - Requirements: Deep Persistent Meditation Lvl 50, Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25, Any Ice Enhancement Magic Lvl 10, Treading Step Lvl 25 & Any type of sword Mastery Lvl 10

Apprentice Tailor - Requirements: Any tailoring skill Lvl 10

Apprentice Mana Tailor - Requirements: Any Mana tailoring skills Lvl 10

Ice Weaver - Requirements: Ice Mana Manipulation Lvl 25, Mana Weaving Lvl 10

2 peaceful weeks flew by as Ebony’s days were filled with activity. Every time a skill reaches the level threshold which was 10, 25 & 50 so far he would get notifications for classes that require those skills. He didn’t get the ‘self-taught’ version for Ice Mage anymore, probably due to learning a little from Gen and Clovis.

He learned quite a lot in these 2 weeks, Clovis was really talkative but a really good teacher too. With the help of the telepathic gem learning a language was incredibly simple, no picture books required. By the end of the first day, Ebony already learnt many simple words and phrases used in daily life.

They got permission to remove the gem from the necklace to place it on Clovis’s myriad bracelet so that the mana could be supplied from a Mana Ore. The necklace was basically a single slot myriad bracelet. Clovis’s myriad bracelet had 5 slots and all slots were connected by mana linkways. It was really a convenient item but they didn’t have any extras so Ebony would have to get one himself from the merchant or when he gets to Plainston.

The English skill just came up when he tried speaking a little and it just jumped to lvl 8. Ebony could already speak Elcrian pretty fluently with little accent, after all he did know Chinese, Japanese and a little German and Russian from his travelling with his parents. He didn’t bother getting those skills or levelling English though. Elcrian was actually simpler though there are some words he couldn’t quite pronounce right.

The written form of Elcrian consisted of symbols of shapes like circles, triangles, straight and curved lines. There were only 15 characters and Ebony got them down quickly. Numerals were really simple too, 0 was a circle, 1 was a circle with a dot in the centre, 2 was with a horizontal line and 3 was a triangle, 4 had another dot in the triangle, 5 a line and so on till 9 which was a circle with three triangles within. Simple but drawing them was quite a hassle. Looking at a string of numbers took some getting used to.

The Thoya family had a respectable study that they built up for Clovis since he’d always liked books. Not just Elvish, there were Humans, Dwarven and though few, Beastmen written books too. Clovis taught Ebony the language through history, folktales, stories and more. The book Ebony is currently reading titled; Foundations of Classes, Sub-Classes, Profession, Skills and Stats was truly mind opening and Ebony was glad he didn’t just take Apprentice Ice Mage classes he first met the requirements for.

Like the notification informed him, getting a Class was a permanent decision. There was absolutely no known way of changing it. Which was to say future development to your class was somewhat limited by your starting class.

First of all, skills and skill levels. Talent was very real here, two people could do the same thing for example cooking but one may get the cooking skill while the other may not. If both got the Cooking skill they could both spend the same time cooking the same dishes but their skill level may level at a different rate. They call this ‘talent’ Natural Potential.

The max level of a skill is also dependent on one’s natural potential. Frost Elves or Elves in general are said to have almost no natural potential with the sword. They either couldn’t get the sword mastery skill at all or can hardly level it up to lvl 10 to even get the Apprentice Warrior or Apprentice Swordsman Class. Their natural potential with archery or ice magic on the other hand was outstanding, even the least talented with these skills could level it to 18-20 or so in a short time frame.

When one was under 15 years old they wouldn’t have skills but it didn’t mean training was pointless. Whatever they did before 15 would be going into their skills once they got them rapidly levelling up. Excluding some skills like resistance skills for example. The skills would slow down in levelling and hit their limit within days, exactly what happened to Ebony.

Ebony was 20 this year so most of his ‘skills’ were practised for 5 more years than others here, except for magic of course. Skills don’t have a limit to levels as far as they know. They weren’t exactly ‘maxed out’ the skills level up increasingly slowly if not at all as one reaches their Natural Potential for it. The first level after the ‘max’ may take 3-5 days, the next would take a week then weeks turn into months and then years.

‘Wait a minute. I’m not considered 20 over here.’ Ebony recalled the time difference between worlds.

24 hrs x 365.25 days x roughly 20.5 years = need a calculator, or troublesome manual calculations, fortunately Ebony was pretty damn good with mental calculations.

Roughly 179703 hours old. 28hrs x 28 days x 14 months = 10976hours/year. 179703hrs / 10976 hrs/year = 16.37 years old.

‘Ting’ ‘Generic Skill Mental Arithmetic learned’

Mental Arithmetic - Ability to perform basic arithmetic operations mentally. Complexity of arithmetics, speed and accuracy increases slightly with Intelligence and skill level.

‘Sweet. But Clovis is the same age as me?’ Ebony took a double take at the 12-13 year old looking elf. Well at least Ebony wasn’t lagging behind people his age as most pick up a class after about half a year of training and picking up skills. The richer or more ambitious take who took their time for better classes was also about 16-17.

Most people don’t wait and train their skills for years as staying classless was just costly. Quickly getting a class and a few levels to start working(or producing money) to decrease the family burden. The rich merchants or nobles who don't have such worries would have their child take their time to get more and higher skill levels to get stronger, better classes. Even so, one is still limited by their natural potential so there’s just no reason to stay classless for longer than necessary.

Ebony hit this ‘max’ level a few days back but he wanted Icebody Enhancement and Single-handed Greatsword Mastery to get to level 25. He wasn’t going to wait for years of course, there was a method to increase their natural potential and the Frost Elves called it the stimulation rite which just sounded wrong to Ebony.

The ‘simplest’ way was just to kill a monster at least 10 levels higher than you. When one reaches their maxed level, 0 for classless, they no longer gain experience but the first monster 10 levels above them that they kill would go on increasing their natural potential.

Every 10 levels was a benchmark, killing a lvl 10 or lvl 19 monster had no known difference in increased natural potential but killing a monster 20 lvls above would induce another increase in natural potential. Just that it was impossible for a classless to kill a lvl 20 monster without external help.

Parents or relatives will watch and perhaps trap the monster while the child will use all means to kill it. The less help received the more beneficial it would be. Not as easy as it sounds with how high a level 10 monster’s stat is compared to a classless even trying to hurt it would be tough.

Still, monsters' weak points are still there. The Frost Elves usual tactic was finding a lvl 10 Hoarfrost Boar the older elf would freeze them in place and the young elf would either shoot arrows at their eyes or into their mouth, use ice magic or both and bleed them out. They were big clumsy targets after all.

No clue if the other races do it too but it was apparently common knowledge so they most likely did it too.

How much the ‘max’ level rises really depends on how much work was done by the individual themselves but the average in Arcta was about 4-6 lvls in the skills that they used in the rite and 1-3 in all other generic skills.

The night Clovis was in the forest was when he sneaked out to test his new skill called Ice Vines. He used it as a trap and managed to ensnare a level 6 Arctic Fox.

He set the vines under the snow, set squirrel meat drugged with some kind of sleeping agent, and waited till the Arctic Fox got caught in it. According to Clovis, he wanted the Ice Vines to entangle and pierce the target and freeze it inside out. But his Intelligence and skill level was too low; the vines couldn’t pierce the Arctic Foxes skin.

Clovis waited a long time before the Fox got baited, he manipulated the vines to crawl into its mouth and slowly froze it to death. He only had enough mana to use the skill once and all the waiting only recovered enough for him to manipulate it. By the time he managed to kill it by himself it was already dark out and he was kind of lost, the boarlet and Ebony arrived not too much later.

Ice vines was the only combat skill Clovis learnt since he wasn’t really interested in fighting but he still wanted to get as much out of the stimulation rite as possible and if he could trap the monster by himself, he would likely benefit more from it.

The ice vines were just a patch of tangled ropes of ice about 30 cm in diameter with a few thorns and they weren’t even sharp. Ebony tried to step on it for it to reach out and bind itself onto his leg. It had a much stronger grip than he expected but Ebony managed to break free with a bit of struggling, unlike Ton’s snow whips. The fox would break free for sure if not for drugging it.

Skills were widely categorised by the percentage increase the skill gave. 1.0% per level increase skills were tier 1 skills like Running, Treading Step and Icebody Enhancement. Tier 2 skills were skills that gave a 2.5% increase per level like Deep Persistent Meditation or Sheer Cold Resistance. Skills like Lesser Stealth, Mental Mapping or Humming that increase ‘slightly’ or ‘very slightly’ were considered unranked or untiered skills.

Naturally, not every skill could be properly ranked like that, like Identify. Well, it is considered tier 1 despite that. Each level in Identify allows one to Identify a person or monster 5 lvls above their own. Which is to say Ebony’s lvl 12 Identify could let him Identify a lvl 60 entity, if he was lvl 5 he would be able to identify up to lvl 65. The higher tier skill would be Appraise which can Identify 10 lvls above their own and also gives more information than Identify.

After choosing a class the generic skills that were part of the class requirement would turn to class skills and their ‘max’ level would be greatly raised along with the ability to gain experience from killing monsters. Non-combat classes gain more experience from doing whatever their class does instead of killing monsters of course.

The book dubbed ‘Apprentice’ or some other similar sounding classes as handicapped classes due to the low requirement in skill level. According to the book one would be able to level from level 0 - 100 before facing a bottleneck, the Class Evolution. Similar to when choosing a Class skill level requirement is the most common factor limiting one’s advancement.

Choosing a class would actually put one into a comatose state, the duration differs from class to class and person to person. The biggest benefits of getting a class and what separates one from another would be the Class Fortification. One’s body, mind and supposedly soul evolves, getting the perks.

There were all sorts of perks depending on the skill requirement for the class. Ice Mage may give a 100% bonus casting speed with Ice Magic, 100% Mana Efficiency with Ice Magic or even 100% Intelligence with all Ice Magic. Out of 10 Ice Mages, all 10 may all have different bonuses. There were still common bonuses amongst most though.

This was where the author of the book got more hypothetical with nothing absolute. His theory was that what one does before getting the class would affect the bonuses gained.

An Archer who focused on firing fast would have a bonus related to Agility when using the bow, another who focused on charged shots or heavy bows would get a bonus related to Strength and one who focused on training their accuracy would get a Perception related bonus.

Clovis added that this was currently the most believed theory and was proving to be more and more accurate. There used to be some who believed it was based on one's stats and those with higher Strength stat would get a Strength buff etc. It was quite easily put aside as nonsense as it was really easy to find out when you can train a large group of people especially in the army. Imperial army and noble families actually got down the regimes to guarantee some class bonuses based on their training and not beginning stats so that theory was quickly debunked.

The more skills required for a class the more bonuses received from a class. An Apprentice class or more accurately, a lvl 10 required skill would give a 50% bonus while a normal class would gain a 100% bonus. There was no mention of a lvl 50 required skill so Ebony had to casually ask Clovis if there was any higher requirement after 25.

Being long winded as he was, Clovis went into storytelling mode and told him about how even the Frost Elves’ most talented Glacial Arch Mage in history was recorded to have reach lvl 40 in Ice Mana Manipulation before reaching his natural potential limit and after his stimulation rite and some years of training he managed to hit the lvl 50 requirement.

There were some other stories about other races’ war heroes or something but all Ebony concluded was that people obviously kept such things secret and that Clovis didn’t actually know how much of a buff a lvl 50 requirement class would give.

A single Core Skill slot will also be gained after every Class Evolution. A Core Skill has much higher Natural Potential and also has a higher chance to undergo skill evolution or mutations more easily compared to generic or even class skills.

Sub-Classes and Professions weren’t much different from a Class in terms of requirement to get them and their bonuses.

Any and every Class, Sub-Class and Professions are the same regarding skill slots and stat points gained a level. A Class has a total of 15 skill slots, Sub-Class has 10 and Profession has 5 no matter the type or level. A level gained in ones' Class gives 10 stats, Sub-Classes gives 5 and Profession only gives 1 stat point in the profession focused stat, not having the choice of what to put the stat into. At least for level 0 to 100, which as a group was known as Journeymen.

The book was filled with ‘general’ knowledge but it helped Ebony immensely as he didn’t have to go in blind.

There was no system or higher being that gave skills to people. When Ebony asked about the notifications in his head like who or what was talking to them, Clovis just laughed.

They believe it to be a natural phenomenon, something like the laws of nature. Since no one is ‘given’ any skill, all skills are gained or learned by one’s own effort or actions. Even skills gained when getting or evolving a Class are derived from one's actions.

An example is a swordsman who trains his stab over and over or tends to stab a lot when fighting. Getting a Class may get him the Stab skill or something along the lines.

No skill is truly given, only gained.

Strength increases physical might allowing one to perform feats of physical strength.

Strength was pretty self explanatory but it was nice to know that having too high a strength stat compared to Constitution can make one break their own bones from their own strength.

Actual physical change like being more muscular is quite a natural change when adding Strength stat. Adding Constitution is said to counter this effect slightly since Constitution was said to make one’s body denser. Muscles, bones, the whole body.

Vitality is the measure of health points and health regeneration. 1 point = 10HP = 1% regeneration per hour.

The regeneration made it clear to Ebony that he regenerates 1% of his total health per hour. Damage to bones or organs would interfere with natural healing obviously. Base regeneration seemed to differ for some races too, wolf and lizard beastman were said to have 2% regeneration per hour. The numbers for these are quite a sham and really depends on the severity of one’s injury.

Without treatment from a doctor, healer or maybe even a bone mage his left arm wasn’t supposed to be able to heal quickly. Even with a higher Vitality stat, broken bones or a hole in your lungs wouldn’t heal from natural regeneration.

Well, Ebony's Frostblaze Physique clearly changed his body as his arm was completely healed by the third day of not worsening his injury. Unsure if it was due to his mana regeneration contributing to his health regeneration or due to his body being partially made of mana. Probably both.

People used to believe increasing Vitality would increase one's lifespan but it was easily disproved as warriors with much higher Vitality than mages or crafters don’t live any longer than either of them.

What is believed to affect lifespan outside of race is Class Evolutions. A level 100 human that hasn’t undergone Class evolution would have a lifespan of about 150 to 200 years. While a level 100 human who evolved has a lifespan of 350 to 400 years.

Just undergoing Classing would practically double Ebony’s current life expectancy. Ebony never really thought much about immortality but a human’s lifespan was truly short. No harm in living longer. But living forever? Ebony wondered if there was anything worth living forever for.

Constitution determines the toughness and resilience of your body and its resistance to abnormal statuses.

All stats interact with each other in some way, not sure how accurate the book was but the authors estimated that a combined Strength and Agility stat that is 5 times more than ones’ Constitution stat is when one starts to damage themselves with their own power and speed.

It also stated that Constitution was like a base for not just physical but magical and elemental resilience. Just having a much, much smaller effect. Increasing Constitution increases all elemental resistance by an extremely small amount.

Races have differing effects of natural base resistances. Like Frost Elves having high natural resistance to cold.

It is hard to see any difference in damage taken from any element with even a 100 stat point difference and there were too many factors to take into consideration when calculating damage taken.

One point Ebony noted was that a higher Constitution doesn’t only make it harder for one to get damaged but also harder to heal for healing magic.

It is also said that a higher Constitution would have the effect of reducing need for sustenance. Something about the body being able to be more energy efficient. Breaking down food better and receiving more from it, resulting in less wastage. Which means less food comes out as poop and urine. Much wow.

Endurance determines one’s max stamina and stamina regeneration rate reducing the need for rest/sleep.

1 = 10 SP = 10% regeneration per min.

Confirming regeneration rate again there wasn’t much to say about Endurance. Base stamina regeneration was believed to be the same for almost all races known.

Physical skills don't show stamina cost as it is dependent on Strength and Agility. The higher ones’ power or speed the higher the consumption of stamina. At the same time, the higher one’s Constitution or how energy efficient one was, the lower the consumption of stamina for every physical movement and action.

As with Constitution, with a high enough Endurance theoretically, one would need less sleep or rest. There was more proof for this since higher levelled individuals indeed needed less rest than lower levelled ones. But it brought about questions on which stat affected the needs of the body more.

Agility increases your speed, reaction speed and reflexes/dexterity.

Though the stat was called Agility, it increases one's speed and their ability to control said speed with increasing dexterity too.

As with Strength, having too high an Agility compared to Constitution would cause their body to break down in some not so pleasant ways.

Intelligence influences the might of your spells and thinking capacity/processing speed

Intelligence, the muscle of the mind as some might call it.

Clovis had a long debate with himself on whether Intelligence affected reaction speed more or Agility. It’s not confirmed but even physical classes would not neglect Intelligence too much.

From what Ebony heard, it was hard to tell but he believed Intelligence would play the bigger role with increased reaction speed. After all, the brain is in charge of that. But what would he know of how stats worked?

Wisdom determines max mana and mana regeneration rate. 1 = 10MP = 10% regeneration per hour.

Once again proving his calculations on regeneration right. Wisdom was also said to be the toughness of ones’ mind, having a very small effect of increasing defence against mental magic or similar schools of magic. Once again there wasn’t much evidence to prove this line theory. Those who were high level enough to feel the difference wouldn’t just share such information.

Poor wolf and lizard beastmen were said to have 5% regeneration per hour. In a world where mana was money they basically had half the paycheck. Though, they were mostly warriors so doubling their health regeneration would probably be more useful for them.

Perception increases your senses that allows you to see and feel your surroundings more clearly.

The stat that failed Ebony the most since coming to Elcra. In its defence, everything had the same shade of white and grey in the snowy forest. How would he know that giant turtles were hiding under the snow?

‘Senses’ was pretty vague but Clovis confirmed it meant all five of them and more. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

Some classes like rare archer classes have bonuses that increase sight more, based on the Perception stat. There were classes like these for other stats too, more specific for their class.

All in all, balance was key according to the authors of the book. Too high of a Strength and Agility and your body would be able to handle the stress, neither would one be able to last long without enough Endurance.

Much higher Intelligence compared to Wisdom is said to have similar effects. Headaches, dizziness, losing consciousness or even permanently damaging ones’ brain. Not enough Intelligence to keep up with your speed and having too high an Agility would be pointless.

Perception was less studied but you would still need to add some stats into Perception. As all your other stats rise regardless of physical or mental/magical your senses need to be able to keep up.