It had been two days since Kumo got her class evolution. She had got to try out all her new capabilities on a few monsters that dared to attack the boat. It was nothing she couldn’t handle alone, but Synexus jumped in to try and get Body Transmutation leveled up by using it in combat. Gene and Vorin suggested this might be faster. Gene also had regulated him to take a break before using the skill again. This had slowed down his progress even more, but Synexus didn’t want to push too hard too fast.

  Today had been pretty boring so far, however, it was a chance for them all to talk. A lot of the passengers were on the top deck enjoying the nice weather too and one was sharing how excited they were to get to their destination. They didn’t like being on the water, but trusted Captain Vorin. All the class chosen listened intently as he went on and on about all his plans when they docked. Synexus had discovered that those younger than twenty were often called class expected though Vorin didn’t like to call them that because he was not a fan of putting labels on people. He firmly believed that it didn’t matter. They were all just people.

  Mipp cut Rupert off mid-sentence. “I think you may be boring everyone.”

  Everybody on deck laughed except for Rupert. “Look Mipp, some of us enjoy time with our family. What’s wrong with me being excited?”

  “Nothing, but you’re telling someone that can literally summon a storm, how excited you are about trying out some pastry shop.”

  This got another laugh from everyone, even Rupert this time. “Hey! That was the one part of his plans that I was excited for. I already made a mental note to try one of these pastries. It was everything else that I zoned out for.” Kumo jumped in after Mipp had dragged her into it.

  “Well then pastries on Rupert when we get to the port city.” Mipp replied.

  “Woah now, I didn’t say that. I had to work for a whole year and still borrow from my uncle to afford the fare, and supplies. I say pastries are on Synexus.” Rupert quickly stated.

  Everyone nodded in agreement at that. Kumo smiled and said, “at this point it’s more like houses on Synexus or at least a whole set of legendary gear per passenger.”

  This got the biggest laugh of all out of everyone. Synexus felt like he had to say something at this point. “You can get your own houses. I will partake in these pastries though. I don’t think I’ve ever had a few of the ones you spoke of.”

  A cheer of approval echoed out from the deck of the Windswept. It was a good day. The sky was a beautiful blue, and the breeze felt nice. You could smell the salt in the air, and it was invigorating. Synexus turned to look off the front of the ship. He scanned the horizon where it looked like the sky and ocean blended into one. That’s when he got the notification from his new achievement.

  Name: Munnin

  Race: Human

  Class: Pirate LV 27

  Synexus squinted but couldn’t see anything with his regular eyes. Normally that skill needs focus on whatever he wanted information about. He was focusing on the horizon. His skill must have thought he was focusing on the person. It must be another ship, but he wanted to make sure. Someone else was carrying on the conversation about pastries, so he cut them off.

  “Hey Vorin, what’s a P-I-R-A-T-E?”

  Alarm overtook Vorin’s face. “Why? Do you see someone?”

  “Yes, off on the horizon. I don’t see them myself, but my new skill from that achievement I told you about gave me information on someone. They are a level 27 pirate.”

  “Everyone who isn’t class chosen needs to get below deck now! Class chosen on me.”

  There was a scramble as the passengers and crew ran downstairs. The rest of them followed Vorin up to the very front of the ship and he pulled out a cylindrical tube and pressed it to his eye.

  “This is a spyglass that works by amplifying your perception tenfold. Pirates are never seen on this route. We may need to take them out.”

  “Take them out? But they are human. Can’t we just talk to them?” Synexus questioned.

  Zuls looked at him with a sad look. “I know you’ve lived a fairly sheltered life, but some people are worse than monsters. We will try to detain them. It may come down to ending them though.”

  “She’s right Synexus. Back in Whisper I saw my fair share of criminals. They would come to town thinking since we were a small settlement that they could get away with things. The things they did were horrendous. Monsters wouldn’t even go that far. They won’t hesitate like you are now.” Kumo added.

  “Okay, but they are so far away. Can we just avoid them? We don’t need to confront them at all.”

  “We can try, but pirate classes often have much better perception while on the sea. There is a good chance they have already seen us. I know you have reservations Synexus and that’s admirable, but if it comes down to them against anyone on this ship, it will be them.” Vorin had a serious tone in his voice and Synexus could tell this wouldn’t be his first kill.

  “They will meet the edge of my blade before they lay a finger on anyone on this ship, Captain.” Prith chimed in after being quiet for much of the day.

  Synexus thought about it for a moment while the faces of his friends had pitiful looks. They didn’t want him to cross this line because they knew there was no going back, but this was the world, and he would have to learn sometime. It was just like letting the deer fall victim to the wolf or get away on its own. This was the nature of people.

  “I understand. We do what we must. That is our burden.”

  Vorin nodded at him and then everyone got ready for a fight.

  ***

  It had been a couple of hours, and they were all on high alert. Each of them had a section of the ship to look over and make sure no one would get on board. The ship never came into view and Synexus was starting to believe that his skill either gave him random nonsense, or the ship was going away from them.

  Captain Vorin gathered them all and was about to say they were all clear when there was a shimmer off the port side of the ship. An entire pirate ship, even bigger than the Windswept appeared out of nowhere. Everyone went silent as a pirate appeared before them the same way.

  “Ah, the ghost ship skill. I haven’t seen that one in a while.” Vorin was the first to speak and it seemed he had run-ins with pirates before. “Who are you?”

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  “I see you have knowledge of my class.” He started pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back. “I will be the one giving orders and asking questions from now on.”

  Without even thinking about it, Synexus focused on the man before them.

  Name: Plitheus

  Race: Human

  Class: Pirate Captain of The Last Heartbeat LV 34

  “Captain, his name is Plitheus. He is a Pirate Captain of The Last Heartbeat.”

  Vorin and Plitheus looked at Synexus in surprise. “Captain Plith, huh? I heard you died along with your ship. That must have been an exaggeration.” Vorin had a little mocking tone in his voice.

  “I’m not sure how this kid knows me, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve never even come close to death, so your information is bad it seems. Now, everybody will be handing over everything they own, or we will kill everyone and take it.”

  “You’ll die trying.”

  “Captain, I’ve heard that from all of the other captains too but guess whose corpses are rotting at the bottom of the ocean.” Plitheus put a hand on the pommel of his sword. “They put their pride in front of the lives of the people they were meant to protect too.”

  Anger flashed on Vorin’s face as he gripped his scythes. Synexus saw all of this and saw his companions reaching for their weapons as well. He had to at least try and stop this.

  “Please, there doesn’t have to be bloodshed. No one on this ship has anything valuable except me. I’ll give you all three thousand gold guins and in exchange you let us go free.”

  “Three thousand gold guins? That may be able to work. Are you sure you can back up those words though? That’s an awful lot for a kid.” Plitheus looked skeptical and his hand tightened its grip on the sword.

  “I can.” He reached in and grabbed a handful to show the pirate. “They are all in my dimension bag. Take them and go.”

  “I still feel like we are getting the bad end of this deal. We spent hours sneaking up on you lot. That amount barely covers our time.”

  Vorin calmed down a little and spoke. “Please, you know you’ve never seen that much in your life. He’s good for it. Just take the money.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of time to stare at this pretty one here.” He looked at Kumo. “I had plans for tonight when I killed the rest of you. I’ll take the deal, but we get to keep her too.”

  Kumo scoffed and was about to reply when Synexus spoke, “she’s not a bargaining chip and I’d watch what I say about her or the deals off.”

  She couldn’t believe the seriousness in his voice when he said that. It was a threat, and the captain heard it too.

  “Kid, is her life worth more than the other what? 30 on this ship. Just forget about her. Find a new girlfriend. You’ll all live. I’ll get a new piece of art to stare at when I’m counting all my gold. It’s a good deal.”

  Anger shot through Synexus and he grabbed his katana. In this same instance the pirate captain made his move. He was so fast that it was hard to track him. This was the benefit of being at a higher level, but it didn’t necessarily make him more powerful. He just had more stats. The attack was aimed at Vorin. It never got to him.

  A second after the pirate captain started to move, a powerful gust of wind came out of nowhere and nearly blew him over the edge of the ship. Unfortunately, he caught himself on the railing. Kumo summoned a storm cloud and then shot ten cloud blades forward with the power of a tempest behind them.

  Plitheus barely evaded them as they sliced through the metal railing and left deep cuts in the pirate ship. Lightning strikes started to come down striking a few of the pirate crew trying to board. The rain had a visible effect on the pirate captain and the pirates still on their ship. It was like they were moving through mud. This allowed Vorin to land a few gashes on the pirate captain with his scythes. His ability required him to open wounds first or that would have been it.

  A magical cannonball shot through the heavy rain making Vorin back off the pirate captain for a moment. That was all Plitheus needed to jump back to his ship. Once he was back on board, the pirates started a barrage on the Windswept. Vorin had told him the ship had magical defenses, but Synexus hadn’t seen them in action. The cannonballs were exploding into mana upon hitting the shields on the hull.

  Prith yelled out to Kumo and Synexus, “the pirates will be stronger now that their captain is back on the ship. Watch out!”

  The fight had begun in earnest and there were spells everywhere. Magic cannonballs exploding against the hull, magical blunderbuss shooting at them, one seemed to be shooting guin at them somehow, and a lot of them had abilities to quickly close in to fight with rapiers and then immediately be back on their ship. This was Synexus’ first real fight with class chosen and it was chaos.

  Zuls had four animal companions out doing work to thin out the pirates which outnumbered them by more than thirty. Prith was dealing with the melee pirates. Their sword skills were nothing compared to his. Kumo was using her vortex from her bracers to trap escaping pirates and then she would launch cloud blades to finish them off. Her lightning bolts from above were hitting their targets and doing massive damage. The air instantly became thick with the smell of blood, burnt flesh, rain, and gunpowder.

  Vorin was focused on keeping the pirates off his ship, so he was spreading his plagues with efficiency anytime they dared to board. Synexus was helping him by using his katana on any that didn’t instantly die from the plague. It was a horrific scene for him, and he didn’t like cutting into humans, but they threatened everyone on the ship including Kumo. If they were to survive then how many innocent people would they rob and kill? Is this what it meant to be class chosen?

  The pirates’ numbers were dropping quickly, and the number of stray spells were decreasing with them. This seemed to be too much for Plitheus as the pirate ship started to pull away from the Windswept. Kumo wasn’t going to allow this. Her vortex shot out targeting the pirate captain standing on the deck of his ship. He shot toward her as if being picked up by an invisible force, but the moment he crossed the threshold of the Windswept’s deck, Vorin was there to deliver his plague. It must have been a particularly nasty one because boils started to develop all over his skin. He started to cough up blood, and in between coughs he spoke his last words, “the armada will have fun with you.”

  Vorin understood quickly and checked the horizon. He didn’t see anything, but that worried him more. “We need to stop that ship. If they get away and tell the others what happened here, we will be hunted.”

  Synexus yelled to Kumo, “give me the strongest breeze you got!”

  He ran and jumped off the side of the ship, and a massive gust of wind hit him in the back. For a moment he flew through the air like a soaring eagle. The next moment he landed hard onto the deck of the Last Heartbeat. He ignored the pirates and reached into his bag for seeds he never thought he’d use.

  The other night he had worked on random seeds when he was grinding Gene Library before it evolved to Genome Refinement. One of those was taking regular grass and adding in the property of magical weight from the titan tree. He had made roughly fifty of these seeds as random practice.

  He took all fifty seeds and threw them all over the deck of the ship and onto the pirates. Immediately he followed up by pushing his mana out and using Extreme Growth on all fifty at once. This took a considerable amount of mana due to the number and distance, but the result was worth it. The seeds started rapidly growing making hundreds or even thousands of blades of grass that all weighed thousands of pounds. The pirates that had seeds on them immediately fell to the deck. The ship itself started to groan and then tilted on its starboard side. It was going to capsize.

  Synexus reacted quickly and jumped towards the Windswept to be hit with another gust of wind at his back. It was amazing Kumo could do it at this distance. It wouldn’t get him all the way back, so he quickly had his arm take on the genes of the binding vine and swung it towards the railing. It caught and the others pulled him up. That’s when he got multiple notifications.

  You Have Slain Pirate LV 25

  You Have Slain Pirate LV 28

  You Have Slain Pirate LV 23

  Body Transmutation has leveled up!

  Body Transmutation is now level 10!

  Body Transmutation has upgraded

  Body Transmutation: You may now take on properties from entries in any of your gathering skills. You can take on the properties on a bigger portion of your body. You can now switch the properties your body takes on without waiting for the skill to wear off. The time your body retains the properties remains the same.

  You have leveled up!

  You are now level 10!

  Class Evolution is Available