But Sam didn't quite have an answer to that question, "Mate, you didn't tell me what kind of classes there were. I don't fucking know."
"Did you want me to give you a list?" Ashton scoffed, raising his staff up and putting it behind his neck, "There's any class you can think of. Swordsman, mage, necromancer, fisherman, farmer, architect, blacksmith, librarian, entomologist-"
"Entomologist?"
"Yeah, you know... someone that studies insects?"
"... That's a class?"
"Why wouldn't it be? Any job title you can think of probably has its own class. Each class also has their own conditions that need to be fulfilled so that you can attain them. Every subsequent class will then have more complex and harder to attain conditions."
Sam widened his eyes, "You can have more than one class?"
"Mhm. Though realistically, the limit is three or four. Five is also technically possible, though at that point, your levelling speed slows to a total crawl," Ashton explained, but by then, Sam was already deep in thought, "But if you hit the right synergies between classes... the potential could be pretty high, right?"
It wasn't a question that Sam wanted answered - rather, even if Ashton tried, his words wouldn't get through anymore anyway.
Sam was mumbling to himself, trying to figure out some interesting or fun combos, even if he didn't know anything about how skills worked yet. That was just his game developer's instincts going at it. Though he was the Art Director at Calibur right now, back when the company started out, he did a massive amount of game design as well.
Somehow, now that Ashton had spent a bit more time with Sam again, he had come to remember a lot of the things that he couldn't recall just a day ago. It was a nice sensation. Even so, Ashton couldn't let him drift off right now.
He held his hand in front of his friend's face and clicked his fingers, quickly getting Sam's attention back.
"First and foremost, think about what you want your main class to be, meaning your first class," Ashton explained, stepping in front of him, "To begin with, you can divide the classes into four important fields. Combat, production, research, or leadership. They're pretty self-explanatory."
"... Would art count as-"
"Production, yes. Now, I know what you're probably thinking, that combat is the only one that makes sense, right?"
Sam shrugged, "Sort of. I've got experience and can handle a fight."
"Right, but you're also a great leader. People trust you. And since we're probably going down the 'War Route' here, leaders are a necessity. So even if you may not direct personal growth, that's still fine and useful."
For a moment, Sam kept thinking, though he was also preoccupied with looking around himself, to make sure there were no monsters sneaking up on them. Ashton seemed almost too casual about all of this, just standing here in the middle of the road.
"If I could choose... I think I would like to be an artist. But maybe that's not a good choice for now."
"... Right. Artists are a type of class that you can only afford once things are relatively safe. Or, you choose it as your secondary or tertiary class. As you were thinking just now, there are some unique synergies that can occur with skills. If you do things right, you can even get your hands on a specific skill that comes from two or more of your classes," Ashton explained, "But for now, you do have to consider something else. If you want, you can get rid of classes later, though you will lose most of your stat growth and all your skills from whatever class you get rid of. So... yeah, focus on survival for now."
"What would you recommend?" Sam asked, and Ashton smiled as though he was waiting to be asked this exact question. He turned around and continued walking down the road.
"For you, as your first class, I recommend a combat focused class. I know you've done a lot of martial arts growing up, so just pick your favourite and go for it."
Sam nodded, already considering all the choices, "Any reason why you want me to take a combat class first?"
"Of course. In the world we now live in, for at least a considerable amount of time, strength is what matters most. Now, if you had a lot of trusted, extremely strong individuals around you, you could get away with starting with a leadership class. But no, right now, a combat class is the best path for you personally. You can still be a leader without the corresponding class, but becoming a fighter without a combat class is much harder," as Ashton spoke, a group of three small goblins were coming across the corner. It was a bit of a shocking sight, since they weren't wearing their usual, tattered old clothing, but instead some kids' outfits they probably stole from a home. They were even wearing decent shoes. It was almost uncanny, "If you can't prove that you're strong enough to deserve your position, you're going to lose it, is basically what I'm saying. Plus, if you don't want to be a leader in the first place, that gives you the option for that as well."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Ashton approached the trio of goblins. The moment they saw him, they yelled out and ran at him all together. One was carrying a regular goblin spear, the other a slingshot, and the last of them seemed to have swapped out its rusty old dagger with a meat cleaver. That one would actually be a pretty neat weapon to have around.
Sam was startled and a bit nervous, looking at the monsters, "And... what do I need to do to get a class once I've decided?"
"Using the method you want to get your class for, defeat a certain amount of creatures," Ashton said clearly. "With a sword, you'll get the swordsman class. With a staff, you'll get the staff fighter class." He used his staff to knock the three goblins down pretty easily, sweeping away the feet of two and hitting the last into the forehead.
"... Is any one better than the others?" Sam watched all of this, rather perplexed.
Ashton leaned onto his staff and thought about the answer for a moment, "Not really? They each have their benefits and shortcomings. It's more important to be comfortable with your class. If you choose to change from... let's say swordsman to staff fighter, there are ways to transfer a portion of your experience from one to the other. The system is shockingly accommodating for matters like that."
"... How stupid would it be to fight without a weapon?"
"Not necessarily stupid," Ashton kept knocking down the goblins, avoiding killing them. It actually felt a little like he was bullying them, so he thought it would be great if Sam made a choice soon, "Now, as an unarmed fighter, you're putting yourself more into harm's way, but they're sturdy, can react at a moment's notice even when they're surprised because they don't need to ready a weapon, and for you personally, I feel like it might be a good match. You're a tall mountain of muscles, so you've got the weight advantage. And you've got experience with it."
"Okay, then I'll give it a go. And I have to... kill them?"
"Not technically. There's a lot of conditions that you can fulfil. You can choose to either kill a smaller amount, or knock out a larger amount. But even if you don't kill them, I will right after. Don't worry too much, though, they have artificial consciousnesses that are programmed to kill us the moment they have a chance. So if you don't kill them, they'll kill you or a whole bunch of other people. Come on already, I can only knock them down so many times before they just drop dead."
Sam let out a slight groan and nodded his head. Until now, he was carrying around a replica sword they had at the office, which was what he had used to kill the first main quest's monsters. It was just out of necessity, and because it was simply easier to do. But now, he gave it over to Ashton to hold.
"So do I... uh... just punch them?"
"Do whatever you want. I'm going to let them loose now, alright?"
Sam nodded, and Ashton stepped back. So that the fight was a bit easier for a classless individual, Ashton had pushed away the goblins' weapons with his staff. Sure, Sam might need to hit a lower count of opponents to beat if they were armed, but that was too risky for now. As there was no shortcoming of monsters to fight, it was better to be safe and give Sam more actual life or death fighting experience before amping things up.
Sam placed his left foot slightly forward and bent his knees just so slightly, holding his clenched fists near his chin. With a swift motion, he quickly and immediately struck sideways at the first goblin, hitting the goblin's cheek. It was knocked back and fell to the ground. The other two goblins jumped at Sam, but he quickly built distance and punched the next straight on the nose. It, also, fell to the ground. For the third, Sam left his boxing pose and swept its feet of the ground. While it fell, Sam reached down and once again punched the goblin straight in the face, knocking it down.
"That... was easy. Does that count?" Sam looked over at Ashton, who just shook his head.
"The opponents need to either be unable to continue fighting, or willingly give up to count as having 'beat' them. These guys will not willingly give up, so you have to either knock them out. Or, well, kill them. Also, watch out," Ashton looked down at his watch to check the time. It was 7am now. There would be a few hours between the end of quest 1 and the start of quest 2, and he wanted to make sure that Sam got his class before the second quest even started, to set him up for as much growth as possible.
For now, Ashton walked over to that meat cleaver he took from the goblin. It wasn't perfectly sharp anymore, since the goblin probably didn't use it perfectly, but that was relatively easy to fix.
By the time Ashton looked back over at Sam, one of the goblins was fully knocked out, another was struggling to get back on its feet, and the last was currently in a chokehold. The goblin was trying to claw at Sam's arm and pull it away, but before long, its arms fell limp to the side and Ashton just let go of it.
With the monster fallen to the ground, Sam walked past the last that was barely conscious, kicked it in the face while it was still on all fours, and also knocked that one out. He was breathing pretty heavily, but he was quite happy as well. He felt strong, taking out three monsters like that.
"Okay, perfect," Ashton handed the cleaver to the backpacker and asked for his knife instead, walking over to the goblins, "Three down. It took me thirty, so let's aim for that for now."
Sam's smile immediately disappeared. "Thirty? Are you serious?"
"Only if you decide to finish them off. Otherwise, I expect it's going to be more like... sixty, seventy, maybe?"
"... But... I can't just kill things like that, how could I..?"
Ashton stared at Sam, "You already killed 5 of them. Why is it a problem now?"
"Well, then I had to. I was going to be killed if I didn't, the quest said so," he pointed out, as if it were obvious, "Also, mate, for the record. It was... it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."
Of course, Ashton also hesitated to kill for the first time. But again, it was unavoidable, "Okay, so if you don't kill them, they will kill you. Those are the only two options. You can't make peace, you can't talk this out. The moment they recover even a little bit? They're going to kill you. They are forced to do this. And trust me, I don't want to necessarily do this either, because I know what it feels like to be forced to kill, but-" Ashton was feeling himself get riled up a little. He closed his eyes, and sighed. "It's fine to not kill them right now if you're not ready yet. But if you can't kill them, just because you don't have a quest telling you to, then you're going to die. Or, well, you need to pick a non-combat class and let others do the fighting. But knowing you..."
"... I'm not going to do that. Okay, fine," Sam stared at the goblins. They were still unconscious, barely starting to wake up again.
Ashton watched with a weight on his heart. After all, Sam was the kindest person he had ever known, and he hoped that today would not change that.
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