Several days passed in relative monotony. Train with a sword, train with spells, teach Maya, work at the barracks, study more spells and play with the baby foxes whenever time could be found. This was how Lios spent his days. On the third day after naming the foxes, he hit level ten in all of his general skills, even [Intuition] which was arguably the most esoteric of his skills.

  [Intuition] was strange in a number of ways. It could be both a social and a combat skill in that, socially, it could give the user a sense of wrongness or skepticism should someone attempt to dupe or deceive them. In combat, it could provide a sort of ‘spidey sense’ indicating that danger was near. In the early levels, the warnings it gave were relatively minor, but as he grew the skill, it would inform him even of long-range attacks passively.

  Since this skill, like all of his others, was passive, it was able to level just by having conversations or, in his case, playing games with his father in the evenings. After their conversation the other night, Lios had convinced his father to play cards with him and to cheat in order to help level the skill. Of course, if this were the only way the skill leveled, it would eventually evolve into some sort of truth seeking or gambling passive. Knowing this, Lios also attempted to use it during spars with some of the younger guards during his shifts.

  Four days after maxing out his skills, though, Lios decided it was time to get over his nerves and move forward. It was a good time to finally get his first class. I hope it isn’t too complex for a level ten class. He thought to himself anxiously. That was the real reason he had been postponing selecting a class, and he had no idea what class selection would be like. It was supposed to be different for everyone, kind of like how the System displayed itself in a different way for everyone.

  Knowing that this was the day he wanted to move forward, he sought out a friend who had been rather antisocial of late. He had never been to her house, but had seen her enter it plenty of times already, so he knew it was the correct place. The home was a bit smaller and was in desperate need of some maintenance in certain places. Cracked stones made up the foundation, and the wood that made up much of the exterior had some gaps in it, letting wind and rain through on days with poor weather.

  I didn’t realize it was so bad... the boy observed, having never been so close to his friend's house. They never talked about their economic status; why would they? Looking back, Lios realized he had only seen Rose wearing a few outfits. Frowning slightly, he stepped up to the door, trodding slowly and taking in the home with new light.

  Faintly, he could hear a pair of feminine voices from within as he neared. It sounded like an argument, but he didn’t stop to listen; it was none of his business, and he didn’t care to breach his friend’s privacy. Instead, he interrupted whatever conversation was being had by knocking three times on the door.

  Soon after the pitter-patter of footsteps seeped out and the door opened with a creak. A frowning face looked out before bursting into a wide smile as Rose registered who was at the door. “Lios? What are you doing here?”

  Lios took in his friend. At nearly twelve years old, she was taller than he was. Today she appeared to be wearing a typical green dress, but on closer look he started to notice how rough some of the seams and edges were. The dress was worn, and even the color had begun to fade from being washed and being in the sun. Still, despite finally realizing his friend’s situation on a surface level, he smiled at the sight of her. It had been over a week since last they saw each other, though ever since becoming ten she had been drifting away.

  “Hey Rose, I hadn’t seen you in a while and wanted to see if you’d want to hang out?” Lios asked sheepishly. He resisted the urge to fidget; there wasn’t a reason to. “Plus, I finally named the foxes. I thought you might like to see them?”

  “Oh, you did? I would love to, but you know my parents have been... Let me ask my mom, okay? Wait here a moment?” She trailed off and then closed the door without waiting for a reply. The young swordsman didn’t miss the expression of melancholy as his friend spoke, before she rushed back inside.

  He did his best not to listen to the hushed and muffled conversation. After only a few moments, the muffled words shifted to muted yells before quieting again. What once was a pitter-patter of feet became stomps as the door slammed open once more, Rose standing behind it with her lute in hand and boots on.

  “Let’s go. I just have to be home in time for supper.” Rose stated emotionlessly, though Lios noticed the glower in her eyes.

  They walked in silence for a few moments before he let his curiosity and concern get the better of him. “I know it’s not my business, but is everything okay, Rose?”

  “Let’s go to the clearing; maybe I’ll tell you about it...” she said in a hushed voice. Unsure which clearing she meant, Lios followed the girl. She led the way down a familiar path to a familiar rocky riverbed, the place where the pair first met after Lios’s first day of training, all those years ago.

  He felt a moment of trepidation. The last time he was in these woods, a pair of rottfangs had killed his fox friend Brioche, but he was too curious about his human friend to turn away. He followed her and found a rock to sit on, chewing the inside of his cheek as Rose sat on a large root nearer the water.

  “So, where have you been? I was startin’ to miss you.” Lios asked nonchalantly. He was worried, but he knew kids started to work with their parents around this age or had more household chores. Kids just became busier when they had skills to work on too. That was an indisputable fact in this world. In fact, he hadn’t seen Keagan, Ento, or Ralphy in months at this point, much less after turning ten.

  Last he knew, the trio had formed an adventurer party and were planning to try out for the local guild, the Iron Tigers.

  “I’ve just been working at Ma and Pa’s tavern. You know, sweeping, wiping down the tables. That sort of thing.” She plucked at the strings of her lute absently.

  “So, I just need to start visiting you there, then?”

  She looked up for a moment at the words, looking like she wanted to say something, but instead she just nodded. “Yeah, probably. My parents keep me pretty busy, and they don’t even let me play for the patrons. I keep telling them it’ll draw more customers, but they will not listen to me. They told me to get rid of my musical skills. Can you believe it?”

  She got up on her feet and set down her lute so she could start pacing back and forth. The frustration was clear in her expression; her mouth was twisted, and her eyes a bit wild. Where she had seemed hesitant to talk earlier, now that the words were flowing, it seemed they wouldn’t stop until they ran out.

  “They want me to take some class that’s related to the tavern. They say bards don’t make the most appealing wives, so I’d have a better chance of getting a good husband if I abandoned my ‘silly little dreams’. And! And they keep telling me I need to grow up. ‘Dreams are for kids,’ Mom said. Well, so what? What if I don’t want to grow up yet?”

  The girl paced frantically, occasionally tossing a glance at her friend, who sat there patiently until he got to his feet and walked toward her. She barely noticed, even with the glances she spared him. She did, however, notice when he pulled her into a hug, making sure to stand on a rock so he would be marginally taller, only by an inch. She stopped her pacing for otherwise she would drag Lios along the rocks.

  “LiLi... what are you?”

  “Rose, I don’t want to tell you what to do. I fear my ideals might lead you to regret someday, but I fear I’d regret not trying to offer you advice in your time of crisis. Would it be okay if I told you what I think?” His voice was soft. He could feel how much the girl who became his first real friend in Ravos was trembling.

  She pulled away from the hug so she could get a better look at him. Once she did, and only then, did she notice the rock he was on. Wordlessly, she giggled slightly and raised an eyebrow, flicking her gaze downward so Lios would know what she was laughing about. Then, with a smile still on her face, she nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Lios himself let out a small chuckle, a half-sincere smile as he hopped down from the large protruding stone. “Okay, well... I’d honestly say, fuck them. I mean, I understand they are your parents, but... have they even heard you sing? If they had, they’d have known you wouldn’t need a husband if you were a bard; you’d be successful all on your own! So, I would say, do what you want. It’s your life for the next ninety or more years, and if you’re especially successful, it could be far longer than ninety years.

  “I think life is too short to conform to other’s will. You have barely lived ten percent of a lifetime, and after a few years you will not be reliant on your parents anymore, anyway. Be it because you become an adult, you get married or otherwise. I’m sure their argument is you can always take a bard class at level fifty, but in reality, spending the next half-dozen years training only a class that you hate because of someone else’s desires seems miserable to me. I can’t imagine it. So, I say, do what you want. Your family will still be there. They’d be upset for a bit, but I’m sure they would come around. And if they don’t, come find me. I’ll take you somewhere when I go on my adventures.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He hadn’t expected to rant quite as much as he had. A part of it, he realized, came from the many times his teachers and parents and other adults had steered him away from his own passions in another life. He hadn’t hated being a software engineer. It had been a decently challenging and entertaining industry, but it would never have been his first choice. Initially, he had wanted to pursue filmmaking.

  Over time though, throughout high school, he had been worn down from that dream to something more reasonable, according to his parents. It wasn’t so much a regret, but it was something to lament now that he was more free to do as he wished. Unfortunately, he didn’t know if being a bard could be truly lucrative, but being an adventurer could be. Being a bard specifically for a guild could be a pretty decent life as well, so he didn’t feel too bad about pushing his own lamentations as advice in this one instance.

  “I know it isn’t easy to make such a choice, but I do really believe they would come to accept you if you made it. And, for what it’s worth, I think committing to living a life not doing something you love would make for a miserable life.” Lios shrugged at Rose, taking in her contemplation. After those last words, the duo was silent for a while until Rose sat back down and picked her lute back up. Lios watched on with curiosity when she began to sing.

  Plucking away at the chords of her instrument, her voice beginning to carry and fill the clearing. Lios closed his eyes to enjoy it. He loved the sound of her voice and the twang of the sinew strings. For a moment he was brought back in time to a moment with Jess, where the two of them danced to a folk song in their kitchen. They had both had a rather long day, he with work and she with school. She was after her master’s degree.

  He had been in the kitchen, listening to music and cooking a meal in hopes of surprising her. They had both grown sick of takeout and microwave dinners, so he had gone and bought salad fixings, a couple of pork chops and some potatoes. It was a basic meal but a delicious one. He had just flipped the pork chops in the cast iron when she came home, a tired look on her face.

  Exhausted though they both were, she came forward and wrapped him in a hug. Lios could still remember the way his heart raced despite having lived with her for almost a year at this point. Then a song came on, ‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe, a favorite of both of theirs. They turned their hug into clumsy dancing, swaying around the kitchen. Even after that song ended and the next continued, they danced together. So entranced with each other were they that they nearly burnt the pork chop, but thankfully caught it just in time.

  He replayed the memory as Rose sang, letting [Distant Recollections] recapture all of it, all the forgotten moments. For a moment, a small part of him was embarrassed by their clumsy movements. Especially compared to the him of now, the him of the past had been an atrocious dancer. The rest of him eagerly recognized these small moments as the inspiration to become a dancer in this other life. It was something he had always enjoyed despite being horrendous at it. The activity was a reminder of someone he loved more than anything else.

  “Lios...” the questioning voice broke him from his reverie. “Are you okay? You’re... you’re crying?”

  Shocked, the boy reached up to his cheeks to find that, surely enough, there were tears. He laughed a little, startling Rose. “I’m okay. I was just remembering something I hadn’t thought about in ages. Thank you... thank you for playing that song. It brought me back to a time where... Well, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Took you back? You’re starting to sound like an old man, LiLi.” The duo laughed at that and were silent for a few moments after, with her idly plucking at strings in a half-melodic pattern. “Uhm. I have a favor to ask you, though. I think I want to get my class. Can you sit with me, watch over me?”

  He shot up to his feet, excited. “Of course I can! Right now?”

  “Y... yeah. Please. I think I don’t want to force myself to do something that isn’t me.” Her hesitation was clear, but even so, there was resolve in her voice. She knew what she wanted to do, and she knew what sort of consequences there were for doing it.

  “I’ll be right here. Go ahead and lie down... Gosh, I wish I’d brought a blanket... you can use my tunic for a pillow if you like?”

  She considered it for a few moments before nodding appreciatively. “That... that might be a good idea.”

  Without hesitation, he removed his tunic, thanking himself for ensuring he wore a clean one this day. She took it from him, wadded it up, and sat cross-legged placing the tunic behind her head as she leaned back against a tree trunk. After closing her eyes, her entire body went limp, and her breath softened. To any observer, it would have looked like she had fallen asleep instantly, but Lios knew better. She had slipped into a mysterious incorporeal realm.

  Scholars the world over had attempted to discern where exactly people’s minds, or souls, went when undergoing their class evolutions, but all had come up with nothing. The most highly regarded theory was that the class space was within the individual, and that the System merely helped one to access it. Part of the reason this was such a widely respected theory was that the space where one selected their class was different for everyone.

  Some folks might have a similar space, but akin to snowflakes, no two were an exact match. The space was even inconsistent between class evolutions, shifting as the user grew and their preferences changed. There was a single consistency, and that was the fact that upon entering the class realm, one’s body would lie there, limp and unaware of the goings on around them.

  Another interesting nuance of this procedure was that the amount of time taken to decide on a class did not necessarily correspond with the amount of time that passed outside. Many stories alluded to the fact that one could spend hours or even days within the class space while only minutes passed in the real world. There were some other cases where one spent mere minutes in the class space, feeling confident in their choice from the outset, but outwardly they did not regain consciousness for several hours.

  With all of this in mind, Lios decided to use this time as he used most of his time - for training. His current skills were all already maxed out, but that didn’t stop him before he got access to the System, so it wouldn’t stop him now either. He didn’t have his sword with him, but he did locate a decently straight branch that he could use in its stead. The weight of it threw him off a touch, but there was something he had wanted to try.

  So, he set off to dance. Within ten seconds, despite the rocky and uneven terrain, a spell had been woven. It was similar to the spell he used against the rottfang only a few weeks prior, with one major difference. Instead of wrapping his blade in flame mana, he wanted to use wind mana. And so, when he activated the spell, he felt a torrent of wind come from behind him.

  His trousers flapped in the sudden gust, his shoulder-length hair whipping this way and that, as a blade of air formed over the rounded edges of the stick. The wind was so powerful that it even stripped some of the bark from the branch, revealing the light flesh of the oak.

  The boy let out a loose laugh, astounded that both portions of his experiment had worked. The stick could hold the spell, even if only for a moment! He wasn't limited to just fire spells either. With this, his mind whirred with excitement. With anticipation. What other elements could he use? Was he able to use all of them regardless of affinity?

  He knew most wizards could cast spells outside of their actual affinities, but that it could be a struggle to do so. This second working of magic had seemed just as seamless as the first. The mana had flowed naturally through his body and into the rune circle as he drew it. The wind seemed to be behaving just as he had wanted it to, as well. On one side of the stick, a blade of wind surged upward, while on the other side it tore downward, forming a sort of split saw. The wind, as spells written with Lexico runes were wont to do, followed his intent perfectly. As long as the circle was well balanced, the spell would do as the user intended.

  It took an iota of willpower to hold the spell together, and Lios got a decent idea of how long it would last. Like the flame spell, this one would last less than ten seconds. He had only fed it a small amount of mana, and it was only a five-rune spell after all. Wanting to waste no time, and already having used several seconds admiring the blade of wind, he curiously brought the stick down on the branch of a small shrub.

  He swung the stick as he would a longsword, though gently. Wanting to see if the wind cut through the branch before his stick broke it, he did not cleave downward with might. True to his expectations, the blade of wind easily cut through a half inch thick branch, cleanly sundering it before the wind on his blade dissipated due to a loss of focus.

  As the wind faded, the translucent, half-physical form of mana blew gently back into the air. Lios took a glance down at the stick he had been using for practice. Nearly all the bark lining its exterior had been stripped away, and the stick itself was smooth as though treated with sandpaper. A small amount of sap dripped down its edges, causing the pale oak to glisten in the afternoon sun.

  Not wanting to stop practicing, and having another spell to try, Lios began another dance. As he moved, he began to hum a tune, one that was once long forgotten but in recent days had come back to him. Under his breath, he began to sing as he carefully made his way over the rocks, wary of slipping and injuring his ankle or leg.

  In under fifteen seconds, the spell was complete, and with a heavy anticipatory breath, he activated it. A flood of mana, nearly twice that of either the flame or wind spell despite using similar runes and intent, rushed out of him. The hair on his arms and legs stood up as the world responded to his spell.

  With a crackle, blue energy, lightning itself, wrapped around the stick he was treating as a blade. Wreathed in electricity, the wood began to darken. The words on the boy’s lips faded as his focus was drawn to the results of this latest spell. He couldn’t stare straight at the weapon, for if he did, he feared he would be blinded. Still, he took it in his periphery, listening to the angry crackle before thoughtlessly plunging the tip into a stone at his feet.

  A burst of sound met him, not so dissimilar to thunder if only thunder were right beside him, forcing him to stumble backwards clumsily. He found his footing, but doing so cost him his focus. As he lost his concentration, the energy faded away, dissipating into the surrounding air, and the world around him felt as though it grew darker, a source of light snuffed out. In its place was a smoking stick with burnt lines etched throughout it, erratic designs that represented the wrath of the untamed beast he had just attempted to use.

  Turning from the stick, his eyes fell on the stone he had stabbed so recklessly to find that it had been split. It had been split with a stick. Best be careful with that one... he thought before a cackle escaped his lips. A wild glance was thrown to his friend as she still lay there with her eyes closed.

  It took a full minute for the exhilaration to fade and for his manic laughter to stop echoing between the trees and rocks. Once he settled down, he fell backwards, sitting on a boulder tiredly. The draw of mana for the last spell combined with the general fatigue that came with training every day forced him to rest. A touch lightheaded, he set down his newest practice sword, a stick that could pierce stone and slice through wood with the ease of a knife through butter, and resumed singing.

  When Rose woke up nearly half an hour later, she was greeted with an unfamiliar song in an unfamiliar language, sung by a voice that was not accustomed to singing. It was a nice sound, if rough around the edges, and she continued lying with her eyes closed until the song met its end, despite her excitement to talk about her new class.