The next days flew by and Zoe reached level forty four. She leaned against a pile of fallen rubble in the dilapidated village she was in to take a deep breath and check her class options. It was the right decision, Zoe knew. But it was growing tedious. Her face lit up with as mile when she was met with an unexpected system message.

  *Ding* The following classes are available;

  Zoe dismissed the notification and ran back up the gentle slope, past the dozens of destroyed villages and farms to the dungeon entrance and found a bench to sit at. She leaned against the table and pushed the system to give her the Enchantrith class.

  It would have been nice if Emma were around to share it, but Zoe wasn’t getting a return trip for another two weeks and walking back would take far too long.

  *Ding* You have unlocked the Enchantrith class. Your body and soul will be adjusted to accommodate the change.

  Effects:

  - Enchantrith: Gain thirty fivestat points for each level in this class.

  - Mana Sight: You can see mana.

  - Mana Sea: Mana and mana regeneration boosted by 370%.

  - Mana Incarnate: All mana effects are boosted by 300%.

  - Enchanting: Imbue objects with the essence of your being.

  Available Skills:

  - Mana Affinity: Increased Mana affinity.

  - Mana Storage: Excess mana will be stored and can be used to fill enchantments.

  - Mana Manipulation: Manipulate the raw mana of the world to your will.

  - Enchantment Amplifier: Imbue objects with excess mana to amplify their effects.

  - Mana Projection: Project your mana onto distant objects.

  - Erupted Enchantments: Explode in a burst of violent mana, filling nearby objects with mana.

  - Enchanted Mirrors: Stores images that can be reflected onto an object.

  - Enchantment Bestowal: Your enchantments may bestow their effects to their wielders.

  - Immaculate Enchantments: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

  The class bonuses were incredible, for a fourth class to give almost a five times multiplier to her mana and regeneration was incredible. But Zoe looked at the skills with a curious expression. Was the class even worth taking? Was any enchanting class worth taking?

  Enchanted Mirrors and Mana Manipulation were amazing skills that Zoe could barely live without, and Mana Sight had become perhaps one of the most important aspects of her life. Without it, struggling through unlocking all the skills she had would have been almost impossible. Without taking that first enchanting class, Zoe wasn’t sure where she would have even ended up at. Dead, maybe. Overextended in some dungeon without the versatility to defend herself aptly.

  But the skills were something she could likely replace with general skills, and Mana Sight was an option in several classes that weren’t Enchanting classes. She could take some other magic class and be given Mana Sight all the same — and without one of her class effects being taken up by the Enchanting skill.

  As she began to learn more and more skills, the classes became less about the skill options and more about the actual class effects. She needed more mana, more healing, more options. Things that she couldn’t do herself — or at least was too scared to try doing herself, without the system’s expertise. Ripping apart her own body and soul to try and fit in a specific thing she wanted was something that Zoe expected to never even attempt to try.

  And if every single enchanting class would waste one of those class effects on the enchanting skill itself, then that was a significant downside to them. She’d been so stuck on wanting to take an enchanting class for the bonuses that it gave and hadn’t realized how bad the classes actually were. Even if they were great, even for as powerful as Enchantrith was, it could be outperformed by weaker classes just because they had a whole extra class effect. Another multiplier, another sense she could get used to.

  It was food for thought, another time, Zoe decided. Enchanted Mirrors was enough of a boon to her that she needed to have it — if she couldn’t get it as a general skill, then everything else was moot. It alone was larger than most class effects she’d seen. Enchanting things one by one rather than in bulk was just not an option in faster paced combat, and depending on how many mirrors this new skill gave her might even be more convenient for normal tasks. Writing or cooking could be made more convenient by not having to spend a minute enchanting something with the relevant skills.

  The skill choices were quite simple, in Zoe’s opinion. Mana Affinity, Enchanted Mirrors and Mana Manipulation were all necessities. And the remaining two slots she had would be flex slots for whatever she needed. Until her return trip back home though, Zoe decided on Erupted Enchantments and Mana Projection.

  Zoe got up and walked out to the forest surrounding the dungeon entrance to test out her new skills. Erupted Enchantments did just as Zoe expected. It almost reminded Zoe of her old Mana Surge skill but rather than causing any damage, the mana that exploded from her just seeped into everything it touched. It was beautiful, like a firework exploding around her in a colourful lightshow. And wasteful, since most of the mana didn’t hit anything regardless, just dissipating into the air above and around her.

  Mana Projection was interesting though, letting her send her mana far further than she otherwise could. At level one, she could enchant a twig on the ground four meters away from her, though the cost scaled harshly with distance. At four meters, it felt like she was spending at least ten times the mana, maybe even more.

  As enchantments, both of her new skills were fascinating. Erupted Enchantments caused an object to explode with mana — useless on its own, since it was then immediately without mana and ceased to function. But combined with her Cosmic Familiar skill allowed it to activate on command, and even itself activate other enchantments with the Cosmic Familiar skill. She could create long chains of explosions, which was fun but she struggled to see a real, practical use for it. Ideas of creating logic gates flickered around in her head with a complex combination of enchantments, but nothing concrete.

  Mana Projection made an object act as almost a director of mana — similar to when she enchanted something with Mana Manipulation, but with far more force and less precision. Mana Manipulation gave her a great deal of control over how the mana around an object would behave, while Mana Projection allowed her to direct the mana in a specific direction. Any mana near it would be hurled towards wherever Zoe told the enchantment to send it, with wanton disregard for any subtlety or nuance.

  It too acted quite nicely with her Cosmic Familiar skill, and allowed her to set up long chains of enchantments with far fewer enchantments required to get the mana the full distance. It could be used for long distance communication she supposed, with enough effort to put all of the enchantments in place and then some means of encoding and decoding the mana.

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  Enchanted Mirrors was incredible. At level one, it gave her two mirrors within her soul. With levels, would it give her more, she wondered? Could she get dozens of different pre-made enchantments for different scenarios and be even more versatile than ever before?

  Zoe shrugged and clapped her hands. She’d have all the time in the world to experiment with her new skills later. But right now there were other priorities. She walked back to the town and back into the dungeon, delving deeper than she’d ever gone before now that she had her enchanting class back. She rushed past the village she’d spent the last several weeks at and passed by several others until she settled in at a village overrun with lanky, deer-like humanoid creatures called Wendigos that were each about level eighty five. Enough to get her to eighty eight to hope.

  The weeks flew by as Zoe sat off to the side of the village firing off endless swarms of projectiles at every one of the terrible creatures that moved. She reached level eighty eight after almost three weeks, and when the system refused to show her any class options, she sighed and reset her class to try again. At almost a two percent chance, and three weeks just to check, this was looking like it would take several years to finish.

  It was worth it, Zoe reminded herself. A few years to save some levels would add up later. Each level she could save now was up to three fewer she’d need to get later, when each one would take months or even longer.

  Just under half a year later, Zoe was on her seventh attempt at getting her fifth class. She watched as her Earthian bumped up to eighty eight and took a deep breath as she urged the system to show her all of the options it had for her.

  *Ding* The following classes are available;

  “No way.” Zoe’s laughter echoed through the dimly lit tunnels. She had prepared herself for a multiple year long effort to get her fifth class and it only took a few months! It was almost a little upsetting that she got so lucky on an easier class tier — and she hoped that didn’t mean she’d be getting unlucky on her later tiers.

  Zoe ran back up the dungeon and out to the forest surrounding the dungeon entrance to take her new class.

  *Ding* You have unlocked the Death’s Master class. Your body and soul will be adjusted to accommodate the change.

  Effects:

  - Death’s Master: Gain Fifty stat points for each level in this class.

  - Life sense: You can feel the lifeforms around you

  - Well of Life: Maximum mana and health are boosted by 600%.

  - Death’s Defiance: All healing effects boosted by 550%.

  - Death’s Embrace: Magical power boosted by 550%.

  Available Skills:

  - Death Affinity: Increased Death affinity.

  - Life Affinity: Increased Life affinity

  - Death Manipulation: Manipulate the powers of death with your will.

  - Life Manipulation: Manipulate the powers of life with your will.

  - Death’s Decay: Draw from another’s life to empower your own.

  - Life’s Respite: Draw from your life to empower another’s.

  - Death’s Call: Summon the power of death on your foes.

  - Life’s Embrace: Summon the power of life on your allies.

  - Death’s Embrace: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

  - Life’s Serenity: Remove dirt and grime from objects.

  She shook her head as she read through the bonuses. Besides her Cosmic Mystic class, she wasn’t sure if any class had been quite as potent as this one. Six hundred percent to her mana and health? Zoe glanced up at her vitals.

  Health: 116235/116235

  Stamina: 4000/4000

  Mana: 1567027/1567027

  Aside from a few points put into her Strength, Dexterity and Endurance, along with all twenty eight of her birthday points into Vitality, she’d split her stats evenly between Intelligence and Wisdom. And despite a measly three hundred sixty nine vitality, she was over a hundred thousand health?

  And with not even nine hundred points into intelligence, she had a million and a half mana? Zoe stared at the numbers in shock. A million and a half mana at level eighty eight? A hundred thousand health at level eighty eight? Her four thousand stamina looked decidedly miniscule in comparison, despite being more than she needed for her purposes.

  Zoe laughed. It was almost silly — had there ever been any others at Zoe’s level who could compare to her? She dumped mana into a Cosmic Leap, sending her several kilometers away, floating in the air and watched as her mana trickled back in over the course of two seconds.

  “Ah.” Zoe said to herself. “Right. No mana regeneration bonus.”

  She floated back down to the ground and looked through the class skills. Interestingly, the class offered two cleaning skills. Was there a difference between them, Zoe wondered? And why did the class have two affinities instead of combining them into an elemental affinity with life and death?

  Zoe checked her stat sheet just to make sure it wasn’t giving her extra skill slots and saw the familiar five empty lines where her skills could sit. Maybe the intent was for somebody to decide which of the two branches they preferred? Take an affinity and a matching cleaning skill?

  Death and Life manipulation seemed almost identical. Giving her some amount of control over the life surrounding her. The bushes and trees, grass and flowers growing from the ground. Even the bugs skittering about could be somewhat suggested, directed along paths on the ground. The main difference was that Death Manipulation also allowed Zoe to destroy that which she controlled, while Life Manipulation allowed her to mend it. She could decay a fallen twig with Death Manipulation, and breathe new life into it with Life Manipulation.

  Neither had a very pronounced effect on still living things, the trees around her not reacting much and even the bugs only being somewhat suggestible. But on dead matter, broken branches and rotting trees, the skills were very potent. Letting her control them and shift their matter around, either destructively with Death Manipulation, or constructively with Life Manipulation. Interesting skills that Zoe wasn’t quite sure how she’d end up using them.

  Death’s Decay seemed to be a carbon copy of Nature’s Decay — allowing her to drain life from everything around herself to give her increased stats. Though it seemed much more potent, whether because of the class bonuses or because the skill itself was more powerful Zoe wasn’t sure.

  Life’s Respite was the opposite, allowing her to draw health from her own pool to boost creatures around her. She dumped her own health into the bugs that skittered about on the forest floor and watched as they sped up noticeably.

  Death’s Call and Life’s Embrace were similar opposites, allowing her to push far more mana into decaying or repairing life. With Death’s Call on full bore, the trees and plants around withered and died in an instant as an aura of death was cast out around her. Life’s Embrace cast out a similar, brighter aura of life that mended the destroyed forest and strengthened them beyond where they were.

  Zoe pursed her lips. All of the skills seemed useful for different purposes, and with the split of affinities she either had to take three with matching affinity, or four with at least one that didn’t have a matching affinity. For the time being, Zoe pushed the system to give her both of the affinities, as well as Death’s Decay, Life’s Respite and Life’s Embrace.

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