Frostbitten Wayfarer

Most of the classes that the system offered her were the same as before, though without Temporal Anomaly because of one of its requirements. Interesting to Zoe, [Seasoned Frost] was still available, despite her already having the class. The only ones she found interesting from her previous choices were [Seasoned Frost], [Elemental Master], and [Runic Acolyte].

The latter two would give her some additional diversity in what she could do, while the first just made her curious about what would happen if she took the same class twice. She dismissed the rest of the options that she recognized and looked through the new classes she was offered.

[Frozen Healer] Slow death’s inevitable grasp and mend wounds with the power of frost. Increased healing capabilities. Increased Cold Affinity.

Requirements: Has the [Seasoned Frost] class, has the [Restoration] skill, has the [Cold Affinity] skill

[Accelerated Arsenal] Fend off foes with your superior speed and an endless horde of weapons by your side. Increased quickness. Increased time affinity.

Requirements: Has the [Seasoned Frost], class, has the [Alacrity] skill, has the [Frozen Arsenal] skill

[Adept Enchanter] A pursuer of mana, imbuing objects with powerful effects. Increased mana regeneration. Increased maximum mana.

Requirements: Has the [Enchanting] skill at level 50 or higher.

Notes: The [Enchanting] skill will be removed and merged with this class.

[Chrono Enchanter] A pursuer of time and mana, imbuing objects with powerful effects. Increased mana regeneration. Increased time affinity.

Requirements: Has the [Enchanting] skill at level 50 or higher, has a time aligned class.

Notes: The [Enchanting] skill will be removed and merged with this class.

Accelerated Arsenal was a bad option, in her eyes. It seemed strictly combat focused. She might get some extra speed out of it, but it didn’t seem like it would have good options available for her if she wanted to spend a year not seeking out the next big battle to fight.

The two enchanting classes seemed interesting to her, though Chrono Enchanter seemed strictly better for her. Higher requirements meant it was probably the better choice as long as she liked the time alignment. Which she thought she did.

Frozen Healer was an interesting one of course. Cold affinity would help her out quite a lot with her Seasoned Frost skills, and increased healing capabilities alone was probably going to be a game changer for how safe she’d feel in the wilderness. Let alone all the skills she would get from the class that would also end up helping out.

Between Chrono Enchanter and Frozen Healer though, she wasn’t really sure which she preferred. Enchanting was something that she had found to be quite enjoyable. But Frozen Healer was likely objectively better at keeping her alive, which was also important.

She already had good healing and would get better at it in time as she levelled her skills though, so it wasn’t as though she really needed a dedicated healing class. But a dedicated enchanting class would probably give her many more capabilities.

Zoe took a breath and let her racing mind calm down a little. The choice didn’t matter much here, not really. Even if she did get a bunch of levels, she wasn’t taking her final class here anyway. Whatever she ended up taking, she was going to replace with something else later on when she racked up more achievements and feats.

The only risk was if she got a bunch of levels right away, she’d want to take advantage of them at least until she got to Moaning Point and settled in a bit in Gafoda. Once she knew how to handle Moaning Point, knew what level of risk she was taking on, she could switch it out no matter how many levels she ended up getting

Between Frozen Healer and Chrono Enchanter, she decided that she’d prefer the enchanting. Healing was nice, but if she ended up developing a reliance on that increased healing power it would make it much more difficult to switch out later on. She had acceptable healing already and had done her research on the dungeon she was going to. More healing wasn’t going to be necessary.

More enchanting though, might let her make better plans and traps. It might even help her with making money to continue affording food and other comforts she might want to take advantage of. It was a no brainer for her.

If she later ended up deciding on a different class then she might lose whatever enchanting specific capabilities she got from the enchanting class, and possibly all the levels she had in Enchanting right now. But she could get those levels back and the other class would give her fun skills to enchant with too anyway.

So that left the classes she already knew. Runic Acolyte would probably come with some kind of benefit even if she didn’t know any runes right now. But if it didn’t then it would be entirely useless to her until she researched more, which meant sticking around in Flester for even longer. Or maybe hoping somebody in Gafoda would be willing to teach her.

Not really an option at the moment. Seasoned Frost was interesting just to see what it would do if she took it again, but if it just gave the same skills then that would end up being a bit of waste. So really the choices came down to Chrono Enchanter or Elemental Master.

Elemental Master was likely the most powerful class she had that didn’t risk being purely combat focused, though its description did seem to imply a lot of destruction. An Elemental Master who couldn’t freely manipulate the elements would be pretty lackluster though so she imagined it would have some degree of freedom at the least.

But would it have as much as Chrono Enchanter? Offensively, Elemental Master was probably going to be better. But it didn’t have the same kind of financial benefit or the entertainment that enchanting gave her.

The dungeon was relatively safe at the lower levels according to the research she’d done. She didn’t need an incredible offensive power. It would help, but so would being able to enchant her gear with more powerful enchantments. Or whatever else the enchanting class ended up offering her.

She settled on her decision, took a deep breath to prepare herself for what was to come and urged the system to give her Chrono Enchanter. But the pain she expected didn’t come.

Instead, a gentle power washed over the very essence of her being. She felt it twisting and warping her but rather than the intense pain she felt from her first class, it was more of a tickle. Pokes and prods tickled her as the system made its adjustments. What she noticed first was how her vision had changed. Wisps of colourful light danced around the room, bouncing around on the walls and furniture.

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

Effects:

- Chrono Enchanter: Gain ten stat points and one wisdom for each point in this class.

- Mana Sight: You can see mana.

- Mana Well: Mana and mana regeneration boosted by 100%

- Mana Beat: All mana and time aligned effects are boosted by 50%

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

Available Skills:

- Time Affinity: Increased Time affinity.

- 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.

- Enchanted Mirror: Stores an image that can be reflected onto an object.

- Mending: Mend minor breaks in objects, preserving their enchantments.

- Acceleration: Bend time around an object such that it experiences the passage of time quicker.

- Alacrity: Permanently increases quickness.

- Immaculate Enchantments: Remove dirty and grime from objects.

Zoe checked her stat sheet quickly to see what level she ended up at and hoped it would tell her how many skills she had available. Earthian had levelled to twenty-five and Chrono Enchanter had five empty skill slots listed below it.

Earthian being at level twenty-five was strange in itself though, she thought. Why weren’t her other classes getting a level? And if it was just her own personal level then why would it go to her racial class and not a separate line for her level? She shrugged, that wasn’t important right now.

What was important was deciding on her skills. She was going to be alone for a while and so taking a cleaning skill seemed like a convenient idea. The question was which class she should take it in. Seasoned Frost already had five skills she was happy with so it depended on whether she could find five skills she enjoyed from Chrono Enchanter.

Both of the affinities were definite takes, if she was going to keep trusting Joe and Emma. And the rest of the skills seemed really useful too, unfortunately.

Her first test was taking Alacrity to see if it even did anything if she stacked two of them. As soon as she took the skill she noticed the world around her slow down even more. It might be useful if she wanted to be fast but that really wasn’t her ultimate goal.

Mana Storage seemed convenient, but if she was patient she could just use the mana before it became excess. If she was planning on sleeping and if the skill worked while she slept, it might end up being useful. But if she really needed to maximize her mana usage like that she could do it actively.

That left five skills that she wanted to test, so she grabbed Mana Manipulation, Enchanted Mirror, Mending, Acceleration and Immaculate Enchantments.

Taking Enchanted Mirror felt strange. The rest of the skills were a slight tingling if they were even noticeable. But Enchanted Mirror was very tangible. She felt the system working around inside of her being and it was rather uncomfortable.

Zoe poked around inside herself when it was done and found it much clearer to see what she was doing now. There was what seemed like a standing mirror resting inside what she was calling her soul now. She tried to interact with it and found that it behaved much like an object saturated with her mana.

She worked to solidify the mana in it in the shape of her meditation skill, and the mirror reflected the image back to her. Zoe grabbed a coin from her bracelet, flooded it with her mana and found it a little surprising how quick the process was now.

Then she turned her attention back to the mirror and urged it to reflect the enchantment towards the coin. In an instant the image flashed through the coin and solidified the mana. Zoe looked back at the mirror and found the image was still present on the mirror.

Zoe tried to combine enchanting onto the mirror as well and found it much simpler than before. It was still a little tricky but she didn’t need to maintain both images perfectly before she did it. She was able to just overwrite Enchanting onto the mirror that already had Meditation and just had to be careful that she didn’t completely destroy the previous enchantment.

After she was done she flashed it onto another coin and the coin absorbed the mana around it to fill the enchantment back up as it broke down.

Enchanted Mirror was a definite take, she thought. If she could build up a useful enchantment on the mirror and then just flash it onto objects on the fly that would make a massive difference for her in so many different scenarios she could imagine. If anything she wanted more mirrors so she could have a bunch of different premade enchantments ready to go. Maybe as it levelled up she’d get more freedom.

Next was Acceleration. Zoe focused on the skill and tried to speed up the coin’s time but while the enchantment broke down faster, the mana that swirled around it was still moving at the same pace.

Which was a great opportunity to test out her Mana Manipulation. She focused on the skill and tried to urge the wisps of mana she could see towards the coin. It was fairly simple as she drew on her experience with the Frost skill, and the mana rushed towards the coin which eagerly ate it up to repair the enchantment.

She wasn’t really sure what she could do with the mana other than move it around though. Maybe she could move it towards herself while she meditated? It seemed somewhat useful for maintaining enchantments, and maybe if she enchanted something with the skill it would be useful. But she just didn’t understand what mana really was well enough to take advantage of it yet.

Her next test was Mending. First she took one of her enchanted coins and bent it in half. The enchantment within broke from the damage and mana stopped swirling around it. She focused on her Restoration and the coin bent back into shape. The mana began to swirl around it as the enchantment was repaired as well.

She did the same process again with Mending and found it did the exact same thing but a little slower. A useful skill, but not something she needed. Finally she cast Immaculate Enchantments and saw a familiar blue light wash out from her over the room and left everything spotless.

Her final choices then would be both of the affinities, Enchanted Mirror, Acceleration and Immaculate Enchantments. Though Acceleration was the weakest pick. When she learned more she might end up switching it with something else. Another Alacrity, while not her favourite skill, was a good candidate as well.

Next were her stat points. She had thirty from the three levels she got, which confirmed that Seasoned Frost’s level bonus wasn’t applying anymore. There were a lot of arguments to be made for most of the stats, but she’d already made her decision. She wanted more health. Power and mana were fun, but vitality kept her alive. She dumped all thirty points into Vitality and brought it up to eighty — her highest stat now, and then looked over her stat sheet.

Name: Zoe Mara

Race: Human

——

Stat Points: 0

Strength: 50

Dexterity: 50

Vitality: 80

Endurance: 25

Intelligence: 75

Wisdom: 78

Health: 800/800

Stamina: 250/250

Mana: 1500/1500

——

Class 1: Earthian (25)

- Identify (46)

Class 2: Seasoned Frost

- Cold Affinity (15)

- Time Affinity (8)

- Restoration (3)

- Frozen Arsenal (9)

- Alacrity (4)

Class 3: Chrono Enchanter

- Time Affinity (1)

- Mana Affinity (1)

- Enchanted Mirror (1)

- Acceleration (1)

- Immaculate Enchantments (1)

——

General Skills:

- Vampyric Regeneration (26)

- Vampyric Senses (53)

- Vampyric Resistance (22)

- Vampyric Immortality (3)

- Vampyric Charm (56)

- Vampyric Empathy (57)

- Gathering (24)

- Archery (48)

­- Meditation (81)

- Cooking (19)

- Dagger-fighting (40)

- Tracking (33)

- Stealth (31)

- Frost (56)

- Alchemy (1)

Resistances:

- Mental (7)

- Poison (14)

­- Pain (5)

- Heat (1)

- Fire (1)

- Cold (5)

­- Disintegration (2)

- Time (3)

- Space (1)

- Water (1)

- Earth (1)

- Gravity (1)

- Ice (1)

- Wind (1)

- Lightning (1)

Feats:

- Patient Decider

- Master of Seasons

- Slayer of Frost

- Skilled

- Okiu’s blessing