"Ah, you're awake," a calm voice said, a hand pushing him down. "Don't strain yourself, you're weakened from gaining a class, not to mention the dehydration."
Axl turned, seeing the one-armed elf next to him. This close, his green skin looked pale and unsteady, clear that something was fundamentally wrong with him beyond the missing arm.
"Take a moment to go over your gains. We're safe for the moment, a good day's run from the city. We can talk later."
Axl's eyes widened slightly in surprise that the elf noticed he'd improved, somehow. The elf also noticed his reaction and smiled back before returning to his meditation. Axl kicked himself for being so transparent, not used to dealing with people face-to-face other than his brother. Later, he'd seriously have to practice acting like Roken would, to make sure his cover held up.
Axl still wondered how safe he really was, but it seemed that at least he really was outside the city, not even a stitch of the mist in the air. There was also a thick paste settled on his chest wound, clearly a medicinal ointment the elf put on him, so if the guy wanted to kill him, he'd had ample chances.
Before anything else, Axl checked the state of his [Mind-Soul Bulwark], not wanting to deal with this elf without any mental protections. He breathed out in relief. The structure still stood, and in a way, he felt something smoother about the Skill. His depth of understanding of the Skill also felt somewhat deeper, and he realized this first construction wasn't really any good, that he at least needed to build the next step up. He quickly undid his construction and started it back up.
Somehow, [Mind-Soul Bulwark] felt far easier to reactivate, the small circle of his soul and four supporting mind-lines put back up in barely a few seconds. Then he focused on adding two more points to the neat rectangle around his soul, directly above and below the flat square, then drawing lines between the new points and the old vertices to turn the defense into a neat cube. The soul inside flickered unsteadily, the three-dimensional defense not quite compatible with a two-dimensional representation of the soul, so Axl also slowly expanded the circle into a sphere like a balloon, but the circle grew even more insubstantial.
The Skill dissolved entirely, a small headache blooming behind his forehead. Without missing a beat, Axl started over, this time making his soul a small sphere to start with, but he was simply unable to make it as large as before, now turning it into a sphere barely larger than a grain of filing grit. That done, forming the cube around it was easy, and he let the Skill settle in the middle of his chest, passively draining a bit smaller chunk of his internal Mana than before.
The precaution taken care of, Axl let his curiosity take over, and he opened his status window, steadying himself to not show any emotion. Even expecting a lot of changes, he was still quite surprised.
Name: Xel-389b (Roken)
Level: 1
Class: Usurpation of Balance (Rare)
Core: (none)
Lineage: Water Elf (G)
Attributes
Strength: 13
Endurance: 13
Agility: 13
Perception: 13
Intelligence: 13
Wisdom: 13
Charisma: 13
Luck: 13
Free Points: 0
Dao: Glimpse of Lightning
Skills: Mana Shroud (Rare), Mind-Soul Bulwark (Rare)
Titles: Last Human of Luna (Terrania), Oocile's Chosen (Oocile)
Quests: Establish the Terrania Nexus (Terrania, updated)
Achievements (Consumed = 2): Karmic Enmity (Vikam Elves), Class Rebirth, Earliest Rebirth
He now had a class listed, which before was blank, and somehow his level was down to 1. However, that loss didn’t actually make him weaker, but in fact every single one of his Attributes was boosted to 13, while before even his highest was Agility at 12, and that was after dumping most of his free points in the stat.
He now knew exactly why that undead he killed called his levels empty, the one point per level he got from not having a class was absurd compared to the four even the common class Lunar Miner offered him. No wonder humanity was so utterly overwhelmed by the elven invasion, with a piddling single point every three levels. Even the rank and file of their forces with common classes could overwhelm the legendary soldiers back on Terra or outer Sol. Axl wondered if his mission would let Terrania access this kind of power for the people back home as well.
Axl couldn't help but reel at how this would be an immediate game-changer. No matter how desperate the state of the war, an upgrade to the levelling system would let us fight back. Even if Terrania could only do this here, where the Mana density was much higher, we'd be able to train our own elites and then send them back.
Axl hadn't let himself think too much about the long-term prospects of humans, apart from his initial flourish of hope when he woke up as Roken, but this bloomed that tenuous little flame into a proper fire. Even the implications of his ominous title as being the last in Luna felt less crushing now. After all, it didn't say the last in Sol, so there had to be some left that were fighting back. Humanity had rebuilt after the great collapse of the Mana Arrival, so it could do so again.
But all that was for later, when he got further instructions upon establishing the Nexus, so he turned to his new title and achievements.
>> Last Human of Luna
>> All Attributes +10%, Call of the Void
>> Oocile's Chosen
>> Rebirth into the Path of Balance
>> All Attributes +1 (scales with level)
His new title seemed rather lackluster now, but he assumed from its wording that it would give him +1 now, +5 at level 5, and so forth, so really a snowballing advantage as he gained levels. Also, he felt the Rebirth into the Path of Balance felt more than simply getting rolled back to level 1, just like the mysterious Call of the Void for his other title. Unfortunately, the Status window itself wouldn't give him any more information. It was also quite the upgrade that Last Human of Luna now gave a percentage increase instead of simply 2 attribute points to each Attribute—not right now, but as he got a higher baseline to add onto.
He then turned to his new Achievements.
>>Class Rebirth
>>Obtain a Class rebirth
>>All Attributes +1
>>Earliest Rebirth
>>Obtain a Class rebirth while in the G grade
>>All Attributes +2%
Apparently, getting a rebirth wasn't such a big deal, the gain only a one-off flat increase in Attributes by a single point. But it still wasn't nothing, especially since an Uncommon class only got six points per level, so that achievement was almost a level and a half's worth of points. The second one was the real gain that would kick in later.
The real shock was the sheer number of points his Rare class gave him per level. It almost seemed absurd that he would get twenty-four Attribute points per level. Did all Rare classes get so much? The jump from a Common to Uncommon class wasn't so dramatic, but maybe Rare classes were a breed of their own?
That was a niggling concern—what if other Rare classes got the same number of Attribute points, but could specialize? This could be the downside of his class, that he kept getting points in all Attributes, so somebody of the same level with a build focusing on Strength and Dexterity could just smash him into paste, no matter how much they lacked in Wisdom or Luck. Hopefully, those with Rare classes were as few as the name suggested, so that his other advantages would have time to stack up as he leveled.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Axl also tried probing the Dao section, desperately wanting more information on the vision he got. But there was nothing, even after prodding for a few minutes.
Finally, Axl stopped procrastinating and opened up his main quest, hoping the damage wasn't too bad this time.
>>Terrania Quest (Ultimate Priority): Establish the Terrania Nexus.
>>Establish a Foundational Nexus for the Terrania Sub-System. Necessary attunement: Water, Earth, Metal, Void. Deadline: 2y, 01m, 12d
Over a year has burned away. He took a long breath to steady himself, to think about the problem carefully. He'd been tracking that quest regularly since he saw the first dip, even able to expand the ticking clock's detail to hours, minutes and seconds if he focused on it, basically able to use it as a stopwatch if he wanted. But he didn't see any lost time until he reached the statue's base.
He'd killed plenty of crabs, and that seemed to not affect the quest, nor did it jump down even a few seconds or minutes every once in a while, or ever gained time, suggesting it wasn't dynamically adapting to the state of the war back in Sol.
This meant either something happened when he was passed out or it was due to getting a Dao vision and those upgraded quest rewards. With a grimace, he figured the later was more likely. If Terrania was giving him rewards, it could be taking away some of the resources it was using to maintain the connection here, the time he has to establish a Nexus.
Axl kicked himself for simply accepting all these upgrades without thinking, not even considering there'd be a cost to pay. Of course Terrania couldn't just do whatever it wanted wherever the vent he was. It could be a planet on the other side of the Milky Way, for all he knew.
But even in hindsight, Axl didn't know if any of the upgrades he got were truly optional, since without [Mana Shroud] or [Mind-Soul Bulwark], he wouldn't have survived, and this latest upgrade to his class felt important for infiltrating the Oocile sub-system.
He took another deep breath and turned to the elf, who was quietly meditating at the base of a massive bamboo tree that extended hundreds of meters into the sky. Axl had to actively not focus on the impossibly large trees around him, their size so overwhelming his mind just couldn’t grasp their scale. Even the patch of ground they sat on was a single leaf several meters wide and a dozen long, over a mat of similarly large leaves that made it seem like he'd shrunken in size.
The trees felt eerie in a way that tugged at his very being, the redwoods that used to exist on Terra nothing compared to these giants, and he felt that it wasn’t just because he only saw those with ancient flatvids. He didn't dare use [Mana Shroud] to sense their Mana properly, feeling they were looming far above, looking down at him in judgment.
"You feel it too, young cultivator?" The elf asked, looking up.
Axl nodded. "It's like an elder master staring down at me."
The elf blinked, surprised. "Now that is a rather apt observation, since that's most likely the case. This entire forest is the domain of Honorable Mistress Nox of the Void, and all who enter do so at her largess. I likely do not need to tell you this, but speak of her with respect, and absolutely do not damage the trees."
Axl tried to keep his composure, not to show too much excitement at the mention of the Void. His main quest required that as an attunement, and here was a hint presenting itself right away.
"Thank you for your guidance, honored senior." Axl shifted himself to bow properly, the sluggishness of waking up rapidly leaving his body.
"Good that you can start moving, that's a favorable sign." The elf pointed to a canteen next to Axl's feet.
Axl bowed again and took a swig from the metallic canister, trying to do so with proper etiquette, even if the water felt impossibly refreshing, easily the best drink he had ever had in his life. He almost groaned in pleasure, shocked that anything could ever taste so good. Maybe this was magical water of some sort?
"Has Piril fallen?" Axl asked, thinking this would be what Roken would start with. "I was surprised to see you at the eastern Oocile, expecting none of the guard to be standing anymore."
"I'm almost certainly the last, and yes, the city is fully lost. I was ready to die with my fellow gatekeepers when the Legion would arrive in full."
"Oh!" Axl exclaimed, Roken's memories finally catching up. "You're Olkan Ril, Captain of the Eastern Gate! Apologies for my disrespect." He bowed more deeply now, into almost a complete kowtow.
The elf snorted. "I'm captain of nothing now. Get up, fellow cultivator. Just call me Olkan."
Axl looked up, suspiciously. This was absolutely not how the city guard treated people, as far as Roken's memories went. They were at best entirely dismissive, at worst overbearing and blunt, but none of them included the captain directly.
"I would like to thank you for saving my life," Axl continued, "captain or not, I owe you a karmic debt."
"Don't say that so easily," Olkan said, his voice stern. "I know the seedling masses like to mimic what we say to each other, posturing without understanding. As a cultivator, you should know that as you gain more power, your words can rouse even the Deep System into action, so empty gestures can become proper quests that sap your very being and warp your Path."
Axl nodded, genuinely grateful for the warning. As much as Roken's memories were useful for the day-to-day, he was ultimately just a level one shop attendant, so he only had limited and indirect knowledge on cultivators.
"I gained a class related to Oocile," Axl said, "but I have to admit I don't know much about him. I wasn’t diligent at all before the invasion, to my shame."
Olkan nodded. "I could tell, from the discrepancy between how your body moved and the amount of undead blood on your clothing. But gaining any number of levels without a class is beyond impressive, fighting in a moment of dire need a better tempering than decades in the training yard. Your levels are a greater claim to power than any pampered cultivator’s leveling through pills and carefully curated challenge. You were born in conflict, and to me, that scoured clean any shame from your seedling life."
Axl held his breath, taken aback by how he felt being talked to directly, not to his front as Roken, but to his human self, the words eerily applicable to his actual situation. It felt unusually pleasant to hear, even if he figured they were more than a little exaggerated. The kind of thing the captain would say to the guards under his care to keep them motivated.
"Oocile is a vessel to one of many well-trodden cultivation paths," Olkan continued. "He was once a cultivator that reached the D grade, yet failed to ascend further even after millennia of toil, and so decided to formalize his path into a local sub-system, hoping the karmic rewards would help. While he died unable to progress further, his sub-system remains, a study boat to navigate the dark waters of cultivation."
Axl nodded, a vague sense of familiarity in all this, but glad to have it explicitly explained to him by somebody who actually knew what the vent was going on. He was relieved that the situation wasn’t like the old Terran religions, with deities of massive power that would smite the sinful left and right. While they were widely seen as metaphorical even before Terrania’s construction in the mid-21st century, he wasn't so sure anymore. With what he witnessed in this elven world, not to mention what the Vikam elites were capable of back in Luna… He wouldn't have been surprised if Oocile turned out to be an actual God in the pre-industrial sense of the word. A situation like what Olkan described would certainly make his job easier.
However, what the conveniently helpful elf described raised another pertinent question, one that immediately burned brighter than anything else.
"I apologize if my weakness caused your own cultivation some difficulty," Axl said, carefully. "How may my own strength aid your path?"
Olkan nodded. "Good, you realized the true implications of what I meant quickly enough. If you had anything of use to my progression, I could simply take it from you. Even just killing a rising prodigy of any path is a veritable trove of Karmic Energy, enough to break through even old, calcified bottlenecks. As much as you will likely grow formidable with proper nurturing, you clearly lack martial training, not to mention that higher levels can overwhelm any future potential."
Axl relaxed at hearing all this, since Olkan likely didn't know he was back to level 1, perhaps assuming he would simply continue leveling where he left off, so his progress would be even better than what he described.
"So why don't you?” Axl asked. “Is it really so unusual?"
"Most cultivators won't run around like an unchecked shura of destruction, of course, since most need to live with some measure of stability, at the very least to make use of various artisans, healers, and harvesters. The Balanced Path allows us a great deal of versatility in that regard due to our lack of specialization, but we still can't be an expert at everything, even if we have the requisite Attributes. Regardless, even the most civil cultivator would be tempted if you dangle an unparalleled opportunity for easy power right in front of them.
"Still, you're in luck, since I myself have long been bottlenecked in the upper end of the G-Grade, having exhausted all chances I could find for reaching its pinnacle, much less ascending to the F-Grade. I had long consoled myself with the protection of Piril, nurturing cultivators with a similar path and raising a few generations of descendants, now having barely a decade or so of lifespan remaining. These damnable undead took much of that from me, so I settled on ending with a vengeful death. However, seeing you stride so powerfully into the Balanced Path made me rethink that plan.
"If I help you maximize your gains, perhaps the positive karma will help my few surviving descendants, or at the very least, I will have a hand in raising a powerful enemy to those who destroyed our city. After all, given how close I am to the end, I doubt slaying you would bring me enough to rekindle my cultivation."
Axl nodded solemnly, discreetly activating [Mana Shroud] and noting the Mana still oozing from Olkan's severed arm. Even as he looked, the elf warrior's presence waned, his end not just close, but feeling rather imminent.