Class Awakening
I was standing in a crowd of students, all of us waiting while watching as other students went up one by one to a glowing stone, which would help you awaken your class.
"Ohh! Look! A student awakened the rare Holy Knight class!"
"A Lightning Mage! A Lightning Mage has awakened!"
There were many different classes being awakened, but I wasn't interested in their results. I had transmigrated a few years ago, when the former owner of the body had died in an accident, my lost soul possessed his body. The way I had died in my original world was pretty lame.
I starved to death after my wife left me, and I lost my job.
Anyways, now I was in the body of some 17 year old kid on some planet that wasn't like Earth at all. Here there were classes, that everyone awakened when they turned 17, and depending on your class your standing in the world was determined.
I was hoping for a good combat class, something I could use to make some good money, and provide for my family. Both of my parents awakened lifestyle classes, my father was a Builder while my mother was a Nurse, both of which had no combat skills.
Combat skills made their money by going to dungeons, and farming for either items or mana crystals. There were other ways to make money, but it all essentially revolved around slaying monsters.
As I watched my immature classmates gossiped about every awakened class, and eventually it became my turn. I walked up to the stage, and approached the stone.
"Hey, isn't that the weirdo, Darius Snow?"
"Hey! He's not weird, just quiet. He's actually really smart, he's been one of the top students ever since we were in middle school, he just doesn't like socializing."
"Do you think he will awaken a combat class?"
"I don't know, but he is really reserved so he wouldn't really fit in well with any teams."
While people were gossiping, I had already made it to the stone and placed my hand onto it.
There was a bright heavenly glow, which slowly dissipated, and eventually vanished completely.
[Awakened Unique Bard Class!]
I stared at a new screen, one that showed me my status screen.
[Name: Darius Crowley]
[Class: Bard]
[Level: 1 0/100]
[Hit Points: 100/100]
[Mana Points: 200/200]
[Stats:]
Strength: 10
Constitution: 10
Agility: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Charm: 10
I was brought out of my thoughts by the mage overseeing the awakening ritual, urging me to move off the stage so the ritual can continue.
I nodded in a bit of a daze, and stepped off the stage. After this awakening, I was now seen as an adult so I didn't need to continue to attend high school.
I left the place, and went home. When I got home, my parents both noticed me walk in, and asked me how it went from the couch.
"I awakened a combat class, but I don't think I'd ever heard of it before."
At the mention of 'combat class' they both stood up in a hurry and ran over to me hugging me. They both congratulated me, as they knew I had much more potential in life than they did. I smiled lightly, just accepting their compliments, before helping to fix dinner with my mother.
It was about an hour later that my younger sister, Millie, came home from school. When she came home the quiet house turned into an uproar.
"BROTHER! Did you awaken a combat class? That stupid fatty, Marcus, down the street says his brother awakened a Warrior class and he said his brother can beat you up!"
I looked at a small girl in pig tails who came bursting through the front door, and threw her backpack on the ground. She was pointing a finger at me, shouting something absurd loudly.
"I did awaken a combat class, but I'm not going to get into a fight with some kid's brother."
"WHAAAAAT?! HE SAID YOU'RE A WUSSY! I EVEN DEFENDED YOU TODAY!"
...
"Did you fight him, Millie?"
Our mother asked.
At this question, her finger wavered, and the bravado she showed disappeared.
****
We were all sitting quietly at the dinner table, enjoying a celebratory dinner, and talking about small things. I wasn't focused on the conversation, instead I was thinking about what I was going to do now.
In the morning I would head to the Awakener's Association office, and get a beginner set of gear. Everyone would be given a free sword and some basic armor.
After that, I should head to the beginner dungeon and try leveling a bit. Currently I don't have any skills, but there were some ways to gain simple skills. For example, but practicing with a sword long enough, I can gain the Swordsmanship skill, which helps me deal more damage with a sword.
There are other skills like this, like the simple Running skill, which allows me to run faster and more efficiently. I didn't know how long it would take to acquire a skill, but I would get any that I could.
When I finished helping my mother clear the table, I went into my room to begin looking for information on easy to acquire skills.
We only had the one computer in our house, so I decided to wait until my younger sister finished her homework, before I got onto the computer and checked for a list of skills I could acquire without a skill book.
The first one was the Athletic skill, which I could acquire by doing 100 sit ups, 100 push ups, and running 10 miles a day until I acquired the skill.
I would start the next day, but I couldn't very well go right now, since I wanted to make sure I got a good night's sleep. Instead I started with the Flexible skill. I stretched, and made sure to push myself past the point of comfort, but not to the point where it hurt.
In this grueling position, I held the position until I could just barely hold on anymore, then I held on a little longer. I moved onto the next position as listed in the post online, and went through the same process. Once I was finished with the routine, I stopped for the night. I meditated, which was my final attempt at a skill.
The Meditation skill was very simple, but it was different than what one would expect. Being able to instantly clear the mind, at the drop of a dime, was incredibly useful. So I meditated, for fifteen minutes, and when I heard my timer go off I took a quick shower before going to bed.
I had a big day tomorrow, possibly quite literally the day my life changed completely.
****
After waking up, I did my sit ups and push ups, before heading out of the house to the Awakener's Association. It was a little over 10 miles, so I decided to run there instead of getting on a bus. It was almost an hour and a half before I managed to arrive at the office. When I finally did, I hurried inside to get some water, and my beginner gear.
The process was really simple, I just gave them my ID, got registered, and then they marked it on a computer that I collected my beginner gear. Then I left. That was it.
I was glad it was so simple, and left the office. I then boarded a bus, because I really couldn't run to the dungeon relay.
They had created man made portals from major cities in the country, that would bring you to the entrance to the dungeons spread around the continent. It was truly impressive tech.
I arrived at it, and went through to a beginner Goblin dungeon.
Once I entered the dungeon itself, I took out the sword from my inventory, and wore the armor I got earlier.
I then began striding through the forest where I had been transported. I quickly ran into a wandering goblin, and shouted to draw it's attention. Once it looked at me, it immediately charged at me with reckless abandon, and I got ready for a fight. Goblins had relatively low stats, thus making them a good beginner monster to fight.
I waited for the goblin to get in range, and when it got closer it lunged at me. However because I saw it had no weapon, I knew it had to lunge at the end of it's charge. So I did a simple sidestep, and swung my sword upwards. It was nothing fancy, just a simple move that used the goblin's forward momentum to increase the impact of my sword.
[20 DMG dealt.]
I took a step back right after, as the goblin immediately turned to charge at me again. With the increase in distance, I had time to prepare for it's follow up lunge, which it did.
This time I did a horizontal slash, since it wouldn't be able to dodge it, and again I was right.
[20 DMG dealt.]
However I made a mistake.
[-15 HP]
I had a large scratch on my shoulder. I didn't expect that it would keep going forward through the slash, but it was a little dumb. Still, it hit me because of my mistake.
I backed up, kicking the goblin in the stomach to create distance, and scrambled to my feet. I then decided to focus again, and take the fight slowly. The Goblin lunged at me, but I stepped to the side, and instead of going for a counter attack again I waited for it's move. It was entirely possible that it would learn it's lesson.
Just like I thought, it faked another charge and backed up slightly in anticipation of a swing. However because I didn't swing, I waited for it to move forward again, and when it did I dashed forward while slashing.
[20 DMG dealt.]
[+25 EXP]
The basics of a fight came down to making your enemy think you have a clear pattern, while reading your opponent's patterns, and being able to discern truth from tricks.
Unfortunately a simple goblin wasn't able to do that easily, so it ended up taking damage because it didn't establish patterns.
Anyways, after it died, I took a short break to replay the fight in my mind again. Taking note of my mistakes and how everything felt. I began thinking of ways I could improve my swordsmanship.
However I wasn't some genius, so I couldn't draw enlightenment from just this. However I could still learn slowly. So I got up, and headed to my next opponent.
A few minutes later, I was engaged in another fight with a goblin. This time I made a conscious effort to recover my sword after an attack, to be prepared for a counter attack to all my moves. This goblin didn't manage to hit me, but it still took me three exchanges.
So I moved forward, to my next fight.
Like that, I killed three more goblins, finally getting good enough that I was able to strike twice in quick succession. Nothing impressive, but to me it was visible improvement. Also, the world rewarded me for my efforts.
[Swordsmanship - Level 1]
A skill I acquired after defeating the fourth goblin, and reaching level 1. I defeated one more before taking a break, to see how the effects were, and I must say they were incredible. I was able to understand my movements better. While I still didn't know much, I at least knew if my movement felt wrong.
I took a short break to eat, and properly rest. The fights, and searching for the goblins, took me over a hour to conclude so I took a break.
Every level you received 10 free stat points, but I didn't know exactly what to do with those points for now. I decided to invest five points into my Agi, and five into my Dex. It was a profound feeling to have those two stats increase by five. I already felt lighter, and the control over my body increased.
With that, I finished eating, and began meditating. Fighting the goblins was not hard, but I had been deeply focused the whole time. This led to stress on my mind, so I wanted to calm down.
After about half an hour of meditating, I got up and started to look for more fights.
I checked my EXP really quickly.
[Level 2: 25/200]
Seven more goblins, and I'll reach level 3. I wish I could get a skill book by the end of the night, so I could get a Bard exclusive skill, and learn what kind of class this was.
From my past life, Bard was typically associated with playing music and giving buffs, however an interesting change happened in the way people thought of bards. They later became fighters, or spell casters that would buff themselves while debuffing enemies. It was an interesting evolution, but I was curious how it would be in this world.
I looked online, and found that no one in history had a record of ever having the Bard class. I was, to my understanding, the first. Which meant I didn't have any guidance, and that worried me to an extent.
For now I was using a sword, but who knows what weapons I would be using in the future. That's why I was a little worried about my stat allocation, but having Agility and Dexterity was always useful.
For now I would continue to level and focus on improving myself.
I continued on.
****
[Level 5 reached!]
[One class exclusive skill rewarded.]
[Battle Tempo - Level 1 learned.]
[Skill Book x1 (General) rewarded.]
[Danger Sense - Level 1 learned.]
[Name: Darius Crowley]
[Class: Bard]
[Level: 5 0/1600]
[Hit Points: 500/500]
[Mana Points: 1000/1000]
[Stats:]
Strength: 30
Constitution: 10
Agility: 20
Dexterity: 20
Intelligence: 10
Charm: 10
I had ended up distributing my stats like this, since I was reliant on using melee weapons for now, and by increasing my strength I was dealing a lot more damage.
Before the basic sword I had received dealt 10 damage, and with 30 strength I was now able to deal 50 damage a slash. I was now one shot killing goblins, while that was nice, it was troublesome having to kill so many to level up. It would be another 56 goblins before I reached level 6. Instead I thought it would be slightly faster to call it a day here before coming back the next day.
I was fatigued, and was hoping to rest.
As I was leaving, I ran across another goblin. I slashed at it, not really paying attention, when I received a surprise.
[+25 EXP]
[Mana Crystal (F-Grade) acquired.]
The crystal could easily sell for upwards of 10,000 dollars. I took a moment to bow in the direction of the goblin.
'Thank you for providing dinner for my family tonight.'
With that I ended my day of hunting.