Chapter 20 : Class Attunement (3)

Roth walked over to the side with a downcast look as he was reflecting on the stupidity of his decisions.

He looked at Lilian who was glaring at him. She stood up while Raymond's head just hit the ground, and slapped Roth on the other cheek, perfectly making two hand marks on each side.

"Don't do that again!" She was extremely saddened as tears started to well up on her eyes. This was the first time she experienced such gruesome sight happen to her precious friend.

'Nice slap!' Sapphine silently approved from the back.

"Sorry." Roth apologized as he accepted the smack in consequence of his actions.

She still scowled at him, then looked at the hole on his shirt. The scene was still vivid in her mind, making her feel very uncomfortable and helpless. She didn't want anything happen like this ever again to her friends.

She suddenly remembered that she dropped Raymond's head. She looked back, luckily Raymond was still unconscious.

She went over and put his head on her lap again and lightly tapped his cheeks.

"Raymond, Raymond." She tried to wake him up.

He won't open his eyes.

Roth silently went over and handed a dagger.

"You can only wake him up with this."

Still angry at Roth, she ignored him and pulled her own dagger from her waist.

She placed it on front of Raymond and poured killing intent.

Raymond quickly opened his eyes and rolled out of the bed, or at least that's what he thought.

There was no elevation so he just directly hit the ground with his face.

His head was muddled as he slowly realized he was on the training ground.

"What happened?" He asked as he remembered his vision blurring after a kick to the gut.

"You fainted, baby hero." Sapphine spoke from the back, still smoking the pipe.

"Ah, so who's next?" He said expectantly waiting for his friend's performance.

Lilian chuckled as she replied to him.

"It's over. Sapphine is about to give us advice before she leaves."

"Oh…" He looked at the floor unhappy.

He glanced around and he just realized that Lilian clothes were filled with dirt while her hair was messed up. On the other hand, Roth's clothes were filled with cuts, and he even had a hole in his shirt! But the one that was obvious was his face, there were two hand markings on each side like a birthmark.

He leaned closer to Lilian and whispered.

"What happened to his face?" He put on quite a happy tone, oblivious to what happened, because the one who tortured him every morning finally got slapped like he wanted to.

A vein popped on Lilian's head as she was still grumpy about this matter.

"Ask him yourself." She coldly stated.

Shocked by this response, he went quiet.

'She's angry, better ask Roth later instead.' He thought.

Sapphine went over and caught the attention of the group, dispelling the awkward atmosphere.

She started her breakdown for the group.

"First, Raymond. You need experience, I think you've been used to fighting people at your level. Fight weaker enemies next time to get ideas how weak individuals deal with stronger opponents."

She puffed a smoke.

"Make sure to keep your stamina and magic in check. Try to practice your skill Last Stand, until you can stay conscious. Only do it though with supervision of skilled people, your dad could do it for you. Don't also get dejected when your rank goes up slowly. You are an epic class – a hero at that. It would be even amazing if you got rank II in 5 years. So, just don't mind your rank and diligently improve your three concepts."

Sapphine looked over at Lilian.

"Lilian. Don't get too complacent since I called you a genius. There were many geniuses that suffered mental breakdowns because they couldn't pass through a wall of advancement. Ask people for help, it doesn't hurt. And for your class progression, go hunter for the next class. I'll see you again in a year or two, I'm sure you'd be advanced by then. I'll ask you about your future plans at that time. I can give you some advice on how to move forward. Oh, and I'll be checking your progress on Spatial Quiver and Arrow Winding too."

"Yes, Sapphine!" Her mood started to get better.

Sapphine lit her pipe again and stared at Roth.

"And Roth, your combat style is crazy. Try to tone down a bit, now that you are a support class. However, I must say that this is good since you don't have to find a cleric class to join you when you start adventuring. And it relieves a burden of your teammates that they don't need to protect you as much as a normal support class. Don't go frontal too often, again remember, you chose to be a support class. Make sure to make your mind on your future path, if you want to be a full support or a combat support. Tame yourself for a moment and try to engage in combat only when needed. And lastly, you know what to do, choose wisely."

He nodded and she noticed her last sentence was hinting about the white book.

"That's all for your individual capabilities." She summoned a black chair, intricately painted in silver design, which exuded a robust magic aura.

The three friends looked at each other, and at the chair.

Sapphine snickered at their reaction.

"A low-grade relic, a chair from a small aristocratic family I found on the forbidden continent."

She crossed her legs and smoked some more.

"It slowly recovers a decent amount of magic power as you sit. I took it because of the design though."

'How many relics does Sappine have?' The trio questioned themselves.

"Um, Sapphine… is that pipe too?" Lilian wanted to satisfy her curiosity, since the pipe didn't show any semblance of magic power.

"Yes… The highest grade." She smiled smugly.

"I'll show you what it does the next time we meet, don't worry." She assured.

"Anyways, back to what I wanted to say." She shifted her legs and crossed the other.

"For adventuring, I'll give you a short tip that might not be included during your registration. As you know, the Adventurer's Guild provide two ranks, party and solo."

The three nodded, listening like studious pupils.

"In all of the Kingdoms, they follow the same rank advancement procedure - subjugation quests. For party, you can team up with anybody you like, it doesn't matter which solo rank the team members are. For example, the Dawnsteel party."

The three listened attentively as the party name was uttered.

"The team consisted of four members. Glidal and Leixa who were A ranked, a priest called Rafael was C ranked, and me… an S ranked solo."

She blew smoke as she lightly tapped her pipe to get rid of excess ash.

"A well composed party, even if I was still a B ranked at the time, we would be still able to easily reach the S ranked for the party. But solo rank is different, as the name states, you have to do these alone."

She stopped for a moment and the breeze filled in the silence.

"Well, of course there are differences on how the advancement goes between a combat class and a support class. The guild will explain to you the details of this. My point is, if by chance your development exceeds my expectations, do your A to S class solo advancement in the capital. Compared to the other kingdoms, it is the hardest as many years back, the Guild Leader changed it to a duel against him. It will surely test your individual strength."

She paused and thought of other important things to say.

"Oh yeah, as you may know, the two ogres of the BigLodge finally did their S ranked promotion. This kingdom has finally 8 of us."

Roth's ears peaked as he heard this information, since Raymond was very happy when this information came up years back.

"You will probably able to see Maple soon, little Ray." She blew the smoke towards Raymond.

Raymond was quite excited at this prospect, to finally meet Maple. But his ears suddenly reddened as he remembered their 'promise'.

Roth felt a tug on his shirt. He glanced, and it was Lilian with a face plastered with worry.

He leaned to her ear and whispered.

"I'll ask Lady Lexia."

"Well, time for me to go." Sapphine tossed a storage ring to Roth.

"A starter for your party, 300 low-quality potions each of health, stamina, and magic. These will be good for training. There are also 10 high-quality ones each, only use them for emergency. And before I forget, don' go to dungeons yet, go to the academy instead after 2 years."

Sapphine took a lengthy breath of smoke and puffed it towards the three that covered their vision.

"I'll see you sometime." Sapphines voice trailed with the wind.

The smoke slowly dissipated and she was gone without a trace.