-FRIENDS-

2 Days passed by quickly. The buff ability is much more interesting than I thought. It has the chance to completely change the way I fight. Before I was hiding in bushes and throwing out spells from advantageous positions. With the buffs however, I had the chance to increase my defense by 100 points so I could just stand there and let things hit me without taking any damage. Of course there were some useless buffs like 'water breathing' which is pretty self explanatory. Most buffs just increase a random stat by a small amount but it's still pretty cool and can completely change the way I hunt.

A crowd of about 20 people has formed by the gate. I scan the crowd for any faces I might recognize and to my surprise I spot my friends who used to be in my class before we graduated. We have kept in touch with the occasional message but mostly kept to ourselves since we graduated and havent seen eachother in person since.

"Hey Carter!" I yelled out to my friend to get his attention, he seemed to be standing alone among the crowd. His head turned at the sound of his name and when our gaze met he called back to me, ushering me over.

"I haven't seen you in ages man, how have you been?"

He slings his arm around my shoulder and gives a goofy grin.

"I'm good, I've been grinding some levels in the gates in the weeks since we graduated. I wanted to try a dynamic gate for once so when one popped up near my house I couldn't ignore it. What about you? Is this your first dynamic gate?"

"My teacher brought me to a dynamic gate before but it was an F-Rank so not a lot happened. I will introduce you if I get the chance, he is an A-Rank hunter that offered to teach me some things when he learnt I had the same class as him."

Wow, Carter has already found someone strong to teach him how to master his class. I wish I had someone who could guide me like that but as far as I know there is no one else with this class and if there is, they are hiding it well. 

"That's incredible! What level are you now? I hit level 10 recently."

Carter puffs his chest at my question, lifts his head high and opens his status window. The rosy red hue of the window feels warm yet fierce. He turns his status window towards me, inviting me to read for myself. 

I was almost taken aback, it's very rare for others to share their status window as the information could be dangerous in the wrong hands. I quickly hide my surprise and begin to read.

Name: Carter Neve

Class: Monk

Level: 13

Titles: Iron Fist

Skills: Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick

Stats:

Strength - 135 (10)

Stamina - 90 (10)

Defense - 54 (8)

Intelligence - 25

Luck - 7

Mana 250/250

Unassigned Points - 0

Level 13? That's a pretty impressive leveling speed. Getting a title is also quite rare, especially for a low level hunter. The conditions to acquire most titles are kept secret by the hunters who obtain them so I assume he either got really lucky or his master shared the method with him. Either way he is clearly strong.

"That's pretty impressive, how did you manage to persuade that teacher of yours to show you how to get a title huh?"

He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, his grin seems to never fade.

"It's not a crazy title, it just boosts my strength a bit. Come on man, what about your stats? Can I see?"

I haven't told anyone my class yet, let alone shown them my status window. If I'm to fight in this gate I will end up firing a different spell every time I use my ability. People would begin to suspect something weird was up with my class. Also I would hate for someone to rely on my abilities just for them to get hurt or even die because a bad spell activated from my ability.

I take another glance at Carter, he has always been a good friend, the kind that you can go without seeing for months at a time and when you finally see each other it's like no time passed at all. If I could trust anyone with information about my abilities, it's him.

"I will show you in a moment but just know that it's a pretty weird class. I haven't shown it to anyone yet so keep your voice down, II don't want others to what and start asking questions"

Pulling Carter away from the crowd by a few steps I opened my status window, giving it a quick look over before turning it to him, allowing the emerald green to fill his vision.

Name: Miles Ires

Class: Wild Mage

Level: 10

Titles: None

Skills: Long Range Spell, Buff

Stats:

Strength - 25

Stamina - 25 

Defense - 25

Intelligence - 103 (5)

Luck - 100 (40)

Mana 1030/1030

Unassigned Points - 0

His eyes are practically glued to the window. He has many more than understandable moments where he pauses reading for a second, tilting his head a little, then continuing. 

"Um… why do you have so much luck? You know it doesn't do anything right?"

I look at my feet for a moment, a little embarrassment creeps into my body before I try to explain.

"My abilities are random. Luck helps me get the effect I want."

My voice comes out like a wisp, almost non existent.

"What do you mean by random?"

"Here let me show you…"

I raise my hand towards Carter and cast Buff. A light glow envelops him and we both have a window appear beside us, detailing the buff.

'Buff activated: +25 Mana regen per minute'

"Hey that buff is pretty strong… but I still don't understand what you mean"

Without saying anything I cancel the buff then cast it again, 20 mana draining from me again.

This time the glow takes a different hue and another window appears for us both.

'Buff activated: +75 Defense'

"Every time I activate my abilities there is a different result. I don't know what will happen until I activate it."

"Wait this buff is insane, only B-Ranked support classes can give a buff like this, are you saying that you can cast literally any buff?"

"I assume so, I've had stronger buffs but it can also give useless buffs so it's not very reliable."

"That's insane… What about the mana usage? It's probably really high for some of the buffs right?"

"...No, no matter what buff I cast it costs 20 mana initially and then 10 mana per minute to maintain."

His eyes are as wide as they can be, this is something no one has ever seen so it's understandable for him to be curious.

"Then your other ability… It fires long ranged attack magic?"

"Not necessarily attack magic but yeah, I've cast healing magic with it once."

"So you could use it and shoot a spike of stone or summon hellfire? And it doesn't cost any difference?"

I nod my head sheepishly, maybe I shouldn't have shared this.

"I haven't told anyone yet since I can't really form a party with such unreliable spells."

"Form a party with me!"

He shoves his face close to mine, somehow his grin keeps getting even bigger. Anymore and it would start looking scary. 

"But my spells aren't very reliable, you won't be able to count on me to watch your ba-"

He cuts me off, grabbing my hand and holding it between both of his own.

"You need someone who can fight since you're a mage, let me do it. Your abilities have the potential to give the best buffs and most damaging spells which will let me grow even faster, if we go together then we can hit the higher ranks in no time. And don't worry, I'm pretty strong myself so I can cover you when you don't get a useful spell"

This could be great, having a melee fighter to take aggro from the monsters would be great, I could fully utilize my buff ability and best of all, I won't have to be alone all the time.

I meet his eye with a soft smile and finally cave in.

"Fine but don't blame me if something goes wrong or one of my spells hits you."

END OF CHAPTER 8