201 A Casual Hun (1/2)
A few minutes after I slashed into the slower thief, the man fell to the grassy floor of the forest. He was dead, and had been for a few minutes. He was also missing several fingers.
The man's corpse was currently bleeding profusely onto the grass that surrounded his fallen form. I ignored him and gazed curiously at my fingers. There was a playful smile on my face as I studied them.
”This was fun! It's been too long since I directly partook in violence.” I said, speaking to my shadow. The creature was silent, but I sensed its excitement and it radiated a general air of agreement with my words.
My remarks were true, it was extremely rare for me to behave violently since usually, I left that to my servants. Though I was pretty violent towards demons. Many of my servants were quite violent and engaged in violence regularly, but I didn't. In fact, I could go weeks without directly committing a single violent act. A small part of me felt saddened by that.
I enjoyed utilizing my powers. Even my violent, destructive powers were fun to use and that was something I was only recently fully discovering. I had enjoyed destroying the human civilization over on Ryths. Changing that world just through usage of a few assorted animal subdomain, nature domain, elemental subdomain, and fungi subdomain abilities but on a massive scale was quite exhilarating.
I had several sources of powers. The overwhelming majority of powers I possessed I possessed due to my godhood. I had other abilities due to the numerous classes I possessed. And finally, I possessed a not insignificant number of abilities due to the fact that I was an elemental overlord. Some of my most significant powers were actually my elemental overlord powers. I had mastery over natural disasters and extremely potent sensory abilities due to my unusual identity as both a god and an elemental overlord.
An underutilized source of power for me were my class abilities. I had reached level 20 in a few different classes, druid, necromancer, rogue, ranger, brawler, berserker, and warrior. I also possessed numerous other classes, some of which were unique to me as a higher being. I was still for a moment, before I quietly reached inward and asked the domain of knowledge an important question.
”How do I level up my classes?” I asked, inquisitively. A full minute later I was surprised to receive a pleasant notification.
[Alert: Leveling Up And Class Information
Classes were originally designed by a long-dead, primordial overgod of reality and law. Incidentally, that same god also designed the system. That god was determined to organize reality and to make the multiverse an understandable place. In many cases, it succeeded.
Leveling up can be done in two ways. The first way, which is universal, is to defeat enemies using class skills and talents. This is the easiest way to level up some classes, martial classes especially. The other way is individualized, but basically, it is to utilize the talents of your class to do something that matches what the class would. The rest of this notification will be a list that lists out some ways to level up each class you possess, aside from classes in which you've already reached level 20.
Assassin: You can level up this class by either killing or defeating creatures swiftly. You gain more experience if you use poison and/or defeat or kill someone in a single blow.
Conjurer: To level up your conjurer class, utilize conjuration spells.
God: The god class is a bit of a quirkier class. To level up with it you must grant people the religious classes, utilize the abilities granted to you by the religious classes, and it's worth noting that you also don't have all of the religious classes under your belt just yet.
Magician: You level up in this class by utilizing spells creatively and spontaneously.
Patron: To level up this class utilize your skills as a patron, create witches, wards, warlocks, and use the other skills you've gained as a patron.
Shaman: To level up this class interact with spirits and use spiritual magic.
Sorceror: Study magic rigorously and rigidly to level up this class.
Spellsinger: Make music and utilize the skills granted to you by the class to level up this rather fascinating class.]
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The list of classes I had access to but hadn't fully mastered yet was considerable. Seeing it laid out flatly like that, just one after the other, put in stark contrast just how much I had ignored a real source of power. It annoyed me to see it displayed so bluntly.
That said, it was also a bit illuminating to learn that the system and classes were creations of a deity of law and reality. It explained their innate orderliness quite well. The system was one of the fundamental underpinnings of reality, it was something that every single lifeform had some access too, and understandings its origins explained how it was able to be so incredibly significant.
My godly powers were often enhanced versions of class abilities, but I knew that there was a very real reason to level up my classes: by leveling up my classes I could reach beyond level 20.
Level 20 was the maximum available class level for mortals but it wasn't the highest level accessible to gods. As a god I had the ability to go all the way to level 30 if I wanted too and in doing so I would apparently gain even greater powers and mastery over classes. I was really curious as to what a level 30 assassin or level 30 druid would be capable of.
As a level 20 druid I was capable of manipulating nature and aiding it in ways that most mortals could only barely begin to imagine but my real power over nature came from my potent influence over the nature domain. I possessed such potent power over nature that every druid in the universe subconsciously felt my presence. If I wanted too I could turn nature itself against the inhabitants of a planet and destroy humanoid civilizations.
I also wondered what sort of nightmarish powers a level 30 necromancer wielded. As a level 20 necromancer I was capable of using my powers over undeath to bring destruction to entire communities. And as a god of death and undeath I possessed even more potent and efficient ways to deal death than mere class abilities accessible to mortals. That said... Some of my abilities were handy.
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I closed my eyes for a moment and took a single deep breath. As I did so I began to concentrate and forcibly transform my aura. For the first time in my life I was unleashing an aura that wasn't due to divine power, but was actually a class ability. As I did so I mulled over some of the memories I had stolen from other, older lifeforms. For a few moments I quietly remembered incidents I had never experienced, events from before I was born. The life of a dwarven ranger.
As I went down someone else's memory lane I quietly began to exude a chilling air. All around me, life came to a sudden and chilling halt. Around me every blade of grass, every insect, every tiny woodland animal, was paralyzed with fear. And my own mind began to race.
I pictured things dying. I pictured all manner of life coming to a startling end, centered around me. I pictured grass being crushed, insects being precisely cut in half, trees being set on fire, birds drowning, and all other manner of death. And so I began to exude extremely heavy and palpable killing intent.
I activated a few divine powers one after the other, while exuding my paralytic killing intent. The first of my powers to be activated was an ability to create raw, unrefined metal. I then refined it an instant later, before turning it into a spear. The weapon felt light in my hand. I swung it lightly a few times and felt my hands quickly grow used to the weapon's weight, length, and more. A gift from my class levels as a warrior.
I opened my eyes and gripped the spear tightly in my hand. I then dropped to the floor and activated another ranger ability. The power to track wildlife as only an immensely skilled hunter could. Of course, tracking a creature wasn't tough for me. In fact, no being short of a vestige could evade my detection. That said, I still pretended that what I was doing was a necessary part of me hunting in a darkened forest.
I studied the forest floor and even in the darkness of the night I easily began to notice footprints in the forest floor at my feet. My skin also grew more sensitive to disturbances in the air, and my ears more easily picked up the sounds of shuffling and digging through the dirt beneath me.
”So this is what it's like to intentionally track life huh?” I asked, as I scanned my surroundings. My eyes narrowed as I stepped through the nearly pitch-black forest. I felt confident, supremely so. And that was because at the moment I was untouchable, unmatchable. I was a peerless existence within this forest. I was also radiating a nauseating amount of killing intent, so much so that I could almost see it invisibly seeping out of my pores.
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The god and his terrible, sapient shadow stalked the forest. At the moment, though the god looked as human as he had ever deigned to appear, he was perhaps more terrifying than he had ever been.