Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Oh! Seth! There you are!", a haughty voice with a tint of friendliness called out as they returned to the palace. It was the diabolical looking, but not so evil wizard Megito!

"I have what you asked me for! I already had it the last time I visited, but you were on your little excursion- I mean dungeon dive."

Some weeks ago, Seth had asked the wizard who kept traveling between Oriekot and Zhiqe to try and buy him a skill book for the skill Ikram had mentioned. With this, he would finally be able to read the books in the library.

This was also an investment for the future. If Seth was to interact with people and customers that came through the Pathwork, he needed to be able to read foreign written words! Even within Urth, there were different languages and alphabets in use! A modern world had no unified alphabet, what would the cultures from more medieval or savage worlds look like?

In his hand appeared a scroll with a weak yellow glow. Seth´s face lit up while Fin looked questioningly at his joyful expression. They entered his room and sat down around a table.

"Is this?"

Seth wanted to grab the scroll the wizard had put on the table, but Megito pulled the scroll away from Seth's grubby hands and gestured with his empty hand.

"Yes, it is the skill book to learn <Universal Translation>. You owe me 47 gold."

Seth sighed. The wizard was friendlier than he looked, but he still knew his priorities. He counted the gold coins and put them piece by piece onto the table between them. Only after he was done did the other handed over the scroll.

<Ding! Would you like to learn <Universal Translation>? Y/N>

Of course, he accepted it. He had waited several weeks for this. Now, he only had a few days left to scour the library for information. He felt a small headache after confirming his decision and the skill appeared in his skill window.

<Passive Skill: Universal Translation

Automatically translates all commonly spoken and written languages presently registered by the system.>

Seth was a little flustered reading this explanation. Wasn´t the system already translating spoken words? When Seth asked fin about this, he found out, that this only happened for foreign visitors. Natives kept their language barriers, only by traveling through the Pathwork were you installed with the translation software for the world you traveled to.

Upon Seth´s argument, that this seemed really random, Fin only nodded and told that this how it was. It also did not work for entities not registered as players by the system.

Seth didn't feel like thinking much more about this, he now had the solution. Who cared about the specifics of the problem?

He thanked the sinister wizard for his kind help and Megito left their room.

Fin and Seth decided to depart on the day after tomorrow with a merchant ship that would travel down the river. Not as guards, but as passengers! The ship had its own adventurer team from Oriekot guarding the journey. The tickets were not cheap with a price of 2 gold, despite the ship being empty.

The vessel originally transported important supplies to Zhiqe. The costly price was thanks to the team of high-level adventurers hired for protection. Their work did not become cheaper on the way back. Zhiqe had no wares worth trading in Oriekot, so the merchants brought in passengers as a way to cover the costs.

Although pricey, it meant they could relax on this journey. Others would take care of the troubles that came up along the way!

Seth spent the time until the day of departure in the library. To his dismay, the book Ikram had told him about, gave him little of the information he was looking for. But it gave him some insight into the structure of classes!

The system had given him a rough overview of what was important to him at the start, nothing more.

The book listed all classes from common to epic. The higher the rating, the more skills the class offered and required.

An interesting thing he noticed after skimming through the book for a while was that many uncommon or rare classes were specializations of common classes! Many classes had requirements that mentioned other classes and their skills.

A Fighter could specialize and become an uncommon Swordsman and if he had a talent for magic become a rare magic swordsman. Under the right condition, a Swordsman or a Fighter can also become a Knight and rank up to Paladin.

The structures of these regular classes did not seem too rigid leaving even people with a common class many opportunities to attain greatness!

Seth had some conjectures after reading the book for some time. the higher the classes rating the more special were the requirements to get it. He knew this because the book mentioned it as an intro to the few epic classes it listed.

There was little known about the requirements of most epic classes, as the circumstances of people varied greatly. There was almost nothing known when it came to legendary or mythical classes. They existed, but no information was disclosed.

The most interesting to Seth was the explanation of unique classes, obviously. They were special. In general, they were an amalgamation of skills someone amassed separate from their class and incorporated them into his class, in a way that the system acknowledged as its own class. But this also meant that unique classes were not guaranteed to be overwhelmingly strong. Not like epic or above-rated classes were. To be the originator of a unique class one needed to be a genius or a nutcase of the century.

Seth thought of the berserker fairy he left behind in his room. Genius...? Nutcase of a century, yeah.

He also found that most classes worked on the same structure. All classes had primary skills that had more ranks and greater growth potential. One class´ primary skill could also be a secondary skill of another class, this created the conundrum that 2 people with different classes but the same skill on the same rank, could have a vastly different performance.

If Seth compared this to himself, this meant <Weapon Mastery> was a secondary skill, that's why it was missing the apprentice-rank. So, if he met a Martial Artist who had it as a primary skill, Seth would be weaker, despite the skill having the same rank! The same counted for any fighter-class with a specific mastery skill.

This was almost like a trap set by the system for people to feel overconfident in their skills!

Based on the primary skills, classes had dependent skills. Looking at his own skill, it was skills like <Spirit Forging> or <Blueprints>. Their rank rose with <Blacksmith>, but their level is independent.

He finally put the book down, that was all he could infer based on his own skills and the superficial descriptions in the book.

He looked at the rows of books on the shelves. He still had time; it could not hurt to read a little more.