Even though Cynrik’s tone was a mixture of anger and sarcasm, Brance didn’t step in. Instead, he was too busy scrolling through his list of Classes, double-checking if there was any Unique Class hidden within the hundreds of options.
“Oi, little brother, you’ve been awfully quiet over there. Everyone except you has already voiced what class they are going with, leaving you the odd man out.” Stretching like a cat and resting his hands behind his head, Cynrik singled out Brance, who, up until this point, had only been advising the others.
“What is there to talk about? Like Selene, I don’t really have much choice. Unless I find some random Unique Class…HOLY SHIT, WHEN DID THAT APPEAR.” Suddenly shifting gears mid-sentence, Brance shot to his feet with his right hand hovering in the air as if he was about to press something on his display.
“WHAT, WHO, HUH? DID YOU GET A FUCKING UNIQUE CLASS TOO?” Bouncing to his feet and slamming his hands on the table jealously, Cynrik howled in dismay.
“Nope, just wanted to harass you, PPFFTTT, haha.” Snickering before sitting down as if nothing happened, Brance nudged Gabby, who was also giggling at how quickly Cynrik seemed to get jealous of others.
“RAHHHH! BASTARD!” Clutching at his head, in temporary madness, Cynrik lunged across the table and full-on tackled Brance out of his chair and onto the ground, where the two proceeded to sling swears and slurs at each other while rolling around on the floor, throwing half-hearted jabs at each other’s bodies.
Selene, Benny, and Gabby, who were all fully accustomed to the antics, shook their heads before getting up in unspoken unison and heading to the training room together. It was best to let the two idiot brothers wrestle and get it out of their systems. They had long known that if they tried stepping in and somehow stopped the scuffle, the tension would only build over time until it happened again in a few hours.
SMACK SMACK SMACK
“I’ll fucking teach you not to lie to me, you little shit,” Cynrik growled, rolling around with his little brother. Falling back on his jiu-jitsu training, Cynrik executed a technique that was good for actual grappling but even more effective against annoying little brothers, the mounted crucifix.
Sliding into side control, Cynrik used his chest to pin Brance to the ground before sliding his right arm under his brother’s left armpit, locking his own arm at a 45-degree angle, and grabbing behind his own neck. Next, stuffing Brance’s right arm under his left leg and using his left knee, Cynrik pinned the arm down just above the elbow and started savagely smacking his unprotected little brother in the forehead.
SMACK SMACK SMACK
“Some fucking tank you are, you little bitch, still can’t even get around a fucking crucifix after HOW MANY YEARS?”
“HEY! HEY, CUT IT OUT!” Struggling to get any kind of leverage to roll Cynrik or get out of the grapple hold, Brance whipped his head left and right, attempting to dodge the incoming smack, but his effort was futile.
As far as he could remember, once Cynrik locked in this hold, Brance didn’t have much of a way to get out since both arms were splayed out in a T pose and firmly trapped in place. Not only that, but because of how high Cynrik postured on his chest, Brance would generally be unable to do anything other than swing his lower body in a pendulum until he could get enough momentum to roll his brother and escape. But even that could be defended against so long as Cynrik was able to snake in his free leg to trap one of Brance’s.
‘Think, cmon think; there has to be a way to….’
SMACK SMACK
Unfortunately, Brance couldn’t even think appropriately because even his internal monologue was interrupted by the attacks.
“Is that all you got, you little shit, HAHAHA, so weak, what kinda shitty warrior gets held down by a fucking Assassin hahahahah!” Cackling in madness, Cynrik relentlessly rained down the forehead smacks.
-I know it isn’t my place to step in here, but Host Brance, your strength is quite a bit higher than Host Cynrik’s. Why don’t you just throw him off.-
‘That won’t work Tobs; even if my strength is higher, Cyn has me…wait, why the fuck am I arguing? OF COURSE IT WOULD WORK!’
“ENOUGH!” Brance shouted, summoning forth as much strength as he could muster from his 617 STR stat, nearly 150 points higher than what Cynrik had; Brance forced both his arms toward the sky, as if using a chest press machine, and threw Cynrik straight into the air, smashing him into the ceiling.
-You have lost 2200 HP-
“OOF!” Feeling the air leaving his lungs and forcing a gasp from his mouth, Cynrik’s eyes unfocused slightly as gravity took hold of his body and brought him down beside Brance.
“Hacks…*Gasp*…bull…*gasp* shit…hacks.” Barely able to get a single word out before being forced to suck in more air, Cynrik glared at Brance with bloodshot eyes.
“Serves you right asshole. Quit being such a baby; you practically live being winded at every opportunity you get.” Rolling his eyes at how dramatic Cynrik was being, Brance stood up and dusted off his shirt.
“Tsk, next time, I’ll use my fucking [Shadow Sewing] and LOCK you down. What happened to no cheating?” Cynrik whined as he sat up and rubbed his back, which felt bruised from the impact of the ceiling.
[You figure out your subclass yet?] Cocking an eyebrow at Brance, Cynrik brought up his own class list and glanced it over while stumbling dramatically to his chair at the kitchen table.
[No, whenever I think I know what I want, I find something completely unrelated. I know you still think Miner was a good choice, but I don’t. Unlike your Engineering Class, which you frequently use to adjust your hidden blades, I ended up with something I can’t use unless I am in an Egress. I get that it will see use eventually, but…I don’t know man.] Picking up his chair from across the room, where it had been flung during Cynrik’s attack, Brance sat down across from his brother and vented.
[Well, we still need a bunch of the lifestyle classes to be self-sufficient. The only ones we have covered are Engineer and Blacksmith. Don’t forget, technically; we enlisted Aiden as the official MyrkLys Blacksmith; hell, I even sent him one of our Faction badges to make him feel included with our equipment a while back.] Cynrik stated while holding his hands up and half smirking with the corner of his face.
[At the end of the day, it really banks on what you want to do with your build. You know Paladins the best; what do you feel you are lacking right now?]
Biting the inside of his cheek, Brance pulled up his status profile and gave it a good look over.
: Status :
: Brance Athalos Jetlensr (Björn Ironside Ragnarsson):
: Title – Perfect Foundation, Perfect Clear Expert, Reforged Body :
: Demi-Human Male (90% Human, 10% Lightbringer):
: Age-11:
: Tier-2 :
: Primary Class – (Empty) :
:Former: Tier-1 Warrior : (+2 To STR,VIT Distribution)
: Sub-Class – (Empty) :
:Former: Tier-1 Miner : (+2 To STR Distribution)
: Level: 0/35, Essence = 0/252,616 :
: Essence Pool(XP): 156,370:
: P-Class (Empty): 0 – XP :
: S-Class (Empty): 0 – XP :
: Distribution: 2 Per All : (STR 6, VIT 4)
: Mana Codex & Circuits Tier-2 :
: Stage 3 :
: Body – Tier-2, 6.5g Resistance :
: Credits: 470,283 :
: STATS :
: shoppingmodeHP 8800/8800 :
: Mana 6280/6280 :
: Stamina 4400/4400 :
: Stat Points- 182 :
: Skill Points- 322 :
: Strength- 617 : (+67)
: Dexterity- 480 : (+10)
: Agility- 483 : (+13)
: Intelligence- 575 : (+105)
: Vitality- 490 : (+20)
: Mind- 545 : (+75)
: Killing Intent- 319 – 4.50g :
: Affinity- :
:(SAG)Light-Tier-2 (Beginner): :Expand:
:(BG) Earth-Tier-2 (Adept): :Expand:
:(BG) Wind-Tier-2 (Adept): :Expand: (INCREASED)
Although the changes to his stats over the last three months weren’t groundbreaking, they had seen significant growth, especially when it came to Brance’s Wind Affinity, which had reached Adept, something that even Cynrik hadn’t had the time to do. Between the stat training regiments that Professor Dennis and a few other teachers had taught, plus killing the spies alongside Cynrik, Brance was able to stack up a decent amount of points along with some free XP.
He wasn’t alone either; all the members of MyrkLys had spent a lot of time doing what Cynrik dubbed Manual Stat Training. Although the brothers knew from a young age it was possible to increase their stats by doing specific repetitive actions such as lifting weights for STR or draining their STAM all the way down before letting it regenerate for VIT; they had never really had an actual method to replicate these gains.
However, this is where Professor Dennis showed his worth, solidifying that the teachers of VSFA knew their shit. During his little boot camp, he had instilled in every student the proper and most efficient way to raise their stats outside of killing mobs. Through the one-month training camp, he made a series of personalized training regiments for everyone, and if it were followed to the T, everyone would be able to see gains after some time.
Still, this didn’t explain the massive boosts to Brance’s INT, MIND, and STR stats. The 67 STR, 105 INT, and 75 MIND were all a direct result of Brance consistently using his cultivation skill every time it came off cooldown. So overall, the boost to all his stats came from a lot of hard work and sleepless nights.
[Honestly, I don’t even know what to do anymore. I have hit a brick wall here with where to go. I can keep pushing up my STR and VIT, like a good little tank, but I will need to also increase my INT if I want to use the Paladin skills since most of them rely heavily on MP. But then there is the issue of my DEX and AGI, which will begin lagging behind super fast at the rate we grow.] Drumming his fingers on the table, Brance thought out loud to keep Cynrik in the loop.
[Now you know what I’ve been dealing with lately. Aside from burning all my points in VIT and STR, they will stagnate relatively quickly by only gaining a guaranteed 2 points per level from Distribution. My only saving grace is that all of my Rogue skills have DEX-based damage. If not, I would basically be hitting things with a cardboard tube instead of my swords since the damage output would be abysmal.]
[I need to think on it some more, Cyn; you did, after all, give us until tomorrow to figure things out. Anyway, I should go check on the others; who knows if they’re being productive or just lazing about doing nothing.] With that, Brance got up and left the kitchen for the training room, leaving Cynrik alone with only his thoughts and Tobs for company.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg