“BOYS, LET’S GO, GET A MOVE ON!”
Cinyah’s stern and melodious voice danced around the house in an attempt to rouse the two sleeping brothers.
Kicking off his comforter and sitting up groggily, Cynrik rubbed his bloodshot eyes before turning and hanging his legs off the bed. Five years had gone by since the events of Haylons Shadow, and some things changed for the now 12-year-old boy. First off, he and Brance finally had their own rooms, and they had each set about designing them much like they did back on Earth when they were teenagers.
Cynrik had pushed his queen-sized bed into the far corner of the room and up against the wall. On the opposite side of the room was a simple desk, which to his dismay, Cinyah forced him to sit at for hours on end, and complete dozens of workbooks as “homework.” There was a long black dresser and a bookshelf on the wall between the desk and bed, and a small circular puck sat in roughly the center of the dresser. The puck was a HoloTV, which he would quietly sneak on during the night when he was supposed to be asleep. Lastly, he had painted all the walls of the room black and then proceeded to plaster all kinds of posters of famous rock bands and Reavers all over the place.
Brance’s room had just as much furniture, but he painted the walls in a shade of blue, and had family photos from their vacations over the years instead of posters, hung up.
The biggest of the changes was to both of the brother’s stats. Over five years, they had entered the HBTC a total of ten different times, and after spending all that time under heavy gravity and dealing with the creatures Tobs would randomly spawn, they had both raised everything they could up to 100.
Initially, Cynrik thought this would be a simple task, but he was very wrong. Without the use of Mana, their battle time increased heavily. Before, they would have swept through every creature they came across and earned vast amounts of XP and stats. But without their Affinity skills, they were forced to rely on brute strength, and it wasn’t until the last time they entered the HBTC that they finally reached the newly discovered Prestige cap of 20. Another perk of training in the HBTC so many times was the increase in their Gravity Resistance.
: Gravity Resistance: 5g (Proficiency= 100.0%) :
Although their resistance had increased, the same could not be said for their Body Tempering, which was capped at Tier-2.
The growth in their system panels wasn’t all; the last time Cynrik and Brance measured their height, he would not stop prancing around and chanting “Five Feet tall,” while Brance had gained a few inches and was now over four and a half feet tall. In addition, both of them had shed any and all baby fat and had toned athletic builds, the kind you would expect from someone who spent their whole lives training.
Groaning loudly and trying to shake off his sleepiness, Cynrik stood up and walked over to his dresser before pulling out a simple pair of training clothes, which consisted of black jogger pants and a red t-shirt. As he changed, Cynrik checked himself out in the mirror on his dresser. Recently his hair had gotten a bit unmanageable for him; his formerly shaggy hair had been cut into an undercut, with the top being a bit longer. Running his hands through his violet-streaked black hair, he smirked.
[Hey, Brance, think I should go back to the ponytail?] This had been a topic Cynrik had been contemplating for some time now. He had worn the same haircut back on Earth for over 10 years, shaved sides without touching the top of his head, and tying it in a ponytail. Since his reincarnation, he hadn’t touched his hair for years, and it had grown into a messy tuft until he had eventually just settled for a Brad Pitt in Fury style.
[No, hurry up, you’re the only one not ready, the rest of us are already in the car.] Brance was currently buckled into the backseat of the family hovercar, looking out the window at the front door. In the driver’s seat, Cinyah was tapping the steering wheel impatiently, and seated next to her was a sleeping Rikard, who had returned from a strenuous day diving into Egresses the day before.
Under Brance’s harassing comments, Cynrik swiftly changed out of his pajamas and into his training clothes before tossing one last glance at himself in the mirror. Then, unconsciously, he raised his hand up and gripped the newly crafted pendant he was wearing. This pendant was the fruit of his labor over the last few years.
Cinyah and Rikard had struggled to help them both train due to their lack of being able to use Mana, so aside from weapons and hand-to-hand combat training, they had searched for extracurricular activities for the boys. While Brance was content with just having more books to read, Cynrik needed more to occupy his time. For years he had spent every second of free time experimenting with his own Affinity, but without that option, he had become lost. Seeing this, Cinyah spent weeks finding a suitable passive skill to help him fill his time while being productive.
Her research opened up a lot of new information that neither of the brothers was aware of, for example, the existence of Classes. Upon reaching the first evolution and becoming a Tier-1, all systems would unlock access to Classes. These classes would bring about special skills and specific boosts to a person. Everyone would have a list of Classes that they could choose from upon reaching the Tier-1, and further evolutions to higher Tiers would have a requirement revolving around a Class. For example, to evolve to Tier-2, you would need to not only be level 25 and have your Distribution stats to a certain level, but you would also need to reach the first cap for your individual class as well.
This revelation caused the brothers to groan as they would now have yet another mouth to feed XP because Classes all started at level 0, and you would be forced to allocate Essence to it to raise its level. This was the reason so many people would be stuck at Tier-1 for so long, since gaining the necessary XP to level up your own level, as well as your Class level, was time-consuming.
The brothers were a little different, though. When Cynrik grilled Tobs, it eventually spilled the beans on another one of their upcoming blessings. Upon reaching Tier-1, they would have one Class slot unlocked and one Subclass slot. This was something that a person usually wouldn’t get until they reached Tier-2, but thanks to Odin and Yahweh’s interference, they would be getting it early. When he asked for more spoilers about future blessings, Tobs just replied with…
-Spoiled children don’t get extra rewards.-
This caused Cynrik to spew profanities at his system for nearly three days in anger.
Although Cynrik and Brance would be gaining access to Subclasses early, there was a restriction; they couldn’t choose another combat Combat Class, so Cynrik’s hopes of being an Assassin-Mage were easily obliterated, and he would have to wait until he reached a higher evolution to be a Dual-Class.
This left Cynrik to research the never-ending list of Non-Combat Classes, such as Blacksmith, Alchemist, or Runist; he had decided to choose Engineer as his first Subclass and Assassin as his Battle Class.
Through his research, he quickly realized that Non-Combat classes were actually more difficult to obtain than basic Combat ones. While both had their own specific requirements to get them to appear on one’s Class Options list. All Combat Classes generally only require the person to have particular stats leveled. So, for example, if someone wanted the Warrior Class to show up on their list, they would need to have at least 60 STR and 50 DEF. But in the case of Non-Combat classes such as Engineer, Cynrik would need to have the passive skill Tinkerer and 60 DEX, and 50 INT. After much discussion, Cinyah finally gave in and brought him to buy the passive skill he needed so long as Cynrik promised he wouldn’t choose the Engineer Class until he unlocked his first Subclass at Tier-2.
That was nearly three years ago. At that time, Cynrik had constantly been breaking all kinds of objects with the sole purpose of reassembling them, until one day, he suddenly came up with a crazy idea. ‘What if I dismantle some of the Spatial devices we got and make one in the shape of Mjölnir.’ And so he set about breaking device after device until finally he had chipped away at a sizeable coffin-shaped pendant and turned it into the familiar hammer. While it wasn’t as fancy as the one he had in his previous life, this new Mjölnir was way more practical and had also increased his Tinker passive by a large chunk.
When he first got his hands on the Tinker passive, his head was stuffed with all kinds of new information about the skill. The first was that Prerequisite Class Skills had their own grade system. They are Basic, Trainee, Apprentice, Adept, Experienced, Expert, Master, Professional. So after spending three years breaking everything he could get hands-on before moving on to messing with his assassin’s tool and eventually Spatial equipment, he had reached the Adept Grade.
-Passive Skill – Adept Grade Tinker –
-This skill is a prerequisite for the Class: Engineer-
-Proficiency 50/100 %-
– 20% Chance to learn item blueprint upon successful dismantle.-
– 25% Chance to learn item blueprint upon successful assembly.-
– 15 percent chance of successfully dismantling item-
– 15 percent chance of successfully assembling item-
– Critical success of dismantling and assembling items based on Users DEX and INT.-
Cynrik broke into a wide grin as he tucked his pendant into his shirt, slipped on his sneakers, grabbed a black, hooded, zip-up jacket that matched his joggers, and ran off to the hovercar holding his family. Today was a big day. Today was the day they could both take the Academy Exams.