Ascension of the Primalist [A Tamer Class, LitRPG]

Seth strode down the less-occupied alleyways, keeping his head down and his pace swift. He stuck to the shadows to avoid the main thoroughfare and the prying eyes of the townsfolk.

His hand instinctively went to his pocket, fingers brushing against two hard objects: the jagged, uneven surface of an awakening stone and the papery texture of an Identify spell-scroll.

He had failed to resist. The moment the Wandering Merchant had seen the glowing bloom and offered him the stone and the scroll in exchange, Seth had immediately said yes. The excitement had simply been too much to contain.

Sure, maybe he could have gotten a slightly better deal if he'd haggled by showing Marcus the flower first to know its real value, but Wandering Merchants had a reputation to uphold. Especially the ones who frequented the town; they couldn't afford to be known as swindlers.

Also, Seth was used to bartering for everything instead of selling then buying. In Sunatown, most of their daily services and meager goods weren't worth even a single common coin so trading a sack of grain for a tool repair and such was the only way to survive.

Reaching the end of a dirt road, he came to a halt in front of a lonely single-story house; well, with the stacked logs that served as walls and the marble stone pillars at the corners, it looked more like a hunting cabin than a house.

Seth barged inside without wasting any time.

The interior was one large, open room that was dimly lit and smelled like stale air. The wall on the left was filled with paintings of stunning landscapes, from majestic rivers and forests to bustling cities, but as always, it was the simplest one that made him stop for a second: a portrait of two adults and a child in front of a house. His father, his mother and him, back when he was eight.

Despite Seth's and his father's golden eyes, it was his mother's smile that stood out the most from the painting. Leaving their remote house in the middle of the forest and building Sunatown from nothing had brought her so much joy.

As Seth looked around at the grime covering the floor, he realized just how much he had neglected the house since her passing. Even though it was hard for him to remain inside, he knew he should make an effort to clean up. Tomorrow, he told himself.

He walked to the back of the room, where a rusted iron sink stood beneath a small window. Seth stripped off his tunic, his muscles tensing as the cool air hit his skin, and cranked the handle. Brown water sputtered out before running clear. He splashed it over his forearms, hissing as he cleaned most of the dirt and rocks among the dried blood covering his injuries.

As he leaned over the basin, a silver chain slipped out from beneath his undershirt, dangling freely. Two small, lustrous, bluish teardrops shone under the last ray of the sun coming through the windows.

A gift from his mother on his sixteenth birthday. He could still remember the broad grin on her face when she had handed it to him. Seth didn't like jewelry and had thought more than once about selling it, but he always stopped himself—after all, it had once belonged to his father.

That was why he wore the fragile thing every day beneath his clothes.

Drying his arms with a rough cloth, Seth turned toward the corner of the room that served as his bedroom. It was a mess: an unmade bed, a broken chair he hadn't repaired, and an old wooden desk cluttered with sketches of hunting techniques.

One small piece of parchment at the top stood out from the others; it was yellowish, moldy, and charred around the edges—the trademark of Marcus' scrolls. Seth had needed to beg the old Alchemist for five whole minutes before the man had finally cast Identify on him and written his attributes down on the parchment.

According to Sericar—the Wandering Merchant Seth was the closest with—that spell had originally been created for people to compare and track their own progression in terms of physical abilities. However, over the decades and centuries it had become more complex and served now many other purposes.

Seth picked it up and looked at it for the third time that day.