Apocalypse Redux

Time passed. [Classes] were offered. [Classes] were dismissed.

Lessons sat through, lessons internalized.

Information obtained, schemes made.

Derek wasn’t too sure what it said about him that the very first place his mind went to when learning of a new facet of this world he lived in was “how can I weaponize this,” but that was how things usually went, and that was that.

Years came, and years went by until, eventually, his fifth one at Seoul academy had come about, and … and he felt stuck, very much so.

Epic [Classes]?

Oh, he had those, but he’d had those for a while. He’d killed monsters, he’d gained sufficient “mastery” of hellfire, his rapier, and the flow of combat to be offered ones in reference to all of them … but it still been almost a year without a new offering, which was how he’d decided to measure his progress right now.

Hello, Derek Thoma.

You have the following Classes available:

[He Who Learns Endlessly] [Hellfire Savant]

[Mischief’s Emissary]

[Bloodline Master]

All epic. He was also still being offered melee combat [Classes], but he’d stopped having those show up on the “offering screen.”

He Who Learns Endlessly (epic)

There is no end to the path of learning; there is always more knowledge to acquire, and even when every scrap of literature has been read, and every bit of old wisdom taught by one’s elders and teachers, there is more information to find.

Some call it “The Way”, others refer to it without using any given phrase or title, but there is something beyond knowledge quantified and defined by words, a truth that is virtue, pure and true.

This Class will put you on the path of acquiring endless knowledge, perfect for those infected with the bottomless thirst for power that has driven so many scholars in the past.

He did like learning. And he loved the idea of being able to gain direct power through it, not in the general “knowledge is power, the pen is mightier than the sword” kind of way. Nor was he talking about using an encyclopedia to bash someone’s head in, which was a weirdly widespread joke nowadays … but to put the humoristic quibbles aside due to a lack of relevance, it was an excellent [Class].

And the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to pick this kind of [Class], just not this specific one. Just what would it take to get the legendary equivalent?

Hellfire Savant (epic)

The Hellfire Savant is an absolute monster of fire and malicious intelligence, wielding one of the most destructive energies in un-nature to wreak utter havoc upon your foes.

This Class centers on creative applications of hellfire, as well as unlocking secondary/supplementary abilities.

This [Class] was the one least changed from the previous offering, just a stronger version of what he’d already had available. It improved his hellfire, could form the foundation for a mage or elementalist build, and was unsuitable as a starter due to the absurd power requirements of the element in question.

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Great, but neither excellent nor perfectly suited to his goals. Also lacking anything extraordinary or new to draw the interest, therefore leaving him unwilling to divert from his chosen challenge of starting with a legendary one.

Mischief’s Emissary (epic)

What exactly is “mischief?” Children think it’s something that’s fun to them. Parents and teachers think it’s something they have to educate, or perhaps even beat out of children. And the dictionary isn’t helpful in the least, since it claims it can be either misbehavior for the hell of it, or straight up missbehaviour, period.

Even so, sometimes, we all need a little mischief in our lives, come it in the form of a reason to smile even in dour circumstances, or the disruption of things in need of change, and by the gods, Mischief’s Emissary is here to deliver!

This Class is all about “creative” applications of just about anything that can be “applied,” while also providing a handful of magical and mundane abilities designed to be versatile. Finally, it can help throw a wrench into even the most carefully created plan … especially when someone gives poorly worded instructions.

And this offering stung. Not because it wasn’t good, but because the flavor text was … ah, he’d had this little “crisis” far too often in the past few years.

Sure, in a training scenario, going the intended route was how you got out of it what you were supposed to get out of it.

However, just getting shit done worked in the real world, even if it was in an unusual or unexpected way, was only a problem if done in strictly regimented surroundings, or while working under someone with a stick up their ass.

It was simple, it was comprehensible, it was logical.

So why the hell was everyone so desperate to hammer that point home over and over again? It was starting to seriously grate on him, and Derek’s efforts to ignore that were starting to crack.

But ultimately … solid [Class] with a grating flavor text, but he’d grown out of the whole “breaking stuff just because he could” phase, at least insofar as he’d ever been in it.

Great for a revolutionary, great for a prankster, only somewhat good for him.

Bloodline Master (epic)

Bloodlines are the unique creations of those who wish to uplift relatives they have left behind in terms of power, or create a legacy for their descendants, something to help them succeed, grant them a power to use to ascend to greatness … or to pigeonhole them into following their own footsteps. Depends on the person, depends on the circumstances, depends on, well, just depends, really.

But where most people use their bloodline merely to start out with, there are those who use it for everything, those who use it almost exclusively, mastering its every Aspect and becoming someone of impressive capabilities without ever stepping beyond the bounds of what they were born with, at least in regards to the kinds of abilities they have, while shattering the limits they should have had in terms of power.

This Class grows in unique ways centered around the purpose of the Bloodline.

As for this last one … he didn’t want it, period. No Bloodline [Class], ever, even if it was a good one. And this one didn’t seem to be, not in any way, beyond the rarity rating.

Also, there was one small issue of his Bloodline being designed around letting him walk his own path, but if his chosen path was, quite literally, “do what I want, how I want,” how would that go?

Best-case scenario, it’d help him settle on something in the first Evolution. Less-than-best-case would be a godawful mess, basically.

Of the lot, it was the learning [Class] that intrigued him the most, almost enough to tempt him into picking it … but he’d set a goal, and he’d go for it. He’d keep this up for five more years, or until he got a legendary [Class], though the chances of the latter happening before the deadline were looking less and less likely.

Hell, he wasn’t really feeling like he was going anywhere at all.

So what was he going to do now? That was certainly worth thinking about ...

***

In the end, the solution wound up being rather obvious: pick a path and stick to it, put his nose to the grindstone until the ten years were up.

He’d avoided the more specialized academies because he wanted a more well-rounded education, but perhaps there was something to be said for going to one.

As for where … Akashic Academy was still out, because the family academy was a bad idea, The Boot Camp in Antarctica was all about the physical, but if he was going to go for something specialized, he was going to go somewhere else, and Australia’s Crucible was for insane people.

Which just left The Tower, in New York.

It wasn’t exactly a hard decision to choose to go there, though it would likely take a bit to figure out the logistics.