It was breezy outside the Hillford walls, far away by the tree line. The city proper was only visible in the distance on the other side of wheat fields and open grasslands. Allen was sitting on a recently cut tree stump with a handful of acorns in his hand that he was studying intensely.

  “Master…”

  “Christopher’s technique doesn’t seem to work for upgrading Identify,” he thought to himself.

  “Yeah, that’s helpful, but I guess it is just an acorn.”

  “Um, master?”

  “It goes straight to tier twelve and shows more information, but an acorn is just an acorn… I’m just procrastinating, aren’t I? This isn’t going anywhere.”

  “M-Master, um, what are we doing here?” Nora asked from a nearby stump. She sounded more anxious than bored, despite it taking her nearly ten minutes to ask her question. It was amusing to watch her sit on the stump just waiting for something to happen.

  Allen grinned and tossed his acorns away. “Indecisive,” he thought. “We’re here to fix your build so that you can start training illusions. I also need to spend a fuck-ton of points.”

  “Oh.”

  “What Jobs do you have?”

  Nora looked out into space for a moment before answering. “Shadow Watcher, Elite Assassin, and Illusionist,” she listed. “So… Shadow watcher is where my shadow magic comes from, I can see in the dark and attack with shadow, you know the other two. I got Illusionist so you can start teaching me how to cast your illusions… I mean, if that’s okay.”

  Allen hummed, letting a deep breath escape though his nose. Evidently, that wasn’t the reaction Nora had been hoping for. She shirked back on her stump, expecting him to be disappointed somehow, and she would be correct, to an extent.

  “Drop Illusionist. My illusions use mind magic, which requires the Mentalist Job tree. I know it’s counter intuitive, but mind magic illusions are harder to counter or see through, more versatile, and just better,” he said, fixing his mentee with a firm look. “They’re ten times harder to use, though. It’s not even worth using mind magic while below level three hundred since it’s so weak, but she doesn’t need to know that yet.”

  Nora’s face showed both confusion and anguish at the same time.

  “We’re working towards a Hidden Job,” Allen added. “Those don’t even unlock until level five hundred.”

  “Hidden Job?” Nora asked.

  “Yes, Hidden Jobs are the highest rank there is for Jobs. They’re like Legendary Jobs, but you can’t see them at all in the System and you have to unlock them without knowing any of their requirements. It’s like a surprise!” Allen said with a grin. “You can’t even tell anybody the name or requirements of a Hidden Job they don’t already know, because they’ll just hear gibberish. For example: ^??????????????????▄????????I??????≤????????α??????????????u???????????≈?????????≥??????????? J??????????╗?????????????????x??????:???????╡????????_????????? ???????3????.”

  The stunned look in Nora’s eyes was well hidden, but Allen could still easily tell that she hadn’t understood his last few words, as expected. She quickly shook her head and refocused. “How will you tell me the requirements then?”

  “Semantics,” Allen replied without pause. “There are ways around everything, for the most part. Besides, I’m still not entirely sure I want to give away my Job,” he added with a smirk. “There are only two people who know how to unlock it, myself included. Hell, some people even say that if too many people know the requirements for a Hidden Job, it stops being a Hidden Job. So, you can’t expect me to just hand it over.”

  Nora swallowed as her eyes darted away for a moment. “Of course. I knew that.”

  “Right,” Allen said, smiling. “Just rework your build a bit according to these notes; it’s nothing too drastic. I know you have a few points saved up as well,” he continued. He took a torn-off piece of paper out of his inventory and handed it over to Nora, getting a quick look at her nametag in the process.

  “That should be good for now.” While his apprentice looked over the notes he had given her, Allen turned his attention to his own status. There was a lot of work to do, and no better time to do it. Firstly, he put two Job points into Dusk Lurker and Spellspear of Chaos, smiling at the lack of additional requirements for a tiered up version of either of them. Some of the stat requirements had increased, but his stats managed to meet those standards. What was more interesting was the improved modifiers.

  The feeling of things changing within him, welled up for a moment before the barrage of skill change notifications. Both Jobs had improved stat modifiers and an additional effect modifier each. The proficiency and resistance were both welcome, leaving Allen with five points for his Mentalist Job later on. As Advanced Jobs, the skills he had available were much improved from a Basic Job, but also very different. Allen knew he would probably need to let go of a few first, but first he needed to check on the ones that had changed.

  Allen narrowed his eyes at the loss of his only general movement skill again. “Well, I guess this is what I expected. Dusk Lurker does seem pretty campy,” he read through the skill again, careful to look for any nuance. “I would still get a boost to speed after spending time sitting still, which is oddly applicable to my fighting style right now… Sure, I’ll take it.” He moved onto the next skill.

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  Allen had expected the skill to be similar to Feather Walk and just make his steps lighter and faster, but what he got instead was almost completely different. “It’s repressive rather than enhancing, which makes sense as a Dusk aspect skill,” Allen said to himself. He could also become almost weightless on his feet if he used enough stamina. It was probably exponential though. However, he decided that he liked the skill after noting that the anti-fall damage line was still there. “The suspicious part about this skill is that it doesn’t specify an upper limit to the fall damage cancelling… If I fall too fast, it could use up all my mana and I still might get hurt.”

  At first Allen thought the skill was just downgrading the boost to his sense from eight to five-hundred, but then he noticed the change to include thought acceleration. “It’s much less while I’m moving, but the ability to use it continuously while I’m not more than makes up for it.” Allen checked the rest of the skill, also noticing that it was still counted as a State of Mind skill, meaning that it was powered by stamina instead of mana. “I guess the System just doesn’t want to commit to giving me mind magic in this Job yet,” he thought. That was the last skill upgrade for Lurker, which left Killer Instinct, Dead Calm, Body of the Lurker, Assassinate, and Suppression unchanged.

  Allen glanced over the skill card for Suppression, still finding it uninteresting. All of its effects were possible with mind magic, albeit at a much later level, but he still didn’t think it would be worth the points. “I’ll probably drop that for something else, but I should see what Spellspear has to offer fir—”

  “Um, Master… I’m done,” Nora said, poking into Allen’s peripheral vision. She held out the note sheet towards him barely hidden excitement; or maybe it was dread, Allen couldn’t really tell.

  “Okay, how many Job points do you have now?” Allen asked.

  “Seven, now that I got rid of Illusionist.”

  Allen hummed. “Good. Go ahead and spend a point on one of your other Jobs. One of the most important things for a lot of mind magic is your ability to hid your own presence, so pick whichever Job you think would be better at that.”

  Nora took a deep breath, looking off into space again. She was getting awfully pensive about it, which wasn’t uncommon for people who’ve never been high-leveled. Allen could tell her outright that Basic Jobs hardly mattered in the long run, but that ran the risk of making her too unresponsible. The Jobs themselves didn’t really matter, but points did, and dropping something never returned the same amount of points that went into it.

  “I suggest you go with your Elite Assassin Job,” Allen said after nearly a few moments. “Go for anything that will work well with your shadowmancy and deal more damage, but not Dark aspect illusions, because those aren’t mind magic.” He smiled as his apprentice diligently nodded, then he turned his attention back to his skill changes.

  Chaotic Destruction was Allen’s main DPS skill, so needless to say, he was a little anxious to see it changed. The more he head through the skill, the more he started to get confused. “Where is the supercharge part? That was the best part of this skill. It hurt like hell, but it did a shitload of damage. This is more like a curse attack… which means I’m going to need another big finishing move then. I need to test this first.” He groaned inwardly before he moved onto the next skill.

  “Well, that’s a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.” Allen would have gotten rid of Heavy Jab since he hardly ever used it, but a ranged skill was much more useful. How useful it would be, exactly, remained to be seen. “It’s still overly simple, but it’s a good alternative to my throwing needles… I should get the throwing general skill already; my aim is trash.”

  “Oh, now this is interesting,” Allen said to himself. He giggled inwardly like a child just thinking about the ways he could fuck with people using the skill in the future. “This one is my favorite so far, even though I don’t really get it yet.”

  The ability to cover his weapons in miasma was gone. That was the first thing Allen noticed, the next was the emphasis on how chaotic the cloak would be, which sounded fun. “I really need to invest more points into this and Chaotic Synergy, so I don’t kill myself or something. This magic sort of scares me sometimes.”

  “This is pretty similar. I should probably put more points into this.” Allen took a deep breath. The skill was actually pretty underwhelming, but like Cloak of Chaos, he had skimped out on upgrading it.

  Only Chaotic Synergy, Vital Strike, and Damage Control were left unchanged. Allen wanted to hold onto Vital Strike because it was a really good skill had higher tiers, and Chaotic Synergy was important to control his magic, but Damage control almost seemed pointless at that point.

  “It probably wont do any good anymore,” he thought, rubbing his chin. “I’ll have to test Chaotic Des— I mean Ruptured Maelstrom first… I’ll probably keep it if it still works right with chaotic magic, Suppression should definitely go though.” Allen thought about the skill for awhile before deciding to let it be. The fact that it had “Control” in the name was suspicious enough. He would have guessed the System wouldn’t like that skill being part of a Chaos aspect Job, but it hadn’t been changed so he was at a bit of a loss.

  “I got Enhancer Assassin at tier ten,” Nora said, throwing Allen out of his thoughts. She looked proud of herself.

  “Is it Power or Body aspect?” Allen asked. It was basically the difference between enhancing magic or enhancing the body.

  “It says it’s Control,” Nora said with a grin.

  “What? Isn’t that for enchantments and stuff?... I’ll have to ask Christopher.” Allen raised an eyebrow.

  Evidently, Nora took his reaction in a bad way. Her smile turned into a wince, and she quickly glanced at where her status must have been. “It focuses my shadow magic and enhances enchantments and stuff,” she said, “…I just need better, um… I just need stuff with enchantments on it.”

  Allen looked back at his apprentice long and hard. She shifted in her spot awkwardly, but it wasn’t actually his intent to make her uncomfortable. Allen was just reevaluating his own decisions.

  “Wait, would Control aspect actually be better for my Illusions AND damage. It is closer to Dusk on the elemental circle… did I fuck up?” His mind was racing behind a stony expression.

  “Um… Master?”

  “Ah shitty shit! …I can’t think right now. I need Christopher.” Keeping his face neutral, Allen cleared his throat and nodded Nora’s way. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said, “let’s move onto the Mentalist Job then.”