I already knew which class I wanted to pick, I’d known since it was first shown to me. The system ringing in my ears was redundant, I didn’t even need to see the list of options. My Tier 4 class would be [Father of (un)Death], there was no question. The only uncertainty about classing up was what else that system linkage may bring. The last time I was so innately tethered into the thrumming of the world, two gods of the pantheon descended to speak with me directly. I would have liked to think I was better prepared for such things this time, but one could never truly be prepared to speak with a god.

  Laying in my bedroll, the system notifications ringing in my ears grew distant and the feeling of falling slowly built. Adrift in a sea of mana an otherworldly calm washed over me. The energy of the world held no judgment and held no anger. Raw and untapped, devoid of emotion, I could liken that feeling to no other. I could no longer tell where my body ended and the world around me began.

  Just as quickly as it started the sensation was already over. Without so much as a moment to think or enjoy I was once again hurled through the fabric of the world to find myself standing in an unfamiliar space. Relying on the bounds of the system to keep me safe, I turned and took in the strange new environment.

  There wasn’t much to see. My eyes darted around the darkness aimlessly, up and down, left and right, and still nothing. I felt as if I was standing but I can’t see a floor beneath me and nothing around me but the same sprawling endless nothing. Both halves of my soul were present, overlaid atop one another with the faintest bit of separation. Everything occurred in doubles, like a soft echo.

  I tried to call out into the void, but my voice made no sound.

  “Hello Children. You took longer to awake than we expected.”

  A chorus of voices rang out from the darkness simultaneously coming from nowhere and everywhere. Trapping me, Trapping us, in a sphere of sound. I wanted to call out to them, to ask a thousand different questions, and even though my voice wasn’t working they responded to my thoughts the first time. ‘Who are you?’ I focused on those words, thinking them and trying in vain to speak them aloud.

  “We are like you. A greater whole made of broken parts, friends and loved ones abandoned and forgotten. We are Kindred”

  Their words didn’t answer my question and only gave rise to more and more confusion. A chill passed over me which should have be impossible when I couldn’t feel anything else. The weight of an otherworldly attention rode with it, similar to the gods but strange enough to feel foreign. Foreign bore heavy implications when the system connected all people.

  ‘Are you a demon?’ My second question didn’t merit a response either, instead I was drowned in an uproarious laugh. If I could’ve still felt my ears they might have been bleeding.

  “No children, we are not demonic. Many of us fought against the tide of incursion when this world was at the brink. Yet, like you, our sacrifice was not recognized. We speak with you now out of… respect.”

  They paused on their last word, silently debating the proper form, a worrying sign. Were they trying to manipulate me or was this not their native tongue?

  ‘Is that all you want from me? Commiseration?”

  “That is all we want… for now. Continue along as your mind takes you and we will meet again. Then it will be time to discuss in earnest.”

  My next question died on my lips, unable to even form another thought before I was hurled away from this liminal space back towards my body. There was a brief moment where I felt an impact and with a soft thud I was dropped quite literally back into my bedroll. The cool night air surrounded me, and it must have been several hours judging by the darkness. My skin was slick with a cold sweat and my bleary eyes were met by a single system message.

  Sigil was wrapped around my arm, either asleep or pretending to be, and completely ignoring me. I extracted my arm from their surprisingly cold embrace and moved to sit up, suddenly feeling a weight pressing down on my feet.

  I glanced up to see Cain and his four new brothers standing in the opening of my tent. Cain’s eyes glimmered in the moonlight. I must admit he looked rather ominous when taken out of context, but looking at him all I could see was my oldest friend.

  “Hey bud, did you come to check on me?” I smile up at Cain and he steps into the tent, looming over me and practically shoving his muzzle in my face. His breath is cold and damp, with a scent of stale decay, like a tomb that hasn’t been opened in decades. Cain doesn’t respond to my question verbally, but he presses forward again and rests his head on my shoulder. Behind him, the saber wolf skeletons disperse and scatter across the camp to maintain a functional perimeter.

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  Cain stayed with me for the rest of the night, laying himself over my legs and watching the opening of my tent. I didn’t know how much he was aware of, but the more independent my minion became the more I found myself relying on him.

  ————

  The next morning arrived uneventfully. I managed a few more fitful hours of sleep before the sun began to rise and meet the morning dew of the forest. My class upgrade was behind me and the world in front, my journey fell back into a comfortable routine. We traveled for the entire day before finally spotting the sign posts that pointed to Alberack and making camp for a final time. The small provincial city was just far enough away to make pushing on through the night a difficult choice, but I’d rather arrive in the morning anyway.

  This gave me a chance to look over the new skills for my upgraded class as well, which would be absolutely necessary now that I had a small caravan of undead constantly following in my wake. I still needed to learn what [Body of the minion] does as well.

  The list of skills that poured into my mind when I tapped into the system interface wasn’t particularly surprising or anything, many mage skills followed similar patterns. It was just much longer than I expected, pages and pages of skills fell under the purview of my new class, many of which laid outside the realms of my particular specialization. Just how powerful is this new class?

  My first step was looking into [Body of the minion], before I could become too distracted by other skills.

  The skill read almost word for word like Cain’s [Mind of the Master] skill, just inverted to benefit me instead of him. The connection between the two skills, and the presence of the fragmented thing in the void between my class upgrade was not lost on me. This wasn’t something I wanted to ignore any longer, it was clearly not just a hiccup of my system errors or the problems with my soul. Something larger was at play, and if I wanted to get to the bottom of it, I needed to keep moving forward. Skills were as good a good place as any to start.

  ————

  We dawdled in our camp for a few hours on our last morning on the road, Leigh and Cinder made breakfast while I sat and scrolled through what felt like hundreds of skills. Pouring over which ones I knew, which ones I didn’t, and trying to find powerful options that would help me in the long run.

  There are a few options that didn’t require much thought, I took both [Void Resist] and [Abyss Resist] so I no longer have to worry about being caught in my own spells once I started casting larger ones. I would have normally taken a spell resistance skill as well to make other casters less of a threat, but that should have been covered by my vague [Blessing of Mana]. A defensive skill was going to be necessary eventually, and there was one on my list that stood out.

  The shield skill was narrow and targeted to a single specific use, but with massive amounts of mana to spend on charging it, I thought it would make a potent addition to my arsenal. The only other skill I wanted at the moment was something to help keep my growing army of minions out of sight while traveling, or at least a way to transport them without notice.

  It took me several hours of scouring through skills to find the one I wanted most, but the skill definitely made it worth the effort.

  Taking this skill now, when it would default to level 41, was a huge boon to my carrying capacity, I couldn’t imagine having to train it from scratch.

  The final slot for my new class I planned to leave empty, at least for now, since having an empty skill slot could make a world of difference in an emergency.

  ———

  Before we left camp, I tested my new [Shadow Meld] skill by using it on Kite. Sigil wouldn’t be out of place in a village, but my undead posed a much larger risk.

  The skill took hold and Kite seemed to melt into the ground, forming an inky black puddle that surged forward and toward my own shadow. When the two made contact the twin darknesses merged on the ground and rippled back into the original shape of my silhouette. Strangely enough, I could still feel Kite’s presence as if I were focusing on his soul bond.

  I cycled the skill once to summon him back out before sending him in again, confirming no visible side effects to the usage of the skill. Then, it was time for Cain to enter my shadow as well. Casting the skill on him was far more strenuous, and it targeted his four subservient saber wolves as well, all five canine melted simultaneously. It took a mound of effort, and nearly five thousand points of continuous mana poured into the skill over twenty minutes, but when they did meld into my shadow a tremendous relief replaced my exhaustion.

  Cain and I wouldn’t ever have to be separated again, and now I’d always have someone to watch my back, almost literally.

  Once we left we followed the road north, slowly sauntering into sight of the city gates just before noon, giving the guard plenty of time to open things up and let the city get prepared for the day.

  “Hold!” a guard shouted at us before we were even twenty feet from the main palisade gate. “State your name and business in Alberack please.” The commanding guard came into view, stepping out of a small guard house hidden just out of sight along the edge of the road. Alberack’s security had never been this significant before. Is something the matter?

  “Good evening officer!” I smiled and raised my arms in a welcoming gesture.