Day 30, 8:20 PM

  Rain drums and rustles against the forest canopy so dense it might as well be a roof. I’m terrified and excited by my idea. If I live long enough, I’m certain I’ll advance anarchist, even though the conditions get more and more absurd with each passing level.

  I don’t delude myself that I’ll amass enough power to become truly immortal; worse, I might achieve it and grow bored of life. No, what I need to do is learn how BSD works, how to do things even if I am reborn as a chimp, or some kind of caveman with zero technology and infrastructure. What I need is to amass knowledge and understanding.

  Edna trembles at my speech, terrified by my offer, but I know she is considering it, and with every passing moment, she knows it’s the right thing to do. We can game the system. Master and apprentice, apprentice and master, an endless loop in which we exchange our roles every now and then.

  “That sounds wrong.” She finally finds her words, but they are of the dumbest kind.

  “Edna, there is no right or wrong, there is no good and evil outside your own perception. What I’m thinking and offering is the following - we map all the classes we can, map level up conditions, then pick our way through them and reach the highest levels we can. Each attribute point is a cumulative ten percent improvement, we shuffle twenty-thirty classes, stack the deck in our favor and with four-five levels in each of them, we should in theory grow strong to oppose the inquisition and complete dungeons—”

  Edna bursts into laughter.

  “Oh, you silly, ignorant child.” She wipes a tear. “What good will more attribute points and mundane skills do against the wormlords? Do you understand that the path to becoming an archmage is severed? The power they wielded makes regular mages seem like children, but even they failed to annihilate the wormlords, despite outnumbering them five to one. They couldn’t even kill one in a coordinated assault. Despite having its body obliterated, the wormlord reformed in a matter of days.”

  Edna shakes her head.

  “All of this was documented, but I don’t know what’s happened with the records. The knowledge and wisdom of generations in the hands of those delusional troglodytes.”

  “What are the odds those books survived?”

  “Slim.” Just voicing the admission seems to cause Edna physical pain. “There were book-burnings. Apprentices, or so-called witches as the church labeled them, were tied with piles of books beneath their feet and burned alive.”

  Yeah, there’s no right way to continue this conversation. Saying ‘been there, done that’ is bound to get me slapped or something, Edna would resent me at the very least, since it’s obvious her friends and family died in those fires.

  “We can assume no books then, which means we need to document useful knowledge, or at least the knowledge we will need to preserve between memory wipes.” The words are alienating her. Her bearing changes, her torso shifts to the side, an instinctive reaction to run away from me. I pressed too hard, too fast.

  “Just consider it later, maybe when we’re back at your home and sharing tea.” Her shoulders relax.

  Yeah, definitely shouldn’t have pressed that hard.

  So, I continue in the same vein. “I’ve learned how to use mana sense, so if there’s nothing else keeping us here, I would much prefer drinking tea and sharing honeygrubs than hunting crystal-moth abominations.”

  Edna considers my words and nods. “There’s little to gain here. Drawing and manipulating mana is slightly easier here than in my home, but the difference is negligible.”

  “Do you know what the second level options are for apprentice mages?”

  “Increased Mana Capacity skill and Initial Draw Mana, you obviously need to pick the latter.” Edna puffs up her chest, obviously asking a question on a subject she’s familiar with improved her morale immediately. “I’ll have you know I know all skills available for apprentice mages, all the way until level eight, which was the highest recorded level in the books I read.”

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  That’s sixteen skills. Given Edna’s abilities and skills, it’s shameful to claim she memorized a list of sixteen items, especially when I’m trying to commit to memory every detail of my life, only letting go of the trivial nonsense two weeks later.

  A single class’s skills are a breeze for the both of us, no matter how formal and detailed you’re going to be—?

  “Edna, could you prepare the skills and an introduction to them as a lesson? So that I can fully comprehend them.”

  She stares at me for a moment, then her eyes go wide as she realizes what I want to do.

  If it’s stupid and simple, there’s no reason not to abuse easy, formal lessons to increase my class level. Plus, maybe I should straight up redo apprentice mage as soon as I’m done with the class. Maybe I should repeat it several times until I can polish the skills as much as humanly possible.

  For instance, if I can get a hang of sensing mana without the skill, I will unlock the skill by default, and I can check what Initial Arcane Lore brings to the table. The same with drawing mana. If I can do it without skills, then having an increased mana capacity is a no-brainer.

  “Hey, Edna, how much would you hate me if I became your apprentice once or twice more? Switching back and forth to something like the basic hunter class?” She glares at me, and I flash her a winning smile. “Maybe five times.”

  I can tell she’s really annoyed, and it’s perfectly reasonable for her to feel that way. I’m toying with what she believes is her life and sanity. What would she say if I told her I still want to pull Lucy and Gila into this?

  The former was a hardworking, dedicated woman, the latter a leveling savant, who only wants a respectable job and enough funds to live a comfortable life.

  “You’re plotting something,” Edna says, and I force my smile into an even wider grin.

  “I am, and it’s to your benefit, even if you don’t like it.”

  She’s about to protest, but there’s no need. “I won’t do anything without consulting you.”

  She’s about to argue again, but I keep talking.

  “And if during my consultation you reject my proposal, I won’t do anything on my own.” Edna nearly sighs with relief, unfortunately for her, I’m not done yet. “But I’ll keep pestering you and explaining the obvious advantages of doing things my way until you yield.”

  “We’re going home.” Edna turns around, marching towards Tallrock.

  “Wait, I’m serious! I really want to restart apprentice mage when I reach a high enough level to understand how its skills work.”

  I follow behind her, thinking how I, no, we, really need to explore BSD as much as possible. In fact, I should’ve done that ages ago on my own, but a stable life with a woman I love, a family, and a kingdom to rule gave no leeway to experiment with classes and skills. Meanwhile, a brief trip to the dungeon served as an excellent example.

  My second attempt at being a weapon master was much smoother and yielded much better results than the first one.

  I could always kill myself and redo.

  My throat clenches at the thought. Madness lies there. The world becoming a game, humans becoming pieces to position just right. Soon, it would reach the point where I’m not redoing to perfect my class choices and skills, but to brew a better cup of tea, to learn how to fry perfect honeygrubs on my first attempt, and nonsense like that.

  I know myself, and I know I’m my greatest enemy. My rotten mind gets mired up, twisted in its own thoughts and visions of what reality should be. I guess that’s how I became an anarchist.

  My mind wanders, my body following Edna until she calls for a break. She didn’t walk far, just enough to open up a safe distance from the moth-cricket’s corpse.

  “We’ll rest here for tonight. I’ll prepare a lecture on apprentice mage class and the skills it grants, not just the skill choices for each level, but also what I know about those skills, as well as how attribute points impact your future growth.”

  She flicks her wrist and dry leaves, twigs, and branches gather into a small pile, then with a snap of her fingers, the heap of combustibles starts crackling with fire.

  “I’m adding the talk about attribute points because I don’t think there’s enough material for a lesson without them. Yes, what is it?” She says slightly annoyed at my raised hand.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, but why did you start making fire with firewood these last couple days, but you used to fuel it with magic at your home?”

  “Magical fire means no ash, but those with mana sense, like inquisitors and abominations can sense the mana disturbance from further away. We’re talking about ten yards versus two hundred yards, so the difference is negligible, unless someone or something is on the prowl in the area.”

  She plucks a long, smooth thorn off a bush and skewers three pieces of meat from her food sack.

  “Sit, eat, rest; tomorrow, we’ll have the lesson in the morning, before the downpour lets up.”