Harvey awoke with a start to see Hannah’s face looming above him.

  “Morning, sleepyhead!” She cooed.

  His face was cold, so he pulled it into the sleeping bag. “What time is it?”

  “Sunrise! Time for our Taekwondo class.” She cheered, walking over to Julian’s cot near the grindstone.

  “Are you kidding me?” Harvey groaned. “I’m not going.”

  “Yep! We all are!” Hannah laughed, swinging the smithy doors wide open to let the cold air in. “You guys wake me up for no reason all the time, so today’s my payback. Besides, you want to help Master Seung-Ho level up, right?”

  “How are you even awake? There aren't any alarm clocks here.” Julian asked, his voice raspy and dry.

  “I asked Buttercup to wake me up! He’s usually up early, but is sweet enough to let me sleep. Unlike you brats.” She snickered. “Now come on!”

  Harvey sat up, surprised to find the constant burning under his skin was gone. He’d gotten used to pins and needles with every movement. For the first time in days, he took a deep stretch, spreading his arms out wide and arching his back as a satisfied groan escaped his lips.

  It didn’t hurt.

  Checking his Weave screen, he was relieved to see every stat finally back to 0%. He shot to his feet, any desire to sleep erased from his body as he danced around.

  “Geez, Harvey. I didn’t know you were this into Taekwondo.” Julian chuckled.

  Harvey didn’t hear him. “I’m back, baby!” He cheered. “Hell yes, I am so back! This feels amazing. Did it always feel this good to stand up without your entire body screaming at you?”

  “Your Weave is healed?” Hannah asked.

  “Damn right! I can’t wait to get back out there. Gah, I’ve been stuck in this room for days!” Harvey celebrated.

  He wanted nothing more than to rush over to the Loom, craft his new skills, and get hunting, but Hannah dragged him to the class first. It turned out to be a good thing, helping him stretch and warm up his body. Learning a thing or two about martial arts didn’t hurt either, even if he doubted he’d ever spend much time kicking his way through the Undead. He’d learned the importance of protecting yourself in hand-to-hand combat when he got pummeled by the Iron Elemental, and appreciated learning the proper blocking technique.

  Master Seung-Ho went through a prepared regimen of blocks, kicks, and body control, but was happy to answer any specific questions his students had. There were almost 30 Veilstriders in attendance, and radiant light erupted from the instructor as the class was brought to a close. Watching the process never got old, and even though he couldn’t feel the surge himself, a joyful warmth spread through his own body, knowing he helped a fellow survivor along their path.

  “Thank you all for attending. I hope these lessons benefit you as much as they do me.” He smiled.

  The crowd thanked him in turn before breaking up to start their own tasks for the day.

  “I used to hate our morning workouts back in High School cheer, but there’s something special about getting up early and moving your body, isn’t there?” Hannah preened, stretching.

  “We all know it, but that doesn’t make getting up any easier.” Julian laughed. “Should we say goodbye to Elena before we head out?”

  “She won’t be awake for a while, but I do need to hit the Loom before we leave,” Harvey explained.

  “Oh, nice! Class skill or profession?” Julian asked.

  “Both. Killing the F Grade shot me all the way up to level 22, but I didn’t want to risk adding a skill to my weave while I was injured. Plus, I hit level 25 in my profession last night.”

  The Veilstriders sleeping in the church had gotten tired of constantly being woken up by people who couldn’t wait for the loom, so most had moved their beds to the other dormitories. Harvey found it empty and wasted no time placing his hands on the Loom.

  The rainbow haze surrounded him, and he felt the presence behind the wooden structure ask him whether he wanted to create his profession or class skill first. It was the first time he’d visited with both available, and a simple thought was enough for a sea of visions to appear around him.

  He had a lot of time to think about his fight with the Elemental during his convalescence and realized he’d been thinking about his class skills all wrong. He’d already succumbed to the fact that it was the Harvey path he needed to care about and not some arbitrary rules he expected the System to have because of all the video games he played. Still, he chose to return to his Arcanist roots for his level 20 skill.

  Every time he came, he fantasized about hurling fireballs around, and every time, he talked himself out of it because of some misguided notion that it didn’t fit the System’s plan for him. It wasn’t God, and there wasn’t some pre-ordained path he was supposed to follow. Sure, he’d been right that it did its best to solve the problem he had with the experiences and plans he gave it, but who’s to say fireballs weren’t the right answer all along?

  Fighting the elemental was the first time he’d lost his weapon, and instead of switching tactics, he’d wasted all his essence trying to recreate Julian’s shield slam skill with Fangbreaker. That just left him drained and defenseless when the Elemental ripped his tools away. Harvey never wanted to be defenseless again, so he needed a skill that would let him destroy his enemies with essence alone.

  He had all the pieces he needed. He just needed to trust his gut that the System would make his dream real, even though he’d never conjured fire from his hands before. The first ingredients were the highlight moments using his wand. It wasn’t just the fights themselves he wanted to include, but the function of the wand itself. It wasn’t the wood that made it special. That was just a receptacle for the essence while it worked its way through the pattern and became the bolt of destructive force. He added the concept of fire with the heat of his forge, just like he had with Flamestrike, and the cluster of visions he chose slowly glowed brighter. His final ingredient was the desperation he felt once he had nothing left except for his wand while facing the F Grade. He knew that moment would have gone differently with a skill like this one, and hoped the Loom would agree.

  Nodding his assent, each piece floated into the Loom. He was delighted to watch a cascade of red, orange, and tan thread weave into the shape of a hand conjuring a ball of flame that floated off the Loom and onto his left palm. The pain of adding to his weave barely registered after days of suffering from his injury, and he smiled as the church reappeared around him.

  “What’d you get? I normally get a decent idea from the visions, but I got nothing from that combo.” Julian asked.

  “Oh, nothing special. Just fireball!” Harvey swaggered as a screen appeared for them to read.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Ha! Loser! You got a Common skill.” Hannah mocked.

  “Hannah!” Julian reprimanded. “I have to say, this is a little weird, though. Why is John the one writing your skill description?”

  “I’m not 100% sure, but I did expect the skill to be Common.” Harvey smiled.

  “Why? How are you going to get a Rare Class with basic skills like that?” Hannah asked.

  “Because using magic like this really isn’t a part of my Legacy yet. John’s guide said rarity depends on how well the skill aligns with your experiences, and so far, I’ve been walking around swinging a hammer like I’m trying to be Julian. But I’m not! I’m Harvey, and nothing would make me happier than slinging fireballs.” Harvey explained.

  “It’s a little late to change plans now, don’t you think?” Julian worried.

  “I’m not giving up on my path. I’m pivoting to one that includes both. An armored, hammer-swinging, flame-wielding badass who can kill you with his hands or his head. Whichever is faster.” Harvey laughed.

  “Whatever you say.” Hannah chuckled.

  “Careful! I can blow you up now.” Harvey smirked before placing his hands on the orb once more. It was time for his Capstone profession skill, and like his Common fireball, he planned on taking it a different direction.

  He’d become the town's Blacksmith since arriving in Veils End, and he was happy to have found a way to benefit the war effort while empowering himself. He’d gotten plenty of skill related to blacksmithing, but that wasn’t actually his Profession.

  He was an inventor.

  Sure, part of that was being able to make the parts and pieces needed for his experiments, but his legacy wasn’t just going to be about hammering metal. He’d already begun to incorporate inscriptions into his path, and he wanted to Capstone skill to cement that further.

  He didn’t expect a high-rarity skill since his injury had prevented him from getting any more practice, but his gut told him that would be fine. In a way, he was taking a risk by accepting weaker skills now in hopes that the future returns would be exponential.

  There was a lot he could shoot for when it came to an inscription-related skill. It was a broad enough concept that Elena had already made three and still had barely scratched the surface of the profession.

  She’d created the skill that let her interface with the inkwell to extract only the energy she wanted from the materials she used to make her ink, an ocular skill like his that helped her understand the latent will of each brush, ink, and canvas she used, and a skill that let her boost her Willpower for short periods at a high essence cost. Each could be a template for his own skill, but he decided to try something new.

  Every material they inscribed had a certain tolerance for inscriptions. Use too strong an ink to draw too complex a pattern on weak material and the entire thing would break down. That also limited the number of effects you could inscribe on a single piece of gear. Even if there was room for more ink, there wasn’t always room for more essence.

  Harvey wondered if he could treat it like code, where you could choose to only run certain parts of the script instead of powering the whole thing. That way, he could inscribe light, shield, and fireball inscriptions on the same pair of gauntlets and switch between whatever he needed in the moment. Each effect would be weaker than a similar skill, but he’d be able to recreate dozens to use at need.

  He didn’t exactly have experience with this, but even if it didn’t work, the skill would likely still be inscription-related. He’d have to gamble.

  Harvey plucked the visions of forging his plate armor, inscribing the force redirection runes on his chestplate, and inscribing the light runes on his gauntlets from the ocean of highlights flitting around him. The glow was respectable, but would at best be an uncommon skill. He decided to add the fight with the Elemental, where his overuse of skills had left him so devoid of essence that he couldn’t even power the light inscription that only needed a trickle of essence to operate.

  I really hope you can read my mind. Harvey sighed as each vision floated into the Loom.

  Silver, Gray, Blue, Red, and Yellow threads rained down from above, weaving into a sigil depicting an iron gauntlet with three runic patterns inscribed in different colors. The yellow thread formed a string for light that he recognized from his own gloves, the blue shared a few runes with the inscription on his chestplate that he associated with shielding, and the red made a pattern he couldn’t understand. He knew what most of the runes meant, but couldn’t figure out how they strung together at a glance. Based on his intent, he guessed it had something to do with fire.

  The sigil floated towards his right hand, and he again marveled at how resilient his weave had become. He’d always had a laughably low pain tolerance, but stood tall as it burned its way into his inky veins.

  I wonder… Harvey thought, opening his weave screen.

  Definitely not worth the injury, but good to see my Weave built itself back stronger. Harvey smiled.

  “Since when are you making inscriptions? I thought that was Elena’s part of the dynamic duo?” Hannah asked.

  “She’s teaching me. I do a different form than hers, but I wanted to add it to my repertoire since it gives you access to such a wide variety of magical effects.” Harvey explained, opening the skill screen for all to see.

  “I’m going to be honest, I don’t really get what that does, but if you’re happy, I’m happy.” Julian acknowledged.

  “I’m ecstatic!” Harvey beamed. “Now let’s get hunting.”