Dark Fate: Book 1 – A New Fate
: Chapter 4

Again, it seemed that my last timeline’s activities had bled into the profession selection. Scholar, Writer, Blacksmith, and Entertainer were all there from before. After all, I had gone to college, and I published short stories online for a bit of side money. The Blacksmith profession came from when I was researching forging techniques because I wanted to know more about swords, while Entertainer was thanks to my childhood ambition to be a rock star.

The new professions were interesting enough. Hunter, naturally, involved hunting animals (or other creatures) and butchering them for food. As you got higher levels, you were able to get skills that made it easier to get fatal blows on your prey, or made tracking animals a breeze. It was essentially the Ranger class, but with most of the abilities stripped away, focusing more on providing food and crafting materials than killing a hated foe.

Torturer was exactly what it sounded like. It specialized in the infliction of pain, both physical and psychological, with the goal of breaking someone’s resistance, and either getting information out of them, or punishing them for some offense. There were plenty of times in the old timeline when I’d been forced to get my hands dirty, in order to find out the information I needed to know in order to hunt down the Demon Lord I’d killed. But was that the path I wanted to walk from the beginning?

Hero was a lovely profession that gave you a whole lot of bonuses to, well, everything involved with saving the weak and powerless types and in general making yourself look awesome to anyone who asked. It made it easier to rally followers to your cause, for instance. And few professions had the same kind of charisma bonuses as Hero, which made enticing women into your arms a breeze. It was one of the odd professions that affected everyone around you, rather than enhancing your own abilities.

Slave Master was just like it sounded. Anyone could own a slave. Just get a slave collar once people started making them, slap it on a helpless victim, and BOOM, you’re a slave owner. Done and done. Slave Masters were a different breed entirely. For one thing, they gained an ability to brand slaves with their mark, which essentially replaced the need for a collar. They also got some management skills, allowing them to increase their slaves’ abilities. And, at higher levels, you could pick up a skill that allowed you to hide the Slave title from your slaves when people Analyzed them, which had all kinds of interesting possibilities.

In the end, I really only had one choice, if I wanted to take back everything that had been stolen from me, and force my former friends to grovel at my feet.

I smiled as I looked at the screen. Under the System, you got bonuses based on your Race, Class, and Profession, and you got only two Attribute points per level to upgrade your attributes. Because of that, it was still possible for someone who had dumped much of their stats into Dexterity to outmaneuver someone of a higher level. Incidentally, Humans didn’t have set attributes, like my Greater Incubus did, but gained three extra attribute points they could assign each level, allowing them to grow in power rapidly, or become more versatile, while other races tended to specialize in certain fields because of their attribute bonuses.

Well, that certainly hadn’t happened last time I was going through the system integration. Seems like more than just my classes and professions were altered by my traveling back in time. Hoping for good news, I opened my Status.

The first thing I noticed was the attributes. Those were definitely NOT the starting attributes I’d had last time! While people who remained human had some variation in their attributes, everyone who race-changed during the Apocalypse typically started with 10s across the board, modified by their race, class, and profession, of course. This was too much! Something about the spread felt familiar, though. And that’s when it hit me. If I deducted 10 from each score, plus what I’d gained from my choices just now, then those numbers were all roughly 1/10 my scores from when I was the Black Knight. For someone at Tier 1, Level 1, they were practically godlike!

It also showed how unbalanced I was, in my old life. With more Luck and WIS, I might have been able to see through the deception of my ‘friends’ and maybe avoid getting stabbed to begin with. But I’d ignored them, since I didn’t see the point. Like an idiot.

The way attributes worked was pretty simple.

• Strength (STR) – Measures how strong you are. The more strength you had, the harder you could hit, the more you could lift, and so on. Higher strength lets you wear heavier armor without issue.
• Dexterity (DEX) – Measures how quick you are, and your reaction time. Also helps with the whole ‘not getting hit’ thing, as well as accuracy, especially with ranged weapons.
• Constitution (CON) – Measures how tough your body is. Also includes how well you can fight off infections, disease, and fatigue. Most importantly, it improves your HP, which is massively important.
• Intelligence (INT) – As the name says, it deals with how smart you are. Higher INT helps with memory and reasoning. Also is the stat which governs MP, like CON does with HP.
• Wisdom (WIS) – Basically, common sense, and the ability to see through deceptions. Key in fighting off illusions and enchantments. Also has something to do with your connection to the world and other forces, which is why priests and druids value it highly.
• Charisma (CHA) – This is more of a complicated one. Charisma covers not just physical looks, but ‘force of personality’ as well. Basically, the things that attract people to someone, and allows them to interact with (and manipulate) them. Many classes that channel power from other sources, like Sorcerers, use CHA to tame their powers.

The second big thing I noticed, of course, was that I already had some skills, which I recognized immediately from my old life. Like with the attributes, it was clear that only a fraction of my former power had come through. I was the Black Knight, after all, so it was only natural that I faced many battles, with my life on the line. These Tier 2 skills were godsends on the battlefield, allowing me to survive many battles that would have been hopeless. Seeing them again brought a smile to my face.

Even better, they didn’t count against my skill points! Every level, you gained two skill points to get new skills from your racial, class, profession, and general skill lists. That didn’t sound like much, and it wasn’t. For the first ten levels, you could count on getting access to at least one more skill on each of the lists, with more depending on your actions. After tenth level, the number of new skills decreased, generally only appearing every other level, and eventually every five levels.

Of course, you didn’t have to spend all your skill points. In fact, many people who were over level 40 had stopped spending their skill points altogether so they had a solid cache ready for when they broke through to Tier 2 after level 50, and gained a new, upgraded, class, and sometimes upgraded professions or races as well, if they met the requirements, with a host of new skills to choose from! Since Tier 2 skills were more powerful (and expensive) than Tier 1 skills, it was generally more efficient to save for a couple Tier 2 skills, rather than buying several Tier 1 skills.

Now, just because someone didn’t have ‘Sword Mastery’ didn’t mean they couldn’t use a sword. In fact, if they trained, they could be really good at it, even without the skill in the System. The important part about skills recognized by the System was that they had ‘System Assist’ built in, subtly affecting things. Often, they would have hidden abilities that were outside the norm, like someone with the Intimidate skill being able to create a fear effect when they were feeling angry.

That kind of thing is what made this decision an important one. While there were no ‘wrong’ choices with your skills, there were certainly skills that would be more useful than others, and the skills you chose could affect your development, and the type of classes and abilities you were eligible to unlock. Most people found out about such things by purchasing a guide to the system from those who were scholarly enough to actually read through the information the System provided. Or the Aliens, when they showed up. Some of the guides they sold were even truthful.

With that thought in mind, I opened up my skill menu, to see what I could pick from.

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