The system offered 81 different occupations, and many sounded very interesting, but most of them were impossible for Avery to choose. First, he could eliminate any jobs that required him to interact with other beings, like being a Teacher, a Beastmaster or a Doctor.
Other than that, now that he knew the effects of the dragon power, he could discard any professions that sounded like they required a constant supply of material. This unfortunately included most of the remaining jobs, like Alchemy, Sculpting or Herbalism.
He then made a list of all the few remaining ones, ordered by preference. Funnily enough, his top choices were the two occupations he had once deemed too advanced when he had chosen the blacksmith job. There were a few others, like “dancer” or “musician” that looked like they fit all of the criterias, but he was thoroughly uninspired by them, and he doubted he would have any talent in any of them.
He could probably still survive with those occupations, but if he was going to spend decades doing something, it had better be something he enjoyed. He would try all the other options first, and would only become an artist as a last resort.
His first choice was Formation master. He knew very little about formations, only that they vaguely looked like giant arrays of interlocked runes. Besides the Talisman master job that he had already tested out to be a dud, it sounded like it had the closest connection to his previous blacksmith job.
Of course, he was not sure that was such a good thing. The skillset might transfer very well, but if they were too close in nature, he might be similarly stuck by his solid mental world. Also, he believed there was a high chance it would still require materials to set up.
In his mind, informed only by the short description provided by the system, formations were a way to use the natural energies of the world, and guide them to flow in a very specific way. According to the pattern that was formed, various magical phenomenons would occur, but surely there needed to be something tangible to force the natural energies to flow in this pattern.
In a way, it was transforming the very landscape into an array of giant runes. But with such a large area of effect, Avery found it doubtful he would be able to draw those runes with mana. It was more reasonable to expect that it would require tons of materials to set up. Besides, the dragon power had a high probability of simply destroying the formation before it was complete, before he could even gain any points.
This made him hesitate, and consider his second choice, which was becoming a Seer. It was unclear what exactly that job entailed, but it sounded like it had the most potential to provide a different path to the Tao.
He doubted that any additional materials would be necessary, but it was possible it required people to use it on. It all depended on whether it was restricted only to fortune telling or if it referred to a wider set of skills around the global theme of “seeing the invisible”.
Last time he had had to choose a job, he had discarded both options, as he had deemed them too complicated to master in the short time he had left. Now, circumstances were different, and he was confident in his ability to master the craft. Not only did he have 20 years instead of a mere month, but he also had a lot more experience and knowledge of the Avenue, which should help immensely.
In the end, he chose to become a Seer. It felt like a better long term plan, diversifying his abilities and increasing his chances of eventually finding a way to immortality. If he was wrong, he was only losing 500 points, which was hardly unreasonable.
Ding, congratulations on changing your profession and receiving the seer novice package. -500 points
He quickly checked the novice package, and took out a beautiful silver coin, as well as a manual. Setting aside the coin for now, he rushed to read the leather-bound book, afraid if he wasted too much time, it would disintegrate before he read it all.
The title was “Divine Arts of Fates”, but despite the high sounding name, he was disappointed by its mundane content. It kept hinting at the great powers a seer should have, mentioning farsight, seeing the future or seeing through lies, but showed no way of attaining those powers.
The mortal stage of being a seer was much more humble, and the job was an odd mixture of detective, psychiatrist and advisor, a variety of mortal skills intended to quickly understand the situation of a client, and offer sage advice.
They were certainly very useful skills for a mortal to have, but had nothing mystical, and were useless to Avery. The only magical ability he learned was divination. He would use the coin to reach out and ask a question to the Avenue, at which point the Tao would reflect the answer back onto the coin.
There were many factors that played into how satisfying and complete an answer he would get, but the short version was that the more insights of the Tao he poured into the coin and the simpler the question, the clearer the answer.
It was a very broad skill, with ridiculously high potential, but it was also incredibly difficult, as well as full of danger.
Transmitting insight was an incredibly advanced skill, and it was even harder than producing intent. Any passionate thought even tangentially related to the subject could technically qualify as intent, no matter how correct or ridiculous it was. Intent was still hard to improve and control, but it remained a skill accessible to any mortal, often even produced unknowingly when living through extremely emotional moments.
On the other hand insight could only be proven through cold hard facts, providing a rigorous explanation of the universe. He did not have to explain everything, but every single single mistake he made, claiming a flawed conclusion to be true, would all but invalidate his efforts.
It was technically still attainable by mortals, as he believed that some modern physicists or mathematicians might have reached that level of knowledge, but it required a lifetime of dedication and research based on generations of geniuses.
It was hundreds of times harder than simply becoming a powerful cultivator. Even without guidance, for someone with the insane amount of knowledge of the inner workings of the world it required, deducing the first stages of cultivation would be effortless.
Even Avery, with his unique circumstances, was far from knowledgeable enough. He had seen the Tao twice, communed with the mysterious runes more than a dozen times, but in the end, he had less than ten years of study, and most of that time had been spent training his mind to convey a coherent picture instead of uncovering the mysteries of the universe.
Not only was it very hard, it was also supremely dangerous. He was not directly inviting the Tao in his body, so he would not be physically harmed, but it would be a tremendous test of mental fortitude.
Avery already had a very clear understanding of how enthralling the Tao was, and of how easily an untrained mind could get very lost in this ocean of knowledge, forgetting reality and dying without even realising it.He had ignored the extreme pain of his body burning up to contemplate the Avenue, so how would he be expected to look away just to eat?
This was obviously not a skill suited for a novice seer, so the manual did not introduce it to be used as is, but rather it elaborated on how to constrain the scope of the skill to create an inferior version.
He would not be addressing the ultimate Truth, but rather restrict his call to the Dao of fate. Even then not the entire law, but rather the fate of a very specific person.
Under the principle that every living being was a world of its own, he would call to them, substituting their soul for the Tao, trying to discern their fate. In that case, instead of offering insights on the Tao, you would just need to have a lot of knowledge or a close connection to whoever you were asking about.
Since the effects of the ability were suppressed, the dangers and difficulty were also greatly reduced, and although it was still very advanced, it had become at least possible for a talented mortal to learn.
With his preexisting knowledge of the Tao, Avery was eager to try this skill out, and the only issue was finding something to practice on. Alone as he was in the chasm, it might sound like there was nothing with a close connection to him, but looking at the five Divine beasts in his mental world, he smiled.
He could already tell that he would excel at this first stage of being a seer.
The good news is that this means I have a 30 chapter backlog, so you should be getting a chapter everyday consistently for the next month.
A blessing in disguise
TFTC!