“Oh wow!” I couldn’t help but exclaim when I saw my new ISW.

Not only were the skills sorted by rank and alphabetical order, but Madame Astra had annotated most of them. I had made the mistake of choosing to have a look at my full list of skills one day, and had to take a Dafalgan afterwards; the experience had given me a headache. But now I was surprised to discover that I had a few rare skills, albeit at very low levels. Maybe I could level them up one day, and get a better job. Although I doubted, I could level them beyond ‘B’, since most high-level skills were innate.

“There you go, darling. I hope you like it.” Madame Astra said with a soft smile. “Some of your skills seem to be class-specific. Short voyage for example is a teleportation skill, but I have no idea what the ‘0 MP’ note is supposed to indicate. Perhaps you could ask for clarifications from whoever put it there.”

I awkwardly laughed. I wasn’t sure if that last comment suggested that I was an impostor in this body, or if Madam Astra thought that I was incapable of annotating my own skills.

“Well, thank you once again.” I said as I reached for my wallet.

“Wait a second, darling. From one uncommon and unbalanced class to another-” The Oracle pulled off her hood, to reveal an owl-like face.

Her nose seemed to be a mixture between flesh and a beak, and her eyes were definitely too large to be human. tiny feathers covered every inch of the skin above her cheeks and seemed to grow even amongst her loosely pulled-back hair.

“Oh,” I said, as the realization hit me.

She was a low-level shifter. One that was stuck between human and animal form. Which didn’t make sense since shifters were a class of their own. But I didn’t want to say anything for fear of sounding rude.

Her lips formed into that familiar amused smile.

“Yes, as you see you do not have the worst passive skills, darling.”

“No, I guess not.” I agreed. “So, do you have any tips for me then?” I eagerly asked.

“Oh, goodness no!” Madam Astra exclaimed. “Truth be told, if I could live the rest of my life without doing any of this boring skill sorting or class nonsense, I would! No, I just wanted to tell you to be careful and not do things or go places people of your class shouldn’t do or go to.”

I frowned just a little, and then sigh. It seemed as if Madam Astra was truly worried for me.

“I am not planning on.” I reassured her.

“Your future says otherwise.” She shook her head. “Perhaps you do not plan on going anywhere dangerous now, but I see a dangerous path ahead. Not to alarm you though,” She suddenly shook her hand, accentuating her point, “You will never be in mortal danger. But those you love might.”

“Etienne…” I whispered. “Do you see anything else?” I promptly added.

Money was no longer an issue. If she saw some danger surrounding Etienne, it was my duty to prevent it, and I would use my father’s credit card to do so.

“I see your child giving up his nature for you. I see twin stars orbiting around you, and I see one of the stars going dim, as the other blames you for it. I see you giving a life that wasn’t yours to give. I see you climbing a mountain that should have been destroyed. And, I see you reading a tome of great knowledge while riding through the fields.”

“Oh.” I said again, in disappointment this time.

Not only did I not have a child, but none of these ‘prophecies’ seemed to mention Etienne. Although that last one did hit a chord. I believed it was about me reading “The guide to modern immortal immorality” before coming to this world.

I reached again for my wallet, pulling out the amount stated on Madam Astra’s website. I wasn’t sure if I should take my credit card out as well.

“As I said, this is just a little something from one uncommon class holder to another.” She said with a smile, before pulling her hood back over her head. She seemed to wear it to play into this mysterious fortune teller narrative more than anything else.

“Thank you.” I said with sincerity. Because I was truly thankful for her sorting of my skills. The validity of the rest had yet to be determined.

We bid each other farewell, and I set out to my next destination: Plan B, or the National Library as I called it. I wanted to take full advantage of my day off to finish this business with my skills. Who knew when I’d have the luxury to stroll around Paris like this again?