Silas seized on the ground while his flesh rippled like a corpse full of magots. Bulges expanded and collapsed across his body while pained seized him. Black sludge poured out of him as his health pool dipped and he struggled to keep his mind intact. All the while the skill blared philosiphilical garbage at him like a middle school history teacher going over the ancient greeks.

 

What was human? Despite losing his human body, he gained a class thanks to the human skill, and could raise stats through hard work. However, the soul was something he was still skeptical of, even after being reduced to one after his first death. He couldn’t see, feel, or taste it everything snapped on like when he was first born. And despite his reincarnation in another world he remained skeptical that he was human. Silas was sure his bitch of an ex-wife wanted him to wax and wane about losing his human body. However, events wouldn’t give him such a luxury like time spent not griding.

 

He was a leech with a human mind bent on survival and taking advantage of the rules the new world played by. He had the qualifications to get a class, but his body remained that of a leech. It wasn’t until his human skill ranked up that things changed.

 

Light slowly filtered in through his eye as he struggled. He moved his arm to grab something to notice a lack of bones. Silas felt his body sag in on himself as the world finally came back into perspective.

 

He was still a leech, but his human skill ranked up. Silas bent down to look at himself, seeing two spindly legs and his boneless arms. He waved his appendages around, but they had no bones, only thickly packed muscles.

 

“Master, no offense, but you look uncanny. I’ll use dispel to ensure I’m not caught in an amateur’s illusion.”

 

Human: Initiate 0.012%

Maintain human intelligence and memories no matter the form.

Forms gain more human characteristics the higher they level.

Apprentice Threshold – Farm Resources

 

Silas helplessly waved his pitifully boneless appendages and moved deeper into the shadows of the stump’s burrow. He felt like someone who had gotten so slothful that his arms and legs atrophied. Yet, even being in the most uncomfortable places in his life wasn’t as traumatizing as noodle arms.

They flailed around almost to their own accord and when he looked down he saw what looked like a horse’s sheath. He didn’t know where that came from and blamed his hentai skill. Or maybe horse was somewhere between leech and human he wasn’t a geneticist and his noodle arms were tamatizing enough.

 

“I would understand if you don’t want to be seen anymore. I can tell the moonlight pixie you died once she wakes up. Let me make a spade and I’ll dig you a hole to burry yourself in.”

 

He thought about it for a second before shaking his head and felt a distinct gap between his main body and his brain case. Then his head lolled to the side like a newborn baby.

 

This wasn’t something that could beat him. It was a heavy shot to his morale more than pain had been, but if he leveled up some more, he would be more human. After a while, he convinced himself it was just his ugly adolescent phase. While he was an ugly duckling, he would be a beautiful swan.

 

“Master, even by leech standards, I think you would be considered ugly,” Stella said, and Silas rolled over.

 

“So, to fortify, all I have to do is put my mana into the walls and try to fill in spaces,” Silas said.

 

Stella quicky went along with the subject change. “That’s the idea; it's pretty easy; it's like the first thing beginner mages are taught. It's not like your buffing warriors with iron defense or summoning a fireball.”

 

“Wait, I can summon fire.”

 

“That’s a lvl35 skill called conjuration, but unlike Elementalist, Pyromancer, or any other offensive magic classes, it will just be a ball of fire dependent on the skill conjuration. Balls of fire don’t go very far, and unlike with dedicated offensive classes, they don’t explode. They take a lot of mana, and you don’t have much more than E-grade right now. Wait until you’re a D-grade to try.” Stella said.

 

Silas moved his hand, and it bent back and forth like a pendulum as he tried to touch the nearby wall. His limbs were masses of tightly packed muscles with no bones. They felt like their engineer was drunk when he designed them.

 

Touching the wall was more a matter of random chance than skill. He used his E-grade mana to fortify the wall. As in, he pushed his mana into the stump and tried to find empty spots in it. The process was like pouring water into the ground that he could feel and hoping it hit an empty pocket like a sinkhole.

 

“Will it be harder to train my mana since I have a class that rewards mana for every level?” Silas asked.

 

“With E-grade mana, you need E-grade exercises. It will be about six times harder to get stat points, but not impossible. Big players make big plays, so use your mana like its E-grade instead of F.” Stella said.

 

He poured more of his mana into the stump until he noticed the dip. His mind stretched to keep up with all the directions his mana traveled until it nearly reached its limit, and he had to stop. Fortunately, regeneration worked not only on his health but his mana and stamina too. He was topped off enough in less than three hours to try again. Each time he tried, his mind was filled with endless data while he tried to find the space within the stump. Silas continued his practice until he passed out.

…

 

+1 Mana

Mana 80 E 120%

 

He saw the prompt and immediately tried again until he heard something. Silas turned over when he felt the ground rumble and heard some voices. “It’s over here. I think the blue one is going through a rank-up.”

 

“I don’t know about this, Chuck; you just got the beastmaster class.”

 

“Shut up, Marci; you don’t know anything. If a monster is ranking up, it's at its weakest this is my chance to get a strong familiar.” Chuck said before he tossed a cube into the stump that suddenly gave off light. The boy looked inside, and his pupils shrank when he saw the blue wasp’s still transforming body. The teen’s grubby hands latched out, and he grabbed for the wasp monster.

 

“What do you want me to do? I can attack, but if that boy is a human and has a tier 2 class? He would swat me like a fly in my current state.”

 

“Attack, shoot him in the eye.” Stella grinned, shot off, and blasted the boy with her laser beam eyes. The boy lurched up and hit his head on the ceiling of the stump. The boy ripped the old stump out of the ground with a mighty crack. He waved the heavy stump like a club before the girl stopped him.

 

“Don’t kill a fairy; it's bad luck. Do you want to go hunting goblins and get attacked by an ogre?” Marci asked.

 

The boy glared down and kicked sand at the two of them. Stella fell back, and Silas saw his health take a hard dip. The disparity in stats, rank, and species was too much for him.

 

Silas watched the boy leave with his friend; all he could do was watch.