"His class is [Neophyte Tailor]," confirmed an elderly bespectacled lady in a woollen cardigan. "Tier one, level one, and his only skill is [Tailoring]. No perks or feats, obviously."

The representative of the royal palace raised a quizzical eyebrow, while Roderick Gretton was openly gaping.

"So, can I go home now?" asked Damien, not really holding out much hope that they'd give up just yet, although he had to admit to a morbid curiosity as to what flimsy excuses Roderick would come out with next.

"That can't be correct. You're masking your true status."

"Another accusation?" asked Damien, doing his best to raise an eyebrow in a mirror of the palace's representative, but not quite managing it. "Displaying a false status to an official appraiser would be an even graver crime than bypassing the barrier after a class-giving ceremony, would it not?"

"Indeed it would," stated the palace's representative flatly. "And I assume you deny this accusation?"

"Obviously. Again, I wouldn't accomplish anything by doing so. Besides, if I was going to fake my status, I'd pick something more believable, or at least less embarrassing. You're welcome to check me for enchanted items."

He nodded at the official inspector, who activated another feat. "There are no enchanted items of any kind on his person," she confirmed.

"Are you going to accuse me of faking that too, and demand a physical search?"

Roderick Gretton looked around at the occupants of the small tent. While most of the nobles' servants had been excluded, it was still packed. The mayor of Thale was watching, as were Damien's parents. While the tent was probably soundproofed by some skill or feat, it wasn't completely impossible for those outside to be listening, too. Despite the unbelievable situation, raging about it here wouldn't achieve anything. And he did have to begrudgingly admit Damien was correct. Who would deliberately pretend to have a tier one class? Yet it was true that the child of two such high tier parents shouldn't be below tier five, let alone tier one.

He frowned as he realised the implications. Could what Damien said to goad him actually be the truth? It was true that the child shared features of his appearance with both supposed parents, but that was hardly definitive proof of blood relations.

"No, that won't be necessary—I withdraw any and all allegations. They were made in the heat of the moment due to incredulity at your misfortune, and no disrespect was meant. I apologise for my behaviour. You should return home. I'm sure you have much to talk about."

Every individual in the room looked at the noble in disbelief, even as he inclined his head towards Damien in apology.

"And Shigeo, should you decide you need somewhere to stay afterward, you'll always have a welcome at our manor."

Every individual in the room collectively resisted the urge to scream at the utter idiot. He'd been so close to getting away with the overachieving family merely irritated at him, but with one last sentence, he'd sealed his fate.

Fleta was still smiling, but it no longer reached her eyes. It no longer reached her teeth. It was the smile of a shark. "Mayor Williams, I don't believe the clergy responsible for the ritual have left yet. Would it be too much trouble to summon the priestess of Gaia? I wouldn't want to leave here with the seeds of certain unsavoury rumours unaddressed."

"Of course. I shall fetch her immediately."

"That... That's not necessary! You've read implications in my words that were not present!" squeaked the embattled noble, visibly paling once more. He'd thought he'd been quite diplomatic with his offer.

"Are you sure I can't swat him?" Shigeo asked of the palace's representative, who shook his head. "Pity. Well, I'm certainly going to let his father know what this twat has been up to."

It didn't take long for the priestess to return and confirm that yes, Damien was indeed the child of the couple who professed to be his parents. Damien considered that to be a rather specialised ability for Gaia to offer as a standard prayer, but couldn't help but acknowledge its usefulness in this situation. Then again, nobles with their... appetites, probably found plenty of use for it.

"Then I believe that everything has been resolved, for now," stated the palace's representative.

"Oi! What do you mean, 'for now'?" snapped Shigeo.

"I mean no disrespect. It is simply that this incident is going to attract plenty of interest from those wondering why the usual rules of inheritance were not followed. There will doubtless be people who insist on poking their noses in."

Damien sighed, despairing at the world of politics. He'd bemoaned the fate he would face at a high tier, but who would have thought the lowest of the low could be just as bad? While the noble brat was easy enough to see through, the polite words of this servant of the palace were far more guarded. He'd blatantly taken advantage of Roderick to force an appraisal while acting friendly, and thereby avoided the need to suggest himself that something untoward had happened. However, the implications of his latest statement were harder to parse. Was it a threat? What for? What did he even want? Was he just offering a friendly warning? Roderick had obviously gone for his father once he'd realised Damien was useless. Was the official doing the same, in some way Damien couldn't recognise?

"Then they can kiss my arse," muttered Shigeo. "I've dealt with enough shit to last all month already today, and it's still only morning. We're going home, and woe betide the next person who tries to stop us."

"Of course, Sir Shigeo."

"And I'm not a sir!"

The family of three departed the room, Roderick flinching under one last withering glare from Fleta as she departed. They remained silent all the way back, and it wasn't until Shigeo had angrily slammed the front door that he turned to Damien.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What did you do? Punch one of the Five in the face?"

"No, I just... Actually, there's something more important that I didn't want to mention in front of that lot. In your class-giving ceremony, who was there? You said it was supposed to be just you and the Five, in a black expanse."

"Yes? Why? Were some of them missing?"

"No, all five were there. But... There was definitely nothing else in yours? Nothing behind you?"

"No?"

"It's just you standing before the Five," added Fleta, a note of concern in her voice. "No-one else can intrude, and what was said is between the Five and you alone."

"Well, someone intruded. Or something. It... offered me a class, I think? It called the Five traitors, betrayers and thieves."

"What? And it saddled you with this class?"

"No, that was Grungle. I didn't accept the offer from the intruder."

"That's... Was that why you looked so pale when the ritual finished?"

"Yeah. It was... unpleasant. Like, if I so much as looked at it, I would have lost myself. It never introduced itself."

Although, now that the initial terror had faded and Damien had some time to reconsider events, a completely different interpretation had occurred to him. That presence had caused him to pray to the Five. When had he last done that? Certainly not in the past few years. His cynical mind suggested that perhaps the Five had engineered the intruder. They hadn't given the appearance of surprise; in fact, they hadn't responded or reacted to that voice at all.

Why would they fake it? To show him how shallow his complaints were, and how quickly he would turn to them in a time of need? He couldn't see the logic, but then he couldn't see the logic behind the class system either. Gods were inscrutable almost by definition.

"Well, that's fifty shades of disturbing. If that thing mucked up your ritual and left you with that stupid class, I'm going to find it and kick it so hard it's not gonna land for a week."

"I don't think it was, actually. It was... my fault. I wanted to excel with my own hands instead of relying on a class gifted to me through no effort of my own, and Grungle followed my wish. But he did explicitly tell me that I had a chance, so don't write me off just yet."

"Don't write you off? With a tier one class? You know we'll support you, whatever your choices, but what exactly do you intend to do with it?"

"Maths."

"Maths? What d'you mean, maths?"

"What I said. First, crafting experience depends on the tier of materials, the tier of the creation and degree of success. Well, we have a fricking dragon on ice. What sort of tier do you think dragon sinew and leather is? Nine, for an adult, and that dragon looked adult to me. Obviously, everything I make will be a complete failure, so that'll divide my experience by ten, but tier nine materials will multiply it by eighty-one, which more than makes up for it. All I need is to find the optimal ratio between the tier of item I attempt to create and the time it takes me to fail. Although it would be best to lean towards small but time-consuming items, even at the expense of optimal experience rate, given the limited materials."

Both parents stared at their child in disbelief. Saddled with a tier one class, they would expect him to be in despair, yet here he was, treating it as a problem to solve. A difficult problem, admittedly, but there was no sign of resignation in his eyes.

"Oh, you want to nick my prey? That's some serious gall you've got there!" boomed Shigeo, some mirth starting to return to his face.

"Yes, so hurry up and arrange a dismantler already. And once I reach the level cap, I'll make you some cool new equipment."

"It's nice to see you taking this so well, but how far ahead are you planning? You realise you'll need to reach level fifty to even receive your first feat?" asked Fleta, the worry evident in her eyes.

"Honestly, I've not planned far yet. It's not as if I've memorised the available perks and feats of tier one classes. I'll need to do some research. But can we forget that for now; is that guy from the palace going to cause problems?"

Shigeo frowned as his mirth departed once more. "There's going to be suspicions cast on our family that we've disrespected the Five somehow. In the worst case, they'll use it as an excuse to conduct an inquisition. They won't find anything, of course, but the mere accusation will be damaging. Less so for us than it would be for nobles, but there's a chance they'll try to force us from the town and into their hands. The palace or other nobles would step in to 'defend' us from unfair accusations that they probably seeded themselves in the first place."

"Force us from the town? How?"

"There are plenty of things they could try. Pay off the other townspeople to form a mob, or burning down our home while we're out on missions, pretending it's the work of religious fanatics. It wouldn't work, of course, but that doesn't mean they aren't dumb enough to try."

"I think you should pay that visit to Earl Gretton sooner rather than later," chimed in Fleta. "Make sure he knows exactly what will happen to him if he permits that sort of thing on his land."

"Yeah, damn right. Even better if I get there before his brat."

"And if you don't mind, Damien, we should inform him you have this class because you asked for it, and the Five granted your wish. Spreading that story now will make it harder for other rumours to spread later. It would have been helpful to say it back at the appraisal, but a bit late for that now."

"Yeah. It's mostly the truth, after all. Spread away."

Shigeo turned around and headed straight back out, this time at a sprint. While he lacked the speed of Fleta, someone of his level wasn't going to tire from something as trivial as running, and he'd be able to cross the distance from the town to the Gretton estate within an hour.

"Fortunately, negotiations for a buyer for the corpse stalled because we'd refused to leave town until after the ceremony of paths," said Fleta. "It shouldn't be hard to get a dismantler in instead. I know one at headquarters. Tier seven, with a feat for working high tier materials, and he'd jump at the opportunity to work on a dragon. I bet he could be here in a few days. What materials can you use? Whatever you need, you can take."

"Just the sinew and skin. I couldn't manufacture anything from the scales without a feat, and I can't imagine spending one of my precious slots on that."

That one answer raised two more questions. First, what feats did he want? That couldn't be answered right now, without carefully researching the options. The second question was just how much of a hypocrite he was.

He'd been complaining about the Five giving unearned and unfair gifts, but what was he doing now? He had access to dragon materials by complete coincidence. It was not, despite the words of the Maker, by his own hand. Had he been born to poorer or less generous parents, he'd have had no such luck. Why was it okay to rely on his parents for support, but not the Five? The only difference was that he knew his parents treated him specially because he was their child, while he had no idea why the Five treated some with preference to others. If only he could find that answer, would he be happy with them?

No, it wasn't even that. Despite complaining about the unfairness, that didn't mean he wouldn't have taken advantage of it had the Five offered it to him. He wasn't going to ignore a gift handed to him on a platter out of any sort of pride or morals. He'd take whatever opportunity was put before him, no matter how unfair.

"Well, I'm going to get started on my research," he said, putting such philosophical questions behind him.

"Good luck, and I'm here to talk to if you want to discuss anything."

"I know," he smiled back.

If his parents found his acceptance surprising, the inverse was equally true. They hadn't even mentioned taking up the job of a porter, waiter or the other sorts of unskilled labour for which there were no dedicated classes, and where those unable to put their classes to good use tended to congregate. Then again, levelling enough to earn a few perks would be worthwhile regardless of what he intended to do next, so perhaps they were assuming they would still have that discussion at some point, and it would simply be after he gave up.

He would never give up.

Returning to his room, he dug out the reference tome for crafting classes, flipping through the pages to find his class. The first among the tailoring classes, and the most general. As with all rank one classes, it offered two feats, first at level fifty, and then at the cap of one-hundred. Alas, the reference tome lacked an entry for the feat options at level one hundred, no-one ever having reached the cap of the class. It did, at least, contain the data for level fifty.

Damien browsed the list. [Material Expertise] for the use of higher tier materials without quality penalties, and unlocking perks to push compatible tiers even higher. [Mana Stitching] for joining fabric together without needing to bother with thread. [Pattern Production] for bypassing the need for cutting out fabric. [Flexible Stitcher] for the ability to use additional materials that the [Tailoring] skill wouldn't normally recognise as fabric.

[Defensive Construction] would add durability and defensive abilities to anything he made, again with perks to boost the effect. A tailor with appropriate feats and perks could produce mage robes that offered almost as much protection as plate armour, but there was no point going down that route; he would never be good enough to compete commercially with a tailor of a higher tier.

[Runic Embroidery] would let him embroider magical circles into items he produced, granting special effects. It was effectively a weak version of enchantment, with perks once again increasing the effect.

Damien stared at the entry as his brain unhelpfully informed him he was looking at something important without actually telling him what was so interesting about it. It took a further minute of staring until it twigged, causing him to flip more pages in the tome, looking at the tier two versions of the class. Then he moved on to tier three, four and five. They were all the same. Only tier one had this quirk.

[Runic Embroidery] unlocked a single perk that would boost the effect of the pseudo-enchantments by five percent. Versions from tier two to five unlocked a range of perks that would increase the effectiveness of a specific group of boosts. Yes, the increase in effectiveness would be far greater, but they would be less generalised. Tier six and above offered even more perks, but each one only increased the effectiveness of a single boost. It was just like the physicality boosting perks he'd considered earlier.

And what had caught his eye was one of the magic circles unlocked by [Runic Embroidery]. An enchantment that boosted the effect of perks. Such as the perk that boosted the effect of [Runic Embroidery].

It was a feedback loop. He'd be able to embroider magic circles to increase the effect of his perks, which would, in turn, let him embroider better magic circles that boosted his perks further. If it reached the point that the increase of each loop caused the sequence to diverge, he'd be able to exponentially increase his abilities without limit, then start producing different circles. For example, an item that boosted experience enough to reach the level cap with a single skill use. Or an item that boosted his physical abilities to levels that would make a level-capped tier eight look like a toddler learning to walk.

It wouldn't work for any tier over one; only the first tier version of the class had a perk that boosted [Runic Embroidery] with no strings attached. The more specialised higher tier perks had greater effects, but none of them would boost the magic circle that increased the effect of perks. They were completely cut off from the feedback loop.

Damien checked the other tier one crafting classes, finding that [Neophyte Smith] also had the same quirk, through the [Runic Engraving] feat. [Neophyte Alchemist], too, although there it worked slightly differently; they would need to take perks to boost the [Alchemy] skill, and then take the [Esoteric Enhancements] feat to unlock a potion that boosted the effect of perks. But again, no higher tier alchemist had access to a perk that boosted [Alchemy] wholesale, getting a range of perks with greater effect but limited scope instead, and none of the more specialised substitutes would affect a potion of perk enhancement.

The question was whether the sequence would diverge, and what level he would need to reach before it did. A madly grinning Damien reached for some paper and uncorked his bottle of ink.

cathfach

Don't worry; he's intelligent enough to ask the question he really needs to ask in the very next chapter.

For those who want a little more detail on the class system:

Spoiler

Tiers range from 1-10. Level cap is 100 for skills and classes. Class level is min(<max skill level>, avg(skill levels)*1.05^class tier). Skills are levelled through usage. Physical abilities are boosted by class level by an amount depending on tier and class, with combat classes getting bigger boosts. Likewise for mana capacity, except with mages getting the biggest boosts. Perks are earned every five levels. Feats are earned every 55-tier*5 levels. Feats overlap with skills, but can't be levelled. (Where a feat replicates skill functionality, they act as if they were level 50.)

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