System Change

After giving it some extra thought, the small bit of sadness that had washed over Derek when he heard that Jacks and Rayna were moving out left him. They deserved a proper life, and where better to have it than in what was possibly the safest city in the kingdom? “Well,” Derek said. “I’m coming to help you pick out a house, and we’re bringing Geoffrey with us, too. He knows what things are worth around here. So, with him, you won’t be getting scammed.”

“Of course!” Rayna smiled a bright smile. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

At that point, Derek stood and did something very unnatural for him—he initiated a hug with both Rayna and Jacks. “I’m looking forward to meeting the little fellow,” he said as he released the two from his embrace. From there, with breakfast over and the surprise news given, he dismissed himself and went down to check on Brandi. He was sure that she would have a lot to tell him.

Derek slowly opened the door leading to the basement and began the short journey down the stairs. As he walked, he expected to hear the clanging sound of a hammer meeting metal, or some other indicator that Brandi was in the middle of a craft, but instead, he found nothing but quiet. Frowning, he increased his pace a bit and was at the bottom of the stairs in moments.

There, he found Brandi sitting at her workstation concentrating intently on some paper. Are those blueprints for something? Derek wondered as he walked towards her. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat lightly to grab her attention.

Instantly, she must have known that he was there, as before her head could even turn, she had a massive smile plastered on her face. Before he could even say anything, he was embraced in a giant hug by the girl. It was the second time in a span of minutes that he’d been hugged, though this time, he wasn’t the one who initiated it.

“You’re back already?” Brandi asked as she let go and took a step away.

Yup… she’s definitely been eating her vegetables, he thought. Now that he was back, and had nothing else going on to take him away, he could finally see how her stat progression had been going. “I’m back,” he said and ruffled up her hair.

“And you don’t have anywhere else you need to go?” she asked.

“Oh, good!” Brandi jumped in the air and did a little fist pump. “Then does that mean you have some time to spend down here? To help me with something?” she asked.

“Of course,” Derek answered. “What is it that you need help with?”

With a quick wave of her hand, a little stool appeared, and she ushered Derek to it. Then she walked over to her workstation and pulled the stool she had been sitting on when Derek arrived over before sitting herself. The stool wasn’t comfortable, and if it was anyone else, Derek probably would have replaced it with one of his own chairs, but since it was Brandi, he didn’t complain.

“Do you remember… oh, wait!” Brandi jumped up and ran up the stairs, then quickly came back down and sat. “I had to lock the door—don’t want anyone to hear me.”

“Oh?” Derek said, intrigued. What was so important that Brandi needed to lock the door?

“Do you remember how, when you got back, you asked how I was progressing? And I said that you wouldn’t believe it?” Brandi asked.

“I do,” Derek said.

“I did it,” Brandi said. She was shaking in excitement—like she was finally getting to tell someone some very important secret.

“What did you do?” Derek leaned forward and asked. Feeling her excitement, he was almost just as excited, and he didn’t even know why.

“I’m…” she looked around, then leaned forward, then in a whisper, said, “I’m legendary!”

“You’re legendary?” Derek half shouted in shock.

“Shh…” Brandi put her finger to her lips to shush Derek. “Quiet.”

“Haha,” Derek laughed. “The basement has the sound dampening runes, and you also made sure to lock the door. There’s nobody else down here that can hear us,” Derek said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure we can trust anyone around here, even if they heard us.”

“Oh…” Brandi said as she leaned back on her stool. “I’m guess I’m just so used to keeping it a secret.”

“What did Malorie say when you told her?” Derek asked.

Brandi’s face flushed a little red, and she looked down at the floor and fidgeted with her hands. “Well…”

“You did tell your mother, didn’t you?” Derek asked with a gulp. If I’m the first person she told, and she hasn’t told Mal… she’s going to kill me.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“No… not yet…” Brandi said.

“Brandi!” Derek half scolded. “Are you trying to get me beat?”

“No… I…” Brandi tried to speak, but couldn’t seem to find the word. “I needed your help with something. So, I thought it better to just wait for you before telling anyone anything.”

“Well…” Derek sighed, but couldn’t help but be proud of the little smith. “Congratulations!” he said.

“Thank you!” The smith perked back up after seeing that Derek didn’t continue to scold her. “And I’m sure mom won’t be too mad. She’ll be way too happy knowing about my class to be mad. Just you wait. You’ll see.”

“I hope so,” Derek said. What if she decides to take an extra long vacation and leaves me with all the running of the shop? He shivered as he thought of the horrible predicament he’d be in. “Well, what is it that you need? You got a legendary class, and now what?”

“Remember how I used to get four stat points to each stat with each level when my class was epic ranked?” she asked, and Derek nodded. “Well, now I get five stat points every odd level and six stat points every even level.”

“Really?” Derek asked in surprise. That’s really good, he thought. He then tried to run through the math. If she got a legendary upgrade at level 100… wait… “You’re already level 100?” he asked.

“Of course I am.” Brandi nodded firmly. “You’ve been gone for over a year and a half, and you left me with soooo many good materials. How could I not level up fast?”

“Oh…” Derek said. Poor Thomas. I hope he’s done well in the academy, or he’s going to be left behind by this girl, he thought. Then continued with the math. She has 150 levels… that should be a bit over 800 stat points in each of her stats. From where she was before, she won’t hit the final threshold on all her stats, but they’ll all be at least very close to 1200 points or so…

He knew that people would kill for such a stat spread, and he had ways to help her get to those thresholds, too—especially the strength, endurance, and intelligence thresholds. Those stats could be increased with Void Beast meals over time. As Stella had told him when they first met, the one consuming the meals would need to space them so that their body could properly digest them and the person could get the most out of them, but Brandi was young and had a ton of time to do that.

And, on top of that, Roman was able to create potions that permanently increased stats. Those would help the other stats that couldn’t be increased by the Void Beast meals. It may be cheating, but with her current distribution of points, Brandi would be the perfect candidate to get her extra stats that way. He would make sure that she hit that third threshold in each stat.

“But,” Brandi said with a sigh, breaking Derek out of his thoughts. “I’ve had to start crafting slowly and not finishing projects. I’ve only been working on my smithing skills lately.”

“Why is that?” Derek asked.

“Well,” Brandi said. “When my class changed… oh, my class changed with the upgrade, by the way.”

“How did it change?” Derek asked. “Are you still an All Smith?”

“Kind of,” Brandi said. “I could have stayed as an All Smith, but the class would have stayed as an epic ranked class. But I was also given a bunch of specialization All Smith classes to choose from,” she explained.

“And you chose to specialize for the legendary upgrade,” Derek said. “I would have probably done the same. What did you specialize in?” he asked, pretty much knowing the answer.

“I’m sorry,” Brandi said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to brew you any alcohol, or make you potions.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Derek said. “You did what was best for you. You chose blacksmithing, right? Weapon making?”

“I didn’t have to specialize that much,” Brandi explained. “It’s a general smithing specialization. But when I chose it, my class removed the leveling ability of most of my skills that couldn’t be made use of with smithing. I can still level my leatherworking, runesmith, and even most weaving skills, but I lost the ability to level a bunch of my alchemy and pretty much all of my brewing skills—along with many skills I never used from other professions.”

“So, how does that work?” Derek asked. “You still have some alchemy skills and leatherworking skills and such? Can you do the leatherworking and alchemy still?”

“I can, but…” Brandi started. “I don’t get any experience points, skill upgrades, or completion bonuses for those crafts.”

“I see,” Derek said.

“But if I use my leatherworking skills to make something, then use whatever I made as a material or as part of a blacksmithing project, I get everything again,” she explained.

“So, if you make say… a sheath out of leather, then combine it with a sword you make, you’ll get experience for it?”

“Exactly,” Brandi said.

“What if you make a potion for alchemy that you drink to help increase some part of your blacksmithing skill?” Derek asked. “Like, if you make and drink a potion that temporarily increases your precision or strength, then smith something with it activated?”

“I don’t know…” Brandi said with her eyes shining. “I haven’t tried that.” She took a little notebook out of a storage ring and began writing it down. “I’m definitely going to have to try that soon,” she said, but Derek could see that even more ideas were popping up for the girl. “Maybe I can still brew, even.”

“How so?” Derek asked.

“Drunk smithing!” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Uh…” Derek stammered. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re way too young, and plus, I don’t think… drunk… smithing will help you create anything better than what you would have created sober. Let’s uh… push that idea to the back… far… far back and not bring it up again until you’re at least 21 years old. And keep it between us. Do. Not. Tell. Malorie.” He shivered again at the thought. If she wasn’t going to kill him before, finding out about that idea would definitely change her mind.

“Fine,” Brandi pouted, but soon it passed, and she brightened up. “But there’s so many other things I want to try now.”

“I bet,” Derek said. “But you still haven’t gotten to what you needed my help with.”

“Oh,” Brandi said. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

“It happens.” Derek laughed. It happened to him when he was thinking about different ways to use his skills, and he was sure that it would happen even more to someone with a more creative type of class. “So, why has your crafting slowed down?”

“Well…” Brandi smiled. “When I got my legendary upgrade and saw the stat points I was getting, I ate a Void Beast meal to spread my stats out like you said.”

“Really?” Derek asked. “That’s good.”

Brandi nodded. “But now, I’m right on the cusp of 500 points in my endurance. I’ll have it in either two levels or one more Void Beast meal, and I wanted to wait for you to be here before I did it. That’s why I need your help. Will you watch over my breakthrough and make sure I do it right?”

Derek smiled. Brandi continued to make decisions that made him proud. Other than some… crazy ideas, she seemed to think things through very thoroughly. He was even sure that she would have decided against the drunk smithing idea when she actually thought it through. Well… probably.

“I would be more than happy to help you with your breakthrough.”

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