Jaycee turned around; his wand held tightly as he readied his magic. "Hey hey we're friendly!" A man shouted his arms held up in the air. Jaycee raised his head a little, his eyes softening. The young man had hardened so much over just two days that he was prepared to blast the random man away.
He straightened himself and looked behind the man. "Who are you with?" He asked.
The man turned around and settled his companions. "Right now, just 5 other people. But we have a camp not too far from here. There's 40 or so of us and we're looking for more survivors." Right away Jaycee felt better about this group. His stare wasn't hungry or analyzing but curious, and slightly nervous of the wand pointed at him. Lowering the wand Jaycee flashed a well-meaning smile.
The general energy felt much better this time and not like they were waking in a trap. And if they were, it was at least a better trap. The previous group had been bad actors after all. But this time Jaycee chose to believe in the goodness of humans, and seeing as he believed he could at the very least fight off most of the group.
The only person he could tell was strong was the man who spoke to him. He seemed to be a medium warrior with a strong looking sword. "We'd love to join you." Jaycee said as he approached the man with Lady in tow. "This is Lady. She's mute. I'm Jaycee." He offered his hand to the man and looked him up and down.
He had sea green eyes as well as black hair that fell down to his eyebrows. He was a few years older than Jaycee and taller too. Jaycee stood at only 5'8 while the handsome man was 6'2 and decently built of muscle. The guy was buzzing with the same weird energy Jaycee had felt at the fort. But instead of it being in the atmosphere it was just the space around him.
"I'm Percy. It's nice to meet you Jaycee and Lady. We've just finished up our hunting, so we'll be going back now with you guys." He said. Jaycee nodded and gestured to him to lead the way. Percy was accompanied by one of each of the classes as well. They seemed to be decent people who greeted the two kindly.
It was crazy the kind of difference leadership can make with people's interactions with each other. Immediately, Percy started up a casual conversation to try and get to know Jaycee.
Jaycee knew guys like this. Percy was smart. Percy could tell Jaycee was an outlier unlike anyone in his party. Recruiting Jaycee was his goal, but the younger man did not plan on making it easy. "Where were you from?" Percy asked.
"Pennsylvania America. What about you?" Jaycee said.
"New York. We're pretty close comparatively, right?" Percy said smiling.
Jaycee raised his eyebrows and made sure to train his eyes on what's ahead of him. "Yeah I guess. You must've graduated by now right." Jaycee said.
"I just got into law school actually. All of that studying for nothing it seems." He said while laughing. Jaycee shivered. The man had turned the negative into positive.
Jaycee was not very entertained by the positive attitude as most would be. "Yeah sucks. Do you know anything about these things watching us?" Jaycee asked. He was craving info to answer all his questions and had no one to turn to.
"I'm not sure. But not everyone got one. Wait, only one other person than me was being watched in our camp so I'm surprised you know about that. I actually had 3 of them watching me." Percy explained.
"Oh that's cool. Yeah I was being spectated too, but I haven't done much worthy to be spectated." Jaycee said. He had raised his class level to level 11. There had been a new skill choice for him but had ignored it for the moment and was going to wait until night so he could choose. He still hadn't even touched two skills of his and was beginning to want to experiment with magic again. All he needed was a place to settle down for a little.
Percy nodded, "I'm not sure, something tells me you can hold your own." Jaycee glanced at Percy and shrugged.
They talked the whole 40 minute walk back to their camp where Percy ended up learning some basic things about Jaycee but not much more. Jaycee had learned plenty about Percy and it was exactly what he expected. He came from a lower middle class family and committed himself to education. He eventually went to an elite college and just got into law school.
He gave major Labrador energy in Jaycees opinion and all around seemed to be a good guy. The camp was a bunch of small wild sleeping spots decorated with leaves and bushes. There were, however,, many campfires that ran and cooked meat. There was a small group of people who were repairing clothes with a needle and thread and many others doing small tasks.
It was a pretty decent setup for just two days of being here. Jaycee didn't mind sleeping on rough open ground courtesy of the partying streak he had. There was actually 70 people in the camp from other groups finding their way in the time Percys party had been away from camp. Jaycee had a feeling the inflow of people looking for others would increase much more.
Percy quickly was pulled away to help with integrating the newcomers leaving Jaycee and Lady alone. Jaycee instead found a nice corner of camp and sat on the ground. Lady had gone off somewhere and he was left to himself. The first thing he did was close his eyes and try to meditate.
He had seen it in the movies and read it in the book now it's time to see what it's all about. It was at this moment he found out he could access the system screen in his mind although he did not enjoy it as much. He read through his most recent notifications.
'Class Levels Gained: 8-11'
'Class Skill Available'
'Class evolution available'
So he chose a skill from a selection of about 10 options. The last time he had access to choosing a skill he had chosen quickly because of his situation. The backup plan would be for Omari to overload his body with the ability he acquired and become a raging beast, while Jaycee took Lady and ran to hide.
He hadn't touched it throughout the day as he had been too busy not dying. Before he had picked what he needed in the moment. Now he took a good few minutes to narrow down his top three. Some of the options were broad or passive things similar to his basic casting skill as well as his basic mana manipulation. But others were specific, almost spell like in nature. The three he decided between were,
Fire Vortex, Yellow: Creates a fire storm around the user that ravishes their surroundings. Uses a lot of mana and does not discriminate to anyone but the user.
Skin Shield, Orange: Creates a thin shield of mana around the user's body. Best meant to be the last resort.
Passion Rage, Orange: Emotions are powerful, and can be harnessed to create a powerful force. Activate the skill to gain great power when feeling great emotions.
The last choice was described differently, which Jaycee found odd. He also didn't think the skill was one casters would get offered ever. But now that he was thinking of it, this did sound similar to how Omari had described his skill. Jaycee created a theory that the system tended to push people in certain directions and offered things based on the significance to the person.
Otherwise, why was Jaycee being offered a heavy warrior skill that his late friend had used before dying. Already Jaycee was leaning toward choosing Passion Rage. He had another theory in which skills were things that could in theory be accomplished by the user with just plain mana manipulation.
There was enough confidence in him to potentially mimic or create similar skills as the fire vortex and skin shield. But he had no idea where to start with the passion rage though he imagined he could tap into it in the future when his magic and knowledge was more advanced. As of right now, he believed he should go with Passion Rage. He mentally chose the option.
'Skill Gained: Passion Rage, Orange'
Jaycee felt the basics of the spell be implanted in his mind. It was pretty much exactly as it was in the description. He could activate the skill and gain power depending on the intensity of the emotions. It seemed that activating the ability during any other time would result in a lower output than a person's normal power.
And now for the next thing to take care of. His class evolution. He wasn't sure what this entailed and had heard from Percy that he would figure it out quickly. He mentally chose to activate the evolution and was transported to a black void that had 5 options ahead of him. In the black nothingness there was floating symbols that seemed to signify the class. One was the outline of a mage robe and hat.
The next one was the same but there was a golden light behind the mage's head. The third was a similar outline of a mage but there were orange flames surrounding the mage, as well as coming off their robe. The fourth was the same fiery scene but there was a golden light behind the fiery mages head. The fifth was an outline of a mage with a hand that was raised in the air and the whole symbol was colored by pinks and oranges.