As we walked away from the castle, I could hear the sounds of guards training in the yard. As I clenched my fist, I realized I felt slightly stronger than just a second ago. And then the next second was the same feeling.
That must have been the Experience Plunder ability at work. I wondered if it was something I could turn off, if it got to be too much. I didn't want to be a massive hulk of muscle walking around and getting stuck in doorways.
[You can turn off Experience Plunder's effects whenever you want. You can also toggle off specific effects, so that you don't lose out on its other beneficial traits. As to your concern about becoming too large, you can choose how large you get and still gain strength after that without gaining size]
'Really? Well that certainly eases my concern. Thank you.'
[You are welcome]
I visualized a size I was ok with becoming.
'That's the maximum size I want to be.'
[Noted and input]
'Thanks.'
"So, Tom, do you have a class?" Abigail said.
"A what?" I said. I had seen the class stat on my status screen, but I didn't expect her to know about that.
"A class. It dictates the kind of fighter you would be if you chose to become an adventurer. Everyone chooses one at the age of 18. But you seem a little older than 18 so I figured you must have one by now," she said.
"How do I find out if I have a class? Also, if everyone has a class, wouldn't that make everyone adventurers?" I said.
"You pull up your status screen by thinking 'Status'. And no. Not everyone wants to be an adventurer. It's a very dangerous occupation. And not everyone even has the potential. If your potential is below F tier then you are not allowed to become an adventurer," she said.
"Oh," I said, I closed my eyes pretending to pull up a status screen. I didn't pull mine up because I had already seen it. "Ok, I have it pulled up. It says my class is unassigned."
"Oh, so you haven't chosen a class yet. Interesting. Well, you'll get to choose one at the Adventurers Guild. But first we need to get you some clothes," she said.
We went to the tailor and tried on different fabrics and cuts of clothes. Abigail basically ran the whole thing. I wanted to try something more noble looking, but she said only nobles could look like nobles.
Then I said, I wanted to look like a knight, and she said only knights can dress like knights. We kept doing this on down the list, until she said, "We can dress you like a scholar. No one will object to that."
"Fine, let's do that," I said, exhausted.
She picked me out a form fitting dark blue robe with red accents and a red cape. I didn't know what scholars dressed like this. To me, I looked like a dark mage, but she thought it made me look handsome, so that's what we went with. The red cape highlighted my dark red hair, she said.
Oh, yeah. I have red hair. I figured it was related to the system naming me 'Ketchup'. It must have thought it was really funny.
[I do, actually, yes]
'Wow.'
After picking out clothes that made me look like an edge lord, we made our way to the Adventurer's Guild. When we walked in, no one was dressed like me. I felt so out of place. There were warriors, rogues, even mages, but no one was wearing dark colors like mine.
Everyone was dressed in either earth tones like brown and green, or bright colors. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Then again, she wasn't dressed like anyone else either.
She wore a bright pink dress with gold accents. No one else was wearing pink. So I kind of understood why I didn't look like anyone else either. She had weird taste.
We walked up to the front counter and nice woman with a bright smile said, "How can I help you today?"
"We would like to register as adventurers, and he doesn't have a class yet, so we'd like to assign him one. Checking his potential too would probably be a good idea," Abigail said.
"Ok. Step right over here," the woman came out from behind the counter and walked into the middle of the room with all the adventurers. There was a glowing orb on a pedestal that I hadn't noticed before right in the center of the room.
"Why is it in the center of the room? Couldn't we do this in a more private place?" I said.
"Why would we? This way all the adventurers get to react and judge your class choice!" She said, cheerfully.
"That sounds like a bad thing," I said.
"It's not!" She said, smiling.
"Oook. Let's do this, then," I said. Then I turned to the princess. "Why are you registering as an adventurer?"
"Because my dad never let me before. But he can't stop me if I'm already here, can he?" She said. "Checkmate!" She made some weird hand motions in the air as emphasis to what she said. It made me think she was throwing up some weird fantasy version of gang signs.
"Couldn't he just make you unregister?" I said.
"You can't unregister. Once an adventurer, always an adventurer," she said. She threw up her weird gang signs again.
"Couldn't he just not let you leave the castle?" I said.
"If he did that, I'd beat him up with my magic powers, that I'm definitely going to get," she said, throwing up more weird gang signs.
"Wow. You're a really different person than I thought you were," I said. It was kind of hot, in a goofy way.
"What, did you think I was going to be a normal prissy princess?" She said.
"Uh, yeah. Obviously," I said.
"Well, I'm not," she said, she threw down her gang signs so hard this time that she knocked herself off balance and she fell off her heels. She put her hand up and said, "I'm ok!"