Before Roge could even look at the other notifications he’d received, a scream erupted behind him that made him instantly turn around. “FAE!!” He was glad he did so, as one of the people from the last wagon rushed at him with a sword pointed directly at his head. Notifications that his doge and manipulation skills increased were swiftly discarded after he teleported out of the way. That allowed him to go slightly further than he was expecting, especially with his extended reach effect. So instead of stopping a few feet short of his two party members, he instead landed behind them. Turning back around, he saw the sword neatly slice itself into the grass, Roge flinching at the sound.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” Marge yelled, the side of her face that Roge could see showing rage as she pointed her bow at the man. It was only then that he noticed what the man looked like, getting up from his crouch and taking a step back from the obvious minotaur. His bovine eyes glared at Roge, his hooves digging into the dirt before Hops stepped forward.

  The elf had multiple orange runes floating in the air, all drawn with his inscription wand. ‘Need to upgrade that thing,’ Roge idly thought, wincing as the pains in his claw drew his attention. Apparently, the claws had done more damage than he expected, surprised his right claw even worked with the amount of dark blue blood he was leaking.

  “That’s obviously a Fae! How else could he bond with those creatures and be immune?!” the minotaur roared, Roge keeping an eye on him even as he summoned his healing wand into his left hand.

  “Enough of this!” the caravan leader called out, giving everyone a glare as she moved in between the minotaur and Roge’s group. “Can’t you see people are injured and debuffed?! Chat about this later!” By that point, Roge’s claw had mostly healed, letting him pull out the purify wand he’d yet to give Hops. Looking over to the downed adventurers and then flicking a glance at the minotaur, Roge knew he wouldn’t let him near anyone to heal and clear the debuffs. So he did what might have been a stupid idea with his now beefed up wand.

  He felt the same restriction he got from a lot of his items when he’d tried to bump it up to rank ten. It resisted him because he was missing something in the crafting process. Either way, he manipulated the effect he generated with the solidify and thunder buffs, making a purifying bomb that he threw into the center of the people who were still unconscious. Ignoring the affronted yell from the minotaur, he did the same with his healing wand, bumping his skill up to the next rank in the process.

  Both spell effects, which now had about two mana each with how past he could use his tools, eliminated the dust sprinkled on the guards and Sean and started closing their wounds. Roge flinched once he noticed the amount of blood on the ground, already thinking of ways he could make his new bonded creatures less dangerous.

  The jolt of purifying and healing magics woke Sean up first, the tank jolting to his feet and looking around. He immediately noticed the aggressive minotaur, who Roge then noticed was taking steps towards him with anger on his face. The next think Roge knew, the lion was in front of Marge and Hops, his shield trembling as he raised it in front of himself.

  “Attack my party, and you die,” Sean said calmly, surprising Roge with how empty of emotion the threat sounded.

  “You’re seriously going to defend a fae?! He probably sicked the beasts on us himself!” Several furrows were dug into the ground by the minotaur’s hooves as he glared directly at the dragon.

  “He’s an adventurer, dumbass!” Marge called out, having relaxed her bow as soon as Sean had stepped in front of them. “Roge. Your ID?”

  Roge pulled out the crimson badge from his inventory, raising it high above his head. The minotaur narrowed his eyes at that, his sword pointing more and more to the ground.

  “Then how do you explain the creatures disappearing when he touched them?!”

  “I have [Nature Magic],” Roge said, moving forward to stand between Hops and Marge. “My class allows me to tame wild creatures.” Hops gave him a look at that, one that Roge ignored. His statement had worked, the angry adventurer slowly losing his anger in the face of embarrassment. “I also have a high mental resistance. So the dust didn’t effect me.”

  The minotaur huffed at that, giving Roge a dirty look before turning around and walking back to the camp. By that point the guards had all gotten up, most still nursing wounds. Roge’s healing had stopped most of the bleeding, but almost all of them looked to be in great amount of pain.

  ‘I’m going to have to lower their strength…’ he thought to himself, moving over to the adventurers and starting to heal the worst of them first.

  ~~~

  Roge sighed as he looked everything over, somehow missing the fact that his [Nature Magic] had gone up a rank in the chaos. The effects were pretty decent, if a bit weird, but what really made Roge stop and consider things was the strength of both of the creatures. ‘It’s too low. But with a high charisma and the claw skill…’ He wished he could see the descriptions for the abilities and skills, but even while in his hoard, he didn’t have access to them. He also couldn’t swap out the claw skills even if he did want to give them his glass bottle skill gems. ‘I can take them though…’ he mused, remembering Judson’s comment about losing ranks in a skill.

  “Hey Roge. You okay?” Sean asked, bringing Roge out of his thoughts. They’d apparently walked to their campsite while he’d been in his own head, the dragon sighing at all of the worried looks pointed at him.

  “I’m fine. Just trying to figure out how to proceed.” Roge rubbed one of his horns at that, growing tired of the additional things he needed to put on his plate. “Need to pick a crafting skill, while figuring out how to upgrade the magic items. Need to make my newest hoard additions less dangerous. I need to see if the caravan driver can allow us to add another cart on the end. I-“

  “Woah woah woah!” Hops cut off, giving Roge a wide-eyed look. “Slow down. Start slow. Besides, I already have a solution to one of those things.” The elf pulled out a book at that and handed it to Roge, the dragon confused until he saw the cover.

  ‘Basics in Alchemy 101: Tiers 1-2’

  “Does this have recipes?” Roge asked, flipping open the book and looking at the table of contents.

  “Nope. But what it does have is directions to where you should be heading with your potions. And other magic items, but you don’t focus on those. It should help you get your items to the next tier.”

  “That does help a lot,” Roge sighed, closing the book and trying to calm himself. “The crafting skill?”

  “I still say try for the magical crafting,” Hops said, to which Roge gave him a confused look.

  “But it’s… mundane crafting? Wouldn’t it just be working with natural materials?”

  “Sorta. Novice skills like that are the basic ones, but what most don’t know is the subsection of novice skills that craft using a magic ability.” Hops pulled out another book at that, Roge wondering how he had the time to read up on the various things he talked about. “One such novice skill is [Nature Magic Crafting]. It’s all about using living materials, like plant matter, to make different items. It’s essentially what you’ve been doing with your ability, but it’ll now be tied to a skill that can rank up. So you’ll be able to get better at it with the system’s help.”

  “That’s… fair,” Roge grumbled, pulling back up the added effect and focusing on it. Now that he not only knew the method of crafting, but also the name, it quickly appeared in his [Status]. He was thankful it was another intelligence skill, as the rest of his skills were mostly filled up.

  “Got it,” Roge announced, looking up to Hops giving him a smug grin. “And yeah. This looks pretty good. Next issue is…” He explained the details of his new buffs, Hops getting more and more excited as he wrote it all down. Sean and Marge also looked surprised, all of them looking around at the caravan with a speculative look.

  Sean even asked the taboo question. “How much is your-“

  “Agility is sixteen,” Roge grumbled, cutting off the lion. Everyone winced at that, Roge waving off their concern with a frown. “If I’d known this would be a thing, I would have invested in it. Either way, if we want, I can try and get the [Caravaner] class to help boost things along. I need to increase agility anyway for [Transposition Magician].”

  “It’s something to consider, but it might not be necessary,” Marge commented, giving Roge an assessing look. “Can you give that effect with your aura?”

  Roge was about to answer when he snapped his maw shut, contemplating the answer to that question. “I… should? Hold on…” He projected his aura once again, focusing on giving the fairy mount effect to Marge. It surprisingly worked, the deer woman grinning widely.

  “My agility is in the high thirties, and is my second most important attribute behind dex,” Marge said, Roge taking back the effect before she could use it. “My third is wisdom due to how many perception based skills use it. So there’s also no worry of me running out of mana.”

  “So… you’re offering to get the class?” Sean asked, the lion looking confused.

  “Hey, if both Roge and Hops have non-combat classes, both of us should try and get some as well. Clearly, it makes life a whole lot easier,” Marge retorted, folding her arms across her chest. “I mean, if you got a healing class, wouldn’t that help your combat effectiveness?”

  Roge blinked at that new information, looking to Sean with a confused look. “Healing is related to… light?” he asked slowly, the lion not meeting his gaze. “I’m shocked he hasn’t gone for a paladin class, then.”

  Roge grumbled and sighed at the blank looks everyone gave him at that, rubbing his horns as he tried to think of how to explain. “It’s something I remember. They’re basically a magical knight that uses magic to heal themselves during combat. There are also a lot of connotations to serving gods and smiting foes with godly light, but we can leave that out of it if Sean tries for the class.”

  “Why’d we do that?” Hops asked, everyone looking more confused. “God based classes are super powerful.” Now it was time for Roge to look confused, Hops smacking himself in the forehead because of it. “Have we seriously not covered the Gods in our talks?”

  “Wait… Gods exist here?” Roge asked skeptically, the rest of his team doing facepalms in regards to that.

  “Not having that talk, thank you very much,” Marge quipped, grabbing the book Hops had just summoned. “Suffice it to say, there are classes that draw power from the various gods. In return, the god gives them quests and commands every so often, acting as their agent in the world.”

  “And… you guys don’t have godly knights?” When his party shook their heads, Roge groaned. “Is it like… taboo?”

  “If it is, the priests don’t share it,” Sean grumbled.

  “Now I feel even smaller…” Roge felt a headache coming along at that, shaking his head as he tried to focus. “Anyway, it might be a good evolution to try for for the [Leonine Knight] class, if you’re that opposed to getting non-combat classes.” He directed that last sentence at Sean, frowning when the lion still looked uncomfortable. “Okay, what’s up here? Why don’t you want to use your light magic?”

  “Can we just not talk about it?” Sean growled, the sound igniting a small bit of anger in the dragon.

  “No we can’t. If it’s something serious-“

  “I just don’t see what good I can do with it!” Sean shouted, though Roge refused to flinch or back down. “I’m not dying a slow and painful death for you, Roge!”

  Roge blinked hard at that, massively confused as he looked to the others. “Light mana tends to poison people over time if used,” Hops said. “We’re not sure why, but it seems to be similar to the fire blight thing you use.”

  “Wait… [Light Magic] users put out radiation?!” Roge cried out, looking to Sean in alarm. “That’s something you need to say man! Did I shorten your life by activating it?! Do we need to suppress it?!” His panicked breathing spiked at that point, the edges of his vision going dark as he grabbed the lion by the front of his armor.

  “Roge! Roge chill! He’s not in any danger!” Hops shouted, only barely calming the dragon down. “For right now, he just has the ability to effect light around him. No more than that. He would need to get an active light skill for it to become dangerous.”

  “And yet he can still get healing skills from light? How the fuck does that work?” Roge asked, moving away from the shocked lion and sitting down again.

  “We’ll explain. Just breathe,” Hops said calmly, Roge mimicking the deep breaths the elf took as they started to explain how [Light Magic] worked.