“There are two parts to [Light Magic] that people can access. The healing side and the attack side,” Hops explained, while Marge took over calming down the dragon with slow breaths and a side hug. “It’s not as good as [Healing Magic], but it still gets the job done. Actually, it’s like you mentioned earlier. [Light Magic] healing works best when applied to yourself.”

  “And the attack side?” Roge asked, finally looking at Sean and seeing the lion looking down at the ground with a frown.

  “Once someone gets an attack skill, and not before, things start going a bit… badly.” Hops sighed at that, wincing when he glanced at the lion. “Over time, them and the people around them start experiencing weird symptoms. Burns from the attacks are harder to heal. Aura effects, even when beneficial, seem to make people sick. Usually the first sign is nausea and hair loss.”

  “Radiation…” Roge mumbled, earning him odd looks from Hops and Marge. “It’s a thing from the other world. It’s essentially… light that has so much energy that it slowly degrades materials. Living people are more susceptible to it, and it causes their body to not work right.” Roge paused at that, trying to come up with a good metaphor. “It’s like if you threw tiny dots of paint at a rune. At first, nothing would happen, but over time, the dots would change the shape of the rune. Make it not work right at first and then make it work in other ways. Small errors that build up over time.” He ignored his [Perform] skill ranking up at that, too focused on how to figure out a solution to the problem.

  “That sounds horrible,” Hops said, grimacing as he thought over it. “And you think that’s what’s happening to the [Light Magic]?”

  “Hair falling out is the classic sign of radiation poisoning.” Roge sighed, thinking things over some more as his panic raced in the back of his mind. “So I assume the basic idea is to stay away from light related classes?”

  “Pretty much,” Sean grumbled, still looking a bit frustrated as he finally sat up. He did give Roge a kind smile though. “And I’m sorry Roge. It’s… not something fun to think about and I forgot you couldn’t have known.”

  “It’s… it’s alright,” the dragon replied, giving Sean a kind smile back. “It’s a serious topic and I should have paid more attention.” He sighed, still having not found a solution to things in his head. “So no upgrading to paladin, even if it does exist. Any way we can get you a healing class? Or do all light classes have some form of attack?”

  “It’s hard, but healing is the road most people go with it,” Sean said, running a paw through his mane. “I’ll talk to some church people when we reach Jadewater to see if they have any recommendations.”

  “I still feel like healing tank would work best,” Roge grumbled, to which Marge chuckled at. “We already have two people who can heal, so making it so we can focus on everyone else more would help. A purely defensive class gaining healing would also be helpful, due to it having no chance of getting any attack skills.”

  “Well…” Sean said, trailing off and thinking on it for a moment. “I do have the [Tank] class, which is purely about defense. It even has an active skill that toughens my body for a period of time. But I’d rather still ask, in case it could turn into something bad.”

  “Fair,” Roge grumbled, grabbing the bowl of stew Marge handed him. The beats had interrupted their breakfast after all, which lead Roge’s mind back to them. “Hey, I did want to ask. For my attempt to try and change the properties of the fairy dust, what should I replace it with? I assume it’s the ability [Sleeping Magic] that’s causing the issue and I can swap it with something else.”

  “Wouldn’t want anything you already have I assume?” Hops asked, eating his own bowl of stew and thinking on it after Roge’s nod. “Do you have anything that doesn’t fit in the flowers?”

  “The combined elements don’t seem to want to work,” Roge explained, looking over his list. “[Inscribe] is another one that I can’t seem to fit into any of the plants, I assume because it’s supposed to be a tool property or something. I haven’t tried [Glow] or [Fog] yet, and I have a couple of each to test on.” Roge paused as he got down to the bottom of his list. “Also got [Musicality] and [Visual Flair] from the bard transformation. Now that I can put more ranks into my wands, I’m going to need more of those.”

  “Then I’d recommend that,” Hops said, smiling at Roge’s concerned look. “If you feel like you need to experiment, you can try and split the fairies up into different groups.”

  “Nah,” Roge waved off, pulling up the information for one of the cats. “It’s better if I can organize them with one set of abilities per species. Otherwise my sheet gets a bit… weird.” He took a deep breath as he focused on the [Sleeping Magic] and [Musicality] abilities, making sure that even though the former had twenty one ranks, it would still swap with the four of the latter. Once he thought of them that way, he felt his skill latch onto the idea, swapping them out instantly. It was only then that he realized that he was swapping from inside his hoard, Roge groaning as he looked up the buff.

  Hops facepalmed as Roge made the noise, looking tired as he glared at Roge. “How many ranks of [Sleeping Magic] did you add to your hoard?”

  “Twenty one…” Roge grumbled, still looking over the various boxes. “Thankfully, even though it wanted to give me affinity with [Sleeping Magic], [Static Mind] prevents that. So… it makes it so I can include a ‘minor sedation effect’ with my skills and have increased affinity with [Sedation Magic]. Whatever that is…”

  “Oh! I know that one!” Sean perked up at this, excited for some reason. “Despite the name, it’s all about increasing the effects of exhaustion! You can either fill it up some or temporarily lower the max points someone has.” He then cocked his head to the side, as if he suddenly realized something. “Wait. [Static Mind] prevented you from gaining affinity in [Sleeping Magic]? Why?”

  “Maybe…” Hops mumbled, Roge looking over to him, as he also had no clue. “Maybe it’s that the mechanics are the same? Like… from what I’ve been told, [Mind Magic] requires taking your thoughts and shoving them into someone else. So the same thing that prevents Roge’s mind from being changed makes it so his thoughts can’t project that way?”

  “That.. Could make sense…” Roge mumbled, looking over the buff once again. “Anyway, should I try and keep it? I am going to need to grab another eleven from the wolves, so I need to put some in my inventory. I could even try making flowers out of it, though the flowers I currently have are incompatible.” He grunted as the exchange once again resisted him, the seeds for the flowers nearly bursting as he tried. “I think I need a more robust plant for it? The seeds keep almost exploding when I try.”

  “Something to think on later. For now, put eleven in your inventory and swap them out,” Hops commanded, Roge doing exactly that and looking over the changes with a smile.

  Roge immediately harvested from the two animals, excited when he looked at the dust they produced.

  He extracted nine from each and immediately pulled out his wand, swapping out the healing for one ability and placing the other coin into it. He almost dropped it when blue flames sprouted all along it, the rest of the group letting out gasps as everyone inspected it.

  “Welp. That is doing to become my new favorite,” Hops stated, Roge rolling his eyes as he put the wand away. “You can’t blame me. I already have the [Illusion Magic] ability. I can’t wait to find out how using the same property in a wand will work.”

  “Well at least now I can make illusions if need be. But I think I’m just going to leave those up to you and just use it for singing,” Roge said, though a frown still crossed his face as the thought about Sean. “Speaking of, does anyone want to hear another song from my world?”

  ~~~

  After a bit of singing that seemed to brighten the mood a bit, the group split off into their own activities. Marge went to work sharpening the rest of her magic arrows, Hops was reading a book on runes from what Roge could see of the cover, and Sean was about to do his own thing in a tent. Roge stopped him, however, pulling him off to the side while pulling up the information for the ash trees.

  “Is it okay if I [Inspect] your armor and shield?” Roge asked, earning him a confused look from the lion. “I have something that I think I can use to make you better ones.”

  “Roge, I’m fine with the ones I have. There’s-“

  “I still want to make you something. It’s one of the reasons I got the novice crafting skill.” Roge huffed at that, crossing his arms and trying to look as obstinate as possible. Sean sighed and gave Roge a nod, the dragon frowning as he took a look at both of the metal grey items.

  Remembering that the [Pigment] additions he’d made when they met… ‘Was it really only? ? week or two ago…?’, Roge ignored them as he harvested materials from his ash trees. “Does your armor have to be leather armor?” he asked, looking over the skin-tight leather armor to see if he could add wooden additions to it. That’s when he noticed more of Sean’s muscular physique and took his eyes away, glancing up at the lion with a warmed face.

  “I can wear armor up to padded,” he responded, elaborating at Roge’s confused look. “Leather is what I’m wearing. Something bendable and lightweight. Padded is light armor that has more padding, half armor is when it’s a harder material, but doesn’t cover your whole body, and full is when the harder material covers up your whole body.” Roge blinked at the explanation, earning him a grin from the lion. “All of it is one skill for me, which just recently upgraded to padded when I got it to twenty.”

  “I’m going to need you to change, then,” Roge muttered, only realizing what he said after saying it. “Into normal clothes I mean! I think I can… uh… upgrade your armor to padding and add in extra abilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well… my ash trees give [Warding] in the branches and [Transport] in the roots. I was thinking of making a shield and pads on the upper armor with branches, and leave the leg pads with the roots. I’m not exactly sure what it’ll do, but it should give you added movement and protection.”

  “Why not just enchant my normal shield?” Sean asked, having placed his shield on the ground and started unbuttoning the leather shirt.

  Roge turned around before he saw anything, feeling his embarrassment skyrocket at that. “Because it has the [Pigment] on it from when I dyed it. But if I make it, I can just change the color without needing the ability. So if there’s a hard cap on abilities, I won’t be wasting a slot on color.” Roge had calmed himself down as he said that, taking deep breaths before continuing. “Besides, the ash tree is grey already. So I don’t think I’m going to be needing much editing on that front.”

  “Fair points,” Sean commented, sounding amused as he continued to change clothes. “I’m done by the way.” Roge turned around to see the lion in a tan shirt and brown pants, the dragon frowning at them.

  “That needs to change,” he muttered, touching each one and putting a [Pigment] coin in them.

  “My favorite color is red,” Sean commented, giving the dragon a soft grin while Roge tried to ignore how close the two were.

  “Red and black it is…” he muttered, swapping out the shirt’s default red for more of a burgundy color, while the pants he made dress-pant-black. “That good?”

  “Perfect my Dragon,” Sean purred, chuckling as Roge swept up the armor and shield and rushed to one of the tents.

  ~~~

  “You going to tell him at some point?” Marge asked quietly, looking over at the tent Roge was in and making sure they were far enough away.

  “Of course not,” Sean scoffed, stoking the magically lit campfire. “The Roge I was dating is gone. There’s no need-“

  “Of course there is!” Marge hissed, pointing at the tent in frustration. “He clearly likes you, even if what Fred said is true. And even then, just because he’s not interested in sex, doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in a relationship.”

  “I don’t want to scare him,” Sean grumbled, still not looking at the deer woman. “He’s known us for, what? A little over a week? That might be fast enough for a crush, but I look for more meaning in a relationship than a crush.”

  “Than why do you keep flirting?”

  “Because when he stops running away, I know he’s either over his feelings or wants something more. The crush isn’t going to do either if he just stews on it from afar.”

  “I hate that logic,” Marge grumbled as she sharpened her arrow a bit too hard. “I still think you should tell him.”

  “I’ll take it under consideration,” Sean said sarcastically.