It obviously wasn’t a good idea to try and upgrade his class right here in the open, but once he got back to the house he should have plenty of time. He had reset his town’s obelisk just the day before, and with Two Socks patrolling the area it should be safe.

  Unlike obtaining a quartz class, the upgrade to opal was not instantaneous. The change would require a dramatic shift in his aura. His mentor had warned him that it sometimes took more than an hour. While the plains around him had remained clear of danger, he remembered Tamee’s warning that the ambient mana would allow creatures to spontaneously spawn. It would be a better idea to do this while safe inside his own house.

  Besides, he knew that Tamee would want to discuss his performance. “Nice job in there Alan.”

  A compliment, right off the bat. That was unlike her. “Umm, thanks. No critiques?”

  Tamee chuckled before adding, “Oh, there were a few things you probably could have done better, but overall you really seemed to thrive in that environment. You were underleveled for a battlefield like that, but you were materially important in your group completing the mission. And you even earned some achievements.”

  This was really throwing him for a loop. Was she just being nice because she wanted something, was it a set up for a joke about his intelligence, or had he actually just done a good enough job that she was impressed.

  “So what’s the plan now?” She asked.

  She could see everything he did, so there was no reason not to tell her. “I’m going to start upgrading my classes, starting with my Phantom stone.” Not only was his rogue class the first he had attained upon entering the tutorial, but the Phantom stone was also the first upgrade he had found. It was a reward for defeating the boss at the end of tier one.

  Item: Opal Phantom Class Stone, rarity Rare. This stone can be used to upgrade the quartz rogue class to the opal class Phantom, a dexterity based class that specializes in moving stealthily and dealing viscous blows. Requirements: Daggers 50 and sneak 25

  His daggers had long been high enough, but it was only with his time in the last dungeon that he had been able to raise his sneak to the appropriate level. He put the stone back in his ring, soon enough it would be time.

  “Congratulations then! You are finally beginning the journey to the Rainbow.”

  This wasn’t a phrase he had heard before, so he asked Tamee about it. He had already known that the grades followed a progression of colors that was the same as that of the rainbow. For some reason, people started at white before evolving to red. Apparently you weren’t officially ‘on the Rainbow’ until you achieved a red class.

  While quartz stones were relatively rare, they were simple to use. Anyone who found one, and didn’t already have a class, could use one. Progressing to the point where you could use an opal stone was apparently a major accomplishment in the Network. It showed that you had what it took to survive challenges and earn rewards.

  Alan had his eyes set on more important things than simply leveling his classes and evolving his grade. These were necessary accomplishments for him, but they were simply a means to an end. He was here to make sure that the people of Earth had a future. Still, there was something fulfilling about improving himself.

  Due to the Networks rewiring of his body, Alan was capable of running at unbelievable speeds, so it didn't take him long to make the trip back to his little farm. However, he paused when he was still a few kilometers out. He wanted to try out his improved sneaking and tracking.

  The previous times he had come home he had been greeted by his wolf friend surprising him in the tall grass. Alan hoped to be able to return the favor now. Entering what he thought of as Two Socks limit, for some reason the wolf was uncomfortable going more than two kilometers away from the house, he cautiously made his way through the thigh high vegetation. He was also on the lookout for any wolf prints.

  Not only would he need to remain undetected, but he would also have to find his furry housemate. He had ended up coming at the house from the same direction as the dungeon obelisk, so there were plenty of tracks, and lots of them were from Two Socks. His new Track talent did seem to be paying off because he was easily able to distinguish newer tracks from older.

  All of his careful work moving through the cover and reading the signs in the ground proved unnecessary. He had been searching for less than ten minutes when a large presence appeared behind him.

  Whirling around he was greeted with a literal ton of fun. He had only been gone for a little while, at least from the wolf’s perspective, so he hadn’t really grown more. However, a pony-sized wolf was still massive, and his wiry muscles were incredibly dense. A casual bump easily knocked Alan down and Two Socks straddled him. If Alan’s constitution wasn’t so high, these greetings would really do a number on him.

  Alan couldn’t help smiling as he greeted his friend from the flat of his back, “hello there buddy, miss me?”

  A tongue to the face was his companion’s happy reply. Alan had a dog growing up, but he had been unable to have one as an adult. Being gone for weeks or months at a time was not something you could do if you were single and had a dog, and that was the reality of his work as a Green Beret. Even after getting involved with his ex, Jessica, it still wasn’t going to happen. She hated dogs, which probably should have tipped him off that she was not a keeper.

  He knew that Two Socks was not a dog, he was a wild animal and capable of incredible violence, but they had forged a bond between them. Two Socks wasn’t a pet, he was more than that, a true companion. It would be nice if he could talk back, but Alan would take Two Socks over any of the people he had met in the dungeons. The thought of Cassidy gave him pause, but he stood by the statement.

  Together they made their way back to their homestead. It was still dark out, but he had no trouble making his way, between the moonlight and his high perception it was almost as good as daylight. He looked forward to improving his perception when he upgraded his hunter class.

  The farm looked the same as when he had left, little time had passed here as well after all, but it was still nice to see it in one piece. Before getting down to his serious work, Alan decided to treat himself to one of his few remaining boar steaks. He also cooked one up for Two Socks, after infusing it with plenty of mana.

  The wolf still liked his meat on the bloodier side, but he also seemed to appreciate it being at least a little cooked. And he was absolutely gaga about the mana infusion. Beasts, like other creatures in the Network, could grow naturally like they did back on Earth, but they could evolve and get stronger with mana.

  Everything in the Network seemed to contain mana, even the rocks and the air. Everyone, including people and creatures, and even plants, could absorb ambient mana from the environment. This wasn’t usually enough to evolve them, unless the mana was at a higher concentration than their body. However, beasts were also able to evolve from consuming mana rich food, like the flesh of other evolved creatures. Alan was supplementing his friend’s diet every time he fed him with an infusion of his own mana.

  They followed up their entrees with a dessert of various fruits. Two Socks seemed to like the blackberries the best, Alan loved them all. He was really enjoying the keil berries, though. These were not native to Earth, unlike the rest of his fruit. He had obtained them from a dungeon populated by elves that lived in trees and cultivated mushrooms. The fruits had grown wild in the forest and had a similar flavor to blackberries, but were a little sweeter.

  Alan washed his meal down with a drink from his canteen. Pixel had given him one during their foray through the shattered forest of Ashford Hills. Even though he had bought various items from his trips through the civilized dungeons he had found, Alan had never thought to buy a canteen. He had still been drinking out of his original health potion container and his Sergeant had taken pity on him. She was, of course, well supplied.

  Alan turned to his furry friend, “I’m gonna go into the house for a while. Can you watch over the area for me?”

  The wolf didn’t respond, but he did get up and trot off a little ways before looking around and making his way into the taller grass around the farm. With his food and his friend seen to, he made his way into the ramshackle house.

  It actually wasn’t that bad, but it was clearly more of a fancy shelter rather than an actual house. The floor was dirt and grass, and the bottom of the house was made from stones and mortar, while the walls were wooden planks he had nailed to tree trunks he had buried in the ground. The roof also had a wooden framework, if you could properly call it that, with hides nailed to it. The Network had considered it a house, but it was not going to be featured on HGTV anytime soon. Or ever, really, now that he thought about it.

  The one nice feature of his home was the bed. The pile of wolf furs was soft and luxurious, and also kinda smelly. Alan didn’t know how to properly clean the hides, and so there was still some meat left on them that was now rotting. That was something else he might need to take care of in the future. For now, he sat down on his furs in the lotus position.

  “Here goes Tamee, wish me luck.”

  “You know it’s pretty much automatic. The Network does all the hard work for you.”

  From everything he had heard, he knew that was the prevailing wisdom. The upgrade to opal was supposed to dramatically increase the reach of his aura into his body. It would be nothing like the impossible fractal that he had seen in Pixel, but it would be much more comprehensive than the one he had now.

  That was part of why he had been cultivating almost every day since Tamee had informed him of the process back in tier one. His quartz pathways, as they were originally, had not been strong enough to deal with the energy his aura would contain on leveling up. Through cultivation he was able to strengthen them, preparing his pathways for this day.

  In addition to strengthening his pathways, he had also been fixing problems with them. Every time Alan achieved certain milestones in improving his classes, his stats linked to those classes had gone up. When that happened, it caused his pathways to expand. This growth was automatic, but not well done. There would be places where the new, smaller, parts of his aura were not properly connected with the whole.

  Alan had originally simply willed these places to smooth themselves out. This had led to a great improvement that made his aura, and his performance, to improve. However, after gaining his aura reading and mana skills and leveling them up, he had learned that even that was not as good as he could do.

  Smoothing out the flow would mostly remove blockages, but it didn’t fix places where the growth was not optimal. He had learned how to correct the form and path of his aura to maximize its efficiency and power. Because of this previous experience, he didn’t intend to be all that passive during the leveling up process.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  While the Network would undoubtedly have to do most of the work, Alan planned to watch and intervene if necessary. Maybe this would not be like what he experienced before, but if it was, he hoped to be able to improve on the result. He needed every advantage he could get if he was going to make a difference in the coming challenges, and this was potentially a huge opportunity.

  He didn’t tell Tamee any of this. For one, he didn’t want her to try and talk him out of it. Perception and expectation can shape reality, and he didn’t want any doubts she may have to affect him. Another reason he didn’t tell her, was that he still didn’t entirely trust her.

  During his first week in the tutorial, she and Alan had made a kind of pledge. She was going to help him to the fullest extent possible because she saw great potential in him. His performance in these trials affected the reward that her world would receive. Tamee wasn’t like Alan, she was an orange grade adventurer from a Network world who had volunteered for her role as a manager of the tutorial.

  This type of thing was apparently common in the Network. It would gather participants from all over to populate dungeons and run special events like this tutorial. The volunteers would receive Network rewards based on their contribution. It wasn’t for her mercenary role that Alan still distrusted her.

  This was literally the fate of his world he was talking about. And he had never really met Tamee. He had briefly seen her before being teleported onto the tutorial disk, but other than that, she was just a voice in his head. That was not a likely way of forming trust.

  Then there was the new information about the Aristocracy that Pixel had told him about. What if Tamee was actually a member of this faction and was looking to manipulate him. He would trust her for now, but only to a point. There were some secrets he would keep to himself, and his plan for this transformation was one of them.

  Clearing his mind, it was time to begin. He removed the Phantom stone from his ring and focused on it again.

  Do you want to upgrade your Quartz class Rogue to the Opal class Phantom?

  Willing his acceptance, he braced for what would come next. Previously, when he had used a class or talent stone, there was an instantaneous burst of knowledge that overloaded his brain. With his Understanding talent it had stopped being a painful process, but it was still an impactful moment. He was prepared for something similar now.

  It wasn’t his brain, however, that was feeling a change, it was his entire body. Focusing more on his aura, he could see tendrils creeping out from every part of his pathways. While each one was tiny compared to the energy conduits they were branching off of, the sheer number meant a significant increase in the volume his aura would take up.

  As he had feared, and hoped, the process was not perfect. He could see countless places where the new pathways were not growing in an optimal fashion. Some paths twisted around themselves, quickly running out of space to grow. Others seemed to be shriveled things that didn’t cover the appropriate area. In numerous ways he saw how it could be improved. Overall this was a tremendous improvement over what he had now, but it could, and would, be so much better.

  Alan had learned how to partially split his focus from his work with the heating stones for his alchemy. He used what he had achieved previously and pushed it to a whole new level. He couldn’t address all of the problems simultaneously, but he was able to spread his work over a good sized section of his body.

  After fixing and guiding the growth in one sector of his aura, he would move on to the next. After fifteen minutes he had seen to every part of his body, but his aura was still expanding, so he started again. Around and around he went, for over two hours he smoothed, adjusted, and encouraged his aura’s growth. Still it was increasing. The areas that had initially had problems were still catching up to the rest, but Alan could tell the process had almost run its course and the gaps were being filled in.

  Where before there were lines of energy running through his body, it now looked almost like his entire body was covered by his aura. There were definitely areas where the energy was stronger, these tended to be the locations of his previous pathways. This total coverage is what it looked like from afar, but if he focused in more on a smaller area, he could see the same system of arteries and arterioles, followed by capillaries, and now even smaller postcapillary venules.

  It was hard to compare this to Pixel’s aura. Hers was the only advanced aura he had been able to study from someone who had already obtained an opal class. However, as a red grade being, hers had gone through further improvements, so it wasn’t a straightforward comparison, but it seemed like his was more comprehensive. At least in terms of covering the whole body, it lacked the fractal and layering nature Pixel’s had had.

  He felt a change in his body as the tiny tendrils finally slowed their growth. Alan quickly scanned around, making a few last minute adjustments. The energy passing through his aura had been slowly increasing as the process went on. As the last section of his pathways finished being upgraded, he felt a surge originating in his soul.

  The amount of energy now passing through his aura was at least three times what it was from just a moment before. The pathways strained from the increased pressure, but his work cultivating had paid off and nothing ruptured. He instinctively knew that he would be much stronger and faster than he was before, even if his attributes had not improved.

  Now that his body and aura had finished fusing more completely, he felt the normal rush of information to his brain. In addition to making the process less painful, his Understanding talent would also let him absorb this information better. Pixel hadn’t been able to explain what that meant, but she assured him it was highly beneficial.

  Alan longed to check out his status page to see if anything had changed, but as the last of the information was shunted into his mind, he found his vision going dark and his body collapsing backwards into the soft wolf pelt on which he sat. Everything went black.

  He wasn’t sure how long he was out of it, but he awoke to Tamee’s voice.

  “Alan, Alan, what’s wrong, are you ok?”

  There was a lot of concern in her questions, but he wasn’t able to process that yet. His body felt fine, but his thoughts were fuzzy. He did open his eyes and saw the hides of his ceiling above him.

  “Oh thank goodness, you're awake. What happened?” Tamee seemed to be relieved to see him awake, but Alan still didn’t respond

  There was now panic in her voice, “Alan, please talk to me. Are you ok?”

  Something finally clicked over in his brain and his thoughts started to clear. Without sitting up he took a quick scan of his body and aura. Everything there seemed ok. Next he sat back up, first having to unfold his legs. He had collapsed while still in the lotus position and his legs felt stiff as he straightened them out.

  “He’s moving, praise the Network. Now, talk to me Alan.”

  Other than some sore muscles, he didn’t notice any injuries. He finally put Tamee out of her misery and answered. “I think I’m ok. What happened?” His tongue felt thick and his mouth dry.

  “What happened?! That’s what I’ve been asking you, you dumb ox. You sat there without moving forever, then you started glowing before collapsing.”

  Alan’s mind was still not fully awake, so he had to take a moment to process her words. “So I take it that that isn’t normal?”

  “No you fool. The sitting and not moving part is relatively normal, and sometimes energy does leak out of the transformation, but you were positively shining. And usually people don’t pass out, even when they don’t have the benefit of your talent, and have to deal with the giant headache from all of the knowledge from their new class.”

  “Ok, umm…I think I’m ok.”

  “You said that already. At least check your status page, did it work?” It sounded like she was ready to tear her hair out.

  Alan did just that. It took him a moment, though. Something was definitely wrong with his thoughts. He would start with a clear idea and then he would quickly forget what he had been thinking. It was like a cup with a hole in the bottom, his mental processes pouring in before leaking out and leaving him empty.

  “Yeah, it looks like it worked. I don’t see rogue class anymore, it says Phantom now. Oh, and it’s at zero percent. And it says opal now, cool.”

  “Ok, well that’s a relief, but you are clearly not doing well. Maybe you should actually get some sleep. Perhaps the class upload strained your mind?” She didn’t sound convinced by that idea, but Alan latched onto the mention of sleep.

  The idea of having strained his mind kept boiling to the top of his thoughts, and he felt another thought coming after it, but they kept falling out the bottom of his brain and having to rise to the top again. Without even acknowledging Tamee, he lay back down in a more comfortable position and embraced sleep.

  When he awoke, it must have been hours later as the sun was peeking through the gaps in his wall boards. Alan was happy to realize that his thinking was flowing much better. His train of thought still wasn’t moving as well as normally, but it was at least staying on the tracks.

  Tamee’s voice once more interrupted his self-evaluation, “how are you feeling?”

  “Better, but if you give me a moment I can probably also give a better answer.”

  Alan was pleased with how poorly Tamee was taking this. Either she was a far better actor than he imagined, or she was genuinely concerned about him. Putting that distracting thought out of his head, he once more focused on his status.

  He was still a little groggy, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. Standing and doing a few stretches, he also noticed his soreness was gone. Belatedly he scanned his aura. He had definitely not been okay earlier if that hadn’t even occurred to him to check.

  Energy, pure and strong, was rushing through his pathways. His aura appeared the same as before he passed out. His upgrade must have been successful, and everything after that was possibly just from the strain of it.

  The word ‘strain’ recalled his earlier attempts at forming an idea, and released from his earlier mental turmoil, his brain finally completed its thought. Alan realized that while he was upgrading his aura, he must have pushed himself too far by spreading his awareness and focus between too many places at once. Somehow he had managed to hold out for the entire process, but once it was completed his mind had quit on him.

  Next he checked his status page again. Alan vaguely recalled checking before, but he didn’t trust any information he had gotten earlier. He was glad to see he hadn’t been hallucinating, his classes now listed Phantom instead of rogue. Other than his aura reading and mana enhancement, his skills hadn’t changed at all, but those two had seen significant growth. It seemed fair considering the strain it had put him under.

  His stats hadn’t changed either, except for dexterity, which had gone up by three points. However, he did notice that his health, stamina, and mana pools had all increased by approximately fifty percent. That was a nice bonus. There was also a change toward the bottom of his page.

  Class Abilities:

  Phantom: Fade

  And looking lower still.

  Talents:

  Phantom: Backstab, Dodge, Quick Hands, Stealth

  It wasn’t too much of a surprise that his rogue talents had simply been folded over into his new Phantom class, but he had also picked up the Backstab talent along with it. That was supposed to be a rogue talent, but his new class had apparently included it.

  The most significant change was the addition of Class Abilities. Alan had been looking forward to picking up some of these. It was possible for any opal or higher class to give these abilities, but oftentimes you had to unlock something to gain them. That could be through the use of incredibly rare class ability stones, reaching a particular level in certain skills, or ranking up your class to a certain point.

  The fact that his Phantom class gave him one right away was great, and it suggested there might be others he could get. Another improvement was that unlike talents, class abilities came with the knowledge of what they were and how to use them. It was part of the information download upon gaining the class.

  Fade was an ability that he could activate while in at least partial shade. It would increase his sneaking ability and increase the chance that a casual observer would miss him. It seemed like it was very similar to the passive effect that Pixel could grant to her squad. Alan would be able to run it for as long as he wanted, but all stamina costs would be increased while it was active.

  When Alan had gained his quartz classes, he had received a burst of knowledge, just as he had now. However, he hadn’t really noticed anything about himself changing, other than a growth in his stats. With the new ability, he felt more attached to being a Phantom. It didn’t feel like just a tag on his status. It also helped that Phantom was a designation for a Green Beret unit. Not his group, but it was a nice link.

  “You’ve been staring into space for a bit, did I lose you again?” Tamee interrupted.

  Alan apologized and gave her the rundown on what he had found. She congratulated him on leveling up, but warned him to take some time off before leveling up a second class. His mentor, Dracon, had also warned him to take at least a day in between his first and second upgrade.

  With some time to kill, it would have been nice to run a dungeon. However, until he upgraded all of his classes, his opal classes wouldn’t progress. He also wasn’t sure it was a good idea to try a dungeon since his head still felt a little off. He needed another task, so how about some more farming.