Cast Out (Book 1 Done; Book 2 In-Progress)

Chapter 4: Part 1

Zhang, Misa and Alexa were all travelling together in a triangle formation, with Zhang leading the way and Wahshi being protected in the middle. They had just entered the 2nd layer of the Boundary Forest, and were now completely focused on their surroundings as they forged through the foliage.

Earlier as they were making their way to the 2nd layer, Wahshi had been able to get many of his questions answered by Zhang and Misa. It was obvious to him that the two were trying to get on better terms with him, and were cooperating with him so far. He'd already found out that Misa was a Sun Mage, and that although Zhang had originally introduced himself as the warrior and tank for the group, in actuality he was class-less and very versatile in his ways of fighting. He'd long ago equipped new armor from his inventory, his silver and black clothing going underneath it all.

In the brief time that Wahshi had seen Zhang without armor, he'd discovered that Zhang actually had a typical Chinese look to him, even down to the mustache and goatee. However, now that he'd donned armor, Zhang had another helm equipped which once again covered his facial features from everyone that looked at him. It seemed to be the way that he did things when he was fulfilling his position as the tank.

He had also found out from Zhang that being class-less (in a job-system sense), although it didn't have any big benefits like Misa's Sun Mage class had in terms of a large mana pool and various other things, it did have the benefit of helping him level up his skills 10% faster. The only real down-side to not having a class was not having the perks that other classes got, something which Zhang was completely fine with.

Of course, all of these things he had found out were after Wahshi had mentally translated the medieval polite way of speaking that he and Zhang always seemed to engage in, and had realized the concepts behind most of Zhang's explanations. After all, Zhang had never mentioned game-like mechanics such as "level-up" to Wahshi, he had specifically said that one with no class could improve all of his skills at 9/10ths of the speed that it took others that had classes, to improve skills which were outside of their profession. This was something that Zhang had taken great joy in, as he found that he was able to duplicate the effects of many powers that being in a class gave, which only served to further his pride in not having chosen a class.

As he'd explained to Wahshi "Many of the things that the other classes use, such as a fireball for example, can easily be replicated if you understand the principles behind it. The point of a fireball is to have an easy, portable way of making the enemy catch on fire, have them take damage from the impact, and maybe have the fire splash onto the enemies around the target as well.

Since that's the goal, we can easily do the same things if we combined a weak mana crystal from almost any fire-element monster, a specific type of dirt from near a volcano, and oil. Put it together in a small bag, put a small divider between the dirt and the oil, and you have a portable fireball! Once the pouch hits something, the mana crystal will break and sparks will come flying out. When that hits the dirt, you'll get a big explosion, which will ignite the oil as it flies out, spreading the fire to everyone close by."

Wahshi had to admit that it was a brilliant idea. If you could recreate the effects of almost any powers of the classes, have none of the drawbacks, and gain 10% experience when leveling your skills, why wouldn't you?

Of course, he knew that there had to be drawbacks. After all, he very much doubted that not choosing a class was a popular choice. After some subtle probing, Wahshi found out that not having chosen a class was like being a self-taught jack-of-all-trades. You could do practically anything, but you had to learn it yourself. The higher skills in practically all of the classes required something special that would only be given to those that had joined the profession and had proven themselves. In this case, that meant that Zhang wouldn't be able to duplicate the spell that Misa had used.