"Okay, calm down, calm down—"

  Nathan had his hands out. His feet stepped back inch by inch, while Lily’s light pulse seemed to increase in speed.

  "How am I supposed to stay calm!" At that, the glow shimmering around her petals flashed.

  Nathan quickly thought of something reasonable to say.

  "Lily, is this really that big a deal?" he asked. "I mean, you’re still here, you’re still acting the same as ever. Now you can just… move around? I guess it’s the same thing as when you’re in my soulbound town—"

  "No, it’s not the same." Her voice was tense, taut. "When I’m in there, I’m everywhere. I’m also not really there. Does that make sense?"

  No, not in the slightest.

  Instead of saying that, Nathan nodded up and down. "Of course."

  "But now I’m here, and I don’t understand!" She almost sounded on the verge of tears.

  Nathan was still kind of confused. What difference did it make if she was attached to his arm or on the ground? Rather than voicing this confusion, he decided to focus on continuing to act affirmative and validating. He vaguely recalled that that was the thing you were supposed to do with somebody who was distressed.

  "It’s okay not to understand." Yeah, just like how I don’t understand what’s happening right now either. "So why don’t we all settle down and stop with the mysterious glowing and random pulses of energy?"

  The strange light pulses died down, and the wave of power that Nathan had felt seemed to recede inward toward Lily. After several seconds, it was gone completely.

  "Y-your arm," Lily said. "Wait, I think I can…"

  Nathan felt his stump shift. He looked down to see his arm regrowing and let out a sigh of relief. Once again, another potential disaster saved by his ingenious words of wisdom. He should go become a professional diplomat after all of this was over.

  A loud grunt took him out of his thoughts.

  He could more feel than see Bree’s gaze drilling holes into the back of his head.

  "Nathan," she said, her voice like ice. "Am I finally going to get that explanation?"

  This was going to be a fun conversation.

  It was not a fun conversation. Bree wasn’t really disappointed in Nathan, not in the same way that Chad had been. However, it was clear that she was annoyed over being kept out of the loop.

  “You know,” Bree said. “After the whole ‘I’m blessed by a mysterious goddess’ thing, I really didn’t think there was much else you could do to surprise me—”

  “You guys keep saying that.” Nathan scratched the back of his head. “Like, seriously, is this really that shocking?”

  A startled cry broke the two of them out of their conversation. Nathan snapped his neck around in the direction where it came from and saw Mara, holding a small, ripped-off piece of Lily’s petals, and Lily herself swaying on her stem.

  “Why would you do that?!” Lily shouted.

  Mara looked back and forth between Lily and Nathan with a wide-eyed expression.

  “You know, I’m not entirely sure myself," she said.

  Nathan rolled his eyes and popped open his system windows again with a mental command. He looked over the three classes and crossed his arms.

  He had been about to select one, but after the short break, he was unsure again.

  “Deciding what your next class should be?” Bree said, poking her head over Nathan’s shoulder.

  Nathan nodded absentmindedly.

  “I’ve got three basic options,” he said. “An offensive option, defensive option, and a sort of . . .” His voice trailed off. “Wildcard.”

  “What are your thoughts?” Bree asked.

  “Attack makes the most amount of sense. It just does. I wouldn’t have to work too hard to master my new abilities, because I’ve got a pretty good handle on all the water stuff.” Nathan waved the option away. “So I guess it would be fine.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “But?”

  “But I just don’t think it’s going to be enough for the coming fights,” Nathan said. “Against the kind of foes we’ve been facing—”

  and against her. “—it won’t be enough.”

  “So what about the defense?” Bree shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you about my class, but it’s pretty defensively based.”

  “Really?”

  The air in front of Bree flickered, and a blue window flashed into existence. In front of him, Nathan could see her stat sheet.

  Bree Orange — Lv. 65

  Age: 43

  Race: Human (D-rank)

  Class: Sturdy Earthen Shield (Platinum)

  Stats:

  Strength: 71 (+70) = 141

  Dexterity: 12 (+21) = 33

  Constitution: 90 (+90) = 180

  Magic: 3 (+4) = 7

  Luck: 11 (+34) = 44

  Soul: 78 (+20) = 98

  It was then that Nathan noted that he had literally never seen another person’s status screen in his entire life.

  I probably should’ve rectified that a long time ago.

  Nathan pulled up his own stat screen for comparison.

  Nathan Lee — Lv. 88

  Age: 22

  Race: Human (C-rank)

  Class: Deep Sea Herald (Platinum)

  Stats:

  Strength: 30 (+112) = 142

  Dexterity: 50 (+33) = 83

  Constitution: 50 (+40) = 90

  Magic: 3 (+15) = 18

  Luck: 22 (+76) = 98

  Soul: 122 (+40) = 162

  Available Stats: 84

  Bree’s eyes bugged out.

  “Nathan? How on earth are your stats so high?”

  Nathan raised an eyebrow and looked over at her stat window again.

  “Actually, I think we have a bigger question. Is your last name actually Orange?”

  Bree’s face fell flat immediately. “Seriously? That’s what you’re interested in?”

  “I mean, you’ve got to admit it’s a little bit weird.”

  “Look, I don’t know why I have the last name that I do. You need to ask my mother or my father for that information—” She stopped talking. “We’re getting off-topic. Look, the reason why I wanted to show you this is because I wanted to point out my class.”

  “Earthen Shield. That’s a bit of an odd one.”

  “It is. I’ve been doing exclusively defense-related stuff for the longest time.”

  “And?”

  “Would you have ever thought that based on how I use my powers?”

  Nathan’s eyes widened. “I get what you’re saying. You’re saying that the class isn’t necessarily limited by what’s explicitly stated in the description.”

  “Exactly. I’ve been abusing and exploiting my ability since day one.”

  Nathan had been doing something similar. Of course, now he knew that he simply had some kind of bizarre affinity for water, but in the past, he’d ripped apart the Riptide Grasp skill in order to create a mimicry of true water cultivation abilities.

  “Tell me more about this wildcard class,” Bree said. “What’s all that about?”

  Nathan swiped and brought over the window with the system description—and immediately exited it when he realized that Thalassa had been speaking directly to him.

  Bree looked over at him.

  “How much of that did you read?” Nathan said.

  “Why exactly is your system window referring to itself as ‘I’?”

  “. . . It’s a long story?”

  “You know what? I don’t even want to know. Just let me read the damn thing.”

  Nathan paused, then mentally brought forth the window again. Bree read it over once, then twice, then three times before she threw her hands up.

  “You said that you had a blessing,” Bree said, her every word enunciated with crystal clarity.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think you mentioned the part where that apparently made you into a god—!”

  Nathan clamped his hand over her mouth and quickly looked back to see if anybody had heard.

  Chad was excitedly talking into a live streaming window while Lily frantically looked from left to right and Mara poked at her.

  Nathan felt Bree’s hand grab his wrist and pull his arm away. He looked back at her to see her eyebrows furrowed.

  “Nathan?” she said. “I was just teasing. Yeah, it’s a bit annoying that you didn’t tell us this stuff, but—”

  “It’s not that.” Nathan licked his dry lips. “I don’t know, I just . . . I’ve learned that there are going to be side effects, and I don’t know how to feel about the whole thing. It’s—it’s complicated. I don’t want to get into it.”

  Bree seemed to search his eyes for some kind of answer. Whatever it was, she found what she was looking for, then nodded. “I’ll keep it a secret.” She looked back over at his window. “We should get back on topic anyway.”

  Nathan nodded. “I agree. So what are your thoughts?”

  “It’s certainly interesting,” Bree said. “And if it’s as good as the class description seems to be hyping it up as, I’d go for it.”

  “But?”

  “It all seems a little bit vague to me. There’s no guarantees here. At least, that’s the way the description seems to sound to me. If I were you, I would pick the other two.” Nathan rubbed his chin. Of course Bree, reliable and stout as ever, would pick an option with more guarantees backing it up. The idea of something as vague as—what, Astral Fishing? Nathan didn’t even know what to call it—wouldn’t appeal to her sensibilities.

  At the same time, she raised a valid point. And especially given how dangerous things would get in the immediate future, could they really stand to risk it on an unknown?

  Nathan looked over at Bree’s stats. Nathan was the heaviest hitter in the entire group. That came with a certain level of responsibility. If this were just a game, the choice would be easy. He’d just go with whatever seemed like the most interesting option. But this wasn’t a game, this was real life, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher.

  And yet, Nathan’s eyes couldn’t help but wander over and over back to the strange class.

  After a few more moments of thought, he nodded to himself. “I made my decision.”

  Bree popped an eyebrow up. “Already? You don’t have to rush into things, you know.”

  “I know, but I’m certain.”

  Nathan reached out his finger to touch the option.