Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

Julia skimmed through her notifications as she flew back to Veshari. She decided to take care of it now—she wasn't doing anything else anyway. With the operation to bait the Nashiin taking place (and in jeopardy, with the Assembly's likely betrayal), she had no time to do anything but head straight back to Tirn'Aleya.

Julia blinked at the notifications. The fact that gaining a new Class Skill wasn't even the biggest news was surprising in itself.

Pretty much all Skills pertaining to Enchanting and Runes had been absorbed into this new "Universal Truth," this "Words of the World" Skill.

The hint for this development's source was her Subclass maxing out. She hadn't used any Runes or enchantments during the fight but for what she seared into the Etherium crystal. That was probably what spurred this sudden transition.

The Etherium crystal was small—about the size of her pinky nail—so there was no way she was going to be able to carve enchantments onto it. She didn't even know if she could carve an Etherium crystal. It could be physically indestructible, for all she knew.

Her workaround had been her Mana Runes. She'd formed the Runes with which she wanted to enchant the crystal out of her mana, making them tiny enough to fit. She then infused the Runes with the will not only to do as written, but also to burn and merge with the crystal.

She wanted to sear the Runes into the crystal using her mana as the heat, the will, and the Runes themselves.

It had worked, somehow, and the enchantment took. However, she was so focused on the impending fight that she hadn't noticed the notification window popping up. Apparently, enchanting Etherium was some grand feat.

She actually felt a little let down. Knowing it was such a triumph, she was disappointed that it happened so anticlimactically.

Still, it was one more tool to use against the Nashiin.

Looking at her Status, which she hadn't done in quite a while, she was proud of her growth. Ironically, the stronger she became, the more her Status seemed to condense.

Skills merged and grew into something greater than the sum of their parts. Braden had hinted at something like this, but she hadn't realized it was going to be so drastic. Would she only have a couple Skills in total if she ever hit Level 100?

Julia wasn't the only one that had grown, though. Trixy's Evolution Progress was at 76% from all her Nashiin core munching…Actually, she even ate one of the Etherium fragments, come to think of it.

Oh well. It didn't seem to affect her adversely, so it shouldn't be an issue, right?

Julia's Subclass had finally maxed, and it was with tremendous excitement and anticipation that she opened her previous Class list to see her choices.

Some of these looked incredible, but she couldn't remember specific details for all of them. She focused on Spirit of Reality to get extra details, but she received a surprising error message instead.

Alright…so probably any Class with "Spirit" in the title was off-limits for a Subclass—which ruled out all the Hybrid Classes. That made sense. Spirits seemed to be bound to a specific sort of "identity," and she couldn't take on a partial identity as a Subclass. Fair enough.

Regardless, that still left plenty of incredible-looking options.

There were many options here, but as she read through them, she realized that many were only a minor compliment to what she already was.

Spellblade sounded like the natural evolution of her previous Magic Swordsman Subclass. The Skills from that Subclass had proven very useful early on, but she felt she was already beyond its scope, and even beyond the scope of what an advanced version would likely offer her.

Honestly, she preferred to take enemies out without using her sword, if she could help it.

She ruled out Elemental Mage, Elemental Magus, and Etherblade for similar reasons. The Elemental Classes were likely very strong, but they had an obvious focus on purely elemental magic. Julia's knowledge of the world and how it worked had already moved beyond more archaic concepts like "elements."

Sure, power was what one made of it, so she could probably get a decent boost to her elemental spells with those Clases, but she didn't want to specialize that much. Returning to elemental magic felt like a regression to her.

Etherblade sounded like a powerful Class for a pure swordsman, promising a sword form from—what? A previous time? A previous Asrûn? That would be valuable for a swordsman, but Julia didn't consider herself one. She used her sword when necessary, but she'd always considered herself a caster first and foremost.

Mystic Evoker was out as well, for the same reasons as the other elemental Classes. It was likely even more powerful than the Elemental Magus Class, making one's elemental spells true forces of nature, but Julia had whipped up a water/lightning tornado before even Level 50. She felt she was heading the right direction already, and elemental focus would take her a step back.

That left Arcane Battlemaster, Blade of Eternity, and Primordial Arcanist. Blade of Eternity might seem like a surprising choice at first glance. Indeed, Julia would have written it off immediately for the same reason as the other sword-focused Classes. But its connection to time was too significant to ignore.

Julia had just experienced how disorienting and dangerous situations involving unfamiliar time could be. Would this Class offer her something that would help her in those situations? And even if it would, would it offer something that valuable when it was only her Subclass, rather than main?

It was also an Epic Class, which was worth considering by itself.

The Primordial Arcanist tickled her fancy initially, but its reference to the "original, unformed potential of magic itself" struck her as similar to her existing theory of matter and its construction. Learning anything related to molecules and states of matter would likely be beyond value to a normal mage, but Julia had been learning those things for years.

If those obscure references in the Class description alluded to information she already had, it would be redundant—no matter its Rarity.

Finally, Arcane Battlemaster was extremely tempting due to the impending battle with the Nashiin. Even if their plan was ruined by a traitorous Assemblyman, there was a battle on the horizon—though any hope of victory there was nearly gone. If anything, that bleak potential future made this Class even more appealing.

However, thinking about it further, Julia decided it was probably folly to dedicate a Subclass selection to circumstances right now. She needed to set herself up for the future, and the Nashiin would (hopefully) not be in it much longer.

In the end, the lure of having even a modicum of control or understanding of time drove her decision, and she chose.

The knowledge of Rhythm of Time flowed into her, and she suddenly realized that this Subclass both was and wasn't going to be useful for the nonsensical time within the space between dimensions.

The Skill seemed to be about "relative" or "perceived" time. Right now, she was perceiving her own linear time. However, this Skill conveyed to her how to lock her own perception to someone else's perceived time.

This had a lot of metaphysical implications that she didn't really understand at the moment, but the practical effect was that opponents would be easier to both predict and confuse in combat.

Aligning with her target's perception of time made it easier to anticipate their moves in combat. It wasn't mind reading or foresight. It was more like a kind of cosmic empathy—a way to feel her opponent's perception of time. To move not ahead of them, but with them, and in doing so, see their choices before they made them.

Thinking like her enemy also made it easier to choose moves that would confuse them. This opened possibilities for feints with an increased chance of success, distractions, and things of that nature.

She couldn't help but wonder if there was some way to use this knowledge to better navigate the dimensional space, but those thoughts would have to wait—she'd just crossed the boundary into Veshari.