Spirit Ranger

[Congratulations on reaching level 10. You can now advance your class.]
[The classes below will be chosen based off your actions, skills, talent, luck, and more.]
[We wish you luck in choosing a suitable class.]

[(F+) Trainee Knight – Skill: Minor Strength Boost, Skill: Strike, +Skill: Quick Step (+2 Strength, +1 Vitality, +2 Dexterity, +1 Agility)

(F) Trainee Swordsman – Skill: Slash, Skill: Stab (+3 Strength, +2 Dexterity)

(F+) Fire Mage – Skill: Fire Affinity, Skill: Overheat, +Stat: Wisdom (+5 Magic, +1 Wisdom)

(F) Thief – Skill: Lower Presence, Skill: Detect Value (+3 Agility, +2 Dexterity)

(F) Ranger – Skill: Instinct, Skill: Find Weak Point (+2 Dexterity, +2 Agility, +1 Strength)

(F+) Trapper – Skill: Detect Trap, Skill: Hide Trap, +Skill: Camouflage (+3 Dexterity, +2 Agility, +1 Magic)

(F) Berserker – Skill: Berserk, Skill: Blind Fury (+5 Strength)

(E) Magic Archer – Skill: Guided Shot, Skill: Enchanted Arrow, Skill: Mana Control (+2 Magic, +2 Dexterity, +1 Agility)

(E) Survivalist – Skill: Food Storage, Skill: Canteen, Skill: Fire Starter (+2 Vitality, +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +1 Agility)

(E+) Spirit Ranger – Stat: Spirit, Skill: Channel Spirits, Skill: Spirit Sight, Skill: Spirits Affection, +Skill: Magic-Spirit Communion (+3 Spirit, +2 Dexterity, +2 Agility, +1 Magic)]

'Well, quite the list. Since I skipped choosing last time, my options must be broader… hopefully it isn’t always this dense though, it is a little overwhelming regardless of how easy the choices are.’

Slightly laughing to himself it only took Joseph a brief glance to discern his top picks.

'Spirit Ranger, no contest. The skills are good, but more importantly, it offers the best stat spread. Survivalist is tempting with its quality-of-life abilities, but it doesn’t fit my planned style of fighting.

Magic Archer should be perfect for me, yet for some reason it doesn’t feel right. Spirit Ranger does, strangely enough… maybe because the skills seem earnable on Magic Archer, whereas Spirit Ranger is completely unique.

That “E+” rank catches my eye. I’ve never seen that in games or novels—normally it’s F through S, maybe SS. Here, Fire Mage, Trapper, and Spirit Ranger have the plus. Maybe it ties to my actions.

Fire Mage because I kept trying to create fire, Trapper because of my rivet traps, and Spirit Ranger… affinity with spirits? I don’t recall doing anything spirit-related, but maybe my constant magic tests influenced it.’

Spit balling various theories inside his head, he lightly paced back and forth.

‘The “+” effects stand out too. Fire Mage gets Wisdom, Trapper gets Camouflage, and Spirit Ranger has Magic-Spirit Communion. It’s hard to say why each of those classes has those extra perks, it could be luck/randomness, talent, anything really.

As for why Magic Archer doesn’t have the + while the other magic class does? Hard to say. It seems a little inconsistent, but it’s more likely a function I don’t yet understand.'

Scratching his head he sighed and gave the list one last look, just as an extra precaution.

‘I guess that’s it then... Spirit Ranger it is.'

His entire page shifted around, a weird sense of emotional stillness, flowed into his mind. A new panel unfolded, displaying the chosen skills:

Skill: Channel Spirits (E) – Channel the power of nearby spirits and imbue it into an object.
Skill: Spirit Sight (E) – Perceive the world through the eyes of a spirit.
Skill: Spirits Affection (E) – Low-level spirits grant their affection and favor.
Skill: Magic-Spirit Communion (E) – Combine magic and spirit power into a unified energy.

'It’s interesting that there is no explanation for the Spirit stat, that would have been useful. My best guess? It’s to spirit what the Magic stat is to magic. Presumably the stat; magic, increases the strength of any spell I use, control, maybe even my affecting my total magic capacity.

So under that same assumption spirit is the same but for… spirit spells? Or maybe it’s connected to the Channel Spirits skill, allowing for more control or maximum able to be controlled.’

Making all kinds of different faces he eventually had to put the thoughts to rest, lest he waste an entire day to end in a wrong theory.

‘Channel Spirits solves my bow’s damage issue by letting me enhance arrows, maybe more, I will have to conduct some tests. Let’s see Spirit Sight…'

Activating it. Instantly, the world shifted—objects became colorless outlines, the room rendered in stark contrasts. In the center drifted faint grey motes of light.

'Spirits... presumably. They’ve got a strange aura that separates them from the inanimate objects. Still, I expected them to be more… colorful. But maybe that’s limited by the dungeon environment… or the skill rank. Still, it’s useful. I can clearly see spirits moving, and some are even gathering toward me—likely thanks to Spirits Affection.’

Continuing to look around more, really testing its quirks he suddenly smiled.

‘Actually, this might be really good. Spirit Sight doubles as night vision since light doesn’t affect it. Plus, it highlights areas dense with spirits, which probably means advantages since I channel spirits strength. That’s useful, I wonder what changes would happen if it ranked up.'

Excited already having only tested one of his new skills, Joseph grabbed his bow for a test.

Since he didn’t know its actual method of activation, he defaulted to the power of thought. First, he imagined spirit power flowing into the arrow, using his body as a conduit for the spiritual beings floating around him.

The shaft glowed a dull grey, brightening over five seconds before stabilizing with a dull glow of solid grey. With basically no Spirit stat yet as it was still at 0, he reached the limit. The arrow flew almost normally, sinking only an extra few centimetres deeper than a mundane shot. Marking the penetration distance with a stone on the arrow shaft, he set it aside.

Next, he wanted to see if he could combine both spirit and magic, hopefully using the injection method of the Channel Spirit skill, and the dual power source from Magic-Spirit Communion. The glow flared instantly, shifting to pale blue streaked with a dull grey requiring only a fraction of the time before its glow remained consistent.

'Magic for blue, spirit for grey. Makes sense—my Magic stat’s higher, so it dominates the pattern.'

When he loosed the arrow, it blasted forward in a streak of light. It tore a deep cavity through the chest of his target, leaving a wound far beyond the ribcage. Even more surprising, the arrow survived mostly intact, it emerged with a few splinters, but it was far from unusable.

Grinning, Joseph immediately opened his status and dumped all ten free points into Spirit.

Name: Joseph

Class: Spirit Ranger [E+]

Title: Survivor of the Unsurvivable

Level: 10

Vitality: 5
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 30
Agility: 15
Magic: 25
Spirit: 0 > 10

Available Stat Points: 10 > 0

Active Skills: Channel Spirits (E), Spirit Sight (E), Magic-Spirit Communion (E)

Passive Skills: Survivor (E), Spirits Affection (E)

After assigning the points, he tested again with only spirit power. This time the glow condensed in around 4 seconds, it was only a rough approximation but noticeably quicker by just a small amount.

The dull grey glow was noticeably denser. When he released, the arrow flew at a noticeably faster speed compared to a normal shot. Checking the body, he found nearly a quarter of the shaft, a bit over 10 centimetres buried in its thick muscle, with the arrow itself barely damaged, yet again.

Marking down a note on the wall with a sharp nod he looked at the results.

'So that’s how it works. Spirit measures how much power I can channel at once. When I raised the stat, more spirits dimly glowed around me, almost like they were sending energy. It feels equal to magic in weight, but different in function.

Magic has limits as well—I could feel something drain away from me after using it, like burning through fuel almost. Spirit doesn’t, at least not to me. All I felt was mental strain while focusing, but once I stopped, it vanished. No lingering depletion.

That last magic infused shot used maybe… one-fifth of my pool? It’s hard to gauge but something around that much. So, I’ve got four more in me before I’m tapped out. Spirit though… that’s only capped by focus.'

Overflowing with thoughts, another corpse was stacked up in front of the other, then he knocked an arrow and funneled both spirit and magic into it. The glow surged instantly—grey streaked with pale blue once more, noticeably in a slightly different ratio. He exhaled, let go, and the arrow vanished with a soundless flash.

By the time his eyes refocused, an inch-thick hole had appeared clean through the first corpse, the arrow lodged midway in the second.

Wow… just wow. That’s insane. Was that silent as well?'

A manic grin tugged at his face as wild thoughts stirred. He side-eyed the corpses, impulses swelling.
'No. Don’t be stupid… but… gods, that would be fun… sigh.'

He sat, forced himself to breathe, and cleared the rush from his head.

Collecting his thoughts, he began to reason it out.

'This changes everything. I don’t have to rely on the rivet trap anymore. A heart shot with spirit alone should kill. Combining spirit and magic? That’ll punch straight through the skull, hard to say if the arrow would survive though.'

He shifted to analysing the trap itself.

'With these results, I could move the bait or even swap to using the bow outright. The question is—would the orcs notice?'

He frowned, recalling their behaviour.

'Actually… no. That’s the strange part. I’ve killed nine of them. They’ve seen the blood pools. They’ve stepped over their own flesh. Yet they don’t react. It’s not natural. It’s almost like… scripted, they felt scripted.

They’re acting like NPCs, running on preset instructions. Their numbers keep thinning, but their patterns don’t change. A chunk of their own kind on the floor doesn’t even trigger suspicion or concern, regardless of their intelligence basic survival instincts should kick in.’

His eyes opened wider, yet his brows kept a concerned look.

‘And the timing. One orc, every one to two minutes. Perfectly consistent. Like a spawn timer in a video game.

If I think of this directly like a game, then they’re fixed-position monsters. Kill one, and another further back shuffles forward to take its role. If there’s no respawn, then eventually the back rooms are left empty, but the front always gets filled.'

He leaned back, lips pressed thin.

'A wild theory… but it fits. And if it’s true, then this entire dungeon might be structured just like that.'

Lost in his spiraling thoughts he fell back—simulation, theory, and logic blending together—Joseph eventually shook his head. He couldn’t dissuade himself from the idea, so he stored the test corpses and turned back to work, adjusting his trap with new resolve.