As Vin stared at the message prompting him to select his next class, the familiar thrum of energy that one experienced when earning a Capstone or prestiging washed through his body. The wave of energy felt more powerful than ever, and Vin actually stumbled slightly at the unexpected force of it as it reached down to the tips of his toes before bouncing all the way back to his core. The System appeared to run an even deeper analysis of one's body for their second prestige than for the first.

Once he'd collected himself, his first thought was to run back into town and gather his friends to ask for their opinions while he went over the classes offered to him. Yet before he could take so much as a single step, Kym's words echoed through his head in warning.

'You would not be embodying your Magical Explorer class.'

He paused, wondering how much that actually mattered at this point. Kym himself had informed him that asking his friends questions was probably fine, as it essentially counted as him exploring his options. But there was no telling what restrictions his new class might hold. He didn't want to start off his newest class by doing something that went directly against it and potentially lock himself out of ever hitting his third prestige.

I suppose I can always just take a look and then go to them for advice if needed…

Deciding that was good enough, and simply too excited to see what the System had chosen for him, Vin conjured a stone stool and sat down, mentally prompting the System to give him his options. To his surprise, rather than the dozen choices he'd had to sift between when he hit his first prestige, this time, there were only three.

Seeker of Secrets: A class based on searching the world for missing knowledge and artifacts. Work to uncover all which was once hidden and bring it into the light once more.

Bonus: +1 Magic per level, +1 Focus per level, +1 Dexterity per level

Class Ability: The longer something has remained hidden, the more bonus experience you gain upon its discovery.

Starting Passives: Mental Map, Dangersense, Lost Eye

Right out of the gate, his first option sounded amazing. Vin was all about both exploration and magic, and this class sounded like it would reward him for trying to track down artifacts he could use to further his magic. The class also awarded points into magic and focus, which was exactly what he wanted, and dexterity was a nice touch as well.

Curiously, it seemed as though level 40 classes actually came with some sort of additional, unique bonus listed as a class ability. He had no idea how much extra experience that second bonus would end up awarding, but one of the few things he'd learned about higher tier classes was that they were far harder to level up than the lower ones. Any chances he could get to gain more experience would no doubt be more than welcome.

The main drawbacks to this class were the starting passives. With the way prestiging worked, whatever new class he picked would not just provide him with a new passive, but potentially overwrite the passives he'd gained from his starting class and his first prestige class as well. For Vin, those passives were Mental Map from his Explorer class, and Iron Mind from his Magical Explorer prestige at level 20. If he ended up choosing Seeker of Secrets, he'd keep his Mental Map, but he'd lose his Iron Mind passive, which was one he used quite frequently to take mental snap shots of runic formations in order to learn spells at his leisure. Instead, he'd get two more passives in exchange. Dangersense, which would compliment his Threat Detection quite nicely, and Lost Eye, which he knew absolutely nothing about. There was a good chance he could simply reclaim the Iron Mind passive upon hitting level 45, but who knew how long it would take him to level up five more times, and it wasn't guaranteed to be an option.

It was a hard choice to make. Before he wasted any time struggling over the decision, he decided he should go over his other options first. For all he knew one of them would be absolutely perfect for him and blow the other two out of the water, removing the need for this internal struggle anyway.

Adventurer of The Arcane: A class based on exploring that which is understood by few. Uncover magical mysteries and decipher them to claim their knowledge and power for yourself.

Bonus: +1 Magic per level, +1 Focus per level, +1 Endurance per level

Class Ability: Gain the power to see Beyond the Veil.

Starting Passives: Mental Map, Iron Mind, Magical Adept

After reading through his second option, Vin couldn't help but glance up at the sky as if checking to see if any of the Gods were looking down at him. With bonuses to magic, focus, and endurance, as well as allowing him to keep both his Mental Map and Iron Mind passives, this prestige class felt as if it had been handcrafted for him specifically. He had absolutely no idea what the Magical Adept passive did, but his gut told him that it would be incredibly useful.

Then there was the class ability. Something he'd never heard about before. He wasn't exactly certain what being able to see 'Beyond the Veil' was all about, but he was more than used to the System not really providing him with all that much information these days. Perhaps it was even due to the Adventurer class that the class ability was purposefully more vague than the other two options.

As interesting as Seeker of Secrets sounded, he was already pretty certain he knew which of the three options he was going to be going with. Even so, there wasn't any point in not checking out the final one.

Magistrate of Magic: A class based around utilizing your magical might to enforce the rules and ensure peace is maintained. Administer the law and personally deal with those who would threaten chaos upon the land.

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Bonus: +1 Magic per Level, +1 Focus per level, +1 Strength per level

Class Ability: Sense when magic-related threats prepare to enter your declared domain.

Starting Passives: Mental Map, Judgement, Final Verdict

Part of Vin could only wince as he read over his final option. If there was one thing he'd taken away from their visit to the neilans and his reaction to discovering that they had personally caused the death of the blue fur clan, it was that he didn't want to be responsible for playing judge, jury, and executioner for others. Solving murders and saving lives was one thing, but laying down the law was not who he was.

Still, the additional class ability for this class was admittedly the most tempting of all three prestige classes. If it did what it sounded like, he was pretty certain he would get an advanced warning when the future monster waves attached to the waves of Earthers were bound to arrive. Currently, the best they had were the sqerrets that the mysterious Tamer Devin had trained for the guards, which only gave them a rough thirty seconds or so head start before the monsters arrived. And from what the Goddess had told him during their recent conversation, those monster waves were only going to get more and more deadly as time went on, in order to give the other Earthers scattered around Edregon a chance at survival.

Then there were the odd-sounding passives. Judgement sounded like it might give him assistance from a higher power to view if someone was guilty of certain crimes, similar to Spur's Traitor-Bane passive. Final Verdict sounded… Well, somewhat scary, if he was being honest, for the same reason he didn't want to be a traveling executioner. No, despite the amazing class ability this class came with and all the lives it might potentially save, Magistrate of Magic was definitely off the table.

Vin would do just about anything to help his people, but he wouldn't give up that which made him, him, to do so.

Dismissing Magistrate of Magic, he went back over his other two options once more. He was all but set on his decision to go with Adventurer of the Arcane, but this was quite a big decision to make, and he didn't want to do it lightly. In the end, it was a tiny detail that helped him feel as though he was making the right choice.

After all this time on Edregon, Vin had come to understand that classes followed certain rules, and prestige classes were no different. For example, when people finally got to choose their base class, these classes were simple, never consisting of more than a single word. Trapper. Explorer. Challenger. Thus far, they'd never seen any variation in that ironclad rule.

Prestige classes were largely similar. The vast majority were 'adjective + base class.' Determined Rogue. Wild Druid. Resourceful Necromancer. However, this wasn't always the case.

Sometimes, the first prestige would offer single-word classes as well, such as Alka's Slayer class. From what he'd gathered, these classes weren't necessarily 'stronger,' seeing as they gave passives and attribute bonuses like everything else, but they were a bit more specialized and perhaps allowed for easier experience gains, provided the user stayed focused on that specialization.

Even he'd been offered the unique Wanderer prestige class at level 20, but he'd decided against it, as it would have meant devoting himself fully to exploration at the cost of his newfound love of magic.

He hadn't heard of too many second prestige classes just yet, but he had a hunch they followed the same trend. Only this time, it was 'something of something.' For example, he knew Curash had the Hunter of Men class, and Lumel was now a Mage of Discovery. Seeker of Secrets and Magistrate of Magic followed this rule as well.

But Adventurer of the Arcane was different. Ever so slightly.

He had no idea if that one, single extra 'the' mattered in the slightest, but the fact of the matter was that the prestige class broke away from the mold of the few others he'd seen so far, and he could only imagine that meant something. In fact, there was only one other second prestige class he'd heard of that followed a similar convention.

Druid of the Divine. The old class Shia's master used to have before he leveled up even higher.

Seeing as he was already heavily leaning toward that choice anyway, Vin decided that was all the additional encouragement he needed. With a determined nod, he dismissed Seeker of Secrets and mentally selected Adventurer of the Arcane as his newest class. The moment he did so, his body was enveloped in a wave of invisible force that locked him in place. Unable to move so much as a single muscle, all he could do was wait as the foreign energy seeped into his very core and slowly moved outward. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he thought he could feel minute traces of something being forcibly pushed both from and into his body as the energy swept from his core all the way to his extremities. The entire process only took a few seconds, and before he knew it, it was over.

Taking in a long, shaky breath, Vin tried to ignore the sensation of helplessness he'd been forced to endure as he leaned back and stared up at the calming sky. It hadn't been a pleasant experience, but at least he had some reassuring notifications to show for it.

Class Evolution Complete!

Level up! Adventurer of the Arcane Lvl 40.

Warning. You have filled 5 out of your 5 allotted title slots. Continue prestiging to unlock new slots.

Not only did he break through into his second prestige, it looked as though he wouldn't have to worry about his title situation until he ended up gaining another one.

Laughing, he dismissed all the notifications and pulled up his personal interface. Realizing his focus was only three points away from his magic, he dropped his three free points into the attribute, smiling at how balanced his numbers were looking. He had a couple of things he had to do now, such as figuring out his newest passive, whatever his class ability was, and how exactly he was supposed to level his newest class, but those could all wait a few minutes.

For now, he'd earned a break.

Vinnie Stone

Adventurer of the Arcane: Lvl 40

Titles: Human Vessel (Lesser), Common Ally (Minor), Generalist Mage, Epic Monster Slayer, Spell Weaver

Exp. 783,260/820,000

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 26

Endurance: 60

Vigor: 25

Focus: 60

Magic: 60

Attribute Points: 0

Skill Points: 4

Passive Points: 0

Class Ability: Beyond the Veil

Vows/Boons: Vow of Benevolence/Grace of Gods (Boon)

Capstone: Runic Recalibration, Flexible Formations

Passives: Mental Map, Polyglot, Distance Runner, Threat Detection, Iron Mind, Mana Well, Artifact Extraordinaire, Magical Adept

Skills: Tracking lvl 11, Runecraft lvl 20, Introspection lvl 17, Dungeoneering lvl 12, Total Resistance lvl 8, Running lvl 17, Cartography lvl 7, Drawing lvl 8, Swimming lvl 8

Tier 0 Spells: Sense Stone (earth), Sense Life (life), Sense Magic (neutral), Sense Curse (curse), Sense Air (wind), Sense Dimensions (spatial), Sense Vibrations (vibration), Sense Death (death), Sense Fire (fire), Sense Water (water), Sense Soul (soul), Sense Gravity (gravity)

Tier 1 Spells: Renewal (life), Entangle (nature), Replenish (nature), Light (light), Summon Stone (earth), Concealment (neutral), Familiar Pheromones (nature), Whispering Wind (wind), Create Water (water), Isolate Dimension (spatial), Tremorsense (vibration), Decay (Death), Neutralize Poison (life), Detect Truth (soul), Create Flame (fire), Enhance Gravity (gravity)

Tier 2 Spells: Stone Shot (earth), Stone Wall (earth), Stone Shape (earth), Stone Furniture (earth), False Life (Death), Dimensional Sheath (spatial), Aqua Sphere (water), Redirect Gravity (gravity), Fireball (fire)

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