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“What is the point of all this?” she asked as they stood outside the tax office building.

Zeth frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Why not just send tax collectors once per year? Or base tax collection off of property ownership, rather than taking it out of all wages collected? Does this not punish the poor and needy, who need every scrap of coin they can scrounge together?”

“...Is this not how everywhere else in the empire does things?”

“No,” she said. “Your town is quite unique. It is despicable, what the guild has done to it. Corruption seems to run all the way through to the top of your leadership.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m beginning to believe that’s the case more and more myself, lately. Do, uh…Do you think that might be connected? Y’know, with the Blood Mage stuff?”

“I can’t think of many reasons your own law enforcement would not have caught them already.”

“Well, to be fair, they aren’t very robust. Apparently they’ve been downsizing, or something—they don’t protect too far out into the forest anymore.”

“And who do you think might be making the policy decisions to downsize your town’s law enforcement?” she asked.

“What, you think the mayor might be the Blood Mage?”

“I’m saying the Blood Mage is controlling the mayor.”

Zeth bit the inside of his mouth. The more he thought about it, the more his instinct told him it was Garon, maybe being helped by some other people in the guild who also had the Class.

“Anyway,” she said, “I must be going. Thank you for forgiving my mistake in accusing you. I understand if you wish to never work with us again.”

“Actually…” Zeth felt the weight of the coins in his pocket. Now that he knew why Erza had originally decided to hire him, and that issue had more or less been resolved, he almost felt more

comfortable. He knew what Erza suspected him of, and why he suspected it. Zeth could work around it now. And, ultimately, no matter Erza’s personality, he was clearly knowledgeable about magic. And Zeth knew how his personal ignorance of the topic could harm him. “I wouldn’t be opposed to continuing work.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“Erza’s paying me a lot of money.”

“I…see,” she eventually said, pursing her lips. “I will do my best to ensure work goes smoothly for you, then. I hope you don’t see this as putting your life in danger in order to earn a living.”

And with that, she left, heading back in the direction of the attacked portion of town—the same direction in which many guards were still rushing.

Zeth, however, had a different destination in mind. With his pockets finally full of coin, he was heading to the library.

After a long time browsing, Zeth eventually settled on four separate books to purchase. Two of them were, of course, for Sophie, each with their own area of focus on magic. The first was a detailed history book, going over all the developments that had occurred in recorded history—the discoveries, wars, shifts in popular law, and everything in between. And the second was more explicitly a tutorial for aspiring magic users—something she desperately needed if she was serious about that path.

Zeth had skimmed through it in case he learned something important, but it was mostly full of information he either already knew or didn’t need. Things like what mana was on a basic level, common Universal Skills people took to get used to mana control before getting their Classes, and overviews of all the most popular magic-based Classes.

The other two books he got, though, were for his use. These two were explicitly about illegal Classes, full of every bit of information that was allowed by the empire to be spread. It was a bit redundant to get two books about the same subject, but he didn’t want to miss a single scrap of info when the situation was life-or-death. Besides, they did ultimately have a few differences.

One of them—Defense Against Forbidden Practices—was more traditionally a book about how to combat attackers who possessed illegal Classes—a bit like that one he’d given to Sophie, A Traveler’s Guide to Magic and Combat. Only, this one was entirely centered around all illegal Classes, rather than simply containing info on the few that were considered to be magical in nature. This one also focused less on specifically the physical fighting aspects of the Classes. It seemed to talk about anything you’d need to know if you were worried about them. Ways to spot whether a person has a given Class, where people who had that Class were most likely to be in the world, common ways they applied their abilities—that sort of thing. It certainly seemed useful not only when it came to Blood Mages, but also generally when fighting bandits, who often utilized plenty of different forbidden powers.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The second book…Well, it was a little suspicious. From its sensationalized title—Unlocking the Unmentionables: Secrets of Illegal Classes Revealed!—to its gaudy cover showing off poorly-drawn depictions of the hallmarks of various illegal Classes, with undead crawling around, assassins lurking in the shadows, and even an extremely inaccurate drawing of a ritual circle sitting in the corner, the book was clearly unprofessional. But when Zeth skipped to the chapter on Blood Mages to see what kind of nonsense it contained, he recognized several statements it made to be true—and it gave away far more information than any other book he’d read had.

It spoke explicitly about how the Fire Ritual traps worked, gave details about demon summonings and how demons would ask for human lives in exchange for favors, and even mentioned the Level-up ritual and how its requirements expanded as the Class progressed in power. Zeth wouldn’t have thought it’d be legal to give all of this information away—and it probably wouldn’t have been for any normal book—but this one seemed to skirt those regulations through its medium.

Instead of posing as a textbook, it was written as a simple collection of interviews conducted with various ‘concerned eyewitnesses’ who told the stories of what they’d seen. So, it didn’t teach the reader how to negotiate with a demon, it instead simply contained the account of someone’s story where they snuck into a Blood Mage’s lair and watched them speak with a demon. If a person believed these stories and drew their own conclusions from them, the book took no responsibility for it, Zeth imagined the argument was.

Of course, if it really was just a bunch of random stories, the information within would be of dubious reliability. Any one of those eyewitnesses could’ve misremembered details of what they’d seen, misinterpreted moments during a high-stress scenario, or simply made the whole thing up for attention. But Zeth suspected he wouldn’t have to worry about that. The details in the stories of Blood Mages—the details he could verify, at least—were all perfectly correct; and the way the stories were written, it was almost like they were designed to give away information on those details.

Zeth suspected that all of these ‘eyewitnesses’ were completely fake, and this book was really written as a way to get information about these Classes to curious readers while posing as a simple collection of stories. Which meant that potentially, it was a ridiculously valuable font of information.

He didn’t just want to learn how to fight against these Classes. That was important, of course, but there was more to his search for information. And it wasn’t just about learning a bit more about what would come next in his own Class’s progression, either. Now that Zeth was close to being able to afford Otherworldly Excellence, he’d be able to go back to Leveling up. And with the extensive collection of blood sitting in his storage room, waiting to be used, he suspected he’d be gaining power pretty fast.

And if he was gaining power quickly, that meant he’d soon hit his first true milestone. A Class Evolution.

Similar to Skill Evolutions, Class Evolutions happened when a Class reached its max Level of twenty-five. Depending on the Exclusive Skills for that Class that an individual purchased, different Evolution options would present themselves to the user. That user could choose to Evolve the moment they hit Level twenty-five so as to not waste any time sitting at their max, unable to progress, or if they weren’t satisfied with their Evolution options, they could wait, spending some additional time at the capstone to purchase additional Skills in hopes of unlocking new options before selecting one.

Obviously, that would be an important choice whenever it was presented to Zeth. But it wasn’t the one he was trying to prepare himself for.

Zeth looked at the top few lines of his Class information.

[Class Slot 1: Blood Magus - Level 6

Class Slot 2: (Locked)]

Normally, a person could only have a single Class, with all further Class Slots locked. But after a Class Evolved, it would be moved up into the next Class Slot to reflect its more powerful form. That movement would leave its old Class Slot empty, ready to be filled with whatever a person wanted.

Once Blood Magus Evolved into its next form, it’d take Class Slot two, and Zeth could get another Class to fill the newly empty Class Slot one. That one would be unable to Evolve, since Class Slot two would be taken up now, but if he Evolved Blood Magus once more, moving it up to Slot three, then the Slot one Class would be able to Evolve and move up to two, and one would be emptied once again, ready for a third Class.

Theoretically, this could repeat on forever, though it was rare that a person was able to even get a second Class in the first place, much less a third and beyond. Level-ups were simply too difficult to come by for most Classes—especially for combat-based Classes, which would require a person to put themself in more and more dangerous situations to continue growing stronger. Eventually, those risks would catch up to a person, and their Leveling would be put to an end for good. And things like crafting-based Classes would require you to continue pouring money into materials to Level them up.

Zeth, however, was more optimistic about his prospects. He had a pretty incredible initial Class that put him to an extreme advantage when it came to pushing his Level to further and further heights. The only question was, what would his next Class—or perhaps even Classes—be?

This question had been poking at him from the back of his mind for the past few days at this point, and he’d come up with a few strong contenders. Another magic Class would obviously be solid—he already had a strong Shaping Stat, so why not get another Class that would use it? Alternatively, he could go with a more melee-focused Class like Swordsman, which would help him in situations where he needed to get close to his enemies in order to hit them with a Hellfire Ritual. Hells, he could even take a crafting-focused Class like Blacksmith or Leatherworker to try and craft powerful magical gear for himself—gods knew Erza had shown the power inherent to the strategy of relying on magic items for one’s strength.

But in the end, Zeth figured that, whatever his next Class might end up being, there was a good chance he’d find it in one of these books. Another illegal Class. Those things were outlawed in part because of how powerful and difficult they were for the empire to control. Normally, the upsides were offset by the incredible downside of being hunted down by law enforcement for owning the Class, but ultimately, Zeth was already dealing with such a downside. So then, why not at least see what they had to offer?

So, with a pile of books stacked up in his arms, Zeth set off back home. He had some gifts to give to his sister, and some research to do.

And after that, it was time to get back to his lair and start pushing his Level upward.