CH263 Thera’s Perspective

As her uncle dealt with the templars after their attack on Olop, she’d left him to handle the aftermath. She had more important things to do.

While watching the man slowly be broken down, it had managed to help her clear her mind. The panic and rage had subsided enough to make her realise there was something else she should have done before going to attack. She should have been helping Ben.

A part of her thought about running to a church first. She’d managed to complete her job as she wove spell after spell of her life magic to ensure he’d regret what he’d done for whatever remained of his life, so she’d have to do it eventually. Changing her job was important, but compared to everything else it could wait. Every second counted and she couldn’t waste more than she already had as she rushed back to the trial, only to be confronted by the sight of the tower’s door being encased in stone, her father standing in front of it.

“How are you holding up sweetheart?” He asked, concern and sorrow filling his face as his question was completely ignored by her.

“Dad, take this down and get out of my way.”

“I was hoping your mother wouldn’t be right about this,” He said with a sigh, before addressing his daughter more firmly. “I’m not letting you go in there.”

“Dad, I can’t just leave him alone to die!”

“Almost no trials will let a person meet up with a group they didn’t go in with, and even if they did, I still wouldn’t let you. I’m sorry Thera, hate me for it if you want, but I’m not going to let you kill yourself over this. Loss is something you’re going to need to get used to eventually, whether you like it or not. Rely on the people in your life all you need to, but you have to do your best to handle it.”

“I don’t want to handle it, I want to be with him! Now get out of my way!”

She tried to fill the area with her mana, to rip apart the stone encasing the door and use more to knock her father aside, but nothing happened. Not a single stone so much as wiggled from her power as her father gave her a sad smile.

“Honey, this isn’t training, I’m not going to hold back. As much as you’ve improved, you’re not on my level.”

She didn’t want to admit it and kept struggling to do anything, but her father was right. She couldn’t use either her earth magic or telekinesis to do anything against him, and her life and dark magics would be all but useless as well. All she could do in the end was storm away, feeling powerless as she did.

Angry, upset, hopeless. She was feeling all of that and more as she walked through the streets in a daze, knowing there was nothing she could do. Even if she was aware that her father was probably right, that if she were to throw herself into the trial, there was no guarantee she’d be able to do anything to help Ben, let alone actually meet up with him, she’d have still rather taken her chances and tried than to be out there as her friend was in mortal danger.

What am I even supposed to do? If the gods can’t help then even praying is pointless. She thought bitterly as she looked up and realized she’d wandered to the city’s craftsman guild without meaning to.

Knowing she’d need to do it sooner than later she walked in to make use of their job crystal. Ben always hated delaying it, finding waiting to be nothing but a waste of potential experience, and she couldn’t argue the point, even if she wasn’t remotely in the mood herself.

Going to where it was kept and finding no line she placed her hands on it, letting the options fill her mind as she did.

AVAILABLE JOBS

Queen of mana
Musician
Professional Dancer
Bard
Darkness mage -charm specialized
Healer
Telekinetic mage
Dark mage
Adventurer
High spirit mage
High life mage

As she listlessly looked them over she didn’t know which one to take. At that point she barely cared. Thinking about what she wanted to work on and how she wanted to grow meant thinking about the future, something she couldn’t stand at the moment. Thinking about it meant thinking about a potential future without Ben.

No! He’s not dead, I can still feel him so I’m not going to be so negative. He’s going to be okay like he always is. I’m sure he’ll figure something out and get out of there in a few days, maybe a week. I just need to sit tight and be patient so I need to actually think about what would be best for when I see him again.

Thinking that didn’t really make her feel better, nor did it leave her more hopeful, but it did help her narrow down her choices.

At her last job she hadn’t taken high spirit mage, despite how helpful the first one was to her, so she could take life mage instead. Given the amount of injured there were during their leviathan hunt she had wanted to help so that had seemed like the best choice. Now though there was a different reason not to take it. Her quest from Anailia.

She still really wanted to try to awaken her earth magic at the point where she would be able to awaken her life magic as well, but though it was exceedingly rare, there had been instances of a job awakening a skill in the past. Given her abnormally high affinity with earth magic, she didn’t want to risk it happening before she was ready, so she would leave that option for once she was at the levels she wanted.

She ignored her more performance-oriented jobs as she always did, as well as adventurer for the time being, with that one all but pointless without her hunting partner there to help take advantage of it, leaving her with the healer job and her other magic jobs.

Healer is just going to give me worse bonuses than high life mage so not much point considering it right now. As for telekinetic mage and the dark mage jobs… No, they don’t matter.

“I select high life mage.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

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