Dark Fate: Book 1 – A New Fate

I smiled as I saw the System notification. I hadn’t had long to try and change things from my last time through, but hopefully I had done enough to keep things from being completely the same.

At least that much hadn’t changed. When the System came online, everyone on Earth got a Lesser and Least boon, for the ‘service interruption’. People who got race-changed got a Greater boon, as well, since they had to deal with a new body and all. There were other ways to gain boons in the future, but they were all extremely complicated and usually very dangerous. The System didn’t just give things away for free, after all.

This was really a no-brainer. One thing people learned quickly in the last timeline was that there were different ‘tiers’ to creatures in the System. Someone who was on Tier 2 was worlds more powerful than someone in Tier 1, even if their levels were only a couple apart. The same idea also applied to other parts of the system, such as classes, skills, weapons, and races. While having a high-tier race wouldn’t mean as much if I still started at Tier 1, Level 1, I’d still be able to dominate any of the other humans who were at the same level, and only first-tier creatures. Last time, I’d been a Lesser Seraphim. When I’d fought the Demon (a second-tier race), I’d been severely outmatched, even though I was equal to him in levels. Now, I was a Greater Incubus. There weren’t going to be many creatures that could stand up to me, not until the invasion.

Item summoning might not sound incredibly powerful at the outset, especially considering that people had inventories that grew with their levels, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have a place. After all, there was so much you could do with it, if you actually thought about it. There were spells and abilities that could search your inventory for weapons. They were very common amongst bodyguards, law enforcement, and the like, for obvious reasons. Item summoning would allow me to pass through a checkpoint unhindered, and then be armed and ready to go, if things got problematic. And that was just one of the potential uses. Really, it was an underrated utility ability that most people overlooked, in favor of some more flashy powers. I’d had to learn the hard way when fighting an item summoner in the last timeline. Damn bastard kept throwing a shield at me, and summoning it back to his hand.

This was another hidden gem that most people overlooked. After all, what use were nonmagical items in a magical world, right? Well, much like the summoning power, being able to create any tool at will was a big deal. Or, if you liked guns, being able to refill your magazine with bullets you created in that instant was potentially huge. The requirement to know about the item before you could make use of it was a problem for most. Me, I had a decade of knowledge to pull from that other people didn’t. That was a fairly decisive advantage, in my book.

The class selection was definitely different from what I had seen the first time I went through this process. The first four were familiar. A life full of fiction where knights in shining armor, skilled assassins, and powerful warriors like saiyans and jedi had filled my initial slate of classes with these and similar offerings. The last four, however, were quite interesting.

Warlocks were what most people called ‘demicasters’. They were able to use a variety of magical effects. Indeed, their signature ability, which was a blast of magical energy, barely used any MP, making them extremely reliable if you wanted consistent magical damage. The downside was that their abilities, while extremely cheap in terms of MP, were weaker in absolute terms than a Wizard’s spells. Still, a wizard had to rely on others to shield him, especially out in the wild. I wasn’t going to trust anyone with my defenses. Not this time.

Ranger was another class that was definitely well known to many. A scout class, they bridged the gap between warriors and full-on stealth types. They were deadly in any sort of natural terrain, and I’d seen more than one that had adapted to city life, as well. They had a series of ‘favored enemies’. Say the ranger hated Orcs. He could pick orcs as his favored enemy, and he’d gain some significant bonuses against them. The problem was that they were only ‘ok’ when facing against creatures that weren’t on the list of their favored enemies. A ranger that specialized in dragons would be less useful against robots than a fighter.

Dominator was another interesting class. Not as widely known as others, it essentially was a class devoted to forcing people to act as willing thralls, and obey your will. The appeal was obvious, especially considering that I wanted to get revenge on my enemies, and it was incredibly powerful, if you knew what you were doing, but there were a few glaring downsides to the class. First, it took time to break someone. You couldn’t just wave a hand, and turn them into your slave. You had to work at it. Second, they didn’t have great combat potential, relying on minions to do the fighting for them, and securing prisoners for them to break. This meant that they were usually the right-hand flunky of someone more powerful, rather than being actually powerful themselves. And finally, they were actively disliked and hunted once people learned what they could do. The reason they became flunkies was usually for protection. Not what I was wanting.

Now, Scion of Vengeance was a class I’d only heard about. It was a rare ‘transformation’ class, where you basically gave up your old class for the abilities of the Scion class. That sounded like a lot to give up, and it was, but the results were enough to speak for themselves. You were essentially turned into an avatar of Vengeance itself, and gained power and abilities suited to destroying the target of your vengeance, and everything and everyone in your path. If all you cared about was taking down, say, a Demon Lord who murdered your lover, then Scion was perfect for you. The problem was that, once you destroyed your target, you lost all that power, and died. That was great if you intended to do something desperate like kill off the guy and then join your loved one in the afterlife, but otherwise, it was ‘suboptimal’.

Which left me looking at only one real option.

The different types of power sources were basically like different subclasses of Warlock. All of them were powerful, but they had various specialties, and their own risks. Demonic carried the risk of corruption. Eldritch was one of the more powerful types, but it carried the risk of madness. Celestial could be very powerful, but you needed to try and be ‘good’, or bad things happened. Same with the others. All of them had some kind of hidden sting to balance out the staying power that unlimited magic offered.

I chose the Blood Warlock because it had the least severe downside out of the choices I had available to me. It did offer some interesting abilities, though. And while blood drinking might not be my favorite thing, it beat the hell out of madness!