Chương 92: (B2 Chapter 43)

"What's the name of the class?" asked Lucas. Everyone, including me, leaned in just a touch closer to hear Marcus's answer, who was staring at the system screen in front of him in wonder.

"It's called Life Binder, but that's all the information I have…" he answered, still staring at the system screen.

"Yeah, that's all the information you'll get, happened with me as well when I upgraded mine," said Omar. I agreed as well, backing up Omar's words while lost in thought. Life Binder… what kind of class could it be…? Isn't life mana usually the type of mana that healers traditionally use in the novels I used to read? Could it be something to do with life mana then…? It seemed like a realistic theory, and I shared it with the group.

The 'life' in the name being related to life mana was readily accepted by everyone, but all of us were drawing a blank on the 'binder' part. There were theories going around, some realistic while most of them sounding too outlandish to be true. The fact of the matter, though, was that we wouldn't know till Marcus picked the class… if he picked it.

"So… are you going to pick the class or not?" Omar asked what was probably on everyone's minds.

"I want to, but I'm just worried about the necromancer theory… I really don't want to go down that route…" Marcus spoke slowly. The necromancy theory was one of the more realistic options that was thought of by Lucas. He theorized that the new class could allow Marcus to 'bind life' to a corpse, or even to an inanimate object, making it fall under Marcus's control.

Honestly, it could be one of the options based on the name alone, but I had an inkling that it wasn't the case, for the simple fact that Marcus hadn't done anything even close to necromancy. The system had given class upgrades to everyone based on their actions. I had gotten Assassin, and then later Arcane Assassin, based on what I had done previously. It was the same case when Omar had upgraded his class to Spellweaver, and also when Sara had upgraded hers to Vanguard.

Similar to my assassin option, Lucas also received an uncommon class called Defender right at the start of the tutorial due to what he had done. The pattern was obvious. Marcus, meanwhile, hadn't done anything to suggest necromancy. In fact, the biggest puzzle was him being offered a rare class when he only had a common one. None of us had managed to jump two rarities in a single class upgrade, and I was very curious as to how Marcus had managed it.

The most recognizable act for a class upgrade, and probably what had triggered it, had been him using his ability at the end of the dungeon. It was clear that that had been the reason for his class upgrade, but I still had trouble figuring out what it could mean. Another question that was currently unanswered was how he had survived the dungeon's boss. The knight had drained Hannah and I completely of stamina, bottoming it out at zero.

Marcus's ability drains him of health, mana, and stamina, until all three resources are at one each. After he used his ability, the knight repeatedly used its devouring skill to drain all of us, so Marcus should have been drained down to zero health and… well… died… But he didn't. And I couldn't think of any explanation for why that was, apart from one: his ability. Does his ability have another effect that we don't know of?

I had asked Marcus the same question, but he had assured me that he wasn't hiding anything else about his ability. It had just been revealed that he had been hiding things about his ability since he got it, so I was having a bit of trouble trusting him at the moment. But for argument's sake, let's say he really isn't hiding anything. If that's the case, then that opens a rather exciting line of thought in my opinion. Do abilities have hidden effects we don't know about?

Does Marcus's ability have a hidden effect that protected him against death in the dungeon? And because he 'cheated death', the system rewarded him with a class upgrade? All of us had been operating under the impression that we understood our abilities and have been using them optimally. But what if we are only scratching the surface?

Abilities are the only things that the system actually gives information about when we receive them, but what if that information is just the bare minimum, and we have to explore everything else ourselves? With the way the system has gone about things so far, it wouldn't be farfetched for it to want us to explore our abilities ourselves. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Could this be the requirement I'm missing to upgrade my ability?

Have I not explored it enough or understood it enough…?

"… really think you should take it," Madelline's words suddenly reached me, and I realized that I had, as usual, gone too deep into my thoughts and had ignored the conversation going on here.

"You really think it won't be something negative?" asked Marcus, and Madelline shook her head in response.

"I see… what about you, Alex? What do you think about this whole necromancy angle?" he then asked me. I didn't want to go into detail on all of my theories with the group, because I needed some concrete evidence to back them up first. However, for the necromancer theory that everyone was still apparently going on about, the answer was much simpler, "I don't think the necromancer theory has any basis.

I believe the class you're being offered is more aligned to life magic and an upgrade to the healer class, so I really do believe you should take it," I answered. I was then questioned why I thought this way, and I explained my reasoning. The group kept discussing for the next few minutes, which I honestly thought was ridiculous. If I had been offered a class upgrade from common to rare, I would have thought about it myself and accepted it in private.

Classes are a person's own path I believe, and should remain personal. I guess some people just need more validation from others before committing to a decision… I sighed, but there was nothing to be done. A few minutes later, Marcus finally decided to accept the class upgrade, and went for it.

"It's done! I got two new skills, one's called Life's Breath, and the other Life Link. No idea what they do, but at least there's nothing about reanimating corpses so I'm happy!" Marcus finished, grinning happily. We all congratulated him, and I reminded him about his regeneration scroll, which he had placed inside his inventory earlier. He used it as well, and now it was time for us to test something else we had been waiting for; the new 'grouping' method the system had introduced.

We had been waiting for Marcus to wake up before testing it, and now that he was fine, we could finally get to it! We needed to see what Marcus's new skills could do as well, but he was still in the weak recovery phase that he had to endure each time he uses his ability, so we had to wait for now. Besides, the grouping system may also help us in identifying the effects of his new skills. Lucas was obviously volunteered to test things out, and he immediately got to it. I suddenly received a system message.

Lucas Smith would like to request you to join his Group. Do you accept? Yes. My affirmation made the system screen disappear, and a new one took its place instead. It wasn't much, it just said Lucas Smith's group at the top, and the list of all members inside it with their classes beside their names. This is very basic. I thought there would be something more to this… I tried selecting Omar's name, which was right beside mine, but nothing happened.

All of us tried different things to do with the grouping system, but none of us had any other options besides Lucas, who just had an option to end the group.

"Well… this is disappointing…" I commented, my sentiments reflected in the faces of everyone present as well. Maybe we need to be fighting something in order to see more functions…? Surely it can't simply be a system to share exp and loot only, with no other functions… Lucas ended the group, and the system screen vanished, leaving us understandably disappointed.

"Well… that was crap. Anyways, catch me up on everything that's been going on here. Alex told me a lot, but I think I'm still not clear as to what exactly happened when I was unconscious..." Marcus said, prompting the discussion to shift once again. The next few minutes were spent bringing Marcus up to speed, and once that was done, I brought up something that had been on my mind for a while.

"I think we need to shift the burden of these people to someone else, otherwise we'll fall behind…" I said, a bit reluctantly as I could anticipate the pushback my words would receive. However, surprisingly, instead of pushback, the others simply looked curious and asked me to explain my thoughts further. Which is exactly what I did. I pointed out how it had been three days and apart from me, no one else had left the base to level up further.

Everyone had been stuck inside doing something or the other in taking care of the 'unfit' users as the system called them. I also reminded them about the system announcement about upcoming mandatory system events, and how it had mentioned for us to get ready for it.

"If we remain stuck inside like this, it only means we're delaying our deaths till the next system event. And if we're dead, the snowball effect will continue on to these children, disabled, and the elderly," I finished, looking at the thoughtful expressions on everyone's faces. Amazingly, everyone agreed. With varying degrees of reluctance, sure, but they all did agree that we needed to keep levelling up.

I was honestly under the impression that most of the others would be adamant about taking care of the hundreds of people here, but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, Lucas and Mason had already collected a bunch of volunteers who were too afraid to go out and fight monsters, so they had put themselves forward to take care of whoever needed the care.

There were a few healthcare workers that were now training others in a quick crash course, and Mason was of the opinion that by as early as tomorrow, there could be a crude system in place to keep things running smoothly here. It was honestly refreshing to hear, as I had been itching to go for a big fight again. In fact, my whole idea behind trying for a boosting skill was to give me the ability to fight against a tough monster as the others were remaining stuck inside the base.

Now though, it looked like things could and would change, and Madelline's next words really did change things drastically.

"Um… guys… I have something to say as well," she said timidly.