Chapter 4: Damn, I’m Cute!

Agni gazed at her own reflection for quite some time and eventually the glow of her amber colored eyes faded away.

“Weirdo, that one..” The dark skinned girl said as she walked over to the other side of the hut and began harassing another woman. Soon other naked women began to filter into the hut, more than half a dozen. Since things were getting cramped Agni decided now might be the best time to get dressed. She walked across the room towards several shelves which held pieces of gear, armor, bracers, boots, etc. As she did so she heard a peculiar sound.

“Ooo! Unn!”

Agni stopped in her tracks and wrinkled her brows as she couldn’t quite place the noise.

“Uhnn!” The noise happened again, this time more pronounced.

“Could you… please?” A woman’s voice pleaded as she placed her hand on Agni’s shoulder. Agni turned to face her only to feel a sense of dread come over her. It seems her tail really did have a mind of its own — it had begun to slither between a young lady’s thighs as Agni passed. The tip of her tail flicked dangerously close to her lips. Agni blushed and quickly grabbed her tail as she apologized profusely.

“I AM SO SORRY!” She nearly shouted as she grabbed her twitching tail and pressed it against her bosom.

“Why are you embarrassing me!?” Agni whispered as she held her tail close to her mouth. With a full body blush of embarrassment in effect Agni hurried to her intended destination.

The hut had several stands of underclothing as well as a shelf filled with various types of leather boots. As Agni knelt down before the items to get a better look she noticed that a description of each item would appear showing the name, quality and other useful information. From this she discerned that there were four types of gear ; Light, Medium, Heavy and Magic. She also noticed that two of the four pairs of items were inaccessible to her – Medium and Heavy class gear.

With this in mind she decided to inspect Light and Magic categories a bit more closely. She picked up the pair of Light category gear, Leather Boots. Nothing out of the ordinary stood out to her. She placed them back on the shelf and next touched a pair of the Magic boots, Enchanted Leathers.

“Hmm. Apparently the difference between this and normal gear is that Magic gear reserves a portion of your mana in order to be worn.” Agni whispered to herself as she looked the boots over. They came up to the area of her ankles, white in color and felt nice to the touch.

She decided to take those, ignoring the description for the moment. She then moved over to the next shelf which had dozens of armors of various types. Once again she decided to take a magical set of armor which matched the boots. She did the same with bracers and shin guards, the only piece of armor she couldn’t wear was a helmet due to her horns.

After putting on the all black form fitting under armor, she adorned the rest of her selection and admired herself in the mirror.

“I look so cute in this!” She thought before pausing. ” I can’t believe I just said that. Ugh, it just….popped out of me.”

She finally slipped on a pair of black gloves to protect her hands and stepped outside of the hut. By this point all of the other women were done with the simple exercise of using their Systema and were either getting dressed or already joined Wayla back at the statue’s feet.

As Agni walked towards the group of dressed adventurers she managed to take a good look at the statue for once. It was shaped in the image of a man with a long cloak and hood. In one hand he held a book, in the other he held what looked like a planet. He seemed to be some type of magic user perhaps? It was difficult to tell, regardless the word “douche” immediately came to mind for Agni. Something about the guy just screamed “asshole”, or perhaps it was simply the depiction.

Agni joined the other girls, this time making sure to stand behind her dark skinned admirer so that she wouldn’t receive any unexpected ass slaps. It would be a few more minutes before the remaining ladies got dressed and joined the main group once more.

“The Tabernacles exist all across the world of Adventia and they act as beacons to souls who would answer the call of adventure. You are here because you have greatness within you, it is my job to teach you how to harness these abilities in order to thrive in Adventia. I won’t lie, this world is dangerous and deadly–but if you can master your abilities you need not fear.” Wayla shouted as she brandished her hands passionately.

“The Tabernacle is a vast training ground that can supply any need for you as an adventurer. My goal is to help you meet the level requirement of three and also give you basic survival skills so that you can embark on your first journey to the nearby town of Grenvale. In three day’s time you will depart, much like other adventurers before you so strive to do your best in the time you have.”

“Now, I would like all of the fighter type adventure classes to step up to the front.” Wayla commanded as she proceeded to group the adventurers according to one of six categories.

Strikers, adventurers who specialized in front line or hand to hand combat. Casters, those who utilized magic in order to do battle or perform feats. Beastia, adventurers who had turned into monsters or beastmen as a result of their class assignments. Servicemen, adventurers who’s class gifted them with a job-like calling such as sewing, crafting or potion making. Healers, those who had the power to recover, cure or support others in battle. And last but not least, Specialists, adventurers with unique or unorthodox powers.

Of all of these categories, Agni was the only person who was classified as a specialist. The entire sorting process took less than fifteen minutes among the group of twenty eight people.

“Excellent. As usual, a great deal of Striker category adventurers. Also a great number of Casters.” Wayla said to herself as she walked the line, looking at each of the groups in turn as she finally reached Agni.

“Don’t worry –Agni was it? Specialists almost always become exceptionally powerful adventurers. They are extremely rare, even in a magical world — your future is pretty much set.” Wayla reassured Agni as she placed a hand on her shoulder.

Upon contact Agni felt a strange sensation travel through her body, she could hear the distant sound of a heart beat and immediately recognized it as one that was not her own. The experience only lasted for a split second and soon Agni’s attention was drawn once more to Wayla’s voice.

“Adventuring can be a dangerous job. No matter your profession, at one time or another you may be expected to defend yourself. With this in mind that will be the focus of today’s lessons. Follow me young ladies.”