“Whatever,” Nick sighed. “Well, since I leveled, give me a second to put my points into Arcanum.”

“Not going to wait until you pick your class?” Valerie asked.

“Why bother?” Nick asked rhetorically. “I already know what I’m going to be: the greatest Spell-Staff the world has ever known!!”

Once a player selected one of the primary classes, he’d be taught skills and given gear to help him in that profession. However, that didn’t mean that he would be locked into that profession forever. Depending on how he distributed his points and what skills he learned, he could easily change how he functioned in the game. “Spell-Staff” was an advanced class available to a player who started off as a Mage and used spells that would have immediate close-combat effects, like Flaming Staff or Lightning Touch, which would then be combined with melee weapons and physically damaging skills. Essentially, it was just a mixture of a Mage and a Fighter. Although Spell-Staffs generally took longer to channel abilities than the average caster since their base Arcane Energy pool was smaller, they could create very deadly burst damage on targets, making them a very popular choice.

Malik laughed. “Your ego is too much. The game has been out eight years, and the best guilds have already closed their doors on recruitment. How are you going to get your hands on the magic boards you need to be one?”

“Whatever,” Nick scoffed. “There are plenty of how-to guides on Blueit for building Spell-Staff magic boards.”

“Yeah, the lower-end ones. I’m not trying to be mean, but without the advanced, specialized designs that are only available to the bigger guilds, you’ll never be as good as other Mages. You should temper your expectations,” Malik advised.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m going to play a mix of the Ranger and the Bard,” Valerie proclaimed proudly, pushing her chest out and tilting her head back as if she had just announced she had won a tournament. “That way, I won’t be as dependent on items, and I won’t need to be the best. The best will want me on their team.”

“Paladin here,” Malik said, turning his gaze toward Lucas. The Paladin was, as one might imagine, just a simple combination of the Healer and the Fighter. It was essentially what Lucas would have been doing right now if he had been given the opportunity to attack anything. The major difference was that he didn’t have any of the martial skill trees learned, and he didn’t have any points into Athletics, the stat that determined one's physical combat resource pool.

Lucas looked at the three expectant faces, all curious what the infamous Negative would pick. Truth be told, he didn’t have a clue as to what to think about any of the classes yet, so he just shrugged and moved forward, hoping that a change of location would also change the topic.

“Way to earn that name,” Nick said from behind. “So negative.”