“Why are spells and mages so… regulated?” Roge asked, fiddling with his claws so he didn’t have to look his new friends in the face.

  They’d spent another hour training Roge up, though he’d only gotten marginally better at hitting his target while moving. At the very least he’d gotten a few upgrades in his [Bonded Tools] and [Mana Manipulation] skills, making it so he could control the magical effect within about a foot of his wand. Yes, his powers were a bit OP, but he couldn’t see why the church even cared.

  “That’s a simple, yet complex question,” Hops said, Roge looking to the elf as he sighed and sat down next to him. The group had moved their break out to one of the picnic tables in the front courtyard to get to actual seating. “The simple answer is that they grow too powerful. Endanger people. And so the Church has to step in to protect people.

  “But that doesn’t explain you,” he continued, pulling out his dinner from his inventory. “You can grow massively powerful. But you don’t have one of the drawbacks of being a spellcaster. Something you nearly avoid by binding the abilities in objects as [Artificers] do.”

  “Drawbacks?” Roge asked quietly.

  “I’ll get to that,” Hops responded, waving the question away. “One of the major things is that spellcasters don’t have spells granted to them by a class. [Spell Construction] has been seen in all mages as a skill, and is one of the hallmarks that they’re on the edge.

  “It starts out okay. They make bigger and more powerful spells, balanced with their class. But over time… Their spells start to ask for things other than mana.” The elf grimaced at that, biting into what looked to be a nut bar. “Even the most comforting spells, ones that don’t harm anyone, start to ask for components. Twigs. Coins. I’ve even seen a spell in a book need freshly cut grass of all things. It always starts out with little things, though.”

  Roge noticed each of the party members shutter at that, his scales turning cold as his imagination went wild. “It doesn’t…”

  “It does. Blood is usually first. Then actions that hurt people. Sacrifices. More and more to fuel the most powerful spells. And by that point they’re level fifty or more in the classes.”

  “Why don’t they just-“

  “Stop?” Hops asked, cutting the dragon off. “Because then their class doesn’t level. The constant reminder on your [Status] that you’ll never grow more powerful in magic. The classes cut you off from other magical classes.”

  “Some have tried to work around the costs…” Marge muttered, having not touched her food.

  “And it always comes to the same decision in the end. Kill someone, or get stuck.” Hops took a large bite of his bar at that, his gaze dark and distant. “The things I’ve heard? Most people won’t do it. But the Church has to watch out for the others. The people who can and will hurt people to be more powerful.

  “[Artificer] is one of the classes that just barely goes into spellcasting territory. But because you bind the effects in an item, there are drawbacks to it. And that seems to keep the class from demanding the horrible things.”

  Roge sat and digested that for a bit after Hops stopped speaking, the rest of the team quietly finishing their meals. He was grateful he hadn’t gone down the spell route, shivering at the options a class would give him for components. But he was also confused. Why did the system do that? Why make a series of classes have such an obvious and horrible downside. That didn’t seem like balance to him.

  For all of the faults he levied at the way the robots ran the world, they obviously wanting things to be fair. Balance things out where his previous world did not. Yeah, there were bad people in the world. And yeah, things didn’t always work out alright for everyone. But at the end of the day, his classes and what he’d heard about everything pointed to one thing. The system wanted things fair. Like a game master for a tabletop game, making sure every player could have their turn.

  ‘So what makes spells so different…’

  ~~~

  The group waved Roge off after that, his question having soured the mood somewhat. They’d planned to have a week off to help him out before he went to take the League’s adventurer test. He wasn’t sure he needed that long, but his new friends insisted he was still *terrible* at aiming. He could only hit the target once every ten shots, and they barred him from aiming the magic after it left his wand.

  ‘If you always hit something within range because you can control it, you’ll be toast if another creature has a better range than you,’ Marge had said, her words tumbling in his head as he reached his parents’ inn. Logically she was right, but trying to hit the target was frustrating. Not to mention, he’d needed to focus on moving and trying to get a new class.

  “Hey Roge,” a strict voice called out, the dragon jumping as he turned around. ‘Oh god…’

  “Hi mom,” he muttered, looking the cat woman in the eyes before turning away. The blood red eyes with white fur creeped him out the first time he saw it. Not to mention the fact that she was just the same as she was before. The exact same person he’d escaped from.

  “What have you been doing the past few days? The sales have gone down,” she pouted, walking around him to get to the counter. Her loud, stomping footsteps jarred his teeth as he followed behind her, wondering how she could look mostly healthy and still sound heavy.

  “Been busy working on some projects…”

  “Well we need you to start helping around more if you’re not going to be spending money here.” Her tone was mild, but with her voice not changing much, Roge could still hear the barely hidden rage behind her voice.

  “I’m… not sure I have time for that.” He quickly set his mind to work overtime, pulling up the first excuse he could. “Madam-“

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  “Oh that fat brute? Maybe you shouldn’t work for such a skanky person.” He flinched hard at that, her volume starting to rise.

  “Mom… she’s been good to me. I’m not talking about this with you.” He started to walk away, feeling his tolerance meter for his mother reach rock bottom when her next words made him freeze.

  “Well fine. We’re just going to have to start charging you rent. One gold per week.” She scoffed. “I don’t get why your father lets you freeload, but it ends now.” As Roge only got paid about fifty silver every week, he suspected she knew he couldn’t pay.

  “I can’t affor-“

  “Well of course you can. Just take more of those slut jobs, and you’ll be fine.” That made him turn around towards her, a growl wanting to escape his mouth. “Oh stop it Roge. You make good money with those jobs. It’s all that matters.”

  Not wanting to say something he’d regret, Roge marched up to his room and slammed the door, his rage leaking out of him as tears formed in his eyes. That’s always how she’d been, and he was sad she didn’t change. She was only ever happy that he did well because it benefited her. Every class project either a failure he’d get ridiculed over, or a success on her part for raising him. He’d fled his mom’s house at eighteen to escape the scorn, and he wasn’t surprised his other self had been ‘moody’ until he came along.

  ‘One gold…’ he thought to himself, pushing the sad and angry thoughts away so he could work through the problem. ‘I’m not paying a dime to her, so I’ll just find my own place. Dad probably doesn’t even know she’s doing this.’? With that goal set in his mind, and seeing the sun setting outside, he pulled up the money portion of his inventory, finding 3 gold, 29 silver, and 41 coppers in it. A thought to change his previous thought from ‘dime’ to ‘silver’ crossed his mind before he refocused. He was unsure of how much rooms in the rest of the city cost, but he could easily find someplace cheaper than a gold per week. ‘Probably bigger too…’

  ~~~

  The next morning, after spending way too long the previous night packing up all of his stuff into his oversized inventory, he set out to work on his projects first. He’d needed to repay Madam Madrid’s trust and get her some magic items that she could sell.

  First thing on his list as he walked to work was to make all of his tobacco plants purified, wanting the potential buffs they’d see in the cigarettes to apply to his colorful versions as well. His harvesting of the biting creeper vines was still chugging along with no results, so he harvested from the other plants, nearly filling his inventory in the process. He saw many leaves and petals from the various plants, but the main thing that filled things up was the seeds.

  Each plant produced a different amount of seeds, Roge curious as to how he could effect the numbers in the future. Of the four to eight seeds he got from each tobacco plant, he planted two in his hoard to up his supply, feeling good about the numbers. He also made sure to replant each of the one to two seeds he got from the flowers as well.

  ‘Well… at least the fertilizer isn’t going down yet.’ Seeing the list wasn’t as helpful as he thought, though, feeling the plants with better detail just by focusing.

  He was pulled from his thoughts when he reached the art supply store once again, moving through the shelves until he found the ink section he’d missed before. Thankfully, they had each of the primary colors he needed, as well as each color coming in a similar potion-style bottle that he could use. Buying five of each, he quickly moved on to get to the smoke shop, feeling his full inventory bulging against his back. ‘Not doing that again…’

  To alleviate some of the magical burden, he started pulling out the various colors from the inks and placing the ash and coins into his hoard. That resulted in all twenty five bottles taking up one space instead of five, the four empty spaces making him feel a tad better. He decided to forgo binding them to his hoard, instead filling each with a touch of the quartz dust his friends had given him. He’d been given two sacks worth, and by asking his inventory to fill up each bottle with what it needed for a non-bonded wands, his [Magic Tool Creation] skill obliged. It used a lot less that way, only filling each bottle with about an inch of dust.

  Sure, he wouldn’t be able to make all of the wands right away, his five trees surprisingly giving him five branches he could use, but at the very least he could show the items off to Madam Madrid. See if she had any idea where they could be sold. He’d need to actually focus to do the crafting, though, so he decided to enjoy the sights as he walked up on the Leaf’s Haunt.

  He wasn’t paying enough attention, however, as he nearly bumped into someone as he walked in the front door, frowning at the wide eyed look the human gave him. He hadn’t seen any human up close before then, finding their looks so alien that he had a hard time looking away.

  “Roge! My sweet!” the human cried out, rushing forwards and hugging the dragon very forcefully. It was at that moment he recognized the voice, finding his heart plummeting.

  “Please tell me your work will start back up soon,” they cried, Roge finding a weeping man snuggled up to him for some reason. The same man that had been trying to buy him a day or two prior.

  ‘Oh shit…’ he cursed to himself.