Claire ignored the phone alarm for the fifth time in a row. neither her body nor her mind had the energy required to reach the phone she had left on the night stand, as it stood on the other side of the bed.

  It's been getting worse lately. Just three years ago, she'd been able to get up at 6 AM, be in the classroom by 7, and do her best to absorb the information the teachers tried to cram into her head for seven hours on end.

  But, when despite her best efforts she dropped out of high school, she decided to take a year of break from education to rest, and it's as if her entire being realised how ragged she'd been running herself all those years, and promptly striked against further abuse.

  Problem was, after she let herself relax, figure herself out, she just couldn't return to the stress of school. The difference between her time of leisure and the frantic pace of her studying years had grown so stark, she'd grown terrified of returning to what in retrospect had been living hell.

  And after trying to start working instead, she quickly learned that it was just as exhausting, if not more so. She couldn't hold the job, and she ended up living with her parents as a NEET. "Not Employed, in Education, or Training."

  Everyone called her lazy. Claire herself often used the word to describe why she was stuck in this limbo of societal uselessness. But she couldn't help but think that the word "lazy" isn't enough to describe the phenomenon of fearing putting in effort so strongly that she would rather throw herself into a black hole than even look for a job. There had to be more to it, she thought. Maybe the stress traumatized her? But the same ever-present exhaustion and anxiety that prevented her from finding work also wouldn't let her book an appointment with a therapist.

  The alarm gave up, and she idly wondered how much time she had left before she was so fatigued that she would fall asleep and just never gather the strength to wake up. At least then she wouldn't feel the guilt of leaching off her parents.

  There wasn't just despair in her. Aside from the feeling of powerlessness, there was a feeling of loathing. She hated her masculine features. She hated whatever part of her made it so she felt no strength, no hope, no control. She hated her mind that just wouldn't be convinced to try and go do something, do anything productive.

  Before she could spiral any further, however, she got interrupted by words being beamed directly into her mind.

  Your Personal Legend has been determined.

  Factors considered:

  - perceived lack of control

  - desire to abandon human shape

  - dislike of ambiguity

  - perceived lack of personal worth

  These factors result in the awakening of the Class: [Demonic Dealmaker]. You can now access your System.

  Claire proceeded to rapidly switch between several emotions, the chief of which were bafflement and fuckor. She had awakened her Class now of all times. While laying in her bed with teary eyes.

  And of course, the System had to lay out exactly the things that made her life miserable, and then gave her a Class based on them.

  To keep her mind off of her current predicament, Claire tried to recall what the System class in the middle school had taught her.

  People would usually awaken a Class between ages twenty and twenty five, so at twenty three, she was well in the average distribution. The System started handing them out thirty years ago, and immediately, there was pressure in the to have Classed people detained or otherwise disappeared from society. It made sense; some Classes were capable of immense destruction, and fear is one of the greatest motivators of policy.

  However, soon after Classes appeared, so did the Breaches. A rift in reality would open and let alien creatures through onto Earth, where they would proceed to wreak even more havoc than the classed ever would. But the same violence-capable Classed were also much more efficient in dealing with the invaders than the conventional armed forces. Pairing that with the fact that police had no idea how to deal with civilians they couldn't just shoot to death when they slightly startled them, and the anti-Classed movement quickly became powerless.

  Nowadays, over 70% of the adult population was Classed, and there were ample legal protections for them and the Unawakend alike. For example, employers couldn't refuse to hire someone based on whether they were Classed or not, unless it was a job related directly to dealing with Breaches.

  Classes could be literally anything, though one defining feature was that they broke the previously known laws of reality. Someone with a [Blacksmith] Class, for example, could gain an ability to forge materials other than metal in the same way one would steel, and hammer bones of Breach-borne monsters into armor without shattering them. A [Marksman] might make their shots curve in midair to home in on their target. A [Painter] might make artworks that left lasting psychological impact on anyone who viewed them.

  And now, she couldn't help but wonder about what magical abilities her own Class granted her.

  Alright, let's see... System, show me my Status, all descriptions expanded. She thought, and the System responded to her intent.

  Class: [Demonic Dealmaker]

  Demons of legend would make deals with mortals in exchange for their souls. You possess a part of their nature, which comes with benefits and drawbacks.

  You may trade souls and their components as if they were ordinary currency, and soul manipulation is much easier for you to learn. However, your soul will not grow on its own, and you will instead have to assimilate components you gain from others. Additionally, you are considered to be both human and demon for any relevant effects.

  Ah, fuck. This is not a straightforward Class.

  Soul Power: 0

  No surprises here, everyone Starts at zero.

  Perks:

  [Silver Tongue]

  Type: mental, divination, cursed

  When communicating, you exert a mild influence, making others more likely to believe what you're saying is true.

  CURSE: You can always tell when someone is speaking what they believe to be false, regardless of their power BUT you cannot speak anything you believe to be false.

  Claire's jaw dropped. One of the most emphasized aspects of the system in the classes had been curses. A cursed Perk or Skill would gain a strong advantage, which would then be balanced with some limitation placed on the user. The teachers cautioned to think long and hard about choosing a cursed ability, as in addition to the permanent negative impact they had, they were also much harder to remove than regular Perks or Skills.

  But she had never heard of someone who had a starting ability with a curse. In any case, "regardless of their power" is incredibly strong. I've always hoped for something cool, something unusual, but this is not what I was expecting.

  Skills:

  [Deal With The Devil]

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  Type: mental, spiritual, karmic

  Touch a physical contract you have signed and are a relevant party in to officiate it. Officiated contracts cannot be purposefully broken by anyone who signed it, and any non-material payments agreed on (souls and their parts, mana, lifespan, luck, etc.) will be carried out automagically. Officiation lasts until the terms of the contract have been fulfilled, or until it becomes impossible for a relevant party to fulfill their obligations. These effects cannot be resisted regardless of any power.

  There it was again, "regardless of power". Normally, any force could be overcome by a stronger force; mind control had a harder time affecting people with mind-enhancing Perks, soul damage was easier to shrug off with a stronger soul shell, and so on. But her abilities would affect anyone, period. The System has never been documented to mislead anyone, even if some messages were more difficult to understand. If the System stated a function of an ability outright, it had that function.

  Her starting Perk and Skill would even work on gods, if she ever crossed paths with one.

  There were multiple problems with her Class, however. The most obvious ones were the built-in downsides. She could only grow her soul, and thus gain more abilities, by someone signing a contract that gave their own Soul Power to her. And she had to convince people to do that without lying. No making empty promises. She would consider that lying, and so her Perk, which worked off of intent, would stop her.

  The fact that for all intents and purposes she additionally counted as a demon wasn't actually that worrying. Sure, people with [Exorcist] Classes would be able to wipe the floor with her, but she wasn't a combat Class anyway, so that changed little. In case of Classes that summoned otherworldly entities, they could theoretically summon her as well. But that would require that the mage knew her true name, and if she was honest with herself, not getting deadnamed by a stranger for a change was a fair consolation prize for getting nonconsensually teleported. Plus, that person would likely be a potential client for her, because why else would anyone try to summon her?

  All things considered her biggest issue was that she didn't know where to start. Her Class required her to trade goods and/or services, and she was a merchant with no stock. A shut in with almost no work experience and an unfinished high school degree. No capital to her name. And her Class didn't provide her any directly useful abilities. Her father worked at a power plant, directly turning his mana into electricity, for example. What could she provide? She could only make contracts she was unable to offer anything in, and know when others were lying!

  ...she could tell when others were lying. Regardless of their power. And it wouldn't even be tiring. There was plenty of settings where having a lie detector was useful. Court testimonies. Business deals. And all she had to do was just sit there and pipe up when someone pinged her Perk.

  "Okay. There is a way here. Now I just have to... do a job search. Fuck."

  And so, she decided to procrastinate that by reading up on soul anatomy. After all, if she was going to trade soul components, it would be useful to know what these components were in the first place.

  Wikipedia came to the rescue.

  Soul was a non-physical "organ" that resided in an adjacent layer of reality - research into spiritual plane and it's natural laws was a fairly new subject, so there was very little detail beyond that - and was somehow connected to a person's body and mind. Just as mind and body affected one another, the soul could also affect and be affected by the mind and the body. Damage to the soul could cause damage to the other two parts of a person, and certain soul exercises could help recover from injuries of the physical and mental kind.

  But most important function of the soul was its ability to produce and utilise mana. Once again, it was a poorly understood substance/energy/phenomenon. Scientists and mages alike could only say this for certain: mana existed, was produced by souls, and could be used to perform magic. She wasn't interested in the theory of magic right now, so she instead skipped to the anatomy section.

  The soul consisted of a shell, which was an outward barrier that held its interior parts in place and protected them. Underneath, there was ether, a sort of spiritual foam that made up the "flesh" of a soul and connected it to the physical body. Throughout the spongy ether ran a labyrinth of vessels, called mana channels, which transported mana like veins carried blood. Using this analogy, the last component of the soul, the mana core, was like a heart and bone marrow at once. It produced mana and released it into the mana channels.

  Then there was Soul Power, the least understood part of the whole system. No one knew for sure where it was coming from, besides somehow being related to the System, but it accumulated in the core when one was doing things related to their Class, or whatever themes one's Class had. Their "personal legend", as the System itself put it. When it reached a sufficient quantiry, the System would acknowledge it as "units" of Soul Power and allowed a Classed to use the mysterious energy to acquire new Skill, Perks, or augmenting the ones they already had. Doing so would also cause the Soul Power to seep into the soul itself and strengthen it. The shell would grow thicker, the channels spread further, the ether became denser, the core produced more mana.

  Core, channels, ether, shell, and Soul Power. Five things to barter for. Could have been worse.

  Next, of course, she had to tell her friends the news. She was on the older side of her online friend group, so she was the second of them to awaken.

  Claire-as-Day: Hi everyone!!!! I just awakened!!! As in, Class.

  CrabLad: LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOO

  CrabLad: welcome to the club

  Critically-Acclaimed: for real?

  Marahcle: hell yeah! gonna share what it does?

  Claire-as-Day: you know the story of Faust? I'm Mephistopheles.

  CrabLad: so you can give people stuff in exchange for their souls?

  Claire-as-Day: Yep.

  Marahcle: who would go for that. If you lose your soul you die from acute everything failure

  Claire-as-Day: I don't need to take the whole soul, just parts of it. Someone can sell me SP, for example, or bits of channels.

  CrabLad: I can see that actually. I could part with a few SP for otherworldly knowledge. I agree to your terms, demon!

  Claire-as-Day: Slow down lol. The deal has to be physically in writing, and I don't have any eldritch secrets to trade yet.

  CrabLad: damn

  CrabLad: so wait, what can you give people?

  Claire-as-Day: Not much. I'm planning to earn some money by acting as a lie detector. My Perk lets me know when someone is lying.

  Marahcle: I never got how these kinds of abilities work. How does it determine what is a "lie"?

  Claire-as-Day: The text says "what they believe to be false". So it doesn't matter whether it's true, it's whether you think you're saying the truth.

  Marahcle: does this mean lies of omission don't count?

  Claire-as-Day: Shit. Yeah, that's not saying a lie, that's just not saying the truth. Well, no ability is perfect.

  CrabLad: you could just ask if they are leaving anything they seem important

  Claire-as-Day: Good idea, I'll keep it in mind. Thanks!

  They chatted about abilities in general for a while after that. It was almost 13:00 now. Claire supposed it was about time to get out of the bed. She went to the toilet and washed her hair - she couldn't force herself to clean her whole body today - and dressed herself in the first clothes she stbled upon in her closet. I'm almost out. I'm gonna have to do laundry again. She sighed, as she knew it would take her a few days to do so.

  She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a few slices of ham from the fridge to stuff into her mouth. She could have made a sandwich, but... I don't have the energy. What did they call it? Spoons. I don't have spoons for it.

  She felt the guilt wash over her as she chewed the meat. Mom would probably raise an eyebrow if she entered at this moment. As it was, she was too engrossed in whatever Flicker original she was currently watching.

  I should probably tell her the news, huh. Maybe she could help me test some of my features.

  Claire entered the living room, where her mom lounged on the couch in front of the TV. As Claire suspected, some Korean drama was currently being displayed.

  "Oh, you woke up, finally." The older woman remarked. Her blue eyes turned to Claire. "Are you gonna look for work today?"

  And just like that, what little energy Claire had was gone, like air from a punctured balloon.

  "No, but I probably will soon. I got my Class today."

  Her mom's eyes widened. "That's great honey! This will really help us. Your dad's doing his best, but with the prices going up, we could use the extra money."

  Breathe, Claire. She is happy for me. She's just showing it in... her way.

  "Well, what is it?" Mom asked, pulling her attention out of the attempt at calming herself.

  "Hm?"

  "Your Class. What did you get?"

  "It... helps with administration. I can officiate transactions to make sure both sides complete their end of the deal." Claire said, deciding to omit the more potentially worrying aspects. Her mom was religious, in her own way.

  "Really? A friend of mine is actually having some openings at his company, you could go intern there."

  For once, Claire actually considered the idea.

  "Do you think they are accommodating? You know, of trans people?" Claire asked, hopefully. Fear of being discriminated at her workplace was one of the many factors that made the prospect of even searching for a job a nightmare. Sure, there were some protections for minorities in the laws that passed over the past decade, but in reality the discrimination lawsuits rarely went anywhere.

  Her mom thought for a moment. "I think they are going to be fine with your lifestyle, yes."

  The sentence made Claire shiver unpleasantly, for multiple reasons. Beside the "lifestyle" comment, Claure felt a weird tingle going out from somewhere in her heart. No, her brain. No, her... it must be coming from her soul. She had never felt anything from there, unawakened were rarely ever conscious of the soul's presence, but the feeling was too alien to be anything else. Her soul rang a warning bell.

  Her mother was lying.

  She couldn't call her mom out immediately, though. She didn't want to reveal her ability, at least not yet.

  "Does... does your friend know I'm a woman now?" Claire probed. Her mom was supposed to be open about her child's gender to others. If Claire had a choice, she would prefer that mom didn't hang out with bigots, and if she met any of her acquaintances, that she wouldn't need to go through the whole "yeah, I look like a guy, yes, I'm still a woman, if you don't respect this you don't get to talk to me" procedure. She would, but it was just more convenient that the trash took itself out beforehand.

  "Yes, I've updated Eric already." Another tingle. A lie again.

  "Okay, I'll... think about it, mom."

  Claire tried to look unhurried as she went back to her room and buried herself under the covers. Her mom was the more supportive parent. After dad refused to call her by her name, and still referred to her as "son", and she in turn announced she wouldn't be talking to him, he opted to avoid using any pronouns or either her deadname and the real one. A compromise that satisfied no one.

  Why was it so difficult for people to use the right words? That's all she demanded. She didn't care if people thought she was a woman, as long as they called her one. Every "he" felt like a toothpick in her gut. She knew she didn't look the way people expected the women to, but first of all, it was the 21st century, why should she have to, and second of all, she had no money for clothes or hormones.

  And then her mom just pretends she was still Ethan whenever she's out of earshot. Like she was in denial about her son's death.

  But I didn't die. I just changed.