Finally Randidly looked at his hand concentrating and summoned a Soul Seed A small wizened looking nut appeared in his hand weirdly maroonish in color A small bar hovered over the seed
Soul Seed 0% Nurtured
Randidly scratched his chin Nurtured was it The notification had said I nurture it with skills so do I just
As he focused on the nut he felt a strange connection forming He knew instinctively that while he had the seed on his person it would grow based on any skill he activated So for now he put the seed away and turned back to his spare PP He immediately poured it into the Meditation path and was rewarded at 5 with 15 mana and at 10 with +2 Wisdom
Yawning Randidly rubbed his stomach Today was a good day And every good day deserved a good meal to start it off
Leaving by a side path Randidly escaped from Donnyton without any more questions from Daniel or any strange followers
Lyra was beautiful sure And useful Her spells were powerful too And she was a non classer like him so they had that in common
Randidly froze And she was here
He spun around expecting to see her standing there her mana birds fluttering around her But there was nothing the path was deserted Randidly frowned then chuckled nervously shaking his head
Even if he had grown definitively stronger he wasn’t so strong that he could just have his head in the clouds while searching for these cats And today was the 5th day
Looking at the sun Randidly wondered again what would happen once the Newbie Zone walls fell and the monsters from beyond the boundary roved towards the village
Clenching his fist he turned and began to walk He would meet whatever came with strength
And so for now he would work on sharpening that strength
Daniel glanced up at the nervous man annoyed
What is it He snapped
Uh S sam wants to speak with you sir The man stuttered and then hurried away
Sighing Daniel wiggled his fingers at his assistants who tiredly took the paperwork from him as he stood to leave Despite what the rest of the people here seemed to think a society required bureaucracy to function You couldn’t just steal whatever you needed from wherever you wanted That wasn’t a sustainable economy
However
As he walked towards Sam’s settlement down by the farming area Daniel rubbed his temples It was becoming increasingly difficult to find a way to actually base their economy on something They had no real production besides food and animal pelts and the slightly more sophisticated armors that Sam would produce but still
Gold was becoming increasingly popular as a currency but none of the Classers even took it seriously they gambled it away on dumb ridiculous bets like arm wrestling contests or who could cut down more trees with a single swing They were like children and their increased physical prowess was their shiny new toy
Sir Daniel A woman said hurrying next to him struggling to keep pace with his long strides Although Daniel hadn’t really gained very many levels he had gained quite a few skills during his duties As such he had seen it prudent to put some into physical attributes So the woman who was one of the designated NCC representatives was struggling to keep up
He had to admit being call Sir Daniel certainly was better than Chubbs’
What is it Daniel said lengthening his stride
We would like permission to extend the current farming plat Probably by double Moving further south down the valley A recent arrival brought coffee seeds and
Fine fine Daniel said waving his hands Draw up a new map and send it over for approval
Yes sir The woman said peeling away gratefully She began shouting to the nearby Classers offering food bribes for labor A lot of single shoulder pad classers having nothing better to do agreed and began to follow her
Daniel arrived at Sam’s area shocked at the changes that had occurred The ground had been flattened and around a dozen wooden tables were covered with monster parts Some tables were covered in monsters being skinned others were skins drying others were stacks of sorted bones still others had men stitching away creating armor and clothing from the furs of monsters
A lot of people had taken to wearing it especially the Classers but Daniel still preferred the feel of processed cotton
Sam and Dozer stood over to the side surrounded by several of Dozer’s brutish henchmen as Dozer hefted what looked like the giant skull of the Wolverine he had killed last night As Daniel watched Dozer lifted the object and placed it onto his head
Narrowing his eyes Daniel walked closer Although it was definitely a wolverine skull there was no way it should fit his head so regularly with the eye holes wide and spaced so it’s easy to see out from within
Heh as expected you can see immediately Sam said positively glowing as he regarded it He jerked a thumb at the skull covered Dozer That’s the work of my new skill Bone Shaping Can’t do much of anything impressive with it yet but if I keep working at it we will have whole suits of armor soon Imagine
Dozer grunted happily clearly excited but Daniel just rolled his eyes So how quickly can things like that be made
Well Sam hemmed It’s not like it takes too long but it’s not short either And it needs to be personalized by me
Shaking his head Daniel reached into his spatial backpack which had been purchased with 50 SP and removed a pile of folders I look forward to seeing them in widespread use In the meantime I took the liberty of drawing up some evaluation forms for you two and Decklan to handle
Evaluation Dozer muttered staring uncomprehendingly at the tiny words covering the pages handed to him
Yes Evaluation I know you are tired of me harping on the ranking stratification and I am too I made a rubric for you to grade each Classer by Strength Utility Teamwork Leadership etc Just fill all the columns in and add them up and you will have a number between 1 and 100 Obviously we will just being going by the 10s digit for the specific rank but specificity is always preferable Daniel explained with a smile Then he turned and walked away leaving the piles of paper with the two men
But then he turned and called over his shoulder Oh and I expect it done by the end of today Until it gets done I’ll probably be too busy to work out the schedule for the dungeon
The cat quickly sidestepped avoiding the wall of thorns but the Spearing Roots shot upward leaving several scrapes across its body
And in that moment it stumbled
A Phantom Thrust ripped into its neck spraying its blood over the ground After a few wobbly steps it collapsed spent
Pleased Randidly sat too beginning to refine Blue Energy stones to make higher tiered mana potions He had been hunting cats for around two hours and had caught 6 The Wall of Thorns really helped but even more important were the points that he had started putting into strength Where as before he could leave small scratches now his blows actually would send the cats stumbling with the force In addition the extra Agility from the necklace had done a lot to even out their difference in speeds
Honestly it was mostly perception and reaction that was holding him back now He was slowly beginning to realize that his body was faster than he could handle Ruefully Randidly put that on the list of things that needed to be worked on as he progressed
So far today he had gained 3 Levels in Wall of Thorns but only 2 in Spearing Roots even though he used it much much more Apparently in addition to the skill level bonuses carrying over the difficulty in leveling also increased Haste also went up by 1 and Refine by 2
Randidly also noticed that although evolving the skill had increased the mana cost to 45 his mana pool of 450 still meant he could cast it 10 times before he needed to break for mana potions The rate at which he could improve spells was improved enormously by the larger mana pool
As he began to move forward through the strange wasteland he wondered if he had gotten to a level of strength that he would get an impressive class Probably something related to his Spear of Rot Mastery