Randidly stayed silently for a long moment The rest of the workers in the kitchen kept their eyes on their table continuing to cut Feeling bored Randidly began to randomize his cut locations starting in the middle then hopping to one side then back then between them while simultaneously keeping all of his carrots an even size
It was disappointingly easy Stats really started to mean a lot huh
Knocking another two cut carrots into a bin he gave the man another glance He still hadn’t straightened and continued to work
what’s your reaction stat Randidly asked trying to sound casual
The man didn’t move mumbling to himself
Randidly frowned flicking a carrot at the man It ricocheted off the man’s head He straightened shocked and Randidly asked again
What is your reaction stat
The man shrugged What does it matter I’m trying to just move more quickly
Randidly sighed Reaction improves your nerve endings and increases your sensitivity to tactile feedback You feel better More than that you might not be able to control your speed without Reaction No matter how good the acceleration is a car that can’t turn won’t win many races
The man just gaped at him
A small asian woman to Randidly’s left looked up at him Did you hear that at one of the university lectures
Randidly frowned then shook his head No just from my own observations
The woman muttered something and looked away ignoring Randidly again But Randidly made a mental note to as Tessa about these lectures and to go to one Why hadn’t the woman mentioned it when he asked earlier There might be more people he knew there if it was sponsored by Rawlands Maybe people who knew Ace and Sydney
Randidly reached into his unfinished bin and found nothing He looked around the room Where do I get more carrots to him
Everyone looked at him in shock The supervisor saw the situation and came over Then he scratched his head shocked I I guess you can go
Nodding Randidly walked out relieved
Wait you forgot your tokens But Randidly was already gone Shrugging unhappily the supervisor returned to his spot wishing he had thought to ask the guy to come back again tomorrow
The man who had put all of his points into agility looked at Randidly’s neatly cut carrots his eyes bright Reaction huh
As Randidly was walking away a notification popped up
Congratulations Your Arbor Lvl 1 is ready to level up Due to its nature your first choice is set Give Arbor either Vanity or Sloth
A vein in Randidly’s temple throbbed It was bad enough when he had checked the seed he had left which he had named Arbor and saw what it grew off of Randidly brought up its status screen again
Arbor (Attention)
Lvl 1
Survivability 2
Physicality 1
Magical Aptitude 3
Brain Function 7
Particularity 6
Battle Ability 1
It was a hard thing to stomach Randidly wasn’t sure where he went wrong with this Soul Seed Perhaps it was the weird skills perhaps it was the abandoning it and leaving it with those kids but this one grew based off of attention
Randidly swore to himself to not make another Soul Seed until he had time to purposefully nurture it
And now he had to choose between Vanity and Sloth
Sighing Randidly selected Vanity It was better that it like looking at itself in the mirror than it being unwilling to work He supposed Vanity wasn’t that bad of a flaw for a tree thing
Arbor is now Lvl 2 Particularity has increased by 2 It has learned the skill Elaborate Dance
Randidly closed the notification and the Soul Seed Menu before he did something stupid And so with a twitching smile he arrived outside Tessa’s apartment settling down to wait He just hoped that no one gave Arbor any sort of weird attention that would warp its growth
Looking around at the passing people he considered asking around about Sydney and Ace But seriously what was he expecting Maybe there was some sort of giant missing person board
Randidly supposed that he could ask one of these people but decided it was fine to wait for Tessa and ask her It was nice being alone one of the crowd without people freezing up in some strange mixture of awe and fear when he passed
For a while Randidly enjoyed the simple feeling of being treated like a normal guy
Chapter 67
Tessa pulled her ponytail over her shoulder nervously spinning in front of the mirror She felt strange But the world was a strange place now wasn’t it
She had known things were wrong in her relationship with Randidly a long time before he broke up with her but she had wanted to work through it It didn’t seem like he did In the wake of that the system had descended on the world ripping away half of her building and all of her sense of security
The night everything happened both the breakup and the world shaking change Tessa had curled up in her bed and cried herself to sleep trying to ignore the screams
They had been dating for a year and it hit her hard Not of course harder than the system but still
The next month had blended together in a desperate blur of short term jobs and and sleazy guys like that patroller Alex always trying to isolate her and tempt her with cheap beer and free food
And now just finally when she was wavering Randidly showed back up If that wasn’t fate she didn’t know what was
Noticing the time she hurried down the steps To her surprise Randidly was already there calmly eating a hardboiled egg
Oh I’m sorry did you wait long Tessa asked instantly nervous
Randidly was a good hearted person but he did have something of a moody streak Not that he would do anything about it he would just be grumpy but Tessa didn’t want grumpiness to interrupt their reunion
Again Randidly’s even gaze surprised her His eyes calmly looked her up and down as he swallowed the last of the egg Then he shook his head No I just got here
He still had the habit of keeping his face completely still while lying which was slightly relieving Even so though why did he lie about something so simple He always lied for the dumbest reasons Although this definitely was the same man she dated for a year he seemed almost completely different Her eyes had always been drawn to him but now there was something more to that Like his presence drew everything towards him as if he was the center of the world
Tessa shook her head trying to banish those thoughts So uh I have some food tokens saved up I can show you around the city
She trailed off as Randidly gave her the look She felt her cheeks flush slightly It was the look he gave her when he already knew what to do and was about to tell her It was annoying a lot of the time but there were some other times
Actually He said calmly I had a question first What do you know about the University Lectures here
Sam grunted turning over the breast plate Over the last month he had managed to set up something of a forge and they were beginning to experiment with shaping metal The whole ordeal was vastly simplified by when around a week ago Daniel had purchased the Supply shop and they could purchase bars of smelted iron for relatively cheaply
Far far more cheaply than the weapons and armor they would become The only issue left was shaping the metal He examine the breastplate more closely
Novice’s Breastplate Lvl 2 +7 Health
The bonus would be barely noticeable but Sam supposed it was better than nothing An improvement is an improvement Good work
The man who ran the smithy Ceth chuckled bitterly And fucking long hours of work too I need to get some more points into stamina and I should be able to make things like this pretty regularly As my Metal Working Skill improves so should the armor There are even specific skills for each body piece so when we figure out a mold for a helmet it will go even faster We are moving in the right direction Sam Why the rush
Sam scowled powerful Don’t say something like that You know it’s bad luck
A notification popped up silencing him