But for a Slime

Status

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Resistances

HP

3

Physical:

Wind

.3

MP

3

Piercing

0

Water

.3

Attack

3

Crushing

0

Ice

.3

Defense

3

Slashing

0

Magic

3

Magic Defense

3

Strength

3

Dexterity

3

Agility

3

Commoner

3

IQ

3

Wisdom

3

Learning

3

Luck

0

But when the window opened, he saw that Commoner was at level 3. What? How… I don’t understand. Seeing as how it was almost noon, and he had to eat, he pulled out some breakfast bread and an odd cheese that he had saved from breakfast, along with some dried meat. He took a nice long swig from his lukewarm water bottle and grimaced at the flavor, or warmness, of the stale tasting water. He began slipping bits of bread, cheese, and dried meat into his mouth while he sat on an available log and looked over his stats and tried to figure out what was happening.

He saw that his stats had also risen by whatever value they had at level one. His basic stats had all been one, so now, at level three, all of them were now three each, except for luck which had had an initial value of zero, and remained zero. Man… luck must be hard to raise? His resistances were all mostly zero except for wind, water, ice; all now point three, which made sense as their initial values had been point one. At point one each level, they would now be point three. Joe sighed. Not even one yet. Although, I guess it would make sense? Why would a commoner have strong defense against these things?

As he flipped through his various pages, he couldn’t find anything that really explained his rapid growth to level three until he came to the log tab. He noticed the latest entry offering congratulations on having made level three, but it was the entry immediately before that caught his attention. “You have defeated a slime and gained two experience.” Huh? Was this slime special? I thought I was only getting one experience per slime before? He scrolled up through the list and noticed that all his kills gained him two experience. He slid up the list faster and faster until he suddenly noticed he was only getting one experience per slime. Cocking his head with some confusion, he slid back down and stopped at the breaking point where his experience gains changed from one to two and found one very interesting single line in between: “Congratulations! Commoner has increased to level 2!”

He stared at the two for a bit and tried to figure out what had happened. Curiosity drove him and he went back to his kills from level one and counted a hundred kills. OK! One hundred experience for level one. Good to know. He then counted his level two kills and counted fifty. Hmm… again… one hundred experience for level two, but at two per kill, I get level two in half the time. Why? Shouldn’t it get harder the further up you go? Does that mean I get three per kill now? But why would… wait… Joe flipped back to his status screen really quick and looked at the unassuming learning stat. At level one, it had been one. At level two, it had been two. At three it was now three. Is it a simple multiplier? There was no real way to prove it at this time, so he simply closed the screen and finished off his food before washing it down once more with the lukewarm water.

“Man! I could really use a good ice cold … well, ANYTHING ice cold would be so nice right now!”

He stood and loped off at a jog for his next slime. He had seen that slime even as he sat down to eat and kept an eye on it as it continued to meander in roughly his direction, its movements slow but deliberate and inexorable. Nothing stood against it as it slimed across the forest floor, half rolling and half oozing with pseudopod-like movements. It had been about four hours of straight killing in the morning and he had finished slightly before noon. After his next kill, he had checked his status to verify and did see that this slime kill had given him three experience. His morose feelings lifted and a smile came to his face. Hey, this might not be so hard if I can keep increasing my learning. I’ll be able to take off pretty well!

It had taken a whole day, almost ten hours, to hit level two, but only around five hours to hit level three; only four hours today because he had spent about an hour cleaning out slimes on the way back to the road after he had finally hit level two and felt the light fading too much for him to continue much longer. It seemed that he could view learning as directly correlated to the time needed to level up. If he doubled his learning, he could cut his leveling time or number of kills in half. Since he was now level three, his learning was three. Level one took one hundred kills. Level two took fifty kills, exactly half as his learning had doubled. For level three, he hadn’t doubled his learning, but had increased it by half again and now should only need a third of the kills. If he had to do four or five hours for level two, then it should be a little over three hours to finish level three and hit level four. He should be able to hit level four and even maybe level five before heading home tonight.

Excited by the prospect, he attacked the afternoon with renewed vigor, and as he predicted, he had cleared level three in a little over three hours. Ha! Level four! This is easy! There wasn’t much of the afternoon left, but he continued on, confident in still having enough time to return to the road and make it home. If he wanted to push himself, he still had about two hours left before he needed to return if he wanted to make the village by dusk.

The time went by quickly as he put himself to the mindless task. By this time, having killed close to almost two hundred slimes, including yesterday, the task was simple. The stake plunged into the body of the slime and staked it before he scooped the central gem out with the flat of his spear blade. He had learned to be cautious in how he flicked it now. He had gotten into the habit of almost pushing it out instead of flicking it out, but there would often be large chunks or even an encompassing globe of ooze left over and he would have to fight with a much smaller version. He tried flicking it harder and it often flew from the slimes center with little ooze left to it. This made killing it with his small stick whisks easy, but finding the gem, which had flown a good dozen or so meters away, was quite annoying. So he had taken to flicking it quite hard at a nearby tree, trying to bank it off the trunk and back towards himself. He had practiced it to enough of an art that he was sometimes able to catch it as it flew back by him and he would quickly flick the ooze off where it was usually clinging desperately on the trailing edge of the gem with a quick whisk of one of his furred sticks.

Taking in the ambient light around him and the sun low in the sky behind him, he considered the time and thought to head back to the village. He saw one more slime slightly deeper in the forest and decided to take one more out before heading out. He started jogging toward it and brought up his status, quickly swapping to his current jobs page and blinked in stunned surprise when he noticed that the bar representing the status of his current level was almost at max. Wait! I should be able to level soon, right? He hadn’t really stopped his movement towards the slime as he glanced over his status quickly and decided to leave the status window open as he engaged with the slime. He had learned that the slimes seemed quite stupid, seeming to engage their leap at exactly the same distance. He quickly learned the ‘feel’ of that distance and would aim to be behind a slim tree stand as he approached the slime. It would invariably leap is he got in range, but would often as not clip the tree with an edge of its slime and lodge itself with its body half stuck, wrapped around the tree trunk.

He would bury the stake into the slime’s body and pull it down and away from the tree trunk, ripping chunks off the slime as he would thrust it firmly down to the grown and stake it. Then it was just a matter of flicking the gem out. This was one of the few times he was able to enjoy his acrobatic prowess and the gem bounced of the tree he had chosen well enough that he was able to catch it in a high arc over his head, requiring him to leap to catch it. Even as his left hand caught it, his right scrabbled at his harness and pulled out a stick whisk and quickly brought it to bear on the ooze at the trailing edge of the gem. His whisk flickered as he brushed and he quickly flickered his eyes to the experience bar, bringing it into focus as he flicked off the last bit of ooze. His eyes focused the status window as he felt the status update wash over his body and saw the experience bar leap slightly. Huh. That… I would only need another ten or twelve kills. Hm… I should be able to do that and make it back to the road easily while the sun’s still up. Should be able to get half way home… Joe sighed and frowned in a grimace… Home… really? This is now my home… His shoulders slumped slightly before he growled in half anger and shook off the morose attitude, squaring his shoulders once more. Let me get this done. If I’m fast enough, I could be on the road and most the way back home with the sun still up. If I jog, I should be able to make it back before sunset!

Choice made, Joe jogged deeper into the woods, dagger slicing trees to guide him back home while attacking slime after slime. A little over thirty minutes later, the feeling of gaining a level washed over him again and he smiled. Quickly swiping off his spear, then bending to wipe it off much more carefully with some forest detritus, he turned and began jogging back towards the road and… home… Joe sighed again but this time with a bit of a sardonic grin. Gotta do what you gotta do. That’s all there is to it.

He hit the road while the sun was still up and pulled up his status as he ran. He glanced over his status and his current job status but found nothing new or unique. All his commoner stats simply raised by one more point per level as expected. All the other tabs remained sadly empty and useless. He closed the status page with a sigh and zoned out into his jog, arriving at the village just as the sun was slipping over the horizon. He slipped down to the river’s edge where he once again took a poor man’s sponge bath and carefully cleaned his spear before drying just as carefully. He then dried his body as best he could and returned to the inn to sleep with his Commoner job at level 5!