But for a Slime

* * *

Joe fiddled with the slime’s gems in his hand. This was the first time he had ever seen a slime gem like this. It was a bit strange to see. Still crystalline clear as a single gem, he could now see that two single gems had entwined with a delicate lacework of similar crystalline material so that the two gems were ‘grown’ together with the same material as the gem itself, making it a single gem. The lacework connecting the two gems together seemed incredible delicate and fragile, but Joe had applied a subtle pressure and found that the dual gems seemed a bit sturdier than appearance would dictate. Huh… it sure is beautiful!

Joe flipped open his status and looked at the log, looking over his last kill, then raised an eyebrow. Great slime, huh? That’s… a bit… hmm.. His perusal brought an excited shock to his thoughts when he realized that the experience he gained was off. It seemed that he was getting too much experience for the great slime. Fourteen experience? Why? I have seven learning… Joe flipped to check his main status page and verified his learning before quickly returning to the log. It should be seven, not fourteen… Was this slime… great slime worth two points? Seven learning multiplied by two experience? Hmm… should I look for more of these? Joe considered for a moment but then remembered the hectic fight. While he had done decently, the size of it made it incredibly dangerous. If a small one caught him, at most, it could envelope his head, which would be decidedly bad, but he could still rip out the gem with his bare hands if he was fast enough. Then the ooze would collapse to the ground and his face and body would be free. Getting himself cleaned off from any acid burn might not be fun, but the lake was a quick run back. Granted, he might suffer a few burns, but a quick wash off with what water he had in his water bottle and a run back to the lake would likely get him back quickly enough to not cause too much damage.

But this giant ooze, if it got him, he would have no leverage. Joe shivered a bit even as he remembered the villager who was caught inside. He would literally be swimming in the center of a self-sustaining pool of liquid. Even if he could grab the gems, how could he separate them from the ooze to cause it to collapse? A plastic bag would be nice!... A ziplock? Huh…

Joe glanced towards the boy and saw him staring at the gem and glancing back up at Joe, his look unusually somber.

“What’s up, kid? You ok?”

Garnedell shook his head and looked away, seeming to be a bit embarrassed, and Joe called to him.

“Hey… Garnedell. Hey. What’s wrong?”

The boy looked up at Joe, a flash of anger in his eyes that was quickly hidden before being replaced by a carefully constructed blank face. Joe cocked his head in confusion at the kid’s actions. Why is he angry at me? Knowing he needed to play the mime, Joe exaggerated his movements and shrugged with a question, asking for explanation. Garnedell stared at him for several moments, his eyes narrowing slightly before flashing open in surprise. He glanced around quickly, surveying their surroundings to make sure no one was close, then asked for some slime gems by pointing at the pouch Joe used to carry them around in. While Joe left almost all back at the inn, he always carried a dozen or so with him, sense they were almost smaller than the coins and worth quite a bit more.

Joe shrugged nonchalantly and tossed him the great slime gem. Garnedell shook his head with some frustration and pointed a bit more insistently to Joe’s pouch. Joe opened his pouch and offered it to Garnedell who hissed in annoyance before looking around quickly and hiding its contents with his hands. He glanced at Joe with a reproving look and took out two slime gems. He then showed the great slime dual gem in one hand and the two basic slime single gems in his other hand. He put the great slime gem and one basic slime gem to the side before holding one before him and began hopping around holding the gem close to his body. He then pointed to Joe, and then to his spear and to himself before miming Joe killing the slime and popping out his gem. He then mimed Joe looking for the slime gem, but then leaving to return home.

Joe’s confusion soon turned to dread. Uh oh… I don’t like where this story is going! Garnedell glanced around quickly again, nervously, but then returned to his one man mime show and tell by returning to the remaining single slime gem and dual slime gem. He hid the dual slime gem in his one hand, then placed the other single slime gem towards his body, then began jumping around. Joe easily recognized now that Garnedell was referring to a second slime, and soon began to feel a bit sick to his stomach. He watched as the boy hopped towards the slime gem he had previously killed before it ate it up. When Garnedell picked up the slime’s gem, he took the two single gems and hid them in a fist behind his back as he brought out his other hand with the dual gem in it, then stood up and began to hop towards him, the dual gem pressed close to his body.

Shit! The slimes can upgrade by eating another slime gem! Joe’s shoulders fell, but then he quickly pointed to the dual gem, then pointed to himself insistently.

“It’s my fault, right? I left the gem behind and then it turned into this great slime?” Joe spoke while he mimed a quick rendition of Garnedell’s performance.

Garnedell nodded, pointing at the dual gem then at Joe, insistently pointing two or three times as he spoke in his harsh language.

Joe sighed deeply and sat down on in the field as he felt exhausted remorse. He shook his head then looked up towards Garnedell, trying to express sorrow.

“I’m sorry kid. I didn’t know. Next time, we get EVERY one of those gems. OK?” Joe mimed killing and searching for the gem and finding it before offering a thumbs up, and the boy smiled tentatively to Joe’s reply.

Joe wasn’t certain how to express asking for forgiveness, but decided to offer a simple bow, hoping it would be explain enough. As soon as he did so, he felt the frantic grasp of his young friends hand on his shoulder pushing him up. He shook his head and babbled in his language, his arms waving in rejection of his apology. Joe smiled and then this time simply nodded his head in a slight bow as he clapped him on the shoulder.

“Thanks, kid. Make sure I don’t make this stupid mistake anymore. Alright?”

The boy didn't understand a thing he said, but nodded with smile before Joe quickly pulled him along.

“OK, kid. Time for me to change my job. Not sure what will be good, but I think I’ll go for the forester. I was hoping for a bit more from the hunter job, but maybe the forester is closer to the cool Legolas elf forest hunter thing. Maybe it’ll give me a bit more… Although it did give me a nice boost to dexterity and agility, I guess.”

Joe led the boy back through town towards the shrine on the west side of the lake, the trip going a bit faster as Joe now led with some jogging on the way there. His hammering on the door was louder and more insistent almost immediately, instead of slowly building to a crescendo as yesterday. The drunken shrine priest came out once again, and Joe just pointed at himself again. The priest roared loudly and with great upset while furiously fiddling with his status before flinging it at Joe where he received the same notification as yesterday. He quickly went through the menu and chose forester while rubbing his hands together with some excitement.

“Yes, yes, yes! My base starting stats should be three now! Three jobs! Three starting stats… then whatever I get when this job hits level one!”

Joe popped open his stats with excitement, expecting to see everything except luck at three. Luck had always started at zero, so he wasn’t expecting much. Even as he excitedly swapped his screen back from the log tab to the main tab, Joe’s excitement continued to grow. If this was really true, hitting his basic stats would be not too difficult. He would only have to make sure that he could unlock the number of jobs he needed to get him the base stats he needed. But when his eyes fell on the list of stats, his disappointment exploded and then was quickly swamped by confusion.

Status

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Magical Resistances

Status

Physical Resistances

Wind

0.70

HP

2.5 (138)

Physical:

Water

0.70

MP

2.5 (100)

Piercing

0.5 (48)

Ice

0.70

Attack

2.5 (181)

Crushing

0 (132)

Defense

2.5 (158)

Slashing

1 (39)

Magic

2.5 (100)

Magic Defense

2.5 (100)

Strength

2.5 (148)

Dexterity

3 (112)

Agility

3 (133)

IQ

2.5 (132)

Wisdom

2.5 (105)

Learning

2.50

Luck

0.13

What is this? Why don’t I have… Joe quickly calmed his mind as he glanced at his stats, confused at what he was seeing. He had received bonuses in everything as he expected, but only a half a point, except for dexterity and agility. He also got some in luck as well. First time for luck… why. He then noticed that he had received some physical resistances and magical resistances as well, but still looked at his stats with confusion. He couldn’t easily see a pattern, except that it didn’t seem to be equated to how many jobs he had open, although it was related to the jobs. The increase of his bonuses that he received this time was easily seen to be from his hunter job. It was the same basic variation spread of stats that his hunter job had. He got basic stats to everything except to dexterity and agility, which had been double the others. It was the same here. Maybe I shouldn’t try to figure this out now? I need to get going… Joe considered to drop the whole effort but then stopped. What if it gets more complicated the more jobs I open? Joe then sighed, realizing that if it was an amalgamation of all the jobs he had opened, then the effort to find the pattern would be even more insane. Joe reevaluated his plan for the day and decided that the effort to understand what was happening was worth it.

Joe led Garnedell back to the inn and quickly dug up his notepad from his room. He returned to the inn resting room and sat at a table while he flipped through his notes, glancing between his commoner and hunter job. The information was there, he was sure of it, but he wasn’t sure how he could dig it out. As he considered his problem, he realized that he was going to have to write it down to easily see the pattern. He ran back to his room to grab a pencil, but then stopped, not wishing to waste such a precious resource as paper and pencil. He considered for a moment, then decided he would simply use the dirt road outside. He went outside and began looking for a sharp rock. Having found it, he began writing on the road, drawing up charts to figure out the relationship.

First, he sketched out the basic first chart simply because it had the most numbers but could also be done the quickest and easiest because he wouldn’t have to rewrite his entire status page. He wrote down his stats and then made a listing for his commoner stats and his hunter stats, showing them side by side, then showing what he was now getting starting with a level zero job. He first showed what he got at level one for both, then showed what he got at the maximum level he had gotten for commoner and hunter; level twenty and five respectively. The final listing was what he was getting currently with level zero forester; essentially no benefit at all from anything at all. If the numbers were working correctly, all his stats should effectively be zero, and they were according to his current job stats.

Commoner

Hunter

Com. Max

Hunt. Max

Current

HP

1

1

20

5

2.5

MP

1

1

20

5

2.5

Attack

1

1

20

5

2.5

Defense

1

1

20

5

2.5

Magic

1

1

20

5

2.5

Magic Defense

1

1

20

5

2.5

Strength

1

1

20

5

2.5

Dexterity

1

2

20

10

3

Agility

1

2

20

10

3

IQ

1

1

20

5

2.5

Wisdom

1

1

20

5

2.5

Learning

1

1

20

5

2.5

Luck

0

.25

0

1.25

.125

As he glanced over the numbers, he immediately dismissed the initial stats as they didn’t seem to give any kind of help to what was going on. He spent a bit more time looking at his max stats, but found himself still at a loss until he looked at the final luck stat and it popped out at him immediately, quickly exciting him. It’s ten percent! Ten percent of every job! Every job? It’s gotta be every job. That’s… That’s insane! Joe began to excitedly think, his mind jumping through the possibilities. It’s not going to be as easy as one point per job, but… this is … this is ultimately better, right? Even commoner becomes useful if I get it to level fifty… it gives me five points in everything! And if I get just level ten in one hundred jobs, I’ve got a base one hundred in each stat even if those jobs only get me one point each! And it’ll only get faster as my learning keeps going up! If… What about… Joe quickly ran the numbers and quickly realized that after getting the available jobs he had up to level fifteen each, he would have enough learning to get another job to fifteen in only about three days! Level twenty in any job would likely only take about fifteen days instead of the forty plus he needed to get his commoner up.

He quickly calmed his exuberance, deciding to verify if it really was ten percent. He decided to check his physical resistances, rechecking his notebook notes to see what he was getting with commoner and hunter. If I remembered right… Joe smacked his notebook in satisfaction and nodded. Yup. No physical resistances from commoner, but… two in slash and one in pierce… so that should give me half in pierce and one in slash now… His quick glance over his main status confirmed his guess and his smile only grew. Looking over his magical resistances showed him as gaining point one from commoner and one from hunter, giving him a total of seven if all added together with ten percent knocking it down to point seven. When he saw the matching point seven in the three areas he had gained points, he pumped a fist and leaped to his feet, no longer needing his temporary scratch pad in the road. Smiling broadly, he headed back up to his room to drop off his research materials.

Joe was now almost more excited about the bonuses he was getting to his learning than he was getting to his IQ. If he got to the point that his learning was outrageously high, his leveling of jobs would be simple to the point of ridiculous. He almost decided that he might change his focus from gaining IQ to gaining learning, but realized that he needed to make sure that his basics were covered. It seemed the low hanging fruit would be the best and easiest way to develop himself. Grabbing a bunch of jobs, a hundred or so, and leveling them to around ten or fifteen, spending only about a day or two on each one would see him reach the basic stats he needed within only a couple hundred days. If he was able to find jobs that gave him even greater stat bonuses, then he could cut the amount of work by quite a bit. Joe’s face split in a huge grin and the sense of satisfaction that settled on him empowered him. I’ve got a plan! And I know how to break the system! HA!

Joe had once again exited the inn, returned to where he had scribbled and noticed Gardenell staring down at his writing on the ground, several other people looking at his notes. Joe smiled and waved to the boy.

“Come on, kid! On to conquer the world!” Joe ended his upbeat cry with a bit of a laugh and headed into the depths of the forest, leaving a small crowd of villagers staring at the remnants of his scratchpad as unbeknownst to Joe, fear flickered in their eyes as they watched Joe jaunt into the woods with Garnedell gasping behind him.