But for a Slime

Chapter Twelve

Joe made it back to the village that early evening after slicing through slimes throughout the day having reached level five in forester. With even just the slight bonus he had gained from just the half extra learning from both commoner and hunter, he was able to finish with a bit more comfortable timing. He’d also made sure to finish his lunch a bit quicker to give himself that extra edge in time. While he had been quite excited about the ten percent bonus from previous jobs, forester proved to be a disappointment as well, essentially the same as hunter. It had excited him slightly when he saw the extra boost to his intelligence, but it was quite muted when he realized that his basic stats could be easily mitigated by simply leveling dozens of jobs to a mediocre level ten. The stats he gained from it would certainly be welcome, but they were ultimately meaningless because he was currently operating on his earth stats and not his current stats. The only stat that seemed to be meaningful to him at this time was the learning stat. Doesn’t matter now, but it will be incredibly important so I’m not going to complain.

Status

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Magical Resistances

Status

Physical Resistances

Wind

5.00

HP

5.00

Physical:

Water

5.00

MP

5.00

Piercing

0.00

Ice

5.00

Attack

5.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

5.00

Slashing

1.25

Magic

5.00

Magic Defense

5.00

Strength

5.00

Dexterity

10.00

Agility

10.00

Forester

5

IQ

7.50

Wisdom

5.00

Learning

5.00

Luck

0.00

At level five, as expected, all his stats were at five, ten or seven point five, in the case of his IQ for the latter, for his forester job. His nervousness regarding intelligence long mitigated by what he viewed would be an easy, if long path to enhancing his basic capabilities independent of the jobs. The villager’s slow and simple responses and speech had made him very nervous. The only people in the village that had responded to him quickly and intelligently had been the blacksmith and the drunken priest.

Now, Joe considered the learning stat to be the most important. All his strength depended upon him increasing his job which depended upon the learning stat. The faster his learning increased, the faster his jobs did and the faster his basic abilities increased. If he did well enough, he would be able to be fast enough, smart enough, and strong enough regardless of the capabilities, or inherent flaws, of any job he chose to take.

Tomorrow morning would see him choosing another job, but now he cared little for what it was, anything would be beneficial. As he came into the village, the sun still quite above the horizon, Joe stopped and considered. Changing my job now would be smarter, right? I can run straight out into the forest tomorrow and get to it right away. Then I’ll have quite a bit more time in the afternoon for planning and maintaining my martial arts.

Joe considered for a moment then turned to Garnedell and waved him on into the inn.

“Go ahead and eat, kid. I’m going to run over and swap my job out again! I’ll be right back to join you,” Joe shooed the boy in and mimed eating before pointing at the inn and Garnedell.

The boy nodded and headed into the inn and Joe turned his feet towards the setting sun and increased his jog by quite a bit to quickly arrive at the shoddy shrine. He noticed that some people were still gathered around his scribbled notes from this morning, but thought little of it and ran around the group. He slipped through the town quickly, his movements sure and rapid before he settled into an easy lope that would normally have left the boy far behind and gasping. The kid is quite weak. Why is his endurance so bad? I would assume these villager kids would be, if not strong, really wiry and robust, what with all the physical labor. Joe’s mind wandered through a possible training regimen for the boy, but then reconsidered as he remember the boy had joined him in his katas and stances. Those could be quite grueling, and Joe decided to continue observing.

As he jogged towards the priest’s shrine, he took some time to quickly double check his forester job information, including any new skills so that he could write down accurate information in his log. With some disappointment, he realized that he received nothing but some stat gains from the forester job, and closed the window and returned his concentration on his running.

He quickly arrived at the priest’s shrine and pounded on the door once again, this time showing little concern for any courtesy. It turned out to be a good idea, since Joe found the priest came out much quicker and without shouting, although his mood and attitude were still quite atrocious. The priest grumbled, scowled, and growled at Joe, but fumbled through his arcane ritual before flinging the status update at him and stumbling back into his room. The same popup was displayed before him and Joe had now learned to open up his own available jobs status, showing he now had three jobs with levels next to them. He glanced over the listing, and almost considered just going down in order when he stopped to reconsider. I get better stats from certain jobs, so… wait. The stats don’t affect me. All my capabilities are determined by my earth stat, the only stat that seems to be affecting me is learning… and maybe luck? Although I haven’t seen anything useful from that. Maybe I should just do… wait… learning!

Joe glanced through the list of jobs again and evaluated each of them more carefully, attempting to see if one of them might give him more returns on the one stat that seemed to matter to him at this time. So, are any of these more likely to make me a better learner? Where would you put the learning stat. It definitely isn’t the physical domain, fisticuffs and martial arts. Those come from practice. Or is learning and practice conflated? Hmm… Joe’s mind meandered through the possibilities, but couldn’t really make a quick choice of it, and finally just decided to look at each job individually. But after he had gone through the listing, he realized he had no clue anyway, and finally just chose villager. Let’s just go through the list!

He quickly flipped open his stats and, as expected, found all his stats zeroed out for the villager job. It was with a bit more trepidation and a bit of excitement that he hovered his finger of his main status display before he finally stabbed it. He quickly flitted over the various stats, his eyes crunching a bit as he considered the numbers. He wasn’t sure about the some of the more convoluted numbers, especially his IQ, but all the rest of the numbers matched up as having gained ten percent from his three currently leveled jobs. Joe’s grin split his face, and he jogged back to the inn with bounce in his step and a small laugh on his lips. Let me double check the IQ numbers back at the inn, but I think they're right!

Status

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Magical Resistances

Status

Physical Resistances

Wind

1.20

HP

3 (138)

Physical:

Water

1.20

MP

3 (100)

Piercing

0.5 (48)

Ice

1.20

Attack

3 (181)

Crushing

0 (132)

Defense

3 (158)

Slashing

1.125 (39)

Magic

3 (100)

Magic Defense

3 (100)

Strength

3 (148)

Dexterity

4 (112)

Agility

4 (133)

IQ

3.25 (132)

Wisdom

3 (105)

Learning

3.00

Luck

0.13

He made it back to the inn to find the boy sitting outside on the porch entrance, Joe smiled down at him. The boy looked back at him, but gave a wan smile and Joe quirked his head to the side as confusion painted his face.

“What’s up, kid? You OK?”

The kid, of course, didn’t understand and simply smiled up at him while waiting. Joe smiled and continued into the inn, waving the boy after him. When he sat down at the table, he called out to the innkeeper and she walked over but didn’t bring over any food. She gave Joe a friendly smile, but pointed at the table and then to the room and shook her head. Joe frowned a bit, then realized she was talking about payment. Ah, the value of my deer seems to have run out. Hmm… What did the blacksmith say was the value of a nights stay? Uh… about a triangle hole… which means my gem would be worth about… The numbers flashed through his head, and he finally had to write them out on the table surface to figure it out, scratching a small nick for each coin until he reached his gem value of about a single silver coin. Each nick equaled a thousand, and by the time he added them up, he had a value of something around a quadrillion. Well… that should really make it easy. One night’s stay is one triangle hole coin, and my slime gem is worth a quadrillion of them. Hey… a quadrillion nights and three meals for each of those quadrillion days. Heh! Shouldn’t be a problem!

Joe dug out a slime gem, then considered for a moment and held out two before dropping them in the ladies hands and then looking with some intensity at the woman before giving two thumbs up and then pointing to Garnedell and himself. He noticed that she wasn’t even looking at him, her eyes pasted to the gems, round with astonishment and a bit of fear. She looked up at him again, shaking her head and pushing the gems back into her hands. He smiled then, and returned them to her with and nodded with some encouragement, but then tried once again to show he wanted good service by cocking his head to the side and eyeing her with some force before pointing to the boy and himself. She looked at him, then nodded quickly as a smile blossomed on her face. He smiled back and then gave a thumbs up before pointing to the two of them and then asking for a good meal. I hope I’m asking for a good meal! I really hope thumbs up means something good… It’s embarrassing if it’s not!

The lady scuttled away but took a bit more time than usual to return with their meal. The two dug into their meal with gusto. When the meal touched his lips, he smiled and let a small moan of satisfaction escape. Well, she really was hiding the good stuff! Man! This is some … His sigh slipped from his lips again and he looked towards the innkeeper before smiling and giving a hearty thumbs up.

“This is amazing! Please! Keep bringing this out!”

Joe’s shout was obviously completely incomprehensible, but his obvious delight and smile made the innkeeper giggle in return before she returned to her duties and cleaning. Joe even asked for seconds, along with the boy, and this time she didn’t seem to begrudge his asking, and quickly returned with a slightly smaller portion. Joe finished all off and even considered a third, but stopped both himself and the boy from taking more. The boy had long since filled out well, and eating more would only be gluttony, not sustenance. He retrieved his cleaning materials along with the boy, and they ambled down to the streams edge with a bit more rest and satisfaction above and beyond their previous months hunting. It’s nice to not have to rush so much! I probably shouldn’t waste too much time, but the key seems to be learning, and wasting time going into the next tier of growth seems to be a bit foolish until I’ve got the learning I need to support that growth.