Homesteading in a fantasy world

The war was over. All the soldiers were back, and all the paperwork and meetings were done. This was my second day home, yet I couldn’t relax. The war and the people who died didn't bother me as much as knowing that I would need to do this again. It was a bit weird because both should bother me. My leg was constantly bouncing, a sign I wasn't relaxed inside. This time killing some monsters wasn't going to help, not this time.

I turned to my achievement page. I’ve been ignoring it because I felt normal for the past year, so I’ve just been doing my things and not really paying attention. Although, I have checked it a little bit because it still felt great to see the numbers go up. I have been able to get a few basic skills to rank up as well. Not that I have had much time to continue to level those skills or the abilities I was able to get from them, but there were a few exceptions.

For ranking up basic trapping, I was able to get an ability called ‘efficient baiting.’ What it allowed me to do was use less bait for the same results, and it was one of those abilities that seemed to be universal. It actually allowed me to use it in battle to make ‘bait units’ look more appetising. I still don't know how that works, but system abilities are sometimes quite weird.

Basic trap making allowed me to get an ability called ‘silent alarm,’ which turned out to be less useful than I originally hoped for. Currently, with its low level, it only allowed me to connect to one trap, and when that trap was triggered, I would be notified.

When I level it up, it will probably have connections to more traps, so it might become useful then, but it's still limited in the scope of what it could provide. My mind started to wander again back to the battles. It seems that even the achievement page couldn't distract me for long.

I went and walked outside where snow was slowly falling, but it wasn’t yet so cold that water would be covered in ice. At that thought, my movement halted immediately. Wait, I still haven’t checked out the lake from this side.

How did that slip my mind? It was one of the more exciting discoveries I’ve made in recent times. I felt purpose in my body, and my heart started to thump a bit louder.

That, however, reminded me that inside, I no longer had the heart of a human. My stat points have grown immensely since the dungeon, in large part thanks to the apprentices graduating, but also the war.

My vitality reached the 2560 milestone, and the new trait I got was something I didn’t really like to think about much. But over the months, I’ve grown to accept this change, although it can still be a bit jarring when I'm reminded of it. The trait was called ‘Heart of the Vercor.’

It changed my human heart to something different, I'm guessing from a different creature called the Vercor. But no one has been able to find this creature in any of the recorded bestiaries. Whatever the creature was, its heart is incredibly powerful. I now feel like my heart has no problem supplying my large body with the blood it needs, even during the most difficult fights. It also helps that my blood got an upgrade.

When the endurance stat reached the 640 milestone, I gained a trait, ‘Boundless Blood,’ that was consumed by ‘Giant Amongst Men.’ The combination worked incredibly well, and I actually haven’t been able to push myself in any fight to truly test out my new capability.

Empathy and intelligence also reached the 640 milestone, giving me the traits ‘Emotional Resolve’ and ‘Cerebral Vastness.’ I still don’t know about the last one, but I guess my mind just feels more open, and it's easier to think about more things. Both of those were also consumed by ‘Giant Amongst Men.’

My class truly has leveled up a lot: ‘First Homesteader’ is level 65, ‘Renowned True Archer’ is level 53, and ‘Heroic Commander’ is level 57. It was honestly quite weird to look and see that every class was at a different level, but I guess it needed to happen sooner or later.

All those levels have boosted my stats quite a lot, with the highest being strength at 3748, well over the 3500 needed to get access to rank three energy. Dexterity still needed a bit more to get to that milestone, and vitality has just gotten past 3000. Technically, I have enough free points to actually reach all the milestones, but I’m not in any hurry. If there’s an emergency, I can always add them when necessary.

My adventure class has also reached level 80, but I could have already leveled it up many times more. Currently, I had a decision to make as I once again was able to choose from all the available skills and abilities, and I just didn’t know what to pick.

I completed the body, mind, and soul idea that I had, but what should come next? I had no idea, and I didn’t have any specific need that I currently wanted. So, like my free points, I'm going to wait, hoping that it would be a good trump card to have in the back of my pocket for a dangerous situation.

I felt a bit better now, going through so many of my improvements while walking towards the lake. But there was still more. Basic baking finally ranked up, but unfortunately, there weren't good options to pick, and I had to go with ‘flawless dough rising.’ It wasn’t bad for cooking, but with all of my ability picks, I tried to choose ones that covered a wider area so I could use them unconventionally.

At the end of the war, I was also able to advance ‘war tactics’ and gained the ability ‘tactical morale boost,’ which sounded incredibly useful for crucial moments. Since I was going to need to lead our armies for a while longer, I felt it was a prudent choice.

Basic taming was something I hadn’t expected to gain, but with Freya’s new pups, being there when they were born helped level the skill up. I ended up picking ‘dominance assertion,’ which just sounded badass.

It would be so awesome if there was going to be a battle, and we met the enemy leadership, and I just ordered them to kneel and surrender, and they actually did it. It wasn't mind control, something that could have been really bad, but it was more of a natural domination booster. From my understanding, I could be quite dominant if the situation called for it.

Basic traps, the skill I gained long ago from my dungeon, gave me a wonderful ability called ‘camouflage sense.’ When activated, I basically had a sixth sense about creatures that wanted to hide near me.

While some abilities work differently and won’t be detected by this ability, more natural concealments would be quite easily seen through. The last major skill rank up was my basic homemaking. From that skill, I got three very powerful choices but ended up going with a convenience pick called ‘energy clean.’

Now, I had already learned how to clean myself with energy, but I couldn’t do it well outside my body’s boundaries. This ability allowed me to clean large areas quite effectively, and it was an even better version of the way I was cleaning myself. Not even for a second have I regretted taking it, and I’m pretty sure that I actually smell not just clean, but good, whenever I use it.

I’ve also gained a lot of other levels for my skills and abilities, and while they do help make the skills and abilities better, those gains don't feel as good as they originally did, probably because I have grown numb to them. Perhaps if my skills were of a much higher rank, those levels would be more of an event.

Going through my achievement page took so long that I reached the lake. The water was quite close to the freezing temperature, but it wasn’t quite there yet. Snow was still falling, so even I felt the nip in the air as I stripped. I did some stretches and then started walking to the lake. The cold felt so refreshing, and I started to feel more normal as excitement began to build about what lay beneath the surface.