Homesteading in a fantasy world

I had been sitting on my bridge for a while now, looking at my achievement page. The weather was still nice and warm, but there was a hint of coldness.

I still had six levels to go in my renowned true archer class before I reached level 80. It was a lot of experience to gain, but that wasn’t the true problem. There was a feeling in the back of my head telling me that if I just grinded out the levels, I would not be able to gain an upgraded class.

Making bows has been a job for me for quite a while. However, I don’t know if I know enough to take my bow-making to the next level, so to say. The problem is I do not know what people stronger than me or equally strong truly require from their bows.

In essence, a bow is a tool that helps you propel a pointed stick farther and faster than you could ever do yourself. That, however, was no longer true, at least to an extent.

I could take my current bow, the best one I have, and exceed or match its speed and damage by just throwing a rock. Now, of course, I could fix that with a stronger bow, but only to an extent.

I was reminded of the huge bows that the archers atop the fort used. The only comparison would be fantasy great bows. They were long, thick, and shot huge arrows. Basically, they were just ballistas.

Without abilities, however, they would be useless. The reload time would be too slow, the same with their arrow speed. Anything that reaches rank three or above should be easily able to dodge those attacks unless they are really slow and cumbersome creatures.

Finally, I figured it out. It was the same as with my current sword. While it was amazing, made from excellent metal, the main feature of it that helped me truly be devastating was its capability to handle my energy and abilities. Without it, it would still be an amazing sword, but I would not be able to fight rank three opponents with it.

So, the bow and arrows would need to do the same; they didn’t need to handle rank three combat on their own. They needed to be able to support strong enough abilities, which would transform them into tools that could fight such battles.

My mind started to race with all the possibilities. I had many abilities that would allow me to bring out those properties in any bow and arrow. This would, however, also require some testing.

While I could do most of it on my own, it was also time that Goose and I trained to truly be a deadly combination. I could just imagine if I could bring my ranged damage to rank three while riding with Goose.

I guess it’s time for a training montage. I wonder if there’s an ability for that. Imagining that was pretty funny—using an ability that would turn whatever you're doing into a training montage with music and everything.

With a smile on my face, I went into my bow workshop. Time to start experimenting and seeing if I could enhance these bows to a ridiculous level.

Time sort of slipped by. There wasn’t as much crafting as I thought there would be. A lot of time was also spent with Goose, flying over forests looking for enemies to practice this fighting style and for trees that could be turned into bows.

That didn’t mean that I didn’t try other materials. I also experimented with metals, and while they could make powerful bows, for some reason, they just weren’t right.

Fortunately, that didn’t matter much. But now, making a bow was no longer just about carving it. What I needed to do was forge it with energy from the inside.

The structure and the functionality were also important, but now it was not just about trying to make the strongest bow. That didn't necessarily make it better. Many of the bows I made simply crumbled to dust from the overload of energy or failed in myriad other ways.

My bow-making skill was skyrocketing, and so was my class. Now, I still did some necessary things not related to bow-making or fighting, but I did as little as possible so I could focus on this as much as possible. Because of this, it only took me a month to finally reach level 80. I checked out the last level-up notification.

Renowned true archer reaches level 80 (max)

strength +45

dexterity +45

vitality +27

perception +36

free points gained +55

perk is gained ability maker's mark upgraded to renowned maker's mark

max level reached choose a specialization (specialization locks class upgraded)

So, only 55 free points. That was the least out of the three classes. The perk was an interesting one as it upgraded my maker's mark to renowned maker's mark. I wonder what the difference will be, but that is not important right now.

What was important was if I would be able to upgrade the class or not. Holding my fingers crossed, I looked to see if there was an upgrade.

Prestigious true archer: This class lifts all restrictions on every grandmaster skill used in fighting or making a bow. This class gives trait bow speaker and ability indirect sight. This class gives a chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one.

There, however, wasn't any flavor text. This probably meant that it would be my weakest class, but it was still a class that I could level up to level 160. Immediately, I picked it and felt my class change.

Level up prestigious true archer

prestigious true archer now level 1

strength +25

dexterity +25

vitality +15

perception +22

Looking at the stat point gain, it was at least a bit higher than standard, but it would barely be an epic rank-five class. It was a bit disappointing, but once again, I should be happy that I was able to upgrade it at all.

Perhaps I could have spent more time trying to get a better upgrade, but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t. The problem was that the class in its core was a true Archer, meaning you should be able to make bows and also fight with them.

Now, the making part, I think that's where I could reach proficient at that I could get a legendary rank five class. The fighting part, however, was holding me back. Now, I was quite decent with a bow, but I didn’t feel it the same way I felt with a two-handed sword or even throwing a javelin. This style of combat just isn’t perfect for me, but I’m still glad I was able to get an epic class.

The trait ‘Bow Speaker’ was quite helpful and will help me make even better bows in the future. It sort of gave me an even better intuition while making bows.

The ability ‘Indirect Sight,’ however, was a game changer. I could now look in a quite large radius all around, no matter if something was blocking my vision. This ability also seemed to have synergy with quite a few other abilities. In the end, I was happy enough with what I got.

It was now time to finally go to Connection, as I have pushed back my arrival date for quite a while now. Looking at my stats right now, they were in a decent state. I was, however, still quite far away from reaching the 8000 I needed in strength, dexterity, and vitality to gain access to rank four energy. It looks like it will be a while before I could stop grinding class levels.

Now, I did the calculations that everyone did when they reached the final class rank. The situation was a bit sad.

My strength stat would be enough to reach rank five energy access, but my dexterity and vitality, however, will fall short—almost 8000 stat points short combined. It was still an amazing achievement to get it so close to rank five energy access with only three class slots.

I can’t even change my adventure class stat gains to help fix the deficit. That would mean that I would need to get enough free points to make the difference. At least I might have a chance, unlike most. It meant a lot of dungeon delving in my future. It looks like I might need to research more about the moving dungeons similar to the one I did a while back.

If everything else fails, I could also, for a large sum of resources, get the person who has the ability to remove a class to take away my current adventurer class, but that would also remove all the benefits that came with it, and I’m not entirely sure that would be the best option.

Anyways, that would be my future self's problem. It will still be a long way before I need to worry about getting to rank five. I need to currently worry about getting to rank four.