Chapter 48 (2/2)

However…

As he walked towards Sam’s settlement down by the farming area, Daniel rubbed his temples. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find a way to actually base their economy on something. They had no real production besides food and animal pelts, and the slightly more sophisticated armors that Sam would produce, but still.

Gold was becoming increasingly popular as a currency, but none of the Classers even took it seriously; they gambled it away on dumb, ridiculous bets like arm wrestling contests, or who could cut down more trees with a single swing. They were like children, and their increased physical prowess was their shiny new toy.

“Sir Daniel.” A woman said, hurrying next to him, struggling to keep pace with his long strides. Although Daniel hadn’t really gained very many levels, he had gained quite a few skills during his duties. As such, he had seen it prudent to put some into physical attributes. So the woman, who was one of the designated NCC representatives, was struggling to keep up.

He had to admit, being call Sir Daniel certainly was better than ‘Chubbs’.

“What is it?” Daniel said, lengthening his stride.

“We would like permission to extend the current farming plat. Probably by double. Moving further south down the valley. A recent arrival brought coffee seeds, and-”

“Fine, fine.” Daniel said, waving his hands. “Draw up a new map and send it over for approval.”

“Yes sir,” The woman said, peeling away gratefully. She began shouting to the nearby Classers, offering food bribes for labor. A lot of single shoulder pad classers, having nothing better to do, agreed and began to follow her.

Daniel arrived at Sam’s area, shocked at the changes that had occurred. The ground had been flattened and around a dozen wooden tables were covered with monster parts. Some tables were covered in monsters being skinned, others were skins drying, others were stacks of sorted bones, still others had men stitching away, creating armor and clothing from the furs of monsters.

A lot of people had taken to wearing it, especially the Classers, but Daniel still preferred the feel of processed cotton.

Sam and Dozer stood over to the side, surrounded by several of Dozer’s brutish henchmen, as Dozer hefted what looked like the giant skull of the Wolverine he had killed last night. As Daniel watched, Dozer lifted the object and placed it onto his head.

Narrowing his eyes, Daniel walked closer. Although it was definitely a wolverine skull, there was no way it should fit his head so regularly, with the eye holes wide and spaced so it’s easy to see out from within.

“Heh, as expected, you can see immediately.” Sam said, positively glowing as he regarded it. He jerked a thumb at the skull covered Dozer. “That’s the work of my new skill, Bone Shaping. Can’t do much of anything impressive with it yet, but if I keep working at it, we will have whole suits of armor soon. Imagine.”

Dozer grunted happily, clearly excited, but Daniel just rolled his eyes. “So how quickly can things like that be made?”

“Well…” Sam hemmed. “It’s not like it takes too long… but it's not short either. And it needs to be personalized by me…”

Shaking his head, Daniel reached into his spatial backpack, which had been purchased with 50 SP, and removed a pile of folders. “I look forward to seeing them in widespread use. In the meantime, I took the liberty of drawing up some evaluation forms for you two, and Decklan, to handle.”

“Evaluation…?” Dozer muttered, staring uncomprehendingly at the tiny words covering the pages handed to him.

“Yes, Evaluation. I know you are tired of me harping on the ranking stratification, and I am too; I made a rubric for you to grade each Classer by. Strength, Utility, Teamwork, Leadership, etc. Just fill all the columns in, and add them up, and you will have a number between 1 and 100, Obviously we will just being going by the 10s digit for the specific rank, but specificity is always preferable,” Daniel explained with a smile. Then he turned and walked away, leaving the piles of paper with the two men.

But then he turned and called over his shoulder. “Oh, and I expect it done by the end of today. Until it gets done… I’ll probably be too busy to work out the schedule for the dungeon~”

****

The cat quickly sidestepped, avoiding the wall of thorns, but the Spearing Roots shot upward, leaving several scrapes across its body.

And in that moment, it stumbled.

A Phantom Thrust ripped into its neck spraying its blood over the ground. After a few wobbly steps, it collapsed, spent.

Pleased, Randidly sat too, beginning to refine Blue Energy stones to make higher tiered mana potions. He had been hunting cats for around two hours, and had caught 6. The Wall of Thorns really helped, but even more important were the points that he had started putting into strength. Where as before he could leave small, scratches, now his blows actually would send the cats stumbling with the force. In addition, the extra Agility from the necklace had done a lot to even out their difference in speeds.

Honestly, it was mostly perception and reaction that was holding him back now. He was slowly beginning to realize that his body was faster than he could handle. Ruefully, Randidly put that on the list of things that needed to be worked on as he progressed.

So far today, he had gained 3 Levels in Wall of Thorns, but only 2 in Spearing Roots, even though he used it much, much more. Apparently in addition to the skill level bonuses carrying over, the difficulty in leveling also increased. Haste also went up by 1, and Refine by 2.

Randidly also noticed that although evolving the skill had increased the mana cost to 45, his mana pool of 450 still meant he could cast it 10 times before he needed to break for mana potions. The rate at which he could improve spells was improved enormously by the larger mana pool.

As he began to move forward through the strange wasteland, he wondered if he had gotten to a level of strength that he would get an impressive class. Probably something related to his Spear of Rot Mastery…

But he still wanted to push his fire magic forward to a higher level before trying it. The combination would be deadly in a class. But currently he was leery about using fire magic, so that would take a back seat.

Randidly removed the Soul Seed from his pocket.

Soul Seed 22% Nurtured. Strongest Influences: 1. Spearing Roots; 2. Wall of Thorns; 3. Haste; 4. Refine

Randidly wasn’t sure what to make of the strongest influences information, but he supposed it was still interesting. More interesting was that it had gotten to 22% in 2 hours, so it would roughly take 8 more hours to be nurtured.

And after that….

He would plant it….?