Gestation
Page 18
Health: 900 (stamina*10)
Strength: 900 (stamina*10)
Health restoration: 900/minute (survivability*10)
Mana restoration: 900/minute (morale*10)
Strength restoration: 900/minute (athleticism*10)
Running speed: 36 km/h (1+speed/10)
Defense: 1
Resistance
Physical damage: 1.72% (damage ignored: up to 421/second)
Poison: 1.27% (damage ignored: up to 211/second)
Skills
Cooking: 250
Trap setting and disarming: 19
Archery: 250
Swimming: 250
Breath-holding: 250
Stealth: 250
Life Magic: 250
Mind Magic: 250
Space Magic: 250
Earth Magic: 250
Water Magic: 250
Fire Magic: 250
Air Magic: 250
Light Magic: 250
Dark Magic: 250
Meditation: 250
Hand-to-hand combat: 92
Perception: 166
Necromancy: 250
Chimerology: 250
Blood magic: 250
Ritual magic: 250
Artifact creation: 250
Body enhancement: 1
Professions
Herbalist: 250
Fisherman: 250
Tailor: 250
Blacksmith: 250
Carpenter: 250
Skills
Imp eye
Undecuple consciousness
One of our own
Gifts
Meeting deferred
I got +70 on all my attributes for that Titanbane and pat myself on the back for that. And I sure earned that Genius achievement. The Hunters intrigue me, especially since it could be a class I might have the ability to get earlier than I’m supposed to. If it’s a faction that not just anybody can join, even better.
They took my demon ability, though they gave me a replacement that will hurt me to use.
I’m going to have to work on my resistance again. I need a different way of adapting to this world. I’ll need at least one victim, preferably not somebody who follows someone from the main local pantheon, but with a lot of energy and a good spot well away from any temple. Nobody said anything about needing intelligent creatures to create a weapon, and I won’t technically be breaking any of Eliza’s rules.
∞ ∞ ∞
Current location: Heron Island.
Beach
An old, gray-haired man in a robe points at me and says something.
“Gernu piri! A rgen tu moto.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Bere?”
∞ ∞ ∞
Knowledge area: Haaron tongue +0.001%
The more often you hear and repeat languages you don’t know, the faster you learn them.
∞ ∞ ∞
“Bere?” I repeat.
Thirty minutes later, we’re starting to understand each other. I’m naked, and that’s not considered respectable. I hand him a silver coin; he gives me something like shorts and a shirt.
Village children shorts
Shorts made from simple cotton. The last gasp of fashion for paupers.
Durability: 77/100
Village children shirt
Shabby child’s shirt.
Durability: 81/100
The old man’s name is Romul. He’s a local who enjoys walking along the beach in the morning, and that’s why he came across me. Even in the village, you’re not supposed to walk around naked. I answer the old man’s questions about where I’m from and how I came to be here on the fishing island. The ship from the continent comes by once every two months, with forty days left until the next one. There are no taverns or inns. He does explain how to find lodging, however.
“Study professions and sign yourself out as an apprentice in the dockyard. Or go talk to the local blacksmith. He’s married to our local sorceress, so she might be able to help you out, too.”
“Thanks for the advice. I’ll probably start with the wharf.”
Romul walks off along the beach, leaving me to head toward the village. I can hear the hubbub of the docks from here.
The village itself is at the foothill of a mountain and reaches all the way out to the ocean. It’s populated with wood and clay buildings one or two stories high, and there’s a port with ten log piers. It’s all about the same as in my village.
I’m thrown for a loop at the wharfs, however, by a local brigadier who turns out to be a smart guy.
“Sagie, you have more strength and skills than anyone in the brigade, and you’re still a child. You’ve done more than they’ve done in their whole lives, so I can’t take you on as an apprentice. If you hadn’t mentioned your skills, I might have tried to figure something out.”
It’s unusual. The brigadier is protecting his workers’ self-esteem.
“Got it.” Perhaps, I shouldn’t have said anything, but he’s right. They would compare themselves to me and start to feel jealous. “I’ll head over to the blacksmith. Sorry to bother you.”
The brigadier pauses when he hears that.
“If you’re going to see the blacksmith, there’s something you can do for me. I never have time to pick up my nails. Could you get them for me?”
∞ ∞ ∞
Quest received: Collect nails from the blacksmith.
Description: Brigadier Quartavius Caris needs you to pick up his order of nails from the blacksmith.
Reward: Variable
Refusal: A worsened relationship with Carius
“Sure, I can do that.”
∞ ∞ ∞
You accepted a quest: Collect nails from the blacksmith.
∞ ∞ ∞
“But where does he live?”
“Show me your map. I’ll draw it for you.” In a flash, he draws the entire ocean, complete with the surrounding waters. “My main skill is cartography. Being a brigadier is just a job, so drawing maps is more of a hobby than it used to be.”
The map turns out to be detailed with houses, roads, and labels. He even added a map of the currents. What kind of skill must that be for him to draw something that detailed so quickly?
I fish on the pier until morning, enjoying the smell of the wood and water, the easy, hand-made fishing pole. Light glistens off the waves. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. Even if I’m not in the big world, I’m happy. There are people here, good food, skills, professions. I’m not worried about what I lost at all. I’m just going to keep moving forward. I have something more than skills and attributes, after all. I have a family.
As it gets toward afternoon, boats start to sail in, coming back from their morning fishing. I fish for a couple more hours and quietly learn the Haaron tongue as they unload. I have time. There’s a quest, too, and a long wait until my probation with the Hunters.
I let the little fish go, just keeping the big ones. Thanks to my fisherman profession, which is all the way up to 250, I can catch anything. I can even land the nasty ones.
All day long, I sit on the pier, and suddenly, I have the urge to go for a swim. I pull off my clothes and dive in. Even though it’s getting on toward evening, I can see the bottom perfectly. My lanterns work underwater, and the four minutes I can hold my breath enables me to catch crabs.
I’m having so much fun that I almost drown. My dolphin kicks are a blast, the water flows past my body, and I feel weightless. Even after the sun goes down, I want to swim some more and go see the corals down at the bottom. Fish swim around them, and there are mollusks and plankton, too. Everything glows with phosphorescence.
After dropping down all the way to the bottom, I start opening mollusks. Without noticing it, I’d swum almost two kilometers away from the shore. So many pearls! They’re all different colors and sizes, and a Level 198 mollusk with a shining black shell grabs my attention. The poor guy tries to fight back, and then tries to eat me when I ope
n it. Inside, there’s a black pearl the size of my fist. It’s the most valuable I’ve found, and I decide not to push fate. The nighttime predators are waking up, anyway, so it’s time to hurry back to the bank.
I spend the night sleeping on one of the piers.
Everything’s simple in real life. The psychologist has stopped getting on my case, and Vaalsie and his team of collectors is leaving me alone, too. I think the amount of attention the psychologist has been paying me scared him. My head pounds constantly, I often get nosebleeds, and sometimes, I read the material for next year’s studies just to relax. Fragments start to fall into place when you’re reading a book. You start to see connections between facts, and it can be so engrossing that, like in my case, you spend a day straight reading your physics textbook. My subconscious plays all kinds of tricks on me. I see the formulas without using virtual reality, and just thinking about variables is enough for me to pull up the formulas they’re expressed in. It’s getting hard to sleep. I struggle to fall asleep because of the thoughts that keep running around inside my head, and I get nosebleeds when that happens. Sleeping in the capsule for six hours at a time is plenty to get the rest I need.
∞ ∞ ∞
The next morning, it’s the cold that wakes me up. To get warm, I run over to the blacksmith’s house as fast as I can, using my new ability. I need to start building it up, otherwise I’ll die without even noticing it.
I find the smithy by following the noises coming from it. The building is right next to the mine, and there are enormous trees growing around it. There’s a short fence, too. The first floor is made out of stone, while the second was built from wooden logs. The picture is completed by a large smithy with a sizeable forge under a canopy. It may be early morning, but the boss is already working.
“Hi there.” He jumps in surprise. “Brigadier Caris sent me for some nails.”
“How many times is this going to happen? I hung that bell just for people like you so you can let me know that you’re walking up,” the blacksmith replies, looking at me carefully. “Oh, you aren’t from around here.”
“Right, and I’d like to be your apprentice.”
“Can you forge?” The blacksmith casts a clingy glance at me.
“My blacksmith profession is pretty well developed, though I don’t have any experience forging. I won’t hold you back. All I need for my work is a place to stay and some skills, since I’m going to have to stay on the island until the ship gets here.”
“Hm, a tempting proposition. I could use an apprentice, especially since you’re already a professional blacksmith. What skills are you looking for?”
“Any smithing skills, anything useful at all, really. They say your wife is a good sorceress, so I’d love to learn something from her, too.”
Just then, somebody steps up behind me. It’s only because of my imp eye that I notice. The somebody is completely silent, too silent for even the blacksmith to hear. I look down, concentrating. Then, the blacksmith catches a glimpse of the person. His changing expression tells me that much. I hear a voice come from behind me.
“What makes you think that I’ll teach you anything?”
“Why not? I can help you. I’m a good herbalist, and I can pay you in herbs. A sorceress like you probably needs them all the time.”
The blacksmith puts his hammer down and steps out from under the canopy.
“Clarissa, he’s here because he has a quest. Put your knife away.”
She walks around in front of me, and I see a girl around twenty-five years old. She’s wearing camouflaged pants and a shirt. A shock of leaves camouflages her head.
“I imagine the boy in the tree is your son?”
I noticed him when I was walking up. My enhanced perception highlights all the hidden things I’m capable of seeing.
“Gart, come down and say hi to our guest.”
“Practicing?”
“Yes. I’m teaching the boy how to hide and hunt in the forest. How did you find him?”
“I’ve spent time working on my perception.”
“If you can see someone camouflaged in a tree, how much time was that?”
“Quite a bit.” I smile, proud as a cat with the sour cream. It’s the first time anybody has complimented me on how well I’m doing.
“Ah-h, whatever. I’ll teach you, but these are class skills, so you won’t be able to completely learn them. I’m Clarissa, this is my husband Claude, and the boy is our son Gart.”
He’s a couple years older than me and looks to have put in some good work on his attributes. His muscles are well developed.
“How were you able to find me?”
“You moved.”
“So?”
“The perception skill enables you to spot deviations from the norm. Trees don’t move by themselves, even in the wind, so that’s not the norm.”
The boy was surprised by my explanation.
“This is going to be fun.” The blacksmith ruffles the boy’s hair. “I’ll take you on, though there isn’t much chance of you picking anything up. The rule is that you can’t learn the main class skills.”
“That works. By the way, can you mine ore here?”
“Just copper and tin. That’s all anybody’s been able to find.”
“Well, still worth a try.”
After taking the nails, I run off to the wharf to make sure I’m back in time for lunch. A well-worn path leads down to the village from the blacksmith’s house. I don’t see any animals, though there are plenty of herbs. The herbalist inside me dies a little every time I continue on without picking them. I’m forced to convince myself that I’ll collect everything I see on the way back. The carpenter in me giggles and yammers on about how all the trees on the island are going to be sacrificed to my crazy experiments. I can practically hear him sharpening his axe, and it’s funny to hear my consciousness splitting.
Caris and his brigade are clearing yet another fishing schooner, and that’s where I find him.
“Caris, I brought you the nails.” The wily character forgot to tell me that there were 200 kilograms of them, and I would’ve had a hard time if I weren’t so developed.
“Thanks,” he replies, chewing on his lip as he continues. “If you’d been lying about your strength attribute, you wouldn’t have been able to bring them here. That means you were telling the truth about the rest, too.”
Caris gives you: Means of Reinforcing Wood for Craftsmen
Of course, I’m only too happy to get a book of skills for the craftsman class. Carpentry is the main class, while the secondary focus is on reinforcing wood.
“You’re boosting your skills just in general? I don’t know if you can learn any non-class skills, but you might as well give it a try. Good luck!”
He turns and heads toward the pier, and I watch him go. A complete stranger decided to help me. What, is my karma good?
With the book in hand, I vow to do everything I can to work on these skills. Even something as little as the ability to shoot a bow and arrow had turned out to be critical in Hell. And now, I have the chance to learn a secondary class ability.
Time to get to work. I have food, so now, I need herbs and wood.
I spend the whole way back to the smithy gathering plants. Half of them I don’t know, and some glow to tell me they’re useful. My herbalist skill and perception let me see what’s growing around me. It’s evening by the time I get back to the blacksmith, and I have a 90% overload. Half a ton of herbs is great!
In Project Chrysalis, every different area has its class skills, the foundation of that class. Healers have healing, craftsmen have crafting, warriors have armor-wearing, archers have fast and accurate shooting. Everyone can use edged weapons, though warriors get an additional bonus to the damage they do. Boosting your attributes enables you to do much more damage, which is why an archer will never kill a warrior at the same level with swords or knives, all things being equal. Because of that, I’ll never be a great healer or buffer. I�
�m more of an attacking mage.
The whole next day I spend trying herbs and brewing poisons, which just gives Clarissa something to laugh at. But when I start drinking the poison I made, she freezes, her jaw slack.
“You little idiot! That’s poison!”
“I know.”
“So, you want to poison yourself?”
“Yep. I’m developing my resistance to poison.”
“Why?”
“I want to make sure nobody can use them to kill me.”
After that, Clarissa starts teaching me how to brew poisons. The concept is the same as brewing potions in a pot, you just have to use different tools: retorts, flasks, and distilleries. The way I brew potions is practically stone age compared to what a real master can do. For example, she can make complicated potions mixing two or more effects from identical ingredients. It’s hardly surprising that alchemists and potion-brewers are held in high regard. I’ll only be able to make potions like that if I become a craftsman, since it’s the class skill that lets you mix effects.
Three days later, I get what I’ve been going for.
Skill learned: Poison-making
Poison-making: +1
Effect on the poisons you make: +1%
∞ ∞ ∞
Two more days go by as I boost my skill to 25. Obviously, the fourth-order limiter is back in effect, and I can’t get anything past that until I pick a class and get myself recognized as a capable citizen. Still, I have a huge advantage over anyone studying in the big cities. I have a whole island with all kinds of herbs and a well-developed herbalist skill. I can carry almost half a ton of ingredients, and nobody’s going to get on my case about gathering resources belonging to some clan or other. Plus, I wouldn’t have been able to learn that skill if I didn’t have a potion-brewing master nearby.
Clarissa also agreed to teach me how to prepare ointments. There’s so much to learn! Depending on the way you make them, not to mention the active ingredients, the ointment can soak in immediately or stick around on the skin. They work for a long time, too, unlike poisons and potions, and healing is far from being the only way you can use them. You can even make poisonous ointments. For example, if you rub some of one of those on a doorknob or the hilt of a sword, you can kill without ever being noticed.