It didn't take Thomas too long to come across another boar. He really seemed to have entered into the territory of a community of boars. Spotting the boar, Thomas flexed his hands and arms while smiling. He needed to do some experimenting just to see what he was actually capable of. Cleaving that boars skull in a single hit had shown him he was powerful, but how powerful? Thomas stepped into the boar's sight and let it once again charge at him.
The boar came barreling at Thomas while letting out aggressive squeals to try and intimidate him, it did not work. Thomas set his stance with his feet spread shoulder width and his knees slightly bent while clenching both hands into tight fists. Just before the boar impacted him with its charge, Thomas thrust his right fist out and slammed it into the wide forehead of the animal. A scene from a nightmare took place.
Thomas's fist crashed into the skull of the boar and immediately shattered it. The force of the blow didn't dissipate much and continued to propagate forward into the body of the boar causing bones to fracture, muscles to rip, and blood vessels to rupture. In short... the boar exploded into a gory mess of body parts. The impact of Thomas's fist combined with the built up momentum of the heavy animal running at full speed had caused a massive release of power that the boar's body simply couldn't endure.
Once again, Thomas stood dumbfounded for a few moments before letting out a groan of pain. His body didn't hurt, it was his mind! Thomas looked at the explosion of blood and animal parts and shook his head, "What a goddamn waste! How am I supposed to skin it or find tusks now?!"
Paying zero attention to the blood and bits of boar that had managed to splash onto his clothing and armor, Thomas started to stomp his way through the woods to look for more boars. He unsheathed his kukri once again and held it firmly. He had learned his lesson, barehanded melee was NOT the answer. It every boar were to explode after a single punch he would never complete his quests!
It didn't take long for Thomas to find another boar and get it to charge at him. This time Thomas just braced himself and let the boars charge connect with his body. It might seem stupid to let the enemy hit him, but he wanted to know just how tough he was. The boar slammed its thick skull into Thomas. The full weight of nearly 100 kilos slammed into Thomas's braced body forcing Thomas to take a single step back. To Thomas the blow wasn't very strong, in fact, getting slapped on the back by Rock felt stronger than the boar's charge.
The boar, momentarily stopped in confusion at its failed charge, didn't have very much time to ponder why the human didn't fall before Thomas stabbed the kukri into its brain. Thomas yanked the blade out of the boar's skull and let its body fall to the ground. Thomas immediately went to work skinning it and claiming its tusks for his quests. He sighed as he pondered over the situation. It was pretty clear at this point that he was much stronger than the boars and that they were unlikely to pose any real threat to him. That just took a lot of the fun out of it!
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Thomas hunted boars until lunchtime and managed to bring another five of them down and collected their tusks and pelts. Thomas found a nice tree to sit beneath and pulled out the rations he'd bought back at the general goods store. It wasn't even remotely good tasting, but it was filling and kept him from going hungry. As Thomas munched on his lunch he looked around the woods and thought about what he should do. He only needed to kill three more boars to finish collecting enough tusks, he already had more than enough hides. He could stay in the woods and hunt a few more boars to collect a few more hides, as well as rank up his weapon mastery a bit. Or he could head back to the city and figure out something else to do.
After contemplating a bit, Thomas decided to continue to hunt boars. He could increase the rank of his knife ability and collect some spare hides that he could use later. Since he intended to learn leatherworking it would be best to have some extra leather tucked away and ready for use in the future. With his decision made and lunch over, Thomas collected any orange or white flowers as he continued his hunt for boars.
Over the next five hours, Thomas hunted and skinned an additional twelve boars while making his way back towards the city slowly. With the day quickly heading for a close, Thomas made sure his bag was secure with all his spoils and immediately found his way out of the woods and started sprinting towards the city. He could not get enough of the feeling he gained from running so fast. He was once again tempted to dump all of his experience into Agility and Endurance.
After returning to the city, Thomas glanced into the Adventurers Guild but saw it was too busy for the moment. If he went in now he could be late to Hekrins. Instead of risking that he started to move directly towards the grumpy dwarf. It didn't take long for Thomas to step into the shop and greet Hekrin, "I've learned Tailoring as you directed."
Hekrin looked at Thomas and let out a very long and very annoyed sigh, "Yur like a damned roach kid. No matter what I do, ya jus' keep comin' back here and pesterin' me! Git yur self over here an' show me yur hands."
Thomas walked over to Hekrin and presented his hands like he had done several times previously. Hekrin grabbed his wrists and looked at his hands for a bit before letting out a despondent sigh and releasing them, "Dammit kid! Are ya a glutton fer punishment or somthin'?"
Thomas laughed lightly and shook his head, "Not at all. I just happen to like doing the things you've sent me to do. I don't see it as a waste of time or anything like that. Regardless of what professions you ask me to learn I'm not going to complain in the least. I'll even be happy to learn them!"
Thomas had spent some time thinking about how to deal with Hekrin while he was busy slaughtering boars. He had realized it was Hekrin's 'hope' that pushing Thomas into various professions would convince Thomas to quit or get Thomas in trouble with people like Zella. Thomas decided the best way to deal with Hekrin would be to crush that hope. To let Hekrin know that the more professions he made Thomas learn, the happier he was making Thomas. The exact opposite of Hekrin's desire! Yes, this was the conviction Thomas had made to mess with Hekrin and push back against him. As long as Hekrin didn't ask him to do anything against his morals, Thomas was going to do it, and do it with a smile!
Hearing how happily Thomas claimed he was, Hekrin couldn't help letting out a groan and rubbing his forehead, "If'n ya say so kid. Ya learned tailorin' like I asked."
System Notice: Quest Completed! Hekrin Graveljaw has tasked you with becoming a rank 25 Tailor. You may train at Zella's Fashions.
Rewards: 1,250 Exp, Reputation with Hekrin Graveljaw improved... a little, maybe?
Failure: Hekrin Graveljaw will refuse to teach you Magitech Engineering.
Time Limit: 1 Week
System Notice: You have gained 1,250 experience.
"Alrigh' kid, the next one aint gunna be so easy!", Hekrin grinned broadly showing a flash of shiny white teeth within his thick red beard, "Go find old man Hyde an' learn some leatherworkin' this time kid! Ya know tha drill, one week ta get yurself to rank 25!"
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
System Notice: New Quest, Linked Quest! Hekrin Graveljaw has tasked you with becoming a rank 25 Leatherworker. You may train at Hyde's Hides.
Rewards: ???
Failure: Hekrin Graveljaw will refuse to teach you Magitech Engineering.
Time Limit: 1 Week
Seeing the quest, Thomas could barely hold back his laughter. With a strained smile on his face, Thomas nodded to Hekrin and turned around to walk out of the shop. Seeing that Thomas didn't complain this time, Hekrin nodded in satisfaction. At least he was satisfied until he noticed the rolls of boar hide sticking out of Thomas's bag. His face paled slightly and he let out a groan while lamenting in his mind, "The blasted kid already collected hides! How did he know?!"
Unaware of Hekrin's inner turmoil, Thomas was just happily heading back to the Adventurers Guild to turn in his quests. Well, the two he completed anyways. The guild wasn't as busy as when he first passed it by, but Thomas still had to wait a good twenty minutes in line before he finally made it to the receptionist. It was another somewhat attractive human woman with dark hair and dark eyes wearing a set of clothing similar to the woman from earlier in the morning. Thomas wondered if it was a uniform.
Hefting the bag of items off of his back, Thomas addressed the receptionist with a smile, "I'm here to turn in two quests. I've got twenty boar tusks and five boar pelts here."
The woman glances at Thomas's bag and then holds out her hand, "Guild card please."
Thomas digs out the card and passes it over. After that, the process was rather simple. She checked the quests, then the requested materials, and then stamped his guild card with some sort of magic stamp. She opened a small lockbox and pulled out the gold coins to pay Thomas for his two quests. If he went strictly by how much he spent before going out that morning, it would be a total loss on his part. He pocketed the twenty gold coins regardless.
System Notice: Quest Complete! You have accepted a quest to hunt down 10 wild boars that are plaguing the fields south of Ulvstad. Collect 20 boar's tusks as proof of your conquest.
Rewards: 250 Exp, 10 gold
Time Limit: None
System Notice: You have gained 250 experience.
System Notice: Quest Complete! You have accepted a quest to collect five complete boar pelts.
Rewards: 200 Exp, 10 gold
Time Limit: None
System Notice: You have gained 200 experience.
With the tusks gone and five of the group of hides removed, Thomas checked his guild card and was pleasantly surprised to see he had ranked up to rank two. That came out to about ten points per quest. Not too shabby for newbie stuff. Rubbing his stomach he started to think about the delicious dinner awaiting him at The Swans Nest. He still had tonight and tomorrow night paid for, after that he would need to fork out funds yet again. Not that he minded, he just needed to earn some more coins!
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After arriving at The Swans Nest, Thomas asked Maggie for a pitcher of hot water to be brought to his room. Once it arrived Thomas cleaned his body off, removing the bits of dried blood, and other substances, from his body. Especially his hands and face. After he changed into a fresh set of clothing he passed the dirty ones to Maggie. He almost felt sorry for her having to clean those filthy clothes.
With his laundry in the works, Thomas enjoyed a delicious meal and some conversation with Martha. The motherly woman laughed as Thomas explained how he had accidentally punched a boar so hard that it had exploded. He also vented about how boring the hunt had been after that because the boars were simply no match for him. After thinking a moment while tapping her chin, Martha turned to Thomas, "Then next time you are free, you should head into the dungeon. The first few floors might not be much of a challenge to you but, after that, you might find an opponent you feel is worthy. Our dungeon isn't very large or grand like some others, only going down seven floors. But I am sure you can find some challenges inside of it, at least for a while."
Thomas nodded and seriously considered it. If he managed to get a day off again he would definitely head into the dungeon and have a good fight with some monsters. With his dinner finished, Thomas retired to his room and lay down on his bed. After opening his character sheet his eyes widened. He had way more experience than he was expecting! Subtracting the 1,250 experience he'd gotten from Hekrin, the 450 experience from quests, and the 1,433 experience he'd had previously, he'd gained an additional 500 experience! Perhaps killing boars had netted some experience? But he didn't get any notifications...
Sighing to himself, Thomas just let it go. He was not going to complain about having more experience. Looking at the total of 3,633 a grin slowly spread across his lips. That was just barely enough experience for him to push every single attribute to twenty! He needed 3,600 experience total, leaving him with just 33 left over. Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, Thomas closed his character sheet and did things in the proper order this time. He focused his eyes and stared at the ceiling to continue to rank up his 'All Seeing Eyes'.
He could have raised his stats first and used the ability for longer, but he didn't know if increasing his attributes to twenty would be another threshold or not. When he felt his mana running low, Thomas stopped practicing and opened his character sheet once more. Taking a deep breath and mentally preparing himself for anything, Thomas dumped 900 experience into each attribute to immediately bring all of them up to twenty!
A large surge of energy poured through Thomas's body. The energy was warm and nurturing, coursing through every vein, massaging every muscle, stroking every bone, and swirling the mana in his body. The sensation was indescribable and brought with it such comfort and pleasure that Thomas completely lost track of his thoughts and just drifted inside of his own body. Without even realizing it, Thomas drifted off into a deeply relaxed state that put him to sleep.
Spoiler: Character Sheet
Name: Thomas Darkrose Experience Gained: 8,023 Experience Spent: 7,990 Experience Remaining: 33 Power: 20 (+) 210 Exp Endurance: 20 (+) 210 Exp Agility: 20 (+) 210 Exp Magic: 20 (+) 210 Exp Innate Abilities:
* Transmutation ( A ) // Rank 1 // 0/20 Exp
* Quick Learner ( C ) // Rank 15 // 29/160 Exp
* All Seeing Eyes ( S ) // Rank 8 // 33/90 Exp
Skills:
* Serenity // Rank 7 // 67/80 Exp
* Blacksmithing // Rank 25 // 93/260 Exp
* Tailoring // Rank 25 // 258/260 Exp
* Skinning // Rank 4 // 8/50 Exp
Abilities:
* Weapon Mastery (Knife) // Rank 4 // 27/50 Exp
* Weapon Mastery (Body) // Rank 1 // 0/20 Exp
Titles:
* Magical Blacksmith
Guild Card Name: Thomas Darkrose
Rank: 2 // 0/30 Pts.
* Power: 20
* Endurance: 20
* Agility: 20
* Magic: 20
Quests:
* Gather 5 White Tullin and 10 Orange Bloom Flowers // 3/5, 6/10