A few days later Dix got to start school all over again. He had spent several days with the first few tutors getting back in the practice of learning, before he would start classes at the Guild. While he hadn’t yet gotten all of the skills he was looking to get, he had gotten a few things, mostly under general skills, or passives for Stride. His free time was spent less and less in the library, and more practicing the things he could. Perhaps his favorite general skill he had learned so far was Lockpicking. It was part puzzle, part dexterity training, and part miniature version of patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time, all in addition to not being able to see anything. Originally he had used Mana Sense to “see” inside the lock, but his tutor had nixed that almost immediately. Apparently a lot of locked things were meant to stay that way, so people built them to resist all sorts of intrusions. More importantly, they reacted very badly when someone did attempt to intrude. The same tutor was also teaching him how to locate and disable traps of a physical variety, in addition to sensing and avoiding magical ones.

His physical toughness trainer was a bit of an interesting character. He could apparently tank anything, even Dix’s jokes and sense of humor. The man was as interesting to talk with as his shield. On the other hand, he really knew his shit. Despite barely speaking more than a few grunts, he managed to gain Dix more skills than anyone other than Error. He would mostly pose Dix into different stances with a shield, grunting to indicate both approval and disapproval, and then hit him with something. Most frequently his fist. Add in marching, marching while carrying a heavy pack, marching in heavy armour, marching up and down hills, marching through mud and shallow water, and marching in heavy armor with a full pack uphill through knee deep mud. Also standing at attention. Dix finally knew a little about what boot camp might be like. He assumed it was harder, and involved less sleep and more yelling. All in all, it was tedious and exhausting, but he gained far more than he thought he would.

Skinning, Dismantling, and Butchering were all taught by what appeared to Dix to be an honest to god mountain man. He was a mammoth of a man. What little of his skin that was exposed from under the furs and the beard was a dark green, with patches of black. The tusks, skin, and yellow eyes basically screamed Orc, but Dix didn’t really want to take a guess. What little he had read of the different species and their various races made it abundantly clear that guessing was a great way to piss people off. No matter his species or race, the man was an excellent teacher and received Dix’s utmost respect. Or the closest approximation to respect that he was capable of. The three skills were messy, but fascinating. The man explained that he would need another couple of skills to upgrade them into the Processing skill, but he didn’t teach those, nor sell the equipment.

A Gnome woman taught him both campfire based Cooking, as well as Bartering. He didn’t think Bartering was part of what she was supposed to be teaching him, but he picked it up from her while they went shopping for ingredients. He also learned a valuable lesson, it didn’t matter what world you were in, or the species of the person, old women who can cook are the best kind of people to know. They don’t put up with nonsense, feed anyone they think needs it, and barter like thieves.

Cartography and Pathfinding were some of his favorites. His tutor for these was of yet another species, a feline beastkin woman. Judging by the patterning of her furred sections, she was some sort of leopard or jaguar kin. He knew one of the two had a spot inside the circle colorations, but couldn’t remember which one it was. Not that it mattered in the slightest though because some of her circles had spots and others didn’t. There was also no reason to believe that her race was at all related to an Earth based cat, which was supported by the fact that her color pattern was a royal blue, with light gray spotting. She was the absolute definition of fit and trim. All of her musculature was very well defined, and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her anyplace other than her chest, which was on the small side, but still incredibly sexy. The fact that she also moved in that same stalking manner of most cats just added to her already staggering appeal.

Tutor aside, the lessons for the skills were actually quite interesting. She had broken her Cartography down into three different sections, and although they were all important to the skill, they were not separate skills. Infact, other skills could often help improve upon each section. The first she called spotting. In essence it was the ability to actually see the things that one needed to see. Not just the landmarks, but the smaller things that could give a map the detail it needed to not just be helpful, but easy to use. The second was note taking. It wasn’t just making actual notes, although that was a lot of it. It was also a form of drawing a map in a note based manner. The trick was minimal markings to dictate the surroundings, and a lot of annotations. It was a much smoother process in caves and dungeons with a need to mostly just mark the passages than it was out in the open, but by judicious use of landmarks and terrain details a map of an open plain could still be completed. There were a number of tools that could be used to make more precise maps, as well as spells and skills specifically designed to improve measurements, all of which helped with taking precise notes. The final section was the actual drawing of the map. It was an area in which Dix excelled, and he gained quite a few skills drawing up his first map, a number of which could also be used to measure larger distances. While his job had been mostly computer related art and measurements, he had done a lot of his work by hand as well. Without drafting tools, he was forced to rely on his hand eye coordination, which is what brought him some of the skills he gained.

As for Pathfinding, there was a lot to be said for the sheer enjoyment of following that woman’s swaying tail and ass over the river and through the woods. Luckily the subconscious portion of his mind cataloged what she said, or he would have been completely lost when it was his turn to lead them back. She had a number of tips and tricks that were really impressive, but mostly impractical for him. He didn’t have the sense of smell that she did, so was unable to pick up trails through dense brush by scent alone. He could scale trees almost as well as she could though, so he could capitalize on the view he gained from doing so. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience. He would have looked for a chance for a bit more fun with his tutor, but she was very married to a very large, very violent, very high leveled cat already, and he valued his new life more than the chance to bang a married woman. There were plenty of other kitties to pet in this new world.

Appraisal, and blood and mana extraction were taught by an absolute nervous wreck of a man of some sort of avian race. Dix would have tried to figure out what sort of bird the man might have some traits of, but there were two problems with that. One, the man had managed to turn almost his entire plumage to charcoal. And two, he really didn’t care about investigating things like that about men. Had the alchemist been a woman he might have enjoyed the challenge, as well as the possibility of the fun that could be had later, but men were a non-starter for him. Other than making sure they weren’t going to try to kill him, or had attractive female relatives or friends, he didn’t particularly care what they did or where they came from.

Mana extraction was mildly involved, but simple at the same time. At its most basic it was the removal of mana from the dead. Normally used in the looting process, it was how you extracted anything of value from things like constructs, summons, and elementals. While these types of beings would sometimes leave behind some form of crystallized mana, the Mana Extraction skill essentially ensured that you would get something along those lines. It wasn’t a guarantee, but as close as you could get, provided your skill level was high enough to work with whatever the being had been before its death. The involved portion was mostly set up, and required tools. Luckily, after the first initial attunement of the tools, a hollow spike and a crystal reservoir along with a ring that contained and controlled them, the rest was pretty simple thereafter. At higher levels the tools wouldn’t even be needed, so that was a bonus. It was also one of the skills that linked together to create Processing.

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Blood extraction actually used very similar tools. The main difference was the reservoir was replaced with a series of tubing that led to larger reservoirs. The reservoirs were capped with condensers that essentially compressed the blood into sludge. While completely repulsive to see for most, Dix was fascinated by the process. The thickened sludge could be decompressed and used easily by alchemists for whatever they needed it for. As his skills, storage options, and monetary reserves grew he would be able to upgrade to spatial artifacts that could hold unimaginable amounts of the precious liquid. The Alchemist explained that the more specific spatial storage items were, the more they could hold compared to the price and difficulty to make them. Items that only held blood could hold massive amounts for their price, particularly compared to generalized storage items.

Appraisal was a bit different. He also learned that while the avian was his first tutor on this subject, he was by no means the last. The reasoning behind that was in how the skill worked. Appraisal showed the information that the person using it knew about an item. Normally, the skill would be almost completely useless. Any one person couldn’t be bothered to know everything about every type of item, yet alone the specifics of one of a kind items. At most they would know about the things that they had already encountered, or were used for their particular profession. Well, the system had a way around those restrictions. Each profession could link their Appraisal skill into a different sort of database of knowledge about items. They were called repositories. People would get one related to their class at some point, which was good enough for most. According to Thunk, true adventurers were always on the lookout for more money, and the best way to make it was to pick up all the free stuff on the ground that was worthwhile. The only way to know for sure was to put in the work, and link your Appraisal to every repository you could. When the Alchemist mentioned that he was impressed by how willing Dix had been to pay for the tutoring to link to all of the repositories he nearly had a heart attack. Thunk’s debt gouging was approaching the level of artistic mastery.

The last few skills he would be receiving tutoring in would start the next week, with mage training still to be determined. Dix was getting a little antsy about learning more magic, and the delay was frustrating. Thankfully, the next few things he needed to learn promised to be rather interesting. The first few were simply more repositories, which would see him working with people from a multitude of different professions. Blacksmith, bowyer, enchanter, tailor, and a host of combat professionals of different classes. The Guild had offered a similar set up at one time, but the outpouring of complaints from their members that used the repository linking as a way to gain some much needed cash on the side, or a trade of favors, was enough to get them to let it go. Of the crafters he would be seeing he was most looking forward to the Enchanter, as that was where Error’s idea for elemental damage was based. The Enchanter in question was withholding judgement on whether or not they would teach Dix anything beyond the repository until they had met.

The final tutoring he currently had scheduled was with a colleague of his Lockpicking tutor. It would be in the field of “Scouting,” a rather blatant euphemism for thievery. There was a host of topics and skills that he hoped to learn more about while under the tutelage of whoever the “Scout” turned out to be. Chief among them was Strip. It wasn’t that he wanted to complete his exotic dancer skill list, although all he would need after that was lap dancing, but that he needed Strip to finish Processing. The other stealth based skills would be nice as well, along with Pickpocketing and Sleight of Hand. He didn’t necessarily want Backstab, but wouldn’t turn it down. Honestly, he couldn’t understand how it would be difficult for someone to learn it on their own, so he hoped there was no focus on it. It was a pretty basic skill of the entire archetype, so no bets were placed.

As for his actual classes that he had to attend, there were only a few. As Error had mentioned the big three were Dungeon Basics, Party Tactics, and Monsters 101. He was highly amused that they had used the same numbering system as American universities. Most likely the whole process had been started by a transfer, or at least the Monsters 101 class had been. The only other class he was required to take was Guild Basics. The small amount of information he received about the class indicated that it covered all of the things you needed to know about the Guild itself. He was actually looking forward to the whole school thing. Not for attending class, but for the knowledge. Classes themselves had always been a bit dull for him on Earth, so he was taking a bit of a wait and see attitude towards these.

Electives were another matter. They weren’t called that of course, but it was what they were. Unlike the universities of Earth, the Guild training here didn’t have much in the way of required coursework other than the big three and Guild Basics, so most of the offered classes were wildly varied. Not all of them were winners, nor even Guild sanctioned, but they were still in the listings. The Guild sanctioned classes were the ones where the Guild actually paid the people teaching the class, who were required to be actual members. The sanctioned classes covered things like magical theory, how to track down prime ingredients, how to choose the best equipment, as well as a number of other practical topics. As for the others, well, essentially, all of the other classes were things someone thought someone else might want to know. Non-sanctioned classes sometimes covered similar topics, but also things like why broad swords are best, magic is evil, and his personal favorite, best dungeon dates.

Dix wasn’t all that keen on most of the classes, finding them designed to help someone pursuing a singular role. It didn’t make them bad, simply unsuited for what he was trying to do. Sure he could take a course on each different role, but he had no interest in taking that many courses. He also had a fairly good understanding of the basics of each role already. It wasn’t as though they were wildly different from what he had learned playing video games. Despite his concerns over taking too many courses, as well as some of the more obviously tedious ones, he did add a few to those he was already assigned.

His most difficult additions were Theory of Magic and History of Mantra. No matter what else he took afterwards, he figured these two classes would get him a lot of what he felt he needed to know. For more practical gains he also chose a course on Variants, and another on the elements. Truly, he wanted to take something fun and goofy as well, but he just didn’t have the available time. With his tutoring, training, and dungeon runs, he was lucky to have the time to take the classes he had already chosen. The only reason he could was that the Guild training was not a college. The lectures usually ran long, but were more informational than graded. They also only met once a week, with some classes being only twice a month. Team Tactics was the exception, meeting every couple days. Books for each topic were provided with the entry fee for the course, some of which were staggeringly expensive.

The ridiculously high cost of some of the classes was almost entirely due to the book that came with them. These books weren’t just study material, or even guides. No, they were full research encyclopedias. The one he was most interested in was the bestiary. It was enchanted to take voice commands, as well as touch input, to help you find a particular type of creature. The other books were similarly enchanted, but not quite as thoroughly. He was interested to see if they worked as well as the Tablet of Prejudiced Segregation. All in all, he was quite looking forward to learning everything he needed to know, but also to the whole mess being over.