Chapter Forty Four
Joe woke in the morning to a wonderful day, the sun still not risen but the false dawn visible through the windows. The two boys were sprawled on their bed, still asleep and snoring quite loudly. Joe smiled at their splayed postures before yawning loudly and stretching so greatly his whole body contorted.
Collapsing back from the full body yawn, he nestled into his bed a bit more and exhilarated in the full rest he’d gotten and the feeling of deep contentment. He lay there a good twenty or thirty minutes until he felt ready to rise and stood up before beginning several stretches and his daily exercise. He went over his set of forms for that day, cautious to remember them as best as he good; he had no more access to any Masters or the internet to correct his form, only his faulty memory.
The time went quickly and he went through all his forms diligently before sitting back down and digging through his bag. He’d gotten a few cores from the trip yesterday and he dug into the bottom of his bag and pulled out the couple cores he got to drop them into his core sacks. As he dug through the pack and began looking for the cores, pulling out the sacks of cores he had, he decided the pack needed better organization as things were becoming a bit of a mess. It was well designed, but he’d been adding a couple things to the pack not intended by whoever had built this thing and he decided to see if he couldn’t organize it a bit better. Also, several of the tools he had weren’t in their correct spot, having been quickly dumped them in for ease over the last couple weeks while he was in the city and he spent a good ten minutes emptying out his bag and repacking it correctly, replacing everything in its correct place for the things that had been tailor made for the pack.
He then took a look at the left over equipment: the pile of ten sacks full of cores, the spoon spear, and the new spear he got as a prize yesterday. He quickly decided to discard his spoon spear, maybe giving it to one of the siblings, probably Zilnek because of how heavy it was. He could fit the new spear into his pack and harness in place of where the spoon spear went easily enough. The ten sacks of cores needed to be in a bit of a secure place and he fiddled with the backpack until he found a place that he felt would be easy enough to use yet fit well. He began stuffing in the sacks, counting quietly as he picked up each one, and as he reached his eighth one, he smiled with some relief because he saw that all ten would fit easily enough.
He fit the ninth in and reached back for the last and felt his hand floundering around an empty bed and looked back to find the bed empty. Eye’s furrowing, Joe pulled all the sacks out again and counted them carefully, finding only nine. Joe grimaced in anger and emptied his pack once again, separating out each carefully and found the last sack of cores and pulled it out to sit with the others. It was when he pulled it out that he felt it, hefting in his hand to measure its weight and squeezed to measure its fullness. He put it next to the others and noticed it was flat. Joe remembered quite clearly that all ten sacks had been quite full, which was why he’d begun destroying any cores he was getting. This last sack wasn’t even half full.
Joe considered for a bit then dug through the bag and a couple other likely locations where some cores might have been lost once again but found nothing else except for one single core that had someone gotten twisted up in his sleeping bag. Joe stopped, considering the empty sack before looking back to the two boys still sprawled in sleep, thinking carefully while chewing on his lips before he finally sighed and repacked everything. Something I’m going to have to bring up, I guess. I’m not sure who else could have gotten the stuff, unless they robbed our room. But if there were thieves, I doubt anything would be left behind!
After Joe repacked everything and put his pack and away, he leaned back on his bed against the wall and spent a lot of time lost in dissatisfied thought, his feeling of contentment long lost. He wasn’t tired anymore, but had nothing else really to do this morning nor really felt that motivated having found things missing. It wasn’t so much that he thought it was ‘his’ stuff as the fact that it was done in secret. It was the lack of trust that really destroyed Joe’s good mood and he found himself sighing often and repeatedly while he waited for his three apprentices to wake up.
After the sun had made it over the horizon and was now blazing its light into the window, the room brightened considerably and both Garnedell and Zilnek stirred, deep yawns waking them to the sunny morning.
Joe nodded to them but then ignored them, leaving them to their morning ablutions as he considered his plan going forward. He’d not really thought much of how things would change but as he’d been lying in bed, mind whirling as it often did before he slept, he realized he had another option to raise his base stats. His titular master title allowed him to raise his base stat for every title he had, and he was able to get titles pretty easily. The biggest detail was the fact that any titles that allowed duplication such as his legendary killer title also allowed him to know exactly what to do to get it again since he already knew how.
He considered what he had and knew and when through his options. The ten thousand killer was out, requiring way too much time. The legendary killer was actually a good option since he could get two titles for each action: one title for killing the monster, likely a spark since it was so easy, and one title for the legendary monster killer title.
He went through his other titles and came to the king killer and throne titles, and he and two pairs he could do that with: the goblin king and it’s… His?... throne and the hobgoblin king as well. Each of them also gave him two titles with a single… Well, almost single act. He could double up on that as well by taking out the goblin king and then going straight to the fifth flour and taking out the hobgoblin king, although having to fight the five other monsters before he could take on the hobgoblin king.
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But he would also possibly get the dungeon destroyer and conqueror titles as well, although he wasn’t sure of that. It was also possible that those were one time titles although the way they were described and their miniscule rewards seemed to indicate growth through multiple instances of those titles. The only thing he wasn’t sure about was if he would get both those titles if he didn’t also take out all the sub-bosses. Wait? Maybe the sub-bosses will only show up if I defeat them, but then I won’t get those in the boss room? That would make it a lot easier, but then… hmm. One of those dungeon titles must be or maybe is because of fighting all the sub-bosses as well. The discs to entrance of the fifth floor door must mean something. Having to fight five bosses twice then all five with the dungeon boss again to get one more title wouldn’t really be worth it, if that were the case. If he was going to do this, then, the best he could hope for would be five titles: two king killers, two thrones usurpers and one dungeon title. That would give him five stat points for a day’s work.
The legendary monster killer titles would actually be more efficient, as he could stack up ten or more legendary sparks and kill them all for a day’s work. Each kill would give him two titles and thus he could get two stat points per monster he killed for a day’s work. If he got two sparks per room that he could gather sparks at, he would have twenty four legendary sparks for a total of forty eight stat points per stat. That would get him a very long way to raising his base stats. In fact, with only two or three days, he could get all his base stats above his Earth based stats.
But given how the city had reacted to his killing the legendary sparks before, he really didn’t want to instigate the city into bringing in new forces in or let people know what he’d done. His apprentices knew, but he had asked them to remain silent. Hmm… might be a good idea to remind them again. I know I asked Garnedell to stay quiet, but... Joe glanced to the two … young men but saw they were still going through their morning ablutions and returned to his musings, making a mental note to ask later.
The other option was to raise the number of his titles by going the king route, which would get him four titles and possible five or six netting him eight to twelve base stat points per day but would keep him under the radar, not attracting any attention.
Of course, if he decided to just go with raising his jobs, he would get, at minimum, twenty stat points per job per stat, which would amount to a base of two. But that was a minimum, and he was getting significantly more points in his mental stats for all the education jobs he was raising right now, which gave a significantly greater total of stats across all his stats although more heavily weighted on his mental stats.
But his mental stats were pretty good now and what he really needed were his physical stats, and what he really needed beyond that were skills that would allow him to use other weapons, such as his spear. I got the rings from the goblin king, though… Besides, he could double up and still level his jobs as well, so he went with the same plan slightly modified. He would still level his jobs and finish getting his club up to one then continue leveling jobs while also getting titles. With this in mind, Joe tried to figure out what kind of growth he would get but then Joe looked up at the two boys again and found them joined by Kilniara, all three now going through the simple movements he’d trained them to practice in and Joe stood to train them, having made his decision for the day.
The next few moments were spent going over their training regime, most of it spent on Zilnek and Kilniara since Garnedell actually had a good half a year of training already. They finished their morning routine and they all took a moment to cool down and wash up a bit before heading down to breakfast. When they were ready to head out, Joe asked the two siblings to head down and get their breakfast ready while Joe took Garnedell aside and spoke to him.
“Garnedell, remember I asked you to keep quiet about some of the things about me, right?”
Garnedell quickly nodded, a nervous twitch coming across his face, “I’ve not said anything, sir!”
“I’m pretty sure. I’m not asking about you. Just, have you told Kilniara and Zilnek as well?”
“Only what you said, when you said it at our meals.”
“We never talked about killing legendaries, correct?”
“No, never.”
“Can you make sure they are silent about the big stuff and really try not to say anything about before? And any new stuff… we gotta keep it quiet. I don’t want it to get out.”
“Of course. I will speak with them.”
Joe nodded then headed down for breakfast with Garnedell.
When they arrived, their food still hadn’t been cooked and Joe sat and looked to the three, clearing his throat to catch their attention.
“OK. So… I spoke with Kukurnal a day or so ago, and, I know … um… I know I haven’t been really good at this, but … it’s pretty weird for me and something I probably would never do, or not for a long time yet just because of how young I am, so I’ll try to do it and make sure that I’m good for you but this is pretty … yeah… like I said, it’s pretty weird for me, so I’ll need you to be a bit patient with me because I know that I’m not… I’m rambling… OK. Let me…” Joe stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
“One more time! Right, Kukurnal said that there was this big important public deal for taking apprentices. So, public, right now. You three are my apprentices, if you want. Garnedell, if there is some ceremony, how do we go about doing that?”
Garnedell smiled real big and laughed a bit, “You acknowledged me, so I’m already your apprentice.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said I’m your apprentice.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, especially if you tell other people.”
“Oh… so I should tell other people?”
“It’s better that way.”
“Hmm,” Joe shrugged and then nodded, “OK, fine by me. But let me make sure first. Garnedell, I’m sure of. Kilniara? Zilnek? Do you want to be my apprentices?”
The two quickly nodded, large smiles revealing teeth that actually took Joe aback a bit as they were quite a bit more pointed than human’s; obvious predator teeth. Joe kept his shock from showing though, only throwing a flickering glance at their teeth before smiling, “Great.”
Joe then cleared his throat a few times then stood up before calling out to the dining area around them, “Right. Everyone! These three are my apprentices. OK?”
Joe looked around a bit, watching as everyone else looked at him with various emotions of shock, confusion, embarrassment, and humor. Joe quickly looked back down to his three apprentices and found all three hiding their heads and looking away in embarrassment as well.
“Wait? I thought you said it was supposed to be public?”
The three didn’t say anything, looking away although Garnedell looked at him before quietly speaking up, “Master, you don’t say it … just out loud like that to strangers.”
“Oh… um… oops?” Joe shrugged and chuckled as he sat back down, a subtle burn of red tinging his cheeks.