Joe sighed and ended up going back to his original plan, safely, and quietly killing basic monsters while raising his various jobs. Well, crap! I almost screwed up big time! This isn’t quiet, and it isn’t even really safe either! Why did I… Joe’s realization flushed through him and he suddenly felt the cold wash of fear settle in his heart as he’d completely disregarded his original plans and the need for safety. He hadn’t seen anything of hospitals or doctors here, and although he’d seen magic and heard of healers of some kind, he didn’t know if there was magical healing or how effective it was. Something else I need to figure out, definitely, but why did I … Joe felt the fear ease away but settle deep in his bones to simmer, a problem to requiring time to consider but terrifying enough to burrow its way into the back of his thoughts, forever pulsing and shifting as only a living thing good, never dormant, never allowing his mind to rest.
Joe looked up when he heard some shouting and cheers and realized he’d been out of it, missing the whole fight for the three apprentices. He stood and joined them, asking them how they’d done. All three bounced with excited energy, going over how they’d fought and critiquing their performance well.
“I’m not sure exactly how well you fought,” Joe smiled at that comment sheepishly, “but, you guys really did very well with your critiques. You keep doing this, and you’ll only improve. Nicely done!”
The three smiled brightly and Joe waved them on to another goblin, “Alright. You guys seem to be doing well and you know how to fight these. Keep going, and I’ll fight my own. OK?”
All three responded excitedly and quickly turned to another goblin and Joe turned to fight his first after changing to his new job. He came upon the goblin quickly and took out his new spear, using it for the first time. He spun it in his hands and felt himself settle for his fight. He’d been in real combat now for over six months and was finding it easier and easier to settle into his warrior persona. All else faded around him and Joe found the goblin his sole focus.
He settled the spear in a two handed grip, wanting to try it out first without a shield to distract him. The goblin, of course, picked up the first thing it could find for a weapon, a small stick which was more like a switch, and Joe actually smiled a bit at seeing it before blocking a single hit from that switch before bringing the spear down sharply across the chest of the goblin, upper right to lower left. It wasn’t enough to kill, as the spear had a very weak cutting edge, but it was enough to stagger it and Joe stepped forward with a sharp thrust that finished the goblin, killing it.
Joe smiled as he felt the pulse of experience flood him even as the goblin faded to blue dusty sparkles that dissolved upward. He quickly opened up his status to see what citizen theorist gave him then almost gaped in shock. What he saw almost overwhelmed him as the stat gains he was getting from it. True, the physical stats gave him nothing at only one point each, but there was a bump to the magic stats, just a minor one.
What was truly exciting was the boost to the intelligence stats and, gaining sixteen and twenty to wisdom. The shock came from the learning stat, one hundred points per level!
Joe actually stopped in shock looking at his current stats. He couldn’t believe how much he was gaining from just this job and now understood why his job guidance skill had literally sung to him when he asked about the amount of learning he would gain from the theorist line of classes. Joe quickly swapped to look at his available jobs and almost drooled at the list of jobs available to him: nine jobs including his current theorist job. That would give him a total of one thousand eight hundred learning before any of the boosts he got from titles or skills! If he had is math right, he was getting more than eight times boost to learning because of his titles and skills, which meant an added base to his learning stat of almost fifteen thousand! OK! Might be worth it to level these jobs at least. I’ll be able to learn a lot from them, at least!
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
1.00
Physical:
MP
2.00
Piercing
0.00
Attack
1.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
1.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
2.00
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Magic Defense
2.00
Strength
1.00
Dexterity
1.00
Agility
1.00
Citizen Theorist
1
Speed
1.00
Endurance
1.00
IQ
16.00
Wisdom
20.00
Learning
100.00
Luck
0.00
Joe found himself once again avid to push himself, desiring to push his growth and turned to the goblins around him, pausing only a few times to glance towards the apprentices to make sure they were doing well and were safe enough. He then turned to his target and plunged into his first fight, rapidly closing in and savagely destroying the small goblin. It died quickly and Joe felt the wash of experience flood over him with the flash of leveling welling from him.
Joe smiled and flipped up his status, looking at his current level for the job and blinked in quite a bit of shock. Level nine?! In one kill? Joe froze for a bit before he giggled to himself, then stopped and glanced around in mortification. Did I just giggle? Red tinged his cheeks and the then turned to look at his three apprentices before turning back to fight more.
He looked at his status over the next hour or so after each kill. He only killed another five monsters in that time, but he gained quite a bit more levels in that time, the third kill getting him to level fourteen, and the fourth to sixteen. The following kills only got them another level each after that until level twenty. The following levels took quite a bit more kills, slowing down rapidly, quite a bit more rapidly than he expected given how fast he was growing before.
By the end of the day, despite his rocket like growth at the beginning, he’d hit a cliff that completely cut off any other growth and the data he’d learned intellectually played out for him brutally in that moment as he hit twenty five shortly after noon but didn’t make any further progress until just before the end of the day, with the last couple of monsters. He made it to level twenty six and frankly was stunned that he was now able to make it to level twenty five in a single day.
The last level seemed to drain him of any other will to continue and took a step back, then, and began to more actively stand guard over his apprentices, offering them pointers and help as they fought but ultimately ending the day as he noticed how exhausted all three looked, especially Zilnek and Kilniara. Huh… Garnedell seems fine… heh… must have better endurance! Joe mocked to himself silently. But then he stopped, brow furrowing as he reconsidered it. Maybe… Garnedell is an adventurer, he gets better endurance.
Joe considered the three apprentices carefully as the finished their last fight, no longer really giving any pointers but taking their exhaustion and action into consideration as his mind reconsidered the importance of the stats. He’d already noticed that intelligence, or IQ, really did deeply affect individuals, although it didn’t really affect the sapients he’d met in the same way it did back on earth. Low IQ directly affected their intelligence, even to the point of the human mind’s capacity to control the body, with extremely low IQs actually killing people as the mind was incapable of controlling the body.
Here, however, the intelligent stat didn’t seem to actually relate to intelligence, but to speed of thought, action, and reaction. The stat defined how quickly one could process incoming sense data, analyze it, and respond. He wondered if there really was another statistic related to intelligence as scholars of Earth truly defined it. Although if there were a stat like that, Joe could only assume it did not change as he didn’t see any hyper-intelligent individuals nor any evidence of such. If I was really as intelligent as what my current stats say I am, I’d be making warp drives and teleporters…
Joe found his three apprentices standing around staring at him and he jerked his head up when he realized he’d been caught daydreaming and he looked at all three.
“Heh. You caught me. How long was I out of it?”
The three looked at him with some confusion until the shockwave of not pressure expanded outwards and all three seemed to understand as soon as the wave passed them. Garnedell quickly dismissed Joe’s concerns, but Zilnek seemed shocked while Kilniara actually giggled a bit at Joe’s comments, turning her head away with a blush.
Joe smiled at their comments then nodded and cocked his head towards the exit, “Right… let’s go home and get some rest, OK?”
All three nodded and followed after him, breaking into their own conversations as the followed behind, although Joe didn’t join. The travel through the streets went quick enough and they found themselves back at the inn, albeit a bit earlier than he was planning or used to. He called for water up to their room and saw that the innkeeper was quite displeased, a slight grimace marring his lips. Huh… going to have to add a bit to the bribe, I guess. Joe didn’t want to jeopardize his bath time, so thought about bribing the innkeeper once again when they went back down for dinner, mind going over options for an effective payment.
Kilniara went to her bedroom after declining the option of bathing first. Joe and the boys took a quick bath, although Joe did enjoy his bath a bit longer. After he finished his, he told the boys he would be right back and took off for the temples to change his job so he was ready for the next day.
He went directly there and back again, returning to the inn only about twenty minutes later, finding Zilnek having just finished his bath and clothing himself. Garnedell was done and leaning against his bed while Kilniara was sitting on her brother’s bed. Joe greeted them as he walked in the door.
“Ready for supper? Kilniara, you can stay and bathe if you want.”
Kilniara looked uncertainly to Garnedell who nodded reassuringly and Kilniara smiled brightly back at Joe with a nod.
Joe grinned and nodded back, “Right. We’ll see you downstairs for supper.”
All three guys headed outside and shut the door behind them. When they were outside, Joe turned to the other two boys.