* * *
Gunlan Galgandar, second son of clan Galgandar, lounged on his bed as he waited for Hoular, the mind mage, to acquire the information he was paid for. Gunlan cared little for the peasants of his city, but when his carefully laid plans were so easily interrupted by a peasant displaying shocking amounts of wealth, he found himself unwilling to forgive the peasant. He was not, however, foolish. Such wealth did not spring from nothing, and he had no desire to acquire another enemy. Thus, Hoular, the mind mage, had been employed and brought here at great expense. His planned ascension to clan Patriarch would not be hindered. His mother had been Matriarch for long enough and his elder sister would soon no longer be in succession for clan leadership. He’d made sure of that, and things were traveling apace, but this Joe had greatly upset his plans. He needed to know who his enemies were.
Sighing in boredom, he took another fruit available to him and laid back on his bed tiredly. He had little need of sleep, but still enjoyed it, especially in the company of his concubines. This evening, however, extended quite a bit longer than he’d expected and his poorly leveled concubines proved incapable of matching his stamina and endurance. It bothered him little, as he could simply bring another, but it was tiresome that his favorites could not keep up with him so easily.
Not for the first time, he toyed with growing them, but, once again, discarded it. Having them with power was always a danger and it made them stronger, which took away their delicious weakness he so enjoyed. Glancing behind him, he stared at the other three exhaustedly sleeping before he turned back to stare at Hoular with mounting frustration. It was almost morning, and still the man played his games. Always pleading difficulties for greater pay. Gunlan understood the temptation as he himself had done so with his own clan as he sought out whatever gain he could get. But to think a peasant would believe they could do the same to a clan member?
Gunlan shook his head and hid his anger. The man would receive his punishment soon enough, as soon as he had… Gunlan’s thoughts trailed off as he noticed a red droplet form on Hoular’s upper lip. Intrigued, he stepped forward, curious. His curiosity did not last long, quickly turning to disgust and anger as Hoular rapidly began shaking violently even as blood began seeping, then erupting from his eyes, nose, and ears. Gunlan quickly stepped back from Hoular even as his bleeding grew ever more profuse.
“Truly? You claimed to be a great mind mage! I certainly paid enough for one! Bah!” Gunlan growled angrily as he turned back and began slapping the women on his bed.
“Wake up! Wake up! Go get my butler! I need a new mind mage! This one is a failure,” Gunlan waved wildly at Hoular before turning back to look at the man in disgust.
Suddenly, Hoular’s eyes opened wide even as a gasp exploded from his lips, “Impos…”
“No. Not impossible. You are just… horrible! How much did you reveal,” Gunlan grimaced as he watched with disdain until Hoular toppled over on to his side, still stiffly sitting in his meditation pose. Gunlan watched on for a few moments before growling loudly when he felt the heart beat end and kicked the man as hard as he could in the gut, sending the dead mind mage skipping across the room to smash against the wall near the entrance. Gunlan did not fear, but he was not a fool.
“Get this garbage cleaned up! And where is my butler! Bring my entourage and inform them we will be traveling. We leave without delay!”
The room exploded into activity, the women on his bed fleeing to their rooms to prepare for the day while guards and servants secreted in the room immediately flowed in. The room was a bustle of activity with Gunlan standing motionless in the middle, servants bathing, cleaning, and preparing him for the day while others packed and still others took the body of the dead mind mage away. It was only a few moments before the butler glided into the room, another center of calm in the middle of otherwise chaotic madness.
“There you are! Prepare for travel. We leave immediately. Seek an appropriate destination and purpose, but we must leave now.”
“Yes. Immediately, master.”
“Inform those in need of our whereabouts.”
“Yes, master.”
“And,” here Gunlan actually paused, a hint of uncertainty playing across his face, “inform those who remain; ten steel to those who can gain the measure of this Joe McConnell. I have need to know of his strength… and patience.”
* * *
Joe recovered from his meditation much more slowly today, taking longer to deal with his nightmares, but as his nightmares had awakened him quite a bit earlier than normal, Joe found himself basically on time and only a bit exhausted. He glanced around the room and quickly noted everyone was still sleeping.
Joe turned to his status as he always did, verifying his gains from before. He'd not really seriously looked at his new faith line believer job, so he turned to it, curious about whether it had leveled with the first. Flipping up his status window, he raised an eyebrow in surprise at the new color, although he found the burnt mustard to be rather unpleasant. However, he was happy to see that he had been right, it didn’t matter that he’d leveled the scholarly believer job since the faith believer job also leveled as well, ‘magically’ leveling with his scholarly believer job. The stats were completely different, which shocked Joe. What he did find even more surprising, however, were the skills which were all completely different. Huh… weren’t the waiter and cook the same… like… copy and paste with their other jobs? I thought this would be the same… but… guess I was wrong… well, obviously I was wrong, but.. doesn’t that mean it’s technically a different job? Why are they linked in leveling? It seems… weird.
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
All Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
30.00
Physical:
Wind
60
SP
30.00
Piercing
30.00
Water
60
MP
90.00
Crushing
30.00
Earth
60
Attack
30.00
Slashing
30.00
Fire
60
Defense
30.00
Ice
60
Magic
60.00
Gravity
60
Magic Defense
90.00
Magnetic
60
Strength
30.00
Light
60
Dexterity
30.00
Shadow
60
Agility
30.00
Believer
30
Space
60
Speed
30.00
Spirit
150
Endurance
30.00
Mental
120
IQ
150.00
Sound
60
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Wisdom
150.00
Electricity
60
Will
112.50
Learning
90.00
Luck
0.00
After exploring the new stats and comparing them with the other believer job, Joe ended up putting aside his notes and turned thoughtful. He pondered for a bit before turning back to his ‘questions for later’ list and added in another at the end: ‘Why are the believer jobs so different?’ This was likely never to be answered, but it was an oddity and oddities often painted interesting thoughts leading to other information. Feeling like he’d explored as well as he could, Joe put aside his thoughts of yesterday and turned to today. The oddity of two identical jobs leveling one another but with completely different stats and skills occupied his mind strongly and he forgot he'd also raised Mimir faithful yesterday.
He rose to his feet to head downstairs for his forms when he remembered he had one more form of training and settled down in the corner far from the other two so as to not disturb their sleep. Slipping into his training mindset, he let his thoughts focus on what was happening within him while also pushing his body to full tension followed by exhausted relief. Sometimes, while mana escaped from him like steam from an over pressured container, he would watch physically, peering deep into the depths from where the mana seemed to explode from, while other times had him with eyes closed and mind diligently parsing through what his body was reporting to him.
As before, he noticed nothing and could only think that what he was experiencing was simply unknown to him without more practice and actual experience. He was more and more certain, however, that he hadn’t lost the ‘muscle’ to atrophy, whatever it was, as it seemed that the natural response of his body was to contain the mana and he had to push it out against whatever was keeping it in, much like gas or, maybe a better but more disgusting analogy, explosive diarrhea. No matter how much he wanted to keep it in, it was coming out, although in regards to his mana, it seemed to be opposite as he was trying to force his mana out through whatever was forcing it to stay in. Once he’d exhausted himself, his whole being would collapse from exhaustion, including whatever was keeping it in, and thus, the mana flow coming out was much smoother and uniform as it was being released without forced through an attempt to withhold it.
Despite the failure, Joe thought little of it beyond seeing it as just another practice session and was soon out of the door and in the courtyard below, moving through his forms. He found solace in the success of his forms, both because of current mastery and because he recognized it as a sign of possible growth in his other esoteric skill: mana manipulation, or whatever it was.
The morning forms went well enough and Joe found himself back up in his room a bit earlier than normal, the exhaustion from his mana practice cutting short his time in his forms. Huh… need to alternate it then? Go all out on one every odd day and the other every even day. Should I alternate? Or do both each day, just focus on one over the other? Joe mulled over the idea before deciding that the regular daily practice was better than losing half for both. Besides, he would only grow stronger and soon would hopefully get a grasp on how to release his mana naturally instead of being ‘constipated’ and having to force it out.
Joe got to the room and found the other three still asleep, so decided to put in another round of mana work while they were sleeping. He was able to accomplish another two cycles before collapsing in exhaustion and finally decided to call it quits. He would need something in the tank to handle his combat that day.
Boredom set in and he turned back to his status, idly swapping through the screens when he hit his available jobs tab and remembered. Ohh... dude! Mimir Faithful. He decided to then take a look at what gains he’d gotten in his new Mimir Faithful class, a small tinge of excitement returning as he hoped for something useful. After looking for a bit, he took a look at his current status for the Mimir faithful and found the resistances a pleasant surprise. He’d received few magical resistances from his classes so far, but it seemed like magic resistance was something to gain from the religious lines, which was not something he would look down upon.
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
All Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
30.00
Physical:
Wind
30
SP
30.00
Piercing
0.00
Water
30
MP
30.00
Crushing
0.00
Earth
30
Attack
30.00
Slashing
0.00
Fire
30
Defense
30.00
Ice
30
Magic
45.00
Gravity
30
Magic Defense
45.00
Magnetic
30
Strength
30.00
Light
30
Dexterity
30.00
Mimir Faithful
30
Shadow
30
Agility
30.00
Space
30
Speed
30.00
Spirit
30
Endurance
30.00
Mental
30
IQ
90.00
Sound
30
Wisdom
60.00
Electricity
30
Will
52.50
Learning
180.00
Luck
0.00