Chapter Sixty Eight
Joe awoke once again in the middle of the night, the darkness still covering everything and he sighed. It wasn’t a bad way to wake up; well rested and ready for the day. It was just annoying to wake in the middle of the night. He allowed himself a good chunk of time to laze on the bed before getting serious about his training. He looked over what he’d done the day before, having gotten level thirty on his latest journey on the faith line of jobs, getting Saga acolyte up to thirty and almost to thirty one by the time lunch had rolled around. It hadn’t proved very useful at all, giving worthless stats although it did give a good chunk of learning for an average job. The only thing that it really did well was a pretty massive boost across all magical resistances he could currently see, which was very nice.
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
30.00
Gravity
30
Magic Defense
30.00
Saga Acolyte
30
Magnetic
30
Strength
30.00
Unselected
0
Light
30
Dexterity
30.00
Unselected
0
Shadow
30
Agility
30.00
Space
30
Speed
30.00
Spirit
30
Endurance
30.00
Mental
30
IQ
60.00
Sound
30
Wisdom
90.00
Electricity
30
Will
60.00
Learning
120.00
Luck
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0.00
And, of course, the very, very interesting and exciting possibility of opening second jobs. Joe had been very careful of pursuing secondary and tertiary jobs, as Gwenvair had made it abundantly clear that it was for nobility only, even the knowledge of it, and he wasn’t certain how much the temples knew about it… or… at least the average clergy, seeing as there were an entire duplicate set of temples in the inner city and he wondered if there were even private shrines in the noble central city or in private homes.
Hmm… maybe… should I ask Gwenvair to change my second job? Would she… take it as just a … like… gift thing? Or is it … Joe ground his teeth a bit, not in any agitation, but simply deep thought as he considered his options. He remembered what Gwenvair had told him before, and realized that he was only a job or two away from being able to likely unlock it all himself. Not… sure that I should really say anything… she was quite certain that there were no third jobs… only two… I’ve got… something like... three extra jobs. That’s double hers… what she going to think if I’ve found a way to have four jobs… could just get one, but… Joe didn’t feel like showing more than he’d already had. Already know about my … lots of perfect cores… didn’t even know about that… now they’ve gotta be wondering about gifted points… whatever that is… and Garnedell’s parents knew more than they let on… so… Joe seriously considered it for some time before sighing and passing on the chance.
He was only a few jobs away. He could wait, as much as it pained him, and he had no pressing need to push. He still had a cycle or two through the temples, possibly another one even as it seemed the temple swapped out who offered job change services. That gave him a month, if not another two, possibly, and by then he could easily swap out to the Loki priest line and no one would know. Joe frowned then smirked. Except other Loki priests… and they’re not going to rat me out… heh…
In any case, he was grateful to be able to get further along the job changing route and kept track of the time, making a mental note to attempt the next priest line of jobs in another five or so days. While he was grateful to be growing and reaching, hopefully soon, towards a job change skill, and maybe even a sub job change skill, Joe felt frustrated with the weakness of these jobs. The stats were …boring… I’m bored, I guess. There really isn’t anything really new or unusual. And, honestly, so were the skills. It appeared the priest line of jobs gave bonuses to stats, each god or goddess giving their own boost. Mimir had given wisdom, which, to some extent, made sense as Mimir was the god of knowledge, although it made more sense it had done something for intelligence instead. Saga, the goddess of wisdom, increased MP, which utterly confused Joe. He couldn’t understand why. The first of the Saga jobs gave a bit of bonus to MP and MP recovery. The next Saga job did the exact same thing, only just a bit better. He did get one interesting skill: cure disease. Hmm… might be pretty useful… if a bad disease comes along, but… Considering how it appeared that just about any middle aged acolyte would have that skill easily and so low in the Saga chain of jobs, Joe wondered at its usefulness. Seems too nice of the system to give something like this so… commonly and easily. Gotta be some kind of catch? Or… is disease just not an issue here… cause of magic healers… maybe?
The last interesting skill he found was truth reading, and Joe grinned to see it. Heh… seems like… a lot of priests get this then? Think I saw another priest … the one besides Kukurnal who helped me with the usurer that was trying to enslave Kilniara and her brother… both had truth reading… so… let’s check this out.
Help. What is truth reading?
Truth Reading: The ability to feel the nature of a statement and to know whether it is the truth or not.
Joe grinned at that, a soft smirk, before he continued. Let’s break the system a bit. Help. Is that objective truth or personal believed truth of the individual speaking.
Joe’s grin grew as the time went on, and he waited for quite some time before the next dialog box popped up.
Please wait. Your answer is being considered.
Heh… gotcha! Joe’s grin turned to a full on laugh at that, but as nothing changed, Joe’s grin soured and turned into a full on grimace. A short while later, the message flashed, changing to state that he would be informed and given an answer at a later date. Joe frowned. Well… I can just figure it out myself pretty quick. Joe sighed and moved on.
After he had taken the time to take a look at the various benefits that Saga Acolyte gave him, he soon soured of it and ultimately found it meaningless for him, even in the long term as far as he could really tell. Although if I ever caught the flu, it might be worth it to swap jobs just to kill it. Joe grinned at the idea of never having to deal with the flu or cold again and suppressed a chuckle. Wonder if it would work with harder stuff… cancer? Other things? Joe pondered the ramifications for a bit before shrugging and turning to his new job: explorer.
He had chosen to push on towards the melee jobs and hopefully unlock some of the jobs that would allow him to more readily use various weapons. With the option of having multiple jobs possibly soon available, keeping a melee job available just to use that weapon might be useful.
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
All Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
204.97 (138)
Physical:
Wind
44.95
SP
316.24 (283)
Piercing
32.18 (48)
Water
44.45
MP
347.29 (100)
Crushing
32.96 (132)
Earth
37.95
Attack
186.76 (181)
Slashing
33.22 (39)
Fire
42.05
Defense
186.76 (158)
Ice
44.20
Magic
531.45 (100)
Gravity
37.95
Magic Defense
1055.66 (100)
Magnetic
37.95
Strength
204.46 (148)
Light
37.95
Dexterity
194.52 (112)
Shadow
27.50
Agility
190.38 (133)
Space
37.95
Speed
180.55 (115)
Spirit
55.95
Endurance
203.01 (193)
Mental
49.95
IQ
1103.46 (132)
Sound
37.95
Wisdom
2144.8 (105)
Electricity
37.95
Will
1530.3
Learning
58212.18
Luck
59.79
He played with his status a bit more, but tired of it quickly, as the explorer job registered at level zero with all stats zeroed out so could learn nothing from it. He did, however, realize that he could see a good representation of his base stats at the moment and popped open his main display and found his current stats to be quite good. He smiled, brilliantly, feeling quite a bit more relieved as he found himself at or better than his earthly stats. I made it! I made it! Relief flooded through him and he actually felt the tension of the last eight months slide from his body. He laid in his rest for a good several minutes before he could get himself to be bothered to continue. Pushing on, he went back to his status.
He looked over his stats once again, pride replacing relief before he looked at the rest. A glance at his physical resistances, however, left him concerned, especially with his ability to resist punches. He’d spent most of his life training himself to be quite resistant against that and was displeased with his current poor resistances.
His other two physical resistances, piercing and slashing, were not too bad, and if he had to head into the new year with these base stats, Joe would be pleased, although he would reveal a startling lack of digits when he lost the five digits from the two parenthesis and three digits from earth. Although! I could still be pretty… meaningful with the two decimals and decimal point… most would count that as three digits right there, right? And with all my base stats at three digits already… that gives me six! Joe’s worry was a bit relieved until he realized that he would have to be carefully if he ended up with any round numbers as then he would drop from a six digit individual to a three digit one; not nearly as terrifying! Still! A good start and useful for when I can start living on this planet without a blade over my head… I should probably leave the area before the end of the year and kind of fade away from the infamy I’ve gained here… I don’t want to make so many waves… especially on a bluff.
Despite that, the guards and soldiers he had seen here did not really impress him, and what he’d seen of Gwenvair’s magic wasn’t something to really be too concerned about either, especially as he had the ridiculous HP to work as some kind of shield before he was even hurt. Sprinting up, or even just throwing a spear or shooting a bow and arrow would pretty much end any magical threat and even if they had a decent level of HP, which they likely wouldn’t, most people seemed to only have a single lower level job, striking two or three times would empty it pretty quick.