It took him a bit of time, wandering in and around the crafters sector with a couple of times asking directions, but he finally made it to the carpenter. The man saw him and simply stood, much like the armor crafter, and brought out his two tonfa. When he saw them, Joe’s grin split his face and he took them, feeling them slide into his grip with a smooth feeling of completeness. Joe grinned, and immediately began using them, throwing out punches and halves of a couple different katas to gain a feel for them. He was soon able to use them with all the articulation and perfection he’d done so back on Earth, and his grin grew.
“They’re perfect! Thank you.”
“Aaah… you’re welcome… if I could… um… what are they?”
Joe’s grin grew, “Weapons.”
Joe turned and left the man behind, flipping and spinning the tonfa with ease and a grace that he found exhilarating. Man… I’ve missed this… Joe walked down the street, heading back to the inn for the day, having some alone time which he found more than acceptable. In his grip, the tonfa rested with ease, calm and without vibration or movement of any kind. The tonfa continued twirling around his wrists and arms with the perfectly smooth ease of a well-oiled machine just tuned to perfection. He did all this without thought even as he popped up his status. Right... let's take a look at what scout gives us...
* * *
Over the next week, ten days, the pairs became firmed, with the girls sticking together and the boys enjoying each other’s company. Each day found them in the dungeon again and again, with the day ending for the group at either the dungeoneer’s guild or the adventurer’s guild where they enjoyed a delicious meal. Several times, Gwenvair did join them at the bath, but didn’t seem to be as comfortable and only joined a few times, although she did begin joining more frequently as the days passed and seemed to grow ever closer and closer with Kilniara, the two now regularly meeting together as soon as the day began and stuck together like glue until the end, the two always whispering and talking together.
In that time, Garnedell was able to make it to level nineteen, much to his joy, and Zilnek was able to gain three levels and almost make it to level seventeen. If Joe was able to guesstimate Zilnek’s experience from the status, he would hit seventeen tomorrow. Zilnek’s and Garnedell’s levels seemed to simultaneously galvanize and shock Gwenvair as she saw their rapid growth, especially how quickly Zilnek was growing.
Joe also had a moment of note with Garnedell on the last day while he was leveling up the last of the Saga priest jobs. Zilnek had grown exhausted sooner than Garnedell and escaped back to the corner to rest. Garnedell stayed with him a bit longer and Joe took the time to speak with him, slowing their attacks to allow some time to have a conversation.
“Everything is going well, Garnedell?”
Garnedell grinned, “Pretty well.”
“And your goals?”
Garnedell’s grin grew, “Well, Joe. I thank you for your help.”
Joe chuckled, “You helped me so much as well. It’s just… life.”
Garnedell looked up at Joe, his grin softening into a thankful smile before he nodded. Joe nodded back, and for a time, they fell silent and into a mutual rhythm against the current goblin. After the fight, Garnedell continued the conversation.
“And you, Joe? Is all well?”
“Yeah… not much to say… just going through the… oh! Hey!” Joe paused at that and flipped open his available skills to check before grinning and looking at Garnedell and continuing.
“Mind helping me with something?”
“Sure, Joe.”
“Well,” Joe dropped to a whisper, “I now have a priest job. I want to test the truth telling skill.”
Garnedell looked up at Joe with a grin, and some small hint of surprise, “Already?”
Joe grinned, “Yeah.”
“Can you change jobs yet?”
Joe’s grin fell to a frown, “No… still need another job or two.”
Garnedell nodded, then shook his head, “You say that with disappointment, but any other would be … so jealous of you.”
Joe’s frown was replaced by a soft look of chagrin, “I know… but … anyway…”
“Go ahead.”
“Right… just… answer the question for now.”
“OK.”
“What is your name?”
“Garnedell.”
Joe paused at that, and felt a sense of rightness; a knowledge that it was correct, or right in some way. Joe pursed his lips at that before continuing.
“What is eight times nine?”
Garnedell frowned, “I don’t know what… times is…”
Again, a sense of correctness returned and Joe frowned, then lost his frown as he considered. Huh… that… is useful… can know if he’s telling the truth about knowing or not knowing… OK. Good to know… but… not what I wanted…
“There are … uh… eight baskets. In each basket is three apples. How many apples are there total?”
Garnedell frowned at that, backing out from the fight and began wrestling to figure the answer, his fingers flickering as he began counting. He paused and did so again, then a third time before looking up with a grin.
“Twenty six.”
Another sense of correctness came to Joe and he sighed. Well… that… makes sense. No way it was anything else… Personal belief… I guess… but, yeah…
“Right… last one. Just tell me that your name is Joe McConnell.”
Garnedell looked up at Joe with that and Joe simply nodded, “Go ahead. Just say that.”
Garnedell nodded and began, “My name is Joe McConnell.”
The feeling was much stronger, this time. A sense of wrong tinged with a rather unpleasant smell hit Joe and he grimaced with that before naturally reacting to clean out his nose. Garnedell watched on with some amusement and Joe chuckled.
“Smells like… rotten … something if it’s a lie.”
“Oh… that… is interesting.”
Joe shrugged, “Yup. Very much so.”
They fell silent a bit after that then Garnedell started his own conversation, a bit more anxious.
“Joe?”
“Hmm,” Joe replied a bit absentmindedly, diving in to the combat.
“I… I think… I will try.”
“Try what?” Joe asked, remaining focused on with the fight.
“Commoner.”
Joe blinked at that, then grinned and ended the fight immediately, killing the goblin with a deadly thrust before turning to Garnedell with a smile, “Really?”
Garnedell noticed Joe’s grin and a grin answered it, if still with a bit of trepidation, “Yeah… Yeah, I think I will.”
Joe’s grin grew, but he didn’t push it. He did clap a hand on Garnedell’s shoulder before nodding happily.
“Thank you. Really. Thank you for trusting me.”
Garnedell’s answering grin was a bit more relaxed and then he huffed, “I don’t know how you convinced me.”
Joe laughed, “Leveling fifty jobs in the last hundred days?”
Garnedell looked to the side in a bit of embarrassment before shaking his head, “Um… well, maybe.”
Joe shook his head and pulled another goblin, “Well… how are you doing… choosing another weapon?”
“Still thinking about that… but leaning towards bow.”
“Hmm… any questions?”
“No… just trying to figure out how I would use it.”
Joe nodded, “Smart. Not a bad idea.”
His grin grew at that, soaking in Joe’s praise with happiness.
“Then anything else you want to do or for me to do for you?” Joe asked.
Garnedell paused at that, then shook his head, uncertain, “I don’t know… what to ask?”
Joe’s smile grew and he began listing lots of options that might be useful to Garnedell, and the two spent another good ten minutes or so in discussion over what Joe could offer Garnedell. Garnedell actually fell into exhaustion before their conversation was done, but stayed beside Joe, too excited to leave as he continued speaking for a time before he finally begged off to collapse in the corner. Joe didn’t get any rest as the two girls quickly appeared at his side. He didn’t complain at all.
* * *
For Joe, the ten days proved both exciting and a bit boring, as what he found out from the combat line of jobs proved to be less useful than he thought. Scout opened up the mercenary, duelist, soldier, gladiator, horsemen, and warrior jobs, which appeared to be the kind of jobs that opened up a bunch of combat subjobs. He also opened up another group of jobs that appeared to be categorized a bit differently than the previous listed jobs: thrower, staff warrior, bladesman, axman, war hammer, mace, and pugilist. Joe was a bit confused by how the war hammer was considered different from a mace as they were both technically the same weapon if just shaped a bit differently, but Joe didn’t really understand how the system worked at all, to be honest. Joe wasn’t quite sure how to take it once he’d gained them, but looked them over carefully regardless. He did open up the gladiator job immediately after the scout to see how weaponry would be handled and felt an immediate relief and gratefulness as the weapons sat in his hands without being hindered at all.
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
All Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
8.00
Physical:
Wind
0
SP
32.00
Piercing
0.00
Water
0
MP
16.00
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Crushing
0.00
Earth
0
Attack
96.00
Slashing
0.00
Fire
0
Defense
16.00
Ice
0
Magic
16.00
Gravity
0
Magic Defense
16.00
Gladiator
32
Magnetic
0
Strength
96.00
Unselected
0
Light
0
Dexterity
32.00
Unselected
0
Shadow
0
Agility
64.00
Space
0
Speed
32.00
Spirit
0
Endurance
128.00
Mental
0
IQ
16.00
Sound
0
Wisdom
16.00
Electricity
0
Will
12.00
Learning
32.00
Luck
0.00
He swapped between spear and bow without the weapon vibrating violently in his hand and smiled brightly. The night he’d opened gladiator, he decided to keep it and didn’t stop at the temple square that night, playing with the weaponry and carefully going over the stats, skills, and abilities that gladiator gave. Ultimately, it proved to be quite depressing as it really wasn’t as useful as he’d hoped.
Gladiator was abysmal for stats, giving only a third health and half stats for almost everything else. The only thing that gave a semi decent boost to stats was strength and endurance, with a tiny extra to agility. Otherwise, the stats were downright awful. On top of that, the skills were pretty worthless as well, with the only real nice things being the ability to use all weapons and, surprisingly, a boost to learning, where his experience was doubled; or, functionally, it doubled his learning stat. At this time, he hadn’t noticed if there was a difference, nor had he found an example where the effect ultimately created any differences. Maybe there’s some kind of… special situation? But… from what I’ve seen… learning is a straight up multiplier to experience… so… functionally it would be same as adding it to my learning, right? Didn’t notice a difference from the titles… the effect’s essentially the same. And the effect was quite noticeable as he was able to reach level thirty two by lunch time compared to all the other jobs making it to thirty and hitting the massive wall which was the thirties.
Those two skills, however, were not ‘char:’ skills and only worked with the job equipped. On top of that, there were two other skills which were more appropriately called curses, to be honest, which deteriorated and destroyed his weapons. I guess gladiators suck at weaponry? Which doesn’t make sense… or mayb… it… Joe had shaken his head in disgust when he’d seen that, as gladiators would have been excellent at caring for their weapons as their lives depended on it. In any case, the whole job was worthless, just as he’d been warned, despite the two excellent skills he’d found already. There was one other skill, light armor, which appeared to give him a skill to more easily use light armor and that skill was the only one that actually seemed to make sense to him considering what a gladiator was.
Gladiator Skills
Weapon: All – Able to wield all weapons.
Weapon Deteriorate: All weapons deteriorate at an advanced and rapid rate.
Double Experience: Gain double experience.
Light Armor: Able to wear and use light armor in combat.
Weapon Self Break: Weapons break regularly and often while being used.