Chapter Seventy Two
Joe woke once again around midnight, waking deeply rested, but also with a frustrated sigh. He stretched and rolled around in the bed for a bit, annoyed to find himself awake in the middle of the night once again. He glanced over to see the boys sleeping soundly in bed then glanced out the window to find the gas giant low on the horizon. He didn’t have really much to do, not even the option to really look at his job data because he’d changed his job to Loki cleric last night and now was looking at a job at level zero with no stats, skills, or anything interesting to explore.
Man! I miss the internet and stupid cat videos! Joe sighed again and returned to his status screen before frowning and dismissing it, turning instead to his magic practice. Before he even began, however, the sound of thumping and a low uproar sounded from the floor below. A party in the dining area? This late at night? Joe waited a bit, but the uproar died down and all was quiet once again, but now that he was listening for it, he could hear the steady low murmurs of conversation and multiple people moving. It was so low that unless he really focused on it, he didn’t even notice it.
He almost thought about heading downstairs to join the party, but then decided against it as he didn’t know the etiquette for parties, let alone feeling comfortable about crashing a party. His mind swirled through ten thousand thoughts and he turned to one that was weighing heavy on his mind. Garnedell’s despair and panic yesterday worried him. Garnedell had done well when he’d pushed through to becoming a commoner and while he did well yesterday, seeing him panic at not being able to use his staff had made it clear to Joe that Garnedell wasn’t doing well. Garnedell had tried; doing the best he could, but after Joe’d seen his panic in the morning, it was easy for Joe to recognize it buried deep in Garnedell’s eyes.
How am I going to help him … he’s just going to freak out no matter what… probably the only way is if he gets… ooh… that … yeah… If he could get through faster, that would really settle his nerves, but… what… Joe flipped open his status and opened his available skills to search through his options. He was quite diligent, searching through his skill listing and only found one skill that was really useful. He frowned to see it, not sure what it would do beyond the name and its weak description.
+ Learning to Party: Gain a miniscule boost to learning for your party members.
It would definitely help, given that a miniscule boost, no matter how small, would be massive when you only had one or two learning anyway. He sighed and began trying to figure out how he would be able to use it. There were two and figured it would be easy enough to be able to get one added in for the day if he gave up his speaking skill for the morning before taking it back after the fight. And I can use my other char: to get both. I’ll lose my double learning, but… that should help him. Joe grinned at the idea and turned his thoughts to other options, using his own status to study it and figure out options for Garnedell’s development. After going through it a good couple more times, the only other real idea he had was to get Garnedell started on using the cudgel as soon as possible so that he could get a char: skill for himself.
After thinking a bit more, he felt like he’d pretty much exhausted his options and then turned to more generic planning, trying to figure out what else he could do and as his eyes scanned through the skills once again, he quickly came to the conclusion that getting something in healing would be important as well and after consideration decided that he would be able to at least put some meaningful effort towards that by simply changing his job to medic, assigning his double learning char: to it, and spamming it each night and morning. He was already practicing it, and if he planned this correctly, he’d barely be able to do it with the two chars: he had and still be able to help Garnedell.
He would use his speaking char: to give Garnedell a boost to learning, swapping it back to speaking at noon to be able to speak with everyone in the afternoon. It would be dangerous, as he would lose his ability to communicate during combat as well as leaving him down any ability to swap char skills for that char: for the rest of the day. For his double learning skill, he would assign it to his healing skill in the evening and change his job to medic so he could level it that night and the next morning. He would need both to level the skill, so he had no options. That would use up one of his changes for the second char: skill during the day. The next morning, he would continue leveling his healing skill then swap to the job change skill so he could change his job back to the next Loki priest job so he could continue leveling it towards the sub job skill. Since it was the next day, that would use up his char: swapping options once, leaving him only one more. He now had to decide if he wanted to swap to double learning and leave him without char: versatility for the rest of the day, or leave it to be able to use it the next day to swap back while leveling healing, or basically leave leveling the healing skill to every other day.
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Maybe… I could … what if I swap the chars. Maybe… let’s see… What if I swap the language to party learning boost right before bed. Don’t need it at night… and that can set the change back a day. Then, when I swap it at noon back to speaking, I can swap it that night… OK. That works. So then… Now I need double learning, the other party learning boost, job change, and medic. That’s… too many. Not going to be able to do that. Party learning boost then? But, if I can get sub job, that would really free me up and save a lot on char swaps. I’d keep a faith line available at all times to swap jobs… just keep going up through the Loki priest lines… Double learning will let me get there faster, so… shouldn’t lose that. Have to keep job change, since I have to swap to medic to level the heal skill and have to char heal to level it as well. So… that leaves … still three. Joe frowned at that thought.
So, options. Char job swap the night before… nope not…oh! Not going to need it the night before. My priest job will have leveled that day and given me the job change skill back. So, I’ll char: heal and swap to medic. One char: swap gone. Sleep and get two more the next day. I’ll have to char: the job change skill and swap back to my next priest job. Back down to one. Yeah… I’m kinda screwed. If I swap to double learning, then I can’t assign it to heal cause I maxed out the swaps for the day.
So… I can only work on the healing skill every other day, I think… Or give up the double learning… that’s probably counterproductive, sooo… option two. Swap job that night, job change skill in the morning and change job to next Loki one. Then char: double learning and that night I can’t work on heal. Next morning, don’t mess with the char: and simply use the Loki job to change my job to the next Loki one. Then that night, I have two char: swaps available again since I didn’t use them at all that day. Swap to medic and char: heal to spam healing all night and the next morning before going back to the beginning in the morning; char: job change, swap to the next Loki job, then char: double learning again. I’ll be able to keep double learning permanently while also leveling healing every other day.
So... swap between language and bonus learning to Garnedell with one, and with the other, swap between double learning, healing, and job change every two days while keeping double learning every day in the dungeons. That... seems pretty good? Not the best, but...
Joe frowned, not liking the option, but it was the best he could think of for now until he could get his sub job change skill and be able to fill up his jobs with lots of options, including a permanent faith job, always swapping as the next one became available, for its job change skill. He thought on it a bit longer but then dismissed it as he wanted to get to his magic practice, so he dove head long into diligently training his mana, emission, mana points, mana point manipulation, mana manipulation, and finally mana point movement.
He did take some time to take a look at the points that were floating around him, considering them carefully but found nothing really new or that unusual about them, although they did respond more quickly and agilely to his commands, their movements quickly seeming crisper, faster in response, and even faster in movement as well.
Joe smiled at the feedback, grateful to see that the training was actually meaningful and he returned to alternating through all forms of magic training, his emission coming a bit easier than it did before, or at least he felt less exhaustion after having done his emission exercises. His exercise continued on until his eyes grew heavy once again and he found himself drifting to sleep.
He, of course, didn’t know how long he slept, but the light of dawn was filtering in through the window, both the sun and gas giant, which was now fully in the sky, casting their light upon the planet. Kilinara’s snuggling under the sheets and her cool skin against his body the primary reason he woke. He groaned, stretching in pleasure as he rolled over and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her tight into his side.
“Mmmmm. Morning!”
Kilniara sighed her own pleasing groan and turned into him, tucking her head under his chin and into his chest to breathe in the heat that was emanating from him, “Morning to you as well. Did you sleep well?”
“Of course. And woke well, too. It’s always nice to wake this way.”
“You enjoy it?”
“Yes… yes I do. Your touch is… very enjoyable.”
She froze with that statement, but then began brushing her hand across his bare chest and back.
Joe chuckled, “That wasn’t a hint to force you to do so, but it does feel very nice.”
She didn’t say anything, only nodding quietly. They remained like that for a while until Joe finally stretched and rolled away back onto his back. Kilniara shuffled after him quickly, glomming onto his side and pressing firmly against him. Her leg draped over his and Joe stifled the moan from having her leg against him, so close. He clinched his teeth and pushed down his desire, keeping himself silent as he did not want to embarrass Kilniara unduly, nor pressure her. Even so, the main reason was more to simply keep himself under control. He was finding it more and more difficult to not simply indulge. She had intimated several times already that she would be willing, but the lack of birth control and the necessity of caring for a kid even as he balanced fighting dangerous monsters in dungeons wasn’t something he was comfortable doing, especially as he had no back up or family to really care for things if anything happened or things went sideways, nor did she.