Some were stronger, more… present or pertinent, others were ghost like, as if ephemeral and not useful. Something about the feeling let him intrinsically know that pursuing them were useless, including the one straight up. But, they still were important, somehow. He giggled; a full on actual giggle when he realized how broken this skill was, but also that he had a chance to make it back home! Tension he’d felt that he didn’t even know was there seemed to flood from him and he bonelessly settled back into the bath, stress fleeing his system and peace replacing it.
He laughed within himself for some time before sitting back up and grinning with avaricious greed. Need a goal… pretty sure that last one might be… just a bit too big. And… not sure on the time… so… back to essentials right now. Hm… My goal is to gain as many levels as possible within the rest of my year before naturalization while remaining low key from any others who do not know me and my abilities… besides Kukurnal and Gwenvair… the Matriarch… Kilinara and Garnedell and Zilnek… uh… besides them. Joe paused and thought deeply, cautiously considering his set goal. Oh…wait… and… arg… probably have to start all over again. Joe restated his goal quicker this time but added on that he wanted to make sure to keep Kilniara, Zilnek, and Garnedell with him. He paused for a bit then included Gwenvair in deference to Kilniara. He then considered some more very carefully before continuing. I seek my goal.
Once again, the mana pressure in the air coalesced, but this time much smaller and seemed to go much slower. It remained tight around him before it erupted outward in a slow but very minor wave this time. He watched it head out and it quickly changed from a wave to a roiling beam of mana that pierced directly out from him in four directions, the telltale pull returning and connecting him to whatever was out there. The beams of roiling mana felt something like what Joe could best describe as a chain of mana, although it had no chain links and bore almost no similarities in appearance to chains or chain links. It looked more like a rope, or a string. But Joe swore it felt like a chain in a way that left Joe a bit flummoxed.
He was lucky to have his map still open to him and grinned when he saw two locations light up: the beginner and advanced dungeon. The beginner was brightest while the advanced was less so. Joe frowned at that and looked at the other two beams radiating from him and he closed his eyes. It was then that Joe noticed the pulls were different, and with some careful thought, he was able to link the two strongest pulls to the beginner dungeon and another place that went towards the inner city. The strongest, by far, was the beginner dungeon, the second being the one to the inner city, the third the advanced dungeon, and the last somewhere in the same direction as the advanced dungeon.
Huh… pull strength or brightness… depending if I’ve been there before or not. This… Joe grinned and dropped the skill, satisfied with what he’d learned as well as happy to realize he’d lucked on a fast way to gain his stats as well. He rested back in the water and just enjoyed himself.
He lay like this for some time before he pulled himself from his relaxation and returned to his exploration of skills and abilities. He looked at party communicate, party locate, and share map, figuring he could use share map and communicate when he was back at the inn with the others to test it, not wanting to shock anyone with a random message. Especially they were out enjoying themselves and even if he sent a message, he wasn’t certain if it was instant two way communication or even just one way. If it was text, he’d need to be there to get verbal confirmation from them as well. Help, as always, proved useless and told him nothing more than what the names already were.
Party locate, however, proved very useful, and amalgamated with the map system even better than the dungeon finder and other feeling systems. The party members that were in places where he had a map showed up on the map, and those that weren’t in a place where he’d explored showed up as an arrow on his map pointing into the fog of war where the party member was, the feeling also tugging him in that direction. Kilniara happened to still be in Gwenvair’s place, somehow, while Garnedell and, he assumed, Zilnek were off of the shopping district in a direction he hadn’t explored yet. An arrow pointed off from the shopping district towards Garnedell, showing him how to get there. Well… that’s nicer than the dungeon finder… wonder why it doesn’t do the same thing? It certainly would be nicer!
Joe sighed, letting it go and turned to the looter skills now, the three being pretty obvious with even treasure guide seeming obvious now that he knew how dungeon finder and party locate worked. He did, however, learn that treasure nose and treasure guide were a bit related with treasure guide seeming to be minor upgrade. Treasure nose gave him a way to sense treasures using smell with treasure guide adding a small pull like feel like dungeon finder, but it was even more ephemeral and tenuous than any of the other feelings he had. On top of that, the guide allowed for targeted search of a specific treasure while also allowing him to get some information regarding some of the treasures he had if he looked at them and invoked the skill.
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He was excited when he read that, and quickly pulled out a core from his bag, pulling out a damaged one and one of the perfect ones he hadn’t damaged yet.
Treasure guide, show me this core!
Core: Spark. Damaged.
Joe looked at the information then erupted in anger, actual vehement curses erupting from his mouth as anger fully took him in a way that hadn’t occurred in years. Just as quickly as anger shook his control, he had it back in grip as his mouth snapped shut and his anger flooded from him in waves of hatred. All hope for the skill long gone, he pulled out a perfect core.
Treasure guide, show me this core.
Core: Spark. Perfect.
The sigh that came out was resigned depression and he sank back into the bath again before turning to treasure evaluate, still holding the perfect core.
Treasure evaluate this core.
Very high value
Joe then held up the damaged core.
Treasure evaluate this core.
Slightly High value
Joe sighed, putting away the cores and moving on from the group skills, some proving to be very useful but would require him using the three sub jobs he had available for just these jobs. Maybe I can just pop them in as a job when I need them?
He then turned to the faith jobs quickly, just to check them to make sure if there was anything meaningfully significant, glancing over everything but didn’t see anything useful. Just about when he was going to turn to the doctor skills, he noticed something interesting. All of his skills for changing main jobs were reporting a skill growth at point zero three one, even the Saga chaplain. But… I only changed a main job once with saga chaplain? Why is it the same level… Joe blinked, confusion painting his face a bit before a smile quickly replaced it. They’re all the same skill! So is the subjob change skill! They’re all one skill, even if they are spread through multiple jobs! Joe’s grin grew a bit more before he began nodding, his good mood quickly returned. OK. Some worthless stuff, but some useful stuff. I’ll be able to keep leveling all my change job skills even if I change the jobs… the skill is the same skill so...
Joe began looking through his skill list again and found many skills were the same, although some were not, as the predict job skill that all the theorist jobs had and showed only predictions related to that line of jobs, but others seemed to be the same skill. He couldn’t tell. I guess I’ll only know if I see the skill level in the other job, too. Then… Joe stopped and looked at the heal skill that medic and doctor both had. Curious. Joe thought for a bit, then swapped out his main job for doctor and pulling a dagger from the bag at his side. He then shifted in the water and held his hand over the edge of the bath before cutting himself several times until his HP zeroed out and then healing himself until he got a hundredth of a point towards his first level. He smiled, seeing the medic’s heal also hitting a hundredth as well. Ha! Same skill. It wasn’t a very useful skill at all, as even after using heal for a good couple dozen times and emptying his mana twice, it only closed the wound enough to end the bleeding, a scab and scar still visible.
I can only hope magic heal works better! Joe then did magic heal and felt his eyebrows shoot up into his bangs. His MP began to drop like a rock, but the wound began to close at a rapid pace, and Joe smiled when he saw his wound close and then the scab fall off a moment later with the wound healed. He was left gasping as he pushed his personal mana as well into healing the wound and found the wound erased, even the scar gone. Joe smiled at that. So… something useful, finally! But then his grin mellowed as he realized that he took all his mana just to heal a small cut that had already been healed almost completely by the heal skill. Which … takes much less mana! But…
Joe thought a bit, then cut his hand once more, attempting to do the exact same amount of damage as before after his MP had recuperated. He had to get through his HP once again, then carefully cut himself before quickly using magic heal on the wound. This time, his MP tanked even worse, but the wound healed quickly, covering over and stitching back together, the skin stretching outward in thin webs of skin to connect across the cut to pull the wound back together. The stretching webs started from inside out, first closing and pulling blood vessels back together before then pulling the surrounding tissue in an ever rolling outward wave of repair until his outer skin was throwing webs of rapidly growing skin across the wound before pulling shut. His MP had bottomed out just after his blood vessels were repaired but still well before his skin began its repair, which gave Joe some relief, but he was still a bit worried about how MP intensive this was. He pushed on with his personal MP to finish the healing, and found himself gasping after the event, his system MP emptied and his personal MP feeling almost as emptied as well, although it was more of a hollow feeling of hunger than a quantified number like the system supplied. His wound, however, had closed completed, without a scar. Nice… so nice!