I spent a few more days at the adventurer's guild to learn more about the language, and hopefully a good place to move to next. I also went around exploring the city myself. Interestingly enough, while there were several guildhalls located throughout the city, there was nothing resembling a healer's guild, whether religious or magical in nature. Instead, everyone went to several clinics bearing a close resemblance to apothecaries located throughout the city. Upon some further investigation, and some gaining some sweet experience from cleaning up the apothecary, I discovered that no magic was used throughout the process of healing injuries. I found that rather odd, seeing as if magic existed, why would people not use it for healing injuries?
However, what interested me far more was the lack of anything more than basic cleanliness when treating injuries. The practitioners would wipe their hands off after treating each patient but nothing more than that. I began to wonder if the herbs they were applying to the wound had very strong anti-bacterial properties or if there was a skill which caused resistance to infection. I noticed that the apothecary had several books on healing so maybe I could find some of those once I had an adequate grasp of the writing system.
I continued my surveillance of the clinic until they closed with the sunset. I began to head back to the adventurer's guild. Around halfway back, I stopped for a second. I realized something. Something that I really didn't like. I gain levels through cleaning... and the dirtier something is, the more my skills level up and the more levels I get. My gaze turned ever so reluctantly towards the sewage ditches by the roadside.
Nope. Nope. No way. I am not going into a sewage ditch. I don't care how much experience I get. I will not do it. Not if experience is the only thing I gain. I continued on towards the adventurer guild, but then I stopped. I thought back to the first city I was in. It was fairly clear that something horrible had happened there, and given the evidence I had, it had most likely been a plague of some sort. I was kind of growing attached to the people here. Well, at the very least I didn't want them to suffer the same fate, so making the city more sanitary would directly aid in that endeavor. I wouldn't come in contact with anything, and the sewage would magically disappear. Magically. I spent the next thirty minutes trying to come up with some reason that cleaning the sewage ditches was unnecessary, but in the end, I couldn't convince myself that I had a justifiable reason not to.
So, with a fair bit of apprehension, I set about my new goal, sanitizing the city, starting by the adventurer's guild. It turned out that cleaning sewage took much, much longer to clean. Furthermore, the close proximity overwhelmed my air purification aura for a bit, and it reeked. I considered quitting for quite a few times. Fortunately for me, the level-ups started to kick in after a few hours and the smell went away. The cleaning also got considerably faster as I kept going, and I managed to clean out a whole 10-meter section of sewage.
I spent until the following morning cleaning up the sewage ditches. I stopped once I noticed that people were beginning to wake up. I'm fairly sure that people might find it suspicious that sewage is mysteriously vanishing from the side of the road. Because the adventurer's guild wasn't going to open for a few more hours, I took the opportunity to check my status at the crystal.
Species: Cleaning Spirit
Level: 5
Experience: 332/1000
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Skill points: 20
Skills: Cleaning Aura (Level 4), Air Purification Aura (Level 5), Sanitization proficiency (Level 3), Language Learning Proficiency (level 3), Memory Enhancement (Level 1)
This worked much better than I expected. As it turns out power leveling is an actual thing in this world. Also, I can suddenly see why no one would ever use power leveling. Furthermore, I can gain skills through performing tasks, as evidenced by the Sanitization proficiency (Level 3) as well as the Memory Enhancement (Level 1). I'm fairly sure that the first came from my efforts to sanitize the city, while the later came from my consistent effort to memorize the language over the past several days..
After spending a fair bit of time debating what to pick up with my new skill points, I decided to pick up the analysis skill, saving the remaining 10 skill points for later use. This should be useful for various purposes. However, using the Analysis skill on one of the many tables scattered throughout the room led to some... interesting results.
Wooden Table
Hazard level-Very low
Contamination level-Very Low
The analysis skill shows how clean an object is as well as how hazardous the contamination on the object is. On one hand, I feel misled, but on the other, I guess it makes sense that you couldn't get a skill that would just tell you stuff about any given object you wanted for a measly 10 skill points. Also, it does make sense that I would get a skill like this as a cleaning spirit. However, I'd thought I cleaned everything up quite thoroughly by this point, so I gave the table a closer look. After a bit of searching, I found a quickly receding patch of mold which went away fairly quickly. I analyzed the table again.
Wooden Table
Hazard level-None
Contamination level-None
Having a new way to check my work, I went around analyzing various objects for a bit. and seeing how many I could remove all the various hazards from. After a bit, the staff began to show up. I hovered in the rafters to listen in as I normally did. I could understand them quite a bit better now. They made comments about how clean everything seemed to be lately, along with various other guild related matters. Interestingly enough, no one suspected me as the cause of the sudden cleanliness. It seemed that there were two dominate theories relating to this clean phenomenon. One was that a wizard or other such spellcaster made a spell which would auto clean the guild. The other was that the staff had done a much better job cleaning than they normally did. Thinking about it, who's first thought would be that a cleaning spirit randomly moved in to the guildhall and started cleaning? I certainly wouldn't if I were in their shoes.
That being said, the day progressed as it normally did. Adventurers came and went, I listened to the various conversations around me, and made more subtle strides towards a clean guildhall, such as cleaning up the odd stain or two. I also went out for a few hours, stopping by a few of the apothecaries to spend a bit of time sanitizing each of them. Eventually the day was over, and I was back to cleaning the sewage by the side of the road. Out of curiosity I analyzed the sewage.
Wastewater
Hazard level-High
Contamination level-Extreme
Interestingly enough, it was called wastewater, rather than just plain old sewage. That was the only unexpected part though. Continuing on with the cleaning, I'd managed to fully clean 20-meters of the stuff by midnight, and it just kept getting easier as I went. By the time morning came, I'd cleaned out a full 40 meters of the sewage. I checked my stats the next morning:
Species: Cleaning Spirit
Level: 8
Experience: 596/1600
Skill points: 35
Skills: Cleaning Aura (Level 7), Air Purification Aura (Level 6), Sanitization proficiency (Level 5), Language Learning Proficiency (level 3), Memory Enhancement (Level 2), Analysis (Level 1)
I was elated. I had gone up three whole levels. And I was one step closer to my goal of a clean city. Was I proud of my work? Yes? Did the citizens dump a whole lot of sewage in the street the next morning? Also, yes. And finally, did I feel like my heart was being stepped on and sulk in the rafters for the whole day? No... Well... maybe half the day.