A week later, this was my big news
Level: 2 1/2000
Now it takes two goblins to give me one SP. Lance nodded like this should be obvious. I guess it is.
I'd also saved up enough cards to make my turn-in quota. Five level five cards for six new items:
+ Potion of Healing III
+ Potion of Healing III
+ Potion of Cure Poison
+ Steel club
+ Steel long dagger
+ Ring of Storage [x2]
Aside from a little chafing and a few blisters early on, I haven't gotten hurt but it's nice to have insurance in the form of those Healing Potions. Same goes for poison. I tried the weapons, and it's good to have options but I'll stick with steel fists for now. The real prize is that Ring of Storage that doubles my Storage capacity.
Being able to carry more weight is only half the story. In the dungeon I don't have to pause to pick up treasure from the floor. I can just step on it, think Storage, and it adds to my private supplies. Outside, I can haul awkward loads without extra containers or bungee cords. I picked up some extra bikes and spare parts, and loaded up a few times at libraries and used bookstores.
Make and Mend works on books, makes the material good as new if I supply material for missing pieces, otherwise it makes the material thinner to fill in any gaps. What it won't do is replace any lost text. If a page is missing, that information is gone and will be replaced by a blank page. I figure every winter rolls the dice on every cache of books in the world, and some will get compromised, their contents ruined by mold or vermin.
Saving all the world's books. Not gonna happen, but I'll do what I can.
After leveling up when I got back to base, I saw the Flora and Dungeon Paths opened up again for 200 SP each. They were 100 each last time I saw them. When I picked up Flora, Dungeon disappeared. Maybe I can only have one Path per level?
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Status.
Year 2 Month 7 Day 2
Name: Eric
Class: Farmer
Level: 2 7/2000
Age: 9 (57)
HP: 86 / 86 (92)
MP: 29 / 84 (90)
SP: 267
Strength: B 27 (30) + 14 41
Agility: B 27 (30) + 12 39
Smarts: B 27 (30) + 15 42
Stamina: B 27 (30) + 16 43
Skills
Status, Storage (1), Karate (1), Judo (0), TaiChi (0), Swords (0), Farming Plants (2), Artifice (1)
Storage (1): 1689/2000
Karate (1): 621/2000
Judo (0): 351/1000
TaiChi (0): 470/1000
Farming Plants (2): 511/3000
Artifice (1): 67/2000
Artifice Path Allows creation of new items.
+ Make and Mend (1) 1221/2000
Flora Path Allows control of plants.
+ Plant Empathy (0) 0/1000
Nice boost to HP and MP, but "Plant Empathy"? I mean, sure that's an incredible skill to have and I guess I shouldn't knock it until I try it, but the term Path hopefully implies something more practical gets unlocked eventually.
Based on the previous two levels, the next stat raises will cost 1000 SP each. That's 2000 goblins, or 200 a day for ten days. Raise Smarts, which will raise MP, and in turn accelerate Skills that need MP to practice. And in the meantime, I need to get better at my kung fu. Maybe I should take Lance on a field trip downstairs to get a peek at the next monster in line.
On the other hand, I need to move any supplies that need moving while the weather is nice. Cases of food are waiting for me, miles away from here, and they won't wait forever. When I go scavenging, most packaging still looks okay from the outside, a few cans with rust spots around the edges, more or less still wholesome depending on what's inside. Highly acidic foods will resist decay the longest, and I remember something about green beans being the worst for that. Pickles, pineapple, cheese, and really dry foods like dry pasta, rice, and whole wheat should keep for years if I can get them stowed safely. A few trips every day really adds up, and I can see the effect on my Stamina too.
At least locked doors are no longer a problem. Five seconds with Make and Mend, and they still close securely but no longer lock. Broken windows are also no problem, if I catch them early enough, before Nature has moved in and wrecked the interior. Nature's still going to win, but I can patch things up for a while and delay the inevitable.