“It happened! Bountiful Harvest is ready to tier up! Mia, should I wait till tonight or initiate it now?” Brad asked his girlfriend, whom was now running up to hug her boyfriend in congratulations.
“Why would you want to wait? You might as well do it now, in order to get all the benefits sooner. It will help our harvest today too!” Mia said.
“Well, I wasn’t sure if there would be side effects to the tier up. Rumble changed a lot, but who is to say that I would be ready to work afterwards without rest or something.”
With a smirk and a laugh, Mia asked, “What, do you think that you will suddenly burst into a pile of black goop or something? Sure, you might get hungry, but you wont suddenly need to vomit or anything like that. It is an upgrade, not a sickness.”
“Ya, ya. So should I upgrade it now then?”
“Of course do it now! It is going to drive me crazy waiting to see what your options are when you tier up!” Mia said, almost screaming in impatience.
“Maybe we should do it tonight when we have some spare time….” Brad teased before letting out a yelp of pain as Mia stepped on his toe out of frustration.
“You would not even dare. Puppy! You will be a good puppy and hit that tier up button right now.” Mia demanded, with an obvious sense of affection for her teasing boyfriend mixed in.
“Okay okay, I will do it now.” Brad conceded, before pulling up his menus.
Congratulations for a achieving Copper Tier on your second skill!
Skill:Bountiful Harvest is now Copper 0
Skills required for Copper Tier rank up 2/2
Skill: Bountiful Harvest is now ready for an Evolution.
Please choose one of the following choices for skill evolution.
1. Larger Crops: Grown produce is larger
2. Hardy Crops: Crops are more resistant to outside factors
3. Plentiful: Crops gain a chance to produce extra yields
4. Ripe for Market: Plants stay ripe for longer periods of time
5. Diversify: Allows a small percentage of the skill’s bonus to affect produced animal products.
“Well, that is interesting. A few are quite useful for us and Rumble.” Brad said before proceeding to tell Mia the options.
“‘Diversify’ is nice and honestly something I would normally want, but with Rumble we should probably consider it a hard no. I would also put ‘Ripe for Market’ in the same category, with possibly ‘Plentiful’ joining them.” Mia commented after a few moments of thought.
“Well that just leaves one actual option in my opinion…. We decided that Rumble would probably not be suitable to a super large size, so all that is left is ‘Hardy Crops’.” Brad pointed out.
“That is a very fair point. It would have been better to double up if that was the path that we had chosen, but with his current traits, it would most definitely be better to choose the hardy option.”
“I wonder if that will include a thicker skin or a drought resistant ability? How exactly will it affect our crops?”
“We will just need to find out, Puppy.” Mia said while lightly flicking Brad’s forehead.
Letting out a small chort of amusement, Brad chose “Hardy Crops”. “Well, it is chosen. Lets see what happens”.
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Turning towards their fields for a wide inspection of everything, Brad failed to see any meaningful change. After a few minutes of waiting and a tug on his sleeve, Brad excitedly asked Mia; “Did you see something?”
With a disappointed expression, Mia gave her answer. “No, but waiting for it will do nothing beyond wasting even more time. We will probably need to let the crops slowly change for its results to show. Besides, we really need to finish up before the sun sets.”
Just as Brad started to move, a new alert popped up into view.
Congratulations!
You have progressed to Copper Tier!
Your Tier evolution will proceed while you next sleep in a “Safe” location.
Evolution will include the following:
1. Access to a new ability from both selected classes.
2. Access to the “Bloodline” menu
3. Upgraded physical and mental capabilities.
4. An bonus trait to be awarded for exceptionalism in the newly completed tier.
“Awesome! I just got my notification for hitting Copper tier. Apparently it won’t register until I sleep in a ‘Safe’ location.” Brad told Mia after having stopped her to let her know the good news.
“Congratulations! And as to the ‘sleeping in a safe location’ that will not be an issue, our home counts as one. From what I have been told, that mostly just affects combat classes since they mostly tier up in dangerous areas. I have also heard that large dungeons often have designated safe areas, in which monsters tend to avoid you, so that is most likely what is being referenced.” Mia explained, being a font of knowledge once again.
“That makes sense.” Brad responded before commenting more a short pause later; “I kinda want to sleep early tonight and skip dinner now.”
“You would not dare starve your innocent Bunny… would you?” Mia said looking at him with her most pitiful expression that she could muster.
“Possibly, but then I probably wouldn’t sleep right.”
“That is right! The guilt would drive you crazy!” She agreed.
“I meant the bunny would probably kick me in spite.” They can get pretty touchy when it comes to their food!” Brad joked while dodging a light jab to his shoulder.
“Hmph!!!” Mia loudly grunted while turning away from her partner and walking back towards where she was working.
~~~
Sometime later as the twilight passed into dark, Brad put down his plate in order to ask Mia something that had been bugging him. “Mia, are you happy with this situation?”
Mia not quite sure what her Puppy was talking about asked a question in response. “Am I happy with what situation? Our relationship? Our business progress? There are many things to be happy about.”
“I meant specifically our relationship. We kinda just jumped into it and it feels like we never really thought about it. We literally started living with each other almost immediately and started dating within almost no time of knowing one another.”
“Haha, you never really thought about it? I certainly did. Have you ever known me to not think about a decision? Brad, there are things about my past that makes you incredibly comforting to me. The fact that you are so innocent and seemingly just act out of instinct when it comes to interpersonal relationships is what I really lo~ LIKE about you.”
“Really? Wait, what about your past makes you like me? What happened?” Brad asked, now hyper curious and not catching the unusual stutter in his girlfriends final words.
“Well, I kind of was waiting until later to tell you everything. But now is probably as good of a time as any to say it.” Mia said, sitting down her plate and squaring up to look at her boyfriend directly. “Everyone technically starts with a bloodline, but due to my family I already have a well developed Bloodline. See, I come from a very successful merchant family that was more or less wiped off of the map in one fell swoop. My family specialized in logistics and the dealing of arms for armies. Having lost everyone else in my family, I was put into the orphan program with a mercantile specialized program. Everyone that I have ever known before or even in the program spoke in double meanings and had hidden motives. You are genuinely honest and as easy to read as a picture book.”
“That is a ton of stuff to unpack and I am not sure that the end was was at all flattering.” Brad commented, taking a minute to process what had just been said. “First off, I’m not as bad as a picture book…but in all seriousness, I am sorry to hear about your family. I figured you would mention your circumstances eventually, none of us actually wanted to be orphans. So how does that leave you going forward?”
“Well in terms of our relationship, I am extremely happy so far. In terms of my family? That is more complicated, but I know wholeheartedly that I DO NOT want to deal in anything that endangers my future family. Which also brings up the question of what my Bloodline choices will be. They are usually affected by familial accomplishments. You can start new and forge a new one, but in my case that would most likely be giving up massive boosts. I just hope that they are not all weapons related.”
“Wait, you don’t know what the Bloodline does?” Brad asked curiously.
“Not at all. I was too young to understand, when it all ended. Most of my memories involve playing or studying the basics of our family’s trade. Then suddenly one day my entire world ended in fire before I was relocated to the orphanage area.”
“Oh, that actually sounds very similar to my buddy that I shared a room with on breaks.”
“It is sadly a very common source of us. That being said, what do you mean by ‘shared a room with on breaks’?”
“Exactly what I said. During breaks in curriculum I got to sleep in a shared room. We mostly played farming games together.”
“What exactly was your training program?” Mia asked with quite a bit of curiosity.
“A nature program, nothing super special. I mostly just camped outside and up in trees. I got to do stuff like shoot bows, fish, pretty much anything I wanted, assuming that I kept up my grades in the shared classes like math.”
“So your program was mostly a solo experience!?” Mia asked incredulously.
“Mostly, but it was pretty relaxing. I did have a wolf pup to keep me company though.”
“You absolutely had a specialized program! Even minorly specialized programs are usually tied to family bloodlines. That means that your parents most likely passed on a developed bloodline!” Mia explained before asking; “What do you know about your parents? Do you know anything about them?”
“I don’t really know anything about them to be honest. I was put into the program shortly after birth. Honestly though, it sounds like I will learn quite a bit tonight while I tier up.”
“Now I will have trouble sleeping! I really wonder what it will be!”
“Haha, it will be what it already is.” Brad jokingly told his girlfriend before continuing to eat and talk to Mia further into the night.