My achievement: Surpassed the system also triggered thank to me reaching the second rank of energy access. It gave me 600 free points which was massive and something I did not know what to do with. For the moment I will just keep them unspent.
After getting a bit more used to my body, I exited the smithy and started to walk towards my house as I was feeling quite hungry. It was weird being so tall; the sudden jump in height was messing with my brain. My walking speed was already faster without me having to do anything, and I could feel the power that my muscles held. Proportionate growth gives a lot of advantages, and I honestly had no idea how much stronger I was right now, but it felt overwhelming.
Of course, a big contributor to this was the second-rank energy which was even now working on making my body better. The energy in my core was slowly starting to improve, the new higher rank energy making it even better.
Currently, a lot of the things that were previously subconscious, I was actively needing to guide again, so even I was surprised by how much I was doing subconsciously. There will be an adjustment period until it goes back to the way it used to be, but in the meantime, I will just have to do all the work.
I didn’t want to slow down my energy circulation, but I had to as I would risk too much if I entered my house like this. There was no doubt in my mind that with my current power, I could easily destroy anything in my house.
When I reached my front door and opened it, I had to duck down a lot so I could get through it. At least I could stand tall in the living room. My entrance did not go unnoticed, and the few apprentices currently inside looked at me with widened eyes.
"Yes, yes, an unfortunate situation, but it seems that I have actually gained a lot more height than I expected. Sorry about that, Suzanne," I spoke, which finally made most of them snap out of their surprise. Suzanne dropped the shirt that she was currently working on. That was supposed to be my shirt, but now the preparations we have all made are made useless, and I will need to start from the beginning. There will also be a need to go to the cobbler's shoe shop as I will need to get a few more custom-ordered boots.
This whole situation was honestly a headache, and even cooking felt uncomfortable as I needed to constantly bend down while I was cooking. After eating what felt like my entire body weight, I started to go outside so I could meditate and hopefully get a little bit better at controlling this body. Being a bit distracted cost me as I destroyed the upper part of the doorway when I didn’t bend down enough.
An hour later, we had a bigger doorway made, and I left my apprentices to make the bigger door while I finally was able to meditate. This helped me center myself a bit more and think logically again, which necessitated another use of my training plan development ability.
This time the goal was to make me better used to this body so I could still function like I used to. This time the training plan was a lot simpler as I didn’t really need help at the upper end of my capabilities, but in the lower end.
For the next month, I will be taking it easy, meditating a lot more, and just doing stability exercises and fine-tune control exercises. This brought up another problem: while my finances were good enough that my homestead would be able to run without any problems, me needing to get new everything for myself is putting a strain on those resources. My biggest current expenditure will be the second-rank bowstrings.
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My birthday came fast but as no one knew what day it was because I always dodged that question, I was able to relax and just enjoy the day. I received a new achievement while I was cleaning the sauna. Rank two in two years achievement was something I was expecting and the 300 free points as a reward sounded awesome.
A few days later I asked Emma about a bowstring, but she wasn’t anywhere close to making such a rank of bowstring, so currently I had two options: either go out and try to find the second-rank opponent where I could possibly get the required materials, or buy it from a bigger market.
I knew that there was a plan to visit a bigger market to sell off some of our things that we have made and found, but who knows how long it will take until that is profitable, and I definitely didn’t have the funds to pay for our merchant to go right away.
The solution came to me immediately after I laid out my problem. There was enough of the Iron Oak remaining that I could make another composite bow. That alone should fulfill most of the requirements for our merchant to portal to a bigger market, but I should have enough first-ranked woods to make a few more top-quality first-rank bows. This will also help with the training plan I have, so without any hesitation, I dived in to complete my current plan.
The next two weeks went by fast, and I was quite happy to see the improvements that I was making. With my constant training, my contortion skill had long gone past its milestone, giving me a new ability called "Double Jointed". My smithing skill also went over a milestone, going into the advanced rank giving me a new ability called "Temperature Control". Just needed to make a few rank two arrowheads, and that was enough to push the skill to the next level.
It also seems like my mental strength that didn’t let me break down when I found it hard to control my body meant quite a lot of experience for my mental fortitude skill. Getting past that milestone gave me an ability called "Energy Will" which was a game-changer of an ability. Now my energy had a will of its own, which made doing anything with my energy a lot less taxing for my mind.
So many upgrades, but there was still much to do. I quite fondly packed up all the bows that I have made so I could take them to our head merchant who will hopefully agree to go and sell them so I could get my bowstrings, and our nation could get whatever it needs. Running was once again nice in my new boots; I felt more stable. For about a week there, I needed to go around barefoot which, while different and kind of nice, wasn't ideal for anything serious.
When I reached the head merchant's office, there was only one problem: I actually didn’t know the man’s name as I always just knew him as the head merchant. After knocking on his door, I was soon called in. It was hard not to pump my fist in the air as there was a nameplate on his desk. I should make a proposition to add names to the outside of the offices.
"Good morning, Roger," As soon as I finished saying that, his head snapped up, not expecting me. He quickly started to put his papers away, but I waved for him to stop. He didn't, and to my surprise, he was quite proficient at getting himself and his surroundings looking presentable. He stood up and gave me a military salute, and that made me remember that he was one of the mobilized soldiers for our very first battle.
After some pleasantries, I finally got to why I was here. "I’ve enjoyed talking to you, but it’s time to get to business as I didn’t come for a social call." He quickly nodded, but as I didn’t get completely serious, neither did he.
"If I remember correctly, one of our goals is for you to visit a bigger market, but we currently don't have enough valuable trade goods for this to be profitable. I have made some items that hopefully will be enough, but I would also require you to get a decent amount of second-rank bowstring." When I finished saying that, I brought his attention to the backpack that I brought where I started to pull out the different kinds of bows that I have made.
After he inspected the bows, I could see that he was getting excited, but there was still a small frown on his face. That frown turned into a smile when he saw the second-rank composite bow. He was excited, but then his smile froze. "I am so sorry, Rich, but while this does put us well past the required amount, that would all go into your fortune. While this is something good for you, unfortunately, we would not be able to get the items we need for our nation with the resources we have."
That was a bit disappointing, but a smile quickly returned to my face. "Well, why don’t you use the rest of my profits for the nation then? I mean, you will still give me the credits, but it doesn’t mean that I will have to use those credits. There really isn’t anything else that I currently require, so?" When I finished saying that, he immediately understood my idea and after he started to question me about what kind of bowstring I needed and how much, after a handshake, I left after he promised that he would go on this trade mission as soon as possible.
With that, I was satisfied, but there was still a lot for me to do. After I gave today’s energy lessons, I was able to get my mentoring skill to the advanced rank, giving me a new ability called "Listened Words" which simply made people listen to my words and actually tried to understand them. This didn't help my lessons a lot as the people were already listening and trying to understand to the best of their ability.