I felt kind of led along as I went down and started up my second quest. I mean I could tell the goddess had put in some work making these tutorials, so I didn’t feel too bad – it was certainly nicer than just tossing me here and telling me to figure it out for sure, for sure.
Either way I was more excited by this one. Magic! Skills! Yesssss this is what I’m talking about.
The skill wisp was much more business-like than the tutorial one. Flying out of its position all business-like it navigated straight to the skill section without a word. Stopping beside the ‘0/1’ line it ‘spoke a short sentence then continued.
Skills: 0/1
[Tap to open automated skill selector] ˿👻
Skills:
[Use automated skill selector]
[Wait!] ˿👻
The wisp spent a while sitting there – as if typing up its question then pasted the explanation all at once.
[Skills:
Skills are universal across every universe but have widely varying cultures, applications and methods of being obtained or grown.
As a brief overview: a skill can be as specialized or generalized as you can imagine – but, on average lean towards a ‘wide’ default. Some cultures lean on that even harder than usual by referring to each skill as a ‘spell system’. Typical wide skill examples are potionmaking, runecarving, mana manipulation, summoning or even ‘alteration’.
A skill has two main parts – an affinity and an application. These can be obtained in sequence or simultaneously – the automated skill selector will pause after the affinity section and allow you to either pick a known existing method or complete it on your own at a future date.
The total number of skills you can get is low and the potential of each skill will grow the higher a tier you bring it.
To gain a specific affinity, certain items created in certain cultures can guarantee a result (depending on compatibility) – and either the study of a single existing application or blind attempts to control said affinity may result in the settling of said skill’s “application”.
In all other cases, the affinity you gain will be “random” however you may influence slightly how “random” it is with existing skills, temperament and your environment. This is known as the “natural” way of obtaining skills that non “chosen heroes” and non “big spending nobles” would receive.
Now! At this time, you have three options. You can either choose to buy an awakening item and use it yourself following its directions. You can buy an awakening item and place it in this tool allowing the wizard to help you apply it – this has the added benefit of checking for traps and the safest way of applying said tool. Or you simply chose to start the automated process by clicking
This automated tool is incredibly robust, combining awakening techniques from several worlds and cultures…however you can always choose to gain your skills in a different matter such as using the divine personal shop to request a more specific skill.] ˿👻
I carefully read through the description.
It seems like the goddess has learned my personality a bit…I feel like I should have questions, but she was just so thorough…
Alright then. Guess…guess I have two options, don’t I? I have the goddess’s money making skill that her proxy had described as boring but functional. Or I could just use a safe and more natural way of getting something random. Pray to the gatcha gods for something fun.
Leaving it to chance is scary…but do I want to follow the easiest path laid out step by step for me? Or do I want to stride forth into the unknown…I do want to feel like I have rare and exciting magic. And the goddess did say something like gravity and time affinities are actually super common…so random might get me something actually rare or actually unique!
Ahhhshs. Why is this such a big decision! I’m not good at these – the number of skills I can get is low I don’t want to fail and fill it with something useless!
It seemed like the wisp knew I was taking a long time to answer and guessed as to why that might be – I mean obviously! This is big!
[There is no such thing as a bad skill, only bad use of a skill. Also, this is a good time to point out even if the majority of skills start off incredibly weak, after a few tiers they will become more useful. Finally, while it is true that normally it is incredibly hard to remove a skill and attempt to gain a new one, through the divine personal shop you may ask the goddess to help remove your skills as a worst case solution] ˿👻
Ahhhhh! Okay I get it. thank you, ‘Mr. Wisp’, – this wisp definitely felt more male than the last one. Heck it.
Okay! Random it is. It feels important for my first skill to not be a handout. Feels more right.
I Just click it. You got this Sam. Just have to click it. Just –
I press the button before I can change my mind. Immediately I’m hit with buyer’s remorse. I haven’t decided yet! The feeling of something happening immediately starts filling me with anxiety.
But I can’t control it now that it’s started.
No going back. No regrets!
First, there’s a tight feeling in my chest. It slowly spreads throughout my body. A weight. Something holding me slightly. A pressure.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
I back away from the iPad – it said I could do actions or change my environment to help influence the affinity…Not that I would know what to do obviously – I just wanted to move because stretching was helping reduce my anxiety.
I paced about a bit – the walking definitely helped me feel much better about my decisions.
Oh no! Was I about to get a walking skill? Something to help me move! Oh no! Oh no! I immediately stop pacing trying to hold myself still in panic.
I have such a small place to walk about in, being able to ‘walk’ better would be wasted.
I mean I was hoping to do some magical farming. Maybe I should touch the dirt a bit just in case? I really didn’t know how this worked.
Bending down I ripped at the grass shoving my fingers into the ground and trying to ignore the feeling of it getting shoved in my nails.
The tight feeling is anxiety inducing. I start doubling numbers in my head to calm down. Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one-twenty-eight, two-fifty-six, five-twelve, ten-twenty-four, twenty-forty eight…six-fifty-five and thirty six, twelve and…no thirteen and ten and…what was the last bit again.
…I failed. I’d like to see you get higher without writing it down. Smh.
How long do you think this going to take? I didn’t want to spend a whole hour like this.
The feeling wasn’t painful or anything, just uncomfortable. I felt like I had a really heavy outfit on – it was starting to get hot.
Oh, and now it’s starting to feel chilly. I’m getting hot and cold flashes – wow I am way too young to start getting menopause yet, I hope this is safe.
Finally something changes. It feels like something burst and immediately the tight feeling disappears.
“Did it work?” I speak out loud the only sound in my silent world.
…okay that’s not true – I can hear a faint rustle of my milk slime playing about somewhere over the horizon.
Walking over to the iPad I stare down at the results reading what it says.
Affinity filled. You have a glue affinity.
Skill incomplete. (1) Rare application example found. Triboadhesion. Review basics of skill method?
[Good – you have successfully gained an affinity and the wizard even found a beginner’s description of a skill you could complete using it. It’s recommended you try to follow an existing skill method when possible – attempting to create your own is incredibly difficult without experience. You can also buy skill manuals to read or gain a mentor in a skill if you prefer – however if you refuse the “free basic method”, it will not be available anymore] ˿👻
…sure, let’s just continue with this.
I have mixed feelings as I select the skill example and receive a small piece of paper detailing the skill method.
As I finish up the wizard it closes leaving me with a 1/1 skill and [unknown glue affinity] listed in the skill section at level one.
Its…well. I’ll figure out what I’ve decided later. Glue affinity huh? That’s…weird. Or not? Is it based on my personality? Does this mean I’m clingy or something? That’s…kinda rude. Didn’t know the wizard was out here throwing shade.
It’s probably nothing. Just the sort of thing I have to look forward to using the random affinity section. Hopefully I can find some good uses for it.
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On the ability to stick things together. ~By Calkate [translated and printed by the world’s best goddess’s skill wizard]
With a pure compatible affinity, rub your fingers across both items you want to stick together. You can always rub just one – but its strength will be much lower in that case.
Results will stick together for a period of time directly relative to how long you rub them – this will become permanent by the time you increase it to tier 1 and settle the skill into your spirit permanently.
If you have an existing skill that works based on touch you may have to suppress it in order to allow the skill to work. If items do not stick together after your first attempt, try again while imagining them becoming sticky. Alternatively imagine one side is becoming positive and the other negative or one end has an endless love for the other side. Make sure you really rub them. Good luck!
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Okay. I can do that. Do I want to do that? I have to pay to try again if I really don’t like this skill…but it seems fine? It’s just not immediately exciting. I wanted magic! Something that felt like magic!
Looking about there’s nothing I can stick together. Not really – it’s just grass. There aren’t even any rocks or stumps like your Stardew farms always start off with…
Grass. That’s something?
I crouch down and flop my legs out before pulling them in comfortably in front of me. Getting comfortable I sit cross legged then rip up a strand of grass. Rubbing it in my fingers I pause then pick the nearest thing to me – the pole the iPad is stuck on.
Is it metal? Plastic? I can’t actually tell – the colour and texture of the pole don’t quite seem to be either while reminding me of both.
It’s smooth and definitely not sticky so it should count.
As I sit there rubbing the grass I reach out with my other hand and rub the pole beside me.
It feels kind of silly – and don’t you dare mention me rubbing the pole as anything perverted. I’m watching you.
After a few minutes of rubbing the two surfaces had begun feeling weird despite looking normal – I pressed them together then let go.
In front of me the blade of grass stuck.
I almost expected it to not work. I did it!
How is it staying there? I mean magic obviously….
Oh no! Have I vandalized my sign?
Reaching out I try and rip the grass off. I pull and shove my nails under the bottom slowly scraping it off. It’s stuck on good but not impossibly so – and with some applied effort I get it off again.
Well then.
I half expected something to appear congratulating me on successfully using my skill. Successfully casting my first spell? Was this simple enough to even count as a spell? What does Triboadhesion even mean…where’s google when I need it. I don’t even think tribo is a word. Maybe it’s the guy that named its name? That was Calkate though, right? Now that’s a name that sounds fake.
Eh…
Standing back up I look down at the iPad below. It was still open to my personal status – the skill panel closed but surprisingly the wisp was still there. It spun in place as if waiting for me.
[To complete the quest please raise your skill to tier 2. Raising a skill to tier 2 is the easiest possible tier to reach. It usually requires several uses to ‘lock in’. Repeated consistent use of your skill is the easiest way to get it to advance – at higher tiers that is no longer enough and you need to push yourself to use your skill in novel ways… but for now simply using it repeatedly should be enough.] ˿👻
Grind skill by spamming huh?
I really should start figuring out my living situation, shouldn’t I? How long will this take?
…guess I can always try and bang the skill level out quickly and work on starting up my farm after, right?
Okay.
Bending down and ripping up a handful of the longest grass I saw I began walking about my space rubbing grass together. Dropping down my body and eventually trailing along the ground a long and incredibly weak rope began to form.
I say rope but that’s being generous. It looks exactly like it sounds, a five year old got access to a glue gun and decided to stick garbage together.
As I continue to almost mindlessly work my fingers it begins to feel more and more natural. I find the most fantastical part of my new life – the milk slime – and watch it wobble about in the middle of the plains. It continues to explore – seems like the slime hasn’t figured out the grass loops endlessly yet it’s pretty dumb.
I sneak along behind it rubbing grass together – the slime doesn’t seem to be able to spot me so long as I stand far enough back.
Coming across its own dairy trail gets the slime excited and it begins to follow the trail around and around pressing the grass further into the ground as it goes. After several loops the creature seems to get tired – and yet it still hasn’t figured out it’s on a planet.
Maybe I’m being mean. It’s not the slimes fault it's stupid. Pot calling the kettle black after I failed doubling so early.
The earliest grass strands have fallen off and yet I can feel myself getting better. I can feel the best way to rub grass to make it stick together. It’s a wiping motion – spinning also works but it’s harder to do while I’m not looking.
After ages and ages and ages of this – I’m telling you agessss of grinding – something almost clicks. It’s hard to describe – a soft satisfying sort of snap – but suddenly I know my skill has advanced. My whole body knows – is this ‘leveling’ up? Sorry ‘tiering’ up? Rushing back to my status I’m excited to see that is in fact true.
Self status (click to expand)
Tier 2
Skills 1/2