The camp was quite active the next morning. It had been 3 days now since the tutorial began, and the general feeling of panic over our entire situation was starting to calm down a bit. It was amazing how fast people could get used to something like this.
According to Ben, we have almost a thousand people here at the camp now, and we knew of a few other camps that had even more people. Groups this large could rarely live in harmony, and sure enough there had been more than one fight that had broken out by this point.
I had been woken up when two particularly rowdy men were shouting at one another over who would get the last available bed roll. I can’t say exactly how long it was since I’d gone to sleep, but I felt fully rested. I could just give mine up and end this fight pretty quickly.
As I was folding up the bedroll, the first punch was thrown. Both men were classed as fighters as shown by the swords at their waists. They seemed to be about the same level too, as they seemed pretty evenly matched when it came to strength. Punch after punch came in from each other, and I was beginning to think I should probably intervene.
As one of the men was about to pull out said sword and escalate the conflict, I was quickly at his side with my hand on his shoulder. Both men seemed to have a look of shock at the speed I’d moved at.
“No need to go that far.” I say, holding out my bedroll. “Just take it and go.”
There was a brief moment where I thought he would fight back against this, but he seemed to calm down enough to see reason after a few seconds. He snatched it from my hands and walked off. The other fighter shot me a dirty look, but also walked off after taking the last free bedroll.
I should probably go find Ben. This could have been really bad if I hadn’t gotten involved, and I had a feeling this was far from the last time someone would be drawing a weapon in camp.
“I just don’t know how we can keep this from happening.” He’d said after I’d brought it up. “The people starting these fights are a higher level than our guards since they’ve actually gone up to the second floor and done some fighting.”
“I think the solution is pretty obvious.” I say. “You just need the general population to be a higher level.”
Bens face turns to one of confusion. “How would that help? Wouldn’t that just worsen the problem?”
“Well the people causing the problems are already a higher level than most, so if you encourage people to raise their own level they would be able to defend themselves better, or at least be intimidating enough to deter others from attacking.”
“So what you want us to do is tell people to go out and risk their lives fighting so that they can be safer? That doesn’t seem like the best idea.”
“Tell me, who is the highest leveled healer we have in camp?” I ask.
“Jeremy. He’s level seven now.”
“Has he gone up to the second floor at all?”
“Well, no. But he was focusing on healing, just like his class says to.”
“I think you are missing the point. Leveling up does not require fighting at all. My last level before my evolution had been gained from improving my skills. Others can likely do the same. Hell, nothing really says that our level is directly tied to our class. I’d be willing to bet that the people making those bed rolls have leveled up at least once just from doing that. Imagine if people start making armor or weapons. They’d be gaining levels without having to ever draw blood, and I’d wager that they would probably get a non combat focused class upon evolving.”
“I...” Ben trails off. “I am going to need to do some asking around.” He says. “I’ll get back to you on this.”
He walks away shortly after, leaving me alone in the crowd. It’s right at that moment that I realize I forgot to ask if anybody was actually trying their hand at crafting. I would have liked to have some better armor than just this crappy robe.
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I start walking around the camp, wanting to see what people have been up to. Most of my time since the tutorial began has been spent on other floors, so I haven’t really gotten to see what people have been doing to fill the time.
From the looks of it, most of the healers have spent the majority of their time healing those who had gone to the second floor. I had yet to hear of anybody in camp dying, so they must be doing a good job.
Those who weren’t involved in anything going on past floor one were pretty split. It seemed half of the camp was just sitting around all day, not doing anything productive. The other half was taking up some kind of hobby or chore, like cooking, constructing small barracks for people to sleep in, making beds for said barracks, or just anything to fill the time.
Out of everything going on at the camp, only one thing really piqued my interest. Near the very edge of the camp, there was a woman who was making some surprisingly good looking armor from what looked like deer hide. When I had found her, she had just finished making leather boots. I was about to approach her and ask about her crafting, but then I was amazed at what I saw next.
The woman furrowed her brows as she concentrated, and I could see mana seeping out from her fingers and into the boots. I wasn’t entirely sure what the purpose of it was, but it was clear she was infusing the mana into them.
“I take it you took the infusion skill at level 5?” I ask after she finishes.
She looks up at me, seeming annoyed at having been interrupted. “Not quite.” She says, standing up. “I learned it myself and picked a different skill.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, did you get to level five with just making these?” I point to the pile of armor she has laying around her work area. There are several pairs of gloves, a few chest pieces, some boots, and a helmet.
“No, I got a few of the levels hunting the deer to get the materials.” The tone of annoyance hasn’t left her voice, but it feels less directed towards me than it had before. “It was more time consuming to do than I would have liked.”
“Could you not get some of the hide from the deer being brought in by hunters?”
“They say that the hide is better used elsewhere.” She complains. “They don’t seem to know that armor is going to be important when people start getting off their asses and heading up the floors.”
“You can say that again.” I say, thinking about how useful armor would have been if I’d had it in the fight against the gladiator. If I hadn’t needed to use my mana shield to block his attacks, I could have afforded more to power my spells and ended the fight quicker.
She looks at me with an appraising eye, and I feel the slightest hint of mana bounce off of me as she does. “Level 11? You must have already gone up if you are at that level.” She sticks out her hand. “I’m Blair. Nice to meet you.”
“River.” I say, shaking her hand. “How’d you know my level?”
“It’s the skill I picked up at level five. It tells me the level and race of individuals, as well as the basics on any item I use it on. Pretty simple really, it’s called inspect.”
“Sounds handy.”
“It is. Alright, down to business. Lets say you come across some powerful looking beasty on the higher floors. If you bring it’s body back down to me, I can make you some armor. Those robes of your likely aren’t providing much in the way of protection anymore.”
“Not really.” I say, looking down at my robes. “They aren’t really good for storing mana anymore either, which was what they were primarily for anyways. Do you think you’d be able to make something that can store mana better?”
“Maybe. If I had the right materials I probably could, but I probably won’t be able to do a good job of it until I evolve.” She gestures to the pile of armor and materials behind her. “Deer hide just isn’t cutting it any more when it comes to experience.”
It’s only then that I notice among the materials is also several deer carcasses. She had mentioned hunting the deer herself, but I hadn’t expected that she would just leave their bodies laying around.
“So, if I bring you better materials, you can level up faster and make me better stuff?”
“Bingo.” She says, smiling. “It seems you are starting to get why this will be beneficial to us both. So, what do you say, do we have a deal?”
I think for a moment about it. Hauling the corpses wouldn’t be particularly fun, but I didn’t see much reason beyond that to decline the offer. It seemed like a waste to leave the bodies to rot.
“Yes we do.” I say.
“Great!” She shouts. “Now go away and come back when you have a strong beast for me to take apart.”
I turn and start walking, but I do glance over my shoulder after a few steps. I look away when I see her sink her knife into one of the several deer bodies around her. I wasn’t keen on seeing her “take them apart” as she said.
On my way back to the staircase, I am intercepted by Ben, who seems to have something on his mind.
“That was quick.” I say as he approaches. “Did you realize I was right?”
“Don’t get all high and mighty.” He says. “Though I did talk to some people, and it seems like it would be best to start focusing on trying to increase the average level of everyone rather than just have them sit idly. Even ignoring the fact that it would prevent people from using overwhelming levels to intimidate others, it would also bring a multitude of other benefits.”
“Great to see you using your head again.” I joke. Something from the conversation I’d had Blair then comes back to me. “Hey, if you want to increase everyone's levels, diverting some of the resources towards people focusing on crafting would be a pretty good start.”
“I’ll be sure to bring that up in the meeting later.”
“Good.” I turn back to where I was headed. “Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go and check out the fourth floor.”