CHAPTER 84 APPLES TO APPLES

‘Ping’ [Rest] Has leveled 2 > 3

‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] Has leveled 2 > 3

‘Ping’ [Electric Sense] Has leveled 2 > 3

‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled 14 > 15

‘Ping’ [Fruit Production] Has leveled 9 > 11

‘Ping’ [Plant Production] Has leveled 3 > 4

‘Ping’ [Vegetable Production] Has leveled 4 > 5

With Max’s and Kayla’s help it didn’t take a lot of effort to get the stuff I had made over to the kitchens.

From there I spent a few moments talking with Kayla and Max. Well, it was really just more of us listening as Kayla talked to us both. She was extremely energetic and optimistic about everything.

She talked about learning more about how to perform certain tasks out in the gorge and her skills leveling up. She even said that she was thinking about dropping her second class and picking up a class that would help her more here.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I mean, I wouldn’t be willing to drop a class to take [Slave] or something like it as a class. You’re basically acknowledging your situation and conforming to it,” Max said to her.

Kayla made a noncommittal hum in response.

“Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I don’t really expect to get out of here any time soon, and my classes are still only in the second tier. If I ever get out I can just reset it again and go from start. It’ll be like a new lease on life!” She finished with a happy smile.

“I guess. I won’t argue with you if that’s really what you want to do, just make sure you fully think it through.”

“I’d have to agree with Max on this,” I added, “I wouldn’t want to give up any of my classes to willingly acknowledge being a slave. Even if it’s an acknowledgement of the reality of my situation.”

Kayla just shrugged, “I’ll think about it, but I’ll probably end up doing it. Especially if it makes my jobs even easier to handle going forward.”

I shrugged as well, “Either way, it was good to see you both again, but I’ve got some stuff I need to do for David and it’s going to take me several hours to do so I should get started sooner rather than later.”

“Alright, we’ll talk to you later then!” Kayla said.

Max just nodded and gave me another wave that I returned before turning and making my way back to my room.

Making it back to my room I shut my door with a sigh and stretched. I was already feeling worn out socially.

I didn’t mind talking to people, I definitely preferred it with a healthy dose of solitude however.

I took a moment to take some breaths and just relax a little, wind down from everything I had dealt with so far today. Talking with Jolene had been nice, as well as Max and Kayla. They were good people, and I think getting to know them going forward would be good for me.

Everyone needed friends, even me. As much as I preferred spending time alone, I also enjoyed having friends to spend time with. It was… a weird situation to be in. You want to be alone but you want to have people you can be with. It was rough to balance.

I gave another good stretch and popped some joints loosening them up a little bit, letting out a slight groan of pleasure.

With a content smile I started spinning up some minds and began having them handling various tasks. Making produce, making a sword to practice with, observation of everyone. While sword practicing I wouldn’t be able to level [Rest], but I could always take breaks if I needed to keep my mana up.

I hefted the sword in my hand, giving it a couple of practice swings. It was almost identical to the sword that I got from Illesea, but I could feel the differences in quality pretty heavily. Well, it’s not like it would matter in the long run. I just needed to handle dealing with this for the moment. Eventually I’d either get out with my sword, or I’d get good enough at making them to replace it.

It all came back to practice and skills. Something I needed tons of both right now.

Well. Nothing to it I guess.

Time to grind.

***

Roughly 6 hours later I had made good progress in some things. And not so much in others.

‘Ping’ [Mana Sense] Has leveled 3 > 5

‘Ping’ [Electric Sense] Has leveled 3 > 5

My sensory skills made decent progress. If I considered that they were in the second tier they had made pretty comparable progress. Especially now that the leveling was starting to slow down.

I could also feel that my [Nature’s Adept] class was steadily gaining exp in observing stuff. It was a small amount of exp, but it would add up over time. If I could gain even a single level outside of fighting it would be worth it.

The other classes were gaining a little exp as well, just for performing actions related to them. All the things I was doing for [Nature’s Adepts] was really pushing it to gain the most exp out of all of my classes right now. Sword practicing was definitely a good contender, but it still wasn’t up to par with produce, or wood manipulations, or observing with OWN.

I took what I could get anyway.

‘Ping’ [Fruit Production] Has leveled 1 > 3

‘Ping’ [Plant Production] Has leveled 4 > 7

‘Ping’ [Vegetable Production] Has leveled 5 > 7

‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled 15 > 16

Heavy gains there, but that made sense. That’s what I was spending the most time and effort on for the moment.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Seeing [Wood Manipulation] again reminded me that I needed to spend some time trying to get an [Electric Manipulation] skill or something. That could really come in handy for the future.

[Fruit Production] had made it into the first tier today as well and was still making steady progress. I liked to see that and I could definitely feel the effects of getting the skill into the first tier. Production got cheaper and more efficient and the resulting product was a higher quality.

It was possible that the food was more nutritious as well, but it was the kind of thing that was hard to tell. I was happy to see it though.

‘Ping’ [Sword Apprentice] Has leveled 25 > 12

‘Ping’ [Rest] Has leveled 3 > 4

‘Ping’ [Accelerated Thoughts] Has leveled 4 > 5

‘Ping’ [Parallel Minds] Has leveled 4 > 5

‘Ping’ [Fatigue Resistance] Has leveled 10 > 12

Somewhat decent level gains there. [Sword Apprentice] making it into the second tier was nice. No name change there, but I definitely noticed when the level happened. Handling my sword became much smoother, the motions noticeably more fluid and my technique escalated further. The difference was almost night and day.

Almost, but not quite. It was still really good, however. [Parallel Minds] and [Accelerated Thoughts] making progress. Any progress there was good progress. [Parallel Minds] was the biggest contender right now.

I frowned a little as I started running through some math. Currently I was getting one mind every two levels. Now that I thought about it, that was kind of absurd. By the end of the first tier alone I’d have nearly 20 minds to work with. At what point would it be too much? Would I just slowly drive myself mad with the overwhelming number of thoughts I could churn out? I needed to be careful with it. It leveled very slowly, but not slowly enough to put it off of leveling it diligently. I’d have to make more of an effort going forward.

Maybe see if I could push it harder, force it to handle more tasks. With every additional mind and level in [Accelerated Thoughts] it became easier and easier to handle the levels of stress I could put on it.

In the outside world that might not really be a problem. But I was limited in my options and space here. It was definitely a problem to consider, just maybe not right now.

[Rest] was obviously still slow going, no surprises there. [Fatigue Resistance] was also making a steady clip upwards. It was strange that it was labeled as a resistance skill. As far as I could tell and from everything I had learned so far, there were no resist skills. At least not to any damage or element.

So the fact that there was something of a similar nature for fatigue or exhaustion was pretty intriguing. Not that I was going to complain. The best I could notice about the skill is that it didn’t really affect my stamina expenditure in any capacity. I still used the same amount for the same actions as was appropriate. What I noticed instead was that I was slowly feeling less and less of the effects of exhaustion. I wasn’t feeling as tired for having low stamina as I would otherwise.

Which was only a good thing. It would continue to allow me to fight without being tired, even when I was technically tired. I could also feel myself needing slightly less sleep. Although I wasn’t sure if that was a result of the levels there or the levels in my classes. Either way, I wasn’t complaining about it.

All in all I liked the progress I had made. If I put more of that in after my fights every night I could make really good progress. Hell, if I kept fighting and winning I could probably hit tier three in a few months. I’m sure as I hit higher levels my leveling would slow down drastically, but as I got higher and higher I would be able to fight stronger and stronger people.

I was sure Lurks had a hand in choosing my opponents right now, the opponents I was facing were expertly picked to just be on the edge of what I could handle each time, either that or it was just an insane coincidence. I didn’t believe that to be the case though. This felt way too organized. And once again, I wasn’t complaining about that.

If Lurks wanted to feed me levels I was happy to take them. Not that I really had a choice.

There were definitely stronger people out there though. David was a bit of an outlier being in the early levels of tier four, but I doubted he was the only one.

Either way, good progress had been made and I needed to get back in touch with David and let him know I was done. I glanced around at the baskets completely full around me. I had started running out of room at some point and started stacking them on top of each other.

I had way too many to try and carry on my own. I’m sure David would have some people that could help with that though.

I stretched slightly before dismissing the sword I had and walking out the door. I quickly made my way down the hallway and ended up in the commons area. I used a couple minds to quickly pick apart the area and managed to find David at his usual spot.

If I could, I needed to figure out his schedule to make finding him a little easier. I didn’t want to have to try and search the entire block every time I needed to talk to him.

I made my way over to him with a brisk walk, he looked my way as I started to make my way close, but if he was surprised to see me it didn’t show. He probably knew I was coming before he actually looked my way.

“Alex!” He said raising a hand causally in greeting, “glad to see you back, I’m assuming you have good news for me?”

He asked it as a question, but I could tell he meant it more as a statement.

I nodded, “Yeah I’m all finished. Fifty baskets of assorted fresh fruits and veggies. I’m only able to make what I know though, so if you were looking for something specific I may not be able to make it.”

He nodded, “That’s fine, that’s fine. We might need to go over that at some point just so I have an idea of what you can and can’t make. Just in case someone has a request for something. I don’t want to promise them something you can’t do. Although, I’m assuming if I got you an example you could recreate it?”

I shrugged casually, “Yeah, I should be able to. Considering I’m making most of these from memory of having seen them once. Some of them I’ve only seen years ago, long before I even had the capability for making them like I am now.”

David smiled, “That’s good, very good even. I’m assuming the baskets are still in your room then?”

“Yeah, there was too much for me to carry out on my own. I could’ve grabbed half of them, but I wasn’t exactly sure where you wanted them and figured you’d have people that could help me. So I put it off for the moment.”

“I do,” He said, confirming my thoughts, “I’ll fetch the guys if you want to lead them back there. They know where they need to take it. Should only take them a few moments and then I can handle it from there. I’ve already got good reception from the boys I’ve been talking to. Working on getting some initial pricing setup, but it looks like we’ll be able to sell each basket to them for about ten silver. Normally one of these baskets would go for nearly double or triple that, but we are in a prison. So we’ll take what we can get.”

I nodded, he’d know more about that than I would. I wouldn’t necessarily complain. More money would be nice, but I also wasn’t expecting miracles in that regard.

“So I was thinking of profits that we would split things six-four your way.”

I just fixed him with a flat stare, “nine to one,” I replied with a flat tone.

David just frowned a little, “That’s a little unreasonable. I’m working here too, and I’ve got other people I’ve promised a little stake on this operation as well. I could make do with six to four, maybe seven to three. But definitely not nine to one. That’s too steep.”

I snorted, “It’s not my problem you promised people money in this, regardless of if it’s your brainchild, I’m the one doing 50% of the work. Hell, this entire thing wouldn’t even exist if I wasn’t the one working at it. Nine to one.”

David let out a sigh, “Listen, Alex,” he started with a sigh, raising a hand and massaging a temple before leaning forward slightly, “even though you are the one a lot of this is hinging on, you still acknowledge that this is my brainchild. Now I’ll give you credit, you probably might’ve gotten something going eventually, but nowhere nearly as smoothly as I can run it myself. On top of that I doubt you’d even have nearly the same profit margins as you will working with me.”

I stared at him and was about to respond, but he kept going, not really giving me a chance to speak.

“I have a bit of a reputation in our block and with the camp. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this, and it sure as hell won’t be the last. I’m consistent and professional. That means a lot, especially here. I’m willing to go seven to three, but I can’t go any higher than that.”

I stared at him intently. Although if he was trying to con me I really had no clue. I had been aiming for eight to two, but I doubt I was actually going to be able to push him that far. Honestly seven to three was probably good enough. Probably better than I was going to get by any measure.

I shrugged, “Fine, seven to three. That works for me.”

David just let out a little sigh while shaking his head, “Then we have a deal,” He stuck his hand for me to shake.

I reached out and firmly gripped it, giving him a good shake.

He smiled again, “Excellent, let's get this business rolling then shall we?”