Mark woke up with a start, just to see a shadow near his tent, and soon Donny peeked in.
“You’re awake? Did you get enough rest?”
“Yea, you can go rest now”
Mark stood up and walked outside, the camp was completely silent, only the body of the enormous Ursen, a testament to the fight that happened not that long ago. The beach in the caravan wall was already patched up, the two overturned carriages, now standing again, with clear signs of a hasty repair attempt, with most of the merchandise stuffed back inside.
Mark walked up to the bear and cut off a chunk of meat, he brought it over to their stovetop. Activating the enchantments on the device he placed the meat on top. From his traveling bag, he took out a few pouches of spices he got back in Pharia and lightly seasoned the meat. The slight sizzle of the fat, heightened his appetite. Very soon, a delicious aroma spread out, making his mouth water.
Waiting for the meat to cook he looked at his wrist, checking for any changes to his status.
Name:
Mark
Class:
Rogue
Level:
16->19
Experience:
177/5m
MP:
52
SP:
93
Strength
29->33
Agility
48->55
Constitution
26->31
Intelligence
21->26
Skill:
Description
LVL
Apprentice Bow Mastery
Apprentice handling of weapon: Bow
LVL 12 EXP 12244/20k
Snipe
Minor correction of a fired arrow, increased flight speed, increased penetration damage..
LVL 11 EXP 133/10k
Double Tap
Shoot two arrows at the same time, arrows will land very closely together.
LVL 10 EXP 4211/5120
Charged Arrow
You charge your arrow with more Energy allowing it to do much more damage. The arrow is destroyed.
LVL 7 EXP 33/640
Apprentice Dagger Mastery
Apprentice handling of weapon: Dagger
LVL 14 EXP 7442/80k
Pierce
Executes a powerful pierce dealing much more damage, causing excessive bleeding and capable of stunning the enemy for a short time.
LVL 13 EXP 1333/40k
Stealth
You are thinning your presence, avoiding the awareness of other living beings.
LVL 10 EXP 19674/20k
Sprint
Run much faster.
LVL 9 EXP 113/2560
Forest Stride
The art of moving efficiently through a Forest.
LVL 9 EXP 2422/2560
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Quick Step
Make an instantaneous step in any direction.
LVL 10 EXP 5427/10k
Lie
Your ability to lie has become much better, unaware folks would almost always believe you.
LVL 7 EXP 566/640
Premonition ^UNIQUE^
You can sense incoming danger.
N/A
Stamina Control
You are capable of controlling your Internal Stamina.
LVL 9 EXP 5544/10k
Bolster
Empower your body with Stamina.
LVL 9 EXP 4776/5120
Eye of Arano
Empower your Sight.
LVL 6 EXP 230/2560
Protection
Decreases the incoming impact.
LVL 4 EXP 58/160
Many of his skills were nearing the threshold of upgrading to another tier and he was almost at level 20. Very soon his strength would have a big jump, he wondered what the abilities would upgrade to. During the recent fights, he has also found another peculiarity about skills.
He found that the Stamina skills seem to have a slight jump in quality at every level. Mastery skills on the other hand seemed to not change at all on leveling, even on their evolution to a higher tier Mark didn’t feel much more of a difference. It still felt as if he was handling his weapons as always.
He turned the meat on the plate to cook it evenly on both sides and once again sprinkled some spices on the now beautiful brown side of the meat. Slowly he could feel a faint trace of energy coming off the meat. It was weird, he has already eaten many meals here, and even though the cooking methods could match the modern-day Earth, it was still mostly normal.
Waiting a couple more minutes, he judged the meat was ready. Turning off the stove he cut into the meat, taking a bite, he instantly felt his Stamina go haywire, it threw itself towards his stomach assimilating the energy coming in from the meat. He could feel his Stamina regenerate a little, and for sure felt it was stronger than before, though the amount was almost minuscule.
Looking at the Ursen’s body, he couldn’t help but smile, no matter how small the improvement with a couple of tonnes of meat on the body, he could surely improve his constitution by at least a couple more points. So far he hadn’t eaten an animal at the level of the bear.
If all high enough level animals could carry that benefit when eating their meat, it was no wonder the Captain was still that reluctant to part with the body, even when Mark did most of the job anyway. It was too precious to just let it go.
Quickly finishing his slice, he walked over to the body and wondered how to go about dismantling it. It was way too big and heavy to skin it easily. While he was standing over the body he felt someone approaching. Turning his head he saw it was one of the heads of the caravan, Ross. Walking over he looked greedily at the monster’s body.
“You know I could buy it off your hands if you are willing, I would pay a premium, don’t worry, you will surely be satisfied. So how about it?”
“No, I don’t think so, but we could cooperate a little I guess. I would need a little help in dismantling the body, getting the meat, hide, the bones anything useful out of it, I can’t do it alone, do you have anything in mind”
The merchant was very satisfied, from the first moment he didn’t hope to get the whole body, but he knew the boy had no way of handling the corpse, so the deal he was offered was what he came for in the first place. He had his people observing his tent and informing him the moment Mark woke up, he wanted to come before any of the other guys could react.
“Ah, that is a shame, but I think I can indeed help you, but to take care of that big of a body you would need a very high-level Butcher, well luckily I do have one such working for me, following us in this caravan. Let’s say, I provide you the butcher to take care of the beast for forty percent of the body, and the rest will be yours, you don’t even have to lift a finger”
Suddenly Mark's green energy seeped into his body, this one was different from just Pure Stamina, it was a rotten, stinky green, and he could feel the greed emanating from it. It would seem the merchant was using some sort of skill available to his class to make Mark concede the negotiations and give him a favorable deal. Quickly circulating his energy he obliterated the merchant's skill.
Turning to Ross, Mark narrowed his eyes.
“If you have someone take care of the body you can take 10 percent of the meat for yourself, and if you use that skill one more time, the deal will be five percent, understood.”
The merchant looked into Mark’s eyes and froze on the spot staring into those two glowing orbs. He was almost sure he would die if he tried using his profession, though he was dumbstruck as to how this boy detected his Haggle. From what he knew, only a person with a higher level of the skill could detect someone using it, and he was sure Mark wasn’t a merchant, so there was no way for him to have Haggle in the first place.
Still, he was a merchant his whole life, there were way too many people who threatened him or wanted his death. He was way too familiar with the concept of death, and he valued profits more.
“Well, excuse me for the rude behavior earlier, but I still cannot go lower than thirty percent of the haul including some of the skin and entrails, not just the meat. You may not know but hiring a Master Butcher is extremely expensive, while the entirety of the work falls on his shoulders.”
“Heh, well not the entirety, right? I would say killing the beast in the first place amounts to about ninety percent of the effort, so really the butcher is only here to reap the rewards of someone else's effort no? I can give you at most fifteen percent…of the meat. I will not part with the rest, so how about it, deal or no deal?
“Sigh, you offer way too little, without the butcher you will not be able to do anything with the body in the first place, surely you realize that? How about twenty-five percent?”
“No I already offered you everything you will get from this deal, if you don't want the fifteen percent, I will just have to go to sirs Auster and Prus, surely they must have their own connections with people like you Master Butcher”
At this moment Ross realized something, since the moment he first got his class of Merchant, he started relying on his Haggle skill, every time he would just use it at any point he was during negotiations, and if he encountered anyone else with the skill, their skills would at first clash and the more powerful one would move the balance, and then according to the balance they would come to an agreement based on the results of this battle.
And now it was his first time he was not clashing with another merchant’s haggle skill, while at the same time being unable to use it on the other person, he felt naked, useless. The only time he trained such empty negotiations was when he was a boy training in his field to gain the class.
He could only grit his teeth and sigh internally, the body was way too valuable to give up and he knew Auster also brought a Master Butcher with him on this trip. Well, even just fifteen percent of meat would bring him ten times the profit.
“Sigh, very well, deal, fifteen percent of the body in meat. You scalped me blind boy.”
The merchant left and came back minutes later with a big burly man, with a mane of hair still in disarray, Mark could see he was just forcefully woken up and brought here, but hearing that he was chosen to dismantle the Armored Ursen his face lit up like a little babe during Christmas.
Quickly taking out a thick apron and a set of knives from his bags he stood next to the body. Mark was curious how he would work with the body, the knives looked like normal steel knives, well they look very well made, but still not enough to deal with that monster.
The Butcher took a deep breath, focused on his knife, and soon a thin line of energy covered the blade, the man took a big swing and in one motion the body was cut from the head to the tail, along its belly. The cut was perfect, deep enough to cut the skin, but not damage anything beneath it. With two more big cuts, he opened the skin to the bear's paws.
With a couple of smaller incisions, he started pulling the skin off, it was truly a marvelous spectacle. After about an hour the bear was completely taken care of, with the meat bones separated, the organs stacked on another pie and the fangs and talons pulled and stacked on another one. In just one hour the guy did a job Mark estimated would take people back on earth hours if not the entire day.
Then Ross walked over to the piles of meat and taking a glance he had his butcher separate a smaller pile. Mark quickly glanced around and from what he could estimate the separated meat did make up around fifteen percent of the body. Deciding to not bother more he walked over to Ross.
“You got your part I got mine it should be all, right? “
“Yes, it was a pleasure doing business with you, young man. If you want any help with the rest of the parts or want to sell it in the end, do not hesitate to contact me, ok?”
“Sure.”