“Hello Mellissa, I-”
“Quiet.”
Mellissa was sitting at a desk under a wooden awning outside her house. All of her attention was on the armor she was creating, and she didn’t look up when Elijah arrived. When Elijah spoke, she responded to him without looking up from her work.
Shrugging his shoulders, Elijah kept quiet and let her work. The armor she was making would protect the life of a village warrior and potentially his own life. Therefore, Elijah was more than willing to accommodate her.
While Elijah waited for Mellissa to finish working, he admired the armor she already completed. The armor was created by layering several of the armadillo brown shells over each other. Elijah saw that Mellissa made several changes to the armadillo shells to make them more suitable to wear as human armor.
For example, the spikes that were attached to shells had been cut or broken off. Also, Elijah could see that some of the armadillo shells weren’t complete. They were cut in half or altered in some way that Elijah couldn’t understand from a brief look. Elijah had some questions about the methods Mellissa chose to employ, but he couldn’t question her results.
Item: Armadillo Armor
Tier: 0
Durability: 100/100
Description: A piece of defensive equipment created by combining several pieces of armadillo shells on top of leather. It can barely be called armor. Defense 50 - 60
Requirement: 20 Strength and 20 Endurance
Melissa released a deep breath before she stretched and turned away from her desk to speak to Elijah. “So, what do you think Chief?”
“This is much better than the prototype you showed me earlier. Both in appearance and in effectiveness.” Before he went to clear the mine, Elijah visited Mellissa to apply the effects of his Ruler’s Labor skill and saw the prototype she created. The design wasn’t as attractive, and the armor only increased the wearers defense by twenty points.
“Of course, it’s better.” Melissa stood and walked toward the armor hanging from the awning. “The first one was basically practice that gave me an idea about how the armor would actually look, and it allowed me to obtain more experience with the materials I would be using. I made some adjustments to the armadillo shells; the leather being used, and I added-”
Mellissa had a smile on her face as she went into a lengthy explanation about how she created the armor. Elijah knew that most people were happy to see others take an interest in their work, so Elijah didn’t want to cut her off and dampen her joy. Plus, Mellissa would most likely feel closer to him since he took the time to listen to her talk.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on like that.” After a few minutes passed, Mellissa cut herself off when she realized she was beginning to talk about various leather and animal products unrelated to the armadillo armor.
“It’s fine. I’m not in a rush right now, and I feel like I learned a lot of useful information from what you said.”
“Really?” Initially Mellissa was embarrassed about her rambling, but that embarrassment turned to joy after she received Elijah’s approval. “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. In the future you can come by, and I can try showing you how everything is done. You might even be able to learn my craft.”
“I’m the Chief, so I’m not able to switch jobs like you can.”
“Ah, that’s a shame. I thought I would have someone I could share my job with.”
“Have you tried teaching the children? I’m sure a few of them should be able to learn it. Also, you would have a few people to help you make the armors.”
“Hmph, teaching those brats is nothing but a waste of time and resources. I would rather do everything myself instead of letting them waste the armadillo shells.”
“I never thought your job would be so difficult to learn.”
“Well, it did take me a few years of learning before I was able to make armor clothes and other items out of beast materials.” Mellissa put on a thoughtful expression. “And I probably wasn’t the most patient teacher. Maybe I should try teaching them again after I finish making the armors?”
“That’s sounds like a good idea. It would be good if a few people could learn your craft.” Elijah’s eyes lit up after he spoke. “Hey! Maybe you should try teaching some of the children of the new people that arrived.”
Mellissa frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
Elijah shook his head in disagreement. “Although it’s good to be cautious, you shouldn’t be worried about every little thing. Didn’t I already give them a cultivation technique? I don’t think a few children learning a new job will harm us. Of course, I won’t force you to teach them, and you don’t have to give me an answer right away. Take some time to think about it and let me know later, okay?”
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“I’ll think about it.”
“Great. Now, the reason I stopped by is to tell you about a building I’m making.”
Elijah told Mellissa about the crafting building and did his best to convince her to change her work area. To Elijah surprise she easily agreed to move. With a smile on his face Elijah thanked Mellissa, told her to keep up the good work, before he started to leave.
“Oh, wait before you go, there’s one more thing I wanted to tell you. While the armadillo shells we have right now are enough for Jason and the others, we will need to collect more so we can make repairs and create more armor for other people.”
Elijah paused for a second before he responded. “Thanks for the reminder.”
Gathering more armadillo shells was something Elijah never thought about doing. Thankfully, Mellissa brought up the topic and now Elijah could begin preparing in advance. When Kento and his clan members return, Elijah would tell them to look for armadillos the next time they went to the copper mine.
Before Elijah left, he used his Ruler’s Labor skill on Mellissa’s work area. He had a limited amount of energy, and he couldn’t use his skill on everyone. Therefore, he already decided to give priority on his skill to the woman making armor capable of saving a person’s life.
After Elijah used his skill a gentle withe glow appeared on the ground in the form of a circle. Mellissa smiled when she saw Elijah’s skill, thanked him and immediately got back to work. Elijah said goodbye and went to tell a few more people about the crafting building.
The people Elijah visited all had valuable crafting jobs that could benefit the village. Alchemy, blacksmithing, masonry and more. All the people Elijah visited reacted positively when he told them about the crafting building. They were eager to take advantage of the natural resources and make breakthroughs in their favorite job or jobs.
…
“So, how’s it going?”
After Elijah finished making his rounds, he arrived at the construction site for the crafting building. Elijah assigned some villagers to start working on the building when he returned from the mines. So far, it looked like they were off to a good start.
Several logs were being worked on in various areas around the construction site. A few people were working on the foundation for the crafting building. Three men appeared to be goofing off and drawing lines in the dirt. These were the three men Elijah addressed when he walked on to the construction site.
“So far everything is going well. I don’t think we’ll be able to finish before dinner though.”
The man who replied to Elijah was Samuel. A tall bearded black man with a strong physique. He had the carpenter job and was one of the few people in the village who upgraded their job to the first tier.
In fact, Samuel leveled up his job to level one hundred which was the peak of the first tier. Of course, this was to be expected, since there were several wood related projects that needed to be done in the village. However, although Samuel had a lot of ways to gain experience toward his carpentry job, he didn’t plan to upgrade his job to the second tier.
One reason was because it wasn’t possible for a person to have a job or specialty that was more than one tier above their cultivation tier. Another reason was that Samuel was trying to improve the quality of his job. Doing so would increase the percentage boost he received from his job, but he would have to start leveling up his job again from level fifty-one.
“What can I do to help speed things up?” Elijah asked.
“Can you use that skill again?”
Although he wasn’t specific Elijah knew what skill he was talking about. “No can do. I don’t have the energy.”
“Damn, well, we need to cut down a few more trees and we haven’t even gotten started on the binding substance. What we need is more hands.”
“Not a problem. I’ll grab some hands from the new people to help you make the mud and I’ll go chop down a few trees myself.”
“It’s not mud, it’s a unique substance created by-”
“Alright, aright, you can lecture me about how wrong I am at dinner. Right now, we’ve got work to do.”
Plenty of Kento’s clan members stayed back in the village. Some had wounds that would make strenuous activities like mining difficult while other stayed back to look after the children. The crafting building wasn’t too far away and making the mud or binding substance didn’t require a lot of physical effort, so Elijah didn’t have any problems convincing the clan members to help out.
Once Elijah put the clan members to work, he ran outside of the village and began chopping down trees. The task was simple, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. The astral energy in the world helped humans becomes stronger and it did the same thing to the trees. Chopping down a tree in the game required farm more physical and mental effort than it would take outside of the game.
Unlike someone with the woodcutter or carpenter job, Elijah didn’t receive any bonusses or skills when it came to working with wood. As a cultivator in the Body Tempering realm, without a specific skill Elijah could only rely on his physical strength to cut trees or he could use a lot of mental energy to mobilize the astral energy in his surroundings to increase the effects of his cuts. Thankfully, although Elijah didn’t have a wood cutting skill, he had a combat skill that could improve his performance.
Supreme Combat. The moment this passive skill was triggered, power flowed through Elijah’s body, and he gained better control over it as well. Also, Elijah was better able to sense and control some of the astral energy in his immediate surroundings. Widening his stance, Elijah felt the power in his legs, back and arms ready to be used at any moment. With a smile on his face, Elijah lifted up his axe, gathered some astral energy on the blade, and started chopping.
Whack
Whack
Whack
You have begun chopping down an oak tree. Current progress 34/2000
With each swing Elijah increased his progress by at least nine points. As Elijah chopped down the tree, he made changes to his position, angle, and strength of his cuts to increase the progress he achieved with each swing. Doing this helped Elijah use less energy, decrease the time it would take to chop down the tree and, for a normal person, it would help them obtain the wood cutter job.
Unfortunately for Elijah, he wasn’t a normal person. Elijah already made peace with this fact, so he wasn’t bothered by the fact that he couldn’t experience the joy of having a woodcutter job and slowly leveling it up. He was satisfied with being able to relax with the manual labor.
Once Elijah’s progress hit the two thousand mark the tree tipped over and fell. The next step was to bring it to the construction site. Right as Elijah was about to start dragging the tree back to the village, a thought suddenly appeared in his mind.
“Wait a minute I’m the Chief. I’ll just call some people to help me move this.”
There were definitely a few idle hands in the village. Once Elijah finished chopping down a few more trees he would gather them all up and have them help him bring the trees back. Even if he was in a video game, there was no point in him doing everything by himself and blowing out his virtual back.