“At last!” I say, smoothing my hand lightly across my finished tanning basin. It’s taken longer than I wanted to get it done, but finally, I’m ready to make the next step towards having better armour than modern-day clothing and my skin.

Carving the basin has taken a while, but it would have been less time if I’d dedicated a couple of days to it. However, I’ve had other things to do, and don’t mind too much that it’s ended up taking five days to get to this point. In fact, I decide to celebrate by taking a break – and eating one of my most recent experiments with food.

It’s a sort of flat cake which I made with ground roots, water, and one of the five eggs River managed to find for me on one of his hunting trips into the forest. I was a bit dubious about them at first, but they turned out to taste much like the eggs I’m used to – a bit more strongly ‘eggy’, perhaps. Either way, it seems to do the job I wanted it to of holding my cake together.

I also sip from my sneleon shell which is now filled with a herbal tea of those berries with a couple of leaves which go quite nicely together. With the woodlice-type creature’s shells working well enough as deep bowls, I can now use the sneleon shell purely for drinks.

I keep two other pots in my Inventory at all times with water that’s safe to drink. After my experience of suffering from thirst while getting out of the vine-strangler forest – and almost dying in chasing the sounds of a river – I want to make sure I always have a couple of days’ worth of drinking water in my Inventory.

In fact, I should probably make some more big clay pots exactly for that purpose – with my increased strength, I should be able to lift them to put them into my Inventory. It’s just that all the effort of making and firing pottery leaves me feeling tired before even starting. Well, maybe I can make a few containers out of other parts of the tree trunk – I’m pleased with my recent efforts, after all.

So thinking, I inspect my basin with proud eyes. While it’s still very roughly-hewn, it’s deep and wide enough to be able to take a couple of hides at a time, if I choose. Plus, the sides are thick enough that it shouldn’t leak much. If it does start leaking, I will seal the inside with pitch, but since that’s a fair bit more work, I’m not planning on doing that unless it proves necessary.

At least, it proved to be a good water-trough when it rained again yesterday, so I don’t think I need to worry too much.

Next, I’ll need to mash up the brains with some hot water to create my tanning solution, something which I’ll do this evening. That way it can soak overnight and then I can start stretching it on one of the frames I’ve also prepared.

However, before that, I have another task that I need to do – I need firewood for the night.

Heading over to the two pieces of trunk, I swing my axe at the tree trunk. An interesting effect of my newest Skill is that apparently an axe counts as a blunt weapon. Or my axe does, anyway: perhaps a properly sharp metal axe wouldn’t. Which means that I gain extra Strength when I use it for the practical task of chopping firewood, just as much as I’d gain it in combat. Useful!

Since I’ve already got that Skill up to Beginner three, that means an additional fifteen percent increase to my Strength. By this point, I’m getting pretty sure that the answer to my original question about the ratio is that it’s a percentage of my Strength as a whole, divided afterwards into four fifths towards Power and one fifth towards Endurance.

When I’m wielding the axe, I get a whole six points added to my stamina. Such a boost. Not.

Anyway, that works out if I look at my total Strength points – twenty – multiply that by fifteen percent, and then assign the three points that would give me along the ratio of the Skill. Power (Endurance) would earn point six of a point, which would give me six more stamina points.

I suppose that I should be glad the fractional value is being taken into account at all, but I can’t help rolling my eyes at little. Then again, if I can get the Skill up to the Beginner ranks, I’ll be getting eighteen more stamina points, which might make more of a difference.

And if the increase continues or improves in Novice levels…. Though, I do have to admit that I feel the difference even at only Beginner three. I suppose that’s because I’ve effectively increased my Power by twenty-five percent – the benefit of having fewer points in it.

Since I only have eight points in Strength (Endurance), but the Skill seems to take my Strength value of twenty as a whole, and then assigns four fifths of the increase to Power, my Strength (Power) is increased by more than two points. So perhaps it’s not too surprising that I notice a difference in that. I find myself wondering whether I have to actively be using my axe or whether I could just do actions with it in my hand. If the latter, I could see it as a bit of a cheat for certain laborious tasks….

A good twenty minutes or so of sweaty work later and I’ve chopped a chunk off the trunk. Now I need to split it into actual logs suitable for my fire. I’ve become aware that my fireplace isn’t actually completely suitable for proper firewood now I’ve started using it. I designed it while using branches found on the forest floor which I could easily snap into shorter lengths if necessary. However, longer and thicker firewood logs don’t fit quite so well.

I’m not keen on putting in the effort right now to remake it, though I’m sure I could do a much better job a second time around, not when I’ve got hopes of changing the location of my base. I’ve decided to see how the quest goes before deciding whether to rip out my fireplace or not. Until then, I’ll just cut my firewood a bit shorter than ideal.

Tipping the chunk of trunk onto its end, I use my axe to make a deep cut in the centre. Then, grabbing a wedge of wood which I made for this purpose, I hammer it into place with my mace. A bit of a make-shift hammer, but it does well enough.

After a few blows, the tree splits in half. Sometimes the cut hasn’t been as successful and I’ve got a third off rather than a half, but I’m getting better at identifying where to make the initial cut.

Using the same technique, I set to cutting the half into logs suitable for my fireplace. I’ll probably need another round or two like this to have enough wood for the next day, maybe two if I let it die down significantly over the day. I don’t like letting it die completely, though, since it’s always a pain to light it again.

The last five days have ended up falling into a bit of a routine. First, we start with some sparring. As I thought, Hades and Persephone have taken a bit of time to get used to the idea of fighting seriously, while not intending on maiming or killing their opponents. My Flesh-Shaping got a bit of a work-out the first few times.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Side note: it turns out that healing a gouged eye is possible with Flesh-Shaping; it just takes a lot of mana. Fenrir was rather happy with that discovery.

I’m pretty pleased with my own progress when it comes to sparring: I’ve earned three levels in each of my weapons Skills, and actually earned a new one. That was when I remembered that I actually use my knife as much as any of my other weapons and started practising technique with that one too.

The new Skill – Short Blades – turned out to be much like Blunt Weaponry in that it didn’t specify ‘knife’ but seems to cover any short blade. It also offers a five percent increase to my Dexterity so I can better use the blade with ‘finesse’ – direct quote. I’m starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with my spear and bow Skills in that they only offer two percent increases in total, where my more general weapons Skills are offering five percent. Or maybe I’m supposed to have general Skills for those in addition to the specific ones? Oh well – it’s more than nothing which is what I was dealing with before.

After the sparring, we tend to all get on with other tasks. River has been hard at work with the potions I asked him to experiment with, spending his time either mixing potions or in the forest looking for more ingredients, usually with one or more of my other Bound. He’s been testing out the effects of potions he’s pretty sure are poisonous on his prey, but we’ve all still been test subjects for potions he thinks will be beneficial.

Needless to say, I’m glad that Flesh-Shaping has also proven able to deal with poisons. Actually, that particular Skill has jumped into the mid-Journeyman ranks thanks to its workout over the last few days.

I pull up my status screen to have a look at how it’s coming on.

Name: Markus Wolfe

Race: Human

Class: Tamer

Level: 12

Energy to next level: 100%

Energy absorption rate: 29u/hr

Energy towards debt: 86% (255)

Intelligence

36

Mana: 540/540 (15u/IP)

Wisdom

34

Mana regeneration rate: 850u/hr

Willpower

42+8 (+20%)

Health regeneration rate: 40u/hr (-20%)

Constitution

20

Health: 200/200

Strength

20

Stamina: 120/120

Dexterity

20

Stamina regeneration rate: 200u/hr

Class skills

Dominate – Novice 5

*Companion Bond

Tame – Beginner 9

Fade – Initiate 2

Inspect Fauna – Beginner 6

Inspect Flora – Beginner 8

Inspect Environment – Beginner 8

Non-Class skills

Flesh-Shaping – Journeyman 3

Stealth – Novice 3

Animal Empathy – Initiate 1

Meditation – Initiate 9

Energy Manipulation – Journeyman 9

Sensation Management – Beginner 5

Spearmanship – Beginner 5

Archery – Beginner 3

Blunt Weaponry – Beginner 5

Short Blades – Beginner 1

Despite not actually having been all that long, several of my Skills have made progress. Obviously, all the weapons Skills have increased due to the time I’m spending working on technique during sparring. Actually, thanks to making an effort during cutting firewood to focus on how I’m holding the axe or the hammer and in bringing it down with both power and precision, Blunt Weaponry has actually caught up with Spearmanship, despite being earned later.

As Hades and Persephone have relaxed with the group, I’ve noticed my Dominate increasing, so I venture to say that there might be some sort of relationship there. Tame is still stubbornly sitting at Beginner 9 despite Sirocco gelling better with our group, so I don’t know what I need to do there. Tame another creature, perhaps?

I’ve been out into the forest once since I Dominated the kiinas, my excuse being to collect plants for food, but the reality was that I was getting antsy about being in the same place all the time. I tried to make the outing useful, though, exercising all my Inspection Skills as well as Fade and Stealth, two Skills I haven’t paid much attention to at all recently. Since I’m generally travelling with a group of much less stealthy Bound, there’s not much point. However, they’re still good Skills to keep sharp, just in case I have to go somewhere alone, or only with Bastet.

Interestingly, Stealth jumped forwards two levels and Fade quickly increased by one. Perhaps it’s linked to the work I’ve been doing on my Energy channels? Or through Meditation?

Speaking of that particular Skill, it’s increased all the way to the maximum level in Initiate; I look forward to seeing what the new developments will be there. I was a bit mystified by the upgrade to Flesh-Shaping. Not sure whether to be disappointed or pleased. I pull the description up again.

Congratulations!

You have advanced a Skill past Initiate. Flesh-Shaping is now Journeyman 1. You have become a confident user of mana in both your own body and that of others. You have focussed on healing with some exploration of non-healing purposes. You have saturated the bodies of both living and dead creatures and discovered some of the different effects that this causes. While your Skill remains more healing-focussed, it has grown to include more non-healing modifications. Scanning a body now gives more information about the body of your target, and the functionality of different aspects. You are more able to memorise this information and automatically use it to achieve your goals. The previously narrowed focus of your Skill has widened once more, opening up options which you have not yet tried.

Close message? Y/N

The problem is that it’s just so…vague. Previous upgrades gave percentages which were easy to quantify. This time, though, it just talks about improvements and widening and growing. It will probably prove to be useful, but for now I can’t see the extent of its utility.

I sigh, closing the screen. Oh well, at least it’s probably more useful than my Animal Empathy upgrade which basically amounted to improving my ability to understand my Bound’s body language, even directly after Binding them. Not much use when I don’t often use either of my binding Skills. It was probably because I had so recently Bound Hades and Persephone that I got that upgrade. Hopefully the next one will be better.

Though thinking about upgrades, I reached a hundred percent progress towards my next level a couple of days ago. Ever since then, I’ve been debating whether I should level up at all. While my procrastination has meant that my debt has been reduced by another percent, I do need to make a decision.