Violet stretched, groaning as she rolled out of bed. Then she went to her kitchen, preparing some black tea while she checked her new tributes. It had been about two weeks since she first started training with Solas and she was really starting to get used to her new routine. Having some of the normalcy she had enjoyed in her previous life was really helping with her enthusiasm for her new life. It was hardly necessary to consume food or sleep, but it helped her feel more Humans, which was important for her mental well-being.
Over the last few weeks, she had mostly received repeats, which no longer felt disappointing as much as it was something to be expected. Through her regular routine of observing the adventurers via her [Guest List] skill, she knew quite well that none of them were a high enough rank to afford anything expensive and most of them were likely from the nearby area. Even if merchants were coming through the area more, there was still a limit to how many new tributes she could expect to receive.
She had received 197 DP from repeats over the last two weeks and 375 DP from new tributes, which included: a Millstone town map, an Elesfield city map, a Deepvein kingdom map, a Thornkeep Sanctuary dungeon map, pine nuts, peanuts, watermelon, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, barley tea (barley), rose soda, lavender drink, poset ale, and braggot ale (rye, oats). Considering she had never absorbed the copy of her dungeon map from Mirabella, it was nice to have a second copy to add to her [Items] list.
The other maps were interesting, but Violet got the feeling that they were given to her primarily because the maps were easier to draw up copies of than books were, making them slightly cheaper to provide her. She was hardly going to complain as she was happy to learn more about the world outside of her dungeon however she could. It was mostly just that she couldn't help but extrapolate that the tributes had been given in response to what she had asked Amara, her priestess, to convey to those outside of the dungeon. Honestly, it was nice to see that people were willing to consider her feelings enough for her to receive things besides flowers when she asked for them.
As she only had 4,190 dungeon points after waiting for a few weeks, Violet was starting to wonder if it was really the best plan to just wait things out. Maybe it really was better to start working on a list of merchandise to invest her resources into so she could actively earn more dungeon points at a faster rate. Besides, it would be winter again before she knew it as the days just seemed to fly by. While it was still mid-summer, she might as well take advantage of the dungeon traffic to earn what she could. It would just be a matter of figuring out what she wanted to invest her points on...
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
As for the past few weeks, she had been trying out some new hobbies. Using the quill and ink she already had unlocked, she had been making sketches and practicing her drawing skills. She had even been considering researching a paintbrush since she already had paint. It might be nice to experiment with making full-scale paintings as it would serve as a nice creative outlet. Besides which, she was planning on including several of her own drawings in her next challenge room, which she planned to make soon enough. She was still working out some of the specifics for the challenge, but Violet just really loved the idea of including something custom-made for the adventurers to enjoy.
It was, honestly, quite unfortunate that she was currently trying to save her dungeon points as much as possible. It would also have been nice to have some nice needles, thread, and cloth to practice making her own clothes with or to work on embroidery. She, technically, had undyed cloth and thread among her [Base Resources], but only the finished result, the clothes, were listed under her [Items]. That made it easy to design clothes and then research them, but not to make her own since she'd end up spending more time and resources to make them herself. Still, that did lead to her making sketches of potential new clothes for herself as well as equipment she was considering selling in her store.
Every night she trained with Solas, who was much more patient with her than David had ever been. While it felt like the opposite of progress to have to relearn the stances and how to block and retaliate, she still felt more confident in Solas's abilities. While the blisters and bruises on her hands still persisted, until the end of the night, she no longer had to deal with small cuts across her skin or nasty bruises from skidding across the floor. That was likely, partially due to them not engaging in full-scale duels, but Solas had also reassured her that, by the time they got around to that, it shouldn't be a big deal.
Violet, originally, only really knew about swordsmanship practice from the romance manga she had read in her old life. That usually involved very brief scenes and was often one person getting their sword to the other's weak point, usually the throat, and then they would be considered to have 'won' the match. With David, it had often involved him knocking her over and ridiculing her efforts. Violet had put up with it since she knew that there was enough progress being made to be able to defend her dungeon against goblins and zombies. Dealing with the intruders had still been stressful, but not nearly as bad as if she had tried to do so without training with David.
Solas seemed too gentle, in comparison, and he often asked her if she needed to take a break or if he could clarify things for her. However, Violet still preferred his company and was even overjoyed to see Amara show up each night with him, always eager to talk with her after training. It was more like having friends come to visit with her than anything else, but she was hopeful that Solas also knew what he was doing. Maybe if she corrected her form and learned how to predict her opponent's moves, she would be able to defend against adventurers instead of just low-intelligence intruders.