A week went by as I did my best to train constantly. It quickly became apparent that I was nearing the end of what I could gain easily from just safe sparring and practice. However I had made some significant gains, my Elven Adolescent was level 11 and Radiant Redeemer was level 21 now. The best part about that was that the Training skill was level 11 and as far as I knew had abundant extra experience so I would keep gaining levels as my species leveled up.
Getting Training to the cap was far and away the most important first step of my training, with a 11% boost to all experience gain I essentially got a free hour of experience everyday I spent training.
The second thing was putting every stat point I could into Animus, and all my physical stats into Vitality. I needed as much mana regeneration as I could possibly get. More mana regeneration meant I could use my magic more, and level it more.
Now that Animus was my highest stat at 110, I decided I would switch to spending my free stats on Manipulation to hopefully get a better Fire healing class. The primary stat tied to Fire classes was Manipulation, and the Bioshifter Curist class gave more Manipulation than other stats. So I am hoping adding to that stat and observing magical healing will help me get a better class grade.
Today was going to be our first day being allowed into Girmstel. Taele decided to remain behind, mostly so that mom and her weren’t seen together outside the manor. We were all on our best behavior before the escape. If we slipped up it would give Halcroft a reason to tighten the reins.
We technically took a carriage to the town, but in reality Penelope and I were doing constant short sprints back and forth to help level up our movement skills. It took about an hour to get to and from Grimstel from the manor. That meant I would be able to use my entire mana pool twice by meditating with my sword in the carriage to recover.
With that being the case I intentionally practiced higher mana usage lunges rather than constant slightly increased movement speed. I would spend mana once every few steps to get better at balancing after the bounding step. Likewise I would run backwards and throw myself further back with the steps. The hardest was changing direction suddenly with a Radiant step. It put a ton of strain on my body, my legs especially. However the whole point of this training was to learn to deal with exactly that.
*Radiant Steps has leveled up, level 18.*
Penelope on the other hand had two movement skills, Fluid Motion from her Water warrior class and Light Steps from her Light noble class. The second was all about dexterity and really was more about dancing than fighting. However footwork during a fight and a dance were pretty similar in some ways. Fluid Motion made her all around faster, basically it improved the speed aspect of her agility, but not the finesse aspect.
For her training she would constantly bob and weave as she moved forward, changing directions suddenly and fluidly. She essentially treated the entire run like she was constantly fighting in a chaotic melee.
Thankfully there wasn’t anyone on this road really, only people that wished to trade with the manor used it. It would be strange to see a couple teens jumping all over the place. Although I wasn’t technically a teen yet I suppose.
Riza was with us, walking along the carriage keeping a lookout for potential threats. There were apparently some monsters in the area, but if we kept to the road it was unlikely they would attack. Inside the carriage was Farva and mother, and a man named Gregg was driving the carriage.
*Radiant Steps has leveled up, level 19.*
Once we were about 10 minutes out Penelope and I stopped training so we could go inside the carriage and get changed out of our tunics and pants and into relatively simple dresses by our standards. The dresses would still be more expensive than anything a commoner wore, of course. Farva fortunately had a skill that helped us clean the sweat off and she did our hair so we didn’t look a mess. I wasn’t totally convinced on using skill slots for hairdressing and cleaning, but I was definitely happy to have Farva with us.
For really the first time in this world I entered a town. Yes, technically, I lived in my parent’s village for the first two years of life, but I barely saw any of it. I was also, you know, two, so it barely counted. I scooted over to the window of the carriage trying to take it all in.
There was a small wooden wall surrounding the vast majority of the town, with only a few smaller buildings, more shacks really, on the outside. Men guarded the open gate into the town. When we approached Gregg waved at them and they didn’t even slow us down, letting us straight in. I didn’t know if there was no check or tax going into the town or if the guards just knew Gregg and that he was employed by the local Lord so he was never stopped.
From my education I knew entry taxes were extremely common. Locals needed to pay a significantly reduced rate, usually one or two copper, whereas other people had to pay a silver or more. In Hakan there were four types of currency, copper coins, silver coins, gold coins, and crowns. There were 100 copper coins to every silver, 100 silver to every gold, and 50 gold to every crown. An average commoner made about 25 silvers a year. Some merchants and adventurers could make a lot more, often multiple gold every year. Crowns were generally a currency exclusively used by major merchants, nobles, and governments.
For our trip today we were supplied with 10 gold coins, which was frankly a ludicrous amount. If we spent 10 gold in a single day we would be buying the entire stock of multiple stores. Penelope and I each had a pouch with a few silvers and about one hundred copper for any small items we wanted, otherwise we would need to ask mother.
It was arranged that I would spend some of the day at one of the local healers, Helen. She had an Earth, Light, and Water healing class. She was by far the most powerful healer in Grimstel, the only thing she didn’t handle very well was disease since she didn’t have a dark class. Her water class could help with disease, by creating potions, but she tended to leave those cases to other healers. That meant she was constantly busy and the town assigned her personal guards. The Halcroft family was technically in charge of this town, however both Halcroft and the local leaders agreed Helen needed to be protected.
Even being the most powerful healer in this town didn’t give her a massive amount of levels. Her highest level class was Earth healer since she started as a midwife, and it was only level 160 or so. The system rewarded people experience based on how difficult what they were doing was to accomplish for them. Once you became a particularly good healer the amount of experience you gain became a crawl. You would have to constantly throw yourself at high casualty events to keep leveling at a consistent pace. Alternatively you could join an adventuring party and heal on the front lines, but combat healers tended to die young.
People that faced extreme adversity that was effectively impossible to overcome, like what happened when my father died, would gain a ton of experience. Potentially gaining dozens of levels like I did. Whereas people that just did their profession day in and day out would be lucky to gain a few levels a year. The exception was new classes, everyone tended to level to 30-40 super quickly, then it slowed down.
All that meant the average level of their highest level class for an adult commoner was 100 and an elderly person might be 150 or so. People that took high risk jobs, like guards, adventurers, soldiers would level way faster, it wasn’t uncommon for a retiring soldier to get to level 200. Few adventurers ever got to retire, but if they did they can expect to be closer to level 300.
That all put into perspective what I was trying to do in 3 months. Getting to level 100 in such a small amount of time without throwing myself at insane risks required absolute dedication. I trained every waking hour of the day. The harder you pushed yourself, the more you worked while exhausted, the more stress you put yourself under the faster you leveled. Having a strong start like I did also helped a lot. Due to my very high stats and powerful starting class I was able to do things people with 100 more levels than me couldn’t.
However if I ever rested on my achievements I knew I would stumble. That was why even on my ‘day off’ I trained, just in a way that wasn’t exhausting. The running was just one of the activities I planned for today. I would also try to level my Noble skill by purchasing items and maintaining my noble bearing while I was in town. I would take in and learn everything I could about how commoners lived in this world. Finally I would observe the process of magical healing.
So as we passed the gates I watched everything. Not as some excited child, although I was that, but as an anthropologist learning about a new society. To say I ended up a bit disappointed would be an understatement.
The town itself was exactly what I would think a dark ages town in England might look like. Some of the buildings were stone but most were made of wood and straw. On the main street there were lots of shops with signs containing pictures of what they sold. Only occasionally would there be words to accompany the pictures. These buildings were higher class, sturdier. However along the side streets the quality of building declined quickly.
The people in the town went about their business mostly quietly, the town seemed listless. There were merchants advertising their wares, but few people in the streets. Was this just how a town this size was? Were people told about our arrival? Was something happening? I couldn’t really know. The only one of the four of us inside the carriage that might know is Farva.
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“Farva, does the town seem… a little listless to you?” I asked.
She hadn’t been looking out the window and checked before answering. “It is a little slow I suppose. I don’t come into town much though. Dame Riza would be the one to ask.” I nodded and just waited patiently until the carriage got to wherever it was going.
I continued to watch people going about their business. The people themselves were all fine, there were just so few of them. It was midday and we were on the main street with shops lining the road. There should be a lot more people around.
Finally Gregg pulled us off onto a side strike and the carriage came to a stop. I was the first to open the door and jump out. Riza had been there to help us out of the carriage but was a little taken aback when I jumped out immediately. “What is happening within the town?” I asked.
“Alea, stop that.” Mother chided me from within the carriage.
Riza helped Penelope down before she gave me a strange look, one eyebrow raised. “What makes you think something is happening?”
I returned her look with a deadpanned one of my own. “There aren’t nearly enough people in the streets for a town this size.”
“How would you, of all people, possibly know that?” Riza asked, making a rather good point. There was no possible way for me to know what a proper town was supposed to look like. I had been two the last time I was in one.
“It just doesn’t feel right I guess.” I said, trying my best to cover my mistake. “I feel like something has happened.”
Riza finished helping mother and Farva out of the carriage, then she sighed. “I was going to go check with the guard which is why we stopped here.” She motioned toward the starburst sign over the building we had stopped next to. I suppose that sign must indicate the guard. She turned to mother. “Lady Shalia, why don’t you take the little ladies around, I will find you soon.”
“I believe we will be at the tailor we just passed.” Mother responded, apparently not nearly as worried as I was.
Farva and mother began to walk back toward the main street. Penelope was looking from them to me trying to decide what to do next. “Alright, we’ll go.” I huffed then turned to follow my mom.
For the first time as I walked away from the carriage I realized I was leaving my Sukeshi behind. At the manor it wasn’t a big deal, but being here out in the open I felt naked without it. When was it that I had grown so attached to the weapon? Maybe this was a byproduct of the Sukeshi Chakra skill, I reasoned. The only other thing I could think of is that I hadn’t been around people I didn’t know for a decade. Had I really grown that dependent on my prison. That was rather concerning.
I blinked, shaking a fuzzy sensation from my mind. I was looking into a poor quality mirror twisting this way and that, trying to determine if I like this dress or not. It felt like I was looking at it for the first time. It was a rather pretty red color with dark accents, I had never really considered this color before going for cooler colors. The dress was embroidered and expensive looking, but I wouldn’t wear it to an event, just around the manor. I guess it was high enough quality to wear on my trips to Grimstel too. “Hmmm.” I grumbled. I turned and left the little changing area. “What do you think, Pen?”
Penelope was there going through some swathes of fabric. She looked up and pursed her lips. “I like it, but…” She trailed off.
“But?” I asked, turning toward another higher quality mirror. The more I looked at it the more I liked it. The red was darker than my hair but still went well with it.
“It just doesn’t feel very you I guess?” Penelope followed up. “Not that you don’t look pretty in it.”
I considered it for one more moment before deciding to get it, it would need some minor alterations made by the seamstress at the manor but that wasn’t a problem. Penelope was right, it wasn’t like what I normally wore, but I also felt like branching out a bit. “Thanks, Pen.” I said before returning to the little changing room to change back into my other dress.
While I was changing, I overheard mother and someone talking. “That bad?” Mom said, disappointment evident in her voice.
“Only last night were they brazen enough to attack the walls directly. They broke through a small section of the wall on the North side of town before the guard repealed them. Has everyone spooked.” A woman responded.
I wondered what they were talking about. Only once I was dressed again did I remember the weirdness around the village. Something must have attacked the town, that’s why there were so few people around.
“What about the local adventurer guild? Have they sent any to deal with the problem?” Mother asked.
I exited the changing stall with the dress I planned to buy. Penelope had since found something of her own and had disappeared into the other changing stall. At the counter was Mother and an elderly woman, clearly the store clerk if not the owner of this business.
“Almost all the adventurers are at the dungeon, I guess they are putting together a team, but who knows when that will happen.” I could hear the exacerbation in the woman’s voice. Clearly she did not think highly of adventurers.
Adventuring was a profession all over the world, they primarily dealt with dungeons, however would do any number of other things, like escorting merchants, dealing with local monster threats, or gathering some of the more dangerous to acquire materials. Dungeons were places where monsters came from, if the monsters were constantly killed they would leave the dungeon and the worst case scenario was a breeding population setting up permanently in the wild.
That had happened many times in the past before most dungeons were as well maintained as they are now, leading to monsters existing everywhere in the world. Attempting to destroy a dungeon or altering it too much would just mean the monsters would be created all over the wild, so it was never done. Plus killing the monsters was a constant source of mana cores and other useful things like leathers which were needed for pretty much everything in this world.
I approached the counter placing the dress on it. “What type of creature attacked?” I asked.
“Acid Hogs.” The woman’s voice was dripping with disgust. “There is a herd of them somewhere nearby. Usually they just attack the occasional traveler and eat their supplies, but everyone thinks the herd has grown too numerous so they’ve been becoming more aggressive.”
I didn’t know what Acid Hogs were, but I could guess. Still a creature attacking a town like that seemed strange. “Has this happened before?”
“Not that I know of.” The woman replied immediately. She had to be older than 60, but with how vitality worked in this world she might be as old as 100. With a high enough Vitality a human can live four or five hundred years, however that only applied to the most powerful among them. A commoner that makes it to adulthood could expect to live to 80 or so at least if they never work hard at their Vitality, or up to as much as 150 if they put everything into the stat. Either way she had lived long enough that if this had happened before it was extremely rare.
The woman took a look at the dress I had brought up. “Oh how pretty, I really loved the stitch work on this one, you’ll look beautiful in it.” She put her merchant hat back on trying to sell me a dress I had already decided to buy.
Mom ran her hand along the dress, a gentle smile on her face. “We’ll have to take it with us.” She said quietly before turning to Farva. “Would you put this in the bag, Farva?”
Our maid stepped up grabbing the small bag that was on her belt. The dress was far larger than the bag, yet as she lowered it in, the dress disappeared into the bag. It was a bag of holding, just a small one though. It could only hold about 5 cubic feet of material. More than enough for a shopping spree, but that was about it. Powerful bags could hold ten times as much.
Penelope exited the dressing area. She had on a pink dress, with her gray blue hair it made her look like cotton candy. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not though. She was certainly cute in it. Penelope, unlike me, has already had puberty hit her pretty hard. She was well on her way to taking after her mother’s figure. Her ears weren’t quite as long as mine, but they definitely pegged her as having mostly elven heritage.
“I don’t know about the color…” Mother said slowly.
Penelope grumbled. “I don’t either, I wanted to try something new… but this…” She shook her head clearly disappointed with it.
Riza entered the store, cutting a sharp counter to our much more feminine garb. She wore lighter plate armor emblazoned with the Halcroft family crest on it, an eagle. She had sharper features, and shorter brown hair, that hung just below her ears.
“I fear our trip must be cut short.” Riza approached us a bit agitated. “The captain of the guard has requested that I deal with a problem.”
“The acid hogs?” Mom asked. “If so I would very much like a sample of their acid.”
Riza gave mom a strange look. “Yes, the acid hogs, and if you find me a vial I’ll get you some.” Her voice was curt, I doubted she had any interest in gathering materials for my mother. However, I had long suspected Halcroft had told her to ingratiate herself with us. Riza just wasn’t that good a liar, and her true feelings came across quite often.
Mom and the shopkeep began to discuss payment. I ignored that and considered the idea of the acid hogs. This was exactly the type of thing that would massively accelerate my training, and with Riza watching over us we wouldn’t be in much danger.
“Dame Riza.” I walked up next to hear putting on my sweetest smile. “Do you think Penelope and I could come along with you? The experience would be a boon to my training.” I wasn’t completely confident Penelope would want to come with us, but I suspected. She and I had a bit of a friendly rivalry to our relationship, she would never let me get ahead of her if she could help it.
Riza looked down at me with a frown. “My lord has not yet given permission for such ventures.”
“But you and I know it's just a matter of time… this is a perfect situation, you will be there, we couldn’t be safer.” I argued back instantly.
Riza gave me an annoyed look then rubbed her eyes. “Fine, whatever, I just want this over with.”
I beamed at her, then rushed over to the changing area Penelope was in. “Pen! We get to go kill hogs!” I said happily.