Her ride went smoothly, stopping to pick up some wild vegetables and fruits and other plants she could eat as well as healing plants, she made her way to the stream she always used to gather fresh water. She took out the barrel and proceeded to fill it up and then replaced the lid and sent it back to her inventory.
"Thank god it has a quantity limit and not a weight limit" she said to herself. After she was done she was another 300xp richer but alas no new skills or features Jarvis had explained that those were a one time reward for doing the task for the first time. She looked at the only daily tasks she had yet to do and sure enough it also had an extra reward.
{Daily Quest:
Quest Two: Weapon Training - Although pretty proficient in weapon usage, you know how the old saying goes 'Use It Or Lose It'.
Objective: Practice with a weapon of your choice for two hours.
Reward: +XP, An upgrade to the weapon you used}
{"Technically if you use a different weapon each time you'll get an upgraded version of it."}
"Seriously! I could have had upgraded weapons all this time?" Sam huffed annoyed.
{"It's not my fault you didn't read the quests in full."} Jarvis said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Fine! Ugh let's go home, I have some training to do." She got back on Sunblaze's back and went back home. That feeling of being watched happened again so she hurried the horse along.
Back home she took care of Sunblaze's needs and walked over to the kitchen. First She finished off the Healing Salve quest reaping another 100xp. She then found a open spot, stuck her hand out and thought of the water barrel. Instantly the barrel appeared under her hand. No lifting needed.
Taking her bucket she scooped out some water for her pets and then made her way outside again. The sun was lowering but she'd have just enough time to get this done.
Taking out her trusted bow she figured getting an extra upgrade on it would be best since she was already quite good at it. Wondering how good, she re-checked her general skills. She was concerned about not having any special combat skills so she asked Jarvis about it.
{"Fear not, as long as the weapon is enchanted you'll do fine. Keep adding to your strength stat and you should be able to do a fair amount of damage. It may take you a few more hits, but boost agility too and you'll be able to get away from their retaliation in time."}
" How is damage calculated anyway?"
{"It's a combination of things really, Strength gives you your base damage. Then the condition of the beast, where you hit, any enchantments you may have. Plus the beasts level. If it's level is higher then yours chances are that it's stats are too.
You also get bonus XP for killing something five level higher then you, 50% more. However killing something five levels lower than you has the opposite bonus and your experience is reduced by 50%. Just know that is not a carte blanche to go picking fights you can't win. So at the moment, you would do 15 points of damage if you hit a non-vital area on a level 7 beast. Reducing it's HP by 15 points.
Your bow has a piercing enchantment that adds 20 DPS or damage per shot. That's why it did 35 DPS on that deer. A critical shot adds 150 DPS. Without your frankly OP advantage you would of had to hit it at least another six or seven times"}
"Yay me and my crazy skills" Sam said looking at the weapon part of her general skills section.
{General Skills:
…
General Weaponry Skills:
Knife LVL 7
Dagger LVL 8
Short Sword LVL 8
Short Bow LVL 9
Spear LVL 8
Axe LVL 7
…}
{"Unfortunately you can't upgrade Basic General Skills. They upgrade themselves with use. Once skills that are alike reach LVL 10 they combine into an advanced skill. That skill can be upgraded with skill points. So you have your work cut out for you."}
Sighing Sam aimed her bow at a branch twenty five meters in front of her. She released the arrow and the branch snapped off. Her aim was pretty solid at level nine so she tried something else. She proceeded to try running while aiming at another branch…not quite as good when on the move.
She repeated the same move this time just aiming for the trunk. Why make it harder for herself. Once that was a success, she aimed for smaller and smaller targets until she could finally break the branch. Stopping to gather her stray arrows she stood in the woods looking around for any signs of danger.
Seeing none in sight she looked at her map to double check, nothing…but she still had that, 'You're being watched' feeling. She new it well from her past life. Sam turned around and went back to training, trying something different this time.
Had she turned around at that moment she'd have seen a pair of green eyes glinting in the dying sun. A certain wolf was watching the odd human. It had never been able to understand them before. Granted it never went too close before, but this one rescued her. Even gave up the boars core and healed her. Strange human indeed.
By the time Sam arrived back in front of the cave it was starting to get dark. She finished up with her training and finally heard that telltale sound.
{Ding! Quest complete! - Weapon Training (Short Bow)
Reward: +150 XP
Reward: Your Uncommon, Good, Short Bow has been upgraded to a Rare, Great, Short Bow. Your Peircing Enchantment has been upgraded. It now does an additional +40 DPS bringing it's total DPS to 60.}
Her bow started to glow for a few seconds and when it was done there was a visible change. What was originally a simple wooden bow with a few nicks from wear and tear from battles over the years. Now it looked brand new. It had decorative scrolling along its length and the string looked like it had been restrung this morning.
"That is quite the upgrade" Sam smiled "can't wait to see what I get on the others."
{"I believe your bow skill has increased as well"}
Sam checked and sure enough it was now LVL 10. Just five more to go and she could advance her individual General Weapon Skills into an Advanced Weapon Skill.
After entering the cave, she put her bow back into her inventory and walked up to her crafting workbench. She tapped on the mana pad and looked at the other menus. There was just about everything there neatly categorized and then sub-categorized.
Right now she had some resources to 'manipulate'. She removed all the hide in her inventory. It was a considerable sum. Boar, rabbit, deer. She picked up a piece of rabbit hide. Apparently to turn it into the leather she wanted, all she had to do was hold the item and visualize what she wanted from it. As she thought of it turning into leather, a bundle of rabbit fur appeared on the workbench. In her hands was a piece of Swiftbunnie leather. she was about to inspect it to see if it retained any attributes.
{Ding! Material Manipulation: Basic Success Achieved.
Swiftbunny hide successfully converted into basic quality leather. Flexible and breathable. Not recommended for high-impact protection.
Fur retained. Possible secondary uses detected: insulation, muffling, enchantment buffering}
{+40XP}
Sam was smiling at the leather. This was perfect, now she could eventually use the leather to make herself some armor or boots. She just had to get her skill leveled up. Once tailoring showed up she'd have herself some new armour.
She now could continued with the other hides, hopefully the results would improve. She assumed they would, that's kind of the point with the S.I.S.T.E.M. afterall.
Before she could start, a new quest sounded.
{Special Quest:
Special Quest Two: Sentimental Armor Reached Structural Limitations - Parental Love: eternal. Stitching integrity: not.
Objective: Reach level 3 in Master Crafter and gain access to a new skill to assist in this quest. Create a new set of armor for yourself. Must contain at least three major elements: Chest piece, Greaves, Bracers. Optional items: Helm, Boots, Gloves, Pauldrons, Belt, Cloak.
Rewards:
+50XP per piece (150xp Minimum),
Woven Bond (Armor Passive, Upgradeable)
When wearing the 3 piece set (Chest piece, Greaves, Bracers) +5% Defence +5% Speed +1 to Charisma stat.
When wearing 5+ piece set
(Chest piece, Greaves, Bracers, Helm, Boots) Gain an additional
+5 to Strength stat +2 to Intelligence stat +10% durability for any weapon you craft
When wearing the full set gain an additional +10 to all stats (Excluding Luck)}
"Oooh nice, that will be perfect. Those set benefits are amazing. So Jarvis how do I gain levels in this class? Or any class for that matter?" Asked Sam as she took out all the hides she had and organized them for the purpose of making the armor in, hopefully, the near future.
{"It's a simple matter of using your skills, then once you you reach a certain proficiency you'll receive a notification to upgrade the skill. It depends on your intelligence stat and how quickly you learn them.
Once you are able to upgrade your skills to LVL 3 then your class will upgrade and you will receive the next four skills in your class. Those skills must reach LVL 3 before your class can upgrade again.
This pattern continues until all skills are obtained and at least at LVL 3 and then the next skill level goal is LVL 6 until you can upgrade your class.
Once the first four reach LVL 6 the pattern repeats. The number of skill points also increases. Doubling each time. One point for skills LVL 3 and under, two for skills between LVL 4 - LVL 6, four for skills LVL 7 - LVL 9 and eight for LVL 10. That's when a skill is either capped or advances."}
"Then it's even more points to upgrade the advanced skills?" Sam asked rubbing her temples
{"Indeed, but remember every personal level you gain for yourself gives more points. So it all evens out in a way."}
"Right, might as well get working."
Starting with the lowest grade hides first, Sam continued manipulating the hides into leather receiving bundles of fur along with them. Along the way she also gained XP for her work. Her work even managed to increase the quality of one of the Silverhides to rare from uncommon. After converting the lightning hide, which annoyingly gave off static electric shocks, she received a new notification that she was waiting for.
{Ding! Material Manipulation Quality has upgraded from Basic to Good}
{Ding! Your skill 'Material Manipulation' is ready to upgrade!}
{Would you like to upgrade 'Material Manipulation' at this time?}
{Yes/No}
{Ding! Your skill 'Waste not, Want not' is ready to upgrade!}
{Would you like to upgrade 'Waste not, Want not' at this time?}
{Yes/No}
{Ding! You have upgraded 'Material manipulation' to level 2 - You now have a higher chance to boost the quality of the material you are manipulating.}
{Ding! You have upgraded 'Waste Not, Want Not' to level 2 - The new materials you recycle now have a higher quality.}
Sam mentally clicked 'yes' on both. She stopped to stretch and feed the next set cores to Iggy, Tempy and Sunblaze hoping the common core she fed Sunblaze wouldn't reduce her tier chances too much.
Sam walked back to the workbench to start advancing her "Item Creation" skill. She looked through the non-combat items on the mana-pad wondering what she should make.
"Hey Jarvis, what's this sync button do?" Sam asked, just noticing the little blue button on the top right of the mana-pad.
{"Ah, a handy little feature that allows you to sync the mana-pad to your S.I.S.T.E.M. it will inform you what items you can make with the materials you have in your inventory. Materials will appear red if you do not have them."}
"Perfect, that is very handy." Sam went over to her stash of materials that she had from O.S. and picked through the items that she couldn't use like the raw ores. She then removed anything that was not a material item, except for the perishables, and filled her inventory.
She then went back to the workbench and hit sync. She then filtered the items by availability based on material needs fulfilled. Then scrolled down the list of things she could make right now. It was a decent amount. Things that needed to have the material refined first were still included.
She first made some of the refined items she'd need. Earning her some more XP and raising the upgrade level of material manipulation to level 3 and bringing her to LVL 9.
{"Congratulations Sam you're almost at level 10! You've done amazingly well for…2 days. Astonishing really!}
"I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or be insulted" Sam says with a laugh "I'm 100% sure without the double double skill I wouldn't be this far… or alive. The extra damage alone is a little op."
{"Definitely a compliment Sam"}
Seeing some things required a certain type of wood she'd seen close by, she left the cave and retuned with a good amount harvested from the felled tree. She also gathered more plants for plant fibers.
Coming back home she added the resources to her stockpile and called it a night.