8 8
Despite the fact that the forums all said there were numerous nocturnal, diurnal, and crepuscular enemies in every region of the game I only ran into ferecats and dusk imps. Dusk imps were another humanoid creature with large oblong heads and jawless mouths that usually lived underground except to hunt. These guys were the lesser versions, though.
Dusk imps were a colony creature that came in queens, warriors, and hunters. Hunters were the piss-ant drones who gradually starved to death while feeding the colony and warriors were the bigger warrior versions they fed. The queens were usually a magic using monster like a shaman who used other female imps like magic batteries.
Players who used magic characters were not very fond of the queens but the lesser females who were used to living life as a battery made great familiars. The ones I ran into, of course, were the goblin sized hunters who had long talons on their likewise three-fingered hands as well as inverted knees for pursuing prey. The tricky part the beta and initial players found to these guys were critical hits.
Their organs were tiny and their heads were almost three times the size of their brains, meaning you had to stab or chop around the eyes to be sure you hit it or cut them in two. My first Geist trigger had been while fighting the trio of dusk imps, hacking most of the way through the creature's scrawny torso only for a foggy phantom blade to finish the bisection.
When I finally returned to the road after a couple of hours of walking in a more or less straight line I was just a couple of kills shy of level ten. However, I had stopped along the way to gather some simple materials so that I would have something to do. Unlike an NPC, my character could go for a full twenty-four hours before suffering deprivation effects and I needed something to do with that time.
After I found my way back to the low burning fire by the carriage where only one driver was left on watch, I sit down with an armful of wood that I use to stoke the fire with. "How was the hunting?" The secondary driver asks after sitting upright to stretch and yawn. "Bag anything good?"
"Just some ferecats and dusk imps," I reply casually even though dusk imp hunters had an average level of fifteen and were known for their high agility. Taking out a couple of oak saplings from the giant back open pocket of my sweater, I retrieve more crafting materials from my pockets and get to work. Experience was not going to earn itself.
The first thing I did was cut the one-inch thick ends of the saplings I had already 'topped' with the jagged side of my trench knife for a set of handles. Because the game had been so gracious as to grant me five of the dagger-like talons from the three-plus-foot dusk imp hunters, I was currently going to make a set of three daggers using them. This simply involved slitting the ends of the wooden handles in which to set the claws.
Because the ends of the claws curved into talons, though, I had to file them down from eleven inches in length to nine-and-a-half inches as well as slim down the sides so the claws became more like stiletto blades. Afterwards I whittled the wood down to an appropriate size before fitting the blades into places and using a single strand of various tendons to make another twisted cordage wrap around the handles.
As I finished the knots on one blade after another, one notification after another started appearing.
[Crafted: Dusk Claw Dagger]
[Saved Quick Craft Recipe: Dusk Claw Dagger]
[+10XP]
[+10XP]
[+10XP]
[+45 Primitive Crafting XP]
[Primitive Crafting Leveled Up]
[+15XP]
Checking to see the daggers had decent durability not much less than that of the Dead Man's Dirk and an attack of fifteen, I toss one of the daggers to the driver and ask, "If you were to buy this as a novelty gift for someone who collected knives, how much would you pay for it?"
Flipping the knife up in his hand a couple of times to check the balance, the driver says, "It's certainly not bad with and E rating, so I would pay a gold per attack value for a simple gift or even if I wanted it."
"Do you want one?" I ask curiously now that the man had named a price and that he himself would not mind paying it.
"Fifteen gold?" He asks me curiously while feeling one edge by scraping his thumb across it.
"Fifteen gold," I repeat for a reply, smiling innocently.
"Gimme the lot," the man grumbles while fishing out a coin purse from behind his hip. "Forty-five gold isn't too bad if you say it's three matching weapons. The boys and I rarely get to see dusk imps so these knives will be a nice surprise. You, uh, wouldn't happen to be able to make some sheaths for them, would you?"
Even though I had already planned to do so because I did not expect the guy to actually buy a knife, I innocently smile and say, "I don't mind scrapping an imp hide for ten gold apiece. I even found a nice dark wood to kind of match the dark blue skin."
"Highwayman have been kinder robbers to me than you," the man jokes with a crooked smile as he starts loudly counting out seventy-five gold coins. I had made about half as much from hunting and so had basically doubled or more my original amount of gold in one hour of real time. It was currently enough to buy a decent armor set and a cheap sword.
While the assistant driver who looked a little younger than the others from his closely trimmed and neat facial hair counted out money, I took out a single imp hide from my player inventory. Using a single knife to fold the edge of some leg hide over the blade I use my dagger to cut the hide away around the Dusk Claw Dagger with a little excess on the side and the bottom. Three times.
After that I cut three thin but extra long strips of the naked hide to use for lacing. Next yet, I folded one of the hide pieces over the blade of one knife like a taco of hotdog bun and used a second one to punch holes through the edges of the skins. Once all of the pieces had been punched through both sides I closed them up by knotting one end of the hide strips I cut and lacing the other through the holes I punched.
Looping the hide strips around the tops of the sheaths before running them through the top set of holes, I simply tie another knot in the loose ends with an inch of cordage between the knot and sheath. Instead of trimming the excess after the knot I simply left it as it for tying the sheath to a belt or belt loop it was more of a conversation piece than a weapon people like them would use so I did not worry about putting a proper belt loop or slits on the sheath.
[Crafted: Impious Sheathe]
[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Impious Sheath]
[+10XP]
[+10XP]
[+10XP]
[+60 Leather Work XP]
[Leather Work Leveled Up]
[+15XP]
Once the simple soft leather sheaths were done the man paid me for my products and I stored the money in my player inventory while pretending to pocket the small cloth bag of nickel-sized gold coins with a dragon for tails and some emperor for heads.
With the remaining two talons I made a pair of short javelin and used a third of the dusk imp hide to make a small sleeve for them.
[Crafted: Dusk Hunting Javelin]
[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Dusk Hunting Javelin]
[+10XP]
[+10XP]
[+30 Primitive Crafting XP]
Then, examining a row of large tree vermin teeth that had grown so large and close together that they became one bit tooth above the roots, I ask, "Is this worth making anything out of or should I find someone to buy it? I can't really imagine anyone buying it, though."
"Magic people," the man reassures me while playing with my simply designed sheath. "An alchemist can use it for a couple of things, like transmuting them and the whole jaw into one big block of… I don't know, it's not magic ivory but it's got magic? Ask a magic person. They can also be used in some healing spells so its cheaper to heal broken bones."
Nodding my appreciation for the young man's input, I put the partial ivory away in a pocket and instead work on splitting the remaining sapling into three pieces to cut out the middle. It was a hard effort to keep the dagger and split mostly straight while hammering the end of the blade with another piece of wood that kept getting stuck, but both sides came out mostly smooth and even.
Unlike most of the trees in this forest this sapling was an E grade softwood and the three-and-a-half-foot plank that I trimmed down until it was two inches all the way down was very pliable. Whittling the top and bottom thirds down so they gradually thinned toward the ends, I carve a pair of notches into the sides of the top end one they were both thinned to a little less than half the original width of the center.
The hardest part of all was what came next and I oh so carefully twisted the point of my knife down into the 'inside' side of the bottom end. Once I was about a third of the way through I switched sides and started the process again. While practicing this in reality I struggled through several pieces of carefully whittled wood at this part before I found a trick online.
Instead of completely connecting the two holes, I let the tip of the dagger get hot in the fire before slowly and lightly twisted it as it burned through the wood. Now, I could knot and hitch some tendons together into two long strands that I held together and folded around the notched end of the plank.
Carefully feeding the four loose ends through the cooled hole in the opposite end, I tie them all together around a piece of scrap chitin that I easily carve into a lightly notches rectangle. Once the fastener was done, I simply started twisting the chitin to twist the tendons into a cable-like cordage around the opposite end of the plank.
Wrapping the excess around the end of the plank, I double back after passing around the bowstring under the chitin fastener and loop around the other way before tightly knotting the excess under the fastener to help secure the twisting. While the bow was visibly flexed from how tightly twisted the cable was, though, it would not come undone form lack of tension any time soon.
[Crafted: Simple Bow]
[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Simple Bow]
[+10XP]
[+40 Primitive Crafting XP]
Picking up an oversize four-foot javelin, I place the smooth butt of the spear weapon on the bowstring and hold the bow horizontally before drawing it back halfway. Aiming at a nearby tree, I let go and watch it fly with decent speed to strike the smooth barked tree with enough force and depth to remain sticking straight out. "Good enough," I say mildly before storing the bow in my player inventory.
"A proper arrow might take a ferecat if you caught it by surprise," the assistant driver acknowledges while watching me retrieve the spear to examine the claw head and binding for any damage. As far as I could tell, there was none. Overall I was pretty satisfied, the javelin came out with fifteen attack like the daggers while the bow had an attack of twelve.
Coupled with a javelin for an arrow, that was around twenty-seven damage if I could pull it off.
Unlike melee weapons, though, there was no stat bonus to damage. However, archers and other ranged types get a critical chance bonus due to the depths of their attacks as well as critical bonus from their main accuracy stats, Agility and Intelligence. Likewise, mages had low critical chances but magic was usually a costly and overwhelming firepower itself.
As someone without a class, all of my stats for all of these weapons and styles and perks will be slightly different but I will still be able to enjoy them. Without actual class perks my magic cast times would be annoying and my natural aiming still needed a lot of work with a bow but those were things I could compensate for with time and effort. As well as having lower Strength and such than a proper warrior class.
Against mages I would have both physical stats and defensive magic while against warriors I could use my agility and magic and still against regular ranged fighters I could use magic to close the difference and superior strength to overwhelm them. As long as my skills, titles, achievements, and so on were all in order, anyway.
With years of experience playing these games and years of fighting in school I had most of the foundation I needed so that when I actually tried studying martial arts and weaponry it was not that hard. Doing it on my own was the only issue but after a while it was not so bad. That, though, was cleared up with time.
My biggest issue at this very moment, though, was that I was pretty much out of useful materials. I still had some insect chitin but I did not feel like wasting my time with such low experience. Instead, I took out a new sapling oak tree and started whittling it down into a single-edged wooden sword. After an hour of shaving away at the wood, the fat end was down to a feasible round handle with a large slip guard at the top and a katana-like blade that was three feet long.
[Crafted: Bokuto]
[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Bokuto]
[+10XP]
[Acquired Skill: Whittling]
[+10XP]
[+20 Whittling XP]
[Whittling Leveled Up]
[+10XP]
"If you had a kid, would you pay ten gold for a toy sword like this?" I ask curiously, wondering if I could not arguably raise the value to ten or over ten with some kind of handle wrap.
"Ten isn't too bad, I've seen worse things made for kids that sold for more,"he replies thoughtfully. "Why, this one time just a couple weeks ago I say this wooden bird that kept pecking water again and again and again and all it was for was to watch it but people were buying them for twenty-five gold pieces!"
Now I knew how the clans that had already been established got their funding. Does that not count as copyright infringement or something if it is in a video game? What the hell?!
Wondering what other cheesy money making ideas I had already been beaten to, I look up at the sky to check the time only to find the sun was probably only half risen by now. Saplings were easy enough to come by and the Whittling skill was a lesser version of Carpentry that could evolve if I incorporated proper tools in my leveling, so I decided to try out this Quick Crafting.
As soon as I sectioned out the amount of sapling I wanted for making a 'Bokuto', a message window appeared.
[Begin Quick Crafting for x1 Bokuto?]
[YES/NO]
"Yep," I reply aloud before I even think about it. Then my body begins automatically running through the process of whittling a wooden sword. However, these automated functions were at twice the speed without any drop in efficiency with the cast steel dagger. By the time I was done, I was holding an exact replica of the last sword and the sun was probably only just pulling its ass up over the edge of the world.
[Quick Crafted: Bokuto]
[+5XP]
[+10 Whittling XP]
That was no good. Half the time meant half the returns which made Quick Crafting something like a wooden sword pretty pointless. However, both swords still did a whopping seven damage and were classed as both swords and blunt weapons. If I got strong enough to look down on some of the larger creatures in this region I could use a weapon like this to train my swordsmanship and clubbing skills on a lower level boss.
If I carried it while hunting I could do the same thing on weaker creatures like a solo ferecat but it would just be excess weight otherwise. Normally I would not care but it would be day soon so any hunting I wanted to do would be with the dog and possibly with the girl. I could not be unnecessarily burdened with her around.
So, for the time being, I merely stored the wooden swords and spare weapons away before taking out a simple wooden cutting board from Rocar's house, a pot already filled with water, and some ferecat meat. The meats I had gotten so far were all different body parts such as a haunch, a rack of ribs, and a long slab of back strap. It was this back meat that I got out.
After setting the pot on some rocks already in the fire I first cut the one-inch thick steaks I planned to cook for breakfast off one end of the rectangular meat before guessing at one-pound portions to cut up. After storing away the others and checking the pot that was already starting to bubble, I simply add the meat in to slowly and lightly boil. This would hopefully remove all the unwanted fluids and excess fat from the meat while also somewhat softening it, Rocar's wife had said.
Once the color was darkened by the fluids from the meat after a few more minutes I took it out and carelessly dumped the pot aside before storing it away. Then I used a stick to move the rocks closer to the edge so that I could sit a pan more comfortably on the fire. As it heated up I lightly patted some salt and wild herbs on the wet meat before drying the surfaces with a heavy sprinkling of flour.
Testing the pan with a glob of oily lard that begins breaking down immediately, I take the pan out carefully and swirl the lard around to evenly coat the pan as it starts cooling. Once the lard had converted completely to oil in the searing pan and ran like water, I put the large pan back on the rocks and threw on the six small steaks. In just a few moments it seemed like the entire world was alive with the smell of fatty frying bread and roasted herbs.
*
