Once I had eventually calmed my ‘failed alchemical fury’ I got back to it. After many hours, I managed to get my alchemy proficiency up to level 3, before Bale stopped me.
“Hey Kid, time for me to clock out and for you to get some sleep. You went pretty hard today. You should probably pack up and head to bed.” Bale said gesturing at the small mountain of failed potions at my feet and the 5 poor quality mana potions I’d managed to produce in that time.
I nodded and began entering everything into my inventory. I was starting to get the knack of using it now. I could almost vacuum up the dozens of potion vials by focusing and waving my hand over them.
- Inventory update:
- You have added 5 poor quality mana potions to your inventory
I looked at Bale, “What do you mean clock out?” I asked.
“This is my day job Kid. I got a life outside of here. I don’t live here with you. I’ll be back tomorrow morning and will manifest here once you wake up.” He said, with a tone of reassurance.
While I didn’t want to admit it, I did appreciate it. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of being here on my own. But it was something I’d need to get used to given that I would be fending for myself once the tutorial ended.
I nodded again and said quietly, “Ok, thanks for the help. Sorry I threw that potion at you.”
“It’s alright Kid, I get it. Now go get some rest.” He replied. The scarecrow began to glow blue as he dematerialised in front of me.
It wasn’t until he left I realised the void I was in had gotten darker. I guessed it was to emulate day and night cycles to make it easier for us Shiftees to adapt. I walked the perimeter of the place having a proper look around for the first time now I was alone. There wasn’t much else to see other than the remaining training booths which were still active and the small wooden house I’d woken up in.
I went back to my room and sat on the bed. A light glow emanated from a wooden torch on the wall. I put my hand over the fire. It seemed to be a magical themed light rather than an actually lit medieval torch.
I flicked through a few pages of the tutorial guide to get a bit more of a sense of how to make the most of my week of safety. I decided the next day I would actually listen more to Bale and let him help me plan my time effectively.
I closed my eyes and my HUD flashed up with a notification -
I thought and then immediately lost consciousness. I woke up the next morning what felt like immediately. I felt great; I was the most rested I had ever been. I sat up and realised I’d gone to sleep in my clothes from the day before.
“Oh I’m going to smell ripe.” I said to myself. At that point a door appeared on the opposite side of the room. The door should realistically go to the outside since it was a one room starter house. I walked over and opened the door to see a similarly rustic wooden style bathroom. A large steaming bath full of fresh hot water was in front of me in the style of a large wooden barrel. I shrugged “when in Rome,” I said as I removed my clothes and climbed into the bath. The water was the perfect temperature. I relaxed for a while as I felt the water soothing my muscles. I hadn’t done a huge amount of physical activity the day before but It was still a lot more than I usually did and I was aching a bit today.
After I felt fully clean and ready to get on with my day I exited the bath, to find my clothes also now clean and folded. I went to pick them up and my system flashed a notification:
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
I thought and my clothes disappeared from my hands and reappeared on my body - which had also simultaneously dried itself.
I went back to my main room and the door disappeared. I thought. Returning to the training area outside I found Bale waiting for me as energetic as ever. It felt like I’d only just said goodbye to him a moment ago rather than the night before thanks to my trait.
We spent the first few hours discussing strategy of how best to make use of my time in the tutorial zone with Bale making suggestions here and there of best practices. Apparently I was fairly ahead of the curve; having a way to defend myself in the form of my alchemy as well as it doubling up as a crafting skill. It was recommended new shiftees picked up a combat skill, defence skill and a crafting skill to focus on while in the tutorial.
Bale said my danger sense trait should help with the defence side of things with alchemy covering the crafting and combat as well as the shield and mana blast spells.
“What we really should be thinking about is what race you want to choose and build some skills around that. Or find a race that has benefits to your current skill progression style.” Bale said thoughtfully.
“Race? What! I don’t want to change what race I am!” I replied terrified of the idea of being sent home as a goblin or troll and how living as one of those creatures in here could affect my mental state.
“Calm down Kid.” Bale said patiently. “There’s tons of races and a lot of them aren’t far off your humanoid form. It’s worth thinking about. I’ll prep a list for you to look through of my suggestions but have a flick through the tutorial guide when you get a chance. You’ve got until the end of the week since you don’t choose a race until you leave the tutorial zone.”
If it wasn’t for my newly cured anxiety, I would be hyperventilating locked in a room rocking back and forth in the corner. This wasn’t something I’d ever expected I would need to plan for. I guessed being something like an elf or a dwarf isn’t far off being a human and if it helped keep me alive maybe it would be worth considering. Although I needed to consider how easy a change to my race would affect my ability to carry out day to day tasks as any big changes I wouldn’t exactly get much chance to adapt to a new body since you chose it at the end of the tutorial - which seemed bizarre to me.
Bale also encouraged me to level a number of various skills to 5 across the week as getting a skill to level 5 was one of the main ways to bump your base stats. I was looking at an expected boost to my intelligence once the alchemy proficiency hit 5 and the same with the magic skills I’d dabbled with. He also explained it was a good idea to shift focus once I hit level 5 in a skill to try and then begin levelling something like ‘intermediate’ skills which would start at level 1 but doing that would equally level lower tiered skills of that kind while still allowing my hyperfocus trait to be active.
Basically if I got to high level alchemy I could bump the first 5 levels quicker with my Jack of all traits skill while equally bumping up the lower intermediate and basic tiers. Level 5 was the first opportunity to level the higher tier variants of a skill but generally people didn’t focus on it since it was harder to level when your lower tier versions were lower than level 10. This was where my hyperfocus and Jack of all trades skills came into play since it was 50% easier to unlock any ability and the 25% bonus for focusing. It would make grinding levels harder with the latter trait past level 5 but if I kept jumping like that I could sort of game the system.
Bale made sure to inform me not to get too cocky as this wasn’t an exploit of the system and it wasn’t anything new - I’d still generally be worse off but it was a work around to make the best of what was presented to me. It turned out Bale had been looking into it outside of his work hours for me. Maybe having him as my guide was an advantage after all.
For the tutorial week we decided the best method would be to focus on easily levelable skills to boost any of my base stats that were below the general baseline of 5. The first circle generally scaled with the assumption you had at least 5 in all skills and anyone below that was at risk of a specific task, challenge, quest etc… ending up being impassable or even deadly.
Only my Charisma and Intelligence were at 5 or above. With Strength, Dexterity and Endurance all below the baseline.
My system blinked to life again, seeming to sense I needed a way to track this. The little icon in the corner waved and I focused on him.
My stats then flashed up in front of me again
- Current Strength - 2
- Needed 5
- Levels needed in Strength based skills - 15
- (3 x 5 levels in strength based skill.)
- Current Dexterity - 3,
- Needed 5
- Levels needed in Dexterity based skills - 9
- (4 levels in potion lobber, 5 levels in another dexterity based skill).
- Current Charisma - 5
- no training needed
- Current Intelligence - 6
- no training needed
- Current Endurance - 4
- Needed 5
- levels needed in Endurance based skills - 5
- (1 x 5 levels in endurance based skill.)
Given I already had a skill level in potion lobber I decided to focus on that for the day which Bale agreed was probably a good call. Although he did request that I would refrain from throwing any more at him since it wouldn’t generate experience even if I found it therapeutic.