Messy tables in this chapter. When the hell is Patreon going to support tables? I am going to add the tables as attachments.

Chapter 17: Game Updates

The auction finished, and I checked on my bids…

The human air mage would be here in two days. Excellent!

The human shipwright would be here in three days, which is good. Once we had a ship, trading would be much easier. But did I need sailors to crew a trade ship on the river? Ugh, I didn’t think of that. Noone in my village had any boating skills that I knew.

The ETA for the gnome cook was six days out. That one was going to be tricky. She was a grand master cook, and I needed something to keep her here. My thought was that I would give her 50% ownership in the inn, and hopefully, access to the diverse gardens behind my house would be enough. I was fairly confident the inn could be completed in six days if we had the lumber. The one shipment was not enough. Guess my scorpion expeditions needed to be put on hold for now and I needed to focus on the inn.

The giantkin archer was also six days away. When he arrived, I would feel much better about our defenses. I was assuming he would be at least level 40 since he had at least three master-level skills. Maybe we could start harvesting the lumber in the forest on the other side of the river with him and Galena protecting our loggers?

The elementalkin alchemist was due in ten days. That was unfortunate, but maybe it was for the best. It would give me time to build an alchemy shop for her. I would sketch out a nice shop with a residence above on the second floor tonight. Hopefully, the alchemist could make use of the scorpion tails I had collected. Having our militia with poison arrows would make is deadly.

The enchanter was 13 days away. The female sun elf was probably the most important recruit. If she could work with Sanso and make the translocation stone, my life would be a lot easier. I would need to make sure she had an excellent house ready to try to persuade her to stay. I read the description of the sun elf race in the wiki. Sun elves were the nobles of the elven race with a haughty disposition. I hoped our backwater town appealed to her.

Now that I knew when everyone was coming, I could focus on the next auction. I went to the town store to get six gold coins so I could place my next bids. After retrieving the coins, I went home, settled into the seat at my drafting table, and opened the auction interface.

Damn, there were already 232 bids! Other players were advancing quickly! There were 147,945 NPCs, though, so no shortage yet. I think the last auction had fifty thousand, so the auction had tripled in size. Did that mean there were even more awesome NPCs available? I got a devilish grin at the thought of hoarding the best NPCs.

I thought for a bit, and perhaps I was overreaching a bit. Once my new NPCs came, I would have to pay them, and I didn’t really have a stable income. Maybe this time, I should focus more on trade skills? Maybe one soldier trade skills for the rest? I decided on one soldier, three trade skills, and one farmer. I would save the fifth slot in case something came up. I was also hoping the inn would raise the quality of the village, giving me more slots.

First, the soldier. I already had two ranged warriors, but I also had a ton of horses. I wanted someone with the riding, armor, and a melee weapon skills. Basically I was looking for a knight. I selected the skill sorter and then temperament with only seven options showing. Well, seven options that had those three skills as their top three. I couldn’t view any skills they might have beyond their ‘top 3’.

I checked the races: one undead, one kobold, one goblin, two humans, one elf, and one dwarf. I discounted the first three. Then I deselected the dwarf as I just couldn’t see the dwarf riding one of the massive orc mounts. How would he even get in the saddle? I knew this was a game, and that shouldn’t make stereotypes, but I couldn’t help it.

That left the two humans and the elf. The humans had the same last name and were the same age, 28. Possibly twins? Obviously, they both had the same skills, but one had Armor: Heavy as his best and Blade: Medium as his secondary. The other had it reversed. One also had a family of four. I decided to bid on both, already changing my plans.

After that. I steeled myself away from combat NPCs to focus on crafting. I stopped after two filters, seeing the brewer skill. Well, I had an inn, so I needed ale. There were only four experts and only one with the temperament I was seeking. He was a beastkin: bull, basically a minotaur. There was a dwarf expert with an unpleasant choleric temperament. I spent a few minutes trying to imagine both in my village before deciding on the bullkin. I guess my subconscious didn’t want an irritable dwarf around. The minotaur did have five members of his family, so at least he wouldn’t be lonely as the only bullkin.

My next sort was for the woodcraft skill. My time was starting to be consumed by governing, building, and fighting. I wanted someone to build furniture, do the repairs around town, and possibly help with the building. I had a long list to choose from with the right temperament, so I started sorting by secondary skills. I found a wolfkin with the expert rank, and his secondary skill was expert fishing, and his tertiary skill was novice lumberjack. He was perfect and he also had two family members.

I planned one more selection for now. I should probably get a farmer as the town was growing and we needed a more diverse diet. I searched for a bit based on family size and race until settling on a halfling female with a massive family of 21! Her two other listed skills were also at the master level: animal husbandry and butchering. Another perfect match for my needs.

I spent another hour searching and sorting but resisted using my final bid. I turned to setting my priorities. I wrote out a list:

Finish the Inn

Build a house for the air mage

Build a house for the shipwright

Design and build an alchemy shop

Build a house for the giantkin next to Galana’s

Design and build an enchanter’s shop

Train up Jaesmin’s building skill

My top priority was the inn, and I needed lumber for this…next was the air mage arriving in two days. The air mage was human, so I thought maybe a simple three-story tower on the riverbank for his residence. I drafted the simple 25’ round tower with three stories in the morning. Then, I went about building it myself. My magic pool was over two thousand allowing me to create 10 stone blocks. With a good buff from mushroom soup, my magic regenerated fast enough to create another every twenty minutes. As I was casting my thirty-something summon stone, a global alert came up. I opened the notification.

Game Mechanics Update: A player can only memorize one spell per their magic + intellect stats divided by 10. These are base stats, and buffs and item enhancements have no effect to adding additional spell slots. Also, there is now a leveling system for spells. At each tier rank, you can choose an improvement to a spell you know. You can now also unlearn spells. When you unlearn a spell the knowledge and all advancement in the spell will be lost. See your spell interface for more details.

Combat Tactics can now also be leveled up in a similar manner. There is no limit to the number of combat tactics a player can learn.

I immediately opened my interface and checked my stats without gear.

Strength          35Constitution    39Stamina           21Agility             40Speed              5Intellect           39Magic              108Channeling      19Charisma         24Luck                13

I currently only knew eight spells, but I could learn up to 15. I thought about why the number of spells was capped. The developers probably did this for one of two reasons. The first was that spells leveling up was a planned mechanic, and they needed to balance caster power with other players.

My second thought was that maybe there were fighter-oriented players out there learning a whole bunch of spells. It would also make dividing loot in a group much easier. Why would a fighter waste two levels of stat points to level up magic or intelligence just to learn a new spell? I actually thought the update was a good move.

Then I groaned as I looked at my spells and they all showed level one with zero experience. All the work I had done with my spells was lost. I selected Stone Bullet and looked at the new interface.

TABLE PIC ATTACHED

Well, this just a whole lot more interesting. The plus 32 from damage was from my 80% bonus for having earth magic at level 40, and earth magic at 40. I cast the spell and checked my advancement. A 5% increase toward level two, so 20 casts out of combat to raise the spell to level 2. I went searching for a target, found a squirrel, and cast the spell again on the unfortunate victim. Hit and kill. I checked again finding 16% advancement, so 11% for attacking the squirrel. I had Ophelia mount up Titan and went to the plains. I found a plains cat and cast the spell, planning to level it and experiment.

Casting has failed, you cannot cast this spell while mounted

Casting has failed, you cannot cast this spell while mounted

What the fuck?

Ah, the developers had corrected my scorpion cheat. I would need to invest 5 points into the spell to be cast while riding. I dismounted and cast again. Titan, in the meantime, attacked the insolent lion and killed it in short order. I checked advancement again: 25%, so this time I gained 14% for attacking a level 6 creature.

It appeared to be just as I thought: the more dangerous the creature was, the quicker the advancement, just like skills. On foot, I traveled the plains and leveled the spell up to level 5, giving me 4 points to invest.

Then, I began to think about how unfortunate mages were. At low levels, they would be spending time leveling up these low-tier spells only to unlock a higher-tier spell, which would need to be leveled up again. I selected the 5-minute light option. My thought was it could be useful in a dungeon or as a signal at night by firing it into the air. Then I spent the last 3 points on reducing the cost. It reduced the magic cost from 25 to 22.

I spent the next five hours leveling up hail of stones to level 7. All 5 points went into movement, allowing me to cast while running at full speed and also while mounted. My cheat would be intact, and screw the developers!

I returned to the stables and turned Titan over to my elven horse masters. I patted him on the neck, letting him know he had done a good job today. There was not much light left, but I went over to the inn and worked into the night. Around midnight, I went home and to the drafting table. Jaesmin had a warm meat pie and some cider ready for me. I rolled up the library plans. I felt I was almost done with those, but I had other priorities at the moment. The air mage tower would take us two days working together, but maybe I could increase my own efficiency. I checked the summon stone spell.

TABLE PIC ATTACHED

I selected the magic cost reduction for my first point. The color visual effect sounded cool. Making black stone with silver veins would be an awesome visual. But I planned to use my first 10 advancements to cut the aether cost in half. That way I could create twice as many stones every day.

When the sun came up, Sanso and I would focus on the air mage tower. In the meantime, I drafted a simple stone house for the shipwright. I left a note that Jaesmin was to build this house near the docks by herself. The alchemy shop plans were next. I decided on a stone building. A full basement for storage; a large, open ground-floor plan on the first floor; the second floor would be the lab area; the third floor would be living quarters; and, finally, the roof would have an area for a garden. The building was 40 feet by 25 feet. I hoped it would be attractive enough for our incoming alchemist.

The sun was just rising, and I heard Jaesmin descending the stairs. Before she reached the bottom step I was out the door and went to finish the air mage’s tower. It only took Sanso and me seven hours to finish the tower, and I leveled my summon stone twice, both times using the points to reduce the magic cost for the spell. Also of note, there was a crossover with my carving skill. It gave me more freedom to shape the summoned stone, letting me build stairs quickly. I tried a medium-sized statue, and it wasn’t very good, but it resembled a larger Simba. I had the wood elementals carry it to the garden behind my house. Things were starting to come together.