Clonemancy: Ascension Through a Thousand Clones [LitRPG Multiple Bodies Progression Fantasy]

11. Day Job

by inkadmin

Productive sleep should have left Alistair better rested for his first day at La Table d’Or. Instead, he spent nearly the entire gap between jobs testing and refining it while trying to decide how best to use it. By the time he arrived at the tavern the next morning, he was scarcely in better condition than before. His mind was steadier, and that helped, but his body still carried the lack of real sleep.

One advantage of working for people who cared nothing about him was that no one wasted attention on how tired he looked. The woman who had hired him barely gave him a glance before jerking her chin toward the back and shooing him into the smaller kitchen. The chef followed a step behind, already barking instructions, warnings, and complaints about tasks Alistair had not yet started. It made no sense to accuse him of poor work before his hands had touched anything, but the plump man clearly saw no contradiction in that. He was the chef, so his words were law in the kitchen, whether or not they matched reality.

The arrangement itself was simple, at least. The work was clear, and no one seemed interested in how he got it done as long as it was done properly. Alistair almost laughed at himself for ever worrying they might ask about his class.

Once the door to the back kitchen closed, he began his own preparations. The first step, however, was not summoning a clone. He crossed quickly into the adjoining pantry and cleared a cramped section near the back wall. The space had its own door and enough depth that a body could remain hidden there without immediate risk of discovery. The space was perfect for his purpose. Even if he was meant to work alone in the small rear kitchen, someone might still step inside without warning. He could not afford to be caught with two or three Alistairs moving openly in the same room. His extra bodies had to stay concealed whenever possible.

It took longer than he expected to make the pantry usable without creating the sort of mess that would draw questions later. The shelves were crowded, sacks were stacked without much care, and everything smelled faintly of dust and old vegetables. Still, proper motivation overcame inconvenience. By the time he finished, he had carved out just enough space to lie down if he did not mind the indignity of sleeping half-curled between stores of onions and flour.

It would do.

A few minutes later, Alistair’s original body lay hidden in the pantry, cramped but asleep, while a clone stepped into the kitchen and took up the first knife of the day under a different class.

Cook

Heat Control

Allows you to control heat more precisely, helping prevent burning, undercooking, or uneven preparation. Its effectiveness depends mainly on PER and DEX, while INT helps with timing and consistency.

Unfortunately, Cook proved less useful for this stage of the job than he had hoped. The skill itself was clearly valuable, but mostly for the actual act of cooking. Preparing ingredients was another matter. Washing, trimming, peeling, sorting, moving crates, scraping scraps into discard bowls—none of that drew much from Heat Control. The clone still earned small pulses of + EXP by working in a kitchen, which meant the class was not entirely misplaced, and Alistair made another useful discovery along the way. Accessing his Guide through a clone was as easy as through his main body.

When the first Cook clone finally reached its limit and dissolved, no +++ EXP followed for Clonemancer. The result told him enough.

He considered the problem briefly and lightly, since thinking too hard while part of him slept in the pantry risked disturbing that precious rest. Then he summoned a Worker to continue the more repetitive tasks: hauling sacks, washing roots, peeling rough vegetables, and doing the kind of labor that depended more on patience and physical efficiency than finesse.

The choice paid off immediately. Worker settled into the pace of the task with blunt competence. The motions grew more economical. The effort of washing and shifting ingredients eased. Even the flow of + EXP improved slightly. The improvement was small, but noticeable. More importantly, when that Worker clone neared its limit and Alistair replaced it with another properly chosen class for the next task, Clonemancer answered with the stronger, familiar +++ EXP.

Clonemancer kept proving more useful than common sense allowed. The class gave him more than access to different bodies and skills. It nudged him toward the right class for each task and rewarded correct judgment. Every time it did so, Alistair became more grateful that he had pushed so hard in the Hall of Ascension to gather as many classes as he could before leaving. Without those options, Clonemancer would still have been powerful. With them, it was becoming something far beyond ordinary class logic.

The morning settled into a pattern after that. Worker handled the heavier and duller parts of the job—washing, lifting, sorting, clearing the waste bowls, dragging sacks where they needed to go. Cook returned whenever actual cooking was involved. Even so, the results still felt wrong. Cook was still not earning him the stronger Clonemancer response. Using it for peeling gave the small portion of Cook experience, which suggested the task was closer, but still not truly right. Worker, meanwhile, did not seem properly suited to peeling either.

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The mismatch led Alistair to another class in his Guide.

Carver

Clean Cut

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