010: Broke

Rain thrashed and jerked to a sitting position as the blue screen barged into his dream and dragged him back to consciousness. Angrily, he raised a hand to swipe it out of the way, but stopped, noticing that there were considerably more notifications listed than he had seen before. Blinking his watering eyes ineffectually, Rain tried to digest the message as his pupils slowly contracted in response to the light. Dragging the dialog to one side, he pulled up his skills menu to check the effect of the rank up.

Rain sat and thought as he looked through his skills screen, comparing it against the dialog.

So skills get experience when you use them, and on top of that I get experience for using stamina, mana, and health. Good, I can level up both my skills and my stats just by practicing. I don’t have to go kill things if I don’t want to. Rank 2 on refrigerate… looks like everything doubled, including the range. Experience to the next level is doubled as well. Makes sense I guess. Is it linear, or is it going to be 400 for the next one? I hope the cost isn’t going to double every rank, that would get out of hand pretty quick.

Dismissing all of his menus, Rain sat back and smiled, happy with his choice to invest in mana regeneration. His aura did decent damage, but it gobbled up mana like a pig. Being able to recover quickly was more important to him than boosting the damage by a point or two. The skill rank up had doubled the damage in contrast to what he had seen earlier when he had been experimenting with focus. That had only increased it by a point or two, probably running on some formula.

It was now feasible to take out a slime with his aura alone. He had already done that once when it was still rank 1, but that hadn’t really been a viable fighting strategy. Now, with the enhanced range, he was sure that he could run circles around a slime while his aura did the heavy lifting.

Looks like skills gain experience based on mana used, not time used, otherwise winter would be much higher. That means low mana use skills are going to take a long time to level.

Rain concentrated and activated his winter aura, which had been deactivated when he fell asleep. He was at full mana, his natural regen having restored all three of his pools overnight, but he saw no reason to not leave winter on whenever he could. In fact, he was probably going to be in the guild for a little bit anyway, so he might as well use up some mana right away so he wasn’t just sitting at the cap. The more mana I use, the more experience I get.

Predicting that activating refrigerate in the bunk room would cause a bit of a kerfuffle, Rain instead used purify, pushing in extra mana to extend the range. The soft white pulses were visible in the dim room, which was not yet fully lit by the rising sun. His activation of the aura caused a few turned heads, but it was nothing like the reaction he had gotten in the inn. It seemed adventurers were used to this kind of thing. One mage-looking fellow even walked over to stand in the aura, taking the opportunity for a free dry-cleaning of his travel-stained orange robe.

Rain kept the aura on as he swung his feet out of bed, slipping them into his boots and buckling them. He stretched, looking at the circular expanse of dirt-free floorboards that was slowly forming around his bunk. Smiling, he stood, running his tongue over his teeth, marveling at how they felt clean and smooth. Purify apparently worked on tartar. Well, I guess I can take ‘find a toothbrush’ off the list.

Rain knelt down and retrieved his bag and spear from under the bed. The bag didn’t have a handle or a strap, unfortunately, so he had to carry it in one hand and the spear in the other. Straightening, Rain checked his mana and deactivated purify. The mage in the now pristine orange robe gave him a nod of thanks and wandered out of the room.

Rain followed him out, continuing to the quest hall to check the board. There was a bit of a line, so Rain had a little time to plan out what he wanted to do with his day. Belatedly, he remembered that he should be using winter, so he activated it again, extending the range. The added cost was trivial given the low base mana consumption. Pulling up his status screen, he quickly verified that it was still giving him back more mana than the skill cost him.

The mage was in front of him in line for the board, and he looked back at Rain as he activated the skill. Nobody else in the hall seemed to notice that he was using an aura. The mage mouthed what Rain interpreted as a silent thank-you, then looked back at the board.

My pleasure. Ok, priorities.

1. Don’t die: I’m still alive, so doing ok on this one for now.

2. Food: I have enough bricks to build a very small pyramid. Enough to last a day.

3. Money: Haha, nope.

Rain silently added a fourth item to the list: learn to talk. He then returned to thinking about how to address the third. The board was the first step of his plan. He would find a quest, get Gus to explain it, go do it, then turn it in for profit.

Just need to get two Tel by tonight so I can rent a bunk. Three if I want to pay back the bartender, whose name I really should learn.

Seeing that there was now enough space to reach the board, Rain pushed forward. He was careful not to stick anyone with his spear, though he doubted the wooden point could do anyone any real damage. Reaching the board, he scanned over the posted quests. Most of it went over his head, but he did recognize the sword symbol on the top of one bill near the middle of the board. Taking it down, he saw a drawing of a crab, along with a number which he was pretty sure wasn’t 5. Shrugging, Rain took the quest posting over to Gus, who was thankfully back at his counter.

Gus did a double take as Rain approached, taking in his new outfit. He tilted his head and nodded as if to say ‘not bad’, taking the quest paper from Rain. As he looked at it, he frowned, then shook his head.

“What <something> <something> you?” Gus asked him, sighing. He had a sort of awkward expression on his face and he was keeping his voice down for some reason.

“What?” Rain asked.

Gus sighed again, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

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“Slime <something>,” Gus said, holding up a single finger.

“Gus <something>,” he continued, holding up 8 fingers, clearly looking uncomfortable.

“Rain <something>?…” he asked. Level? Does he mean level? Slimes are level 1, so sure, he probably wants to know my level.