MT Chapter 13

Winter hit us with an unseen fury. It was the worst winter in the last fifty years. While it absolutely fucked up my skill grinding on most things it led me to focus down on the ones I could perform in buildings. Aki got in a fist fight with the dwarf blacksmith. If it was anyone else I wouldn’t have doubted she’d have been jailed but the dwarf didn’t want that for some reason.

The dwarf was a very honor based race and in her mind she might have viewed sending someone to jail as her losing the fight. The fight was caused by Aki constantly staring down her husband. Aki had grown out of most of her lust towards the other villagers but she still had a lady boner for the sheriff and his son. The sheriff went out of his way to shut that shit down every chance he got. His son’s ignored her and, hoping she’ll go away, left his wife to pick up the slack when Aki was literally drooling while looking at him. 

It was honestly patching their already rocky relationship. The dwarf always treated her husband badly but with an actual person trying to have sex with him it made her more clingy and she didn’t yell at him as much. Well, at least not in public anyways. I didn’t get it but from what people say, that dwarf pussy was extremely tight but shallow… So good for men with smaller equipment.

I think Aki will be slightly disappointed if she does manage to have sex with him. I just had my nose to the grindstone and worked on gaining stats and skill levels. Finally halfway through winter I got the book I requested by one of the royal mailmen. Mailman was a very sought after job but it took years of dedicated training to even become a candidate. It took certain builds and skills to do effectively.

A man with the right class and skills could run at over a hundred miles an hour. The best mailmen could go from one side of the continent to the other in just over a day. Someone could set up an ambush on the road and the mailman would bypass it before they even had the chance to spring the trap. Our out of the way village barely got any travelers or new residence. That meant the mail only came once or twice a year.

The book was given top priority for delivery. Anyone who actively seeked skills was thought of to have the potential to become a noble. The constant praises the mailman laid on the king made it obvious this was done to put the leadership into a positive light. After listening to him drone on and on about how great the king was it was starting to get hard to act like I cared. The mailman must have noticed because he left shortly after that.

I voraciously consumed the book. I didn’t get to training the first day, nor the second day as I was reading and re-reading the book. Many of the skills I was trying to acquire required very specific circumstances one might never stumble across in their entire life. Strong back, meditation, tough and rapid acclimatization were some of the skills someone would never acquire unless they knew how to.

I still kept reading and planning the perfect workout regimen to unlock and train the skills I planned to gain. Aki was getting antsy again as I was so enthralled by the book. On the fifth day I bought the equipment and ordered other parts to effectively acquire and train new skills. Finally I created the list of skills I could possibly learn. 

Possible skills

Meditation, Strong back, Blacksmith, Tackle, Unarmed specialization, Wand specialization, Shield specialization, Tough, Husbandry, Silver tongue, Inspect, Finesse, Light step, Dodge, Butcher, Herbalist, Alert, Rapid acclimatization, Starvation resistance, Fire resistance, Frost resistance, Trapping, Hunting, Jumping, Lying, Disguise, Bartering, Animal lore, Grappling, Keen senses

After removing the skills I already or would never get (over twenty weapon specializations) I was left with this list. I was bummed out sneak wasn’t on the list. It would have paired well with stealth. Now, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get every skill but there were more than enough to make me a powerhouse. Some of the skills also had subskills I could possibly acquire and I needed as many merged skills as I could get. The big thing with merged skills is you would lose out on gaining subskills. I needed weapon subskills at the very least and one stood out more than the rest. Dual wielding, it was a must for my fighting style. 

Possible subskills

Dual wielding, Pack mule, Retaliation, Overcharge, Animal specialization, Treasure sense, Tracking

Dual wielding could be gained with any weapon skill. Pack mule was the strong back subskill that would increase the amount you could carry if the weight was evenly distributed. Retaliation was from damage resilience that would let you sometimes deal inflicted damage back to attackers. Overcharge was a wand specialization subskill that would let you add mana to certain attacks. Animal specialization was a subskill of husbandry that would let you focus down to one animal. Treasure sense was a subskill of inspect and tracking was from hunting.

Those were the only ones shown in the book. I knew for sure from the list of everything shown that many of the skills, subskills and merged skills were not shown. I still very much appreciated the chance at becoming more powerful. Each skill adds to my chances of survival and makes me more of a threat to my enemies. I looked at the merged skill list. Some had three while others had four but I was fairly certain you could have more than the minimum number. They were only showing the bare minimum to lock people into possibly weaker combinations. I didn’t mind though, once again any boost in my throughput was welcome. 

Possible Skill combinations

Weapon master- Sword, Axe, Mace, Pitching, Unarmed, Wand,  Elusive- Projectile deflection, melee deflection, dodge, light step  Defense master- Light armor specialization, Damage resilience, Tough, Rapid acclimatization Resistant- 4 resistance skills  Athletic- Swimming, Climbing, Jumping(only three) Deception- Silver tongue, Lying, Disguise, Bartering  Survival-Trapping, Hunting, Husbandry, Animal lore  Perceptive- Inspect, Alert, Keen senses(only three) 

I needed weapon master. It was the only one with multiple choices but the limit was four. It meant I needed to decide on wand or unarmed. I knew unarmed would be easier to acquire, wands went for about twenty platinum. I could accidentally stumble into another specialization at an awful time and lose most of my skill levels in my main weapons if I didn’t choose one soon. The moment I gained wand specialization would alter the skill as well making it impossible to get the subskill.

I also needed elusive and defense master. Both were possible for me to acquire and my biggest weakness was how easily I almost died in every fight. Dragging out the process of acquiring them to try and get subskills might hurt me in the long run but I didn’t want to stay in the village forever trying to get subskills. They were much harder to acquire than normal skills so it might be years before I would get any for my defense skills.

Resistant was less important and I would eventually get it. Well, most likely eventually get it, it was hard to train resistant skills without torturing yourself. Athletic was another must. Not as important but fairly easy to get compared to the rest. Deception was another future merged skill as I didn’t have a single one of the prerequisite skills. Survival was a dud, I didn’t have much reason to want it. That left perceptive which was another must in my opinion. Most of the near death experiences I faced were from being ambushed. 

Honestly perceptive might go the furthest for keeping me alive. Ambushed by Aki then the fight then the goblin assassins. The only other times my life was at risk was when I was doing something incredibly stupid like stealing a trait mid combat and injuring myself. Near the end of the book were special skills. The skills that could alter your menus were considered elite skills. 

Elite skills

Magical teacher, Martial teacher, Party leader, Hero, Champion, Gladiator, Captain, Creator, Mapper

The half sentence details were mostly guesswork and conjecture. I was surprised to see hero was a skill and not a title or class. It kind of made sense though. It was most likely as strong as a class but still left room for classes and a title. Teacher probably got access to their students stats or something close to that. Party leader would be party information. No idea about champion, maybe a weaker version of hero or a gods chosen possibly. Captain was maybe information on a persons ship or crew members. Mapper… Mapper was something I thought I could accomplish.

No information on how to acquire them but that was to be expected. Just knowing the skills names gave me a better possibility of acquiring them. With everything planned out I began to try and acquire skills. I went for the ones I thought were the best for me first. Strong back required you to carry your own body weight over miles. You could get it after a single mile or all the way up to sixty depending on your affinity with the skill.

Although it took over thirty miles of traveling while carrying my own body weight I did eventually get it. Aki somehow got it before me which pissed me off. She was an agility build and was doing it mainly out of boredom but still got the skill in under ten miles. It meant she would level the skill faster and have an easier time getting a subskill for it. She didn’t like pack mule so decided to not train with me after she gained the skill.

Her laziness was to be expected at this point. Most of the time when I started a new workout she’d do it with me for a few days out of curiosity before abruptly quitting. Gaining jumping and climbing after I made the rock wall was trivially easy, letting me earn the merged athletic skill. Aki couldn’t get it because she didn’t have swimming but she did get jumping. The sudden increase in my jumping height was easily the best part of the skill. I still worked in jumping practice as I viewed it as another escape mechanism from attacks. Who needs to dodge if you can just clear the man charging at you.

Getting dual wielding was easier than expected. I hadn’t really been in many fights while dual wielding and using two training weapons didn’t count. I just had to train with actual weapons to get it. Just fucking around afterwards with Aki and I somehow unlocked a new subskill called alternating strikes. Now, how would you assume to unlock meditation? Would it be through lucid dreaming? Because that’s how you unlocked meditation.

I could only practice at night and eventually got it while training my other skills. Meditation boiled down to a sleep aid. It would allow me to go to sleep quicker to regenerate my mana and I had enough awareness to take myself out of sleep when I was attacked or done recovering. I got unarmed specialization, it was too expensive to get a wand right now. Including unarmed in my weapon master would also fill in for if I ever had my weapons taken away.

Rapid firing the rest of the skills I learned over a montage of training. Tough increased the minimum damage threshold for you to be hurt. Easiest way was to get pelted with handfuls of pebbles for a day. Husbandry I just walked into the animal pen and unlocked it, my affinity so high most likely because of my class. Inspect, alert and keen senses could all be trained together to unlock perceptive by avoiding attacks blindfolded while identifying different sounds of items being struck.

That also trained dodge to the point that just avoiding being hit with clumps of dirt for a few minutes unlocked it. Melee deflection came next by doing just that and deflecting melee strikes. Somehow I unlocked a subskill for both projectile and melee called open palm. It let me more easily block blocks bare handed. Light step was another hard to obtain skill and I was about to give up thinking I had too low an affinity but finally I got it and earned elusive.

No luck with finesse. It was one of the skills I couldn’t get unfortunately as it gave extra critical damage. Rapid acclimatization was super easy to get. Just run outside and jump into snow for a few minutes then run inside near the fire. Doing that for an hour got me the skill and a cold which then converted to defense master. As I gained defense master I also gained a new trait called skilled. It would allow me to more easily gain skills. I wanted to gain more skills but by then winter finally ended. I could only train the skills I obtained as I reworked my new skill training regimen since I could begin training outside again.

New!

Strong back 01- Increases the weight you’re able to carry

Weapon master 14- Gain increased damage with all weapons. Bonus doubled for trained weapons. (Axe, Mace, Pitching, Unarmed)

Dual wielding- Increases the damage done while wielding two weapons.

Alternating strike- Increases the damage done while using a different weapon or damage type. 

Elusive 03- Increases ability to block and dodge attacks. Less likely to set off traps, less impeded by rough terrain. 

Husbandry 01- Increases affinity with animals.

Defense master 10- Reduce all damage taken. Bonus increased while wearing cloth armor.

Athletic 02- Increases the speed at which you jump, swim and climb. Increases the height you can jump.

Open palm- Increases defense of palm while blocking an attack

Skilled- Increases skill acquisition affinity and rate

Level: 37-42

Stats

Strength: 101-110  Agility: 99-107  Endurance: 92-100  Intellect: 159-172  Wisdom: 135-142

Skills

Monster taming 22-28 Intuition 17-24 Tactics 11-15 Monstrous 15-22 Forgotten knowledge 10-15 Weapon master 14-17 Astral magic 28-31 Enchanting 29-35 Defense master 10-13 Elusive 03-06  Stealth 18-22 Fatigue resistance 30-37 Sleight of hand 04-06 Sexual taming 35-41 Marathoner 18-24 Athletic 02-13  Spell alteration 10-12 Flare magic 09-14 Tinkering 11-15 Monster language 14-20 Aphrodisiac resistance 11-16 Cooking 15-25 Wyrding wards 10-20  Strong back 01-10  Meditation 01-05  Perceptive 01-04 Husbandry 01-03

Subskills

Pleasure sense  Overwork  Set creation  Glyph setting  Wyrding way  Dual Wielding  Alternating strikes  Open palm  

Personal traits

Tenacious

Ambidextrous

Expanded mind

Skilled

Name: Aki

Race: Goblin

Age: 2-3 Years

Class: None

Title: None

EL: Mid tier

Level: 55-56

Stats

Strength: 154-156

Agility: 216-220

Endurance: 116-119

Intellect: 38-41

Wisdom: Locked

Climbing 10-20 Shield specialization 02-04 Starvation resistance 36-40 Running 32-35 Sneak 24-26 Dagger specialization 21-28 Alchemy 02-23 Aphrodisiac secretion 10-16 Strong back 01-04 Jumping 01-19 Herbalist 01 

Subskills

Iron stomach Assassination

Racial traits

Nimble feet Pack tactics Creative

Personal traits

Masochism

Statistic adjustments

Agility based

God I wished I could reduce her menu information. I wondered if I could get her a class at the church?

<Announcement!> I was looking through and noticed some mistakes for previous chapters. At some point I meant to switch astrology magic to astral and I made the change but I guess it was only certain chapters. Also, some of the lists were supposed to have swimming and I just forgot to add it to some of the lists. I'd rather keep writing then go back and fix every mistake I notice until I finish book one. These big pages of skills and gaining new ones take more effort, I tried to say on a weekly upload for it but this story takes up significantly more time than the other two. Just wanted to point that out if anyone noticed the difference. <Announcement end!>