<Chapter 85 Continued>

 

Joe sighed deeper. Time to make a list of skills I’m going to want to keep, then find out where they are so I can get those jobs and level them up… then work on those skills as well. Joe nodded. Got some time… but gonna need a lot more char: skills as well. That… Ooh! Joe still had his theorist jobs equipped and quickly sought out where he could get some more char: skills, but then frowned deeply.

Char: skill not a specific skill to faith jobs.

Wait. Then… Joe quickly swapped through all his theorist jobs again, attempting to question where he could get more char: skills and all of them returned the exact same popup, although specified to which theorist job he was currently questioning. Asking combat theorist returned it wasn’t specific to combat jobs, and criminal theorist did the same, except to criminal jobs. In desperation, switched to basic theorist, and this time it returned something a bit more helpful, although not what he was hoping for.

Char: skills are scattered throughout all jobs.

OK. But not what I’m looking for. Job guidance, which jobs will give me the most char skills?

Invalid question.

Invalid question. How is that an invalid… Joe blinked. Oh! These jobs help with the jobs… are skills not related to the jobs? But… how are the skills delineated from the jobs. The jobs would basically be useless without skills… well… unless it somehow enhances currently gained skills? That would be… Joe blinked with the thought. OK. Help, how do I get guidance with skills?

Seek out a mentor or appropriate job.

Joe growled. And which is the appropriate job, help?

Invalid question.

That’s… not helpful at all. Joe sputtered off in anger, able to keep from cursing but still frustrated that the help system seemed to be incredibly unhelpful. He thought to continue struggling through, but having already asked a good couple dozen questions, Joe decided it was time to move on. Right when he was about to, he paused. OK… but if the first response … oh!

He then turned his thoughts to something that might be useful and tried again, but this time equipping combat theorist and then attempting again with combat theorist’s job guidance skill. Job guidance. Which job allows me use of the bow and arrow?

#(*&$(*#&$. )(#&*)(*. #O)(*#&$#. #)($&((#*&$. )(*&()*@&. Scout. Mercenary. Grunt. Thug. Hired Man. Sell Sword. Enforcer. Young Hunter. Genius. Staff Sergeant. Master Sergeant. Trooper.

Joe grimaced. What!? Why?! What use is the job guidance skill if I have to explore the job first to ask questions about it!? How is it… this is just… Joe began cursing and felt his ire grow, finally deciding he was simply too frustrated to continue. He turned from trying to figure out things and decided he could at least look over the skill gains he’d gotten from the dozen or two jobs he’d leveled while fighting on the wall. His annoyance had hit critical and he had no desire to wallow in his anger. Right… let’s look at the skills I’ve gained. So… jobs over the last week or so… hm… a lot! Since the giant! OK… let’s see. Uh… navigator went up three levels… but not going to have a new skil… yup… no new skill from level forty. Loki primate… forty one, no new skill. But… under the mercenary line, I got enforcer, young hunter, fugitive hunter and criminal hunter… ok… four jobs there… how are the skills.

 

 

Status

Blessing

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

 

 

Mercenary

30

 

 

Sword

 

 

 

Shield

 

Bounty +

 

Bow & Armor

 

 

 

 

Grunt

35

 

 

Sword

 

 

 

Shield

 

 

 

Bow & Armor

 

 

 

 

Thug

35

 

 

Sword

 

 

 

Shield

 

 

 

Bow & Armor

 

 

 

 

Hired Man

35

 

 

Sword

 

Shield

 

Bow & Armor

 

 

 

Loot +

 

 

 

 

Sell Sword

35

 

 

Sword

 

Shield

 

Bow & Armor

 

Loot +

 

Loot ++

 

 

 

 

Enforcer

35

 

 

Sword Shield & Bow

Armor

 

Loot +

 

Loot ++

 

Strength +

 

 

 

 

Young Hunter

35

 

 

Sword Shield Bow Armor

Loot +

 

Loot ++

 

Strength +

 

Strength ++

 

 

 

 

Fugitive Hunter

35

Sword Shield Bow Armor

Loot +

 

Loot ++

 

Strength +

 

Strength ++

 

Loot Quality +

 

 

 

 

Criminal Hunter

35

Sword Shield Bow Armor

Loot ++

 

Strength +

 

Strength ++

 

Loot Quality +

 

Bounty +

 

 

 

 

Duelist

30

Buckler

 

Fencer - Sword

 

Attack +

 

1 on 1 ++

 

Attack Speed ++

 

Flourish

 

 

 

 

Dandy

35

Inherit Duelist

 

Dual Sword

 

 

 

1 on Many --

 

 

 

Spear: ???

 

 

 

 

Challenger

35

Inherit Dandy

 

Fencer - Axe

 

 

 

1 on 1 +++

 

   

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Halbred: ???

 

 

 

 

Brave

35

Inherit Challenger

Dual Axes

 

 

 

1 on Many ---

 

 

 

Slinger: ???

 

 

 

 

Valiant

35

Inherit Brave

 

Fencer - Hammer

 

 

 

Staff: ???

 

 

 

Cavalry: ???

 

 

 

 

Lionheart

35

Inherit Valiant

 

Dual Hammers

 

 

 

Great Sword: ???

 

 

 

Lancer: ???

 

 

 

 

Genius

35

Inherit Lionheart

 

Fencer - Mace

 

 

 

S. Fencer: Disarm

 

 

 

Horsebow: ???

 

 

 

 

Soldier

30

Sword

 

Disciplined +

 

 

 

Attack +

 

 

 

Strength +

 

 

 

 

Private

35

Sword & Shield

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

 

 

Defense +

 

 

 

 

Specialist

35

Spear

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many ++

 

Guard

 

 

Corporal

35

Spear & Shield

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

 

Sergeant

35

Halbred

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

 

Staff Sgt

35

Bow

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

 

Master Sgt

35

Crossbow

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

 

Sgt Major

35

Hammer

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

 

Lieutenant

35

Hammer & Shield

 

Disciplined +

 

Attack +

 

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

 

Captain

35

Mace

 

Disciplined+ & Attack +

Strength +

 

Defense +

 

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

One on One ---

 

 

Major

35

Mace & Shield

 

Disciplined+ & Attack +

Strength + & Defense +

1 to Many +++

 

Guard

 

One on One ---

 

Patrol

 

 

Warrior

30

 

 

Sword

 

 

 

Shield

 

 

 

Basic Armor

 

 

 

 

Fighter

35

Inherit: Warrior

 

Parry

 

 

 

Block

 

 

 

Dodge

 

 

 

 

Trooper

35

Inherit: Fighter

 

Bow

 

 

 

Thrown

 

 

 

Large Shield

 

 

 

*** Only latest leveled jobs with new skills shown and the jobs that are within the same tree but were leveled earlier for comparison purposes.

 

Ooh! OK! Got sword, shield, bow, and armor pretty quickly. By level fifteen with enforcer, ten for young hunter, and five for the last two. And both loots that sell sword had, the job before enforcer: loot+ and loot++. Hmm… and huh… its just a sliding skill list. The further you go through the tree, the skills get shifted to lower levels. Sell sword gets loot++ at level thirty but four jobs down the tree, criminal hunter gets loot++ at level ten. That’s… SO then I already probably know what skills thug and grunt get. If I’m seeing this right, thug gets loot+ at thirty five and grunt will get it at forty. Joe sighed, growing despondent at seeing how poorly the combat jobs were represented. He still went through the skills his last job in the mercenary tree, criminal hunter, gained. He gained quite a few skills: nine of them. They were sword, shield, bow, armor, Loot++. Joe frowned. What happened to Loot+? Did it get … its gone… hmm… so not all skills are transferred down… Joe pondered this for a bit before moving, not wanting to argue with the help system too much anymore. Right… after loot++… uh… strength+, strength++, loot quality+, and bounty+. Joe pondered the skills, finding them interesting but then moved on, not really seeing much in depth to explore there.

The duelist line of jobs proved fruitful and he was able to rampage through six jobs: dandy, challenger, brave, valiant, lionheart, and genius. Their skills proved odd. First, each further job inherited the job before, which made Joe wonder if the inheritance rolled back through all six, such that genius also inherited from dandy as well. If so… this is a … very powerful tree… at least for skills! Each job also had a specific weapon it used as well, with dandy having a skill in dual blades, or swords; the challenger had something called fencer – axe while brave had dual axes. The last two made Joe really frown. That’s… really dumb. Two weapons is a good way to… Joe sighed and smoothed his face. Magical world… maybe some kind of magical thing with this? That would be… Does it give people ambidextrous abilities? That… would be cool! No… focus! The valiant job gave fencer – hammer and lionheart gave dual hammers. Seeing this duplication, Joe was pretty sure the next job after genius, which had fencer – mace, was likely dual maces as well. Joe pondered what it meant with ‘fencer’ in front of axe, hammer, and mace, but asking help and looking at it really didn’t help much at all, simply stating the user would be able to fence with the weapon. But what does that… even mean? Fencing is with a sword… a rapier specifically… it’s… Joe blinked. Huh… fencing… skilled combat for dueling… usually… and this line of jobs are under duelist… and if it’s… oh!

The other skills in the various jobs seemed to hammer home what he was thinking, as he saw a debuff called one on many – and one on many --- in the dandy and brave job while challenger had a skill called one on one +++. All three of those skills were at level thirty, which Joe found interesting yet he discarded them as he pondered the purpose of the job tree. And as he looked at it, it made a lot of sense. Skilled at dueling so then you’re gonna become quite good at using your weapon to defend and attack against an individual… going to have a lot of focus on skill, and not necessarily survival or just brute force and stamina to slaughter your way through a field of soldiers… Huh…

Joe spent some time thinking on this then turned back to the last of the skills, but found them really odd. Only one skill was immediately useful, called sword fencer: disarm. That made sense, although why it was in the genius job with his skill offering him fencer – mace made Joe quite puzzled. The other jobs proved even more annoying and useless, with things like staff: ??? and spear: ???. In fact, he had eight skills like that across eight different weapons: staff, great sword, spear, halberd, slinger, cavalry, lancer, and horse-bow. Questioning offered no help. Asking job guidance under combat theorist also returned nothing. Both responding with a simple popup stating that the skills were ‘unknown.’ And that, more than anything else, really troubled Joe. What’s that mean for my skill… well… tai chi had all my skills though, but…

Joe stared at that page for a long time before sighing in frustrating and turning away, bringing up his next set of jobs he’d leveled: the soldier line of jobs. He’d been prolific here as well, leveling up eight jobs under soldier: corporal, sergeant, staff sergeant, master sergeant, sergeant major, lieutenant, captain, and major. Like the duelist and mercenary lines, the soldiers had different weapon skills: in order of the jobs, they had weapon skills in spear and shield, halberd, bow, crossbow, hammer, hammer and shield, mace, and mace and shield. After that, the skills were pretty much the same: corporal to lieutenant all gained the exact same skills: disciplined+, attack+, strength+, defense+, one to many+++, and guard. Captain had the skills shift over once with attack+ joining disciplined+ at level ten and it gained another at thirty five. It proved to be a rather nasty one, gaining a debuff to fighting one on one. The skill was called one on one---. Major was the last job in the soldier line he’d leveled, and like captain before it, the skills compressed and shifted down the level scale, with defense + joining strength + at level fifteen so the job gained an extra skill at level thirty five called patrol. Except for the debuff, Joe found all the skills to be solid, if uninspired and moved on to his last set of two jobs he’d leveled.

In the warrior line of jobs, he’d found fighter next, then trooper. They were rather depressing, but did have one interesting possibility. Like duelist, the two jobs gained from the job before them. Fighter inherited from the original tree job warrior while trooper inherited from warrior. Other than that, however, Joe found the other skills depressing. Fighter gained three other skills called parry, block, and dodge. With his previous thoughts on skills, Joe grew deeply worried about what it meant to have a skill named parry, block, and dodge. But… I’ve never had a problem with doing either of those three skills while fighting. They’re… all easy. Nothing that seems to keep me from doing it, so… that doesn’t make sense? Does it? Why are weapons vibra… well… except for tonfa… but why are weapons vibrating from my hands… and even the armor leaping off of me, but nothing happens when I parry or dodge? So… yeah… gotta figure out the skill things… this is… weird.

He finally turned his thoughts to his last job, trooper, and found it also had a rather depressing set of skills: bow, thrown, and large shield. He sighed, staring at his skills for a while longer before finally looking over his available skills one last time with a grimace then closing it all down. He was lost in his thoughts for a while but a few moments later, he began to notice a sharper and closer celebration almost drowned out by the wild celebration from the city. Only the sharp high notes of shouted joy overcame the distant roar from the city. Huh… party … private party in the house?

 

<Chapter 85 Continued>