continued - 3/3

* * *

After that confusing fight, Joe and Garnedell settled into an easier relationship and returned to their normal routine, although Joe began adding a half or quarter day of rest a little over every week, about once per nine or ten days. He decided that he would have to begin a stronger routine to make it easier to maintain their strength and have adequate rest, but the specter of only a year pushed him for now.

It was finally after forty days that Joe hit level twenty, fifty days since he hit fifteen with ten days spent getting the boy to level six, and the remaining forty days spent on a measly five levels from fifteen to twenty. This is really, really not good! This is taking too much time! Forty days to reach twenty, with an increase basically of five times, he was looking at almost two hundred days to make twenty five. That was it. That was pretty much his year! He had maybe a hundred days left after that, but making it to thirty would cost almost two years! If something didn't happen soon, he would be stuck with the skills and abilities at a third what an average human was capable of. What is wrong with this planet! It's impossible to succeed! With a morose sigh, Joe flipped open his status and took a look.

His main status page and current job page showed nothing special or unexpected. He did cautiously inspect the entire page instead of dismissing it completely but found everything normal, each stat having risen by twenty times, matching his level. His resistances, what ones he had, rose by twenty times as well, but he only had two points for wind, water and ice. Even with the excitement of seeing more 'numbers go up,' in the end, he wasn't sure what it meant to have two points in that, but he figured he could spend time figuring it out later.

His finger hovered over the available jobs tab, but then he forced himself to take a look at his current and available skills. If he was going to keep track of the data, it was best if he checked that religiously. He had already missed when his extremely useful skill 'cudgel' became available. His snort of frustrated sarcasm was swallowed by a gasp of surprised disbelief when he saw that a skill had become available. But when he saw the skill name, he had already guessed what its purpose was and dismay quickly settled in. What a useless skill! What would even be the point? Although… if the calculations are as convoluted as back home, then maybe? But still! You would only need it like… once a year or something! Right? Just use it then … why … why!?

A second snort in less than as many minutes escaped Joe as he realized the purpose of the skill. It's even more useless than I thought! Seriously? Why? It's almost as if they want to make it impossible. Why limit it to the user only? This basically makes the skill a benefit only to the lords. Joe sighed and waved away the popup before looking back at his job page once again. It almost seemed like this job was meant to be about as useless as a turd. Joe sighed morosely at his stats and new skill. Well, at least I know this skill becomes available at level twenty… and it looks like the resistances are point one, which pans out perfect. I just wish that I could have seen it from the beginning… maybe two decimal places at least? The status page flickered, almost like signal loss, and the page was replaced, all numbers showing out to two decimal pages.