Sam opened his eyes and groaned; he had barely slept since his blood skill manifested. He had been battling his hyperactive mind as it imagined scenario after scenario of him having his mythic skill revealed and some insanely powerful warrior coming to cleave him in two for being a threat to his power. While he may not have had any sleep, he did know what he was going to tell his parents. He had decided to tell them that he had a legendary skill that gave him a levelling boost, increasing the stats he gained when he levelled. He couldn’t hide the fact that his strength would be growing faster than normal if he was reaping strength stats and so explaining that it’s a stat boost skill that gives a stat boost upon level ups would make sense. That would be considered a legendary skill, especially considering how many levels he could go up by as a legendary skill holder and would mean he is less of a threat to those who are already strong.
Now that Sam was less worried about getting killed, he now thought about how he was going to level up his skill. His only option was fighting as by definition his skill reaped stats from opponents so he would need to find some opponents. He knew this would be difficult. Not only because he didn’t have an ounce of training in combat but also because there weren’t really any combat opportunities in Kait. However, this could be alleviated by one of the gifts he had been given during his coming-of-age ceremony, James’ bow. While he had been gifted a sword and dagger by his father, he didn’t really know how to use them. His father had told him he had fought in the war, but he never really received any proper training with the sword and refused to teach Sam anything as he didn’t want to teach him wrong. He understood this as learning something wrong was a lot harder to fix later on than learning properly at a later date. So, this left him with one option and that was to take up James’ old bow and have him teach him archery and how to hunt. While hunting animals wasn’t the most efficient way of levelling up his skill it was better than nothing and while he preferred the idea of fighting up close, learning to hunt would be a useful skill anyway. And if hunting didn’t work out for him, he would just have to run around the farm killing rats all day.
Sam decided it was finally time to get up out of bed when he remembered he was supposed to meet Paul in the town square at 9am that morning. He decided to get dressed in his work clothes as he would likely spend some time in the fields and the barn after his meeting with Paul to see if he could work on his new skill and do some more long jump practice. After his practice yesterday he felt like he was close to gaining the skill. He knew that if he had been learning it on his own it would take him weeks to learn it with constant practice but since it was from a skill book the absorbed mana had drastically sped up his progress.
Sam left his room and headed for the dining table for breakfast. His father was sitting there drinking a large mug of water. It looked like he must have been out to the fields early and had already returned. “Morning Mum, Morning Dad” he greeted his parents. “Good morning Sam” they both responded. Sam sat down at the table across from his father. “So, don’t keep us waiting, what is it?” his father asked. Sam hesitated for a split second before he told them about his supposed legendary skill. As he explained the made-up skill they were speechless. They stood there staring at him for what felt like ages. Finally, his mother spoke “A legendary Blood skill, but it doesn’t seem anything like either of ours”. “That must be because it’s a legendary skill. So far greater than ours that it’s unrecognizable” his father replied to her. Sam was starting to feel a bit guilty at this point. His actual skill really was like a combination of their skills, but he was sure he didn’t want anyone to know it was mythic. Not even his parents, hell, they were so shocked by the legendary skill they may have collapsed on the spot had he told them the truth about it being mythic.
He spent the next half an hour explaining the skill to his parents and what he believed his supposed 8 skill fragments might be. He finally managed to prepare himself some eggs for breakfast which he had to force down his throat at breakneck pace as his meeting with Paul was not more than 10 minutes away and it would take nearly all of that to get to the village square. He said goodbye to his parents grabbing his work knife on the way out the door before he made his way to the square to meet Paul.
As Sam arrived at the village square, he noticed that there was a merchant that had set up shop at one of the stands. He looked around for Paul but couldn’t see him anywhere in the village square. He decided to check out the wares of the merchant while he was waiting for him to show up. Walking over to the stall he looked down at what the merchant had on display. The same old stuff merchants normally brought to remote villages was laid out on a brown cloth covering the table. Sam skimmed his eyes over the wares before he stopped on a pocket watch. It was an old model pocket watch from around 200 years ago but since the system menu didn’t show the time only the date a watch was quite valuable. It had clearly seen better days with the metal scratched and dented, but it was likely still pricey. He decided to ask what the price was anyway. “How much for the pocket watch?” Sam asked the man standing behind the stall. “1 small silver” the merchant replied. “One small silver? Really? I’ve seen much better watches for much cheaper in town. “Olivers watch shop has brand new watches for only 5 small silvers. In comparison this thing is not only old but looks like it as well. I will give you 2 coppers for it.” Sam replied to the merchant. The merchant was silent for a moment before saying “7 Coppers”. “3 Copper and 5 small coppers” Sam countered. The man was silent again clearly thinking it over. “Anyone else in the village who can afford a watch has already bought a newer one from town” Sam stated. “But if you want to take it back with you and try somewhere else you certainly can”. The man was still silent. Sam knew a watch in this poor condition would go for no more than 3 Coppers in town and he would likely struggle to find anyone willing to buy it in the neighboring villages. “4 Coppers” the man finally said. Sam made a face trying to look as if he was really struggling with the decision. “Final offer, 3 coppers 7 small coppers” the merchant followed up. Sam continued to look like he was still thinking about it before finally saying “Deal”. He put his hand out to the man and 3 copper coins and 7 small copper coins appeared on his hand. The merchant took the money and placed the watch in Sam’s hand.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
After having made his purchase Sam looked around but still couldn’t see Paul. He decided to sit down on a bench and look over the watch he had just bought. Honestly it was a piece of junk but he decided that if he was going to be spending time out in the fields or in the woods all day trying to level his skill he would need to be able to keep track of time and knew his parents wouldn’t give him either of their watches and besides, he was confident that he could clean the watch up a bit so it didn’t look quite as bad.
Another 15 minutes passed before Paul finally walked into the square and headed toward the bench he was sitting on. Sam stood up and greeted him “Good morning, Paul. I was worried I was going to be late, so I bought a watch” Sam Joked. “Morning Sam, sorry I’m late. There was an issue with that wolf being spotted down near Travis’ stables and I was there with a couple of the hunters who were going to see if they could find it” Paul replied with a concerned tone. “Did it get any livestock? The last thing we want it for it to get a taste for it,” said Sam. “No, it didn’t thankfully, I’m hoping it will just leave with all the people around”. “I see” Sam replied to the man. “Anyway, let’s get going, I have kept you waiting long enough” Paul finally said. “This way,” Paul said before setting off in the direction he had pointed. Sam got up off the bench and pocketed his watch before following after him.
After about 15 minutes of walking southwest of the village square, they finally came upon a small clearing. “Here it is” said Paul as he came to a halt. “This acre of land backs onto the forest and has a stream running through the back of it. I’ve given you this piece of land as it’s a bit more remote and therefore there is more space for you to purchase the surrounding land. You should have enough space to build a nice house out the front of the lot here or if you want to wait and purchase more land then you will obviously have more options”. “Wow it’s beautiful and so quiet” Sam observed.
“How much is it to purchase the surrounding land?” Sam inquired. One Silver coin per acre” Paul answered. That’s cheap he thought before Paul continued. “I know what you’re thinking. Thats Cheap and why haven’t more people purchased the land? Well, I’m reserving it for residents of the village only. There have been many who have tried to purchase land for cheap like this, but most mayors of the border or more rural villages tend to hold onto the land and don’t sell it” Paul said. “That’s good, it means you don’t have people buying up the land just to harvest it for cheap” Sam replied. “Exactly right” Paul confirmed. “Anyway, I will leave you to check out the land management module by yourself. If you run into any trouble, there are guides in the village hall so just pop by and you can borrow them. Anyway, have fun and I will see you later around the village” Paul said before turning back toward town and leaving Sam alone on the road.
Sam watched Paul as he crested the hill and vanished from sight. He turned around facing his plot of land and opened his system menu and navigated to the new land management module. When he opened the land management module the borders of his new piece of land lit up. Well, that’s mighty convenient he though as he looked over the details on the system page. On the land management page there was a greyed-out option called ‘Domain Management’ he assumed that was what nobles used for managing their domains or at least a part of how they managed their domains.
He continued to look over the land management module and saw the land owned section. ~Total Land Owned: 1 Acre~ it said on the system page. Looking at the page further it listed the location of the land owned along with how much land was owned. As he only had the one piece of land, he only had one option listed. It wasn’t the most intuitive system page he had seen so he decided he would need to take a look at the books in the village hall to get a better grasp on the land management module. But since the price of the land was 1 silver coin and if he began hunting and was able to sell some produce in the general store then it shouldn’t be too hard to save up. Hell, he could sit here and do some fishing in the stream and sell his catch at the general store and save up a single silver coin fairly quickly.
He spent some time walking around the small block of land and taking in all the details as well as planning which plots of land he was going to purchase first. The stream ran through the back third of the plot and into the trees in the back right when facing it front on from the road. The plot was right up against the forest so expanding southwest would be into the forest. To the northeast towards town, he decided to see how far the stream went to the northeast out of the forest. It ended up being a decent way and eventually it came to a stop in the middle of the field where it accumulated into a pool. While he had been walking down the bank of the stream, he had noticed some fish swimming in the water which he had decided he would try and catch next time he was over here.
He headed back towards the forest and while there were only a few trees on his plot the whole forest was next to him so there was a lot of opportunity to build his own house out of the forests lumber, he’d probably need to talk to the villages woodcutter to learn how to cut the tree’s down and turn them into useable lumber but that could wait until he had purchased a few more plots. It was unlikely he would get around to doing any of this before he finished his mandatory 3 years at the academy in town anyway. Maybe he could spend some of the time he got back in the village to work on it although it would be different this time as he would be staying at the academy 3 weeks on and 1 week off once he started his first senior year so he would have a lot less time to do so.
While thinking about his plans for the land he finally noticed it was starting to get very hot. He wiped the sweat off his brow and decided he would rather not pass out from heat stroke; he chose to head back home for some lunch. He walked back onto the path and headed back toward the northeast where the village was.
It was about noon by time he made it back home and he walked through the front door and went straight to the kitchen to pour himself some cold water from the jug they kept in the ice box under the kitchen counter. He downed the cup quickly before pouring himself another one and headed back to his room. He put the cup of water down on his desk and lay back on his bed. He lay there for a few moments deciding what to do with the rest of his day. It was too hot outside to practice his long jump; however, he could go down to the barn and see if he could find any rats to kill and maybe even use his skill to reap their strength.
Thinking about reaping their strength made him seem kind of evil, he thought dismissively. Oh well, he thought to himself as he finally made up his mind. He would spend the next two hours indoors out of the sun to rest and then head to the barn to try and find some rats. Then once the sun has begun to set a bit and it had gotten cooler, he will practice his long jump skill and hopefully form the official long jump natural skill he thought to himself as he lined out his plans for the rest of the day in his head.
