Unchosen Champion

Coop spent a warm night in Corozal. Compared to Ghost Reef, the weather was just a little too hot and a little too humid, but the atmosphere was unexpectedly comfortable. Coop liked the vibes.

Fernando introduced Coop to the other residents, bringing him to the cafeteria they used as a gathering point. There weren’t many people, but they had all developed exceptional talents through professions alone. They each proudly explained their roles as they introduced themselves. A tiny old lady healed his ankle with an extremely high level mending profession while the others gathered around to gossip, like they lived for the chatter, and an outsider was the perfect excuse to rehash debates.

As Coop’s wound was healed, he learned from the mender that her profession was limited to what they called physical healing. They compared mending to first aid, akin to pre-mana treatment without the benefit of medicine. Basically, if Coop acquired any debuffs from his injuries, the mending profession wouldn’t be able to efficiently remove them, as debuffs had a magical component applied by the system that required magic to remedy.

There was a real risk of the Infection debuff forcing a longer recovery time, so his wound was thoroughly cleansed before it was dressed. He thought back to how Madison believed her profession was redundant when compared to her class, which she further thought was an insult to her actual life experience. In a way, he could see how under ideal conditions, she was right about mending being a lesser form of healing, but there were certainly circumstances where it would serve a valuable purpose. If she lacked mana, she could still treat patients, for example. Coop wondered if she had already experienced the benefits when she worked at healing entire armies on Ghost Reef’s doorstep, but was too stubborn to admit it.

The other residents exchanged stories while the mender worked, catching Coop up on the events that had led to their state in between chattering amongst themselves. In exchange, Coop told them about Ghost Reef, how the siege had looked from the inside of the dome, and the circumstances that led him to seeking out Chakyum. Once they were all on the same page, they treated him like a visiting grandchild, offering him gifts of food and even clothes since without his armor, he was basically in his bathing suit. He declined the clothes but not the food.

“So how did you get your profession so high?” Coop finally asked Juan when the suntanned man pulled up a chair and joined the group. Coop was hoping to learn the fisherman’s secrets for his own progression.

“Heh.” Juan laughed between bites of fry jacks while the others looked on, knowingly expectant of his answer. “The secret is repetition!” He stated, like he was revealing the secrets of the universe to Coop. But Coop was too disappointed with his answer to mask his facial expression, feeling his smile fade like he had been told he wouldn’t get dessert.

The old man scoffed. “You youngsters don’t get it! Always needing instant gratification... What you need to do is repeat the same thing over and over again, all the time.” He leaned forward dramatically. “Constantly keeping your hands busy is the key ingredient to gathering so much power.” Juan elaborated while pinching his bicep, to the continued consternation of Coop.

Coop supposed he wasn’t being lied to, but the man was essentially suggesting Coop needed to grind. Of all the people in the world to suggest grinding, he was telling Coop. He shook his head in disbelief, though he considered the idea anyway. He could return to grinding the Ancient Defenders; maximizing the frequency of loot would be the most obvious way of power leveling his Scavenging profession. At least until he found a good way to chain kill Boss level monsters, grinding something he could continue indefinitely would be the way to do it. Still, he thought it was ridiculous. Coop needed to gain experience as well anyway, so he sadly let go of the dream he was having where he had level 1,000 Scavenging in a few days.

“Don’t listen to him.” Fernando cut in. “All he does is nap on the pier all day and wait for fish to bite.” He looked at Juan with a sly smile for an old man. “Besides, Juan is only level 450.”