97 - Quest Ledger
Allowing the levitation enchantment to relax turned out to be a whole other lesson. Willow offered to adjust the enchantment, but Alexandra asked her not to and moved the floating disk to a corner of the room. It was her achievement, and she hadn’t reveled in it enough.
She set her journal on the desk and reviewed the result of her quest.
Enchant an Item (1/1) -> Quest Completed: +10 exp, +1 INT, Skill Quest Unlocked: Basic Enchantment.
Daily Quest Streak: 49 -> 50
Next milestone: 100 days.
You’ve achieved a feat: Insistent Quester III
Insistent Quester III: Reach a 50-day daily quest streak. +5% All stats, +5% skill experience.
She smiled.
“Something good?” Willow asked, sitting on Alexandra’s bed.
“Very.”
She’d been a little disappointed at her streak bonuses until now. She could see the potential, but one or two percent were simply not doing much. Five percent, however. She looked at Willow.
“You should get a quest streak going.”
Willow rolled her eyes.
“Do you have Basic Enchantment?” Alexandra asked.
“I used to. I upgraded it to an uncommon version. You should unlock it too if you want to pursue enchantments. Completing Bird’s introductory course should do it.”
Basic Enchantment – Common:
Slightly improve your skill in every aspect of the enchantment process.
Each level increases the effect.
Basic Enchantment: Study enchantment to the level of apprentice (0/1).
Alexandra nodded. The effect was straightforward, but about as good as one could hope for.
She flipped the pages of her journal back to the start.
It had been thirteen days since the dungeon. Thirteen days since she got lost in the forest and contracted that damned sickness.
You are suffering from the sickness of paranoia.
To think the Dark Bolt she paid for with that curse didn’t have any effect. She was so close to being free of all her curses, too. She could feel the sickness of empathy was just a small breakthrough away from being dealt with. It was almost like someone had planted the wild dog in her path so she would be forced to use Dark Bolt.
She was convinced Sera hadn’t been there by coincidence. She could have acted earlier. Or perhaps it was Tristan who was taking revenge for their first meeting.
“You’re doing it again,” Willow said. “What's been going on with you recently?”
She looked at her. Was she trying to pull her into Goodpeak’s schemes?
Alexandra slapped her cheek. “Sorry. I…” She groaned. “Fuck it. I’ll tell you. I’ve been hit with the sickness of paranoia.”
“Again? You’ve been cursed more in the short time you’ve been there than most people do in their whole lives!”
“I’m not exactly doing it on purpose.”
Willow exhaled. “Still, you should be careful.” She paused. “Did you request the Magus to lift the curse for you? That one is really bad. You’d think he would agree.”
Alexandra shook her head. “I think he’s more than happy with that sickness.”
“Is that paranoia talking, or Alexandra?”
Alexandra pursed her lips. “Both?”
Willow opened her mouth.
“Look, Willow,” Alexandra said, “I have good reasons to doubt.”
“I could try getting you a meeting with my elders. They can deal with a sickness.”
Alexandra narrowed her eyes.
Willow raised her hand. “No, I’m not trying to get you on our side. My elders might. But they might decide to do that regardless of your sickness. Your call.”
“I’ll think about it,” Alexandra said. “Thank you, Willow.” Then she returned to her journal.
Twelve days of daily quests had yielded a good amount of experience, attributes, and even one new skill quest that she quickly completed.
Daily quests summary: Twelve Quests Completed -> +120 exp, +3 STR, +1 CON, +3 INT, +5 PER, New Skill Quest: Mace Mastery.
When she tallied all of her gains since the beginning, she noticed that her attribute gains were close to evenly distributed among her five attributes, except for dexterity, which was lagging behind. The sample was still too small to draw conclusions, but it looked like the distribution was truly random.
As for her skills, they were progressing steadily, though she had yet to manage to evolve one to the next rank.
Inflict Weakness 10 -> 11
Drain Life 3 -> 4
Curse Unraveling 9 -> 11
Aggressive Assimilation 2 -> 3
A Face Among Many 5 -> 6
Running 6 -> 7
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Mana Manipulation 7 -> 8
Reading 5 -> 7
Basic Hygiene 2 -> 3
Sword Mastery 3 -> 6
Spear Mastery 5 -> 6
Axe Mastery 2 -> 5
Mace Mastery 1 -> 3
She turned back to Willow. “You must have a lot of skills. How do you organize your time to level all of them?”
Willow tilted her head. “Define a lot. All together, I have a dozen skills. Most of them are geared toward enchantments, with a few supporting ones. It’s not that complicated. Why? Do you have more?”
Alexandra looked at her list. Twelve common skills, six uncommon, and one rare, for a total of nineteen.
“A little more,” she said. “But I think my concern is that they’re very eclectic.”
Weapon mastery, magic, utility, curses, her skillset was all over the place.
“That’s unusual,” Willow said. “No doubt a function of your particular flavor of divine class. Typically, a class art will only help unlock a specific subset of skills. For example, an enchanter like me is limited to enchanting skills.”
Alexandra raised her eyebrows. Her Heroine of Quests class was all about, well, quests. Yet, none of her skills had anything to do with quests. Except for them being unlocked via said quests. And there was still the question of her Warlock skills…
“But to answer your question,” Willow said. “You should focus on training the skills you care most about. Time is finite. Don’t waste your time on skills that don’t matter to you.”
Alexandra nodded. “Does that mean I get to stop bathing?”
“No.”
“Lame.” She turned back to her journal, ready to get started on the most significant part of her day.
Her advancement to Bronze.
Level up! 4 -> 5
Congratulations! You’ve reached the threshold of the Bronze rank.
Class perk evolution available.
She waited. Nothing dramatic. The world looked the same. She supposed that was the point of gradual progression.
Remembering what awaited her, she rubbed her hands together and flipped the pages of her journal to the perk selection section.
Choose your level 5 class perk evolution. Which perk would you like to evolve?
- Event Quests
- Adventuring Party
- Streak Enhancement
“Wait.” Willow stood up. “Alexandra Ward!”
“What?”
“You reached Bronze rank and didn’t tell me anything?”
Alexandra looked back at her. “I thought you were keeping track. Day fifty. The experience would get me there.”
Willow rubbed her face. “I can’t believe it. You know most people would celebrate, right? Kids wait for that day their whole life.”
“Well, I’m not a kid, and I’ve only waited for fifty days. Hardly a long time,” Alexandra said. “So how does it work?”
Willow breathed out and sat back down.
“You pick the perk you want to evolve first, and the system will do the rest. What you actually get from the evolution is hard to predict. Some say it depends on your personality, your past actions, your desires.” She paused. “Nothing you can really influence now.”
Alexandra rubbed her chin.
“You’ll get to pick a new perk at level six. Levels seven through nine are upgrades. Ten is Silver.”
She would upgrade them all eventually. But, for now, she could only pick one.
First, she discarded Adventuring Party. So far, it hadn’t been the most useful, and she didn’t see how it could evolve into something she could benefit from in the short term. Unless she could share her daily quests… Then again, it might bring her more trouble than it was worth. Once the Keepers learned of this ability, they would want to make use of it.
They would want to use her. More than what they were already doing. Because they were doing something. She didn’t know exactly what, but they were doing something.
“Alexandra,” Willow called. “The curse.”
She bit her lip. “Thank you.”
The idea of upgrading Streak Enhancement was very tempting. The Iron version of the skill had given her a boost in skill experience, so she was very curious about the Bronze evolution. Even more so now that her streak bonus had reached five percent.
On the other hand, Event Quest was the perk that had benefited her the most. Admittedly, it had pulled her into some less-than-ideal situations. But, in the end, she’d come out on top, and with great skills added to her arsenal.
She tapped her fingers. The question wasn’t so much which perk she wanted to evolve the most. She would get to all of them eventually. What she needed to consider was which perk would benefit her the most right now.
Adventuring Party was still a question mark. Streak Enhancement would benefit her, but likely not more than five percent of whatever buff the system decided to give her. Furthermore, she’d reach level soon after her hundred days milestone. In the grand scheme of things, waiting two months to evolve it wouldn’t change much.
Event Quest could give her something right now.
Alexandra explained her reasoning to Willow.
“That makes sense to me. Don’t overthink it. As you said, you’re only two months away from another upgrade. When your levels start taking years, you may want to consider things further.”
She selected Event Quests.
Event Quests (Iron) has evolved into Quest Ledger (Bronze).
Quest Ledger – Unlocks Event Quests and Training Quests. Event Quests are granted based on external circumstances, with a reward dependent on the quest’s difficulty. Training Quests are designed to help you improve your skills. Select a skill to generate a quest that will reward you with a skill level.
Congratulations! You’ve completed your evolution to Bronze.
You’ve achieved a feat: Bronze
Bronze: Reach the Bronze rank. +5% All stats.
Blood of the Verdant Lord has reached the Bronze rank.
Alexandra looked up and locked gazes with her friend.
“How is it?” Willow asked.
“Bullshit broken.”
Name: Alexandra Ward
Class: Heroine of Quests
Rank: Bronze
Level: 5 (0/250)
Strength (STR):46
Dexterity (DEX):42
Constitution (CON):47
Intelligence (INT):51
Perception (PER):51
Bloodline: Blood of the Verdant Lord
Class Art:
- [Quest Journal] – A living record bound to its bearer. Generates daily quests tailored to the surrounding environment. Completing quests yields experience, rewards, and contributes to an ongoing streak. The longer the streak, the greater the bounty.
Class Perks:
- [Quest Ledger] (Bronze)
- [Adventuring Party] (Iron)
- [Streak Enhancement] (Iron)
- [Giant Slayer] (Rare) - 5
- [Inflict Weakness] (Uncommon) - 11
- [Dark Bolt] (Uncommon) - 10
- [Life Curse] (Uncommon) - 12
- [Drain Life] (Uncommon) - 4
- [Curse Unraveling] (Uncommon) - 11
- [Aggressive Assimilation] (Uncommon) - 3
- [Sickle Mastery] (Common) - 10
- [A Face Among Many] (Common) - 6
- [Combat Sense] (Common) - 10
- [Sure Footing] (Common) - 10
- [Running] (Common) - 7
- [Mana Manipulation] (Common) - 8
- [Reading] (Common) - 7
- [Basic Hygiene] (Common) - 3
- [Sword Mastery] (Common) - 6
- [Spear Mastery] (Common) - 6
- [Axe Mastery] (Common) - 5
- [Mace Mastery] (Common) - 3