Ch 24: A lion doesn’t hunt by himself.
Nearly two months had passed since the second floor’s boss had been defeated. The sun was about to rise, and Noah woke up slowly. Asuna was still asleep, her naked body clinging to him, her head resting on his left shoulder.
Noah opened his Yin-Yang status with a thought.
Name: Noah Enfield
Age: 17
Level: 13
Exp: 215/27500
STR: 20
AGI: 23
END: 19
MAG: 10
CHA: 10
Unattributed: 0
Skills: Automated Translation, Lesser Healing, Hands of Nirvana, Improved Rest, Lesser Cure.
Slaves: Asuna Yuuki.
Yin Points: 13312
Yang Points: 400
His relentless efforts were bearing fruit, and he was now twice as strong, and more than twice as fast than he had been before receiving the system. He was actually forced to take it easy whenever there were people around, to avoid suspicion. As for his Endurance, it now reduced any damage he received by nearly half. That wasn’t bad. Still, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Noah sighed, then opened the Yin-Yang Store. There was one purchase he knew he needed, but had delayed because that skill meant pain, literally. Gritting his teeth, he spent the 12000 yin points required.
“Your Lesser Healing skill has been replaced by Healing.”
“Healing. 1000/1000. Unique skill. Heal 1,5% of the target’s HP every second for 40 seconds. Cooldown: 180 seconds.”
The 40% reduction in cooldown meant he could use it a lot more often in a single day, and earn Yin Points faster. But he also would have to be willing to suffer injuries that much more often. Thankfully, Asuna had taken some of the load off him, as she trained herself to increase her Battle Healing proficiency, and also wanted to develop some pain tolerance. Not that he enjoyed seeing her being hurt by monsters.
For a while, he didn’t move, as he thought about Lilith’s extra quest. Mastering 20 proficiencies was far from easy.
With his free arm, he opened his SAO interface.
Noah
Lvl 28
Exp: 88310/12560
HP: 4250/4250
Strength: 35
Agility: 56
Unattributed: 0
Cor: 100 000. (house repayment 32.3%)
Proficiencies:
One-Handed Sword: 562/1000
Rapier: 12/1000
Two-handed Sword: 5/1000
One-handed Curved Blade: 62/1000
One-handed War Hammer: 24/1000
Two-handed War Hammer: 150/1000
Two-handed Lance: 24/1000
Dagger: 12/1000
Shield: 530/1000
Light Leather Armor: 452/1000
Light Metal Armor: 27/1000
Heavy Metal Armor: 10/1000
Martial Arts: 323/1000
Acrobatics: 46/1000
Sprint: 178/1000
Parry: 275/1000
Battle Healing: 242/1000
First Aid: 124/1000
Extended weight limit: 212/1000
Searching: 67/1000
Cooking: 267/1000
Leatherworking: 375/1000
Light Metal Armor Forging: 162/1000
Heavy Metal Armor Forging: 117/1000
Thrust Weapon Forging: 185/1000
Blunt Weapon Forging: 46/1000
Metal Equipment Repairing: 312/1000
Metal Refining: 257/1000
Sewing: 279/1000
Throwing: 412/1000
Hiding: 346/1000
Tracking: 235/1000
Night Vision: 512/1000
Mining: 214/1000
Woodcutting: 317/1000
Carpentry: 122/1000
Accessory Crafting: 290/1000
Thirty-five Proficiencies, if he didn’t count Accessory Crafting, which was something added to the original game by Lilith. And of those, he had to master twenty before the game ended.
What worried him was that unless he did something drastic, he was going to fail that quest. Even devoting about eighteen hours per day to fighting monsters to increase his proficiencies fast enough. With that insane schedule, he was head and shoulders ahead of the other players, but it still wasn’t enough.
Asuna, maybe bothered by the light of the interface, opened her eyes.
“Morning, Master.” She said as she yawned cutely.
“Good morning, Asuna. Sorry for waking you up.”
“It was about time, anyway, judging by the clock on your interface. What were you thinking about?” she asked as she rested her head back on his shoulder.
“I’m worrying that at the current rate, I may not have twenty proficiencies mastered by the time we get out.”
Suddenly more awake, Asuna turned her head to look at Noah’s interface and stared at his list of proficiencies for a while.
“…Master, in your list, there are several generic proficiencies that will likely end up maxed if you just keep fighting, regardless of your equipment. Battle Healing, Night Vision, Parry, and so on. That’s ten proficiencies. Another eleven are related to crafting, three to resource gathering, and the rest depend on the weapons or armor you use… I think I have the solution to this. You just need to craft a lot more!”
“Easy for you to say. I’m already harvesting everything I find, and I use every component or material I collect... Unless…” His eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the form lying on his right.
“Yes, Master.” grinned Asuna. “That’s the answer to fulfill this quest. A lion doesn’t hunt itself but rely on his many lionesses to gather food. If you need a lot of materials, we will provide them to you. On that subject, do I have your approval, for what I asked you last month? You have created more than enough tools by now.”
“Are you certain about this? It will be hard on you. And once you start, stopping half-way will be the worst thing you could possibly do.”
“I can do it. No, I must do it. If I want to remain your best slave, despite not being able to bring myself to killing people, I need to at least be able to do that.” She said with determination.
“Very well. When the time comes, you’ll have the green light. Can you go prepare breakfast, please? You can take your time about it.”
“Yes, Master.” Asuna left the bed and started dressing up, putting on underwear and the guild’s uniform. She didn’t wear the leather harness around her torso anymore, as Noah was very satisfied with her current breast size. She had easily gained ten centimeters in chest measurement and one or two cup sizes.
He watched her dress up for a while, then turned his head to look at the other girl who seemed to still be sleeping.