Chapter 16 – Talking About Skills & Classes

After Damien came back with a new shirt for me to wear, it was time for lunch, a very awkward lunch. As excited and talkative as Vel was during the meal, her father couldn’t have been more opposite. He was mostly silent as he quickly scoffed off the sandwiches he had already got a start on. The few times he spoke after being directly asked a question by either me or his daughter, he just gave slight, grumbling answers before going back to his food.

It was clear that Damien’s reason for acting this way was me. When I had walked into the kitchen earlier, when Vel and he were alone, he was talking much more openly and casually, as one would expect from a father talking to his daughter. If this change in behaviour wasn’t enough, the occasional scowling look I caught him giving me was more than enough to have made it apparent that the man didn’t trust me at all.

The whole reason he was even putting up with me was because of his daughter's kind heart, but even then I didn’t have the feeling that Damien hated me or anything like that. The looks I caught him giving me didn’t seem to hold any malice, just suspicion. If I wanted him to stick his cock in me, it was clear that I needed to actually prove myself trustworthy, not just flash him my tits.

The question is, what can I do to prove myself?

No real answers were coming to me, no matter how hard I thought about it. Proving that you were trustworthy was something easier said than done. There wasn’t anything you could really just do, as it was something that would need to be proven naturally over the course of time. Luckily, I had a week to come up with a solution to this problem and I didn’t really need to stress myself over it right at this very moment.

Damien was the first to finish lunch since he already had a head start on us. Once finished, the man gave his daughter his thanks and then said a short goodbye before heading outside again. After he was gone, Vel and my conversation became a lot more lively, but even then, it was still the young elven woman doing most of the talking.

That said, as talkative as she was, Vel didn’t have a wide range of conversation topics. Since she had led a rather secluded life here in the forest, most of what she wanted to talk about involved either the plants in her garden, inquiring about all things sex-related, or telling stories about the kinds of things she and Saph had gotten up to together. Two of those topics of conversation I enjoyed thoroughly, but the other bore me greatly. Not that. I made that known to Vel. She had been so kind to me, and the least I could do in return was feign a little interest as she talked on and on about the various plants she grew in her garden.

After lunch, it was time to pull my weight around the house, but definitely not in the garden again. There was no way in hell I was going back to that little patch after how dirty I had gotten last time. But since Damien had asked me to do the laundry, that was the very first thing I set about doing. Luckily, the washing machine they had was still fairly similar to the ones from Earth, even if they were powered by magic crystals and a little cruder in design than the ones I was accustomed to. However, I did need a slight bit of help to get the weird, multiple colours of blood out of Damien’s clothes, as I had never had to wash something that was covered in that much blood before.

Thankfully, Vel was more than happy to come in and show me the ropes in between doing her own chores. And as it turned out, they had a few vials of a concoction they made from one of the plants they grew in the garden that did absolute wonders for blood stains. In no time at all, the first load of laundry was in the washing machine and I had even received a message to learn the laundry general skill. Of course, I denied it immediately, before even reading its description since I had no interest in pursuing that skill. The ones I already had were more up my alley, and I was holding out for more just like them, which I would probably get the chance to learn once I got my pussy fucked by a big, hard cock.

Since I had some time before the washing was ready to come out and go in the dryer, I made my way out of the tiny, cramped laundry room to find Vel again. As I did so, a big goofy grin was plastered on my face, and my pussy was aching with arousal. The last piece of clothing that went in the washing machine just happened to be a pair of Damien’s underwear, and I now knew for a fact that he smelled as good as I imagined.

My reasoning for finding Vel wasn’t just to spend time with and help out my new friend, but that my pussy was practically on fire now, after giving her father’s used clothes a good sniff, and I needed her tongue to help put out that fire. However, when I actually found the young elven woman, my curiosity couldn’t help but surge forth, distracting me from the demands of my overactive libido.

Vel was sitting on the sofa in the living room with various sticks and bits of raw wood that looked like they had been collected straight from the forest beside her. What was most interesting, though, was that on the coffee table in front of her sat a handful of wooden items that weren't there the last time I saw this room.

One of the items was what looked like a small jewellery box, while another was a small woven bowl. There were also several wooden spoons and a toy horse that a child might have liked to play with. My curiosity over where these items came from morphed into wonder as I watched the young elven woman mould a thin stick into yet another wooden spoon as if the wood was wet clay in her hands. As she did this, her hands faintly glowed with a green light, a clear sign that she was using a skill to make this possible.

"Wow, how are you doing that Vel?" I asked as I took a seat on the ground near the table so that I could take a closer look at the items she had apparently made.

Vel jumped slightly when I spoke, having been concentrating on her work so much that she had not noticed my arrival. After taking a few seconds to recover from the surprise, she put down the spoon she had made in a matter of seconds with the rest of them and responded to me. "It’s a class skill of mine called nature shaping paired with the woodcraft general skill. I only recently learned both of them when I evolved my class into druid."

"These are amazing, Vel." I praised her as I looked over the toy horse. For the little time it took her to make one of these items, they were surprisingly well made. The surface of the wood was even remarkably smooth, to the point where it seemed like it was actually sealed and finished with some kind of exterior coating. I doubted that splinters would be a problem with any of these items, and that, of course, gave me a naughty little idea.

"It’s nothing, my woodcraft general skill is only still at rank 5. I haven’t been able to push it over that bottleneck yet. I think I have to craft something more complex and different than what I have been, but I’m not sure what to craft." She responded, not at all confident in her own work as she looked back over them.

As much as I just wanted to continue to praise her and tell her just how amazing making these things was, there was something she said that intrigued me. "What do you mean by bottleneck?"

"Oh, right, sorry, I forgot you lost your memories and couldn’t remember the basics," Vel said, but before she could go on to explain to me what I had asked about, I lightly scalded her again.

"When I told you to stop apologising so much, I didn’t just mean during sex. You should save saying sorry for when you actually have something to say sorry for." I reiterated the point I tried to make earlier, hoping that I wasn’t coming across as too bossy. Truthful, I was just trying to help their young woman be a bit more confident in herself.

"Right, sorry-" Vel instantly responded, as it was basically her habit too, but I cut her off with a slight pinch on her legs. "Ow!" What was that for?" She playfully pouted.

"From now on, I’m going to pinch you every time you say sorry when it’s not necessary." I teased her. "I considered smacking your ass instead of pinching it, but one, you're sitting down, and two, that might have just made you apologise even more. Ah, but we're getting distracted. What did you mean when you mentioned bottlenecks before?"

As soon as I mentioned smacking Vel’s ass, the woman’s eyes lit up, but soon enough she moved on and began to explain what I had asked her about. "Yes, bottlenecks. General skills have bottlenecks at every fifth rank, where you need to do something more challenging or inventive to get the skill to rank up. Additionally, the experience required for every rank up after every fifth one is much greater than the ranks before."

"What about class skills? Do they also have bottlenecks?"

"Kind of, but not really. Class skills have rank caps instead. The rate of growth for class skills grows exponentially slower with every rank up, meaning every rank is sort of its own bottleneck, but they also have a cap of rank 10. That said, once a class skill actually reaches rank 10, they see tremendous improvements."

This was all very interesting, so much so that this news completely sidetracked me from my aching pussy and the naughty little idea I had earlier. While I was deep in thought on these matters, Vel picked up another piece of wood and continued to shape new items.

"While we are on this subject, do you get experience towards levelling up from crafting these items just like I get experience for having sex?" I asked.

"I do, but it’s not quite the same. I presume… what was your class again, pervert?" Vel paused so that she could receive a confirmation of my class name, having had it slip her mind. After I gave her that confirmation in the form of a nod, she continued. "I presume that my father was right when he said that the pervert class was a sexual lifestyle one similar to prostitute or courtesan. If you want to find out if it is actually a lifestyle class, the class’s description should say. The last of the three tags under the class’s name tells you what kind of class it is."

I gave Vel another nod as I pulled up the class's description and did in fact see that it had the lifestyle class tag.

Pervert(Uncommon, Sex-Based, Lifestyle Class)

Most people think of "pervert" as an insulting or derogatory term, but you aren’t like most people. Instead of being ashamed of your perverted nature, you embrace it and wear it as a badge of honour.

+100% Growth for all sexual skills-50% Growth for all combat skills

+1 Vitality, +1 Charm, +3 Stat points per level up.

"There are three types of tags that can be listed there. Lifestyle classes, like yours, gain the majority of their experience from pursuing the craft of whatever the class is based on and only receive a fifth of the normal experience awarded for combat. Then there are martial classes, like what my father has, that gain the normal experience from combat and only a slight amount from honing their skills and sparring."

"Finally, there are hybrid classes, like that of the druid. Hybrid classes receive less experience from pursuing their craft than a lifestyle class would, while receiving more experience from combat than lifestyle classes would receive. The reverse is also true in relation to martial classes, making hybrid classes a more rounded choice to take as they receive more experience overall, but are less specialised in combat or the pursuit of a craft."

"Okay… Okay, I think I understand." I continued to nod, showing that I was following along so far. "What do the other two tags below the class name mean? Are they just descriptors or do they have any actual effect, just like the last tag does?"

"The first tag is just the rarity of the class. Higher rarity classes give more stats per level and have better modifiers, but you shouldn’t have to worry about that too much. All starting classes are common ones." Vel explained what she thought was common, everyday information, not knowing that it didn’t actually adhere to what I had in front of me. My class wasn’t common, it was uncommon. "As for the second tag, that is just a description of what the class’s skills are going to focus on. For example, a swordsman would have the sword-based tag and a druid would have the druidic-based tag."

"Umm… Vel, pervert isn’t a common class, the system says it's uncommon." A part of me was conflicted about telling the young woman about this, but eventually, I decided to just do it. She had shown great kindness and care for me, and trusting her with this information was the least I could do. That said, I didn’t even know if it was something that needed to be kept secret or not, and there was only really one way to find out.

And besides, what would she ever do with the information in the worst-case scenario? I mean, who could she even go and tell, her Dad or Saph?

"Really? Are you sure?" Vel’s mouth dropped as she just stared at me wide-eyed.

"Yeah, I’m looking at it right now. It says, uncommon."

"That's… That's amazing!" She beamed a big, happy smile at me. "I didn’t know that was even possible. As far as I knew, all starting classes were common since that’s what Dad told me when I awoke to the system and chose my own starting class."

"But it’s truly amazing to have an uncommon starting class instead of a common one since that will mean you will have more stat points overall when you reach the 1st class evolution. That should make it easier for you to unlock higher rarity classes in the future. Of these, there are five total class rarities: common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary. Or at least that’s what Dad told me, but there could be more since he didn’t know that it was possible to get an uncommon starting class."

A big grin stretched across my lips as I realised just what this meant. It would be entirely possible for my higher rarity starting class to have a snowball effect. More stats early on, made it easier to unlock higher rarity classes at the 1st class evolution, which meant even more stats later on, which would in turn have made it easier to unlock higher rarity classes at the 2nd class evolution. And so on and so on until I would eventually hit some kind of hard or soft level cap.

I guess pervert was a really powerful class all along.