Chapter 12 Hidden skills, monsterized animals, and magified crops
Hidden skills were just that. There were additional things people figured out about a skill or profession that weren’t mentioned in the description. It was things like baker also gaining a bonus to making butter, or the cloth armor specialization also increased insulation against temperatures, while leather or plate didn’t. Small things that not everyone knew about, but some people could figure out about their skill or profession with a keen eye.
To be fair, most mages would never end up with the farmer class. They would also need to choose the animation specialization and make an unknown smaller golem that isn’t written about in the books. Out of sheer luck and desperation, I figured out how other farmers can defend their farms… To be fair, magic specialization was rare to begin with. Less than 20% of people would gain it as a skill, and if they’d already picked a different specialization, they’d be locked out of making golems forever.
I think five of the wicker golems wouldn’t be as strong as a single wooden but maybe over the course of a few years, they could grow more powerful than it. It was also the intimidation effect of more than just one; you might be able to kill them in a single hit, but if there are six of them, it might make you afraid to even attack. It was also a fear of the unknown, some might even assume the golems were stronger than wood because they’ve never seen them before, but have possibly seen(or at least heard of) wood golems.
It gave me another thing to build for. If I could make a handful and have them grow in power, I would feel safer living outside the village. With everything being squashed and now freshly growing, we didn’t have much to do on the farm except expand, but Tems gave me another option. “Tems want to explore. Should be safer with greenies dead. Explore with Tems.”
That was always an option. If I wanted to look for supplies outside of the border, I could also gain different things, even the copper I needed to upgrade my tools, in the fringes of the border area. I loaded up on supplies in the village first. Getting two backpacks, I also rented a mining pick and bought Tems a dagger as well. Tems had dagger specialization, which would make her attacks more effective than mine.
We didn’t bring Hunk. I thought about it, but at the end of the day, I still needed someone to defend the farm. We made our way into the forest that was right next to the village, which was a clear indication that it was outside the border. We could possibly take more land, but the outside lands were full of smaller tribes, long thought extinct monsters, and dungeons spewing death across the land.
Every inch of territory you gained would be bloody. We had only tamed the land so far this way because we were protected by the ocean that was connected to a mountain range in the other direction. It gave the previous generations a strategic location to hold, allowing us to separate what was beyond the mountains in this direction. Several flying creatures made their roosts on the mountain range, but very rarely did they come down in our direction because they were scavenger creatures.
Still, as we got further in further into the untamed lands, I could feel a shift in the very mana of the area. We were technically on the border of a dungeon. The same dungeon that was constantly spewing out goblins, the only reason it wasn’t taken or destroyed was because it posed as a stopgap to other, more dangerous dungeons.
Our bags were already halfway full of different herbs, mushrooms, and other gatherables before we saw a single creature. A stag with glistening gemlike horns stared at us briefly before jumping away into the trees. I walked around where he was eating and noticed a uncommon clover plant patch, so I took a few clumps, filling my backpack.
My farmer's instincts told me this wasn’t a normal type of clover, perhaps a special magical strain making it more valuable than normal. I would have to have the plant examined by a merchant, but this was no doubt worth more than everything else we gathered so far. At least until we found the copper ore vein. I didn’t realize how skittish I was until I started chipping away at it.
Tems did her best to keep guard, but I had mostly worn myself out before I was halfway through the vein. I had no way to tell how much it was, but I had no doubt it was more than a bar. That meant I could afford an upgrade of one of my tools, and I began thinking of which it should be. We load up what we can in her backpack and carry the rest in our hands home.
It was a surprisingly peaceful trip, most likely because the area would normally be filled with goblins, but they had mostly been wiped out. I think we were experiencing an unforeseen pacified area and would for another week or so. We got incredibly lucky as well. I doubted anyone exploring the wilds would care for copper, and the clover would take someone actually noticing that it was special to take.
We easily made it back to the village, and I had the merchant look at the clover. He eyed it briefly before saying. “This is magified clover. Slight regeneration if ingested, slightly more regeneration if made into tea, and a quality bonus for farm animals that eat it.” My brain shut off, it was a magified ingredient. Most creatures could become monsterized. They would become stronger but also harder to control and could eventually evolve into an actual monster if they managed to level up enough.
Magified ingredients were very similar. A common item could be altered into a magical ingredient. Without any work, the lowest rank of the clover I picked could still give benefits, and the higher rank I could get it to the bigger the benefits. The quality was common, I could tell because of my farming class. My farming class also let me know that this could be planted and improved.
The cost increase of purchasing a magified crop would add gold to the price for even just the lowest rank of magification something could gain. The legendary magified cotton grown by the king's farmer cost a thousand gold for a single seed. They didn't get any usable cotton until the farmer developed skills that allowed him to help the special plants grow.
The more magified an item, the harder it was to work with. Even now, the highest rank the legendary cotton had gotten was rare. It was what the cloak the king wore that was equivalent to a dungeon relic in power. The common cotton from the magified cotton made most of what the king wore, and very rarely was any sold. It effectively gave modifiers on top of the bonuses the rating would give.
It was something to think about. Which crops should I get magified? I think of looking for the best effects to get the full benefits from my crops. The main question now is… Did chickens eat clover? Turns out they did. We got our grape seeds, and I put in an order for some different crops and specialty equipment. The next time someone makes a trip to the nearby village, I can get a handful of chickens as well. After planting the grapes along the walls, I couldn’t help but smile as my plan was coming together. Soon, I’d have vinegar, wine, and spices for the luxury supplies I planned to sell across the country.