Chapter 43 Planning and empathy

Things just clicked with the addition of Sarah. My three wives took her in and she got to work right away, her wide variety of job experience meant she could fill many of my gaps in knowledge while just being outright better at most things than the rest of us. The truth was, Silk hadn’t done much work outside of being a guard, Tems was very young and focused on surviving over getting job experience, Cherry socialized and was the daughter of the mayor so never had to work, and I had some job experience, but most is gained after you obtain your class and start to raise your stats.

The skill she gained made it require one less rank for her knowledge to increase the experience gained for each job by one rank. So it only required her to be a journeyman rather than an expert for the normal teaching job bonus. Speaking of which, I hadn’t looked at my job experience for a while, so I decided to after she explained her skill to me.

New!

Butcher- Beginner 09%

Carpenter- Beginner 15%

Executioner- Apprentice 11%

Miller- Beginner 21%

Stonemason- Beginner 01%

Tailor- Beginner 03%

Trader- Beginner 09%

Tutor- Beginner 11%

Gathering

Herbalist- Beginner 60%

Miner- Beginner 15%

Lumberjack- Apprentice 14%

Fisher- Beginner 54%

Animal Harvesting- Beginner 81%

Farming- Apprentice 20%

Item Creation

Alchemist- Beginner 34%

Blacksmith- Beginner 58%

Crafter- Apprentice 05%

Painter- Beginner 06%

Baker- Beginner 14%

Chef- Beginner 98%

Town Service

Worker- Apprentice 70%

Guard- Beginner 24%

Jobs worked separately from classes and skills. Beginner didn’t give any bonuses, but reaching apprentice did. The apprentice bonus wasn’t much, but each rank would provide more and more. Apprentice might slightly reduce the stamina drain of that job, while journeyman cuts it by a quarter and gives a permanent quality increase by 10%. Artisan gave a 25% increase, and also increase the experience gained for that job for anyone working along with you. Expert gave 50% and guaranteed you can’t make the lowest quality products anymore.

There were only a handful of masters in each category, and they mostly kept the bonuses that job provided to themselves. The only known things were at least a hundred percent increase in quality, and locking out the bottom two qualities, making the lowest quality they can possibly make uncommon because of the quality increase.

That wasn’t including the bonuses a person might get from their class as well, you can see where the additive effects start to compound when you look at it that way. Imagine a blacksmith, honing his craft for dozens of years until he reached the rare or even epic level class of blacksmith and master level blacksmith job. It might be impossible for him to make anything under rare with most of his equipment reaching epic, and some even legendary.

It almost never worked out that straightforward; something always went wrong, and the person would need to devise newer and more difficult methods to level up their class. Reaching the uncommon rank was easy enough; most people who lived ten years would reach it, but after that, it became more difficult. The secrets to leveling quickly were hidden, making anyone outside an established noble family tied to that particular class heavily struggle to level from uncommon to rare.

Legendary masters were one of a kind, often creating multiple items talked about through the ages. It was another one of my goals to reach that level eventually. I wondered what sort of food a legendary master farmer could create… Could it turn the tide of war? No doubt it could supply an entire nation, if not span across multiple countries.

The houses came together just as the first snow hit. I commissioned Olivia to build the rest of our home as I expanded the end design. Not only was an additional room going to be added, but also an inside bathroom, attic, and cellar, with plans to expand further after winter was over. She had the help of Sarah and Delilah as the three of them made a great team… Even now my brain took their friendship to a dirty place, I was too horny for my own good.

Both the girls she was friends with were unmarried. Both had shown an interest in being with me, it wasn’t impossible for me to end up with them… Just not anytime soon. I was no longer confused about where I sat with all my wives. The four of them together could make me struggle to satisfy them all, but also my relationship with Leaf was fully established as she pulled me into her library before fucking my brains out one day.

We weren’t husband and wife, but closer to fuck buddies at the moment. I could feel our bond grow the moment she dragged me off to do unspeakable things to me. The other standout thing that happened was that most of my crops wilted and died… Except for one patch of strawberries that grew from a single plant. They frosted over, turning blue as they magified, growing more resilient to cold weather and taking on a cooling effect when eaten.

Cherry was freaking out about the new fruit as she thought of different uses for the crop. Could it be used as a replacement for ice cubes in the summer? We’d only know after our first summer with the crop. I also bought the cores to make more golems, bringing me to a total of ten, in which I replanted some of the frost strawberries to one while still deciding on what to plant for the others next year.

I could make more, but they were already having problems with trampling my crops; it seemed like the more I had, the less they functioned together as well. Ten felt like it was my soft limit, while twenty was close to my hard limit. Any more and I risked the number of crops trampled dramatically, and the closer it got to twenty, the more it would happen until they would do more harm than good defending the farm.

I loved my life, and was currently enjoying the relaxation that winter provided me. Soon enough, I’d have to start preparing for spring. I needed to figure out which plants to add to new bundles, because that was how I was going to stay ahead of my rivals. New bundles with new items, even if they put out a lesser, much cheaper product, it would still take time to copy those brand new products I produced.

Now was the time to fix the problems I had with my farm. I was going to uproot all the tree stumps I left, giving myself more lead-up to the dungeon and making my farm near the dungeon that much safer. Most of my seeds were stored, but some of the more hearty plants could still grow in my greenhouses as I repurposed them from growing herbs.

I also wanted to start making a wall, and now that I didn’t have hours of tending to crops was the best time. Picking more animals to start taking care of was also another goal, but I didn’t know which ones I should buy. Besides milk and eggs, what else could I raise to make money? Sheep for their wool? Besides that, I would have to look more into what other farmers did, then think of things they didn’t do to stay ahead.

Finally, I needed to make a list of crops the housewives and other villagers wanted to grow. I had neglected my relationship with most of the members of this town besides the ones I could fuck, it was high time I acted like I was part of this community.