Sam slowed as the Quest Boards came into view—seven of them lined up in perfect order: Wood, Iron, Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond. The Wood board was chaos, shoulder-to-shoulder with rookies clawing for tags, while the higher boards stood almost deserted.
These weren't cork-and-parchment setups, either. Each quest sat on a glowing mana-pad, runes humming faintly across its surface. The pads displayed only the basics: a title, a one-line hook, and the reward. Just enough to reel you in without actually telling you what kind of nightmare you were signing up for.
Beneath each pad dangled a circular tag stamped with quest level and number.
[Wood: Quest 201]
Sam tilted her head. "So I just yank one of these off and call it mine?"
{"More or less,"} Jarvis replied warmly in the back of her mind. {"Bring the tag to the clerk, get the full scroll, and you're officially registered. Keeps track of who's risking their neck—and who gets paid. Or buried."}
"Cheery." Sam fought the urge to pocket one just to see what would happen.
Her gaze flicked upward. Iron looked possible. Gold might as well have been labeled suicidal.
"Let me guess. I can't just… skip ahead?"
{"Not unless you enjoy being laughed out of the hall. Advancement's locked behind reliability. Do ten quests within six months and hit Level fifteen, and you'll graduate from Wood to Iron. Twenty quests plus Level twenty-five gets you Copper, and so on."}
Sam sighed. "So no speedrunning to Diamond."
{"Not unless you've figured out how to live three lives at once. Until then, Wood it is. Think of it as hazing—every adventurer's gone elbow-deep in that board."}
The Wood board was a noisy mess, tags vanishing almost the moment they appeared. Each mana-pad flickered as tags were yanked down, dimmed, then reset with a fresh quest.
Sam leaned closer, lips moving as she read:
Quest 207: Vermin Control
Target: Eliminate twenty Tunnel Rats in the sewers.
Reward: 4 silver.
Notes: Diseased. Protective gear recommended.
"Mm. Hard pass."
{"You could,"} Jarvis offered, amused. {"But you'd smell like a sewer for a week. Not exactly armor-enchanting material."}
Sam's eyes slid to the next:
Quest 212: Dappleback Hunt
Target: Harvest three Dappleback Deer antlers.
Reward: 7 silver. Other resources claimable.
Notes: Antlers must be intact.
Now that was more like it. Hunting, clean air, crafting materials. She tugged the tag free.
Quest 219: Foraging Request
Target: Collect twenty bundles of Windroot from the grasslands.
Reward: 5 silver, alchemy voucher.
Notes: Deliver fresh.
That one went into her pocket too. Plants didn't bite back.
Quest 224: Predator Culling
Target: Eliminate five Plains Stalkers near trade routes.
Reward: 9 silver, merchant guild credit.
Notes: Fangs required.
She grinned. "Finally, something that fights back." The tag joined the others.
{"Careful,"} Jarvis warned. {"They hunt in pairs."}
"Good. Extra XP. And I'm basically a party of three… maybe four if you count the flammable one."
She skimmed past a few dull fetch-and-guard jobs before stopping:
Quest 231: Lost Caravan
Target: Investigate caravan two days east of Thrasien.
Reward: 12 silver, salvage rights.
Notes: Unknown cause. Approach with caution.
"That smells like bandits."
{"Or beasts. Either way, profitable—and it lines up with your route west."}
Sam snatched it.
Last one:
Quest 236: Egg Collection
Target: Secure three Swiftclaw nests without breaking eggs.
Reward: 8 silver, bonus for live hatchlings.
Notes: Protective gloves provided.
She smirked. "Tricky, but doable. And Tamers might be interested in my incubators." Tag claimed.
She stepped back with five neat tags in hand: Dappleback Hunt, Windroot Foraging, Predator Culling, Lost Caravan, Egg Collection. Hunting, gathering, fighting—everything to push her toward Level 15 without wasting time.
"Not bad. Five birds, one Sam."
{"Trademark pending,"} Jarvis quipped.
Sam stepped away from the board, five tags clutched like a winning hand. Hunting, foraging, caravan cleanup, even eggs. Enough work to keep her busy and—if her math was right—push her closer to that sweet spot: Level 15.
She tugged her pouch closed, mind already spinning through the numbers. The stock from her stall had netted her a ridiculous seventeen thousand experience on top of her usual trickle. Not bad for what she'd considered a "side hustle."
{"It was more than a side hustle,"} Jarvis pointed out. {"You supplied half the rookies in Dungeon City with gear that didn't fall apart after a stiff breeze. That sort of reliability pays. Literally."}
Sam grinned. He wasn't wrong. And that influx of XP had pushed her Master Crafter skill to Level 3. She'd unlocked the ability to make weapons, armor, and even custom-fitted pieces. She couldn't enchant them yet, but with decent resources the base attributes were solid enough.
Her fingers drummed against the quest tags. "So… plan's simple. Craft another round of stock before I leave—get that extra XP boost I'll hit fifteen, finish my new armor, and be dungeon-ready. Then hit these quests hard."
{"Ambitious,"} Jarvis said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. {"But doable. Reinforced leather is your capstone right now, yes? Not glamorous, but serviceable. Add a proper loom and a blacksmith's forge, and you'll have everything short of an enchanter's circle."}
Sam pictured it—a tailor's loom for fabrics, a blacksmithing workbench with forge, anvil, and ingot molds. Her workshop would finally feel like… well, a workshop. "One step at a time. Get the tools, get the armor, then the dungeons."
Sam's smile widened. "Then it's settled." She tucked the tags safely into her belt. Craft, hunt, fight, level. Then dungeons.
{"That's my tamer,"} Jarvis said warmly. {"Always thinking three steps ahead, well except for the tag part."}
"Huh?" Sam said about to turn and leave.
{"The tags have to be turned in, remember?"}
"Shit, right, got all excited." Sam made her way to what she hoped was the final line she'd have to stand in for a while. After reviving her scrolls she made her way back outside. As she passed some of the party's she overheard some concerning news.
"I'm telling you man, they're all dead. It's been over a week and not a single sign of them. A party that size and rank should have no problem beating the 75th floor within a WEEK!" The man said shocked "That's like, over eight hours to do one room, with no breaks. I doubt any room would take EIGHT hours."
"Well I heard the monsters on that floor are Storm Wyverns, LVL 89 too"
"Apparently Frank's guild had a team of their best try that floor and only one guy survived. Refuses to talk about it."
As she walked past Sam wondered what they were talking about. She decided to ask Jarvis.
"Any idea what they're talking about?" She asked
{"According to rumors posted in the community tab, something you've yet to look into I might add, there have been an increase in party wipes at the 75th floor of The Lab."}
"What exactly is the lab? I've heard mention of it before but I don't have a clear idea. I assume it's a dungeon."
{"This one needs a little backstory. The Lab was ground zero for what people call The Fracture. It started with Dr. Alan Virek—a physicist worshipped for his brilliance and cursed for his hubris. He spearheaded Project Gateway, a multinational attempt to breach the veil between worlds. The plan was simple: open the multiverse, grab new resources for our resource-starved planet. And he succeeded.
But what came through wasn't land or salvation. It was mana—raw, formless energy that rewrote the rules of reality. Electricity and mana couldn't coexist. Power grids imploded, satellites fell, cybernetics melted, AIs died screaming. Civilization collapsed, not with war, but with silence… broken by blue fire and arcane storms.
The land itself cracked under the strain, creating a chasm hundreds of kilometers long and up to seventy wide. People call it The Rift. At first they thought it split all the way to the planet's core, but explorers later discovered the bottom was filled with dense mana and dungeons. The further down you go, the stronger they get.
The Lab itself was built with one hundred sublevels, meant to contain accidents. That didn't exactly work. Virek's lab sat around the fiftieth floor. Nearby, two other scientists were finishing projects that the mana twisted forever. Dr. Lysa Kael's Genesis Strain—a serum to force human evolution. And Dr. Renji Takoma's nanites—living devices meant to replace phones and medkits, able to think, adapt, and bond with their host. Mana didn't destroy Takoma's work. It evolved. Into me.
When those forces collided, The Lab transformed. It became a dungeon core. Now, each floor is its own gauntlet. Floor one? A single room with five monsters. Floor two? Two rooms. Floor three? Three rooms. The pattern continues until floor ten, where you face a boss chamber: stronger monsters pulled from earlier floors, plus something nastier waiting at the center. And every level up, the difficulty spikes."}
"Well you know what this means don't you?"
{"What?"}
"I need to get stronger," looking at her tamed companions. "We all do." She brought up her beast bank and saw the balance. "Alright well, we'll need to fix that. I have enough to boost Tempy and Iggy to level 3, maybe 4. Then after we do a little hunting I'll be able to level them closer to Syn. Sublaze may have to wait a bit. Sorry Sunny, won't be for long."
'That's ok, I can wait' Sunblaze replied from her beast space.
Sam continued down the road back to her new house, plotting what she'd do for the next couple of days. As she entered the property, she went to the kitchen to check on the soon-to-be new members of her team. She'd have to make use of those Beast Tamer skills to get four more slots open. Seeing the eggs were just fine with a few days remaining until they hatched, she pondered. What would she do with them? She had planned to leave them with Mary. They didn't really require any attention, but in the chance they hatched early, she wanted someone there… though that can add an assortment of problems. What if they imprinted on someone else? Plus, with only a few days remaining, she was now under a deadline. She wouldn't be able to do everything she planned if she had to get back on time. Maybe there was something the mana-pad had to help. She could always just invent something.
Walking back into her workshop she activated the mana-pad. First things first were the new tabs. Since reaching level 3, she now had access to the tailoring and blacksmithing sections. Tapping on the button for workbenches, she found that the two new buttons were highlighted now. Looking around her workshop she contemplated where to put them. A forge inside a wooden building… was probably a bad idea. Well, until she read the note at the bottom of the Blacksmithing Workbench description.
{Note: Blacksmithing workbench comes pre-enchanted to prevent damage to the surrounding area, as well as ventilation.}
"Oh, we that helps"
She hit the button for the bench, walked over to the spot in the corner she chose and said the magic word.
"Create"
The corner filled with the bench, well forge more like. The forge itself sat in the corner, with an anvil off to the side. The walls had shelves filled with various ingot molds and space for any other molds she may need. There was also a section for tools. All the basics were there. Under the tools was the actual bench. It even had its own dedicated mana-pad.
Returning to her main bench she tapped the tailoring button and then in the corner diagonally from the forge, she placed the Tailoring workbench. Complete with a loom and workbench of its own. Well it looked more like a dining table in size.
"Ok, time to get to work." She said, rubbing her hands together. "First, a little quality of life options for my trip."
Included in her mana-pad were an assortment of things to improve camping in the wild. Travel showers, camping beds, even a tent that wasn't too dissimilar to the kind back home that could be disassembled into an easily carriable size. Of course with her inventory and new bag she could practically take a whole house with her if she planned it right.
After a few hours she was done with her camping gear for her trip and started on the items she'd sell. This time though, she could make weapons and armor. The added items ended up netting her an impressive amount of stock. Thanks to her upgraded skills everything was at least Great Quality, some of the weapons used with higher quality resources even ended up as Superior. With beaks for food it was quite night by the time she was done.
"This is amazing. If is wasn't for the upgraded skills they'd probably be all Good Quality at best." She said shaking her head. "Better keep the best stuff for myself. I have enough problems with the attention I'm getting as it is." She used her mana hands to restock her shelves and moved the camping items into her new bag.
"Alright Jarvis, thanks for muting the notifications. Let's see how I did." She said
{"Of course, a few of your skills are ready to upgrade if you like. Shall we start there? Or should I just send give you everything in a single report?"}
"Hmm, single report please. No need to itemize the shop stuff. It's basically the same stuff I did last time. I'd like to see what the new things I made earned me though." She replied.
{"Coming right up. I've also included an approximated price based on similar items available in the S.I.S.T.E.M. store. By the way, that could be an alternative to your stall should things start to get ugly in the market. Just a suggestion."}
{Crafting Report
Replenished Stall Stock:
XP Gains: 17,460
New Items Created For Trip:
- Traveling Shower - 200xp (5s)
- Camping Cot w/Mattress - 250xp (cot), 100xp (Fur stuffed Mattress, I suggest an Autoclean Enchantment on that asap). (6s/set)
- Foldable Tent 8'x10' (Can be enchanted to self-assemble) - 500xp (6s - 10s when enchanted)
- Camping Kitchen Set - 275xp (2s)
- Camping Stool - 40xp (25c)
- Cord Rope 3 x 10' - 30xp (10c/10')
Total XP Gained: 1395xp
Newly Created Weapons and Armor:
Weapons:
- Knives (Throwable) x4 - 100xp x4 (400xp)
- Wooden Arrows x50 - 50xp x50 (2500xp)
- Ironstone Headed Arrows x20 - 100xp x20 (2000xp)
- Staff x5 - 150xp x5 (750xp)
- Wand x5 - 100xp x5 (500xp)
- Short Sword x2 - 200xp x2 (400xp)
Total XP Gained: 6550xp
Armor:
- Leather Chest Piece X2 - 200xp x2 (400xp)
- Leather Bracers x2 (pairs) 100xp x2 (200xp)
- Leather Greaves x2 (pairs) 100xp x2 (200xp)
Total XP Gained: 800xp
Active Skills Available For Upgrade:
- Item Creation
- Human-forge
- Mana Hands
- Weapon and Armor Smithing
- One Size Fits All
Passive Skills Available For Upgrade:
- Material Manipulation
- Waste not , want not
- Efficient Crafting
- Material Identification
SKP Needed for Upgrades: 16
XP Grand Total: 26,205xp}
{"Well, it's safe to say you reached level 15. Also, I left out the weapon and armor prices since depending on what you choose to enchant them with will boost the price."} Jarvis laughed
Sam just stood there stunned. She knew she'd end up with a lot of XP…but wow.
{Ding! You've Leveled Up! You are now level 15 8920/29280xp}
{Ding! +20 STP, +20 SKP}
{Quest Complete! Reach Level Fifteen.}
{Reward: +600xp}
{You can now choose a Secondary Class}
"You know what to do Jarvis!" Sam said smiling
{Secondary class chosen. Are you sure you wish to choose the Enchantress class?}
{Yes/No}
"You bet your ass I do!" Sam said mentally hitting yes.
{"Congratulations Sam, you're making spectacular progress."}
"Thanks Jarvis. I can't wait to try it out, but I think that's a task for tomorrow. I'm beat."
{"Enjoy a well earned sleep, and don't forget to use those STP."}
"Ugh, Math can wait until the morning, same with my skills."