After removing the armor and sending it to her inventory, she found a simple utterance of 'Equip' while concentrating on the set would switch what she was wearing to her armor. Perfect in times of surprise.
It was early evening by the time she was done. She hadn't stopped even to eat. She was mentally exhausted and starving so after a quick stop down the street, she grabbed a bite to eat and begrudgingly bought some herbs for her daily quest and then came home to feed her beasties.
Noticing she still had notifications, she read them and was happy to discover that all her hard work paid off yet again. Enchant Item, Mana Hands, Efficient Crafting, Material Identification, Mana-Forged Crafting, Enchant-opedia and Runic Inscription Index were all available to upgrade to the next level. She was pleased so many skills were needed to just make one set of armor. This would prove helpful in the future. She was also pleasantly surprised that recursive inspiration also reached a level for upgrade. Turns out the skill was much more subtle than she thought. It wasn't big Eureka moments while crafting at this level. It was subtle little pokes saying, "If I do it this way…" "Maybe if I try this…". Fleeting thoughts that triggered changes as she went.
After assigning the SKP to the skills she decided to boost her beast bank up to level 6, bring the XP max to 3200xp. Leveling her four, soon to be eight tames would cost her greatly. She made a mental note to enchant their gear with XP boosts. Otherwise her own advantage with Double Double would reduce the speed of her main classes advancement.
With that done she finished off her healing salve quest and spent two hours in the yard practicing her axe skill. It finally made it to level 9 when she was done. Thankfully the workout wasn't wasn't as exhausting as it was in the beginning. So she wasn't as physically spent as she was mentally.
{Ding! You have gained new quests. Check your quest window to see changes.}
{Quests:
Main Quests:
1. Reach level 20 and advance your Primary Class
2. Clear your first dungeon with your tames (New!).
(New!) Combat Quests:
Natural Selection
(New!) Beast Taming Quests:
The More the Merrier.
Daily Quests:
1. Daily Exercise
2. Weapon Training
3. Balanced Diet (New!)
4. Companion Bonding (New!)}
The first new main quest was pretty self explanatory. She decided to leave the rewards as a surprise for herself. Selecting the first of the new quest categories, the information appeared in a new window
{Combat Quests:
(These quests aim to improve your combat abilities)
Quest One: Natural Selection
Objective: Defeat five beasts from five different biomes.
Reward: +XP, Unlocks new S.I.S.T.E.M. feature, New Skill.}
"Well, that one should be… fun." Sam said. "Looks like we'll have to extend our trip a bit. I can knock off a forest and grasslands beast with my A.H.A. quests alone. Make a trip to the mountains on the way. Not too fond of taking on a coastal biome beast. What with my needing to breathe and all. Though I suppose it doesn't have to be done all in one trip. Do dungeons count for this one Jarvis?" She asked
{"They do, Sam. There's also the highlands, and arctic biomes to the north. The jungle, swamp and desert biomes to the south. Along with Volcanic on the aptly named Volcanic Expanse lsland. If you extend your trip to a month, you'll be able to pull it off. That's allowing for travel time of course. Though you may want to hand in those A.H.A. quests first and pick up some others in those areas."}
"A month huh, we'll see. I may need to bolster my funds and take some time to sell some things. Though I could always do what you recommend and sell via the store."
She selected the next new quest category to see what that one was about.
{Beast Taming Quests:
Quest One: The More The Merrier
Objective: Tame four beasts from each category: Elemental, Light, Darkness, Mental, Arcane.
Beasts Tamed: Elemental ✔️, Light ✔️
Rewards: +XP, Removal of level based tame limits.}
"Uhh… does that mean what I think it means Jarvis?" She asked stunned
{"If you think it means you don't need to level up to gain more tames… then yes. Now granted, there is one restriction. You can only tame beast within the law of discrepancy. Meaning beasts five levels above you is your new limit. Any beast lower than you, you still have free reign over."}
"Sweet! Only two more for that one."
The next new quest was simply a combination of the food and water quests. It was an added bonus for maintaining a healthy diet. Though in this world, the over processed food from her old world were non-existent. It didn't take too much effort to keep a balanced diet.
The next daily quest was one she had no problem adhering to.
{Daily Quest:
Quest Four: Companion Bonding
Objective: Bonding with your companion improves communication and combat skills. Train every day for at least two hours with one or more tames to improve these aspects of your bond.
Rewards: +XP, New Skill}
"I thought I only got Ten skills, well twenty with the passives too. Didn't you mention something about skill merging earlier Jarvis." Sam said remembering when she got her T.O.U.S. Skill it mentioned something about that.
{"Yes, it's common for some related skills to combine into a single one. Thus leaving an open slot to fill. These new skills you obtain are slotted in General Skills, despite being related to your class. Once two skills merge you can choose to upgrade one to the open slot. Once there it will increase is strength and decrease in cost."}
"Ahh…ok"
Sam made her way back into the house. She decided to pamper herself and took a long hot bath. Looking out the window Sunblaze grazed in the back yard while Tempy and Syn did their own style of training. Meaning Tempy would zip around while Syn would lay in the setting sun snatching her from the air with her vines. While close in size in her 'city version' the obvious strength discrepancy never failed to tick the cat off. As evident from the scorch marks around the wolf.
She leaned over the tub and opened the window shouting at Tempy to stop ruining the lawn. Looking ashamed she scampered off to do Gods knew what. Laying back she closed her eyes thinking about all that had happened since she got here. The amazing skills and abilities that were pure fantasy back home.
"No! That's not my home anymore. It was more of a cage anyway. This is my new home, and I really need to know more about it if I'm going to survive." She said to herself. She got out of the bath and grabbed a towel, drying herself off and wrapping it around her body as she made her way to her bedroom.
In a crate by her bed were the books she had brought with her from the cave. Their topics ranged from class guides and histories to local flora and fauna. One was a much-used book on healing, and a few were simply tales of fiction. At the very bottom lay a thin booklet, little more than a pamphlet: Dungeons of the Rift and the Monsters Within.
She changed into her pajamas, settled into bed, and opened the little book. It was a concise listing of every known dungeon within the Rift—excluding those owned by the guilds. Apparently, all dungeons on one side of the Rift were reserved for guild members, while adventurers were restricted to the other. That suited Sam just fine; either side contained hundreds to choose from.
The surface dungeons came first. With less concentrated mana near the rim, they were the weakest, none exceeding Level 20. They were intended for the newly classed Integrated, and a party in their mid- to high-teens could usually clear one with ease. Each dungeon created its own instance, the booklet explained. Party members had to enter within thirty seconds of one another or risk being diverted to an entirely new copy. No one knew exactly how this worked—some claimed the dungeons opened into other worlds, others that they split reality itself. Either way, once inside you didn't need to worry about strangers intruding. The dungeon alone was enough trouble.
Other dungeons served as resource troves. Rich and plentiful, they would refresh about a week after being stripped bare. The glow of a portal revealed its stage: the brighter the energy, the richer the dungeon's stores. As the light dulled, the entrance would soon close until it could repopulate.
Monster dungeons worked in the opposite fashion. A portal blazing bright meant the dungeon was close to breaking—its population had swelled from neglect. This only applied to beasts that could breed, however. Dungeons of the undead, the arcane, or the artificial—like those housing clockwork monsters—required less frequent clearing. Nature-based lairs, filled with rats, spiders, or other crawling horrors, replenished themselves in their own time. Only when culled too heavily would the dungeon itself step in to repopulate.
Sam yawned, eyes heavy but mind sparking with possibilities. Hundreds of dungeons, each with its own rules and dangers. The booklet read like a warning, but to her it felt more like a challenge.
Tossing the booklet on her nightstand she sent a message to her tames that she was going to sleep. She sent them all to their beast space but only brought out Syn and the cats. She was too tired to get up and deal with doorknobs for her thumb less tames, though she was pretty sure Syn could use her vines in a similar way…after all there was that one morning she came downstairs to a slightly opened cold box, a missing pound or two of bear meat and a wolf who was 'not that hungry' after eight hours of 'sleep'.
The next few days were a whirlwind of training and crafting. She made some extra weapons, enchanted the ones she had in stock, and stockpiled more armor to sell. Also enchanted but not to the degree of her own.
She was now at level 16 with a ridiculous amount of XP before level 17. Though at the rate the weapons and stall stock were giving her XP, she may only need to craft and enchant stuff for a couple weeks to reach that goal.
Her enchanting skills advanced along with her class level. Now at Level 2 she had access to mana and elemental enchants as well as a couple handy passives. Mana Charge, that boosted her mana regeneration when enchanting and Arcane Conservation, that lowered the cost to enchant something.
She made herself a multi pendant necklace like she planned. Three pendants now hung from her neck. One that boosted her mana regeneration by 10%, One that automatically cleaned her of any future blood and gore she may encounter, and one that she was most proud of. She had found this game changer in the utility section of her Enchant-opedia.
Auto-Loot.
Gone were the days of stopping to pick up loot like a peasant. Now everything would be sent to her B.A.G. She was going to send it to her inventory but why clutter up a space with limited slots when everything could go straight to her, literally, bottomless bag.
She also enchanted that poorly named sack with an inventory screen. Now she wouldn't forget what was inside. It had the unfortunate side effect of clearly pointing out her loot goblin ways…but some things are just unavoidable.
Since she'd be gone for a while, she stopped by Mary and Red's inn to pick up some pre-made meals, then to the market to pick up some ingredients incase those ran out. She could always do a little gathering in the woods and other places she planned to go, but she doubted she'd find butter just growing off a tree.
Now fully stocked, she attached the carrying case for the incubator to Sunblaze's saddle, and off she went into the wilds of Fractalis.
Sam and the gang made their way to the western gate that would lead her to the bridge that spans The Rift. Looking over the side was a poor choice. The Rift looked like it too was bottomless. Dark and full of danger the chill that ran down her back told her she wasn't ready. Not only to face the dungeons down there, but also the mana concentration. She'd have better resistance the higher her level, but as for now even getting to the mid level ones would leave her feeling nauseous and dizzy.
The first A.H.A quests she planned to knock off right away, were the Dappledback antlers, the Swiftclaw eggs and the foraging for Windroot. Those would be easily found in the forest on her way towards the grasslands. The others would be on the way to Thrasien.
"Shit! I meant to make another incubator." Checking her resources…she had nothing with her. She groaned out loud before checking the store as Sunblaze trotted along. "Well, I can put up a bunch of stuff for sale on the store and then just buy it once they sold. Hopefully they sell before I get the eggs."
{"With the pricing chart you planned, that shouldn't be a problem. Don't forget the store cover the whole world. Not just locals."}