HC: Handyman | Ch. 9 - Level Up! (Patreon)

Completing the tutorial awarded him experience and free items! It's a good thing he had listened to his cousin and came back here. How stupid would he have been if he had passed on all these freebies? He hurried to check his character sheet and find out what had changed after leveling up.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name: JackofDiamonds

Level: 2

Major: [Bushcraft]

Minor: [Pottery]

Hit points: 100/100

Stamina points: 43/100

Attack: 3

Block: 1

ATTRIBUTES (1 free point)

Strength: 5

Constitution: 5

Agility: 5

Intellect: 5

Luck: 5

The page looked slightly different from before. After equipping the staff, entries for attack and block were added. The page had also grown bigger and split into two tabs, one with basic character information and another with attributes. After leveling up, he gained one free point to allocate. He didn’t know what to do with it yet. He decided to leave it for now and only allocate attribute points after consulting with his cousin.

He then checked the new items that Ezekiel had gifted him.

Glass Vial (Common)

Item description: This can store medicine, water, or other substances.

Durability: 5

Aloe Ointment (Common)

Item description: Slightly aids in the recovery of health.

Item effects:

+5hp every 10 seconds for one minute. It cannot be used while in combat.

They were fairly basic items. The only issue now was that after receiving them his inventory was full! The twenty-five slots were occupied with his first pot, the nineteen stacks of clay, two stacks of dry grass, the apples, vials, and ointments! He might have to toss some of the clay and grass at this point to make space for an important item.

Now that he had finished the tutorial, Jack moved to his next stop. He hoped to gain a few pottery levels before logging out. With his new staff in hand, Jack ran back to the beginner town, hoping that this was the last time that he had to visit these hills filled with noobs and rabbits.

Arriving at the familiar house crowded with pots and vases at the entrance, he knocked. Jenny answered the door, wearing an easy smile and a dirty apron. “Oh, you're back so soon,” she exclaimed.

Jack wasn’t 100% sure, but the patches of clay on her seemed the exact same as those he had seen the first time they met. Smirking, he took pride in finding one fault in the developer's efforts to make the game realistic. He returned to the purpose behind this visit.

“Hey Jenny, how are you doing? I'd like to work more on my pottery skills, and I was wondering if I could come and work here.”

Not only did Jenny have a hearth where he could fire pots, but she was his pottery teacher. If there were any recipes or techniques left to learn from her, he could camp here and avoid having to travel back and forth. Unlike what Jack had expected, Jenny frowned. “I'm sorry, friend. I already have someone here who wants to learn pottery from me.”

“Really?” Jack had assumed he was the only potter in the entire village. Well, other than Jenny, of course.

“This lovely girl just came over and asked me for help learning how to make ceramics. I would love to help you, but my house isn't too big. Would you mind looking for somewhere else to work?”

“No, of course. Of course,” Jack said, scratching his head. “I'll think of something.”

“But if you have any questions in the future and need further guidance, I’m willing to help you out.”

“Of course, Jenny. Thank you,” he said, forcing a smile. Jenny closed the door, and he heard her and another female voice giggle inside the house.

Now what? Where else could he fire the pots if he couldn't access the hearth in Jenny's house? “Maybe,” he thought aloud while scratching his chin, “I don't need her hearth. Maybe I can already set up my own thing without needing help from anyone.”

Jack ran toward the grassy hill Saul had directed him to earlier. Like every other hill around town, it was inhabited by one lone old tutor and a lonesome tree atop the hill.

To avoid getting surrounded by noobs, he found a somewhat discreet place near the foot of the hill. He then opened his inventory and grabbed a lump of clay. He was surprised by how easy it was to get his hands dirty this time. The first time, the cool sensation on his skin and the squishy sounds of the clay had felt disgusting, but he'd gotten used to it fairly quickly.

He formed a ball just as Jenny had taught him and dug his thumbs into its center, careful not to perforate it. Once he was happy with how the base turned out, he pinched along the edges. Jack tried to follow Jenny's suggestions from last time and spent a little more time thinning the base and evening the brim.

Even though the pot was far from perfect, it looked better than the very first one he had made. After taking his first wonky creation from his inventory for comparison he could see that the distribution of clay was more even this time. The surface of the pot wasn’t perfectly smooth yet, though. Maybe there was something that he was missing, better stats, or a skill that was unlocked at later levels.

Congratulations. You've molded [Earthenware Gardening Pot].

+5xp in [Pottery]

Time until it dries: 30 minutes

The pot didn’t automatically disappear into his inventory. This time, it stayed in his hand. Was it because it was full? Turning over the pot in his hand, he confirmed the timer for drying was still ticking. That was a relief. If the pot could have only dried in his inventory, he would be limited to crafting only as many pots as there were available slots. Having to keep an empty inventory to craft would have been annoying.

When Jack was learning [Bushcraft], he had been able to dry grass outside of his inventory. He supposed it made sense that the same could be said for pots. Thinking about how he had dried grass in the sun earlier, he froze. He had an idea.

It was mid-afternoon in the game, and the sun was still shining brightly. Jack found a sunny spot and yanked the grass on it, throwing it to the side to dry. He then placed his newly molded pot, carefully placing it under the sun.

Time until it dries: 17m32s

Jack's eyebrows shot up. He had shaved ten minutes off the pot's drying time. He remembered how Saul directed him to dry grass in the sun and decided to try it with these excellent results. It wasn’t just grass. By leaving anything in the sun, it could dry quicker than if it was left alone in his inventory. Cool! Knowledge from [Bushcraft] had translated into something useful in [Pottery].

Overjoyed with his discovery and his smarts, Jack continued crafting. With each new lump of clay, Jack tried to perfect the technique. He tried to make the base thin and the edges even and perfect, but despite his attempts, he wasn't able to form a perfect shape. There had to be something that he was missing here.

As he immersed himself in shaping clay, Jack had the same sensation he had earlier when he completed his first pot. It was a mix of frustration at being unable to do better and satisfaction from creating something. There was also a certain peace. It was as if he could deposit his frustrations and sadness through his fingers into the clay and trap it there, away from him. Finally, there was pleasure. It reminded him of when he used to play soccer in school and how he felt after giving it his all in a game. It was a mix of tiredness and relaxing euphoria. It was all new and strange.

By now, his face was already marked with clay from wiping his brow. He was starting to get the hang of this. He couldn't do it nearly as fast as Jenny, but he could get one pot molded in five minutes. Since it only took 20 minutes under the sun to dry, the first one had dried by the time he finished molding his fifth pot.

When he reached the tenth pot, the pleasant sensations that had felt soothing a little earlier disappeared, crushed under overwhelming tiredness and boredom. At first, trying to work out the kinks in his pots was fun, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn't perfect his technique. He felt like changing tasks. Doing the same thing over and over was too tedious.

It had taken him almost an hour to mold ten vases. He had gained 50xp in pottery from doing this, but he still hadn’t gained a single level in the profession. Was what the guides said true? Was he supposed to spend countless hours doing this tedious work before he could get the profession up to level ten?

It wasn't that he felt disgusted about the clay anymore or that creating pots wasn’t satisfying. It was just that the prospect of doing this over and over for the next few days terrified him. Although bearable for now, it wasn’t something that Jack could see himself doing forever. Thankfully, he had other things to do to get a break from pottery.

It was time to start a fire to finish his pots. He picked up the bits of grass he had left to dry around him and reached into his inventory to grab more, arranging it all into a little pile. Even though it wasn't much, he was sure it would be enough to fire ten pots.

Now that he had prepared the fuel, he only had to kindle the fire. He opened his inventory, and his eyes widened. How could he have made such a rookie mistake? He didn't own a tinderbox yet! The one he had used earlier was Saul’s!

Where could he get a tinderbox? Did he have to buy one? He only had 50 coppers in his wallet. He didn't even know where he could buy such a thing. Was there another way to make a fire that didn't involve buying a tinderbox?

Jack massaged his temples. It was time to turn to his wisest friend for help. “Let's go, Internet.” He opened the browser, graying out the hill around him and the town beyond. “Where to get a tinderbox in New Earth?” he typed.

The answer to his query came almost immediately.

“You can buy a tinderbox in any basic shop in a beginner town. Alternatively, you can collect the flints yourself and ask a tinkerer, smith, or recycler to get you some firesteel. I would just recommend you buy a tinderbox from the store for what it costs.”

It looked like the information he needed wasn't a big secret. Thankfully, New Earth had been online for over four months, and these little things were considered common knowledge. Hopefully, things would stay like this for a while. He had played games where it was hard to find information online. They were hard. Figuring out stuff without any guides required a lot of time. It was much easier when someone else did all the hard work for him.

Jack studied all his unfinished creations and was unsure of what to do for a moment. He had only spent one stack of clay to make these ten pieces, but each drying pot would occupy one slot in his inventory. He didn’t know if finished pots stacked, but unfinished ones didn’t. He couldn’t just leave them here. Any passerby could come here and take it away, wasting all his hard work!

Sighing, he tossed ten stacks of clay to the ground and stored the bone-dry pots in their place. Even though it felt wasteful to leave so much clay around, the truth was that there was a lot of it in the harvesting ground Jenny had shown him. He could always pick up more if he needed to.

As he finished collecting his unfinished pots, he ran toward the city. As he ran away, he looked over his shoulder and caught sight of a couple of players in gray clothes approaching the scattered lumps of clay and dry grass on the hill. They squatted, trying to grab them, but seemed unable to gather the resources. Jack grinned. Such noobs! They needed a minor to be able to collect these resources!

After walking these streets a few times when trying out majors, Jack already had a rough idea of where a beginner shop was. He turned right at the fountain and located a house with large windows and a lot of traffic. He remembered asking the shop clerk where he could find soldiers; this location had stuck with him. Players entered and left the building, making it one of the buildings with the highest traffic in town.

The ones going in looked excited at the prospect of buying something new, and those leaving appeared to be downcast and pale, an aftereffect of leaving all their hard-earned money behind. The big signboard reading ‘Shop’ removed any doubts. This was the place where he could buy a tinderbox.

Ch. 8 - Back to Square One

INDEX

Ch. 10 - Tinderbox