HC:Pacifist | Ch. 125 - Plumber Helmet (Patreon)

[Deal the Cards] allows you to have access to potentially many more skills. Allow me to explain. As a greenie cardmaster, you can start with two skill decks of five cards each. As you progress in the profession, you have access to more decks, shorter cooldowns, and more skills per deck.

In novice grade, you're able to have three decks of six skill slots each while the cooldown goes down to 22 hours. And this is before any cooldown reduction is factored in!

Then, when you become an experienced card master, you get access to four decks of seven skills each, and the cooldown is lowered to 20 hours. So, in effect, by becoming an experienced cardmaster, you have access not to the usual 10 but to 28 different skills!"

Roth dropped the guide and let the implications sink in. All his outrage melted away and was replaced with fascination and excitement. What an incredible profession. Of course, there were downsides. All classes and professions had some downside in AstroTerra. In this case, by taking this profession, a player was essentially trading a potential source of income for access to a wider range of skills. The upside was fantastic. Roth liked it. He liked it very much. He kept reading the guide.

"Unlike many other professions in the game, cardmasters don't focus on collecting resources or crafting. They make money out of reutilizing their skills. Usually, when a player learns a skill, that money is gone.

"Further down the road, when you learn a better skill, the money you invested in the previous one goes to waste. With the card master profession, you get to unequip that skill and transform it back into a skill card that you could sell or play with. That's one of the greatest advantages of being a card master.

"The card master profession is inseparable from the trading card game that can be played in gaming parlors in every city of AstroTerra. Check any of my guides about the best beginner decks and winning strategies for Terramon. Please see the following link."

Roth checked out of curiosity how much it cost. It was priced at ten gold. Before Roth spent the money willy-nilly, he would check if there was anything about the card game in the forums or the rescue library. He continued reading through the guide he’d purchased.

"To unlock the cardmaster profession, you must have a winning streak of seven games in Terramon. The system pairs you up with players with a rank similar to yours. Therefore, the more games you have under your belt, the more experienced your opponents will be and the fewer chances you will have of achieving this streak. Therefore, I advise you to study up very well on the game and have a very good deck to try to achieve the seven-game winning streak initially while you're playing against beginners. Even if you can’t, though, don’t lose heart. If you’re patient, eventually, you will achieve this winning streak.

"To advance in your cardmaster profession, all you have to do is play Terramon. The more games you win, the more XP you'll gain, allowing you access to a better version of [Deal the Cards]. Ironically, many of the most advanced cardmasters in the game are so addicted to Terramon that they don't even leave the gaming parlor and use these advantages to their full potential."

Roth was very excited about this information. Although in the beginning, the profession decreased how many skills he could use, from the moment he became a novice card master, it would be worth it. His skill count would go from 10 to 18. It's true that he would only be able to change decks every 20 or so hours, but even so….

Roth started dreaming up different decks for different situations. For example, he could have a set up of skills and equipment prepared for whenever he was adventuring.  He could wear equipment such as the plumber set that helped him brave challenging terrains and skills that gave movement speed, camouflage, and other tools that improved his survivability.

He could then have a second deck with skills that boosted his charisma and intelligence for negotiating prices and pursuing his broker profession. He could have a third deck to help him carry things from one place to another while running his trade runs. The possibilities were endless.

This profession suited the zoomorph race perfectly. With the variety offered to him by the five zoomorph forms and different decks, it would be as if he had many characters in one. Of course, that meant he would have to invest a lot of money in buying many skills for his character, but the potential gains were too many to ignore.

Roth wanted to run to the nearest gaming parlor to unlock the cardmaster profession, but he looked at the screen and found his former friends still patrolling the sewers. Roth looked at the clock and then at Mario, who busily worked repairing the machine he'd brought him. A few hours had elapsed, but his former friends weren't going anywhere. He had to keep busy. He looked at the wool he'd brought with him. It was time to start crafting. "Hey, Mario?"

"Hmmm...?"

"Do you mind if I use that table over there?"

"Negative."

Roth was confused for a moment. Did that mean that he could use it, or he couldn't?

"So I can use it?"

"Affirmative."

OK. That was better. It was a good thing that he had stocked up on crafting supplies before making it down here. Roth pulled out from his inventory a fleece of raw wool, and started skirting it, carefully picking out bigger pieces of dirt or debris he could find, and removing any wool that had been stained or wasn't salvageable.

[Raw Wool] has become [Skirted Wool].

+10 ecotailor XP.

Once he was satisfied with the fleece's appearance, it was time to wash it.

He pulled out the bucket, put the fleece inside, and then scratched his head.

"Mario? Any chance that you have any faucets here I don't know about?"

"Affirmative."

"Where?"

"The toilet."

"You have a toilet?" That didn't sound right. Roth had been through every nook and cranny of the lab.

"Of course."

"Where is it?" Roth caught a key that Mario had thrown him.

You've been given [Mario's Key].

"Out in the back." Roth blinked for a few moments.

"Which way is the back?"

Mario gestured him toward a general direction, and Roth apprehensively walked toward it. Even though Roth had been here many times, it was the first time that he was hearing of a toilet. As far as he knew, there was only one place in Mario's lab that he hadn't been in, and that was the side office he used to place orders and do inventory. He never let Roth or anyone else into it. From what Roth surmised, they didn't have a high enough relationship with him yet.

Roth arrived at a wall opposite from where Mario was working. The lab was shaped like a long rectangle, but he could still see Mario clearly from here. There were no elevators in this area, so Roth wasn't sure of what he was supposed to do here.

"Here?"

The alligator grunted in response. Roth assumed that was a yes. He still couldn't see anything. Wait. Could it be...?

Search!

Congratulations! You're the first player to discover Maintenance Shower Room.

300,000XP(+150,000XP).

Congratulations on being the first to complete 100% of the map of Hilsford Sewers.

+2,000,000XP (+1,000,000XP); [Sewers Blessing] skill card.

[Level Up!]

Finally! He’d finally finished exploring the sewers under Hilsford. He had never thought to use [Search] inside Mario's lab. How could he have known that the very last bit of the map was hiding right here, under his nose all along? How could he have guessed that the lab had a shower room?

He checked the new skill card he’d gotten:

Hilsford Sewers Blessing (Rare)

Skill description: You know this place like the back of your hand. Your knowledge of this place's ecology and geography gives you an edge over the competition.

Skill effects:

Active. +5 to all stats;

The bonus is doubled when inside the Hilsford Sewers.

Restrictions: Lvl. 10.

The card was basically the same as the [Blessing of the Green Woods]. Had it been a passive skill, Roth would have learned it in the blink of an eye. But since it was an active skill, Roth hadn’t learned either of them. Now that he knew more about Terramon and the cardmaster profession, though, he could smell these cards' potential.

After using [Search], a button became visible on the wall. It blended seamlessly with the metallic surface around it. Roth pressed it, and a lid slid back, revealing a lock where the key would go. Could Roth have found a secret way out of here? He inserted the key and turned it. A door opened to his right.

As Roth went in, lights turned on automatically, revealing a familiar sight. There was a series of lockers and some showers. There were also some toilet stalls at the very end to the left. Roth searched the place, looking for a service ladder or a hatch. After all, all the other maintenance locker rooms had had one. There wasn't one just when he needed an escape exit the most.

Roth walked toward the lockers and opened them. As he was the first to discover this place, they weren't empty. He finally found the last piece of the [Plumber Set].

Plumber Helmet (Uncommon)

Item description: When working in the sewers, safety is paramount. All plumber personnel are mandated to wear a helmet at all times.

Item effects:

+5% status resistance;

+3 resilience.

Restrictions: None

It was a fantastic helmet in an environment that caused many status debuffs, such as the sewers. He put it in his inventory.

Now that Roth had discovered the shower room, he had access to water. As he looked toward the stalls, he might also have found a way out, depending on where those toilets led him. After all, he was in the sewers. That's where waste went. What if he used [Miniaturize] only to be sent up right into the arms of his pursuers?

Nonetheless, it was better to have an escape plan than nothing.

Roth tried the faucet and was happy to see it had hot water. He filled the bucket and, in the meantime, went to get the fleece he skirted. He put it into the steamy bucket, letting the hot water remove the lanolin from the wool and clean it further.

As the wool was soaking, Roth went back to skirting. Soon, he had assembled a production line. He was walking back and forth between the worktables in Mario's lab and the shower room, either using his hands to skirt the wool, the buckets to wash them, or the carding pads. All the while, the pleasant sound of notifications kept ringing.

[Raw Wool] has become [Skirted Wool].

+10 ecotailor XP.

[Skirted Wool] has become [Washed Wool].

+10 ecotailor XP.

[Washed Wool] has become [Dry Wool].

[Dry Wool] has become [Carded Wool].

+10 ecotailor XP.

After a few hours of work, not only had he gained a level in his profession, but he also had an absurd amount of nice, white, fluffy wool ready to be spun. He grabbed the end of a fleece, pulled it, and hooked it to his spinning spindle. The soft material stretched into one beautiful continuous thread. As Roth pulled and spun, he kept tying the thread to the handle on the spindle until he got a nice ball of yarn. It was funny how relaxing spinning wool was. He was almost having fun.

[Carded Wool] has become [Sheep Wool Yarn].

+10 ecotailor XP.

The ball of yarn disappeared into his inventory, and he grabbed another bit of fleece and started spinning it, too. He spared a look at Mario, who was still busily working on his machine. He then looked at Gary, who frantically kept appearing on and off in the security cameras.

After a few hours of spinning, Roth had hundreds of sheep wool yarn stacks in his inventory. He also gained an extra level in his profession, becoming a level 3 ecotailor! It was time to start knitting.

Ch. 124 

INDEX

Ch. 126 - A Minus