Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe spent the first few days after she picked her first class relaxing at Joe’s inn, enjoying the new bonuses she had to her Frost skill. There were so many things that she wanted to keep experimenting with — all of her new skills, maybe even seeing what new class options were available to her since she skyrocketed right to her next cap right after picking a class.

But it just felt so freeing to not worry about anything anymore. She spent hours laying in one of the big beds that Joe’s inn offered trying to form the ice into different shapes. Sometimes she’d go sit in the dining area and listen to the people chat, or maybe talk to Joe herself if he wasn’t too busy. And he usually wasn’t.

The main talking points that people seemed to have were pretty mundane. Catching up with each other, talking about their plans for the rest of winter and start of spring. There was nothing exciting, nothing that begged for her attention. No groundbreaking news of a nearby town being attacked by another elemental, no dragons descending to wreak havoc on some unsuspecting farmer.

It was comfortable, Zoe found. To just sit and waste time. There was no pressure to pick a class, no danger looming in the distance. No feat that she would mess up if she made the wrong move. Just herself, the new power that flooded through her, and whatever she wanted to do.

Moaning Point — a mountain themed dungeon to the south of Flester was on her mind, of course. Climbing it was her next long term goal, but there was no urgency to it. If it happened this year, that was great. If it happened next year?

Also great. The pace felt so different to her compared to when her entire existence revolved around getting her first class. The longer she spent at level eight without at least some kind of abiilty to defend herself, the higher risk she put herself at.

But now, even if anything happened she could just take a quick look at her class list, pick whatever seemed best, and fix it later. It was a little hard to get used to for her, but it was exciting to be over that first hurdle.

Zoe sat down at one of the tables in Joe’s inn and grabbed some paper and a quill she borrowed from Emma. Moaning Point was a daunting task, and she always found it best to try and break things down to more manageable pieces. Usually, she ended up going off course pretty quick, but seeing things as their individual components helped her get started at least.

The actual climbing of Moaning Point would be easy, at least on paper. Fight off whatever creatures were inhabiting it, accumulate power and continue ascending as safely as she could. Simple.

Where the difficulty for Zoe came from was in how she should even get to that point. Should she practice using her skills before she goes? Would there be danger on the way to Moaning Point? Would there be somewhere to restock supplies between here and the dungeon? And for that matter, how far away even was the dungeon?

The first thing she wrote down was research. She’d spend some time at the large tree library near her favourite park and learn what she could about the dungeon.

Next were her skills. Using them had two benefits — the skills would level up and be more powerful, but she’d also be more familiar with them. Kian said with a really good first class she should be able to tackle the lower areas.

Zoe felt her class was a little more than just ‘really good’, and she even had her next class just waiting on the back-burner whenever she wanted it. Even if she just picked at random it would be strong enough to at least start tackling the dungeon, she thought.

Which meant that a specific skill level goal probably didn’t make sense. She would make sure to get enough practice to feel comfortable with them, but the actual levels wouldn’t matter to her. Those would come with time anyway.

Her bag that sat on the ground next to her was the final problem. And it was a big problem. Zoe had a little over eight gold sitting in a small pouch that she kept in her bag. And that wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough.

Just as a start, she had a goal of ten gold coins to afford a sizable storage item that would replace her unwieldy bag. Carrying that around while she climbed a mountain seemed like a nightmare.

But even on top of that, she would need supplies. Armour and weapons were handled now with her Frozen Arsenal skill so she could sell off her old supplies, but they weren’t worth much and the dagger made for good enchanting practice anyway.

She had a decent idea of what some climbing supplies would cost her — she had purchased a lot of camping supplies on her last ill advised excursion to the wilderness. To get some rope and pitons, and whatever else she might end up needing for climbing the dungeon she didn’t expect to need more than one gold. Two at the absolute max.

And finally, she wanted to keep at least two gold as a backup fund. Just in case anything happened, she wanted to have enough to get by for a while in reasonable comfort.

Altogether, that was going to be fourteen gold, almost twice what she had. It wasn’t a huge sum — especially with her new class bonuses, as long as Ren would continue buying mana orbs. But if she made any more money this year with contracted work, she’d need to deal with taxes.

Zoe shivered. Being whisked away to another world and bogged down with taxes was not exactly her idea of fun. Even if she waited until next year, her annual limit would only bring her up to right around twelve gold.

She had a couple of options then, from what she could see. The first was the most logical, perhaps. Sell Ren a tonne of mana, and deal with taxes. But it was off the table. She wasn’t going to deal with the tax system, not if she could help it.

The second was a bit of a lark. Convince Ren to hire Zoe officially so he would have to deal with the taxes when he paid her. Overall, this was her favourite option. She gets to continue making money how she likes without any of the tedium.

And finally, she could just go get another job somewhere else. Odd jobs were her bread and butter thus far, but it’s not as though they’re the only way for somebody to make a living. Now that she had a class, somebody might want her specific skill-set. Maybe somebody needs something cooled down, or a haste spell cast over and over.

She decided to start with the second option. If Ren wasn’t up for hiring her, then she’d look for somebody else to. And if even that didn’t work, she’d settle for dealing with the tax system. It didn’t even seem that bad if she was being honest with herself. She just didn’t want to do it.

Zoe grabbed her bag and dropped it off in Joe’s kitchen. She grabbed her pouch of gold and put her light fur coat over her blue shirt and dark red pants, then headed outside. Ren was a long walk away, and Zoe decided to try and help out with the snow clearing effort.

Her Frost skill wasn’t able to do much — she had only just the last day even figured out how to manipulate ice and snow that she hadn’t created herself with any degree of competency. But she urged the snow to the side as she plodded down the street.

If nothing else, the street would be a little more walkable until somebody higher level came through with more powerful skills. And her skill might get a level out of it too, which was never a bad thing.

While she walked down the street and shoved the snow out of the way, she tried to do some quick math in her head. She had gotten a lot of bonuses since the last time she filled Mana Orbs, and was curious how quick her mana would refill now.

She couldn’t be completely accurate without some more empirical testing, but with constant meditation before, she managed just over thirty-five thousand mana per day. Even not accounting for her increased stats, that gave her at least one hundred thousand mana per day. Maybe one hundred fifty with her increased stats?

Zoe made it to Ren’s house just after noon, and knocked on the wooden door. Ren showed up a moment later dressed in his unblemished suit, with not a hair out of place on his head. He was always just a little too perfect for Zoe’s comfort, but she supposed she couldn’t speak either with how strange she must appear to others.

“Yes? I was under the belief that you were at your limit for this year?" Ren asked her.

“Well, kinda. I need more money, actually. And I really don’t wanna deal with taxes. So I was thinking, if you need mana, maybe you could hire me as an employee?” Zoe grinned.

Ren rolled his eyes and sighed. “You want to pawn off dealing with taxes to me?”

Zoe nodded her head.“Yeah, basically!”

“I would not be paying you as well, you realize?” Ren asked.

“Well what are we talking about?” Zoe asked.

“Half price, with a minimum of one hundred thousand mana every day. You will work here, with a contract of secrecy.” Ren said.

“Deal!" Zoe said.

Ren sighed again. “Fine, allow me to grab a contract for you to sign then.” He closed the door.

Zoe heard some rummaging around from inside the house, and then he opened the door again and waved her inside. It was her first time being invited into his house, and she was kind of excited for some reason.

Ren led her to a table and sat down at it. He placed a piece of paper and a quill in front of her. “This is a mana contract, you’ll be bound to secrecy by it. First though, what is your mana regeneration? If you can’t supply my demand, then this is pointless.”

“Uh, I’m not actually sure. I think it should at least be good enough, but I don’t really know how it works exactly.” Zoe said.

Ren rolled his eyes. “Fine, what’s your wisdom, maximum mana and meditation at, and how long can you spend every day charging items?”

“Seventy-five wisdom, Seven-fifty mana, sixty-seven meditation. And, I guess I can charge stuff all day, really. But I’d prefer to have a few hours to myself at least.” Zoe said.

Ren thought for a moment, his eyes darted back and forth as he tried to calculate the numbers in his head. “That’s only about seventy thousand mana even if you didn’t take a break. I’m sorry but this won’t be worth my time.”

Zoe was surprised, with her two hundred percent boost to regeneration that would give her two hundred thousand mana per day? That was over five times what she could do before!

“My class gives me a regeneration boost too. I don’t know exactly how much but I’m pretty sure it will be enough.” Zoe said.

Ren summoned a mana orb and handed it to Zoe. “Charge this at your maximum rate until I tell you to stop then.“

“Okay, give me a moment to get used to my new regeneration then. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.” Zoe said.

Ren nodded his head, and Zoe began. She started out at the same rate she was used to, one mana every other second. It used to drain her mana just a little too quick, and every few hours she’d slow down and let her mana regenerate. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was good enough for her.

But even without meditation, her mana didn’t seem to be draining at all at that rate. She focused on meditating as well and increased the drain to one mana every second. Her mana still remained capped out. She tried two mana every second, and it still didn’t make a difference. Not until she started dumping three in every second did her mana begin to dip.

She pulled it back a little bit, trying to maintain just below her maximum mana. It was a tricky process managing everything together, but her months of meditation practice were paying off and she managed to maintain an equilibrium with a couple minutes of effort.

“Okay,” She said, and returned to maintaining her mana equilibrium.

A minute later, Ren spoke up. “Stop.”

Zoe stopped the trickle of mana she was sending into the orb and then identified it.

[Mana Orb - 473]

Ren’s eyes darted back and forth as he lost himself in the calculations again, and then his eyes widened. “You have a tripled boost to mana regeneration in your first class alone? Impressive. I’ll only take at most one fifty as I’ve said before, however.”

He gestured at the contract. “If you’re willing to take the job then sign on the dotted line and we can continue.”

Zoe read through the contract. It was simple enough — detailing specific things that she could and couldn’t share from her time working with Ren. Details about the project he was working on weren’t to be shared, every room that she hasn’t already entered and didn’t have explicit permission to be in were off limits. When he eventually publicized his project, the contract would no longer bind her.

The main pain points for her were that if she didn’t supply the full quota of mana for a given day, she wouldn’t be paid for any of it. And Ren wouldn’t accept pre charged mana orbs, she would have to come to his house every day, and charge specific items that he would give her.

She didn’t foresee herself having trouble making the quota, and the rest seemed fair enough to her. She signed the contract and a flood of mana rushed from her and into it, sealing the agreement.

“Good. When are you able to start?” He asked.

“Today,” Zoe answered.

Ren smiled. “Excellent. Make yourself comfortable here, I’ll be back in a few minutes with some items that are in need of recharging.”