Jack operated the menu and selected the obvious choice, causing several notifications to flash across his screen. A sense of accomplishment settled over Jack.

  You’ve reached Bard, level 10!

  You’ve reached the journeyman tier in the bard profession!

  You’re now a journeyman bard, lvl. 1.

  [Ocarina Mastery] has upgraded.

  You've unlocked a new skill: [Soulful Performer].

  You've learned a new song: [Dance of the Turtles].

  Journeyman bard, lvl. 1, synergizes with [Touch of the Potter], lvl. 1.

  You’ve learned a new song: [A Clay Dome].

  Jack’s eyes widened as he absorbed the updates. Journeyman bard? Ocarina mastery upgrade? And two new songs? He grinned, feeling a thrill as the notifications piled up. I’m really moving up!

  [Soulful Performer] was especially exciting.

  Soulful Performer (Uncommon)

  Skill level: 1

  Skill description: Your music touches your listeners' souls in extraordinary ways.

  Bonus Effects: Enhanced effects to melodies with a high completion rate; intermediate melodies unlocked.

  Getting a high-performance grade on a song wouldn’t only boost his experience—it would now strengthen a melody’s effects, too—extra motivation to keep perfecting his performances.

  The upgraded version of [Ocarina Mastery] was simple enough.

  Ocarina Mastery (Rare)

  Skill level: 2

  Skill description: You’ve become proficient in the art of ocarina-playing. You can use the clay flute to bring life to a party or tears to someone’s eyes.

  Skill effects: You can play basic and intermediate ocarina melodies.

  It simply lets me play intermediate melodies now, Jack thought, eyeing the two new songs he’d unlocked.

  Dance of the Turtles (Melody)

  Difficulty: Intermediate

  Melody description: A song of patience and resilience. A tune that will encourage the front line to brace for impact and withstand the fiercest storms.

  Melody type: Soothing

  A Clay Dome (Melody)

  Difficulty: Intermediate

  Melody description: A song of roundness and sturdiness. A tune that reaches into the heart of the creation of a potter’s hands

  Melody type: Soothing

  Oof. Two intermediate songs. I wonder how difficult they are to pull off.

  In his mind, Jack had already graded the songs he knew into ‘easy,’ ‘intermediate, ' and ‘difficult.’ The slower ones, like Sitting Wind and Morning of Spring, were the easiest. He could play them with his eyes closed.

  Then, there were songs with faster tempos, which required more precision and were harder to play while moving around. March of the Embers fits into that category. Then, finally, there were melodies that were dissonant and tricky to play, like Empty Void and Sonic Valley. Whenever Jack played these last two, there was a strong chance the melodies would fall apart halfway through.

  He wondered if the system was hiding something special in intermediate songs—maybe a subtle effect that wouldn’t appear until he performed it flawlessly.

  Or maybe it isn’t subtle at all. Wouldn’t it be cool if this song actually summoned turtles and got them to line dance for me? Or if it created a clay dome that would withstand the assault of a dinosaur.

  Whatever the songs did, he’d have to get good enough to unlock it. He selected Dance of the Turtles and let the system play it for him.

  The song was slow, a ballad. It had several bent notes. Guitarists bent notes by pulling the string up as it rang. Bending on the ocarina was new territory for Jack. Other than that, the melody didn’t seem overly complicated. He turned to A Clay Dome next. It went a little further, with bending notes that covered more than half a step, transitioning slowly across different notes of the scale.

  Despite this new bending technique, the songs don’t sound more difficult than Sonic Valley, he thought, tilting his head. Then why are they considered intermediate? He scanned through the song’s description but found nothing that explained it.

  Curious, he decided to try it himself. After letting the system play it one more time, he opened a browser tab to learn how to bend notes on woodwind instruments.

  He learned that bending a note on a woodwind instrument wasn’t all that complicated—it was just a matter of shifting his finger slightly to adjust the airflow, letting the pitch rise or fall slowly. He practiced, lifting his fingers in subtle, controlled movements until the notes glided up and down smoothly. If Jack knew anything about music, it was that practice made perfect. He’d drill it as many times as it took to get it right.

  He tried to do the more complex variation, bending across more than an interval between two notes, but couldn’t quite pull it off. It’ll take more practice before I can play A Clay Dome. I’ll focus on Dance of the Turtles for now.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Soon, he was comfortable enough to perform Dance of the Turtles. He concentrated, letting his fingers dance along the notes. The melody was soft and unhurried. It began with a deep, earthy tone. Low, resonant notes grounded the song, steady and calming, while higher notes occasionally lifted above them.

  A series of winding, bending notes brought the melody to life, reminding Jack of the way turtles swim: slow, with careful but assured movements. Occasionally, the melody would dip into minor notes, giving the tune a wistful undertone.

  When the melody ended, a new notification appeared.

  You’ve played [Dance of the Turtles].

  Success rate: C

  +300XP in [Bard]

  You’ve listened to [Dance of the Turtles].

  +5 defense for 1 minute.

  Defense, uh? Horace is going to love this! Its effects are pretty good, Jack confirmed, satisfied. So maybe intermediate songs aren’t harder to play but just offer better buffs.

  Jack kept practicing the song, excited to see if he could improve the buff. But around his seventh try, something strange happened. His fingers started moving erratically as if they had a life of their own—a deep, prickling ache built up in his hands, making him clench his jaw. A sudden, sharp pain jolted through his hand, freezing his fingers mid-note. Jack cursed under his breath, barely able to move his fingers without feeling a twinge.

  “What in the world?” He shook his hands out, trying to stretch his fingers, but they still felt locked and stiff, refusing to relax.

  Your hands are exhausted. You ran out of stamina.

  You’ve been hit with a new debuff: [Cramped Hands]. Regain stamina before you can play again.

  He glanced at his stamina bar and grimaced—it was completely out. “Is this why it’s considered an intermediate song?” he asked incredulously, staring at his fingers. It's a song that eats up more stamina—now that was a problem.

  Basic songs barely touched my stamina, he thought, looking at the stamina bar that had betrayed him.

  From now on, I’ll have to keep an eye on it, or I’ll end up with cramped fingers mid-battle. Wait! What if-

  He hurriedly checked the details of the ocarina and grimaced. Not only had his stamina dropped, but the instrument’s durability had also taken a hit. Looks like I’ll be needing a backup ocarina, or maybe five, he thought with a groan.

  The difficulty of the bard minor had risen by one tier. Stamina and durability management would make buffing his party a delicate balance, forcing him to alternate between easier songs to recover stamina before diving into intermediate pieces and switching instruments more often. The system had upped the ante.

  Now that he’d peeked around the corner, he couldn’t help but grow apprehensive about what came next for the next tier of beekeeping. Sure, a power boost was coming, but that would come with some sort of counterbalance—a challenge or complication.

  I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

  Jack already had the gear; bard was at journeyman level one, and beekeeping would progress slowly even if he didn’t actively work on it. It was time to fill the remaining slots with ‘lazy minors.’ Jack wasn’t above putting in hard work, but if there were minors he could level up just by looting or gathering, he’d take them. The choice only seemed more appropriate after learning that professions got tougher once they hit journeyman.

  It was time to learn the [Butcher] minor.

  Whenever Jack hunted with Horace, Amari, and Marie, they always left animal corpses in the wake of their hunts. After Amari explained how the butcher minor worked, Jack realized they had been missing out on many resources.

  Jack was essentially the team’s support—the one responsible for keeping everyone’s HP and stamina bars full. Often, while the rest of the team was finishing stragglers, Jack gathered the loot. Given he’d be on loot-picking duty anyway, he figured he might as well increase the party’s yield. With an upcoming quest on the horizon, Jack knew the team needed every advantage they could get.

  Besides, time was of the essence, and he had an NPC that taught the job right here. Taking a deep breath, Jack decided it was now or never. He approached the counter where Mr. Jerry was plucking a chicken.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Jerry?” Jack said.

  “Oh, you’re still here, young man? I thought you’d left.”

  “No, I’m still here. I was wondering if you could teach me how to be a butcher,” Jack asked.

  Mr. Jerry’s eyes lit up with a passionate fire. For the first time since they’d begun talking, he stepped away from the table, leaving the still-feathered chickens behind. “How nice to see young men like yourself willing to take up this noble profession. It’s sad, really, but many people don’t appreciate us.”

  “Is that so?” Jack asked, waiting for the quest prompt that would let him gain the new minor.

  “Yes, many disregard that it is us, butchers, who stand on the front lines, who hunker down in the trenches.”

  “Front lines? Of what?”

  The old man regarded Jack with a baffled look. “Animal rights, of course. We, butchers, are the champions of animal rights,” he said, clenching a fist and gazing intently at the horizon. “Sadly, society ostracizes us. The word ‘butchering’ is even a synonym for violence when it should be a synonym for love.”

  Jack blinked and furrowed his brow. Animal rights? Did this man not hear himself? He glanced around, half-expecting someone to pop out and confirm it was a joke. “But don't you kill chickens for a living?” Jack asked.

  “Only after they’ve had a happy, fulfilling life.”

  “But you still kill them.”

  “But I don’t force-feed them, and I don’t cram them all together. They’re happy. They live happily and die happy,” the old man assured him.

  Jack was still baffled by the man’s twisted logic, but he kept listening.

  “When I was a young boy, I worked for a rancher. Oh, young man, you wouldn’t believe the waste or what they did to chickens,” Mr. Jerry said, his face darkening. “That man cared more about speed and profit than the animals themselves. Birds were kept in overcrowded pens, barely able to move, with nothing but piles of grain shoveled in just to fatten them faster. They’d be crammed together, left in their own mess, and if any got sick or injured, well, he’d just toss them aside like spoiled fruit.”

  “And the waste…” Mr. Jerry sighed, shaking his head. “The rancher was only after the choice cuts. He’d carve out the breast meat and thighs and toss the rest aside like garbage. Dozens of birds a day, and all the bones and skin were left in piles to rot in the sun. Just imagine! Perfectly good material, gone to waste. It was an insult to nature itself.”

  “So that’s why I promised myself, when I grew up, I’d run my own shop and treat the animals right. A bird’s life, you see, has value beyond just a piece of meat. We’re not just butchers, young man—we’re stewards of dignity and guardians of nature’s bounty!”

  Jack tried to understand the rancher’s perspective. “So you’re making sure you kill chickens the right way?”

  “No, no, no. Ha! You have a lot to learn. Look. The feathers can be used for pillows. The bones for soup. The fat for soap. I'm ensuring every last bit of the chicken isn’t wasted. Because of my efforts, somewhere out there, there are that many fewer chickens that need to be killed!”

  It all seemed a little twisted to Jack. If this man was an advocate for animal rights, he shouldn’t be a butcher. It sounded paradoxical.

  “Anyway, if you want to learn how to become a butcher here,” the old man continued, yawning widely. “I need to take a nap. Can you pluck the feathers off these chickens for me?”

  You’ve become a butcher-in-training.

  You’ve temporarily learned [Skinning].

  Skinning (Common)

  Skill level: 1

  Skill description: You can collect the bounty of carcasses that are most easily accessible.

  Skill effects: When harvesting a carcass, there’s a chance of gaining feathers and scales.

  Seeing the skill that lay just around the corner, Jack nodded happily. It was every bit as lazy as Amari promised. However, the system placed a trial to make butchers-in-training sweat a little before they could take up the mantle of the butcher profession.

  “Sure,” Jack said, moving over to where the old man had been standing.

  The old man walked over to the wall and settled on a stool by the counter. It didn’t take long before he was snoring.

  Jack huffed, glancing at Mr. Jerry. The ‘animal rights champion’ was snoring louder than a wild boar. Typical, Jack thought, rolling his eyes. He glanced at the passionate animal rights advocate, who was deep asleep, then shrugged and started plucking.