He makes his way down the stairs and into the dining room, pretty empty this morning and sticks his head in the kitchen. The sisters greet him with large smiles, “Good morning, Marco! Thank you for that recipe yesterday, the bibimbap was a huge hit with everybody last night.”
“Glad to hear it! I’m taking my first job today at the Guild, I was wondering if I could get some food in case the job is further away than I anticipate?” Marco asks, grabbing one of the burritos that the sister regularly make for him.
“Of course! We keep ration bars on hand for the Adventurers in the family.” Doris says, “Do you just want a variety of flavors? We have sweet and savory bars.”
“Yes please, I’m sure they are all delicious.” Marco says, taking the bars from Doris’s cloud of [Air], bidding the sisters goodbye Marco leaves the kitchen and head to the front door, having to make a small detour back to his room to grab the cast iron pan and knife that he was isekaied with before heading toward the Guildhall. Heavy cast iron pan held onto his back with a harness of straps around his chest and a small but very strong magnet on his back and a small holster on his waist that was made to fit his knife.
He makes his way through the streets still gazing up in awe at the builds, different flowers decorating builds, in flowing mosaics of color. Marco finds his way toward the Guildhall, entering through the throngs of people and makes his way in front of the Copper Job board.
*Ping* Copper Jobs Available:
- Mysterious Monster Seen on North Road (0/1)
- Clear Enlarged Rats from Sewers (0/25)
- Slimes Seen in the Riverby Marsh (0/50)
Marco looks over his options, a large smile on his face as he looks over some classic starter adventures. “Hmmm, which one do I want to tackle? I can’t imagine any of these are going to be challenging for me as an Orichalcum rank Adventurer.” He thinks to himself and mentally selects the third option.
“Slimes, that's so cool. I wonder if they are edible.” Marco focusses on his left hand and the little leaf tattoo present there, he pulls his little monster compendium that Ben lent him from his [Inventory]. Flipping to the page for slimes he reads the entry,
Slimes, magical lifeforms that spontaneously bring into being from stray Mana. Mundane weaponry is almost useless against slimes, for larger specimens Slimes show a unique ability to absorb affinities and change their slime form to counter it. For best results, use piercing magical attacks on the core.
Marco shuts his book and returns it to his [Inventory] and starts to walk toward the Tide Gate, the eastern gate leading toward the Riverby Marsh. Entering a new part of town stalls line the street, merchants shout their wares to passersby hoping to score a sale here or there.
He looks at all the wares around him; food stalls overflowing with delicious smells, clothing vendors surrounded by flowing cloth, and burly smiths surrounded by clanking metal and a small cloud of smoke.
He exits the barrage of smells, smoke, and snapping cloth and reaches the Tide Gate, exiting on a stone road surrounded by lush greenery. The smells of a verdant marsh fill his senses, moving along the road and increasing his buffs and moving quickly toward the marsh in the distance. Stone road smooth and well maintained, but worn from countless travelers walking on its surface.
The verdant green paths of land surrounded by beautiful water with an abundance of plants, herbs, and flowers. Marco reaches the edge of the water seeing small bouncing shapes on one of the small floating islands of strong grass. He focuses on one of the pale green blobs and is rewarded with a System message.
*Ping* Slime, Water/Earth Variant
“Interesting that the System tells you the variant type. I’m sure that will come in handy for stronger monsters.” He thinks to himself.
The slimes are a shade of pastel green, the darker the shade the more Mana they have absorbed. Marco smiles at the small bouncing creatures, ramping his buffs to extreme and jumping toward one of the closer islands.
Marco lands on the woven grass island and the whole structure rocks lightly side to side. He forms a [Salt Bolt] in the air above his palm, the projectile quickly launching toward the nearest slime, piercing the outer slime and nails the core shattering it.
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (1/50)
“Nailed it!” Marco thinks to himself, forming a dozen [Salt Bolts] in the space around his body, each targeting a new slimes core. A few miss their mark, ripping chunks of slime from the creatures to no effect, most hit however destroying eight more monsters.
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (9/50)
Marco smiles to himself, having thought the creatures would be easy to kill but this was like fish in a barrel. Marco begins to experiment, rushing toward slimes and stomping one, managing to get his foot stuck in it immediately with a second stomp crushing the core.
He wipes as much slime off his boot as he can before grabbing his cast iron pan and smashing another couple of creatures.
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (13/50)
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The current grass island is empty of slimes so Marco lowers himself into a lotus position and thinks about a spell idea that he had earlier. “I was wondering if the slimes would be edible, they don’t appear appetizing at the moment just pale green slime, but what if we manipulated the texture.”
He looks into his core, the warmth growing through his body like every time he summons his Mana. Spiraling down into his center, he thinks about his time in a butcher shop before he discovered his love of cooking, curing meats is a very common way to change the texture of a protein.
“What if I can turn curing into an instant process with Mana and [Salt].” Marco ponders to himself, “A quick cure, we used to use something similar to season fish and the like without drying them out all the way.”
He pushes mana out into the space between his hands, held about a foot apart in his lap. Marco pauses and grabs a clump of grass from the ground, holding it aloft with a couple of pieces of [Salt]. He pushes Mana out of both hands, not trying to manifest salt but one of its properties, the drying and dehydrating properties.
The clump of grass slow grows crystals before Marco discards it and grabs a new chunk, hovering it once again. He tries to filter out the properties once again, it immediately turns to dust. Marco sighs and grabs more grass, “I want to cure the outside not dehydrate things to dust.”
He pulls a ration bar from his [Inventory], not looking at the flavor but just taking a bite, “Yum, blueberry.” Marco thinks to himself and repeats his failure many times before one clump of grass stiffens but doesn’t dissolve. He inspects it, trying to feel what was different about his process in the last attempt.
He feels out the change, needing to focus on the dehydration aspects instead of the drying. “I am going to call it [Flash Cure],” Marco thinks to himself while pushing himself to his feet and ramping his buffs. He makes the jump to the next island causing it to rock, he moves close to a slime, trying to figure out the distance that [Flash Cure] will work best at.
He finds out that it functions best at midrange, within a six feet range. He casts it on the nearest slime, causing it to harden almost like the cured egg yolks that he used to make for one tasting menu or another.
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (10/50)
He touches the [Flash Cured] slime, finding a thick membrane of thicken and dried jelly. He grabs the ball of congealed slime and pulls it into his [Inventory] hoping to experiment with it later tonight.
Having figured out a new spell, Marco smiles to himself and switches between [Flash Cure] and [Salt Bolt], racking up another island’s worth of slime kills.
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (11/50)
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (15/50)
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (21/50)
Marco collects all of the cured slimes, tossing them into his [Inventory] tattoo. He jumps on to another island immediately firing [Salt Bolts] at the hopping creatures before jumping to yet another island, completing his Job from the Copper Job board.
*Ping* Slimes Eliminated (50/50)
Congratulation on completing your first Adventurer Job.
Rewards not available due to Affinity Disparity between Adventurer Marco and completed job.
“Booo, I want free loot.” Marco chuckles to himself. He jumps back across his islands and is quickly back on dry land. He ramps his buffs up to max and takes off toward Woodholme once again making it back to the Tide Gate within fifteen minutes.
Making sure his body isn’t covered in splattered slime and dehydrated grass; he enters through the Tide Gate and starts to make his way toward Clark’s Customs to pick up his armor.
Following the clean streets of stone framed in the swirling spires of livingwood and stone. The crowd grows and thins as he walks through the stalls and exits the loud space filled with energy. Across town, he enters Clark’s Customs and the storeowner’s voice once again sounds from the backroom. “One moment! I just have to finish up some stitches.”
“That is fine Clark! I’m just here for my order.” Marco shouts back.
Clark exits the backroom, carrying a large box filled with Marco’s armor. “Thank you for waiting Marco, I just put the finishing touches on your order and packaged it up.”
“I can’t wait to see the armor, Clark! I will put it to good use on the wall in a couple of days.” Marco says, grabbing at the box still in Clark’s hands.
Marco takes the box from the weaver and sets it on the counter in front of him, slowly prying off the lid and seeing the beautiful contents within. Thick and protective dark gray tunic with a detachable leather hood, slightly baggy black pants, black leather gloves accented with metal for protection, thick combat boots and a heavy cloak for the cold months.
“Clark! This looks incredible, the craftsmanship is perfect.” Marco says while pulling pieces of the outfit out of the box and moving toward the changing room on the side of the room. Quickly pulling off his black set of clothing, he pulls on the provided underclothes; a simple black tank top like undershirt that hugs his body and a pair of tight legging-like pants for protection from chaffing and pinching.
He pulls on the baggy pants made of a strong canvas-like material that are similar to straight cut pair of pants from home, designed to be tucked into the nearly knee-high boot that Clark made. Moving onto the next piece of clothing, he pulls the new shirt on slightly tight around the shoulders before giving his arms room to flex and move. Built in straps run across his chest useful as a harness for weapons, he keeps the hood pulled down and pulls on the very comfortable boots.
“Young man, you make my armor look amazing.” Clark says with a big smile.
“It fits perfect, is it alright if I summon my [Salt Skin] in here? I want to see if I can shape the spell around the new armor.” Marco says, stretching and making sure there isn’t any pinches or tight areas. Clark nods, and the [Salt] Mage summons his [Salt Skin], the spell failing to form around the new armor. A resulting small cloud of [Salt] is quickly dismissed and fades to magic.
He focuses and reshapes his [Salt Skin] spell around his existing armor, shoring up weak points and adding in details like some cuffs around his lower thigh to be used in a combat situation.
He pulls his clothes into his [Inventory] deciding to wear the armor home to the House of Ivory. He loves the way his armor looks and feels, confident in the style that he chose. Marco notices the turning heads as he wanders home through Woodholme and smiles to himself lightly, not used to attention brought on by his looks.
He reaches the Ironwood gates of the Manor and lets himself inside, moving toward his room so he can stash his older clothes. He makes his way through the manor while thinking of what he going to turn the slime into, what kind of texture its going to have or what it will taste like.
He smiles, starting to make a plan, “I’ll treat it like squid, maybe a calamari type set up. Marinara, cherry peppers, with lightly breaded slime rings.”
Marco smiles and stores his new armor and pulls on his older clothes in preparation to cook something new for dinner. “I need to make sure that the Ivorys will consume slime, to make sure they don’t consider the Mana creature an animal.”
Pulling on his more comfortable and casual kitchen shoes, he stores his weaponry in his [Inventory] and heads toward the kitchen.