But for a Slime

Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

Joe awoke in the middle of the night, tensed immediately, then grit his teeth in annoyance even as a few tears slipped his eyes. Innocent eyes above a bloody neck stared up at him, the memory vivd in his mind before it slowly faded. He found peace in the waking, but when he glanced around and realized where he was, his eyes bent down, unbidden, and found two stumps staring back up at him. Joe grimaced, even as a different set of tears scrawled at the edges of his eyelids. This sucks! Bad bad bad bad bad bad! The rather panicked and slightly insane mantra beginning to chant through his mind until he finally pulled himself under control, eyes closed and with a deep breath. It'll come… its happened so much before… and you've survived. But even as his thoughts struggled to return a semblance of calm, his fear had adrenaline racing through his system, his heart yammering away at way too high of a speed.

It took him a few moments to calm even as his thoughts rapidly focused on any sound that might reveal the soon to come torturers. The soft breeze of the night and the quite shrill calls of night insects continued unabated and after awhile, he was slowly able to calm and take his focus from his sense of hearing.

When he finally had his focus retrieved from hearing, he almost immediately noticed the soft tint of blue calling to him from the edge of his sight, and frowned in surprise. A notice? Pretty strange! When did this happen? That's not... Despite the oddity of having a popup already calling to him on awakening, Joe wasn't really worried simply because the system had been relatively passive throughout all the time he'd been here. So, it was with a sense of more curiosity than anything else that he willed the status window to flip up before him. And shortly after, his calm shattered.

Joe stared at the pop up, a simple 'ok' button the only option revealed to him and even as he considered the situation, he began to smirk, amused. What if I never hit OK? That… Joe laughed at the oversight, amused, then desiring at least some form control over his life, did exactly that, turning his gaze away and dismissing the popup out of his periphery without accepting it at all. However, another popup proved less forgiving and Joe stared at it with consternation.

The 'ok' button now flashed with a brilliant warning now. Joe stared at it, stubborn anger welling up within him but he resisted, mind clamping down immediately. Stupid… stupid stupid stupid stupid… just hit the 'ok' button idiot! Anger spiked, rage flashing in brilliant explosiveness as he struggled to simply accept it. Several calm breaths returned control and his face flattened, even as his anger which had been roiling immediately flattened under crushing will. Accept. The blue boxes both vanished and Joe's jaws clenched, twitching spasmodically. After the popups vanished and Joe kept his emotions crushed even as another box opened.

Joe stared through it, ignoring the box and calmed himself. The sound of approaching feet quickly cooled his anger and had Joe suddenly tensing for other reasons. The box quickly zipped out of his field of immediate view before fading quickly to a soft alert at the side of his vision easily ignored. His eyes immediately closed and Joe grit his teeth before quickly relaxing his face and falling to a semblance of sleep as quickly as possible. His torturers for the night entered the tent without concern for any others, loud and blunt, stoking his small light source to brightness even as they settled the torch in a small holder on the brazier as well.

Joe rarely woke from these ministrations, his exhaustion from the day still enough to keep him asleep. Nor did many of his enslaved neighbors, not that he could see, as some soft and some loud snores drifted through the air from his surroundings. Don't wake up until I scream… Joe twisted the thought off to nowhere and struggled to play the part of a sleeping man. Luckily, he didn't have to fake it for long, as soon pain ripped conscious control from him just as quickly as it ripped screams from his throat.

For some reason, the torture seemed longer this night, the pain sharper, and the struggle more vivid as he couldn't drift away in his mind as easily as he was used to. And throughout the entire affair, his thoughts quickly wound around to despairing resistance. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

* * *

Joe's thoughts finally returned from their lost journey of desperate flight when the pain slowly stopped and he found the men talking softly to themselves, even as the healer soothed and returned his legs to a semblance of health for two stumps. The return of painless existence soon had the small popup insistently calling for him yet again as he lay on his bed, detached and numb. It had been all a ruse before, portraying the slowly broken man, but Joe found his resistance slowly grinding away before his Sisyphean efforts. When the torturers finally did leave, Joe pulled himself from the quagmire with effort, sitting up and falling into a short lived despair before he banished it and his tears. Nope! Nope! Not going to do this… He grasped for any escape and turned his thoughts back to the insistent soft buzzing of the system and another popup.

Joe saw this, reading through the list of details with consternation, emotions quickly returning to a desperate norm as he fled from his despair. Wonder how this is going to work out. Joe's humor, fragile and even brittle, had his chuckle come out slightly insane but Joe did notice it, simply reveling in the humor. The humor did not last long when the next popup formed.

Worry crawled through his thoughts even as relief also settled in. I made it! I made it… not going to go insta-dumb. But despite his relief, having his enhances stats suppressed was worrying and not having systemic support for enhanced stats also added its own confusion and concern. Joe looked at this before dismissing the popup, his thoughts now turning, worrying over what this might mean. Joe quickly sat up, then grimaced as he realized he wouldn't be able to completely explore this without having his legs, so turned to healing his legs. Even as the itch and subtle burning pain of regrowing limbs began to claw at the back of his mind, another popup appeared before him which he almost dismissed.

However, as Joe read more, his excitement quickly swelled as this seemed to be what a help file should be, and Joe took the half an hour he needed to heal his legs to quickly dive into the popup and listed documentation. However, he soon found a half an hour was not enough at all as the simple 'Brief' History of the Starry River proved to be a massive document of some several hundred pages. He'd only made it a half a dozen pages, as he would reckon, by the time he was finally at his feet and when he hit the scroll bar, he sat back with a sense of satisfaction punctuated by groans of resentment at the amount of reading he still had to go. Only got a couple minutes left, so…

With that, he pushed off the 'brief history' to the side and pulled the original popup back up, too afraid to dismiss either of them since he really wanted to still have access to the information. He then pulled up the other five documents as well: Aelthron's Cradle, the Curse, Limitations, Mitigations, and Miscellania. As with the other two, he did not dismiss any of them, keeping them open in their own windows and grew despondent at not having any tabs. Just one window with several tabs would be so so nice right now. He didn't put any effort in trying to make this so, although his main status window had almost too many tabs, so wondered at the difference before dismissing it from thought. I'll try to do it later, don't want to lose this now, though!

Since he only had a few moments left till his healing was complete, Joe then turned to simply quickly grasping the length and details of each file, and found that they were all significant pieces. The cradle was simplest and most practical information while the next three detailing the curse upon the cradle, limitations and mitigations was jam packed with lots of speculations and few hard facts. The breadth, however, really added significantly to Joe's understanding even if it didn't give hard facts. Even the simple and quick introduction already gave enough that Joe was able to discard several hypothesis and focus more fully on others, so for that, he was quite grateful.

The last one really was a hodge podge of strange and esoteric details that Joe found useless unless he read the whole thing in detail, the introduction nonexistent. Seems almost more like an encyclopedia? Or maybe a verbose dictionary? Joe struggled to understand what he was looking at as he scrolled down the list of entries with short descriptions. Most were incomprehensible to him, detailing mana, mana points, magical information, historical figures or events, rituals and formations, and dozens of other pieces of data Joe found too esoteric or advanced for him to really understand. On top of that, the information was written in such a way that Joe could only understand if he had mastered the topics discussed. Many of the descriptions fell into two to five word statements.

For example, the entry on mana simply stated 'energy controlled by the mind.' This statement, while true, seemed useless as that would include any action the body would take, which seemed to lack several qualifications he would add to define mana. Yeah… the mind does seem to control this energy at will, but also … controls the body, run on energy. And how is that any different than if I consider the energy used with simple tools, machines, or… well… yeah. That means any energy that is controlled by a mental process is mana? Seems… strangely overly broad?

Mana points also showed a quick and dirty description and really lacked in what Joe truly wanted to know, although its definition seemed to be more because it appeared to be common knowledge. Cradle crafted containers of mana. Much better definition, it feels, although… cradle crafted seems a tantalizing piece of information that isn't explored at all? So much more could be … Joe's feet ended up healing up completely and Joe ended his perusal of the files with some reluctance before evaluating his legs.

A quickly stretch and some movement showed his legs healthy and ready for use so Joe slid all the popups to the side, fighting against his disappointment and avid curiosity. Right… this is much more important. Figure out these now… limitations! Joe then stood and prepared to slide out of the tent before pausing with the realization that it probably wasn't a good idea to be seen with legs. He glanced around his tent, more lost in thought than seeking options in the items he had there before flipping open his status and rapidly searching through his available jobs and skills. Right… so... With caution so as not to lose his open popups, he navigated through his system and equipped the shinobi and scout job, both offering different stealth capabilities, and finally hunter, hoping silent stalking might offer something as well.

And with that, he leaned hard into the stealth, shadow meld, hidden, and other skills the jobs offered. Slipping from the tent, he fled through the caravan of tents from shadow to shadow, his stealth blaring uncomfortably even as his shadow meld only slid into place when he was in shadows. Sliding into the empty fields that surrounded the camp, both stealth and shadow meld calmed significantly when he slithered through the waist high grace in a crouch until he made it to the tree line. Calm immediately flooded him and he disappeared into the woods, mind calming even as he initiated his mana to flood out into his body, sliding across his torso towards limbs and head.

Mana swelled from his mana organ, then stuttered like he'd hit a live wire. Mana erupted from his core in disfigured eruptions, poorly regulated, as strange tumorous clouds billowed out spasmodically from his core, some directions releasing and others not; some releasing too quickly and some too slowly. The well-defined sphere that typically swelled from his mana core before sweeping out in beautiful lines that seemed to follow some kind of alien circulatory system that clumped unnaturally around bones and his spine was no longer seen, the mana swelling forth and kind of following the same lines but splitting haphazardly and even simply fizzling out in poor odd poofs of meaningless energy loss.

The mana hit his body, and soon the strange spasming in his mana system was felt multiplied many fold in his body as some portions of the mana hit their locations as intended and worked as intended, power magnifying. While others jerked in painful reaction to whatever the mana was doing or even simply did nothing. Still others were only partially enhanced, sometimes in power, other times in only a portion of the stats. One leg slammed into the ground, so slowly, but easily pressed through it like it was jello, while the other vibrated at insane speeds but wobbled across the ground like it itself was jello, showing almost no appreciable impact on the ground or trees around him.

When the mana wave hit his brain, Joe blacked out and collapsed, all meaningful thought erased as the mana wave slammed into his mind like a locomotive.

* * *

Joe woke some time later, although he was not sure how long later as the sky above looked no different, the dark night brilliantly lit by the gas giant blazing down from above. Oww… that… hurt… His mind throbbed like it was struggling with some strange pain, but Joe was able to rise easily enough, taking time to look up and consider his situation. Doesn't seem like… I lost any time? Basically still the same time? Maybe five minutes… or a day, two, ten… and five minutes. Joe huffed in sardonic humor before suddenly wincing, quickly bringing a hand up but only slowing his arm immediately as he winced once more. Ow… ow ow ow… ok… that really hurt!

He slowed even further, then cautiously settled against the trunk of a tree. A quick glance around showed he was maybe a couple meters into the tree line, sprawled against a tree trunk although the camp was still visible through the few trees blocking his view. He took it in the very carefully and softly dropped his head against the tree trunk.

"That… sucked," Joe offered with a quiet whisper.

With some effort, he swapped out his stealth enhancing jobs for healing jobs and quickly began to bask his brain and mind in healing magic. He almost froze as soon as the first wave of mana swept through his mind then calmed as he remembered that his stealth skills also still somewhat worked as expected. And I still regrew my limbs… so… something else more basic… but …

His pain faded then vanished before the onslaught of healing and as it left, concern was quickly replaced by simple gratefulness that he didn't have to feel it anymore. Careful withdrawing of healing over the next few moments showed he was better and he wisely evaluated his health, then considered his location. OK. No speed for a bit… but… He stood and slithered off into the woods far from the camp, walking without attempting to use mana enhanced stats. Probably going to be making noise… I guess!

After a bit of walking, he came to a clearing he knew about from his hunting and prepared, glancing around with a bit more worry now as he no longer was as capable as before. Let's try again. Prepping a bit before starting, he flipped open status pages. Right… ready. Mana swelled, but like before, it swelled outward in grotesque mushroom like growths and poor fractal eruptions instead of a smooth sphere from his mana organ. He quickly shut down the attempt even as what was supposed to be a smooth sphere of mana, morphed to the second stage, mana pulled from the bulbous sphere into smooth lines and piercing along something that looked like a circulatory system for mana. It didn't follow the actual circulatory system at all, from what Joe could remember from his high school biology class. For one, it does not seem to have a return path? Or maybe? I'm not…

Joe's thoughts cut off even as mana then slithered off to the various locations it was supposed to before slamming into organs, bones, muscles and odd areas or locations Joe wasn't sure were meaningful, at least on the biological level. Pain swelled and once again he had the odd experience of his enhanced stats spasming poorly throughout his body. Looks like… only some of the stats… actually work… while others… misfire and … OUCH… yeah… pain! Joe panted hard as he weathered the pain on misformed or misfired mana, he wasn't sure which, even as it plowed through his system. Luckily, he'd only sought to enhance his physicality this time, and not any mental strength, so didn't black out, but pain shuddered through his body and he checked his status to see his SP rather unchanged, his MP loosing a few ticks but barely noticed as it was already refilling as he watched. His HP, however, had taken a decent hit. Oooww… ok… With the loss of HP came a return to health and Joe shuddered against the tree, bent over with one arm against it to hold himself up.

Again… Joe released mana again, and the result was essentially the same, without any difference. But Joe soon began to notice how he could more appropriately reform his mana structure when it was first formed and expelled from his mana core. It didn't take long, and soon he had it coming out in a smooth sphere, but while that greatly reduced the pain he was experiencing, it didn't seem to really solve the problem because the damage to his HP was basically the same, and the results didn't improve. Certain parts of his body would either strengthen, or some would speed up, or others would gain some other aspect of his stats less obvious.

Joe didn't relent, fighting to return his skills to what he'd once had, although he now began to slow his efforts, partly because of his rapidly reducing HP but also because he was diving into memory, attempting to remember what he'd been doing that allowed him to enhance his physicality. It took him quite a bit but he soon began to recognize that the mana swell from his mana organ, while spherical, was not as homogenous as he'd thought, remembering hints of flaring brightness, swirling color, and brilliant purity. Something else… though… couple… more things? Maybe… not…

Memory, while powerful with his current stats, proved weak without being able to enhance himself and he struggled constantly until, during a pause, a thought came to him. I can only focus on … one stat, right? I don't need total enhancement… His thoughts mulled as he remembered moments where he'd enhanced himself completely or simply ignored his mental stats to focus more on physical. If I can do that… Joe pondered thoughtfully before nodding and trying again with the return of his HP. Then… just speed, maybe? Only physical… no mental. Easy to see… not going to try to run though! That'd be dumb… but maybe just wiggle a finger…

He reset and this time sought only to enhance his agility, dexterity, and speed then changed his mind and focused only on speed. The mana that swelled forth was significantly less, and somehow hollower, or weaker. It was also much more uniform in color and brilliance, if Joe could define it as such. Joe wasn't sure how to describe it, yet it still came out, to what he could sense, as a complete sphere. The sphere seemed much 'less' than the complete package, however, and it was much easier to form. There was almost no effort or pain associated with it as it swelled out and encompassed his whole but. However, when he tried to move his hands and fingers, there was either no change or so little that Joe wasn't able to perceive it. In fact, he wasn't sure if he wasn't even convincing himself that something was happening. He even tried running in the air, laying on his back while putting his feet up, but noticed no appreciable difference.

He hesitated, grimacing in disappointment and frustration before coming to a second idea. Strength… that would be easier, maybe… or! Ooh… and I can just do one part of my body? Maybe? The thought to reduce even further to only a single portion of his body came rather quickly, although he was deeply concerned about the kind of damage he could do to himself if the enhancements proved too much or wrong somehow. Although… if they're wrong, then whole body would be worse… much worse I would think!

That gave him pause as realization hit about what he was doing. Random mana shot into my body… that's… Worry swelled then calmed a bit when he took in his massive HP pool and he calmed down even more. OK. That… hmm… Definitely not going to want to bottom out in HP then… donno how to fix my 'mana' self… or… whatever that is? Joe's irritation at having lost the powerful capability flattened then vanished before the worry that swelled in its place, although it was more of a cautious worry now than anything else. OK. So… just one stat… on part of my body… easy to replace?

He glanced down at his left hand, then his finger and thumb before nodding. He grabbed a large stick from the ground, spongy and old from its long time on the forest floor. A frown of worry twisted his lips before he squeezed as hard as he could with his left index finger and thumb. The wood crumbled to dust under his squeeze and he sighed with some relief before looking for another piece of wood. Still feel about as strong as I used to be… For another few moments, Joe picked up piece after piece until he found one that matched his needs: strong and hard enough it couldn't be crushed between his finger and thumb but soft enough that it did dent slightly.

He squeezed the wood as tightly as he could and then measured the indent depth with a twig, scratching a small mark in it at the length where it matched the indent depth using his finger nail. He then set aside his measuring twig and grasped the stick in the same way again, pressing thumb and finger in the same location before squeezing hard and holding it. Then, he thought of strengthening his thumb and index finger of his left hand and only that, no more. The mana that swelled out was so surprising that he immediately stopped in shock before he had to begin again, although taking a moment to endure the pain from his failed effort. The mana no longer swelled out as a sphere, but came out as a spherical cone or sector of that sphere seemingly angled toward where his hand lay. A small slice of the sphere, from its center angling out till it hit the sphere surface, formed full of mana. Huh… not a hollow ball, although… After the small cone of the sphere formed, the mana did cut off and the mana swirled and followed along the mana circulatory system towards his arm and hand. Guess it does become hollow… although the sphere collapses after forming into … lines? Curves? Joe struggled to comprehend what he was sensing, both visually, somehow, and in other odd senses.

That thought interrupted his efforts, and the mana swam off without control or observation before Joe absent mindedly healed himself again as he pondered how he was 'seeing' mana flow through his body and even inside it. There was some kind of 'sense' Joe hadn't even realized he'd been using, his mental processes interpreting it as sight as he saw before himself. I even… saw this back in the advanced dungeon… after I saw the water… liquid rune. I 'cast' spells while watching how the mana formed in my chest but did it by forming the hologram in front of me so I could 'watch' myself but… how was I able to see INTO my chest, to duplicate what I was seeing as a holographic display in front of me?

Joe's mind raced with ramifications and the realization that he'd been so blinded by his own expectations that he'd ignored the elephant in the room in the first place: he could already see inside himself somehow. Joe found his breathing growing faster, turning to soft pants as he realized he had a new kind of sense that his mind easily, and without even being obvious, interpreted as sight.

He closed his eyes this time, and turned his entirety to understanding the sight he was seeing and quickly came to recognize that it could not in anyway be related to his physical eyes. The physicality of the world was gone, his eyes closed and unseeing, but somehow he was seeing around him things he knew intimately were grass, trees, small animals and thrumming in a deep bass vibration underneath it all, earth, stone, and all manner of solid objects. Fallen trees were around him as well as small insects and uncountable small living plants. And he saw all this in a sphere around him of about a meter or two, if not a bit more, although measuring exact distance seemed more difficult without the physical to interpret. Somehow, the sense didn't exactly correlate to physical distance, yet still did as it sense physical objects.

He opened his eyes again and felt at an object with this odd sense then pinpointed it with his hand, and found it to be just about arm reach from him and close to if not the maximum distance this sense went from him. It wasn't a sphere, as it seemed to go about arms reach from him in every direction, which meant it was more like a spherical column, extending from his feet into the ground by about an arm's reach and above his head about an arm's reach then in a circle around him about an arm's reach.

It was the strangest thing and Joe played with the sense for a while, not wishing to distract from why he was here now. I can explore and practice this more back at the camp, even in the day, I think… But a quick dive into it quickly revealed a few things. As he'd noticed, the distance was about an arm's reach from any point on his body, so extending a hand out allowed this sense to extend another arms reach from the tip of his finger, although extending it this way using his limbs, arms or legs, did decrease its sensitivity somehow. Or maybe its granularity? Its… detail? Not sure… but… The further the sense went from him, he began to lose details and clarity. The greatest clarity and definition was within himself, and while he wasn't quite sure, it seemed to be even slightly stronger within his torso, especially centered around his chest where he had long sensed where his mana organ was. But when it passed his skin, the clarity began dropping noticeably and quickly, until it seemed to zero out into fuzz at an arms reach.

And while the sensitivity, as he noticed, seemed to 'fade' as it moved from his heart, the big hit was his skin. The clarity inside his body, all of his body, was several orders of magnitude greater than even a single micrometer past the surface of his skin while the difference between his toe and his heart, even when the leg was fully stretched out away from his body, was so miniscule that Joe almost wasn't sure that there was a difference.

I don't… I never really needed to do the hologram slash display so I can see it thing… I can sense it just… fine like this… but… The feeling of having a new sense was so completely strange to Joe that he was finding himself feeling quite discombobulated. He lost himself in just enjoying it for a time before he shook himself free and turned his thoughts back to deliberate effort. Rights… let's try this.

Joe then began working on a healing spell, the easiest thing he could do now sense he'd been using it quite a bit to recover from his torture sessions, swapping to the healer job instinctually. He practiced the spell, sensing it in his chest, and spent a distinct amount of time on it, timing it with a careful beat of his hand and a slightly distracted count. Once he'd reached one hundred, he evaluated the speed efficacy of using the rune he'd been practicing before doing the same thing, but this time showing the rune holographically as well, displaying his body transparently so that his physical eyes could also see what he was doing. Timing and counting for what felt about the same amount of time, Joe practiced another healing rune that he tried to choose to have the same difficulty as the first. Using both his senses, sight and whatever he was sensing with, he practiced for the same amount of time. It was really too short and Joe almost squashed the effort as he realized he would need to really design a better experiment. But it only took about five minutes to complete and he was subtly surprised that he actually noticed an apparent difference when he added in a second sense. He wasn't surprised that he learned faster with two than one, but he was surprised that he was able to notice it so quickly with such a short difference.

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Joe almost tried again, but growled with frustration and put it aside. He would be able to do this very easily back at the camp. He could use his 'magic' sense during the day, spend a good hour or two working with one of his spells, then do the same with holographic aid at night in his tent, out of sight of anyone. He had plenty of time there, not so much out here in the forest. Right… focus… right time and place… let's figure out my stat enhancement thing for now… the others…

Joe swapped his jobs back as he shifted his focus back to his original reason and turned back to enhancing himself once more, focusing only on his left index finger and thumb and focusing only on strengthening them. Back to work… The mana swelled, but not into the complete sphere, as he'd noticed before, then collapsed from the portion of the sphere it was taking into a twisting sinuous path from his chest up to the shoulder and back down through the arm to his index finger and thumb. That gave Joe pause, as he considered why a strength enhancement would miss the muscles for his index finger which resided in his forearm. That almost made him miss the affect, but he quickly discarded the thought until he'd tested his strength and ended up disappointed. Nothing happened. Nothing, at least, that he could detect. Even a quick check with his measuring twig showed nothing. Test two.

Again, he sent out mana, however this time a significant amount of it surged into his forearm, which Joe found quite interesting but he allowed that to go as while that was a vital piece and obviously showed the importance of his own knowledge's effect on how mana functioned. Wonder if it makes a difference, too? Gotta… right? But… well… figure that out later? Let's get the basics for now.

Test after test continued, and initial efforts were largely failures, each attempt making no noticeable difference between accomplishing his task, but around the tenth time or so, he grimaced with frustration and growled out a desire to crush the piece of wood between his fingers. The mana swelled as he did so, without any appreciable differences Joe could recognize, and flowed to his forearm and almost none went to his finger and thumb. The wood crushed between his finger and thumb, shattering into dust, but his finger and thumb also vanished into a mist of blood and flesh, only a few fragments of bone left. What… that's… Pain swept away his thoughts, and he grimaced. His HP had taken quite a few hits and he bottomed out of HP as well with this and quickly swapped out healing jobs to regrow his finger and thumb.

As healing mana swept into his hand, Joe shivered with both relief and no small amount of fright as he realized what could have happened if he'd decided to go all super speed into the forest and trip. Using enhanced stats doesn't just… make me faster or stronger… there's a whole 'well-rounded' better going on here. Strengthening flesh, bones… even skin? I guess? That's…

His mental wanderings came to an end when his healing was complete and he began again, although now careful to keep his HP pretty much always maxed. Over the next few hours he had left until sunrise, he was able to slowly regain some semblance of control over his strength, at least for his left hand. He shredded his fingers a couple more times, including his entire hand once, by mistake, and even simply ripped his finger and thumb from his hand, both digits flinging off into the forest somewhere. This repeated several times, damage gruesome but limited to his hand before he was able to consistently crush the piece of wood between finger and thumb, although he still had a tendency to miss reinforcing something: the skin, the muscle, or the bone. So… annoying! Gotta think of EVERYTHING… but… this is nuts!

As he began developing slowly, his successes growing ever more complete with each passing moment, his focus on the initial visualization grew easier and ever more an autonomic response and he was soon able to spend some time focusing on the mana cone sphere more and more with each passing effort. What had seemed like a homogenous mass of mana became ever more evident to be an intricate lace of fractal like design of different mana. The mana, somehow, was not simply mana. His senses began to tease out subtle unique differences which grew ever more distinct as his visualization grew better. But… is it that it's easier? Or I'm visualizing better? Or I'm being more detailed? That's…

Joe found the thought fascinating so took a moment to test. So… what… let's make the first… abstract? That could work… so… His thoughts turned less to specific details about his arm, thumb and index finger and became a litany of abstract thoughts surrounding his desire to crush with his finger and thumb. Don't want to put my whole body at risk! Even his thoughts of his finger and thumb were more conceptual than actually detailed and descriptive, almost purely a verbal thought construct without any visual components. Mana swelled, rushing out and there was definitely a distinctive and very detailed weaving of mana within the construct as it swelled and flowed to his arm. As before, a good chunk filled in his forearm, but a significant amount also enclosed his entire hand as well with portions of both seeming to glove his forearm and hand. The stick puffed to nothing under his crushing grip and Joe grinned, a small smile of wonder. Not… what I was expecting! This was supposed to be the failure! Ha… Joe flicked a glance to his status and noticed a large discrepancy. His MP had taken a hit and he blinked in shock to find a good ten to twenty percent gone. OK! That's… a lot!!

Confusion settled in at that. Don't think… it hardly used any mana before, didn't it? Didn't even really notice the drain at all! What... Joe pursed his lips in thought before continuing. Try the other way then? His efforts now focused more on exacting detailed imagery of his hand, arm, fingers, and thumb. He even added a bit of useless data, such as his circulatory system, hoping to show any kind of difference. Constructing the thought was a struggle, but when he finally released it, he felt the swell of mana, as always. The mana seemed slightly different in its actual construction, but still almost the same in complexity and detail. The flow to his hand didn't seem remarkably different or meaningful to Joe, but the final connection with his arm proved a bit stranger. The mana covered his hand as it had been before, not really becoming the glove that he'd seen previously. This time, the stick crushed under his hand once again, but not as completely as previous. A small twinge of pain in his forearm and a few spots of bleeding, both internal and external, on his finger and thumb also show through, but his HP healed those up almost immediately. Huh… not bad. HP already back up… and MP almost nothing used… a couple points like before… and already back up again. Still…

Joe grimaced a bit, disappointed as this second effort was very much inferior to the first in effect but quite superior in mana usage. He frowned a bit before a thought hit. Both? Together? A grin settled on his lips and he sat forward eagerly. Right… this… His thoughts formed again, a combination of what he wanted with an image or what he was attempting. It wasn't as difficult as he thought, although he seemed to waver between the two a bit, struggling mightily on the combination of the detailed how and the intent and ultimate desired end. In that moment, mana swelled but seemed to waver. The best description Joe could give to the feeling the mana was giving him was an almost supersonic vibration as if it was caught between two conflicting desires. The realization clicked and Joe then struggled between which before simply pushing for the intent to be primary over the detailed how.

Mana swelled and punched out, much more forcefully and powerfully, although Joe wasn't certain how he could have described the difference. All he knew was that it was much closer to what he remembered from before his nerf. The slice of the sphere formed quickly and seemed much smoother in its presentation then morphed into streamers that swept down whatever accounted for the mana circulatory system to his arm. When it reach his forearm, it acted much in the same way as it had when he had pictured purely the desire, however the 'glove' of mana was much thinner, almost nonexistent, and seemed to meld with the skin more than encompass the forearm, thumb and finger. Mana swept into his forearm all along from the elbow all the way down to the finger and thumb although there seemed to be an almost globule like affect with two large globs of mana with a thin strand stretched between them, although the thin band burnt brightly. The mana fell into his arm and the stick he'd picked up disappeared into a puff of dust.

Joe glanced quickly at his mana and grinned, the mana only dropping by maybe a few hundred points rather than the thousands of before. Still too much comparatively, but... Joe grinned and began again, duplicating the feat but this time focusing primarily on the detailed how in his image.

The mana was less crisp, less developed, and less capable, in a way Joe was uncertain how to describe; only sensing a subtle feeling that it was so. The mana swept out and to his arm, looking much the same if slightly discolored or lacking in uniform brightness. The stick he'd chosen crushed into dust as well, although less forcefully and with a twinge of pain in his forearm. His HP had taken a hit, when he glanced at his status, but his MP was almost untouched, already refilling to full and only having cost a little over ten MP. Joe's grin grew, triumphant. Got a path… know what to do… but gotta work… His triumphant grin twisted in chagrin as he realized the work he had ahead of him, but he couldn't hide his excitement at all.

And so, he spent the rest of the early morning primarily practicing strengthening his finger and thumb, although he didn't get too greedy after he tried to strengthen his whole arm one time to disastrous consequences as he was unable to visualize his entire arm well enough and both bottomed out his MP and shredded his arm so completely that it cost almost all his HP to return it to health. A short rest forced him to think things through a bit more and then he dove back in once again, more cautious, but becoming more successful as well. By the end, he was able to successfully exhibit his mana enhanced stats but it required much more time to initiate, taking something close to ten or twenty minutes to fully form the idea and construct the conceptual framework to release the mana 'correctly' into his body. Even then, taking advantage of the easier intent based way method was still required and ate through his mana much more than it should have compared to system help. Faster efforts started causing pain and damage in his forearm and hand, with it growing worse the faster he went. Going to have to learn to visualize fast… find some… method… meme? Not sure… some prepackaged idea than I can just… pump into the effort and go. Joe sighed, remembering the ease with which the system seemed to help him exhibit his enhanced strengths and abilities. Well… guess it's a good goal.

And when the false dawn began to show through the trees, Joe reluctantly returned to camp, sliding quickly and silently back to his tent, swapping back to his stealth jobs and pushing hard into his skills. He arrived back at the camp excited but exhausted, and collapsed into his bed and asleep easily, although he did add manual stat enhancement to his repertoire of daily practice as well as holographic assistance. And maybe a test? One time? Spend one day and one night … well… not the whole time maybe, but an hour each working with and without the hologram? See if there really is that big a difference?

* * *

Joe woke bleary eyed and poorly rested with the call to muster and slithered out to the mustering yard without any real care. Almost automatically, his insanity job flipped on and he played it well, maintaining control despite the insidious nature of the job. The mustering ended and Joe ignored the gaze of the slave master as he moved on to settle under his tree, fingers subconsciously working the wood as he carved another chess piece. Despite all that, Joe thoughts were deeply focused on other things, his interest once again turned back to the several popups that had been incessantly flaring just outside his sight. Ok! Let's go! Lore dump!

Joe's excitement quickly waned after wading through day after day of what ultimately ended up being an unedited daily diary. It seemed to be nothing more than an adventuring group who grew in power and influence until they'd ultimately grown in enough power to begin taking over entire systems and regions until the Milky Way galaxy came under their control. It was one of the more boring and frustrating reads Joe had ever had for what essentially should have been an incredible journey. The boredom came in the fact that the diary did little to explain.

It did not explain any specific adventures or actions, simply reported had happened that day, which made sense as a diary, but frustrated Joe's desire for a good story. What likely put a bigger damper on Joe's enjoyment was the hints at the path to power described in the story. There was no explanation, simply names and pointed moments in the history highlighted or described as important moments. The author of the diary, which appeared to be Aelthron, if Joe was understanding correctly, often spoke of his journey to power in cultivation terms, as best Joe could understand it. The man spoke of when he'd once been a 'wavering flame' with only a few cyclones, or discs. Then spoke of completing the collapse with intense excitement before moving on to something called 'air.' As best as Joe could understand it, there seemed to be differing stages or cycles with lesser stages or cycles repeated in the larger stages or cycles but wasn't sure how to understand any of it. What DOES air disc stage even mean? Or air collapse? How does 'water cyclone' connect with 'air collapse?'

Despite his efforts, Joe found himself lost in the lingo of it all, knowing only that there was some kind of progression that did not seem in anyway related to what he was experiencing here on this Cradle. There was no mention of jobs, which made sense as he now knew this system was some kind of prison colony. However, from what else he could understand, there was also no mention of mana points at all, which seemed to be the primary method of development now, if what Gwenvair and Garned…

Joe's eyes closed and deep breaths countered shuddering pants accompanied a subtle panic before turning to deep breaths until he calmed. He almost dismissed the moment, as he always did, then stopped and turned to face it head on. Garnedell… Garnedell told me about this… about mana point development... Joe basked in the moment, despite its pain, for a time before moving on, returning to his original thoughts.

So… this is talking about something else… some other method of development that has nothing to do with mana points, it seems. Joe pondered on it for a bit longer, piecing together some kind of understanding of it and at least gained a basic understanding of the order of things. Somehow, there always, or often, seemed to be two kinds of development, some interrelated with another. He wasn't sure exactly, but there seemed to be a greater cycle and a lesser cycle. In fact, there seemed to be several lesser cycles, although they were spoken of less often. Or… the latter ones seemed to be inferred and not specifically spoken of, something to that affect. The first and obvious lesser cycle was cyclone, disc and collapse. What all that meant, Joe was uncertain. But it seemed to be related to and interact with some kind of progression following wavering flame, air, water, and earth, although earth seemed to alter some of the lesser cycles nomenclature with cyclone being called a cloud which was odd, considering he felt that made more sense for the 'air' stage.

After all this, things seemed to shift, changing to something completely different with something called globe, which Joe didn't understand at all. He wasn't sure if globe was part of the wavering flame, air, water, and earth or if it was something completely different. Somehow, there were also strange terms such as rock, ring, and ball. There was even another set of growth with other strange terms such as heated, spinning, and sucking, or attracting. That last one he wasn't sure on as meaning seemed to waver a bit with that. By then, Joe was thoroughly confused as the story simply expected these things to be understood and Joe grew lost in the complexity.

As for the cast, it seemed simply enough. Aelthron was the author of the diary, and close friend with someone that was ultimately only ever referred to as 'the Emperor.' Even at the earliest times when Aelthron and Emperor were close friends, the name was recorded simply as that. This seemed odd, as if this were a diary, Joe couldn't see how the name would be that. Unless the name became the word? Heh… or magical shenanigans… a special 'find and replace' for written diaries? An apocryphal tale kind of sorta true? If this were Earth, I'd guess the latter, but… well… no. That doesn't make sense… no written language, it seems. At all… anywhere in the galaxy… at least within the known… magical galaxy. It seems like this only formed because of the curse and how it just worked here… although, how would that work? Joe's thoughts wandered through the problem for a bit before continuing on, not reaching any satisfactory conclusion.

Slowly, Aelthron and Emperor … or is it 'The Emperor?' … is my English kinda messing with my understanding of the language here? Kinda weird… but… The two grew with one another in the journey of cultivation that seemed to be the primary focus of the diary and not the adventures they had. The adventures themselves even seemed to be purely for the purpose of serving their growth and were meaningless except in that they served the task of helping them gain the 'next stage' of power which ultimately led to, with three others, the ruling over the Galaxy.

Along the way, they met three others that Joe found quite interesting. The first that was personally interesting was Sylnarvion. That had him pausing a moment and remembering Garnedell. Joe ripped his thoughts away then froze and forced himself back. His reading paused at that even as tears welled in his eyes and for a time, he remembered Garnedell, seeming so long ago now, the memory lost behind a haze of insanity and the distance of time. And he remembered the story Garnedell had told. His carving paused as he lost himself in pain. For a long time, Joe did nothing, and the day passed in meaningless waste but he couldn't pull himself from simply remembering Garnedell. He ended up turning and fleeing from the field, in measured steps still aware of the eyes upon him, to his tent and he hid his sobs beneath soft gulps of breath even as he rocked himself to slumber with the dying of the sun. But somehow, there were moments of soft choking chuckles as Joe remembered good times, the pain of the loss no longer over shadowing the good memories he had.

* * *

The next day, Joe woke incredibly refreshed, even if his face ended up crusted with tears and snot. Memory of the day before brought Garnedell back to his mind, while a hand subconsciously dipped into a pocket to fondle a soft plastic card that popped out of his inventory. But despite remembering Garnedell, the pain had faded and was replaced with a rather despondent bitterness. He remained this way until muster was called, snapping to awareness and pulling his hand from his pocked, the small plastic card zipping back into his inventory without a thought.

Muster went as well as it could, although he did not control his insanity job as well as he should have, his mind wandering too much to memories of Garnedell, exploring them rather more freely with bittersweet memory.

When muster ended, Joe turned and sauntered over to his tree, no drive or excitement but a simple moment of enjoyment as he ignored all around him and simply remained in his memories of Garnedell. By the time lunch had come, Joe had returned to the diary that had been written and dove into it. The names he'd learned from Garnedell leaping out to him: Sylnarvion, Karnagur, and Loki; even Taglisea although like Garnedell, the diary painted her in suspicion quickly shifting to full blown paranoia and anger at what Aelthron saw as betrayal and insidious infiltration.

Taglisea seemed interesting, and to some extent, Joe found the diary's suspicion of her rather circumstantial as Taglisea seemed to have several rather interesting ideas that seemed to be focused upon benefiting the Emperor or his rule. In some ways, Joe almost felt like Aelthron and the others responded with bitter jealousy in how the Emperor seemed to come to favor her.

There just didn't seem to be enough conclusive evidence in the diary, no matter how it painted her. The great work that ended up benefiting the whole galaxy and ultimately broke Aelthron, Sylnarvion, Karnagur, Loki, and a fourth Joe did not know of: Tsnalla, from the Emperor seemed down to just a 'bad feeling' the four had against Taglisea. Joe ultimately, from reading the diary, accepted the conclusion that she was an outsider or alien to them. The evidence for that seemed solid, but the argument that she was out to do something bad to them amounted to feelings or assumptions. Even the great work was argued to be some kind of poison pill, as it were, for the entire Milky Way galaxy, but Aelthron and the others could never explain how it would do that. Their argument seemed to come down to basically 'a feeling.'

Joe tried to understand Aelthron's and the others' argument but ultimately even seeing it written in Aelthron's own hand, Joe couldn't come to the conclusion they did. Taglisea seemed like a genuinely decent person, from what he could see.

In any case, the wonder team of the Emperor, Aelthron, Tsnalla, Karnagur, Sylnarvion, and Loki broke up when the four attempted to sabotage Taglisea's plan backed by the Emperor ostensibly for the benefit of the Emperor and the entire Milky Way galaxy. The sabotage failed and the blessing planned for the galaxy came to fruition and the Emperor spent the rest of his time running down and dealing with the four.

During that time, the four rebels abandoned all pretense and put everything into trying to expose Taglisea, including weakening her. The stole her 'library,' as Garnedell had said and the diary noted, and some effort was made to understand or duplicate it, with little progress. Taglisea went ballistic after that, quickly hunting down the other four and their clans but still ultimately lost her library. Somehow, Taglisea had the ability to track the library no matter where it was, and the Karnagur and Sylnarvion clans suffered great losses as she rampaged through their clan holdings in her efforts to retrieve it.

The destruction of the clans was quickly followed by the Emperor getting involved in his legal capacity, and Karnagur and Sylnarvion were sentenced to death, along with Loki and Tsnalla. Loki and Tsnalla seemed to have found an escape because of their great Dao; Loki fleeing with his incredible speed and Tsnalla fleeing into her personal space beyond the reach of even the Emperor. Her clan, and Loki's, however, did not escape, and both were shattered and lost to time.

The Karnagur and Sylnarvion clans, despite losing their great leaders, were able to smuggle out heirs to their clans although at the ultimate cost of their clans as well. And Aelthron, like the others, was also ultimately captured, their grand plan to disrupt the great working upon the galaxy failing and ultimately leading to his immediate capture. Aelthron surrendered rather than fought, so saved his clan and himself, to be sent into exile, his own clan home ultimately becoming a prison for he and his clan to slowly wither away and die and leading to the system 'replacing the heavens' upon Aelthron's Cradle. Aelthron described efforts after to mitigate the crippling nature of the system, but the details of that were found in the other entries. As for the diary, that seemed to be where the story ended.

Joe pursed his lips, feeling rather underwhelmed, and disappointed. Pointless lore dump… knew most of this already. But… The mystery seemed to continue to hang around Taglisea and to some extent, why the four were so certain of her ill intentions that they would even ultimately betray both their friend and their country. The four of them even helped found the freakin' galactic empire!

Joe sighed, feeling disappointed after having read the story and then went back over it to try to gleam any last interesting tidbits, but found nothing of real note. Loki was fast, Joe got that from the description of who he was both in the fights and at the end in how he'd escaped. Tsnalla, whoever that was, seemed to be their storage pack mule. Sylnarvion and Karnagur seemed to be dps, if the old rpg terminology could be used, with Sylnarvion being a punch wizard of some kind and Karnagur the 'typical wizard' throwing fireballs and wind darts left and right. Aelthron seemed odd, as he rarely spoke of himself or what he did, so Joe was uncertain where his skills lay, but one thing seemed rather obvious was that many seemed to seek out his advice, so Joe leaned towards Aelthron being some kind of knowledgeable guru. And finally, the Emperor was spoken of mostly in awed terms and hallowed praise, especially for his power.

For all that the diary gave him a poor description event by event, Joe found himself more confused than anything else, much of the description expecting him to have some kind of background knowledge. Lacking that, Joe was left with the dissatisfying understanding that significant events had occurred or that a described event was significant, but was unable to understand how or why. He spent the rest of the day on the diary attempting to dig deeper but found himself quickly reaching the limit of what more he could learn and went to bed quite dissatisfied that night.

The next day, Joe turned from the uncensored history of the galaxy to studying the other entries. Where the diary had been verbose but a bit obtuse because of expected background knowledge, the rest proved to be quite lacking and simplistic. The initial development of the report on Aelthron's Cradle read much like the diary previously in what seemed like a combination of attempted subterfuge to weaken or subvert the curse that would ultimately be placed upon Aelthron's cradle or experimentation on how the curse worked or to control it once the curse had been enacted upon the Cradle.

With this portion of the story, Joe quickly came to understand that Aelthron's expertise seemed to lay in magical formations development, as the Emperor, despite punishing Aelthron for his work, relied upon him to develop the actual formation that would ultimately be used against Aelthron and his clan. It seemed Taglisea also had an unusual knack for formations as well, and the Emperor actually seemed to play each against the other, developing the formation.

Aelthron would subtly suggest or alter the formation for his own clan's benefit, however most efforts proved in vain and Aelthron ultimately garnered only minor benefits to himself and his clan. Joe found the situation exceedingly strange, struggling to understand why the prisoner would help develop his own prison nor why the legal authority, the Emperor, would trust what Aelthron suggested. Something odd beyond what Joe could grasp from the description of events played out, politics at a level that left Joe just completely confused. But the current curse was built with the input of Aelthron, and the Emperor, for reasons never revealed, allowed Aelthron's involvement. Regardless, on the day that the curse was to be enacted, Aelthron sacrificed himself in a fit of pique and compassion, saving the baby that would have sacrificed the babe's spirit to ultimately become what seemed like the AI for the curse upon the Cradle.

That idea slid across Joe's thoughts for a time, the ramifications not quite hitting home until it suddenly did and Joe sat back with some shock and staring out across the field. It was with some trepidation that Joe spoke.

"Hey. Aelthron? You there?"

A pause of a few moments without response calmed the shocking thought but also brought forth a deep despair and disappointment.

"Aelthron? If you're the … AI, I guess? For this whole system thing, you there?"

Joe tried for another few moments but the lack of response both calmed and disappointed him. Man… not sure what I would meet… this seems like… millions? Billions? Of years ago… the guy has to be dead or insane, right? Even if he's just… an AI… his conscious has got to be ground to nothing by now… or he's insane… how else would he escape the just… unending grind! Joe returned to studying what had happened next and quickly came to an agreement with the conclusion he'd previously made. Guys definitely gone… or insane! Which… is terrifying…

As he continued, Joe learned that the Emperor had retaliated for Aelthron taking on the role of AI in place of the baby rather abruptly, shutting down Aelthron's ability to interact or communicate with anyone in the system. The only outlet or person he could communicate with was the Emperor and ultimately, that was where the story ended, Aelthron's ability to communicate cursed.

The focus then shifted into what seemed like a series of experiments in understanding the system and increasingly frantic attempts to contact others, especially after the Emperor had left and no longer returned.

The curse itself was rather simple: anyone convicted of being a criminal by the legal system was cursed by the system. Anyone immigrating into the system had a year before the curse applied. And anyone born in Aelthron's cradle would be cursed as well if their parents were a legally convicted criminal. Tacked on at the end was the curse destroying Aelthron's ability to communicate with anyone on the cradle, the language of the curse diligently recorded: You are cursed to speak a language known by no being of mana. And Joe frowned noticing this. Guess it makes sense why I'm the only one who can understand it then… they don't have a written language but a never needed it. The wealthy had access to magic and never needed it; memory crystals and messengers more than enough. And the poor were too weak, powerless, and time pressed to develop any writing for themselves. Joe sighed, frowning, before turning back to the rest of the curse. Probably why the whole diary and the rest is a bit of a stream of consciousness mess… hard to parse all of this! He turned back to the diary.

The specifics of the original curse for Aelthron's Cradle was to lose any mana points gained from a Cradle and no longer being able to gain any either. That gave Joe pause and he returned to his points and found himself surprised when he no longer had the free floating point he'd taken from the environment by blasting it with mana. He glanced around and found a free floating mana point; there were hundreds around him but he picked one easily with his sight. He then sent one of his own mana points, an exception that Joe quickly noticed and was grateful for, but also quite confused by, and begin blasting the mana point that he'd picked with mana. The mana flowed out but did not interact with the mana point at all. Joe frowned and picked another free floating mana point closer to himself before pointing a finger at the point and bathing it in his mana. Once again, nothing happened and Joe frowned as he pulled his finger and mana back.

He then pulled up his several dozen mana points he had and floated them in front of his face, counting and check them all carefully before finding he still had them all. Only lost the one I took from the cradle? That… Another attempted at taking one of the free floating mana points proved as useless as before and Joe pulled back his mana and ended his attempts.

Right… so … Yeah… don't understand the ramifications, but… bad… obviously, if that is what it was for…

As he read on further, it seemed that Aelthron and the Emperor had fallen into a war of attrition following Aelthron's attempt to subvert the Emperors efforts. The Emperor retaliated first, cutting of Aelthron's ability to communicate with anyone. Aelthron then kludged together the job system on top of the current limits in an attempt to protect his people from being 'mortals' and incredibly weak, seeking a secondary path to power. The Emperor had put an end to that plan by forcing Aelthron to up the experience cost, offering 'free' extra fifteen levels at adulthood for everyone who reached it, as well as a few other tweaks to cripple Aelthron's efforts. Aelthron quickly grew much more subversive, elevating the cost of making significant changes to his system and offering compensations to lower mana costs to modify the formation that ran the curse and ultimately the system. With that, Aelthron was able to introduce the concept of slowly increasing base stats by retaining ten percent of each job's stats. There even seemed to be evidence of other benefits that Aelthron was able to enact but hid them from the Emperor somehow.

Despite his efforts, Aelthron's inability to communicate ultimately hampered his ability to pass this information on to the people and the Emperor's brilliant 'gift' of the coming of age gift simply crippled the populace even before they began, killing most people's efforts to advance within their chosen field, and it grew worse at more advanced jobs which required a series of jobs to grow through. Aelthron attempted to communicate using the job system itself, modifying certain jobs in an attempt to reveal paths to power, but the attempts ultimately proved futile.

His people, once long lived and encompassing millennia long life spans, were relegated to mortals, and most barely lasted a century and even the long lived races barely made it to a millennia. Aelthron's efforts took tens or even hundreds of times longer than even the long lived races to develop and each effort only grew more difficult and longer. Each change, meant to build upon the previous and lead to the hints he was attempting to pass on, were lost in the past as myth and story, no longer in memory to slowly guide to the efforts he was attempting to make.

His last attempt, offering nobility a second job hinting at multiple jobs, only exacerbated the issue as nobles soon and easily overpowered the other 'commoner' classes and with each failure, Aelthron withdrew into deeper despair. By the end of the diary, Joe could see hints of madness and despair deeply suffused with desperation. The diary ultimately ended abruptly with a disappointing bullet point list, and Joe ended the reading with a disenchanted grimace, the end revealing much of what he'd already known. The limitations of the curse were painful and the mitigations that Aelthron had put in place were already pretty well known by Joe: level up many jobs to gain stats, take advantage of learning as much as possible, use the skill learning system to develop skills much more quickly than normally possible, and finally use the Gifted series of jobs to get a leg up. The Gifted series of jobs had been Aelthron's last attempt at making the system what he'd originally intended it to be. But Joe had already learned all that. Although, he now knew that the Gift job was the beginning of a series

There was a few other pieces of information that Joe didn't know. The Gifted series seemed to be recursive, requiring him to open up each in a series until the next was made available then returning to the first to further unlock greater capabilities in all jobs. Joe understood the description, but couldn't quite understand how that would play out. To hide the Gifted series of jobs and allow them to be most useful, Joe had to open up a prerequisite skill in the 'base opening job' for several job groups as well as several other 'powerful jobs' for advancement which would greatly enhance the jobs Joe could use and interact with. Aelthron seemed to be incredibly cagey beyond this, hiding the work he'd done behind hints and unwilling to reveal more. But the one hint that seemed obvious, Aelthron wanted him to explore many jobs.

Joe settled back after that, deeply disappointed by what he'd read, but also subtly excited, noticing the hints that were at play there. There were a few more things he could extract to enhance himself, and he would do so as soon as possible. Joe glanced over at the dungeon then grimaced as he looked away, realizing that while he learned a bit more, he was still stuck in a rather precarious situation. Joe chewed his lips as he fell deep in thought, the rock carving through the wood in his hands. And the admin jobs… the admin jobs… and…

Joe paused, sliding the texts to the side but refusing to close them, still lost as to how to open them again so set them off to the right side of screen. His mind whirling with so many thoughts, Joe sought a break from his research and glanced around the camp. After a while, he turned his focus to what he truly wanted, his freedom. Going through his possibilities, his jobs, his skills, and what he'd learned from the help system and this recent trove of knowledge, Joe's thoughts grew grimmer. I … really don't think I have a way to free myself with … whatever I've got… I need… His eyes turned to look around the camp, thoughts pondering his options. I need tools… but… I don't even know what kind of tool? What does a tool look like in magic land? Could I even shear the collar off? The thing moves like… liquid… would that work? Or … His thoughts pondered, searching across the camp and quickly came to the despairing conclusion that he did not have a way to free himself, not in his own power nor within the job system. And that meant finding something, hopefully around the camp.

And with that, a small surge of purpose flooded through him as he catalogued the places around the camp he could explore and plunder. Gotta be careful though… can't be found out… that'll just screw me over… Slave master would lock me down even tighter… His eyes glanced towards the slave master's house and he quickly grimaced, dismissing that. Bad idea… let's stay away from him for now… security will be highest there, definitely… although if it is highest… then probably the best chance, but still… Joe turned his gaze towards the security guards, their tents, and a few storage and out buildings scattered around the camp. Safer there… definitely… Right… so tonight… check out the storage and out buildings… probably safest!