An Introvert's Happy Place [Closed]

[Galen]

Some people enjoy being in Large Crowds.  Some people like gathering their large groups of friends together to hang out.  Other people like sitting alone, where there is no chance of someone bothering them.  This is not to say that they think themselves superior, and therefor the mere presence of others is beneath them, quite the opposite.  They find themselves to be the inferior ones who are worried of causing trouble, of being in the way, or making large fools of themselves as a result.  These people would be Introverts.  Of course, it should be mentioned not everyone who is an introvert has these symptoms, but they are for Jason, or in this new world "Galen."  Sure, Galen was a character that was made to be the Extrovert that Jason himself wasn't, but now that they are the same person, it makes things quite... Strange.

It was evening in the world, and he was alone in the woods, but he was fine with that.  The monsters in this sector were non-hostile, meaning he could relax as much as he wanted.  If anything, he actually enjoyed the attraction of the little slimes that were attracted to his Mana.  They weren't people, they didn't judge...  Jason was always worried he would end up a crazy pet person of some kind... That worry almost seems pathetic at the moment.  He had the Animal Trainer Subclass, so he didn't worry as much as others might around monsters.  Not that they wouldn't kill him, just that he might have a better chance.

'Come to think of it...'  A thought came to the Wolfhair's shaggy head as he held up a hand to examine his menu.  He had made Galen, and gotten just short of the tutorial level when real life pulled him away.  And that was where he started off.  Unlike most people who have quite a large amount of experience, pretty much all of his experience was in this world.  Which had its advantages and disadvantages.  The cons being his lack of knowledge of the world, while his advantages being that he didn't have to re-learn to play the game.  it was merely all he knew.  Looking through the menu, there wasn't much to see, except that all his class levels were really low.

'Hm... if I'm going to get anywhere, I'll need to actually work on these...'  He continued as he pulled up a menu that gave a brief description of his subclassess.  He had tasted the 'food' here, and after knowing that it had to be cooked the hard way to taste like real food, he thought it might be easier just to be a chef first.  'It would be kinda hard to be a chef if I didn't level up my class... and then I would pretty much be stuck eating that wet paper...'  He took a moment to then check the requirements of the subclasses leveling mechanic, rubbing his chin in thought.

Anyone looking at Galen right now would view him as a simple individual who liked to keep things comfortable.  He had confidence with himself in his surroundings.  That was because he was confident in what he could do for himself, it was when other people were thrown into the mixture that things suddenly became horrifying for him.  One of the tutorial tips he remembered reading in his time in the tutorial was 'You will always get experience no matter what you do,  so don't be afraid to fail.'  That meant he could practice different things in order to level up his class... weather he was particularly successful or not.  That was reassuring, at least it meant that he wouldn't be wasting his time.

"But what do I do to experiment..."  He wondered out loud.  His first thought is something simple, like some meat over an open flame, but that would mean taking down some boars, and you never get to fight just one boar.  And worse, they come with their parents, and being a Shaman, they were well above his level.  Waving his hand, he rubbed his chin in thought as his eyes looked around his surroundings, as though the thought in his head was on the ground, and if he saw it, he would be able to conceive it.  In this case, though, that is exactly what had happened.

"No... there is no way that would work... would it?"  In his tutorial completion, he was given a starter pack with some basic ingredients to help him get started.  These were really basic and hardly capable of much without effort on his part, something he initially congratulated the game designers on, as it gave them incentive to 'do' things.  However, now he had only one resource with which to experiment upon, and only a few limited resources with which to do them.  Unfortunately for him, the resource itself didn't seem to be the most appealing.  With a mortified grimace, he opened the menu and toggled his "Iron stomach" skill.. He was certainly going to need it.

Standing up for the first time in quite a while, he looked at the slimes, watching many of them bounce away from him in fear, startled by the sudden movement.  Some, but not all.  That was good, though, because he couldn't quite handle a full fight if it broke out, though he was lucky it didn't.  There was a bucket he had, something that was probably meant for milking cows or carrying water... he doubted this is what was expected.  Holding the bucket with both hands, he slowly tried to approach one of the slimes, it looking at him curiously, before the bucket would come down on him, and he would scoop the slime into it.  Turning it over, the slime found itself sufficiently trapped, not able to get enough momentum to jump over the edge.  it might have been able to merely crawl out, but Galen didn't give it the chance as he sat the bucket down, and brought his staff ontop of it, and, for lack of a better choice of words, began 'stirring'.  While this did a good job of harvesting the slime, killing it without losing resources, he wondered just how morbid this actually was.  Did slime feel pain?  Was this some kind of horrific way to die for them?  Maybe these were thoughts best put out of his mind.

What he had, now, was a viscous, fluid material, that he could experiment with.  "Here comes the fun part. yaaaay."  He said with a sigh, gulping nervously as he stuck his finger into the bucker, feeling the thick slime stick to his digit, as he brought it to his mouth.  There wasn't much, but that didn't make the flavor less revolting.  But the important thing was that it had a flavor.  It was a bad flavor, but it was a flavor.  That meant it could be improved upon.  With a smile upon his face, Galen started pulling out the various items he had.  This could actually work.  Sure, 'slime' wasn't the most appealing idea out there, but maybe, just maybe, he could find something that would make the lower levels much easier.  It would be significantly more productive to make food for himself, than killing slimes and having to regularly go into town in order to buy the ingredients to succeed, or possibly fail.  Here, though, he had the main ingredient, so it would be much cheaper to deal with the additions.

However, the first thing he would need to do is mask the bitter flavor.  Also, with only having a taste, he wasn't sure if there were any inherent debuffs that came with eating slime, not that he could be affected by them at the current moment, but it is still something to be quite cautious of.  He would have to know if it would cause negative problems, else he may result in causing more harm than good.

"What do I deal with first?  Do I focus on making sure its safe, or do I make it edible?"  This question seemed to be more important than it should have.  'One step at a time.  make it taste decent, then check the safety, then find a middle ground.'  The thought process was determined with a smile and a nod, before he examined the bucket.  He had a bowl, and this would allow him to separate the slime into portions, so he wouldn't have to kill as many slimes during the experimentation process.  A spoon would slowly get slime from the bucket, as he tried to first deal with what it 'counted' as.   If it was a liquid, what was it?  It was too thick for water, so it would have to be used to make something thick.  But its consistency prevented it from making a 'solid' food, so making something like bread was out of the question.  Also disgusting.  Now he couldn't stop thinking about slimy bread.  Fantastic.

He tried to start simple.  It was too thick as it was, so he needed a... thinning agent.  Water was the best option, as it would be free, and dilute the flavor.  The next step was masking the flavor.  It was pure bitter, akin to eating grass.  The first option was Sugar, but sweet didn't mask bitter, it mixed with it, so he would have sweet and bitter food, like eating cake with too much flour.  It was still an option, though, and if anything, he still got experience for failing, right?  Now was no time to be a perfectionist.  Taking some of the sugar he had, he mixed it into a bowl, and stirred it with water, until the slime looked more like... porridge.  That comparison was horrible, and he felt bad for saying it, but there was nothing better at the time he could figure out.  Taking a deep breath, he would take a spoon full and taste it.

Of course, it was terrible, and he found himself pouring the watered down contents into the grass.  That was one bowl down, but he could still try for something else... later.  He had planned to sleep out here anyways, and had a small nap sack to make it more comfortable.  To keep himself warm, he built a small fire pit, nothing fancy, just something to be convenient, as he would set up, and lay down.  Tomorrow was a new day, and perhaps he could actually make something from the slime.  Even if he couldn't, then he could at least use this break in order to let the flavor vanish from his mouth.  His taste buds could seriously use a rest.


Note: Final word count is 1796

[Galen]

The morning came by faster than he expected, leaving him rather groggy. However, more slimes had come to check him out, so he figured he wouldn't be getting much sleep anyways. But, he wouldn't get any practice by just laying around. Sitting up, he popped his neck a few times, scratching his canine ears, and looking at the bucket of slime by the fire pit. "Well... at least it keeps... Maybe I'll discover its a competent preservative." He said, chuckling to him self a bit as he tapped his chin. "So, we know that Slime doesn't do anything with water, except get runny slime. Its primarily bitter... very bitter... hmmm." He rubbed his ears in thought as he tried to figure out what he could do with it. "This would be so much easier if I knew 'what' slime counted as..." He said, shaking his head. Admittedly, he was never much of a chef back in the real world, barely able to make noodles by himself, but he figured the game world had different rules, and cooking would be eaiser, at least, more based on class. That being said, he knew he still had to work for it, but still, resources were... easier to come by, so pressure of failure was hardly as big of a deal. Still, he had to practice.

"What if it isn't as good cold?" He wondered, passively, as he started searching through his Menu for an item. Well "item" wasn't quite accurate, as it was a 'starter camp cooking kit'. Just something that made it easier to cook things with fire. It was a piece of metal grating attached to a tripod. It let the grate sit over a fire for things to cook, without it being held there. There were also some basic cooking equipment as well, just for convenience. He poured some of the slime into a pot, and rekindled the fire, to see how it operated under heat. So Galen waited... and waited... and waited some more... Until it occurred to him that the slime was NOT a typical liquid, and its incredibly thick substance, it would be a good long while before its boiling point was met. "Well... That was anti-climactic... at least slime doesn't appear to be above my cooking level... which is one... God I'm pathetic." He said with a defeated sigh, shaking his head back and forth as he reclined against a tree and stared at the fire.

Sometimes thats all Jason liked doing. Merely nothing at all. When he was a kid, one of his favorite things to do was just to sit down in the garage and watch it rain. It was strangely comforting, because it was so simple. The world he knew, different with rainfall, watching the water run and drip off everything... Fire was the same way, dancing and moving while the fuel beneath it chars and burns away... It made him smile. It was simple, it wasn't over the top. Just sit there and enjoy what is. He didn't know how long he was there, as he had no genuine sense of time, less so when the time moved different in this world. What he did know was he had to stoke the fire a few times, and add some more wood inbetween the times he checkd the pot, and he was... moderately surprised at what he found. The slime had changed quite a lot. There was a visible layer of grime on the bottom, with pure slime on top. It was by no means as bright as the normal green slimes, but he was certain that it was better than before. With a ladle, he scooped the slime on top out into a bowl. "This is something I could work with." he said, sounding genuinely pleased.

But that didn't mean he already had food. He merely distilled an ingredient into something more usable. The clean slime he now had actually did taste better. Still bitter, but no where near as impure. It was also already thinner than the base, so a thinning agent wasn't necessarily required. Of course, just a base item wasn't food either. Digging through his bag, he tried to think of what he could do, that wouldn't be considered 'complicated' by the system to work up his chef skill. Nothing, actually. But, he was determined not to waste the time and do nothing. He emptied out his pot of the sludge at the bottom, as he took his bucket and put it over the fire, stoking and adding fuel, before going off to search through the forest. Since there weren't many monsters that were outwardly hostile, he felt relatively safe as he tried to go foraging.

Granted, he didn't have any form of a foraging skill, so he knew he wouldn't find anything particularly valuable, but he did find some fruits. An apple and orange tree, but nothing else. The whole while, he was being followed by the various dull green slimes of the area, curious of his existence. Did they know? Were they aware that he had mutilated one of them for their use as an ingrediant for food? Did they even understand? These thoughts plagued Galen as he walked through the forest in search of the fruits. Of course, nobody had these thoughts about any other animals. Boars were just boars. Did it matter what they thought? Possibly not. But for Galen, when the only beings he felt comfortable around were the slimes and boars, he had different thought processes for them.

He finally made it back to camp with the small collection of fruits to see that the bucket was bubbling. Checking it, he saw that the slime and sludge had separated, and he was able to easily separate it. Granted, there seemed to be more sludge than slime, but it was still an ingredient he could work with. "Okay, so, its bitter, and a liquid, and I am supposed to be able to make something really simple with it... I wouldn't have been able to distill it at my level, if it gave me an ingredient I couldn't use... I think..." He mumbled to himself as he appeared to gain an audience. The more he was in the same place, the easier it was for the slimes to find him. That wasn't specifically a problem, so long as he didn't aggro them. If anything, it just made him smile and chuckle. But, back to business, he needed to work on the slime to actually MAKE something. somehow.

His first idea was simply dealing with the ingredients. Slicing the apples up first, he tried mixing it with some slime in a bowl, adding sugar for flavor, and he tasted it. Truth be told, it wasn't that bad. Granted, he wasn't exactly a gourmet, and that was also in comparison to the base slime he had eaten previously. So, yeah, it was still terrible, but it wasn't the worst out there. he would need to figure something else out.  What if he was looking at it wrong?  Bitter isn't exactly a 'good' flavor, so he kept trying to mask it.  Perhaps spicy would counteract the bitter?  Maybe he could do something to actually make 'bitter' good?  It was something to think about, for sure.  Opening the menu, he started looking at the different ingredients to decide which ones he might be able to mix with the slime.  A thought occured, though.  What if he was making the wrong kind of food?  Maybe instead of making a base food, he should try something different?  After all, you can't use peanuts for everything, you have to play to its strengths.


Final Word Count:  1283

[Galen]

As he sat there, waiting for the ideas to come to him with what to do with the slime in his pot, he found himself actually not paying too much attention to his surroundings. sure, he was aware of the slimes bouncing around him, but he wasn't keeping a close eye on them by any means. This means he did not notice the slime who found the pile of sludge not too far away to be interesting. He didn't notice one of the other slimes bump into him. And he didn't see the dull green slime absorb the black sludge. Had he noticed, he might have reacted in some way. But he didn't, at least, not until it was too late. By the time he noticed that his HUD said that he was in combat, it was much too late. Apparently, there was something about the grime that he had discarded on the ground that affected the slimes in a very... negative way.

When he looked for the source of the attacker, half expecting a PK, his eyes turned to look at a Creature that was labled as a "Dull Green slime", but his name was blue, instead of white. further, it was angry for some reason. "Oh. Crap crap crap crap crap!" He said, standing up and jumping away from the camp site. Sure, it was JUST a slime, but it was still an aggressive mob, and he wasn't exactly a good fighter. Despite it being an advanced level one mob, he treated it like it was a much higher level, five or worse. The first thing he did was take a moment, waving his staff in front of him, causing a barrier to form around him. It wouldn't last long, so he needed to make forward progress while he could. He swung at the slime as he would lurch forward for a melee attack, crashing against the barrier and bouncing back. Of course, he could see the damage done was more than what would be typically done with a regular attack, and that worried him. "This bis NOT what I need right now. I don't even have a good offensive spell... crap!"

He swung again, his staff crashing against the side of the slime, but it would keep coming at him. Bad, bad indeed. He didn't need to fight a strong anything right now. A second strike broke his barrier as he bit his lip, knowing it would be another few seconds before it would come off cooldown. But, he decided the longer he drew it out, the worse he would be, as there was the chance of him aggroing the other slimes. He swung again, hitting the slime for another few damage. "Damnit. I have too low of a strength stat, there's no way that I can do this unless... No no, then I'll be defenseless..." The slime came at him again, and knocked a significant portion of his HP off of him. "Looks like I'm not being given a choice here..." He said, jumping back, and putting his hands together. He would use his most expensive skill, being his Summon Shikigami. Itself, it really didn't cost much, but given his low level, it would actually be very draining. He could only keep it up for a few seconds, but in comparison it would be much stronger than him.

It cost him another hit from the slime, dropping his HP bar down, but he succeeded in the spell. From the ground would appear a portal, and from that, his Shikigami. It actually looked rather similar to Galen himself, just more... Feral might be the right word. It had its teeth bared, his eyes glowing red, and ears and tail perfectly visible. Some say that this was the inner self of most Shaman, but Galen wasn't even completely sure if it was accurate, and if it was, it scared him. The shikigami would rush in, clawing at the strong Slime, while Galen himself was able to jump away from the fight. Thanks to the time bought, he would be able to cast a shield on the Spirit, followed by recovering his own HP. The shikigami drained a massive amount of his Mana over time, so he needed to get his spells while he could or else be drained to zero. The Spirit was successful in drawing the Aggro from him, which gave him time to recover himself as he watched it carefully. The two would strike at each other back and forth... but the battle took too long and his own mana was drained, leaving the Slime and him. It was, however, enough. the slime had a small amount of health left, something he could deal with.

Not that it wouldn't be dangerous, and in fact, he was dropped into the red before the final blow would cause the slime to explode, and he was left doing almost nothing. He slumped onto the nearby tree, gasping for air, as he knew he needed to relax and recover himself. But the black sludge on the ground where the slime was left needed to be dealt with... later. He took the bucket and put it over the sludge to make sure he wasn't attacked by surprise again. Looking back at the slime in the pot, he tried to figure out what to do with it. The slime was... well, slime. There wasn't much to it. It tasted bad, and the consistancy was bad. But... He needed to do something with it, anything. He looked over at the small pile of fruits he had left, and back to the pot. And an idea occured.

"No... it couldn't be that easy..." He remembered a simple recipe he remembered reading online, doing a school project from ages ago. "It tasted better when the grime it had absorbed was boiled out... maybe it absorbs flavors? I can't blame it for tasting bad since it bounces through dirt and debris all day..." He said, feeling as though he came upon an epiphany. Quickly he cored the apples and sliced both them and the oranges, Taking about a fifth of them and mashing them into juice. He dropped them into the pot, and began to stir it, as he rekindled the fire, knowing he needed heat. When it started to loosen up a bit, not much, but thinner than before, he dropped the apples and oranges into it, and put a lid on it. "I really, REALLY hope this works..."


Notes: Word count: 1098

[Galen]

Time seemed to move slower when you were waiting on something. But time also moved faster in this world... so time was going normally? It was hard to really judge, when you didn't have a sense of time at all. What this did result in, though, was him regularly checking the pot and stirring it. A watched pot never boils was not the most accurate statement for someone who was very impatient, and determined, as even though he did watch it constantly, it eventually did start to boil. This was good as it would soften up the fruits, and start to mesh better with the slime... Hopefully. And he really hoped that he was remembering how the recipe went as well. Otherwise he would have to start over, kill another slime in a horrible stirring manner, boil the super-thick slime, separate the sludge from the good slime, and even then, have to go foraging again. Worse, if this kept going, he was going to run out of ingredients, and have to go back to town.

A shudder went down his spine at the thought of having to fight through a crowd just to buy some sugar. He curled his fingers and toes through the shivering as he shook his head to get the claustrophobic feeling out of his head. He was cooking. He needed to keep cooking. The Wolfhair would stand up again to check the pot for the umpteenth time, but this time with more success. He could see how much softer the apples had become, and the oranges had almost completely liquefied into the slime. It even actually smelled good! Of course, flavor and scent were two completely separate things, and often times betrayed each other... but this was promising. It didn't smell good before, but it does now. That was legitimate progress!

Galen took a moment to reassess his situation. He had distilled slime boiling in a pot, with apples and oranges stewing in it for flavor. What was slime? It was labeled as Artificial Life, by the bestiary, but that was hardly a 'what'. Where did it come from? Was it created? If so, by who, and why? Did it just gain life of its own? That didn't seem to match with the concept of it being "Artificial Life" but if it was life given to artificial things, or an inanimate material, it could possibly fit... as a result, he was still left with 'what is it.' He had no skills related to researching the scientific aspect of anything, only cooking, so no matter what he did, he couldn't figure out 'what' slime was, only different ways to cook it.

The fire was starting to dim, and he had to go and find more fuel for the fire. To be as fast as possible, he searched for branches on the ground, rather than large logs or something to that nature, so he wouldn't have to worry about carrying it, nor having to worry about the fire going out while he dilly-dally'd. Time was lost as he searched for the dry brush he needed, stopped only by regular trips back to his camp so that he could keep the fire burning hot. 'Next time, make sure you have enough bloody wood to cook what you need before you start cooking it.' He berated himself, not wanting to have to start all over again. He took a gambit with it, using all the distilled slime he had for this, but should he succeed, it would leave him with more than enough to make some actual food. Or something to that nature. He had forgotten to check his menu to see if he was getting experience through the whole ordeal, nor see just how much. He was actually enjoying himself, to some extent, just cooking something.

When he was finished with the wood gathering errand, he was finally able to see the fruits of his labor, no pun intended. That is, unless there even was a pun there. If not, then just move along. Removing the lid from the pot, he saw that everything had nicely melded together. While the slime was still green, it was darker, compensating for the other colors, but it still smelled good. most of the slime had completely congealed after boiling for so long, the actual liquid aspect of it evaporating. This left what was left as a thick, honey-like substance. Of course, honey wasn't slime, and this was actually marginally thinner than honey, but still, a thick, sweet smelling substance worked as a vague comparison to honey. The moment of truth was upon him, though, as he took a spoon, and a small amount of slime and brought it to his mouth.

Not bad. Not bad at all. It was by no means delicious, but it legitimately wasn't bad. Too sweet to be a full-blown meal, but certainly a side, or even a desert. He would not feel bad in any way form sitting down and merely eating this. He was quite happy, almost dancing around as he had finally succeeded. The first thing he did was take a few bottles and pour the liquid into them. All in all, he was surprised how little of the slime actually succeeded in becoming 'food'. The actual Dull Green Slimes were decently sized, but he barely got a few bottles out of a full slime's resources. And then, he had to factor in the fruits and sugar he added as well.

"maybe its the slime itself? There was a lot of sludge in that slime... I would thing a healthy green slime might have more to offer. Maybe higher level slimes would make better quality food as well." He thought out loud to himself as his gaze fell upon a few of the slimes examining him. A small part of him wanted to know if he should try to make some more food, just for practice. But another part of him said that he was pressing his luck. The incident with the upgraded slime was quite terrifying, and he certainly needed to avoid doing something stupid like that in the future.

He knew death wasn't permanent, but that didn't mean he wanted to experience it in any way. Not to mention that, as low of a level as he was, anything lost would be massively detrimental. No, Death wasn't an option for the low leveled male. Packing up his supplies, he considered what it was he had actually done. He took a starting level enemy, murdered it in a horrific way, and turned otherwise disgusting, inedible slime, into an arguably good tasting treat. But one thought occurred to him. "Nobody can ever know about this... Nobody would ever eat it if they actually knew it was real slime." Galen realized, gulping nervously. Of course, as a chef, selling food was something he could do, but if he tried to sell this, he would have to figure out some gimmick as to why it looked like it did. Maybe claim that the green color was from a secret ingredient, and claim it was slime? Pulling the wool over their eyes, or at least making a joke about it could be the best option. Or just say it was named something slime related, as a small joke at its name... He would have to think on it. Maybe, in the end, he wouldn't even sell these, he would keep them for use for himself. After all, they didn't taste bad in the slightest.

Note: Final word count 1258

[Galen]

Galen found himself wandering around, doing nothing specific. He found that pacing helped him think, so he would always be walking around whenever he wasn't doing anything. This often gave him the appearance of not paying attention, when it was quite the opposite. Forward, he would march, careful to stay away from areas that may have hostile mobs as he tried to consider what he had figured out. "So, we know that slimes can be made edible... does that mean anything could be edible? Well, I suppose not everything. A golem wouldn't be edible... Undead wouldn't be edible either... So what was the slime? Coincidental? Bahhh..." The male grumbled at himself as he couldn't seem to figure out this particular puzzle. But then again, maybe it wasn't possible to figure it out yet, like, no matter how many times you play a game, you can't accuse who you know is the traitor until later into the game when it is time for you to know, as a player. Granted, this world seems to be back and forth with those kind of rules. On one hand, you could do anything, but on the other, you have to have the sufficient skill. One could cook almost anything they desire, but yet they need the appropriate level to even make the attempt.

But, this world still seemed to have its own decisions on what worlds were. The question that was really on Galen's head was: Is this still affected by the game itself? Would the world be modified in the future, as a result of updates to the server? Would a new patch effectively alter reality? Or was this world separate from the game, now that they were in it? Again, these were things he couldn't answer, at least not yet. He would have to wait for the right time when the answer was revealed to him. "I guess... not much else to do but survive? Try to have fun? Bah... I'm not a monk, or a Samurai. I need a party to do anything, but I'm too afraid to even talk to anyone to attempt to make friends... I'm pathetic." Defeatism thick in his voice as he just hung his head. Jason always had an inferiority complex which just accentuated his introverted lifestyle, so social interactions were just pure agony. He couldn't hide behind a character, and pretend to be someone he wasn't. Not now, anyways.

Looking up, he found himself looking at clearing with a small number of Boars, by the looks of it, it was two parents and three kids. But, they weren't hostile, which was good. That meant he could possibly try something, without having to worry about being assaulted. After resting while waiting for his... he really needed a name for whatever it was that was in his pocket, He had recovered his HP and MP, but he was by no means prepared for a five on one battle, so he would take things slowly. He noticed the parents watching him carefully as he walked into the middle of the clearing, and sat down. He didn't make any specific moves on them, he just sat down a comfortable distance away from them, far enough that he wasn't considered to be invading their space, but close enough to be detected by them.

Truth be told, he had worked on his Chef subclass, but now he needed to make some improvements upon his Animal Trainer subclass. The reason he had chosen it was because he figured it would allow him to solo easier, so he wouldn't necessarily HAVE to rely on being in a party. But, if he couldn't reliably use his Shikigami due to its obscene mana cost, then he would have to rely on an animal companion. Unfortunately, his animal trainer skill only allowed short, temporary alliances, no true companions. He had to level it up significantly in order to do anything related to that. And with that, he would need to try training animals. He had a choice, though. He could go with the slimes, or the boars. but then there was the chance of failure. If he aggro'd one of the slimes due to a failure with the skill check, he would aggro all of them, causing him to not only be sorely outnumbered, but also surrounded. with the boars, while they outleveled him, they were much fewer, and he could reliably flee from them. He decided the boars would be a better choice, and knew the more effort he put into trying to tame one, the better he would be. This would be similar in practice to cooking. If you just 'did it' then it wouldn't be very difficult, and the results would be very lackluster, but if you were to put any effort into it, your results would be exponentially better.

When he first sat down, the family of boars stared at him, clearly cautious as they should be, but he was going to let them get used to him the best he could. When the Docile animals got to the point that they were comfortable with his presence, he would attempt to scoot closer and closer, pausing if they took particular notice of him. Just looking at him was one thing, it was when it appeared they may go on the offensive that he remained still, and allowed them to get comfortable with him again. Eventually, he was within touching distance of the boars, and he was going to try to appeal to them. His Scout ability only worked on one target, and it had a lower success rate on enemies a higher level than him, which posed some interesting scenarios. The logical thing to due would be attempt to befriend one of the level one pigletts, but that might be considered a hostile action by the parents, initiating combat. However, should he attempt to befriend one of the adults, then he would have a much lower chance of success, with them possibly turning hostile if he failed badly enough.

Weighing the options, the wolfhair decided that he would do better off with one of the adults. At first, he reached over, slowly, to pet one of them, just a friendly gesture, but it was met with unfriendly responses as the boar growled at him, and pulled away for a moment, causing him to pull his own hand back. Thats fine, he would let them come to him. If he was able to increase their disposition enough, he would have a better chance of success. He started to go through his inventory to see if he might have anything that would properly assist, when he came to look through his ingredients. Most of them were used in the attempt to make his... slime pudding, he guessed was a good enough name, either that, or slime jelly... irrelevant, as what he had in his inventory were a number of apple cores. Pulling one from his inventory, Galen would hold his hand out, with the apple core sitting in plain site. At first, the boars looked at him with suspicion, before one would slowly move forward and sniff at the apple core. Galen didn't move, not one inch, to prevent startling the adult pittered boar. He didn't know how long he waited there, an itch developing on the side of his face, making it very difficult to remain still, before the boar would open its mouth and take the apple, chewing on it. The male relaxed, trying to slowly scratch at his face to not create a sudden movement that might startle the animals and undo his hard work. But they seemed more calm with him, which was good. He took a second core and held it in front of him again, watching as the boar was much less reluctant, only taking a few seconds to smell, and eat it, but this time he used his other hand to gently pet its muzzle. The boar appeared worried through the petting, but he repeated the process multiple times, and by the fourth core, the boar didn't seem to have a problem with it anymore.

This time, he would reach forward and attempt to pet the boar. Hesitation was clear, but he didn't recoil, allowing him to pet the boar, gently, attempting to make it even more friendly. He found it was nightfall already by the time he was able to actually be around the boars, all of them appearing friendly enough. He could easily move around them without them appearing apprehensive to his actions, able to pet them without recoile, and he was even able to play with the young ones without the parents getting angry. But now was the hard part. he had spent all this time attempting to increase their disposition, which he had succeeded in, but he hadn't attempted to recruit one, even temporarily.

He had saved one last apple core in a final gambit as he decided that the parent would be the best choice. Although a higher level, they were still only level 6, and it would probably result in a higher experience gain, success or failure, than the success of the level one. With one hand feeding the boar, he brought up the menu and selected the scout ability, hoping that he would be successful. He had put hours into increasing the disposition of the boars, which was something he normally wouldn't have. Normally, it would be in the middle of combat, or only something he could do in a short amount of time. If he failed now, it would be quite unfortunate, but he would at least have a very large amount of experience over the whole ordeal.

However, luck was on his side as he saw a small green icon next to the boar, indicating that he had been successful all around. This made him more than giddy because it showed proof of process. While there may be hard caps, this could mean that he could increase anyones disposition high enough given the chance. Of course, the odds of having a level 90 enemy passive long enough to increase its disposition to that point seems ludicrous, but it appears like it might be possible to continue working on enemies higher level than him. This was such great news to him because, having determined that his best course of action was Solo-ing to avoid social interaction, and being such a non-combat oriented class, he thought that he was going to have to stick to fighting vastly lowered level enemies until he got into a party, but now that he knew that taming higher level animals was possible, at least by some fashion, it would mean that he wouldn't be limited to only his Shikigami as a main source of combat. All he had to do was work on getting his Animal handling skills to level 11, then he could domesticate a higher level enemy. If that succeeded, he would be able to have his own personal ally for solo combat. Granted, unlike him, if it died, it wouldn't respawn, and he would be stuck without an ally, and have to go through the hassle of finding another, going through the effort of taming it, and domesticating it, but then again, if it was easy, it wouldn't be as effective.

He would go through some basic commands, just trying to get the feel of having a tamed ally, even if it was only temporary. He had it run around, it had it stay close to him in a pseudo defensive, and then, when he was done with it, he would release it, much earlier than the timed duration, petting it on its head in gratitude for doing a job well done. He was out of treats, and he was out of supplies, so he figured he had spent enough time. He checked his inventory to see if he had collected enough money for a room in town. "Barely... Not enough to buy supplies too... Maybe I could get a job working temporarily at one of the restaurants owned by the People of the Land... Just enough for supplies." He thought out loud to himself as he started to leave the area. He never liked using the "Call to home" skill because it would teleport him right into the middle of a large crowd, usually, and everyone always stares. He would rather just slip in through the gate with as little attention garnered at him as necessary. "Ya know... maybe I should have gone with the Tracker ability. I could be invisible and unheard. Then nobody would be able to see me... But then I would have to rely on allies, unable to create any myself..." Galen sighed in dismay as he shook his head. No no, he needed to keep his Animal Trainer sub class. It was the only reliable way he had to keep a 'party' so he could effectively solo.

In the end, though, things were looking up. He was sure things were at least making forward progress, the only thing he tried to look for. While there was always the concept of "Two steps forward, one step back" or even worse "One step forward, two steps back" he still viewed it as progress because you still made a step forward, meaning you knew where the foothold was... and by taking steps back, you can reassess the situation to learn why you took steps back. Sure, it is nicer to have zero steps going backwards, but the important part is to learn why those steps backwards were taken. Strangely enough, Galen was good at providing some rather good advice to others, but had a distinct lack of ability to follow his own advice, often leading him to appear hypocritical, when in reality he more regularly talks himself in so many circles that he doesn't know which was is up by the time he makes a decision.

Note: Final Word count: 2333