Unorthodox Farming: New Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Hi, everyone! This is my new version of chapter 12. The old version is currently still on here if you want to see the difference. There will be a lot of similarities between some of these chapters, but events will unfold differently, and I've made a major change to Farentine's personality. This might get moved around when I edit the final book, but I currently like this version much more than the last version. I hope you enjoy. Chapter 12

The following morning, I was dropped off at the mouth of a narrow alley in the city’s dungeon district. Closed doors lined the alley with signs depicting food hanging above. The driver had mentioned the morning rush was over. All the adventurers were already in the dungeon, and the owners wouldn’t return and open their doors until evening, so I needed to look for the open door.

Apparently, I couldn’t miss it.

However, he hadn’t bothered to check if that was true, so by the time I realised all the doors were closed, he was halfway down the street.

Not knowing where to go didn’t kill my enthusiasm.

Torvac and Misk had kept me up half the night making sure I understood the importance of my assessment. None of us believed that I had what it took to become a true champion and go into champion raid dungeons. I’d gained my mark too soon without enough abilities suited to combat.

However, that didn’t matter.

Champion Farentine’s job wasn’t to assess my current capabilities, but my future potential. As the second-best champion scholar in the world, she would show me how to progress my classes, so I was as lethal as possible. When I failed to meet the criteria for becoming a true champion, it would be up to me to decide how I wanted to use that information.

Farentine was basically the combat equivalent of Ranic, but unlike him, she was so busy you couldn’t hire her services.

I turned back to the alley as my driver disappeared into the distance and started knocking.

Eleven doors later, one finally opened.

Torvac’s description of Farentine didn’t do her justice.

Her height and shoulders were almost identical to mine, but she had the body of a ballet dancer rather than an athlete, giving the impression of a gracefully ageing model. Her hair had the silver sheen of steel rather than the dull grey that comes with age, making her more attractive than any woman her age would usually be. It was tied up in a ponytail and fell in front of her shoulder with the casually disregard of someone who knew they were attritive no matter what angle they presented.

She wore a pair of red leather trousers and a match vest over a frilly white blouse and carried a rapier and scabbard on her hip along with large gold bangles on her wrists and hooped earrings. Her red leather boots came up to her knees and were tightened against her skin with leather belts with gold buckles.

Her style reminded me of a viper, but the way Torvac described her combat skills, made me think she was more like a dragon.

No name appeared above her head.

I'd met a lot of people with high charisma over the years, but it was rare for them to have invested so heavily into their other attributes. There was a balance to her features that they and I lacked.

She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, but that beauty was not mind-altering. It seemed natural, rather than manipulative. Looking at her, I somehow knew that even without my charisma, I would be able to talk without gawking. The only hint of her age was her silver hair and the small lines around her eyes, which seemed crazy, because I knew she was a few centuries older than me.

The right side of Farentine’s mouth lifted in a smirk. “Are you done ogling me, young man, or do you need a moment to finish?”

The right side of my mouth rose to match her smirk. “One does not ogle art. They savour every detail.”

Farentine threw her head back and laughed, stepping to the side, and beckoning me in. “I love a man with banter.”

The interior of the restaurant reminded me of those Japanese noodle bars. There was very little space and only ten seats. They sat a bench which surrounded a small kitchen where an elderly man was chopping vegetable.

A copy of today’s newspaper sat on the bar where Farentine had been sitting. Our story was on the cover.  

Farentine closed the door as I went by. “My first piece of advice for anyone with a champion’s mark is always the same. Establish a restaurant anywhere you visit regularly. Our dietary needs limit our options and places that exclusively serve perfect food charge so much that it’s actually cheaper to own restaurants in the long run.”

I took off my backpack halfway down the bar beside Farentine’s newspaper, pulled out the wooden stool, and sat. “How is it cheaper?”

Farentine somehow slithered onto the stool beside me, giving the impression she didn’t have joints with how graceful her movements were. “When it comes to champions, there is perfect food and perfect food. The first fills our stomach. The second helps us recover from injuries. Anywhere that exclusively serves perfect food fits into the second category and the cost of eating there is dozens of times what a meal here will cost me. You eat there every day and you might go broke even with how much we earn.”

“Why not eat at home?”

“That is a luxury champions don’t have. We’re always on the move. You probably won’t have to worry about that though.”

“I know. Torvac and Misk assured me that there was almost no chance of me passing your assessment. They say hi by the way.”

Farentine put her elbow on the table and her head on her palm so she could stare at me. “That’s an interesting choice of words. Most people would have said warned.”

“I have a problem with being told what to do.”

Farentine flashed me a smile. “That can change with the right skills.”

She was clearly flirting with me, which, while fun, seemed rather unprofessional. “Is this how all your assessments go?”

Her smile grew taking on a more wolfish tone. She was a predator, and I was prey. “Only when someone can keep up with my charisma. Should we get this wagon rolling?”

A prompt appeared before me.

Scholar Farentine would like to access your interface.

Would you like to give her access?

Yes/No?

I selected, Yes.

My interface opened, showing me what she was seeing.

Name: Arnold

Class: Champion Farmer

Level: 99, 100%

STATS

Health: 6818

Stamina: 4354

Mana: 3920

ATTRIBUTES

Strength: 66

Endurance: 311

Dexterity: 53

Agility: 65

Constitution: 487

Intelligence: 280

Wisdom: 101

Charisma: 187

Luck: 140

TITLES

Incarnate: People find you 500% more interesting.

Wiseman: +10 Wisdom

Landlord: +2 Intelligence +2 Charisma

Skill Master: +60% to skill experience

Woods’ Master: +2 Intelligence +2 Wisdom

Stone Master: +1 Strength

Sage: People find you 100% more interesting when speaking about lore.

MARKS

Familiar:

-You can draw upon your familiar’s mana pool.

Privacy:

-Your information is your own.

Mental Immunity:

-Immunity to charm effects and spells, except channelled spells.

Greater Fearless:

-Immunity to the threat of great pain inducing fear.

Crown’s Champion:

-+40 to all attributes +40% to Health, Stamina, and Mana.

Blackwood:

-Growth Perk 1

-Population Perk 1

-Deputised

-Economy Perk 1

Farentine grinned as she read my stats. “I knew it. You’re walking the Paths to Power.”

"I have no idea what that is."

Farentine reached out and pointed to my charisma stat on my interface, interpreting where it was by where I was looking. "The Paths to Power are a way of growing stronger that isn't recognised by the system. You began walking this path the moment you decided to invest all of your free attributes into charisma. If you keep it up, once you pass through your fourth threshold, your charisma will become 20% stronger than the number indicates. When you pass through your fifth threshold, this effect increases by another 5%. This also works for subsequent classes and their free attributes, so long as that class is a higher tier, so you need to manage your levels, classes, and thresholds very carefully. Since you're a farmer, you can theoretically walk every path."

Her answer left me annoyed. No one ever told me that putting all my free attributes into charisma would make it stronger when I reached level 100?”

Farentine reached out and patted my shoulder before talking in a tone reserved for babies. “Does someone have a case of pretty boy regret?”

Her tone somehow made me laugh and I replied in the same tone. “Someone didn’t expect they would gain so many additional attributes from marks and titles.”

Farentine laughed. “I’ve been where you are.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You have?”

“You’re not the first person in this restaurant to invest in charisma to gain attention.”

The elderly chef laughed.

“How did you fix the problem?”

“By understanding what caused it. Outside of endurance, constitution, intelligence, and luck, your highest attribute will always alter your physique more than it should. If this attribute is significantly greater than your other attributes, these changes will become more pronounced.”

“Are you saying I look like a gorgeous poet because my charisma and wisdoms are my two strongest attributes?”

Farentine laughed while nodding. “I would have gone with stunning scholar. You don’t dress like you’re purse are empty.”

The fact that poets seemed to be universally unemployed was enough to make me chuckle.

Farentine went back to resting her head in her hand and studying my face. “Raising your other attributes won’t make you less attractive, but it will make you less likely to charm people. If you want to be less attractive, you can raise another attribute higher than your charisma, but I’d prefer it if you became a bard.”

The chuckled died on my lips. “You want me to become a bard?”

“No. But becoming a bard will stop you from stepping off the Paths to Power and I prefer that over you ruining your build.”

“The Paths to Power are that important?”

“There are only a handful of champions who walk more than a single step. Being able to walk all of them is one of the only ways you might be able to qualify one day.”

“What are the other ways?”

“Getting the right sort of champion ability would help, so would naturally acquiring useful abilities when you become an adventurer. You’ll need all three to qualify for champion raid dungeons and the chances of that happening are low. However, low isn’t the same as impossible, so you still have a chance. And we will take anyone who can survive their first day on the job.”

Chief Durg'un had mentioned unique champion abilities to me on several occasions, so had Torvac and Misk, so I knew that every champion and chief had one. All of them were better than any ability you could buy from scholars, but that didn't necessarily mean that they were useful.

“You’re that desperate?”

“Anytime I’m not knee deep in monster guts is a vacation.” When her statement didn’t hit hard enough, she added, “This is my vacation.”

I was suddenly even more grateful I didn’t qualify to be a champion. “How would becoming a bard fix my problem?”

Farentine answered my question with more information. It seemed to be her favourite way of communicating. "There are seven aspects which improve when you increase your charisma: Beauty, Confidence, Musical Talent, Acting, Creativity, Dancing, and Emotional Control. Bards had a special promotion which allows them to halve one of these aspects to increase another by 5%. Promotion crystals increase this bonus further.”

“So, I dump the rest of my free attributes into charisma and become a bard when I take my next class?”

“That would be a mistake. The bard class would become your second Path to Power, ending every subsequent path at level 100, because each Path to Power has to level in order.”

“Is that because there aren’t any bards who are over level 100?”

“Yes.”

Farentine reopened my interface and displayed my list of level 100 skills. Each one had the potential to become a class on day.

Archer

Crossbowman

Gambler

Merchant

Spearman

Trapsmith

Farentine dismissed the interface a moment later. “I would take merchant as your second Path to Power. Being able to buy anything directly from the system makes it the most useful non-combat class for champions and you likely earn enough to go beyond level 100. The fact that you’ve reached level 100 with the skill also qualifies for all the earnings-based thresholds, so you can take the bard class the same day.”

Farentine was surprisingly reasonable. After dealing with Ranic, I’d expected to be fighting her at every turn.

A smirk tugged at the side of her lips. “The look on your fact tells me that your surprised by how reasonable I am.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That was exactly what I was thinking. Are you about to disillusion me?”

Farentine nodded. “There are classes which don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The bard class is one of them. It only has one way to boost a warrior’s combat capabilities: a rare threshold boon that provides situation awareness on the battlefield. The promotion you need won’t effect that so there is nothing for us to argue about.”

“I would have thought there were two.”

Farentine frowned. “What would be the second?”

“Dancing has everything to do with how you move your body, so I would have assumed increasing that aspect would improve how you move while fighting.”

“The creativity to move your body in unique ways doesn’t cross over when fighting in heavy armour. We don’t have their freedom of movement to take advantage of the beneficial effects.”  

I found her answer fascinating. This sounded exactly like what I used to do in my old life for my team. “So, it does have a beneficial effect by that effect is negated by your equipment.”

Farentine nodded. “There are a lot of situations like that. It’s why my job is so hard.”

“If Merchant is my second Path to Power, what would you recommend for my third?”

“Whatever your primary combat class is. However, that’s not something I can help you with until after you’ve gone through a physical assessment.”

“When does that happen?”

“After breakfast. Right now, I’m just assessing where you’re at physically and mentally.”

“How am I doing?”

“Physically I don’t see any issues. You can walk all the Paths to Power which is a major advantage. You’ll also be ready for the third path the moment you are done with the first.”

“And mentally?”

“You’re too uptight. That’s understandable considering what you’ve been doing in Blackwood, but it also means you’re years away from being comfortable in your own skin. And that’s a problem, because Champions are constantly in life and death situations. Under those circumstances, mindset is as important as being able to do the job.”

“Anything I can do to fix that?”

“Taking the healer class helps. The class doesn’t differentiate between healing others and healing yourself when it comes to generating experience, so you can flay yourself until you reach level 100.”

“What?”

Farentine ignored my shock as if it were a minor pothole on an otherwise smooth road. “It sounds macabre, but we only do it for the class bonus.”

“You flay yourself for a class bonus.”

I knew champions were built different, but this was too much.

“A class bonus that increases your healing ability by 2% each time you level. This applies to our constitution, titles, and marks so we regenerate three times faster when we reach level 100. We also recover from grief and trauma faster.”

Fascination replaced my shock. “That sounds broken.”

Farentine grinned. “It’s just one of the many perks of being a champion.”

“Does it have to be flaying?”

“Any injury will do, but flaying causes the most points of damage with the least physical harm. Judging by the look on your face, I failed to add that we are sedated while this is happening.”

“You did fail to mention that part.”

Farentine laughed again, and I finally realised why she was laughing so much. She was tipsy. This was her vacation.

Farentine eventually regained control. “Let’s blame my lapse on the fact that it was not something I expected to talk about today.”

“And not what you were drinking before I arrive?”

Farentine held out her hand. The chef passed her a drink. “You caught me.”

“Can I get one?”

“No. It will interfere with your assessment. What were we talking about?”

“Being flayed alive and whether or not it would still be worth it if you were awake.”

“Only an idiot or someone with a Greater Fearlessness Mark would say that.”

“I’ll save you the trouble of figuring out which one I am.”

“No need. You’re obviously an idiot with a Greater Fearlessness Mark.”

“What gave it away?”

“The front page of every local newspaper.”

“What part of that makes me an idiot?”

“The part where you confessed.”

“Blame the system for that.”

“System quest?”

I nodded.

Farentine whistled. “You just made my past week make sense.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You tripled my workload, so you’re not getting any gratitude.”

“Do you want me to apologise instead.”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry that keeping the people of Blackwood safe from murderous dwarves tripled your workload.”

“You make it sound like I’m the bad guy.”

“If that’s what you hear, that’s what you hear.”

Farentine laughed again. “Let’s move on with your assessment. If we don’t, I’m going to start a witty back-and-forth that sidetracks our day.”

My interface opened.

Farentine began flicking through my information, reading entire pages in a fraction of a second. I tried to follow what she was reading, but she read too quickly. There were brief moments where she seemed to pause to think or read something again, but even those lasted less than a second.

My interface snapped closed.

Farentine turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Hunter’s Gambit?”

“At one point in my life, I might have needed to bait a primitive giant into a pitfall trap.”

“Lowheart’s Lungs?”

“I needed to get its attention somehow.”

“Improvised Weapon?”

“If shouting didn’t work, I wanted to be able to hit it with something.”

“Double Jump?”

“Sometimes you’re not tall enough to hit the part you want.”

“Ambidextrous?”

“It’s good to have options?”

Farentine laughed.

“None of them were necessary in the end.”

She laughed harder.

“I take it this is good news?”

Farentine nodded as her laughter died off. “The stamina cost for Hunter’s Gambit makes it a build breaker ability for warriors, but the benefits are significant enough that it’s almost worth it.”

“I didn’t know running speed was so important.”

Farentine stared at me for a second and then laughed again. This wasn’t an I said something amusing laugh. It was an I can’t believe he’s that stupid laugh. I hated those kinds of laughs.

I sighed. “What am I missing?”

Farentine bit down on her laugher by pressing her lips together. “Did you practice running faster for baiting this giant?”

I nodded.

“Did you fail to notice how quickly you could pump your arms while doing so?”

I found the question strange, and then flashbacks of running at full speed began to play through my mind. “Wait! Movement speed bonuses apply to all movement!”

 Farentine erupted in laughed while I went through other memories. Conversations with Ranic and Jeric played through my head. In them we discussed how I would safely bait the giant. They advised me to find items that increase my movement speed so I could run faster.

In my memories, I saw myself using my old life’s definition of movement speed when they said "movement speed," not bothering to clarify what it meant in this world. In games, movement speed only applied to how quickly you could run, so wrongfully I assumed it was the same in this world. That assumption had followed me through every conversation that came after, shaping my thoughts and secondary assumptions.

Until this moment, I honestly believed my farmer equipment had movement speed buffs so farmers could get around our farm quicker. That wasn’t what they were for. They were so that we could work faster.

The term was literal.

I had no idea what my face looked like, but Farentine clearly found it amusing.

I sucked up my pride and raised an eyebrow. “So, I’m twice as fast as your average farmer.”

Farentine laugher continued.

I began to grow annoyed.

Farentine noticed. “I’m sorry for laughing so hard. I really am. I wasn’t laughing at your ignorance. I was laughing at the absurdity of meeting a champion who didn’t understand how movement speed bonuses work. It’s a little like meeting a farmer who doesn’t understand their seeds need to be planted in the ground to grow.”

I thought about it from her perspective.

Torvac and Misk had both said that most champions had seen their first century before they gained their mark. That was a century of fighting, so they would understand a lot by then. From her perspective it was sort of absurd that I didn’t know.

“Movement speed means something different where I come from.”

The last hint of laugher faded from her eyes. “I am sorry for laughing.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just continue with the assessment.”

Farentine stared at me for a few seconds and then nodded. “You described yourself as twice as fast as your average farmer which is wrong. Movement speed bonuses are more complicated than that. They don’t apply to reaction time or to how quickly you can think, only to how fast your muscles and tendons can potentially move. This disparity means you need to train to move that fast. If you don’t, you’ll never notice the effects.”

“So, I have the potential to move twice as fast as someone else, but not the ability to do so.”

“Yes. After reaching your limits, Hunter’s Gambit is one of the best ways to go beyond. The ability is not that helpful to you now, but it does mean you have more potential to grow than almost anyone you will ever meet. If you natural gain a few useful abilities when you become an adventurer, you will be one step closer to qualifying as champion.”

That wasn’t good news.

Farentine smiled. “However, if your champion ability isn’t useful, you have almost no chances of that happening. Would you like to find out what it is?”

I pulled up my stats.

Farentine frowned. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m just making sure my luck hasn’t dropped.”

Farentine laughed. “Luck has nothing to do with your champion ability. As far as we can tell, the only thing that affects your ability is how you gained your mark.”

“Anyone every one-shot a giant?”

“No, that’s a first.”

“The first of many if the dwarves have anything to say about it.”

Farentine rose to her feet, pulled a crystal from her back pocket and placed it against my forehead. The crystal seemed to have been sitting there for quite some time because it was a little too warm. I tried not to think about why it was so warm, as the thought of a stranger’s butt crystal resting against my forehead wasn't appealing.

She sighed as the crystal began to glow. "No offence, but if you weren't incarnate, I'd recommend the king pay for your resurrection so that someone who could use your mark could roll the dice and risk going feral."

I’d thought about letting someone kill me for my mark on several occasions, but, however small the risk, I wasn't willing to take the chance of not coming back, so I'd never brought it up. However, Farentine made it sound like a much bigger risk than I thought. "Why would being incarnate stop you from letting someone kill me to take my mark?"

Farentine seemed surprised by my question. "No one ever told you?"

"Told me what?"

"You can't be resurrected."

"What!"

To say I was shocked by her revelation would be an understatement. Dozens of close calls from the past year flashed through my head. In every situation, one thought went through my head. I need enough of my body to survive so they can resurrect me.

"That's not your body. If you die, that's the end. The soul that body belongs to has long since moved on to what comes next, so nothing will happen if a cleric attempts a resurrection."

"What!"

It was the only response I had.

Another prompt appeared.

You have found an infused ability crystal containing a unique champion ability. Would you like to gain this ability for no cost?

Yes/No?

"Absorb the ability," Farentine instructed. "You're the only one who can, and if it loses contact with your forehead, I'll need to get another."

I selected, Yes.

The crystal vanished in a flash of light, flowing into me. A new notification appeared.

Congratulations, you have gained a unique champion ability.

One Shot

Cost: Remaining Stamina & Mana

Cooldown: 30 Days

Trigger: Verbal

Weapon Requirement: Loaded crossbow.

Effect: For your next shot, each remaining point of stamina is converted to 10 piercing damage, and each remaining point of mana is converted to 10 magic damage. (Damage scales with your crossbow skill level, titles, marks, and equipment bonuses.)

I was still reeling from the fact that I couldn't be resurrected, so I hadn’t even started reading the ability’s description when Salem began telepathically speaking in my head.

“If the description for your champion ability wasn’t so vague, I wouldn’t bother contacting you. The ability sounds dangerous, but it’s perfectly safe when used as described, so don’t try being creative with it if you value your life.”

Salem and I had both promised never to use the telepathic ability his mark gave us unless it was an emergency. If he was contacting me now, he considered it an emergency. Neither of us wanted the other one in our heads.

“What does creative look like to you?” I replied telepathically.

“Anything this that isn’t pointing your crossbow at your target and pulling the trigger. This would normally go without saying, but don’t shoot anything you’re even remotely close to.”

I had no idea what he was talking about so started reading. The moment I got to the effect, I understood why.

It captured my attention.

Farentine was smiling ear to ear as she sat back down.

I dismissed the notification and turned to her. "Is this ability as good as I think it is?"

"If you are thinking that it is the most powerful single-target ability the world has ever seen, then yes, you could say that it's as good as you think it is."

I ran hand fingers through my hair and groaned. “Fuck.”

 "The ability won’t help you survive a champion raid dungeon so there’s no reason to be upset. You’re now less qualified than you were before you got it.”

I dropped my hand to my side and noticed she was still smiling. “What’s the catch?”

“Your ability is perfect for taking out powerful monsters that threaten cities and towns."

“Which is the other half of a champion’s duties.”

Farentine laughed even harder than when she realised that I didn’t understand how movement speed worked. This time it didn’t bother me.

“What did I say that’s so funny?”

"Champions only confront those threats if we're taking time off and we're close to a teleportation circle. Your statement hilarious because to us it has so little risk compared to what we normally do that we don't consider a part of our duties, but something we have do during our time off."

I understood why she found it so funny.

I was partially qualified to be a champion.

But I was the champion equivalent of a waterboy. Or if you were being less kind, I’d been put on the council but didn't hold the rank of master.

My life was a joke.