Chương 43: Chapter Forty-One: Everything Except the One Thing

Imbecile or not, it changed nothing about her plans. Today was the last of it, at least for a while. There would be no more marsh runs now that her goal of acquiring [Butcher] was completed in advance. She could still spend the next several days simply levelling it further, but that had never been the actual priority, distaste about the task aside. Alice did feel quite a bit of embarrassment in how poor her skill for this was, knowing that it likely bordered on disrespect toward her kills.

And theoretically, she could probably find a proper butcher in the market, watch him work for a few more days, or simply ask outright to be taken on for training for a bit. However, that was a problem for another time. There would always be some skill or other left to grind, something that she hadn't capped, and she'd learned by now that chasing every last one of them was a good way to never finish anything. Ideas about creating new skills would never end.

Better to call this a successful training montage and move on. Speaking of which… There still was the question of whether trading three weeks of income for three weeks of training had been worth it at all. Alice pulled up her status screen to see the results of her work. STATUS Class: Intermediate Thief Level: 10 (Rank: Ignota) Attributes Vigour Lv. 9 (43/90) Acuity Lv. 9 (31/90) Skills Tier 2 (Uncommon): RESTRICTED Physical (35) [Balance] Lv. 3 · [Basic Cleaning] Lv. 4 · [Basic Cooking] Lv. 2 · [Butcher] Lv.

1 · [Calligraphy] Lv. 2 · [Climbing] Lv. 4 · [Dash] Lv. 7 · [Dodge] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Drop Safely] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Endurance Running] Lv. 7 · [First Aid] Lv. 5 · [Footwork] Lv. 4 · [Forage] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Forgery] Lv. 2 · [Garden] Lv. 1 · [Grapple] Lv. 3 · [Hide] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Knife Work] Lv. 4 · [Lockpicking] Lv. 5 · [Mending] Lv. 6 · [Pain Tolerance] Lv. 5 · [Pick Pocket] Lv. 1 · [Sewing] Lv. 3 · [Silent Step] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Sprint] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Squeeze Through] Lv. 8 · [Stamina Recovery] Lv.

5 · [Strike] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Tailoring] Lv. 2 · [Tea Preparation] Lv. 4 · [Throwing] Lv. 6 · [Track] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Trap Setting] Lv. 3 · [Vault] Lv. 5 · [Weaving] Lv. 2 Mental (42) [Accounting] Lv. 2 · [Algebra] Lv. 3 · [Analytical Writing] Lv. 2 · [Arithmetic] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Behavioral Prediction] Lv. 3 · [Body Language Reading] Lv. 3 · [Britannian Language] Lv. 8 · [Calculus] Lv. 2 · [Cold Reading] Lv. 5 · [Cryptography] Lv. 9 · [Editing] Lv. 3 · [Estimate] Lv. 4 · [Fence's Eye] Lv. 5 · [Francian Language] Lv.

8 · [Gambling] Lv. 3 · [Geometry] Lv. 3 · [Herbalism] Lv. 3 · [Intuition] Lv. 4 · [Latin Language] Lv. 6 · [Literary Analysis] Lv. 6 · [Local Slang] Lv. 6 · [Map Building] Lv. 6 · [Media Literacy] Lv. 4 · [Meditation] Lv. 3 · [Mental Skill Resistance] Lv. 4 · [Mnemonics] Lv. 5 · [Notice Detail] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Observe] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Pattern Recognition] Lv. 3 · [Persuasive Writing] Lv. 2 · [Playing Cards] Lv. 1 · [Playing Dice] Lv. 1 · [Proofreading] Lv. 3 · [Prusijan Language] Lv. 4 · [Reading and Writing] Lv.

10 (MAX) · [Recall] Lv. 7 · [Shorthand] Lv. 6 · [Spot Tail] Lv. 8 · [Statistics] Lv. 6 · [Technical Writing] Lv. 2 · [Threat Detection] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Trigonometry] Lv. 2 Social (16) [Active Listening] Lv. 4 · [Acting] Lv. 3 · [Advertise] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Bluff] Lv. 8 · [Convince] Lv. 9 · [De-escalation] Lv. 1 · [Disguise] Lv. 2 · [Etiquette] Lv. 2 · [Feign Ignorance] Lv. 6 · [Haggle] Lv. 6 · [Intimidation] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Interrogation] Lv. 2 · [Lie] Lv. 10 (MAX) · [Maintain Alias] Lv. 8 · [Rapport] Lv.

6 · [Small Talk] Lv. 4 Ninety-three of them, by her last count, which she assumed was a really good number for someone who had only come into this world a little over three months ago. This was the result of all her efforts. Particularly, once the theory of context triggers had come up, she'd gone after it with all she had, every half-formed idea on potential skills, and then tried testing them all systematically, and without much regard for feasibility.

She'd gambled pennies against herself in her room to see how far the system could stretch. She'd made tea properly, four times a day, offering it to Mrs. Hatch every time. She'd forced herself to write down everything she had learned in her past life be it accounting, high-school maths or book reports. She had read everything she could get on foreign languages in this world, confirming that Sardinian was simply Italian, Francian French, and Prusijan German.

And when all her past knowledge could no longer serve, she tested everything she could think of learning in this new world. She started talking to almost anyone who so much as seemed inclined for conversation, she broke up fights between the street kids whenever she saw them and generally made a nuisance of herself to both the other women who lived at the lodging house and the vendors down the street with inquiries and discussion. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform.

Support original creators! Most of it had worked, eventually, one way or another. But not all of it. She had spent two entire evenings with a borrowed set of watercolours and the stub of a candle, trying to produce something, or better yet, anything visually appealing. A generous judge might have called her work abstract art, but her lack of talent in the field across two lifetimes had gotten her precisely nothing for her trouble.

However the System worked, although she did not currently still have the finer details of it, it certainly had rules. All her skills depended on a companion of effort, accumulated practice whether in her past life or this one and innate talent. It had worked out quite well for the skills she now separated into the category of Mental Skills, and not quite so much for the Social ones. She had led a generally singular existence in her past life and had not deemed her solitude as much of an issue until her moments.

Alice sighed and shook her head from those thoughts. She was quite aware now, and acknowledged that she likely needed therapy or counseling at the very least. But a doctor could not generally treat oneself. At least not when it came to long-term mental health. And she trusted no one with all of her mind in this world. Not even Nell. She looked through the Physical Skills, somewhat satisfied.

She hadn't spread her attention evenly, during her training, focusing on everything she could think of that would allow her to survive. As such, combat and perceptive skills had gotten the lion's share, and things like sewing and weaving had gotten whatever hours were left over, which was not very many, and it showed. It went on, and row after row, was capped, reaching the maximum she could achieve for the moment. [Mental Skill Resistance] had not changed.

In fact, she had accidentally acquired [Meditation] while attempting to use or understand the former instead. She drank some water. It tasted like tin but it was cool and Alice had learned quickly that frequent hydration made her cough rarely and helped with the occasional headache. Particularly in this weaker body. Although it was not entirely fair to call it weak anymore. Exercise as a result of her marsh runs, as well as her level 10 upgrade had really helped with both stamina and strength.

Level: 10 (Rank: Ignota) Unfortunately, despite all her practice, nothing had changed when it came to her level. Gaining the first ten levels had been easy, so much in fact, that it had baffled her why Ignota was the common rank and why anyone ever struggled to go past it. Even if levelling up became exponentially harder the further you went, it seemed reasonable that at least the first couple of ranks would be easy to achieve. That hypothesis had fallen apart quickly.

Three weeks of intense practice, almost one hundred skills under her belt, many of them at their maximum and yet… Her level hadn't changed at all. It isn't that I'm not doing enough, she thought. If it were more effort that was needed, more than before, I'd have at least received a single level up by now.

Which meant it was something else, some rule she had yet to uncover, something that had not been important before Level 10, but was important now, or it had always been important but had had much more flexible requirements before. Alice had thought often these past couple of weeks about how little a level had ever actually changed things back when they had come easily. It had actually been a common complaint of hers; no sudden strength increase, no free points, no new skills, no upgrade in attributes…

levelling up had done nothing. She'd assumed that levels were mostly bookkeeping, kept by the System for its own reasons, largely irrelevant to the people actually going up the ranks in this world. She was considerably less certain of that now. Perhaps, she had just never noticed its effects. Something spiritual, or something outside of her control. This is troublesome, she thought, rubbing her eyes. If I don't level up, I can't upgrade my class, or attributes, or skills.

But there was nothing she could do about it now. Daylight was sparse and it was time for her to leave, and then time to plan about the next few days, and how she was going to approach investigating Whitmore Lane.