A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 289: Improving My Professions

Chapter 289: Improving My Professions

Materials aside, I had made loads of progress in my [Enchanting] profession, learning several new skills over the past couple of days. Even levelling a couple of them up also.

[Ding!]

[You have learned the following Skill’s [Concentration: LvL 1], [Elegant Writing: LvL. 1], [Enchanting Instincts: LvL. 1], [Enchanting Technique: LvL. 1], [Mana Tracing: LvL. 1] And [Skilled Writing: LvL. 1]!]

[Ding!]

[You have levelled up the following Skills; [Skilled Writing: LvL 1], [Mana Tracing: LvL. 1] and [Enchanting Instincts: LvL. 1] by 3 and [Enchanting Technique: LvL. 1] by 1.]

It felt good to at least have done all this in the span of however many days it was that I did this in. I wasn’t quite sure how long had passed, but I think a couple of days had passed since I started, and I was happy with my progress.

I did now have a problem of what I should do with all of these talismans. I had made I don’t know... Over ten thousand or so? That looks about right.

Guess I’ll just sell them somewhere, that way they at least get used at least. Would be a waste for them to all just be sat inside of my storage forever and not get used.

Besides, these are just me practicing the method of writing the runes themselves. I haven’t even begun to step onto the path of actual Enchanting, which includes thing like inscribing this stuff onto weapons, clothes and more.

I can even make formation like what I saw within the treasury. The reason I’m doing this at all in the first place.

But stuff like that is for later. For now, I think I still have to practice a bit more, such as making a chain talisman, which is just a talisman with multiple effects, be it negative or positive ones.

I still had some time left today, I think, but regardless, I still had a long way to go. Even the orb said as much when I checked.

The percentage read: 10.78%

And to be honest, that was far more than I was expecting. I would’ve though at most like seven or eight percent just based on the sheer number of talismans I’d made and the terrifying efficiency in which I made them.

Still, I’ll take what I can get, and just over ten percent isn’t bad.

’Should I just keep on going for another day or two? Nobody’s expecting to meet up with me. Eric knows I’m busy, and my friends all know I’m busy... Yeah, I think I’ll just keep going for a couple of days.’

With that decided, I got back to work. I first stored all of the completed talismans into my storage and got several stacks of new papers and began writing multiple runes upon them.

I tried different combinations of various different runes, practiced some new rune in between as well, and I didn’t forget to test any of them out either, making sure to do multiple copies of them all for not only practice and testing purposes.

But also to sell also. I figured if I’m going to be selling all of these, then I should just make several of each one.

By the time that day had passed, I had managed to level up [Skilled Writing] by one more level, having it hit its maximum level, which I wasn’t expecting. Guess I should do the same with the rest.

Then again, I would do that anyways regardless.

Also, what should I do about [Smithing]? I just remembered that. I think I can upgrade it in the forging room? I’ll try that out tomorrow.

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When the next morning came, I woke up in the central room of the inheritance as I normally did, and instead of heading straight into the Enchanting room, I went to the Forge instead to try upgrading my [Smithing] Class.

I placed my hand onto the orb and imbued some of my mana and my will into it and felt it return the gesture before it receded as normal. I saw a familiar message within my soul appear.

[Ding!]

[You have reached the limit of the [Smithing] [Sub-Class]. Would you like to evolve it into the [Sub-Class] of [Forging]?]

[Y/N]

This time, I pressed [Y].

I was a little nervous as I was worried that it would do what it did last time, but thankfully it didn’t do that, and I wasn’t subject to immense spiritual pain like last time I interacted with one of these things.

Either way, I soon felt the process of my sub-class upgrading itself into a higher tiered one. It didn’t actually feel like much to be honest. Just change that I knew had happened, yet I didn’t actually feel any different.

Like whenever you have a birthday, and get a year older, but you don’t actually feel any different. You just kind of feel the same except you know that you’ve become one year older.

That kind of feeling.

[Ding!]

[Your [Sub-Class] has been enhanced from [Smithing] to [Forging]!]

[Ding!]

[You have gained the title [Forging Apprentice]. You now have access to the [Forging] [Sub-Class] Skill tree.]

And now I’m at the bottom of this again.

Also, what’s a Skill tree? I’ve seen that twice now but I don’t actually know what it is. It’s not something I consciously have access to or anything. It’s not in the starting room for the professions.

I think what it means, is that I have access, or at least the ability to gain Skills related to the class or profession that I have.

At least that’s what I’m assuming it mean. I have no way to tell if I have all of the skills or not though if that’s the case.

And I guess I don’t necessarily need to know either, since I seem to be doing fine either way.

Skill tree aside, I now have an advanced [Sub-Class] and a regular [Sub-Profession].

’Hmm... Not sure where to go from here exactly. At least in terms of my [Sub-Class] and [Sub-Profession] besides honing them to perfection.’

’Like sure, I can keep going until I become the best I can be. But what will I actually use any of these skills for? It’s not like I need them, I’m just doing them because I like doing them.’

This realisation kind of dampened my mood a little, and nearly made me want to give up.

But I shook my head in defiance and said no.

’No! That’s what hobbies are! Skills that you develop for fun. It doesn’t matter if they’re boring or have no real value or application, what matters if you like it or not.’

Nodding my head with a smile after having that epiphany, my resolve to continue along with this came back in full.

And with that resolve came a burning fire within me to get back to work. Which I did.

I didn’t go back to [Smithing], or rather [Forging] as it’s called now, but back to writing talismans.

And instead of just trying to write everything quickly and efficiently, I decided to instead go slower, and create what was called an array on a larger piece of paper.

While talismans where written on a small strip of paper, an array was sort of like a miniature runic formation, with a specific limit to what it can do and how much can be made with it.

I started off with a simple barrier array, which involved the runes for the word ’barrier’, ’sturdy’ and ’power’. All of these things somehow combined to make a single magical barrier.

To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed by it. Then again, this was only meant to teach me how this even worked in the first place, not to actually show me how powerful it was.

The basics of how arrays worked was that they could have anywhere between a minimum of five runes, and all the way up to twelve for some reason.

I don’t know exactly why that’s the case, but that’s apparently what separates an array from anything of a higher grade or power or whatever.

And unlike when I was making talismans, I had to take it slowly, because if I rushed things too much, then it would explode in my face, literally.

In fact, I made that mistake a couple of times and got ash all over my face multiple times because of it. Of course it was easy to clean up, but it taught me that I needed to be careful and not rush my work.

That in mind, I learned from my mistake and slowed down, making sure to write everything carefully. And this caused one of my skills to level up also.

[Ding!]

[You have levelled up the Skill [Elegant Writing: LvL. 1] by 1.]

And this of course helped me greatly, as improving these skills meant that I was improving my skillset.

Of course I wasn’t using them through my Soul Scroll but was actually practicing them normally, as that’s the way it should be done.