Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 212: Meeting the Questing King

For the next two days, I didn’t hear anything back from Roku. Most likely, the investigation would take time to find the true culprits, since there was a severe lack of evidence. Still, the time had been well-spent.

Thanks to the passive experience aura that I released helping the other two training, Diane had reached the master level in both her wire control and puppet control skills. At the same time, Bella had reached the master level of her chaos firearms skill, as well as both of the supplementary skills for her new sniping techniques.

With this, their combat power had grown by a significant margin, so we would be able to take on much greater threats. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if either of them managed to kill a seasoned grandmaster one of these days, given their personal aptitudes.

That said, it was time for my meeting with the Questing King. Diane was still asleep, and Bella was watching the house while I teleported back to the city and began to approach the lord’s manor. This early in the morning, the streets were largely empty, but I could still feel the gazes of the countless puppets watching me.

As I approached the manor, the guards at the entrance opened the door without a word, allowing me inside. Roku was waiting for me just inside the front door, nodding stiffly. “Greetings, Lord Advent. My lord is already waiting for you, right this way.”

After saying that, he guided me into a nearby sitting room, where there were two figures waiting for us. The first was a human Player, a male with black hair and dark eyes. He wore a robe in a similar style to Diane’s, but with red and white coloring.

Next to him sat a foxfolk woman with red hairs and a stoic look on her face, wearing a red robe of similar style to the Questing King. She had a pair of circular glasses on her face, completing the look of the ‘stoic secretary’. Most likely, this was his advisor.

“A pleasure to meet you, Drake Advent,” the Questing King said with a bright smile. “I’ve heard many things about you. Please, sit.”

I nodded my head, moving to sit down across from the two of them. “Thank you for taking the time to meet me, sir…”

“My name is Takemoto Daichi,” he introduced himself. “Ah, sorry. It should be Daichi Takemoto. You can just call me Daichi, though.”

“Then you can call me Drake,” I responded in kind. “Your steward says that you are interested in establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with Fallcry?”

“That’s right!” Daichi said in a joyful tone. “This deal of ours should be truly beneficial for all parties involved. Has Roku told you about my personal request?”

“You mean to be taught the construction skill that I know?” I asked, to which Daichi eagerly nodded his head. “He has. Though, I would need to look at the list of architectural blueprints that you have to exchange first. Upon consideration, the Skill Simulation Platform is not very fitting for our side.”

“Oh?” Daichi tilted his head in confusion. “I understand that you should have the Simulated Training skill yourself, given what I know. Surely, you can see the advantages to this platform.”

“I can,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “However, I can also see its demerits because of that. Training on your platform will, without question, raise the skill’s level faster than normal training. But it won’t raise the user’s personal proficiency with it. Even if you raise the skill to the grandmaster level, it’s pointless if you can’t intuitively use it in battle.”

“Ahh, I see what you mean,” Daichi smiled in realization. “This is a problem that I’ve never really had to deal with, given how fast my skills grow. Furthermore, my Pacifist trait discourages me from training via combat to begin with. Aside from the skill experience, there’s really nothing for me to get.”

I perked a brow at that. “Can’t you still get the item drops?” I asked, but Daichi shook his head.

“No, no, that is a common misconception. People focus on my trait preventing me from gaining experience from killing. However, the true wording of my trait is that I cannot gain rewards from killing. Thus, I am additionally locked out of the ability to loot my kills. For this reason, if I receive a quest to retrieve a particular item from a monster, I must manually dismantle the monster to retrieve the item.”

I blinked at this, my eyes widening. “Then, you should have the Corpse Collector skill by now, with your rate of growth.”

Again, Daichi put on a bitter smile. “That counts as a reward for killing. I am surprised that you are so versed in the butchery skill. However, my trait prevents me from placing the monster into my inventory, thus eliminating the special effects of both Scavenging Mastery and Corpse Collector. I must truly dismantle the monster myself, though my high skill level makes doing so quite easy.”

“I see… that is a very inconvenient trait to have,” I muttered under my breath. This explained why he spent so much time in dungeons or running quests. Even if he couldn’t level up from killing monsters, he would be able to make a large amount of money by harvesting their materials. And dungeon chests are the easiest ways to get new skills.

“Quite!” Daichi agreed with a laugh. “Though, I must admit that it is nothing compared to not being able to level up at all. I do not envy you in the slightest for that, Drake. Now, as for the list of blueprints that I can provide…”

Daichi hummed lightly, flipping through a few menus before generating a stack of papers. “This is a detailed list of each blueprint that I’ve created. I assure you that you won’t find any of these for sale anywhere else.”

I took the list and began thumbing through it. Each building seemed to have special skills integrated into it, most of them of considerable power. However, these buildings all had rare resource requirements, so they weren’t things that I could just build with my skill from the natural materials around Fallcry.

My fingers paused when I reached a page called Immortal Cultivation Academy, perking a brow at the name. “What is this?”

Daichi looked over, and then laughed. “Ah, that is a new one that I created after practicing the art of runes. Various runes are integrated into the structure itself, making it an incredibly effective school for those seeking to master this art. However, I would personally not recommend that one.”

“In the upcoming patch, they have said that they will be rebalancing runes and essences, so I don’t even know if that academy will still function properly this time next month.”

I hummed my agreement, continuing to look through the pages. Eventually, I came across the Skill Replication Tower. At first, I thought that this would be a tower that allowed one to copy their skills similar to enchantment skill books. However, on closer inspection, it seemed to be a turret. The user channeled their skill through the focal point of the turret, and it saved that skill for future use.

“What is the mana efficiency like for this tower?” I asked, showing him the page that I had landed on.

“Hmm? It matches the original caster.” After saying that, Daichi’s eyes widened. “Ah! Yes, I can see why you would be drawn to that blueprint. Normally, that’s another one that I wouldn’t really recommend. Not because it’s particularly weak, but just because I have stronger turrets available than what most players would be able to replicate with this one. Though, if it is in your hands, I doubt that would be a problem.”

“If you’d like, I can trade you another blueprint as well, in exchange for another skill of yours that I am curious about.”

When I heard that, I looked at Daichi in confusion. “What skill?” Aside from Walking Fortress, I didn’t think that I had any skills that were all that impressive in their origins.

“According to my calculations, even with your total lack of mana burden, you should not experience growth as quickly as you do. Furthermore, this growth only seemed to explode more as time passed. If I’m correct, you should have a skill that grants you increased experience, right? I’m curious how that would pair with my own experience boost.”

My eyes briefly widened, imagining the results. “Well, it’s not actually that much of a secret. A few people already know, but I guess the information hasn’t spread that far yet. This is a pretty easy skill to learn.”

Daichi’s eyes lit up at this. “Oh? Please, do tell! Regardless of its simplicity, I will still allow you to select a second blueprint.”

“Uh, right… well, the name of the final skill is King of All Trades. To start training it, you have to get the five fundamental stat skills all at the same stage, and fuse them together after training them from the novice level. Then, when they reach the grandmaster level, they provide a comprehensive boost to all abilities, as well as an experience buff, and an aura that provides these effects to nearby allies.”

“I see, I see,” Daichi nodded his head. “I’ll need to retrain those skills from the start, then. I learned them at different points, so I ended up training them all separately. Still, if there is such a benefit to combining them, I will naturally not miss it. As I promised, feel free to select a second blueprint. Oh, and do not worry, the promised puppet blueprints are not a part of this deal. Those will be provided separately.”

I blinked, but simply continued thumbing through the blueprints. I didn’t really see anything else that would be immensely useful to Fallcry at a national level. Yet, near the bottom of the stack of papers, I found a blueprint called the Omnicrafter’s Workshop.

Reading through the description, this was a workshop and store designed for all manners of craftsmen. They could even set up automated assembly lines after manually crafting something. While this was certainly a niche blueprint, I knew that Hammerhead would greatly appreciate it. And given that he was Fallcry’s top crafter, that meant that it was worth investing this much in him.

When I selected this blueprint, Daichi once again seemed surprised. “I was not aware that you were a craftsman as well, Drake! I suppose with your skills, it only makes sense.”

“I’m actually not,” I shook my head to deny the claim. “Crafting skills take too long to train for the use that I would get out of them. However, we do have an omnicrafter in Fallcry that would be able to make use of this facility.”

“I see, I see,” Daichi quickly nodded his head. “However, I would still advise that you learn blacksmithing. I have seen videos of your fighting. You tend to produce blades and spears with your skills, firing them at enemies. If you knew the proper structure of these weapons and how to create them, you would be able to make even more powerful projections. Think of it like how knowing the Architect skill improved your construction skill via synergy.”

I thought about the advice, shrugging my shoulders. “If I find the time in the future, perhaps. However, most of my downtime is spent training other skills. And blacksmithing is not the type of skill that I can easily train while also practicing others.”

“I suppose. I’m sure that you could find ways to smooth the process with your skills, though.” After saying that, Daichi smiled brightly, producing a contract and sliding it towards me. “This should cover all of the details that Roku previously discussed with you, but feel free to give it a proper read.”

I did just that, having no intention of signing any contract that I had not thoroughly read over myself. Thankfully, I could not find any loopholes in the contract. There even seemed to be a special provision for me, indicating that any hostility prior to the contract cannot be counted for retaliation after the contract was signed.

In other words, even if by some chance the assailants that we fought the other day were really from the Limitless Guild, us fighting them would not give the guild a viable reason to initiate hostilities. That seemed like a rather specific provision to put in, and I couldn’t imagine most other contracts needing it.