Aiming the bow as the boar charged towards him Adam took a second to control his breathing before releasing the arrow. He loosed his bow as the boar came within five feet the power of the impacting arrow slowing its charge to give Adam enough time to jump from his crouched position. His aim was true and the boar’s charge disintegrated into a stumbling collapse. The arrow through its eye stopping any further signals from the brain down to the legs. He breathed a sigh of relief as the expected notification came with the death of the boar.

Same as Staff Wielder the criteria to unlock Archer was defeating two foes with the appropriate weapon. After dispatching six boar with fire lance and his staff he felt that switching weapons was not working and focused on the bow alone. Retrieving the four arrows that had led to the death of this final boar he sat to rest and see what skill he could unlock with the new class.

Archer: Class Description Skills Archer Unlocked by defeating two creatures with a bow. Increased proficiency with bows. Combat Class suited best to ranged fighting.

Please pick initial skill:

[sure shot]; [double shot]; [piercing arrow]; [burst arrow]; [charge]

Adam used Inspect on the skills. [sure shot] - doubles the chance of hitting your target. 2sp, each activation lasts an hour; [double shot] - allows the use of two arrows at a time 1sp per use; [piercing arrow] - adds penetrating power to an arrow that will then ignore defence 1 sp per use; [burst arrow] - arrow shatters on impact causing a small amount of area damage 1 sp per use; [charge] - allows user to imbue more power into an arrow by holding bow drawn for up to one minute. The longer held, the greater the power stored.

His choice was made as soon as he read the description of [sure shot]. The other skills were great but you still had to hit the target first. With the bats he was quite confident that if he could get an arrow through a wing they would fall to the cave floor and he could then use another weapon to finish them off. Choice made he used 140 exp to level his Archer class to level 4 to bring it in line with his other secondary classes. As well as improving the skill so that it would now last two hours per activation the sudden levelling had a marked effect on his aptitude with the bow. He spread the three new stat points into vitality; recovery and perseverence before selecting another boar to hone his skills.

His archery was just better in all ways than it had been before. Adding [sure shot] on top of this improvement meant he could now finish a level 3 boar with a single arrow. Given he only had eight arrows and had used the last of his skill points on activating [sure shot] he knew he couldn’t complete the quest today. Not ready to head back to camp; he checked the time before heading to the Forest, coast area to at least put the theory of his plan to the test.

If it wasn’t for the ability to maintain stealth indefinitely since the upgrade to level four Adam wouldn’t have attempted what he was about to do. Once his eyes were adjusted to the dark interior of the cave Adam looked up at the colony of bats to select his target. Around the edges of the main group were several bats that had roosted alone making them the obvious choice.

Having moved to get a better angle Adam drew his bow; aiming the arrow at the body of the nearby bat. He released and watched with breath held as the arrow hit its mark. The bat was silent as it fell from the ceiling of the cave; wing pinned to its body by the arrow. Adam nearly tripped as he moved across the uneven floor of the cave to reach the stunned creature. The bat which was initially stunned started to move its free wing just as Adam rammed his dagger into its throat and ended its life.

The same tactic worked for the next two bats and allowed Adam to retrieve his arrows after killing them. On the fourth bat his arrow missed his target and instead flew past the lone bat into the densely grouped colony nearby. The bat that had been hit fell to the floor like his earlier targets and was not a problem but the commotion woke the nearby bats which in turn woke those next to them. Before he knew it there were thirty bats swooping down trying to find the intruder that had woken them. Having moved away from the wall of the cave to get a better angle for his shot Adam had no cover to protect him from the bats. Rather than make a dash for the exit he took the only other option he could think of and dove to the floor.

Lying still; the only movement coming from his breathing stealth seemed to take effect and the bats were unable to locate him. It was a race between how long Adam could put up with the pungent smell of the guano and how long the bats would keep hunting for him. Fortunately after about five minutes the bats started to settle back to their roosting and before long they were all hanging from the ceiling once more. The bat he had hit with his last arrow had somehow dislodged the bolt and Adam had no intention of trying to find either the bat or the arrow. He crept slowly from the cave watching the ceiling for any movements.

Notification: You defeated Bat - level 5. You gain 50 exp You defeated 2 x Bat - level 4. You gain 60 exp

He also had 17% quest completion. A timer on his watch indicated that sure shot was due to run out in the next ten minutes so he quashed the desire to head back into the cave to keep killing bats and instead headed back to camp via the stream to wash off the filth he was covered in.

Adam kept felt like he was forgetting things. He had checked in with Sharky; much to the delight of the friendly shark. Also much to the delight of Adam as during the past day and a half he had gained a whopping 1560exp generating 312 exp for Adam. Added to the 140 exp from killing bats and the 204 he had left over after levelling Archer Class he had enough to level two of his skills. He chose Transfer and Inspect since they were the skills he used most often. He was disappointed that at level 6 Transfer did not grant any additional benefits and remembered since this was the same for Elemental manipulation no extra benefit did not necessarily mean the skill had not improved.

He had been thinking about the unlock of archer class on his jog back to camp. Like the bowyer profession he had intentionally taken an action to provoke the system to create the development. It also seemed the vermite could do general tasks without a profession. Considering the information he got through the link with Pa when he checked about the well having a profession allowed him to guide others to complete tasks more efficiently. Also those that took a class could develop and gain experience but this didn't work quite the same way for professions.

With the knowledge he had so far he started to make a plan of things he would intentionally try himself with the aim of making the settlement more robust and self-sustaining. A spear type class came first to mind, it would be easy to create and use a spear which might give a more offensive fighting style. Tailor had armouring the vermite covered and bowyer would provide weapons for any archers but there was no profession to make weapons for the staff wielders and, hopefully, future spear wielders. A weaponsmith of some kind might be easy enough to trigger. Then he would want to smelt the ores and work metal; would a blacksmith cover both or was this two professions. They needed stone for more sturdy buildings which might need a quarryman or a stone mason again maybe both.

Before long Adam had a list as long as his arm. He wondered what Ma would say as he tried to convey all that he had planned for the vermite. Rather than dwell on the disapproving look he anticipated Adam decided there was enough time to have an attempt at manipulating air mana before he had to worry about it.