Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Welcome back to Insania, now with 400% more skinning! AND WE HAVE REACHED 48 FOLLOWERS! THE CULT OF CYGNAS IS SPREADING! ALL HAIL CYGNAS!

ANYWAY, a fun note about the extra chapter. The whole mad laugh I wrote there is actually based on people reactions about my laughs. My mother told me I laugh like a witch, my father says that I sound like a mad man. My friends says something between psycho to serial killer…

ALSO. There have been a couple of people asking for me to put a green eyes related title for Wargon. This actually started with a single time joke in chapter 4, but ended up becoming a recurring joke. I actually like that idea, so I will see if I will try to come with something. I don’t mind a small help here.

ALSO(2), someone recommended me to use a few from overlord. I like that idea, but I would end up restricting them to the more humanoid ones. And probably would put skeleton together with undead, and there would a slider to define the “Fleshiness” of the character.

ALSO(3), I will, later on, need a few characters for the eventual extra chapters… Maybe I could use a few cameos… Hmmm… Decisions.

Have a good read!

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“Now, brat, hold the knife and look at the bodies. What do you see?”

When Wallace said that, I blinked in surprised, then turned back to the two dog bodies on the table. For a brief moment, there was absolutely nothing different about them compared ten seconds ago, so I began to doubt Wallace’s question, but after a second passed, something appeared on the bodies.

Floating a few millimeters above their bodies, was a thin but dense blue mist, forming what appeared to be lines around them.

“Can you see them, boy?” I look back at Wallace, who was eyeing the dogs. He did not wait for my response. “Of course you can, now pick one of the dogs and stab the skinning knife in one of the lines.”

I did as he told me, and the line seemed to shine a bright light wherever the knife’s blade touched. After that he told me to follow these lines with the knife, until all of them were shining white. I slowly did the work, trying to be careful not slip the knife out of the mist, but two times my hand shook and the blade ended out of the mist. This created a red mist that lingered tauntingly there, even after I finished.

It took me thirty seconds to finish the task, and after that the dog’s body shone a blue light for a moment, earning a light blue tint on its fur.

“Meh… Could be worse.” He said unimpressed. “Now, reclaim this dog like normal.”

As soon as I did that, the dog’s body disappeared in a pillar of light and atop of the table, on it’s place, there were now three items. A pouch with twelve copper coins, a small chipped tooth, and lastly:

Basic leather. X2 (poor)Piece of leather acquired after skinning low level animals.

(crafting material)

Both of them being squares with around 15 cm.

So this is how skinning works in the game, it kind of gives me a mini-game feeling to it. However, taking a better look at this piece in my hand, there were two things bothering me. Firstly, the lines looked a bit too random for me, not appearing to have anything to do with shape of the dog. Secondly…

“That, boy, is the basic of skinning. Most people use this one out there. You pass the test, and the goddess give you an additional reward.” He pulled the other dog in my direction, then sat on a bench besides me. “Now, do you see the test on this one too?” I nodded. “Put your hand above them and swing it away.” As soon as I did that, the smoke vanished instantly. I became a bit doubtful, but Wallace kept going. “Okay, now I’m going to teach you a not very well known secret about skinning.”

“Secret? Is it a sub-skill?” I asked excited, but he hit me on my head.

-5(135/140)

“Not everything in this world is about skills and subskills you dumb brat!” He complained. “Now, put your knife here and press it until you pierce the skin. But only the skin, you hear me?”

He pointed towards a place a little below the neck. I put the point of the blade there and slowly started to put pressure on the blade. It took me a little more than ten seconds to reach the needed strength, but Wallace didn’t seem bothered by the wait.

I could go on and on about the steps here, but I want to try and keep this story out of the mature section, so let me give you a brief overview.

This time, it was true skinning. Just like the one you would do on real life. So it involved in piercing the pelt and slicing it away so it would free itself from the muscles. Once again, I thanked the designer for there to be no blood on this game.

This process was extremely taxing, because I couldn’t put too much strength or I could pierce the hide, nor too little or I wouldn’t be able to cut it. I also needed to twist and turn the knife in a bunch of different angles so I could cut the right place, but still being careful not to damage the hide.

Also, despite having Grumpiness: Advanced [lvl 10], Wallace is an incredible teacher, giving me tips for a few more annoying parts and even guiding my hand when needed.

Meanwhile, I took my time to chat with the old man.

“So, Wallace…” I said a bit worried, but he grunted for me to continue. “I’m not sure about this, but would it be considered impolite to ask your level?”

“Nah… Some people don’t like when you ask them, but… Lift your hand a bit more for this part… Ah don’t really mind much. And it’s 253, before you ask.” My hands stopped for a brief moment while I looked surprised at him, but I didn’t dally too much on it.

“Then… Doesn’t that make you really strong?” I asked going back to my work. He nodded while patiently watching my movements. “Damn… I met someone amazing on my first day! Can I still ask you about your class?” I asked expectantly, and the old man nodded lightly.

“Mah class is called ‘Dragon General’... you can put a bit more of pressure here… It’s a variation of ‘Great General’…” He said absentminded.

God dammit! That sounds cool! And strong!

“Hmm… Isn’t this the time where you either offer to teach me or say that I’m far too weak to learn your class?” I asked after a few seconds and the old man answered with a slightly playful smile.

“Something tells me you wouldn’t accept even if Ah offered you…” Sure enough. As badass as it sounds, the general part kind of turned me down. At least for this character. It felt like I would have to go around receiving orders from nobles and the like, then I would have no time to hunt like I please.

After around fifteen minutes, I had finished skinning the dog. For a moment, I thought that the lesson had ended, but Wallace kept me on the bench and started to teach me how to take the claws and fangs from the dog.

“Any chance I could get some leatherworking training after this?” I tried asking, taking advantage of my ‘yes-spree’, buuut.

“Sorry brat, I’ll have to refused that one.” He said grumping his face back to normal. I looked at him shocked, doing my best to make the famous puppy eyes. “Stop that!” He once again hit my head.

-10 (130/140)

“Why?” I said as my head throbbed in pain.

“You see, brat… Your dream… no matter how Ah see it, it’s ridiculous… It’s too dangerous, reckless and insane. Because of that, Ah won’t teach you how to work with your leather.” That was one hell of a bucket of cold water. I turned back to my work, completely dejected. “You see, when it comes to skinning, Ah can easily say that Ah’m the best around, so Ah don’t mind teaching you, but if you want to make your armors…” He let out a long sigh. “Mah daughter at the capital outclass even me. So it’s better if you were to learn from her.”

Huh? Daughter?

“YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER OLD MAN?”

…

..

.

Hmm… this scene is familiar…

-130 -9 (1/140)

…

“What did Ah tell you, brat?”

“Sorry Wallace…” I was now back at my bench, making the final touches on the remaining of the dog. Besides me, on the wall shared with the house, was a large hole the size of my head… I don’t think I have to tell you what happened.

Anyway, back to the dog. I had finally finished taking the last fang and claw, so Wallace nodded.

“Now, reclaim him.” I did, and once again, the remaining were bathed in a white light and in its place was…

Nothing.

I blinked in surprise, thinking that I was seeing things. Or rather, not seeing things, but that wasn’t the case. Then is this one of those ridiculously rare moments where the enemy drops no loot?

Wait… Didn’t Wallace say something about not being a good technique… And if I think about the window when I killed my first dog… Then…

“Seems like you understood, brat.” Wallace said with a smirk in his face. “When you reclaim their bodies for the goddess, she gives you some things in reward. Adding to that, when you skin them by the usual method, she also rewards you with a little extra for your efforts.” He then looked at the side, where he had put the hide, claws and fangs. “But when you skin them just like I showed you, the quality of the items you get are purely dependent on your skills, so you can get some really good items… But in compensation…”

“The goddess don’t give me anything back…”

This… Might be a little bit more troublesome than what I expected.

When it comes to games like these, there are three main ways for a person to get better equipment. The first is by doing quest, just like I did for the old man, but not every quest you do rewards you with equipment, so it’s not really very good to count on this for equipping yourself. Second would be crafting, if I were to gather materials I could make my own equipment, but the gathering could take time and effort. Third if by going on the NPC’s shop and buying it, but most of the time, these can’t even compare to the ones obtained by the other methods. Fourth and most important, drop from enemies. Every time you kill an enemy, there is a chance that they will drop better equipment, this is by far the best way to get your items, since you can usually farm for bosses in dungeons and things of the like.

But the way I want to play, requires me to give up on getting drops from monster. I could go only with the basic skinning… But.

Wild dog pelt (common)Piece of leather acquired after manually skinning a wild dog, made by an amateur with the help of an professional. There are some areas with damage.

(crafting material)

Undamaged wild dog fang (common) x4A fang from a wild dog. Sharp and durable. Can easily pierce through hides.

(crafting material)

Wild dog claw (common) x6Claw from a wild dog, earned by manually skinning them.

(crafting material)

There isn’t even a comparison when it came to quality. Even the pelt, by itself, was far bigger than the two pieces I earned with the basic skinning, and it’s also related to the dog, not a generic piece, which probably meant a much better quality. And there even is a unique item to manual skinning.

If I wanted to make armors out of the beasts I defeated, the normal skinning simply wouldn’t do justice.

For a moment, I faltered, but then it hit me.

“This works just fine for me.” I told the old man.

In monster hunter, only on very rare occasions you get weapons and armors that don’t come from crafting. And even then, it’s about one or two per game. There is also a vendor that sells some pre-made weapons, but these are mostly low level and only works as a quick short cut to some weapon-trees.

Hmm… It feels like this game is only getting harder and harder each second that goes by…

Suddenly, the old man started to laugh, making me feel confused and slightly scared.

“Ah didn’t expect you to go with it, brat!” He said with a large smile in his face. I’m a bit scared… “Ah’ll be taking these ones with me as a payment, but for any other pelt, fang and claw you get, Ah’ll pay you double than what you would get by selling to the shops.” He said that slapping my back, leaving me confused.

But in the end, that was a good deal for me. After all, now that I probably won’t be getting any more money out of killing mobs, it have just become a good source of money for me.

QUEST COMPLETED:

Beyond skinningWallace, the leatherworker, is pleased with your dedication towards skinning. He have agreed to buy all your manually skinned items from the local enemies by twice the market price.Rewards:

Lesson

Wallace no longer hates you

Wallace will buy your items

After that, I was in doubt on what to do for now. It would be a good idea to get a few quests to earn myself some equipment. On the other hand, I need to train my skinning and other skills, as well as work on the roll skill.

In the end, I decided to go on a hunting spree, hunting the dogs near Wallace’s place like a mad man, then skinning them one by one.

At the start, I would lose around 40-50 hp per battle, then take around 15 minutes to skin them and earn a few poor pieces of leather, since I did not have Wallace guiding me any more.

Around every ten dogs I hunted, I would go back to Wallace’s place and sell him half of my haul. He would take his time on examining the hide and then pointing what I was doing wrong when gathering.

He would also buy each poor piece of hide for 2 silver, each fang for twenty coppers, and each claw for seven.

Remember what I said about money problems… Forget it. Even without Wallace’s bonus, I would be making a killing by selling these items. I think at least.

Around my twentieth dog, I started to get my first common quality items, take less time on the fights, loose less health and only take eight minutes to skin each dog.

By my thirtieth dog, I no longer got poor quality items and could manage to kill the dogs without even taking a hit. My skinning time also dropped to five minutes.

Sadly, I got nothing on rolling, besides now being able to land on my feet ready to stand up, even if I went from dog to dog rolling like a mad man.

Seeing as the shield was getting a bit too useless against the dogs now that I was starting to get the hang of their movements, I decided to go forward and start training with my second weapon from monster hunter, trading defense for offense.

Dual wielding.

In this game, dual wielding decreases the damage of each weapon by 30%, but since you can hit much faster, the damage is greater than sword and shielding.

But let me, correct something for you guys. Dual wielding is HARD, with capital letters. It’s ridiculously difficult to manage two swords at the same time and not cut yourself. I lost more health by misusing the dual blades than to the dogs themselves. However, I did find a neat trick concerning them.

I called it, half-active. Basically, I could activate a one-handed sword skill, that yes, is shared with sword and shield, with both of the weapons at the same time, for usual cost and cool down… Or, with some skills, I could activate it for only one of the weapons at a time, which caused both, energy requirements and cool down to fall by a half.

It was a neat trick.

I spent the entire afternoon hunting the dogs like the good mad man I am, mainly so I could train my skinning, but the more dogs I hunted, the less experience I earned. It seems that repeatedly hunting the same enemy isn’t a very lucrative idea… Luckily for me, for some reason the area around here was completely desert.

Deciding to give the dogs a break, I went back to Wallace’s place and sell my haul. On the way I checked my status screen.

NAME:

Wargon (Gondorrer Gravelheart)TITLE:

(none)Class tree:WandererClass:NoneRace:GolemGender:Neutral (male)Level:4Experience:85%

STATUS:

Remaining points (0)Health Points:200/200HP regen (out of combat):1.5/secEnergy:100/100Energy Regen:10/secSTR:12(10)TGH:12(10)AGI:10VIT:16INT:10MND:10ATTK:Phys 10-12 / 6-7Extra:(none)DEF46M. Res.:17Satiety:56/100 (neutral)

SKILLS:One-handed Sword Mastery [lvl 5]

-Slash (Active)

-Stab (Active)

-Slice ‘n dice (Active)

Dual-wielding mastery [lvl 2]

-Whirlwind (Active)

Shield Mastery [lvl 4]

-Bashing

Scale-mail Mastery [lvl 3]

Chain-mail Mastery [lvl 4]

Skinning [lvl 6]

Taunt [lvl 3]

-Focused mockery

Racials [max]

-Nature’s bastion (Active)

-Rock Eater

-Sedimentary skin (Active)

-Nature attuned

Hmm… I guess some explaining is underway for the new skills…

Let me just show you guys the skill windows. From the moment when I got them.

By continuously spamming a series of attacks in short windows of time, and for previous skills, you have earned the swordsmanship sub-skill: Slice ‘n diceSkill: Slice ‘n dice [lvl 3]

(levels increase with one-handed sword mastery)Continuously slash at your enemies in a reckless, but brutal flurry of attacks. You can not move while slice ‘n dice is active, you can not cancel the skill until all your energy is used.

DMG: 55% per sliceCost: 10 energy/second

Cool down: 90 sec.

This one I got when I started raging at some dogs…

Continuous use of your shield to harass your enemy, and for previous skills have earned you the Shield Sub-skill: BashingSkill: Bashing [lvl 4]

(levels increase with Shield mastery)Hitting the head of your enemies with your shield staggers and confuses them, cancelling whatever skill they are using.

The enemy gain immunity to bashing for 30 seconds after being bashed.Passive

Self explanatory…

By continuously using two one-handed weapons, you have learned the skill: Dual-wieldingSkill: Dual wielding [lvl 1]

3%Getting used to using two weapons at the same time reduces the penalty of dual wielding.

Penalty reduction: 1%Passive

Just let me be clear to you, dear readers, I am no Kirito at dual wielding, I suck at it. Right now I’m doing it mostly for the fun of it, and because it is also a weapon in monster hunter.

But it’s not like there isn’t an advantage to it.

By unlocking the dual-wielding skill, you have earned the dual-wielding sub-skill: WhirlwindSkill: Whirlwind [lvl 1]

(levels increase with one-handed sword mastery)Spin around hitting your all enemies around you with all your weapons.

DMG: 120% per hitCost: 25 energy

It’s kind of like the slash for dual wielding… But there is one neat detail that isn’t mentioned. I can use it even when sword-and-shielding, which meant that the skill would hit with both the blade and the shield. And this could apply the Bashing effect.

I’m in love with this skill… I always liked flashy AoE effects! AND IT CAN ALSO INTERRUPT! TREMBLE IN FEAR, PUNY CASTERS!

Lastly:

By controlling your taunts to only generate hate on one enemy at a time, and for previous skills, you have earned the Taunt sub-skill: Focused mockerySkill: Focused mockery [lvl 2]

(levels increase with taunt)A careful choice of words can help you easily control who you taunt, applying the taunt effect to one single enemy at an increased range of 30 meters.Cost: 25 energy

This one I actually manage to get by making sure to only be on range of one dog at a time before going all “Chuu-nii” on them.

All in all, it was a good hunt, but the problem was… Hunting dogs became boring. By now I could even call two or three of them without a problem, so used I was to their attacks, so when I got my money from Wallace, I asked him for a recommendation.

“Stronger animals? When the only decent equipment is that old sword?” He asked surprised, but then shrugged. “Wait for the night to fall down, then go to the forest behind the old church, there you should find some red-claw lynxes. They are level 10 to 12, but don’t have much health. Their attack is pretty strong, but not much, but their speed can be a bit annoying, so be wary. For skinning they are pretty similar to the wolves, so you shouldn’t have much problem with them.”

I thanked the old man and went on my way. There still was some time before night-fall, so I took my time to go to the village black-smith and repair my sword that had fallen to 12 durability.

After paying the man, I still had a bit more than two gold coins, so there wasn’t much of a need to worry about money.

Before going to the forest, there still was something I had to do, now that the afternoon was ending.

Walking through the village, dodging incoming players and npcs, I asked around about my destination, until I arrived before an fairly large wooden house near the middle of the town. I knocked on the door a couple of times and waited. After some time, the door opened to a dwarf woman with thick braids wearing a simple linen dress.

“Good afternoon, Giselde.” I greeted the woman with a smile. She looked surprised for a moment, before recognition appeared on her face.

“Well, if it isn’t the golem from earlier!” She said with clear surprise in her eyes. “Why are you here?”

“You said earlier that your husband could teach me mining and that he should arrive around this time.” I explained to her. “Am I disturbing you somehow by coming here?” I asked just to be sure. But she shook her head in hurry,

“No, you aren’t, I was just shocked. I wasn’t expecting you to really come today…” She said as she stepped aside giving me space to enter, I thanked her briefly before entering her house. She pointed towards a door down the corridor. “My husband is in the living room, now, if you excuse-me, I was about to start making dinner.”

I thanked her once again, then walked towards the room. In there, was a small fire-place, a small table with chairs. Sitting on a bear-rug, was a man who was carefully examining a few gems laid in front of him.

It didn’t seem that he noticed me, so I knocked the doorway a few times to gather his attention. He lifted his head surprised then looked at me.

He was a dark elf, his skin being a deep tone of blue. His hair light blue was tied in a pony-tail not unlike mine, letting free his two long ears, his face had a mature look to it, albeit his almost closed eyes gave him a lethargic feeling. He wore a simple leather shirt and pants.

“Oh, good afternoon!” He said surprised after some time, his words being slightly dragged like a tired person. “I’m really, really sorry. I hadn’t noticed you arrive!” He said slightly apologetic with a wry smile.

“No problem, I actually just arrived here.”

“Is that so? I see, I see…” He said nodding to himself. “My name is Illwen, but a humble miner. So, how can I help you, young golem?”

It’s kind of awkward. For some reason I was sure that Giselde’s husband was a dwarf, but now I’m greeted with a dark elf… Oh well.

“Greetings, Illwen, my name is Gondorrer, wanderer.” I slightly bowed my head after introducing myself, which seemed to please the elf. “I heard from Giselde that you may actually teach me mining.” His eyes opened slightly at my words, but he soon nodded.

“Sure, sure. I can teach you, but… I fear I have to charge you some silver for that, you see?” His voice had a slight apologetic tone. “I have to make sure I earn some money even if other people enter the trade, you know?”

Fair enough. I nodded, unworried, then quickly opened my inventory and took five silver coins, which I passed to him. He nodded, satisfied, with the money, then beckoned me to come closer. He gently put his hand on my head and a window popped up.

Illwen, the miner, has taught you the gathering skill: MiningSkill: Mining [lvl 1]

[0%]Allows you to find and mine nodes of ore.Passive

After that he picked up a mining pick that was leaning in a nearby wall and gave it to me.

“There you go, now you are a full fledged miner!” He said with some pride. But then looked at me again and a slight frown appeared on his face. “But, isn’t your equipment a bit too shabby? I would recommend you raising your levels a couple of times before you go mining. Just to be safe.”

“Oh, no need to worry, I am already level 4!” I said with a smile, but the elf seemed shocked.

“You got to level four with that equipment? Why didn’t you change into anything better?” He asked worried.

“Well, I actually was training manual skinning that old ma…” Suddenly I felt a strange blood lust reaching me, making me freeze on the spot. I looked back into the direction of the leatherworks and gulped loudly. How the hell did he know? “… That… Wallace taught me on a few wild dogs… So I didn’t really get much in terms of equipment… Actually, I was on my way to the red-claw lynxes…”

“You were hunting wild dogs? In that?” For some reason, Illwen got even more shocked, then he looked a bit pensive. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” He said after some time, surprising me. “There is something that has been bothering me and I would like to ask a small help of yours…”

Hmm… Is it just me, or there is this smell of quest around here?

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(dead)Author’s corner: SO…. MANY… TABLES! And no worries, the MC will still use Sword and shield.