August set off across the camp, aiming for the almost finished [Draft Furnace]. Haiko had taken the Sadapples into the hut to share with the others, and judging by the voices he could now here, they were awake.

[Etch] was something of a technological jump as far as dealing with previously unworkable materials went. The twenty-eight leftover teeth and the other dozens of bones from the Otrogon skeleton they’d scavenged had the potential to become any number of things now—so long as the shape was something he could carve out.

The skull of the creature had already proven strong enough to deflect an Efkini’s attack if it hit it head-on. He could potentially carve the massive thing into a shield, something which would give them at least one tool to protect them from the too-fast creatures. August doubted he’d even be able to pick it up, but the Voithos wouldn’t have that, probably. He’d have to work out some way for it to be carried, though—twine would probably work in the short term, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t last under the strain of the weight.

He did a check over of the [Draft Furnace], making sure none of the interior walls were crumbling, before moving on to the top again. He added another two layers, bringing the entire thing about as tall as his forehead, and then it had become too much of a struggle to go any higher. He set about carefully removing the coals, placing them into his inventory with the others he’d been taking from each burndown. Once it was cleared out, he remade the fire and then set about lighting it up.

“Good morning, August,” Rittan said, coming to stand with him. “You’re already hard at work—I’ll have to start waking up earlier, it would seem.”

“Nah, work on your own schedule,” August said, pushing back up to his feet. “That’s what I’m doing anyway—I just happened to wake up before you guys.”

Mostly true, even if his own schedule was informed by fear of what might happen if he stopped pushing forwards and gave himself too much time to think about everything he’d lost.

“Perhaps,” Rittan admitted, “August? Haiko has just spoken with us about the problem you’ve been dealing with.”

August winced a bit at how quickly he’d set out to talk about it.

“Yeah, sorry,” August sighed, “I probably should have mentioned the details earlier, but I guess I was kind of worried about the reaction.”

Rittan crossed into his range before reaching out and clapping a hand on his shoulder. That alone told him that he hadn’t irreparably damaged the guy’s trust in him, not if he was willing to subject himself to the ability after knowing what it did.

“Haiko said as much, but rest assured, I’m not at all upset with you,” Rittan said, smiling. “Besides, you already made it clear that you weren’t aware of how it would function before you selected it—we cannot divine all things that lay ahead of us; that much has always been true.”

“I guess so,” August said, more than a bit relieved. “Thanks, man.”

“Not at all, my friend,” Rittan said, patting his shoulder one more time before retrieving his hand. “How much taller do you intend to make this? Any further, and you might need to invent a ladder first.”

“Yeah, I think this is about as tall as I need,” August said with a short laugh, “Once the top has finished drying out, it’s more or less ready to use—although we might not even need it any more, at least not right now.”

“Oh?” Rittan said, turning to look at it for a moment, curious. “Why is that?”

“Well—this morning, when I first woke up, I unlocked a bunch of new stuff out of nowhere,” August admitted, rubbing his neck for a moment. “One of those things was a new role, another was a whole new job system.”

“Job system?” Rittan said, interested.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like a title that you select. It comes with a bunch of benefits and five blueprints depending on which job you choose.” August said, attempting to summarise it. “There were six jobs listed, Gatherer, Builder, Tailor, Cook, Courtesan, Guard. I took the Builder Job and got five blueprints related to that.”

August took a moment to pull up the menu so he could see the information while he was speaking.

“The system is faction-based, so anyone that joins can select a Job and get the benefits,” August said, “There’s a seven-day cooldown between job changes, though, which I didn’t realise until I’d already chosen—so you’re not locked into anything for too long.”

“So I would be able to select one as well? How interesting,” Rittan said, nodding. “What were the benefits associated with each job?”

August read them off the panel and then listed off the five blueprints he’d received from taking the Builder Job to give him an idea of what they’d probably have in return.

“Rittan?” August said. “It’s up to you whether or not you want to try it out, and it’s not like you’re signing yourself up to only doing whatever you choose—I’d just treat it like a title.”

“Thank you, August,” Rittan said, tapping a finger on his chin. “I think I will try it out then—how about Rittan the Cook?”

“Sounds fine to me,” August said, amused. “I’ll go ahead and assign it to you.”

August ran through the options until he’d organised it correctly and then double-checked to make sure.

Rittan

Job

Cook

He nodded and then hit the accept prompt before glancing back up to Rittan.

“Well, I can’t say I’m feeling particularly more adept at handling knives,” Rittan said, reading something that August couldn’t see. “Although that might be because we’re still using shards of rock to cut things up.”

“True,” August agreed, “How’s your sense of smell?”

“I believe it’s telling me that I’m in dire need of a bath,” Rittan admitted, “The blueprints are certainly an interesting assortment—[Drying Rack], [Basic Oven], [Mortar and Pestle], [Wooden Bowl], [Wooden Mug].”

After hearing them, August was relatively sure he could make most of those already while working off the blueprints he already had knowledge of. But it was interesting to see what the system considered basics for each job.

“Nothing groundbreaking, but it all helps,” August nodded, “I kind of got sidetracked before, but you asked me why the [Draft Furnace] wasn’t immediately useful anymore—that was because of the role I unlocked, [Runecrafter].”