Walking into the Dancing Goblin Inn, Mark immediately saw Donny sitting by the bar talking with Joe tapping his fingers impatiently. Walking over he sat down next to the boy. At this point the inn was almost empty with only a few late drunks stooping over their half-finished pints. More sleeping than drinking really. He guessed Joe would throw them out soon.
Seeing the young man walk over Joe filled a mug for him and walked to the other clients to slowly get them moving back home. It seemed that he was actually just waiting for Mark to come. He also gave him and Donny some space to talk in private.
"You came back, finally! I have been waiting here for hours already. What do we do now?"
"We? Are you intending to follow me around now?" Mark asked surprised. He didn't know the boy that well. And though he did think briefly of training him to take care of the bandits, now after seeing their base he though it could be too much to ask of the boy. They would be much tougher to take out than he initially thought.
"Well, I don't really have anywhere to go. I don't know what to do, I was never outside our home that much, only when I was hunting or we needed some shopping done in Pharia."
Mark guessed that was the burden of a savior, you help someone out and it is expected that you would continue to do so. He thought of it for a while. If he wanted to go to the Capital he would need power that's for sure. A very good way of gaining it would be through self-improvement. Gaining levels stats and skills, as of right now he was already much more powerful in terms of rough strength and speed than he was at his peak on Earth.
But power could also be gained through other means. Like his Young Miss, she was no powerful assassin, or an unmatched warrior, but she was powerful in another meaning. She had hundreds of loyal subordinates willing to die for her whenever needed. That was a form of power.
He guessed that there were other incredibly powerful beings on his current planet, taking under consideration how fast he has improved there was no way the natives of this world didn't strive for power also. That meant individual power wasn't something he could attain enough to grant him ultimate safety.
So he had to gather other kinds, knowledge, subordinates, wisdom, magical artifacts, wealth. All of those required him to have people under him. Train warriors, for security, get administrators to run businesses, all in all set up a powerful enough organization so that nobody would even consider attacking him.
Everything had to start somewhere, and taking under consideration that the boy before him already nothing to lose, was saved by him, and was young enough to still be malleable enough to train him into someone capable yet, he could just as well start now. The boy was starting to grow uncomfortable under Mark's silent judging gaze.
"Very well boy, you can follow me, but… You always follow my commands no matter what I require of you, you always stay near me and don't talk when we are meeting other people unless I say so, if you have any insight, you share them only after I finished talking with the people. Understood?"
"Yes, I will follow your orders."
"Good, in that case I will trin you from now on, if you can't follow I will leave you in Pharia, you can become an adventurer or something I don't care. Tomorrow I will see what you can do and we will go from there. You will also have to show me your wrist page."
"You mean the Heavens Mark?"
"Yes your heavens Mark" Mark said looking nonplussed outwardly, while internally committing the name to his memory. Donny was still a kid so he wouldn't notice the strangeness of the question, but he would have to be more careful with his question around older people. They could become suspicious at his apparent lacks of common knowledge.
Donny slowly, hesitantly rolled up his sleeve, he was thought since he was a baby to not share his mark with other people, it was a secret to only the wielder of the mark, but he was in debt of the young man before him, and he intended to follow after him from now on. Also, he just hear the rules and didn't want to instantly break them and have Mark leave him alone in Pharia, he would follow orders.
On his wrist Mark saw a table similar to what was on his.
Name: Donny Clearspring
Class: None
Level: 7
Experience: 87/640
MP: 18/18
SP: 30/30
Strength: 11
Agility: 15
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 9
Skill:
Novice Bow Mastery
Better handling of weapon: Bow
LVL 6 EXP 13/320
Precise Shot
Slight correction of fired arrow.
LVL 5 EXP 31/160
Forest Stride
The art of moving efficiently through a Forest.
LVL 5 EXP 97/160
Sprint
Run much faster.
LVL 4 EXP 53/80
Animal Handling
Learned how to handle animals.
LVL 6 EXP 143/320
He could see a couple new to him skills, it was strange he was walking through a forest since he got here and he still hasn't received the Forest Stride skill, was there something more to gaining them? Maybe there was a method to gaining skills that the natives knew about but he didn't. If so it would be difficult to ask about, but maybe he could construe a question in a way that wouldn't seem as suspicious.
The other one seemed interesting, he guesses that knowing how to handle animals would be essential for a livestock farmer. And taking under consideration the weird sense of friendship between Donny and the big wolf, he seemed to have a talent for it.
Taking in the boys stats he could see that the boy has trained a little, but not nearly enough for Marks standards, he would have to run Donny through some exercise routines and get him up to a more respectable number.
He would also try training the boy in stealth, he would leave the daggers for later. He didn't have much time at the moment, so he would see how good the boy was with his bow and maybe get him the double tap.
Mark was also interested what his stats looked like at the moment, but he would have to wait for morning to do that. Now that he though about this system, it seemed very inconvenient, he wondered why it was happening this way and didn't change instantly, letting people keep up to date with their Marks.
He probably wouldn't know any time soon. Leaving this thought in the back drawer of unanswered questions in the corner of his mind. Turning his attention back to the boy, he let him cover his wrist and turned to Joe. "Hey Joe do you have another room?"
"Yea, there should be, you wanna rent another one?"
"Yes, the boy had enough for today he should go rest a little."
With that he took a key Joe passed him and handed it to the boy. "Go sleep now, I will wake you up early morning we got to start building you a new daily routine." The boy grabbed the key looked at the number, and without delaying went up the stairs in the back.
"He a good kid. Been talkin with him, when he came. A tragedy for one still so young. I heard you takin care of the fucktards? I hope you do them good, let them feel the pain they deserve."
"Will try my best for sure, you got that guaranteed"
"Good"
Paying the barkeep the tab for himself and Donny, Mark too retired to his room. Tomorrow would be a very busy day.