Drake started to calm down after several minutes of rolling around laughing on the bed. Eventually sitting up and wiping away the tears with a finger.
"So you need the Monster Cores to level up is what you're saying." stated Drake. Still laughing slightly.
"Yesh! I can alsho level up witsh killing monshtersh," she said through a food filled mouth. Slowly gulping down what remained and continued. "But it's not nearly as efficient that way. It's similar to how you can use skill stones to level up your proficiency with skills."
Drake straightened up at that. "Wait, can I do that? I don't even have any skills outside my main classes yet though." He said.
"I know. I was just mentioning it. But I will also say I would not recommend it." She said, grabbing another roasted nut from the bag.
"Why? It sounds like a great way to speed up the process." Drake said.
"For one," She started, chewing a bit into the roasted nut. "Faster is not always better. You will not gain the same amount of practical experience doing it that way. It would be very similar to reading a book on something and having all the knowledge to do it. But none of the on site experience to actually perform said tasks," she said, biting into the rest of the roasted nut in her hands with vigor.
"That… That's unfortunate. It's like being almost pseudo knowledgeable on a subject and then preaching from the rooftops about what you just learned without having any real experience huh.." Drake said, slightly deflating that his shortcut to catch up was dashed away.
"Certainly! On the other side of that coin is. It is quite expensive," Natto said, pointing a new roasted nut at Drake, with a tilt of her head.
"Expensive?" He asked.
"With certainty!" She piped up. "I suppose it makes sense you do not understand because the tutorial has no currency outside TP. But even at the rate you kill monsters, and I do mean you kill a lot. You would run out of skill stones to absorb before you reached even E Rank in any skill, so what would you have to do to get more? You have to kill even more or?" she asked.
"Buy them…?" Drake answered.
"Correct!" She cheered, with an overdone clapping. "Even if you had enough money to buy them, or time to hunt them. You would make more significant and meaningful progress just training your skills in the long run. And you would never get past the wall of C Rank that way, it would just be too expensive for anyone on a new planet in the multiverse. Only rich kids from higher tier worlds, with silver spoons could do something like that, but they understand the pitfall of doing it so none do for the most part. This excludes non-combat classes though. Most of the non-combatants go through using skill stones just because it is safer and they are fine with staying E Rank," she finished.
"That is a knowledge bomb to unpack little lady.." Drake whistled.
Natto just glared through small bites of her food at Drake.
Drake ignored her and began asking a question. "So about my skills-"
But Natto raised a small hand to stop him. "Before any of that. Strip," she said
Drake recoiled. "What?! No! Why would I do that?" He shouted.
"If I tell you, you would not do it. Just strip," she repeated, an insidious grin forming on her crumb filled face.
"That's even more reason to say no! Who leads with something like that?" Drake said.
"They do it in all the animes. Right before the Main Character powers up! Do you not want to power up?" she snickered.
"Well yeah.. But what does that have to do with me getting naked?" He asked.
"Those are some nice clothes, would not dare wish for them to get dirty. Also bring out the Soul and Internal Mastery Sub-tree stones," she said, moving closer to Drake, her hands out again waiting for the clothes.
Drake stared at the small construct for a moment, trying to discern if she was messing with him. But after a short stand off he pulled the two crystalline stones from his inventory, placed them on the bed next to him and stood up beginning to remove his clothes.
"I'm leaving my trousers on though.." He grumbled.
"If that's what you're into," Natto said, with a roll of her eyes.
"I'm not- I'm not enjoying this!" He roared, his skin taking on a light red hue.
"Yes, yes. Just give me the clothes already. Innocent maiden…" she said flatly.
Drake formed a scowl on his face, before placing his folded clothes on her hands. Natto moved over to where she had left her bag of nuts, placed the bag onto the pile of folded clothes and raised it all above her head. She began to run a slight further distance away, the clothes bobbing up and down almost comically as she moved.
Eventually she moved near the end of the bed, and plopped down, continuing to eat her food. "Ok! You can start absorbing the Sub-tree stones now!" she shouted over.
Drake scrunched his face, raising a brow in confusion for a moment, then grabbed the stones at his feet. "I don't like where I think this is going.." He mumbled.
Drake looked down at the stones, and was wondering which to use first, but quickly just started left to right.
[You wish to consume, Sub-tree Stone: Internal Mastery [Common]
[Confirm?]
[Yes] [No]
Drake hesitated for a beat, then mentally accepted with trepidation.
The next moment he felt his left hand heat up for a split second, a small amount of light radiating from it. He could then feel the stone melt and enter his body like a cold saline IV, shooting up his arm and spreading throughout his body. His body began to shiver slightly from both a cold, and a euphoric feeling of power that wrapped his body.
[You have consumed, Sub-tree Stone: Internal Mastery [Common]
[You have unlocked the Primary Sub-tree Internal Mastery [F Rank]
[Passive effects have been applied]
[You have unlocked 5 new skill stone slots in Internal Mastery]
[You have unlocked 1 of 2 Primary Sub-trees]
"Oh my god. That felt so weird! But also amazing!!" he said with a laugh.
"Do the next one, naked monkey man!" hollered Natto.
Drake ignored her jab and moved onto using the next stone.
[You wish to consume, Sub-tree Stone: Soul Mastery [Uncommon]
[Confirm?]
[Yes] [No]
Drake immediately accepted this time, almost craving for the euphoric feeling again.
[You have consumed, Sub-tree Stone: Soul Mastery [Uncommon]
[You have unlocked the Primary Sub-tree Soul Mastery [F Rank]
[Passive effects have been applied]
[You have unlocked 5 new skill stone slots in Soul Mastery]
[You have unlocked 2 of 2 Primary Sub-trees]
[You have advanced to F Rank]
[You have obtained Title: First of Your Kind]
Drake again felt the cold power rush of the skill being subsumed into his body, but this time it was much more powerful. Almost bringing him down to his knees as it continued to grow in intensity inside him. The cold shivers turned to warmth as he started feeling something build up inside him that forced him to scream not in pain. But for release of the pressure. He had gone past enjoying the feeling of the energy inside him, and only sought to expel whatever was bubbling up inside him. With a loud roar Drake dropped to his knees with the sound of a pop.
An explosion of black tar and iridescent oil flooded out of him, and covered a majority of the bed around him.
"Ohhh! Tamaya!!!" Natto shouted with glee. "That was a big one huh? I wonder if he is ok. I believe he is alive, since I still exist, but…" she said hesitantly looking over at the now naked man laying in a pile of black smelly filth. " Ehh.. I am certain he will be fineeee," she said mostly unconcerned, biting into another warm roasted nut happily, her tail and ears wagging with pleasure.
An hour later Drake arose in the pile of smelly guck. Very unhappy, sticky and smelly. And if looks could kill, the small pink haired construction would have died many times over.
"Ugh... Is this what it feels like to be on the casting couch…..?" Drake said with disdain.
Drake quickly summoned as many canteens as he could, and rubbed himself down. For thirty minutes he rubbed and scraped, nearly to the point he felt he was taking off skin. And even after that he still felt like he smelled and needed more proper bathing.
The only thing that stopped Drake from continuing to scrub himself down was that he had run out of water, and the fact that Natto had started stealing glances at him while he bathed, giving him an uncomfortable feeling.
"What? Why do you keep looking over here?" Drake finally asked.
"Oh.. you know…" she said sheepishly.
Drake looked down and understood what she was saying. Not only was he now naked, his boxer shorts nowhere to be seen, but he had also lost all of his flab. His slightly protruding belly had been replaced with a rock hard 8-pack, his arms and legs were now covered in firm string like muscles, the extra softness of his face was gone. And his soft cake was now a firm pound cake. Drake finally noticed that his perspective was just slightly off as well, now that he looked around.
"Oh god damn it. Did I get shorter?!" he yelled, snatching his clothes from Natto, and putting them on.
"It is quite possible," she said. "When you go through your first rank-up you expel quite a lot of the stuff your body doesn't need, the small stuff at first, fat, broken bones, blemishes, birthmarks, and with some height, if you deem them unnecessary."
"Why would it consider my height as something I don't need? I was just barely inside the 6 foot high club. Now I'm definitely getting my membership card revoked," Drake said.
"Rank-ups change your body to the most combat efficient version of yourself based on your class or your case classes, and skills. So you subconsciously decided to make yourself more slim, and nimble, and well, shorter." Natto giggled, covering her mouth with a new roasted nut.
"I hope you get fat eating those, in-fact you are getting fat. Miss Chipmunk Cheeks," Drake said.
Natto immediately froze, and dropped her roasted nut. Looking down and embarrassingly patting down at her mid section. "I am not! I'm a construct in the first place. I can't get fat! I'm a Red Squirrel, you take that back!" she yelled.
"If you can dish it you have to be able to take it tiny." Drake said with a smile, finally fully clothed and away from the mess that was ground zero.
Drake picked Natto up, and placed her on his shoulder as he began rolling up the linens on the bed, pushing them into a roll that he moved off of the bedside.
He sat back down and placed Natto down in front of him, roasted nut bag and all.
"Ok. Now that that is over, you have some questions to answer. The first construct I met in the introduction was far less than helpful so I'm pretty much in the dark about everything." He said.
"As I have said, I only have limited access at the moment thanks to still being below F Grade, or No Grade currently. So most of my assistance will only be in the way of skills for the moment. But I am generous!" She announced, sticking up her nose slightly. "So I will allow you to ask away!"
Ignoring her haughty attitude Drake began, "Then where are we, for starters."
"The tutorial zone," she answered back flatly, earning her a flick to the forehead.
She rubbed the impact of the flick incredulously, staring back at Drake. "But it's true! The tutorial zone is a space created by the supervising race sponsor, and isn't anywhere in particular," she answered.
"Lead with that next time, you little nut-o-holic. Then what is a supervising race and why would they sponsor a tutorial?" he asked.
Natto hmphed but answered nonetheless. "Supervising races are superior or veteran races that provide for newly formed universes' tutorials. And the reason they do so is so that they can get in contact with the forerunners and prodigies of the new worlds before they're technically supposed to be able to."
"What do you mean by technically?" Drake interrupted.
"You would find this out later. But it is something you could have learned if you just asked the right questions in the introduction. Every new universe is set to have two livable planets in them, to either be synergistic or antagonistic to one another. And once obtain F Grade I can share more on that but, once the universe is established after the 120 day tutorial period, the system puts a protective veil on the universe. Barring anyone from finding the baby universe for 10 years, or until they become a C Rank Universe. Whichever comes first," Natto explained.
"Wow, that's a long time. Does reaching C Rank really take that long? And every tutorial is 120 days then?" He asked.
"Give or take, every tutorial is about that length. That is why you are incentivized to gain levels quickly to reach 10 through quests and item rewards. But everyone is released from the tutorial spaces at the same time to make it fair. If you complete yours faster you are just given better rewards, titles etcetera. And no, reaching C Grade usually takes longer, just look at your own growth, it becomes increasingly harder to grow level after level. The planet you will be on will be the same way, but the planet is going to rank up through global quests and milestones. Defeating world beasts, and super hard things like that," she said, finally feeling comfortable to grab another roasted nut out of the bag next to her.
"Interesting…" Drake said in a hushed tone, bringing his hand to his mouth to think. Then brought out another bag of roasted nuts that were piping hot still. "Now, tell me about skills."
Natto's eyes locked onto the bag of food, her eyes staring so intensely it was as if they turned to stars, as she nodded her head up and down furiously.
"Anything for the sacred food of my people," she said entranced.
"Ok, that's not weird." Drake chuckled lightly, as he was slightly off put by the response. "What's the best way to use all of these?" He finished, dropping all of his skill stones onto the bed, nearly burying them.