Chereads / Chronicles of Tarak / Chapter 25 - Skill

Chapter 25 - Skill

Over the past few days not only had the village walls been completed and the soldiers properly trained so that they could now handle patrolling the outskirts of town without Diedrich, but the village had also begun the construction of other buildings such as bathrooms and bigger storage facilities.

One of the bathrooms had been completed already, and it was a massive help as people no longer had to dig holes in the ground and sh*t while accompanied by a soldier in case of an attack. The only real problem now was producing toilet paper.

Diedrich also wanted to start training the rank 0 men in his village as soldiers, however with the limited number of only 33 villagers he thought it a better idea to start making animal pens for livestock.

Yesterday while training the soldiers, Diedrich came across a pack of boars with 5 piglets, after the pack had been slaughtered they decided to bring the piglets back.

Currently, they were kept in a small cage Diedrich made out of wood, but Diedrich wanted to make it an actual farm so he could start to raise more while also potentially breeding them.

Diedrich had put a slightly chubby 40-year-old woman in charge of the piglets as she said she was the wife of a farmer who reared cattle and frequently helped around the farm.

Diedrich had sent three more villagers to help her as they would be in charge of taking care of the animals while the entire village helped with making the pen.

After some thinking, they decided it would be a better idea to build the pen outside of the village as no one wanted to smell the stink of the pigs.

There was one problem though and that was that the pigs would eventually mature and become too strong for them to handle, so Diedrich decided that he would collect a few soul cores and give them to the hog farmers, much to the envy of the other villagers as they decided to gloat about it.

During this time a new problem also occurred to Diedrich, currency, although not needed at the moment as Diedrich was the one to provide them safety and food, however eventually people would want something in return for their work and as more people kept coming in, he couldn't feed everyone, but with nothing available at the moment, Diedrich was stumped.

Forgetting about that for this moment Diedrich prepared himself as he went off into the jungle to explore again, he planned to go further than the pond where he defeated the toxic swamp snake, this time however he wasn't planning on fighting anything too dangerous, and went mostly for reconnaissance.

Although a bit frightened at the taught of running into another creature like the snake, however, Diedrich felt more confident after he had absorbed the vermilion poison cloud skill.

Although a massive EP drain the skill was very menacing.

Being ready Diedrich left with the treant.

Having passed the toxic swamp snake's territory Diedrich was now passing unknown lands making his heart pounded with excitement and a hint of trepidation.

As he continued the sunlight struggled to pierce through the thick foliage, casting eerie shadows that danced around him. Every step he took was accompanied by the symphony of rustling leaves and mysterious distant calls of unseen creatures.

Passing a mountain valley Diedrich suddenly encountered a pack of strangely large birds. there were 5 of them, they looked similar to emus except for their black satin-like feathers, vivid blue-colored neck, and long drooping red wattles.

The bird was also as tall as Diedrich standing at 185 centimeters and had a piercing and ferocious gaze.

Seeing Diedrich they immediately attacked.

Unlike Diedrich's expectations of this turning into a tough fight, the birds were quickly killed.

Called a Veracious Cassowaries and being rank 0, the only thing they had to back up their name was their numbers and strangely powerful kicks which were their only weapon, as they abstained from using their wings or beaks during the fight, the strange birds still piqued Diedrich's curiosity, so he decided to explore the valley, as his nerves had finally worn off.

Checking it out, Diedrich spotted something strange, Below him was a mountain valley, and within was a flat piece of land around 2,000 meters in length it was a big open field with a strange structure that resembled a black monolith in the middle, and surrounding it were about 300 Veracious Cassowaries.

One of the cassowaries closest to the monolith looked different than the others, it was about twice as large as the others with one of the feathers on its head poking upwards.

Diedrich felt a dangerous aura coming from it as if it were a higher existence, but for some reason, Diedrich didn't think it was stronger than the toxic swamp snake.

Diedrich felt that he could win one on one if he attacked it, however since it was protected by 300 others even if they were only rank 0, Diedrich wasn't going to take the chance so he decided to leave them alone for now.

Returning to the village sometime later, Diedrich came back with a cassowary carcass along with some fruits he had found along the way, one of them looked like a blue avocado, and except for that one none of them had special effects, with the avocado stating it would give clearer skin, making it a popular product for woman Diedrich reasoned.

Storing the fruits for now and giving the cassowary to Marta to cook, the only other things Diedrich achieved was his treant becoming level 11 and finding out that except for the cassowary, there was no considerable threat in the surrounding area, making Diedrich feel less anxious for letting regular people explore the surroundings.

Sharing this information with the villagers, there was a visible sign of relief shown on their faces. Diedrich also told the soldiers about the cassowary pack he had seen and told them to prepare because, in a few days, they would attack it along with some rank 0 soldiers.

At first, the soldiers were a bit reluctant, as this would be their first big battle, however after they tasted the juicy cassowary meat, they quickly changed their mind as they began to salivate, thinking of eating this every day.

Sitting outside and eating a delicious meal, Diedrich was interrupted by Ilsa "Chief, I did It!"

Having run towards Diedrich she seemed to be out of breath and sweating while gasping for air.

"What exactly did you do?", Diedrich questioned

"I, I made a skill!"

Hearing the news Diedrich's eyes widened in shock.

"What skill did you get?" Diedrich asked excitedly.

"I think it is better if I show you, come with me"

Ilsa led Diedrich to the tailor shop once inside she grabbed two leather breastplates made of the toxic swamp snake hide.

"So ever since I came into this world, I have felt as if there was some sort of energy inside of me that was foreign and familiar at the same time"

" EP" Diedrich said, knowing what she was talking about.

"Yes I thought so too, I tried to control it but only had limited success, however over the past few day's as I tried I became able to control it more and more, and now it instinctively moves throughout my body to where I want".

"Once I had this level of control I tried to control it outside of my body but it simply disappeared and I lost all connection to it".

Diedrich thinking about it understood what she meant as every time he used a skill he could feel energy move through his body, however unlike her he couldn't control it as he pleased as it followed a sort of predetermined path, although now that he thought about it he had never tried to use the energy other than through his skills, before Diedrich could ponder further Ilsa continued speaking.

"That was until today, while I was making armor out of the snakeskin while working I tried to circulate the energy throughout my body just to experiment with it and once the energy reached my hand that was holding the wooden needle, the energy suddenly also circulated throughout it. Hoping it wasn't a fluke I purely tried to circulate the energy throughout the needle and it worked"

"As I experimented with it while making the armor I eventually found out I had gotten a skill and when I looked at the leather breastplate I had made, it had gotten an effect, unlike the one I made yesterday."

Seeing the two breastplates in front of him Diedrich checked out their descriptions.

______________

Item: Leather Breastplate

Grade: Uncommon

Description: Made from the leather of the toxic swamp snake. Grants great defense and mild poison resistance

______________

This was the best armor Diedrich had seen till now, with it even granting mild poison resistance, when Diedrich looked at the next breastplate he spotted the difference.

______________

Item: Leather Breastplate

Grade: Uncommon (+)

Description: Made from the leather of the toxic swamp snake. Grants great defense and mild poison resistance

Additional Affect: Reduces blunt and piercing damage by 5%

______________

The armor had gotten an additional effect, although the reduction to blunt and piercing damage wasn't huge Diedrich could see the potential in it, and if her skills continued to develop it become a game-changer.

"So what's the name of the skill?"

"Limited object enhancement" Ilsa replied

Diedrich didn't need to actually ask Ilsa for the name as he could see her status however he thought it was the nice thing to do and he didn't want to check everyone's statuses constantly.

He also asked what the rank and description of the skill was, to which she surprisingly responded that it was a rank 1 skill, meaning other rank ones could also learn the skill. The skill also didn't directly affect the breastplate but affected the needle which gave the effect of increasing the blunt and pierce defenses of an object that was made with it.

Hearing the description Diedrich became genuinely happy and told her that she was now the official head of all armor and fabric production, he also told her that if she needed any material she could ask Mark the skinner and he assigned two more people who could help her with production, additionally after hearing that the skill rapidly drained EP he said that she would get 5 rank 1 soul cores per week for her, which would hopefully increase her level and EP.

Although it was a bit unfair to the other villagers that Ilsa was the only one to sort of get paid, it was eventually for their benefit as they would be wearing the armor and as it was only a small hassle to get 5 rank 1 soul cores for Diedrich, he thought it was fine.

After Congratulating her and telling her to keep up the good work Diedrich exited the tailor shop and as it was getting late went to his room.

Instead of sleeping Diedrich tried to do what Ilsa had told him to move the EP in his body, like Ilsa in the beginning he had little success, however after 10 minutes he could control the energy freely throughout his body although he felt exhausted.

"It took Ilsa two days to figure it out but I did it in 10 minutes, is it because I am a rank 4 or because I was already used to EP moving through my body?"

Unsure what the reason was Diedrich tried to move the energy through a knife he had created, once the energy was in his hand and was about to move into the knife Diedrich could feel the energy reject going into the knife, thinking needed more force Diedrich increased the amount of Energy going into the knife.

After 30 minutes of struggle, Diedrich had used up almost all of his EP and was laying full of sweat on his bed, in the end, Diedrich with great difficulty had been able to make the energy circulate through the entire knife once, after that, he began to feel light headed and decided to quit.

"Why is it so difficult? " Diedrich didn't understand, Ilsa said that moving the energy throughout your body was the difficult part but that circulating it through a small object was easy, making it feel as if it was an extension of your body.

Diedrich did not feel like that at all instead it felt like the knife was fiercely rejected.

Having regained some of his EP Diedrich decided to try something else and tried to do what Ilsa wasn't able to do, move the energy outside of his body.

Unlike what he expected after the EP left his body he still had control over it, although he couldn't see it he could sense it and could move it freely, however the further away it went from him the less control he had over it, and once it left a two-meter radius it simply disappeared.

"So that's the reason", through finding out that he could control EP outside of his body Diedrich discovered why he felt rejected by the knife and that was because he and Ilsa had different professions.

As an elementalist Diedrich could control the elements so naturally also outside of his body, and since artisans normally made inanimate materials such as tailors, blacksmiths, and sculptors they probably had greater control over objects, Diedrich didn't know how Warriors could control EP but tomorrow Diedrich would tell the soldiers the method to moving EP inside the body and hoped that they would soon develop some sort of skills.

Satisfied with his discovery Diedrich closed his eyes as exhaustion overcame him.