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Chapter 20 – F Rank
September had ended and it was the beginning of October. Rodan worked from morning till night, harvesting the crops alone because Theresia was too pregnant to work.
Allen had finally turned six years old. It had been an entire six years since he reincarnated into this world. Thanks to the grimoire’s notes section, he recorded his past life as Kenichi, but more and more often he found himself forgetting if he was Allen or Kenichi.
On October 1st, he had turned six, and his stats rose. Before, they were only 50% of the value in the parentheses, but now they were 60%. Notably, his max MP went from 10 to 12. This was important, because the rate he gained skill EXP depended on how much MP he spent.
As for the F-rank summons, he had just begun investigating them, and didn’t yet fully understand them. He still didn’t know what the new summon type was.
Initially, he wanted to Create or Synthesize an F-rank summon the day after he unlocked it. However, he decided to wait until he’d finished a thorough study of the Enhance skill. It turned out to be quite useful.
The Enhance Skill
・Consumes 10 MP
・Increases 2 stats by 10
・The stats increased are the same stats from the buff
・The effect is the same for every rank of summon
・The effect stays after repeated summoning and unsummoning
・If an Enhanced card is used for Synthesize, the effect disappears
・Enhancing does not change a summon’s buff
(I see. If I can afford it, I should enhance all the cards in the holder.)
If Allen had to send out a summon, it was always better to send out an enhanced one.
It was mid-morning now. Allen was in a barrel, washing everyone’s raggedy clothes by stepping on them with his bare feet. It was pretty labor intensive, but since he could do it without thinking about it, he used the time to think about his summoner skills.
In their household, every morning, Rodan fetched water from the nearby watering hole. When he poured the water out, he poured it into a narrow irrigation canal that flowed by the side of the house. Allen drained the barrel there.
(Ohhh! The Albaheron are flying by. It must be autumn. Dad will probably start hunting soon.)
As he was hanging the clothes on the stick they used as a clothesline, Allen noticed, in his peripheral vision, the shadow of a bird. Through the laundry, he watched the effortless flight of the Albaheron.
In autumn, there were other birds flying too, like the red-crowned crane, which was only half the size of an Albaheron. Watching the migratory birds really gave Allen the sense that the seasons were changing.
(Now that my MP has recovered, let’s start investigating F-rank stuff.)
He was almost done investigating Enhance, and was ready to start with level 3 Create and Synthesize.
This is what he’s been able to determine so far:
・Create level 3 costs 10 MP
・Synthesize level 3 costs 5 MP (the same as level 1)
・Synthesizing 1 Bug F and 1 Beast F yields 1 Bird F
Once he had successfully synthesized it, the blank category would fill itself in, but he hadn’t discovered the recipe yet. He’d been working on it for days, Creating and Synthesizing over and over.
(I can only Create Bugs and Beasts, so it seems like I can only Synthesize Birds. I’ve tried Bug F + Beast F and Beast F + Bird F, so now it’s time for Bug F + Bird F.)
When he synthesized Bug F + Beast F and Beast F + Bird F, the result was the same card that was in the left slot – obviously, a failure. With that in mind, he opened the grimoire to the synthesize page, excited.
He inserted the Bug F and Bird F cards into the perfectly sized slots.
(Synthesize, Bug F and Bird F!)
When he shouted in his mind, the cover of the grimoire began to glow. It looked like the Synthesis worked. He didn’t need to look at the cover to see the result.
“Ohhhhh!! A new card!!!”
He accidentally shouted. Shutting his mouth, he picked up the new card.
(It’s…. grass?)
On the bottom right corner of the card, it said GRASS F.
(It’s a summoned creature, but it’s also a plant?)
It had a round, red body, like an apple, but with a face. Thin, branch-like limbs grew out of its body, and out of the top was a stalk with a single leaf.
(Yup. It’s grass type. For now, let’s pick a name. Now I can I have all 4 types of F-rank summons: bugs, beasts, birds, and grass.)
・Status of the leech-shaped Bug F
【TYP】 BUG
【RNK】 F
【NAM】 Chuu1
【H P】 15
【M P】 0
【ATK】 13
【DEF】 20
【AGL】 20
【INT】 13
【LCK】 11
【BLESG】 DEF 5, AGL 5
【SpSKL】 Suck
・Status of the dog-shaped Beast F
【TYP】 BEAST
【RNK】 F
【NAM】 Pochi2
【H P】 20
【M P】 0
【ATK】 20
【DEF】 10
【AGL】 15
【INT】 18
【LCK】 11
【BLESG】 HP 5, ATK 5
【SpSKL】 Bite
・Status of the pigeon-shaped Bird F
【TYP】 BIRD
【RNK】 F
【NAM】 Poppo3
【H P】 11
【M P】 0
【ATK】 13
【DEF】 12
【AGL】 20
【INT】 20
【LCK】 14
【BLESG】 AGL 5, INT 5
【SpSKL】 Transmit
・Status of the apple-shaped Grass F
【TYP】 Grass
【RNK】 F
【NAM】 Apple4
【H P】 14
【M P】 20
【ATK】 12
【DEF】 15
【AGL】 10
【INT】 13
【LCK】 20
【BLESG】 MP 5, LCK 5
【SpSKL】 Aroma
(Beast F, aka Pochi’s 『Bite』skill is my first offensive skill. I finally have my first summoner-like skill. But there’s a lot of different summons so that’s not as important right now.)
He had four new summons, and each one had a lot to investigate. But he would worry about that later. Right now, Allen was focused on the appearance of a long-awaited buff.
With trembling hands, he held the Grass F card.
(Finally! It took until F rank, but I finally got a summon that buffs my MP!)
It looked like an apple with limbs. They probably had a debate in the god’s realm about what design to go with. Interesting that they settled on this.
But it didn’t matter what it looked like. What was important was that it had a buff that increased max MP. This was the thing he most desperately needed.
Up till now, Allen had one big concern: it would take about 300,000 skill EXP to reach Summon level 4.
To reach Summon level 2, he needed 1000 skill EXP to level up Create.
To reach Summon level 3, he needed 10,000 skill EXP in Create and 11,000 skill EXP in Synthesize.
It was likely that he had to raise all summoning-related skills to increase the level of his Summon skill.
Because Create was already level 3, the moment Synthesize hit level 3, Summon also leveled.
From this, he calculated that it would take around 300,000 skill EXP to get to Summon level 4.
・A little less than 100k skill EXP in Create
・100k skill EXP in Synthesize
・111k skill EXP in Enhance
At 6 years old, his max MP was 12. If he spent all his MP 3 times a day, it would take more than 20 years to earn 300k skill EXP. Of course, his max MP would increase as he got older, but even factoring that in, it would take more than 10 years.
The Grass F card would greatly shorten that decade long endeavor.
(How many Grass cards could I have?)
He could fit up to 30 cards in the holder. He was stronger than most of the villagers. He was strong enough to do the laundry, no problem.
(For now, I’ll keep 10 Beast F’s. I need strength in case of an emergency, like when I was pinned down by that knight. I’ll have to carefully select the other cards to maximize the number of Grass F’s.)
It was important to have balance between leveling up quickly and being prepared for everyday life.
(Let’s see what Grass F can do. Summon Apple.)
The Grass F card disappeared into bubbles of light. Then, Grass F was summoned. Standing in front of him was an apple-sized summoned creature with branch-like limbs.
(Hmm, it truly is an apple. It has arms and legs, but it doesn’t really move much. Well, it is an apple after all. It’s special skill is Aroma. Let’s see what it does.)
He commanded his Grass F summon to use its skill. Then, Apple began to bury itself. It sank into the ground like it was quicksand.
(Hm? What the? It’s going… into…. the ground? It’s Grass type, but it’s actually a tree?)
The summon was completely underground. From it, a tree sprouted. It was about 3 feet tall, the size of a sapling. Allen tried sniffing it and something like essential oils tickled his nose. It was soothing.
(Eh? Is this it? It smells good, but how can I justify having 10 of these?)
He wondered if Grass F was useless except for its stat buffs.
It was now evening. Allen had finished playing knights with Kurena, and was back in the house. They were preparing dinner, and he was trying to figure out what to do about his cards.
“He’s late.”
Normally, he’d be back from the fields by now. But he wasn’t.
Another hour passed.
They had to take care of Mash, so they ate dinner first. But he still wasn’t back. Then the bell tolled 6pm. Allen played with Mash. Mash got tired and it was almost time for bed.
“I’m home.”
“Ah, you’re home late.”
“Mm.”
Rodan had returned. He was home later than usual, with a difficult face.
He had arrived home after 6pm. Theresia asked him why he was so late.
“What happened? You got back so late.”
Rodan ate a late meal, after the rest of the family had already finished. Theresia asked him what was going on. Allen was in the kid’s room, but could overhear the conversation.
“Nothing’s wrong. I was called to the mayor’s house.”
“Is that so?”
“He asked me to bring a few commoners along for the next Boar hunt.”
“Is that so?”
Theresia’s face showed that she was wondering why Rodan had such a hard expression.
“No, there’s nothing wrong. It’s not like we’ll lose any of the guys we’ve been hunting with. It’s just that the 4 or 5 people who want to join are pretty young.”
He assured Theresia that there was nothing wrong. Then the conversation continued. Naturally, the group was well organized, so Rodan had told the mayor how they practiced and how the subgroups were arranged. Rodan told Theresia such a story.
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1: Chuu – the japanese onomotopoiea for kissing/sucking, which is what leeches are known for.
2: Pochi – the stereotypical name for a dog in Japan, kinda like Fido or Spot.
3: Poppo – the sound pigeons make in Japan. Like how dogs go woof, cows go moo, and American pigeons go coo, Japanese pigeons go
4: Apple – He literally calls it Apple in English. It would be like one of us naming an apple Ringo (after the japanese word, not after the Beetle).
Thanks for reading! 🙂
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