The entry to the room felt imbalanced at first. It was completely dark, and he had the sensation of falling before his first step landed.
He looked around and saw nothing, giving off a sense of unease and a slight fear of the unknown. Fortunately, a moment later, a screen appeared in front of him.
[Choose your Weapon]
A list of weapons appeared in front of him, and it included a huge variety of them—many weapons he hadn’t even heard of before. What even is a Goedendag or a Macuahuitl ?
He looked and pondered, decidedly avoiding the dreaded Analysis Paralysis, and decided to choose the most practical choice.
[You have chosen the halberd.]
[Warning: Experience and Pain is 100% relatistic, but non-lethal. Staff members will be ejected if they lose consciousness. Please note the damage to stamina and the succeeding debuff will remain.]
[Assessing Current Skills]
[Skills, runes, and other external items are not allowed.]
Soon, a shadow appeared in front of him, one using a halberd as well. Oddly, even in the dark room, he could make out the figure, though it wasn’t entirely clear either.
That said, because his weapon was now a growth-type weapon that could change according to will, he had a feeling he could change it to other things soon.
[Start]
The next moment, the shadow appeared right in front of him, stabbing without hesitation, and Finn screamed, feeling the sharp pain in his shoulder.
He was stabbed!
He jumped back, barely avoiding or blocking the attacks, all while enduring the pain in his arm. "What the f—"
He read that it was ’realistic’, but he didn’t really absorb what that meant until now!
Then he noticed that there was no blood at all; it was all in his head. However, even so, it still hurt as if he was still bleeding to death.
Finn gritted his teeth and pushed back with a yell, swinging the weapon wildly at first, until he noticed the shadow’s cleaner techniques.
It used fewer movements, and yet each one felt more impactful somehow.
In his distraction, Finn was stabbed again, this time on the stomach.
He gasped, but he let his body respond, using the pole to push the shadow back. Enduring the pain with a bit of tears in his eyes, he swung relentlessly, remembering all the battles he had been through so far.
The more attacks they exchanged, the more it became clear: The shadow was training him, and it was good .
Despite the pain, Finn knew this was a good thing! (Though he was still cursing a lot for sure due to the pain.)
Skills could only do so much after all, especially considering they had cooldowns and required mana. What if one ran out of mana? What if all skills were on cooldown? Being dependent on skills was not the way to go.
Building one’s foundation was still the priority. As much as he was fighting on his own, and even with the help of [Blade Mastery] passive, which was a miracle on its own, it was a fact that there was a ceiling if he couldn’t handle his own weapon well.
He was upgrading to the toughened level soon, and his current skills wouldn’t be enough to fight safely against a mob of similar-level monsters.
This was his goal, after all. He didn’t just want to be able to deal with a similar-level monster. He wanted to be able to handle a mob of them and come out unscathed.
He was in the middle of the danger zone—and the chances of encountering one monster were far rarer than encountering a large mob.
At this, his mind wandered to his teenage years when Grandma Han was still teaching him more about cooking. She was forcing him to do the banal tasks like cutting vegetables, unskinning, taking out the pods from beans, and so on.
The young him got impatient. However, Grandma did not mind him. Rather, she just showed him how to create the dishes, and she forced him to do it, and because he was very slow, he couldn’t even finish it in a fraction of the time.
Since then, he understood the importance of foundation, and it was time he solidified his.
...
He got out drenched in sweat. He was stabbed multiple times by the shadow, but there was no blood. When he looked at his stats, however, his stamina had drained a quarter.
Anyway, they continued to look around the inn after that.
The second floor had the remaining rooms, and there was an extra lounge next to the stairs, too, so people could hang out without worrying about the noise on the ground floor.
There were also two common bathrooms on separate sections of the floor, not including the ones in the [Luxury Bedrooms] and [Improved Bedrooms], which had their own bathrooms.
He had already maximized the capacity of the rooms he could build.
When he tried to add more rooms, it was no longer an option. However, calculating, it generally should not fit in the building footprint, confirming that even the second floor also used space folding technology.
Which was very cool.
"Couldn’t you do that for my space? It’s so small..." he mumbled, making Pang—who was nesting on his shoulder—tut at him.
"Space folding requires an anchor point, fool!" he said. "So the mobile spaces can’t upgrade with it. What you have with the system is a type of rune, except it is bound to the soul, rather than the rune stone."
"...I see..." he mumbled, shrugging. He just checked on each room, decorating each one with the basics as well as some add-ons for the sake of adding ambience and comfort stats.
[+1 Ambience stat]
[+1 Comfort Stat]
And so on. While he was doing so, a white gingerbread—er, cleaning sprite—passed over, cleaning the ceiling... by using its own body.
He watched as it jumped to the floor, its fingerless hands transforming to rag shape, and then it started wiping.
Finn smiled before he decided to check his inn stats now that he had maximized the rooms in the inn itself.
[INNKEEPER DASHBOARD]
Inn Name: The Wanderer’s Refuge
Inn Level: 2
Inn Status: 81 Cleanliness, 78 Ambience, 79 Comfort
Reputation: 401
Current Guests: 0
Number of Staff: 5
Rooms: Basic Bedroom x 20, Improved Bedroom x 10, Luxury bedroom x3, Toilet x 4, Kitchen x 1, Living Room x 1, Dining Room x 1, Front Desk x 1, Barrier x1, Utility Room x 1,Graden x 10, Cellar x 1, Inn Shop x 1
Barrier Type: Basic
Barrier Health: 9762/10000
Active Functions: [Poison Blocker] [Basic Rule Maker] [Anti-Magic Limitation] [Auto Swipe] [Comfortable Blessing] [Soothing Aura] [Increased Absorption]
With the addition of the luxury bedroom, he could finally buy the [Rested Soul Bonus] function!
[Rested Soul Bonus]
[Information: Guests who complete a 6-hour rest in Improved Bedroom and above will receive +10% bonus regeneration for all vital stats, valid for 15 hours of waking. Functional even beyond the scope of the Inn.
Purchase Requirement: Luxury Bedroom, Comfortable Guest Feature, Garden
Activation Requirements: 60 Points for Cleanliness, 60 Points for Ambiance, and 60 Points for Comfort
Cost: 5000 Hearth Points]
[Purchased! Rested Soul Bonus. -5000 Hearth Points]
With this, anyone who stayed in the inn would receive decent buffs for the rest of the working day, increasing their productivity even more!