The next morning, Melina once again started early, before dawn. But she was excited since today, she had a good chance of improving her skills again. Especially with those three batches of pumpkin seed bread that she had, it was almost guaranteed that she'd gain a few levels.
"What are you so happy about this morning?" Gilbert grumbled when she arrived in the kitchen.
"Morning, Master. Just excited to learn," Melina said, putting on her apron, head scarf, and gloves. He gave her a suspicious look, but said nothing further, instead hobbling to the storage room to retrieve the dough.
Melina followed after him, eager to see whether it had risen properly. As he pulled out the tubs and uncovered them, he nodded.
"Good. We can use these. Go ahead and beat the air out of this dough, then make it into loaves. We'll let it rest for a bit longer after that. It should yield higher quality bread," Master Gilbert explained.
"Got it!" Melina replied dutifully and got straight to work. Beating the air out of the dough was by far the hardest part since her physical strength was still lacking. However, she could feel that she wasn't getting tired as easily anymore. The increase in her
With dough thoroughly beaten, she formed it into fifty-four similarly sized loaves. She could almost feel herself tremble at the anticipation of incoming experience points.
Calm, Melina. Don't get too excited and stay focused. I can still mess this up if I'm not careful. But if I get to level 10, then the System will present me with a new skill.
She took a deep breath and then started on other tasks while the dough was resting. After all, all the veggie peeling and cutting was still left up to her. Thankfully, at least the cutting part of the task has become much more manageable with
[Your skill
[At Rank E this skill can be used to also decrease the time required to peel vegetables and fruits as well as to reduce waste.
Uses per day: 5
Duration: 7 minutes]
Speak of the devil! I was wondering why there was no special peeling skill, but turns out cutting and peeling were combined into one. Now, peeling will be easier as well.
Melina smiled to herself and continued cutting carrots, instantly activating
With all the vegetables prepared, Melina returned back to loaves and began to put them into the oven to start cooking. Her excitement was palpable as she watched the many loaves slowly rise and take shape.
"What are you so excited about?" Master Gilbert grumbled as he caught her watching the bread in the oven.
"Oh, it's nothing. I just thought it was satisfying, watching the bread."
The old baker just shook his head and resumed his preparation for meat pie filling. She wanted to watch him make it but knew that she had to keep an eye on the bread since it'd be ready soon.
[You've made
It's Rank C now. I bet the rank improved because the dough had time to properly rise during the night. I wonder what else could I do to improve its rank even further.
Melina began pulling the cooked loaves out of the oven, dismissing a notification once she got the loaf out. It was actually a rather neat system. Notification appeared, she pulled out the loaf and then waited for the next notification to appear. She only had to be careful to take out the right loaf and not mess up the order.
As she continued doing that, she noticed that the amount of experience she received decreased. After the tenth loaf, she got 10 experience per loaf, after the twentieth, she got 5 and after the thirtieth she received only 3.
I guess if the System granted you maximum experience for each loaf made, then cooks and bakers would reach high levels way too easily.
But even despite that Melina still gained three new levels, and at Level 10 she received another exciting notification.
[You may choose to unlock a new skill. The skill you choose will directly impact the availability of advanced classes later on.]
I want to be a baker, so ideally I'd like to pick a skill that relates to baking. Let's see what the System offers.
Melina began to slowly load the batch of raisin pastries into the oven reading the System messages whenever she was free.
[Discerning Palate: Enhances overall sense of flavor, allowing to easily discern the ingredients within the dish as well as their freshness.]
This seems interesting, but I'm not sure how useful it would be to me right now. Maybe if there was a dish I wanted to recreate, then it would help me figure out the ingredients. But I'm pretty sure Master will teach me his recipes, so I'll leave this skill for some other time.
[Perfect Sear: Allows to discern when meat is cooked to perfection and also improves the quality of the meat dish.]
This I definitely do not need right now. Master doesn't even let me go anywhere near meat yet. What's next?
[Food Manufacturing: Increases the yield of dishes you can cook from ingredients without reducing the size of the dish.]
Now this is interesting. So I assume that instead of getting eighteen loaves per batch of dough, I'd get nineteen or twenty. At higher ranks, this could really make things easier for us. But… this kind of skill Master Gilbert would surely notice. He's been working with these proportions for years. An extra loaf appearing out of seemingly nowhere—he'd notice right away.
With a sigh, Melina dismissed the message, allowing the last skill to appear.
[Rhythmic Kneading: Decreases the kneading time required to prepare the dough and also improves its overall quality.]
[You already have this skill. Selecting it will allow you to increase its rank.]
So, I already unlocked the skill needed for [Baker] class. Might as well take this chance to improve its rank. I certainly won't say no to making kneading easier.
[Your skill
Now I'll invest one skill point in
[Name: Melina Dufour]
[Level: 11]
[Class: Cook]
[Intelligence: 7]
[Agility: 6]
[Strength: 8]
[Skill: 9]
[Charm: 5]
[Active Skills: 2]
[
[Passive Skills: 2]
[
Not bad. I am steadily gaining levels. With this kind of progress, it won't take me too long to get to the advanced class.
The rest of the morning passed by quickly—preparing the bread, setting up the shop, and then selling everything to eager customers. Erina also came by to get her order and warned Melina to come to the inn at 7 pm. The innkeeper seemed so energetic about the whole event, telling her that this person and that person were coming. Melina just wished for the whole ordeal to be over already.
After the bakery closed, she got straight to cleaning—making sure that the store was without a single dust bunny running around. She also swept the ashes out of the oven and thoroughly cleaned it. She even tried fixing the broken back door again, but the only thing she managed to do was break off a few more chunks of old wood.
We really need to fix that. Although, no it'd be better to replace it altogether. But how to do it if there's no carpenter in town? I suppose it has to be added to the list of things we need to buy in Pertia.
With no choice but to give up, Melina decided to wash up for the party. She warmed some water and got a thorough soak. It wasn't like Melina cared much about keeping up appearances. But for a young girl to not care about her appearance would be more suspicious. So she'd at least make herself look presentable.
After the bath, she took her time drying her hair, slowly and gently wiping away the moisture with a towel. When it was mostly dry, she put on one of the three new outfits she got from the drow tailor—a more elegant turquoise dress with a golden lining. It was by no means fancy, not compared to the standards of noblewomen, but it should be more than enough for a small event like this.
With the dress on, she then decided to style her hair, braiding two front locks of her hair and securing it together in the back while leaving the rest of her hair free. Once again, it was nothing fancy, but it at least showed that she put some effort into her appearance.
This should be enough for me to not appear like some country slob, but also not extravagant enough for people to take notice of me. Perfect middle ground.
She checked the time and saw that the clock was showing 6:37 pm. With a satisfied hum, Melina went downstairs and made her way to the inn. There was a mild bustle around the town as people enjoyed some free time in the evening after a hard day of work.
As she neared the inn, she could already hear the murmur of voices inside and suppressed a groan. It sounded like there were a lot of people there. Part of her worried that could be a System user with
Melina stopped before the inn, staring at the entrance for a moment. After taking a deep breath, she stepped inside and was instantly greeted by Erina's cheery smile.
"Here's the girl of the night! Come on in, Melina," Erina said and grabbed Melina by the hand gently dragging her inside. The entrance was pretty empty with one of the inn workers minding the front desk. The cafeteria, however, was completely different. The majority of the tables and chairs had been removed, leaving only a few with large heaps of food on them. People were bustling about, chattering happily and occasionally grabbing one of the snacks.
"Isn't that too many people?" Melina asked. It looked like the whole town was invited.
"I honestly wanted to invite more but had to concede that they would not fit within the inn. But I tried to get more people in your age group to come so you could mingle and make some friends."
Oh, yay! Just what I wanted. I rather would have dealt with rumor-mongering grannies than rumor-mongering teenagers. At least grannies are only curious while young women are bound to be hostile. Especially if I accidentally talk to a boy that is somebody's crush. I've already had enough of this kind of drama to last me a several lifetimes.
"That's great," Melina said with a polite smile.
"Now, let's get in there and meet everyone." Erina continued dragging Melina along until they were right in the middle of the cafeteria. Some people were glancing at them curiously while most were still engrossed in their own conversations.
"Attention, everyone!" Erina's voice was so loud that it instantly drew people's gaezes to her. "I'd like to introduce you all to Melina! She's the one who became Gilbert's apprentice."
"To think that old man Gilbert would actually take an apprentice."
"I didn't believe he'd actually accept anyone. He's rejected so many apprentices before."
"What's so special about her?"
Melina did her best to smile at the many guests and hide her discomfort. No matter how many times she had been at the center of attention, she never grew used to it. When she was an [Archmage], she'd occasionally just teleport away from an overwhelming situation. But there was no escape here.
"It's nice to meet everyone," she forced out.
"Now, don't swarm Melina, let's all take our time to get to know her. We all have been waiting for Gilbert to FINALLY take an apprentice, but let's be patient. If you can't talk to her today, you know where to find her," Erina instructed and some chuckles resounded from the crowd. Melina was a bit amazed at how well the innkeeper was at keeping everything in order.
"Couldn't have said it better myself. As I learned just yesterday, Melina is rather shy," a familiar male voice resounded, and Melina saw Etrian making his way through the crowd toward her.
"Etrian! Pleasure to see you here. Come! Come! I'm sure Melina will feel better seeing a familiar face," Erina said cheerfully.
"I couldn't miss the introduction party of Gilbert's apprentice. My old friend wouldn't forgive me," the drow chuckled. Melina still felt odd that nobody was bothered by the drow's presence. This would definitely take some time to get used to.
"Of course. And what a lovely dress you provided for Melina. It really suits you," Erina praised.
"Thank you," Melina said, glancing at the drow. Nobody seemed bothered by his presence at all.
Not only are they not hostile towards him, but it seems like the people here have accepted Etrian as part of the community. It's kind of amazing in it's own way.
"How did she react when she first me you? Tell me! Tell me! I heard that you're from the city, Melina!" An elf woman suddenly appeared in front of Melina, nearly jumping into her face. She was wearing a guard uniform, although her petite frame didn't make her look like a guard.
"She looked like she was ready to kill me," Etrian gave Melina a knowing look. Melina just stared back at him and gave him one of her rehearsed charming smiles.
"You are surely exaggerating. I was merely surprised. I never expected to end up in a town where elves and drow walk among humans as if it were normal."
"Hahaha! I would have loved to see that. The city humans are always so surprised to see us. It's funny each time," the elf woman brushed a stray lock of her short, black hair away from her face then extended her hand towards Melina in greeting. "I am Remi."
"Nice to meet you, Remi," Melina smiled and shook her hand. This time, the smile wasn't forced as she had mostly had pleasant experiences with elves. They were never hostile towards humans, instead trying to find a way to coexist peacefully.
Granted humans were less willing to coexist with elves so instead of living in human cities, elves built their own in deep forests where humans usually didn't go.
"She seems plenty friendly to me. I bet you scared her, Etrian," Remi jabbed a finger in drow's side. He shooed her away in annoyance, glaring at the elf.
"Humans are usually more open towards elves, although I never get why. Our main difference is our skin color," Etrian frowned.
"And the frown that never leaves your face. You'll look like a wrinkled old man soon if you keep scowling like that," Remi laughed and bound away from the drow who chased after her. It appeared to be a sensitive topic for him.
"Don't mind them. Remi loves messing around with Etrian. Why don't you go around and mingle with others? Grab a bite to eat? I'm sure many people will want to talk to you," Erina said encouragingly.
"Yes, of course."
"Great. I need to go check on the drinks," the innkeeper nodded and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Melina on her own. She could feel many curious glances in her direction, so before she could get swarmed with questions, Melina walked up to the snack table picking up a small vegetable skewer. She hadn't eaten dinner after all.
It's amazing how much thought Erina put into this. All of this food must have cost so much money. I'll have to repay Erina for her kindness one day.
"You're Melina, right?" A girl who looked to be around twenty with bright red hair walked up to her. She was followed by two other girls who, comparatively to this beauty, looked rather plain.
"Yes," she replied, carefully assessing the girl. Despite her beauty and seemingly pleasant smile, there was something distinctly unpleasant about her. She just couldn't pinpoint what exactly.
"It is so nice to meet you! I was so excited when I heard that Gilbert's new apprentice was a girl our age. I am Leliana," she curtsied towards Melina.
Why is she curtsying? Is Leliana a noble? No, a daughter from a real noble family would never attend some greeting party, no matter how famous and amazing Master Gilbert is. She just tried to put herself above others.
"Likewise," Melina replied with a polite smile and inclined her head. She knew how to curtsy, but it didn't appear appropriate for this occasion.
"I am a bit ashamed to ask but…" Leliana stammered, looking down and batting her eyelashes bashfully.
What is she doing? Wait… Everyone's watching—she's just trying to get their attention. Oh, joy. She's one of those people who revels in being in the center of everything.
"But could we be friends?" the redhead finally blurted out and grabbed her cheeks as if in embarrassment.
Melina didn't buy her act for one second, but there was no need to cause a scene, so she said, "Sure. I don't mind."
"Oh, really?! I am so happy! To think that I was able to make another friend my age. We're going to have so much fun together," Leliana cheered and her two friends/minions cheered from the back.
Yes, I'm sure you're going to have much fun badmouthing me behind my back.