Chapter 328 - Curators

Chris

Frostheim

The rest of the Spring and then Summer were peaceful. I didn't get called away for anything and got to spend most of my time going through the same routine I had developed over the years.

Running both Dungeons every morning was becoming a longer and longer endeavor, but it was my best form of essence gathering. Every new floor added to one or both of them increased the time it took me, but it also increased the amount of essence I gained every day.

Gaining a Curator was probably one of the best things we had ever done. The Profession was more than just a Dungeon monitor.

It was unfortunate that no one in the Family had wanted to take up the Profession, but we found a decent candidate inside the Orders. Hal's recommendation held a lot of weight and I'd also met the woman a few times already.

She volunteered to go fight Demons even before she joined one of the Orders, and that was another check mark in her favor.

Lucille Belanger was a great shot with a bow and one of the more powerful Archers in Hal's order. Her Skills didn't lean towards tracking, like the Grey Wolves, or Scouting, like the White Wolves, but for pure power and stopping ability. I think they were calling those the Dire Wolves, but I wasn't sure.

Similar really to Hal's skill set.

She had picked Fletcher as her Profession at the start of the Tutorial because she had assumed the need to make her own arrows. Not that such a plan was bad, just that it wasn't as necessary as she had first assumed.

She'd kept Fletcher because she hadn't seen a reason to switch, not until we gave her something worth switching for.

I wasn't sure where her fascination with Dungeons came from but the woman was one of the first to volunteer for the Curator position after we opened it up for the Orders.

She was even willing to go back down to F-rank, in order to level the Profession up from the base, which not many were willing to do. Not only was that a serious drop in power suddenly, but it was also extremely painful. Ripping away the essence of your current rank was already bad enough.

Ripping away the built-up essence of all your ranks was brutal.

The woman bore through the procedure admirably, and we finally had our very own Curator.

In the Profession Starter book that we had first bought for it, there were common Skills listed that were made available to them and also a few they would be able to get further on.

One of the most important that we were pushing for was [Gated Dungeon]. It would allow for gates, or portals as they sounded like, to take a person to a specific floor in a Dungeon instead of having to walk through the entire thing.

That hadn't been that bad of an issue at first. When there were only eight floors to fight through, barreling through the first few didn't take up that much time. Sure, it wasn't truly worth the effort as the essence gain from the low level monsters was abysmal, but it didn't add that much time.

Now that both Dungeons were bordering on 15 floors each, it was becoming exponentially worse. Especially because it wasn't only the first few floors that were useless.

Lucille worked wonders to both grow the Dungeon and make it easier and faster to run them. She was able to gauge how much mana would take a Dungeon to its limit without risking a Dungeon Break.

We were even able to lay down Mana Gathering Formations around them both without fear due to her. It was a night and day difference compared to the Dungeons before they had an active Curator.

While all of those achievements would have already made her indispensable, it was her abilities in a different area that made her so valuable.

As our population grew, so did the amount of people wishing to go into the Dungeons.

There was also an increase in people receiving their first Class. Lilly and Anna weren't the only children in Frostheim and over the five years since the Change, more and more were unlocking it.

Which made the first floor crowded.

Parents warned them to take it slow. Learn how to use a weapon first before blowing through the levels and increasing in rank. Increase your mastery of Skills or learn a Profession.

With so many impressing upon them that slow was steady and steady was better and would lead to better evolutions down the line, they would hit level 10 and stall there.

Which would make the first or second floor of the Dungeon as far as they could go.

Which made those two floors considerably overcrowded compared to the rest of them.

That was where Lucille came in. Using her Profession, she could influence a Dungeon's growth. Naturally, without the influence of a Curator, a Dungeon would rather grow deeper rather than wider.

But she could nudge them to do both and focus specifically in certain areas. [Dungeon Growth] helped a Dungeon's efforts to dig deeper and create more floors and [Floor Growth] helped their efforts to grow a certain floor.

Now, that was where my attention would have ended if it hadn't been for something else. Honestly, I might not even have delved so deep into the issue if it hadn't been for Anna complaining to me about them.

What I had first thought would take Anna half a year to even longer to accomplish, she had done in just 5 months.

From gaining her Class in March to the cusp of Fall in late August, Anna had gone from level 1 to level 10 and made great strides with her abilities. It shouldn't have surprised me, but I hadn't anticipated it happening so fast.

Sure, it was a snail's pace compared to how fast the rest of the Family went through the initial levels, but Anna didn't have a Wave of monsters thrown against her every three days.

She didn't have the threat of death hanging over her head.

Instead, she could ponder Laws with little worry. Play with Skills for a truly obscene amount of time. There was nothing forcing her ahead, and for as long as I lived, nothing would.

Even without anything chasing after her urging her to push harder, faster, and quicker through the levels. Her own impatience was enough of a motivation.

And the fact she didn't forget my promise.

It was the end of August and the day was like any other. I ran through the Dungeons in the morning before going over any work that was on my plate for the day.

Usually, it wasn't much but there was the occasional task I had to take care of. Sophia did a great job screening what was actual work for me, and what was fine for other people to take care of.

What had started as something I deemed unnecessary had turned into something indispensable.

The next big thing on the calendar was the harvest, as the first frost would be coming soon. Abigail was already planning for what had become the annual Harvest Festival and I didn't have much to do in that regard.

With no administrative tasks needing my attention, I spent the afternoon in my forge. My forge had grown over the years and it had anything I could have wanted or needed.

Both mine and Vincent's had.

Not many braved the chill my Spirit Fire gave off but that wasn't the case today.

I barely heard the pounding feet running up to my door but I didn't miss the sound of the door slamming open. It was even harder to miss the girl sprinting up to me either.

Before I could even turn to greet her, or admonish her for interrupting me, or do anything other than freeze what I was doing, she yelled out, "I did it!"

"Hello, Anna. Good day to you too." I said and finally turned to face her. "I'm in need of a little context because vaguely shouting 'I did it' isn't enough for me."

"I did it!" She repeated, "I have a Rare option in my choices!"

"Truly?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Yeah!" She nodded excitedly.

"Well congratulations, I'm sure your mom and dad are proud. Is it what you want?"

Offered Class choices weren't always going in the direction you wanted them to go.

Her smile nearly imperceptibly fell, but returned to full strength instantly, "Kinda. It's not exactly what I wanted, but it's not far off either."

"Does that have anything to do with wishing for the stars even though you're only level 10?" I couldn't help but ask after seeing her subtle hesitation.

"No." She lied.

"Alright, I guess a celebration is in order then. I'm sure your mother already has something in the works. Knowing her, she probably already planned it back when you first got your Class."

"You promised to–"

"I remember what I said, but I'm a touch busy right now Anna," the piece I was working on was only half done. It wasn't super important, but I still wanted to finish it, "I'll tell you later tonight, after dinner."

Anna huffed but nodded reluctantly.

"And you can tell me all about your Class, too," I said while ushering her out the door. I could tell that she wasn't happy with the arrangement but she had little say in the matter.

I didn't delay telling her on purpose, but it was a touch of fun on my part.

Thinking about it, even though it was two years ago now, it felt like just the other day I was evolving.

It was right after what had happened in Lakeshore.