It took three days for Cirdor to put his report together.

It took another three days for the Council to deliberate over it.

Penelope looked at the message from Patrick on her wristpad. The main human leadership had received the communication devices, which allowed them to send messages even once they went into the fourth floor of the Dungeon. She scanned over the update. It was mostly Patrick complaining about how little support the Elves were giving them.

"What's he complaining about today?" Circe walked into the gathering room from the bathroom. She rubbed a towel over her wet hair. "He could smell like fish up here instead, but no, he had to go down to the next floor."

"We know it's the electric floor." Penelope looked up from the screen. "Which is helpful."

"How does that help us if we're not going down there until the fifth floor?" Nochi scoffed from the kitchen, where she was making a sandwich.

"The elements of the floors aren't repeating, which means that we shouldn't see another air, nature, or electric floor once we head down there." Penelope sighed as the young woman rolled her eyes.

The brown woman flicked her hair as she collected her meal and strutted into the gathering room. "It's not like we can change our skill affinities."

"Pen knows spells of different elements." Circe tossed the towel through the open door of their room.

"Because of her gear." Nochi fired back. "Which we don't have."

"We'll get enchantments once we finish our training at the fishery." Circe fired back. "And once Pen can make her own enchantments, we'll be able to customize what we have on our gear so we can fight even better."

"I've been cleaning fish since I could hold a knife." The brown woman fired back. "We're not going to finish in three years, let alone three months."

While this group had the priority working in the processing plant, then going out on the boats and working the nets, setting the bait, and pulling in the fish, they'd been working with all of the Mebope from the larger group. Of the six of them, Nochi was progressing the slowest, and every day that she got a little farther behind in her job experience was another day that she grew more disgruntled with the progress the others were making.

Most of the older Mebope already had their skinning, butchering, and fishing in the teens or twenties. While the younger ones had some experience, it hadn't taken Penelope long to get a rhythm down. The experience came a little easier for her as the repetitive tasks allowed her to just act on autopilot while she was working.

"She's not wrong." Findo sat down on the couch across from her. "We're getting less experience each day. We'll be lucky if we have our jobs at thirty, let alone any higher than that by the time we're supposed to go into the Dungeon."

"Didn't you say that this was going to make us stronger?" Nochi glared at Penelope. "Because all it's doing is wasting our time."

"It has made us stronger." Penelope looked at her job menu.

Jobs

Bartering - Level 1 - 1/100

Cartography - Level 1 - 1/100

Husbandry - Level 1 - 1/100

Linguistics - Level 1 - 1/100

Scrivening - Level 1 - 1/100

Defense Bonus: +0.65%

Engineering - Level 1 - 1/100

Fishing - Level 6 - 534/600

Irresistible Lure: Lures, nets, and fish traps have a higher chance to attract fish.

Foraging - Level 1 - 15/100

Jewelry Making - Level 1 - 1/100

Refining - Level 1 - 1/100

Archeology - Level 1 - 1/100

Demonology - Level 1 - 65/100

Enchanting - Level 1 - 1/100

Occultism - Level 1 - 1/100

Salvaging - Level 2 - 103/200

The Sum Is Greater. You can preserve more of the parts.

Blacksmithing - Level 1 - 1/100

Logging - Level 2 - 116/200

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Deforest. You're able to cut down trees faster.

Mining - Level 1 - 1/100

Stonemasonry - Level 1 - 6/100

Woodworking - Level 2 - 120/200

Hardwood. Structures you build can support more weight

Recovery Bonus: +1.35%

Alchemy - Level 1 - 1/100

Butchering - Level 9 - 841/900

Choice Cuts. Meat you harvest is better quality.

Take Them Apart. The more you've butchered a monster, the easier it is to hit their weak points.

Cooking - Level 5 - 468/500

For the Carnivore. Meat you cook can have additional effects

Herbalism - Level 1 - 1/100

Surgery - Level 1 - 1/100

Speed Bonus: +1.00%

Gunsmithing - Level 1 - 1/100

Leatherworking - Level 2 - 158/200

You're Covered. Items that you make have increased durability.

Sewing - Level 1 - 1/100

Skinning - Level 10 - 954/1000

Ready to Wear. Leather you skin is easier to tan.

Keep it Intact. Attacking monsters is less likely to damage their hide.

Tinkering - Level 1 - 73/100

"One percent isn't enough for us to see any stat growth." Nochi pouted.

"It's not just the stat growth but also the passives that it gives you." Penelope closed the menu. "We've already been hauling in more fish thanks to the passive."

"Which is great until we catch all the fish under the dome." Findo pointed out. "It's not like we have the entire ocean to harvest. Eventually, we're going to run out of fish in the water that's under the dome, and then it won't matter what our passives are because there won't be any fish to catch."

"We're going to get what, a whole forty percent bonus to each stat if we can max out our jobs by the time we reach the tenth floor?" Lanlo added. The silver-skinned Spellshot sat down on the couch next to the other man. "That's not a lot of a bonus for all the work we're putting into it."

"It rounds up." Penelope countered. "And forty percent to your main stat is a lot of stats from gear that you could put into raising the other stats."

"It's still a lot of work compared to what it takes to level up." Findo gave her an apologetic look. "Think about how many stats we're going to get just by drinking a potion and putting on some gear versus all this effort that we are going through."

"And think about how much stronger you're going to be compared to the other people who are down in the Dungeon right now and aren't upping their levels." Circe glared at him. "Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be doing anything else besides cutting up fish, but when we go into the fifth floor and get leveled up after the others clear the first zone, we're going to be stronger than anyone else."

"Whatever." Nochi threw up her hands. "I'm going to go get in some target practice before we have to go back to the warehouse." The brown Mebope headed for the front door.

"Wait, I'm coming with you!" Circe chased after the younger woman.

"Findo…" Penelope looked over at the older man.

The blue Mebope sighed. "I know, I'll go make sure she doesn't kill her." He headed after the pair of women.

With the archers gone, Rendhe ventured out of the room she shared with Nochi. The black-toned Mebope was the same age as Penelope and usually quiet. There were times when the reserved nature wore off for a moment, but she was content to mostly stay in the louder woman's shadow. "When is that Elf going to teach us how to enchant gear?" She looked over at the other Mebope in the room. "We need to be buffing our Magic, not Speed."

"He sent me a message a little while ago." Penelope weighed how much she should tell them. "Cirdor wants to come talk to me tomorrow, and then we're going to start making the rounds with new teachers to raise our levels in other jobs."

"It's about time!" Lanlo stretched his arms. "I'm tired of cutting up fish."

"Well, based on our diminishing returns…" Penelope swallowed. "We're not going to be able to do a whole lot. We're able to fold skinning and butchering into similar actions, so when we focus on something like we're doing with fishing, it's going to take us even longer to raise our levels. We've got sixty-nine more days until they finish the fourth floor, and at the rate we're going, it's going to take us almost three hundred days to get our fishing, skinning, and butchering up to level forty."

"So we're going to do what?" Lanlo folded his arms. "Take everything to ten?"

"There's thirty jobs and with a week to bring two of them to ten, that's only twenty that we could bring to ten before we'd need to go down there." Penelope let out the breath she'd been holding. "Which means—"

"That this whole thing is pointless!" Rendhe threw up her hands. "Nochi was right; we're just wasting our time when we could be practicing something useful like our spells and combat!"

She's not wrong. Penelope watched the black Elf-looking woman storm back into her room. As it stands, I'm going to have to spend four loops to bring two to three jobs up to forty, and after that, I'm not sure if I'll be getting any experience.

"You won't." Jeru winced. "Because you're only level thirty; forty is as high as you can earn any experience for anyway."

Which means I'm looking at sixty resets at least. Penelope closed her eyes. And you're sure this won't cap when I go back to the beginning?

"It won't." Jeru assured her. "You could try to fix things up so you spend about five days on each job, then you can just repeat the same eleven weeks sixty times, more or less."

I'm just looking forward to tomorrow when I'll be able to learn the basics of enchanting. Penelope opened her eyes and realized Lanlo was staring at her. "Yes?"

"Just wondering where you go sometimes." The silver man tilted his head. "Also, I was hoping you could look over the spells and passives that I was thinking of getting at each level based on the list you gave us. I was wondering if you would take a look at it before we head to the warehouse tonight." He stood up and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"Sure." Penelope nodded. I've got some ideas of how I'm going to get things differently once I reset. Might as well brainstorm it with someone who is planning on being helpful.

"Hey! I'm helpful." Jeru stuck out his tongue at her, then chuckled. "Besides, you still have to figure out how you're going to 'accidentally' figure it out."

I've got that worked out already and you know it. Penelope took the piece of paper from the man standing in front of her. "Do you have something to write with? I've got a few suggestions for you."

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