System Architect

I spent the rest of the week trying to get Crafting Experience to work. I had a lot of trouble figuring out what would count as a craft. Part of it—I thought—had to do with the quality of what I was making giving little experience. Another part was probably due to what I was making.

The first thing I tried was to make paper airplanes. As far as crafting materials went, paper was what I had a lot of at Mom’s, so making things from several types of paper was my easiest option. When paper airplanes were a bust, I moved on to origami, snowflakes, paper maché, and anything else I could think of. They were of limited value, but I was able to get at least some experience out of them.

Next, I gave making bracelets a try. The materials varied—from braided string to pipe cleaners with beads—but the results were similar to my tests with paper. The braided string gave more as I made large flat-braids with several colors of string as that took more time and concentration.

By the time I went back to Dad’s, I was frustrated. Nothing else that I tried gave me any appreciable experience, and I really couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. I had hope that I could make something from the knotweed I was gathering. With that in mind, I dropped off my things in my room and went to the knotweed thicket to test my ideas.

I began my first craft by cutting as large a piece of green knotweed as I could. I trimmed it to a usable length, taking care to only leave the strongest part of the plant. Next, I whittled away the top into a point to complete a very basic spear. Unlike making it from wood, the point was on the outer edge rather than in the middle. I purposefully made the point a couple of inches above a chamber top so that the plug which blocked one chamber from the next would reinforce the point.

It felt good in my hands. I thrust it a few times and decided it wasn’t terrible. A wooden version would probably be better, but I had a lot of knotweed. I certainly wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. What I did notice—or rather, what I didn’t notice—was the experience gained from making it. There was some from harvesting the knotweed but absolutely nothing from making the spear!

In anger, I threw the spear as hard as I could. It sailed a good distance before disappearing from sight into the dense knotweed thicket. I took several deep breaths while I cursed the System’s utter bullshit. Kicking over a few stalks of knotweed helped. Eventually, I got my head together enough to try again.

The next time, I chose a dried stalk of knotweed. I freed one chamber from the rest of the stalk. Into one end, I carefully drilled a hole through hardened cap with the tip of a knife. As soon as I broke through, I pulled the knife back out and used a stick to clean out the hole and widen it a little. With the knife, I cut a small length of stick and whittled it down so that it snugly fit in the hole to plug it while also giving me enough to pull it out.

Creating a natural water bottle netted me… no crafting experience. Like the spear, I reared back and chucked it with all my might deep into the knotweed jungle. Kicking knotweed only ended with my foot hurting, which made me even more angry.

Why?! That was the only question running through my mind. Why was I not getting any experience from making items that were at least of somewhat decent quality? I stomped around and pondered the question for a few minutes before I headed back inside. It wasn’t quite dinner time, but I was too frustrated to continue testing—or anything else, for that matter.

My harsh footsteps attracted Dad’s attention. He walked into the kitchen from the sitting room where he was watching television.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing is making any sense!” I spat.

“Well, why don’t you start from the beginning.”

I took a deep breath.

“It started when I unlocked Crafting Experience…” I said, telling him the story of my failed attempts.

“Hmmm,” he said, scratching his stubbly beard. “I see the problem you’re having. What are you thinking so far? Any ideas?”

“If I had an idea, do you think I’d be pissed off right now?”

Dad raised his eyebrow in a way where I knew I’d hurt him. Mad as I was, hurting him like that didn’t sit right with me and the consequences of my rash action splashed over me like a bucket of ice water.

“Sorry,” I admitted, “I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“I get it, kid,” he said. “We’ve all been frustrated before. I mean—how many times have you heard me curse when I hit my finger with a hammer?”

“True,” I smiled.

“Good. So, again, do you have any ideas?”

“No.”

“Hmmm…. What do you normally get experience from with the other ones you unlocked?”

I explained the ways I was getting experience with harvesting and how taking care gave better results that rushing—to a point.

“Alright,” he said with understanding. “So what makes crafting special or different than harvesting? Beyond the obvious that one is about gathering materials and the other is about making use of them.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing as far as I can tell. Both of them have similar descriptions when I compare them. In fact—”

What was going on hit me like a ton of bricks.

“I’m a fucking idiot!” I swore.

“You figured it out?” Dad asked, making no mention of my choice of words.

“That I did. There’s another unlock I’ll need to get which allows me to get experience from multiple avenues at the same time. It’s been weeks and I just hadn’t considered—“

Dad cut me off with a bear hug.

“It’s ok, little man,” he comforted. “You can’t be perfect all the time. I know this whole end-of-the-world-thing is weighing you down something fierce. You got me ‘n your mother on your side, you know.”

I nodded into his belly while hugging him tightly. Tears fell as I did so. He was right—the pressure on me was immense. Maybe not as bad as it would be a few decades and loops from now, but it was still grinding me down surely as the river makes the canyon. I wiped my tears on Dad’s shirt when I felt better.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime, Eddy.”

I went to my room and powered on the laptop. I needed to make a change to my plans. A small—but significant—change. Instead of going for Quests III, I would need to rush towards Misc. Experience if I wanted to get the most out of what I already had unlocked. Not having Misc. Experience was why crafting a spear from a length of knotweed that I harvested gave no experience whereas making a miniature house out of popsicle sticks would. This problem would get worse the more of the experience features I unlocked. If I bought the popsicle sticks once I had Economic Experience unlocked, I wouldn’t get experience when using them to make things.

There were three prerequisites to pick up before I could take Misc. Experience: Combat Experience, Economic Experience, and Social Experience. Of those, Combat Experience and Social Experience had the least overlap with what I currently had. Economic Experience, on the other hand, looked like it would get in the way of nearly everything else, so I decided to save it for last. The choice between Social Experience and Combat Experience was also fairly easy. For the next few weeks, I was unlikely to go hunting and I was still in school, so Social Experience would hopefully have at least some use. In fact, I had enough to take it right then and there. So I did.

Feature Unlocked: Social Experience

Current Exp: 41

At the rate I was gaining experience, the 7,000 I needed would take about a month-and-a-half. That wasn’t awful, and there wasn’t much I could do to speed that up besides doing quests and harvesting or whatever. I also decided that I would unlock both Economic Experience and Misc. Experience at the same time so that the penalty for Economic Experience wouldn’t hold me back while I gained the requisite experience.

I closed my laptop and cracked open a book for entertainment—and a quest. That lasted all of five minutes before I closed the book and cracked open the laptop again. There was just too much on my mind. I had a feeling there was so much I was overlooking.

The old adage of plans not surviving contact with the enemy seemed to hold true for me—even if the enemy, in this case, was myself. Every time I learned something new, my plans had to be revised. It was a constant thing, but even then, organizing my thoughts into a plan helped immensely with keeping me focused and aiming towards my short, medium, and long-term goals.

Over the next two weeks, I paid attention to how Social Experience worked. I would get about ten experience from it every day, primarily when other people followed me or listened to what I had to say. With little kids, that was a rather easy proposition. With adults, that was a lot more difficult.

I picked up Combat Experience along the way, but I barely got any use out of it as ants gave functionally no experience, and winning verbal joust would net me nothing without Misc. Experience unlocked. I did, however, take a peek at what all of my spending had done to the monster levels.

Average Monster Level: 7

Monster Strength Tier: 1

Exp To Next Tier: 6110

Cumulative Monster Strength Bonuses: Average Monster Level +6

Next Tier: Average Monster Level +1

It was getting on up there, but I hoped that it was front-loaded rather than something that would be an issue long-term.

One thing I had noticed was just how much waiting for quests to refresh was costing me. I could complete many of the weekly, monthly, and—when I got Quests III—yearly quests much more quickly than the time allotted to do them. That left so much dead weight of time where I couldn’t gain experience or double dip on multiple quests. There were also quests I wasn’t able to accomplish, and being able to choose something else would be awesome.

I facepalmed. I’d forgotten—again—about something I’d learned. I could modify features! I checked into modifying quests and milestones and everything else I’d already unlocked. There wasn’t much I could do without actually unlocking the features for universal use, however there were some things I found that would be worthwhile when I could do them.

Feature: Achievements

Prerequisites: Milestones III, Quests III

Unlock Personal Use: 10,000

Unlock For Universal Use: 10,000,000 Exp

Description: Gives a reward for accomplishing feats. Rewards scale with difficulty and uniqueness.

Achievements was better than the milestones chain. Milestones barely gave any experience, whereas achievements held more promise. Milestones were also exceedingly annoying for the little they actually gave. Given how expensive Achievements was, I wasn’t sure I’d go for it in this loop, but I still could. I was undecided. I felt Milestones III would be a waste, but it was required for the—hopefully—better feature.

Feature: Hidden Milestones I

Prerequisites: Milestones I

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: -50,000 Exp

Description: Milestones I no longer gives experience, but its unlocked activities can still show up in quests.

Feature: Hidden Milestones II

Prerequisites: Milestones II, Hidden Milestones I

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: -250,000 Exp

Description: Milestones II no longer gives experience, but its unlocked activities can still show up in quests.

Feature: Hidden Milestones III

Prerequisites: Milestones III, Hidden Milestones II

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: -1,250,000 Exp

Description: Milestones III no longer gives experience, but its unlocked activities can still show up in quests.

These would refund half the amount I paid for the main feature, keeping the good part—the quests compatibility—while removing the annoying part… all while allowing them to be kept around as prerequisites for other features.

Feature: Quests Refresh I

Prerequisites: Quests I

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: 25,000 Exp

Description: Quests I can be refreshed for a cost of [Purchase Feature Modification].

Feature: Free Quests Refresh I

Prerequisites: Quests Refresh I

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: 100,000 Exp

Description: Quests I can be refreshed for free.

Feature: Free One-Time Quests Refresh I

Prerequisites: Free Quests Refresh I

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: -50,000 Exp

Description: Quests I can be refreshed for free, once per cycle.

These—and a ton of other variants—had their mirrors for the higher versions of the quests feature. It was, of course, a complete mess with me having to spend and refund a bunch to get what I wanted. Which brought me to my final discovery.

Feature: Combined Purchases

Prerequisites: System Store

Unlock Personal Use: N/A

Unlock For Universal Use: 25,000 Exp

Description: Purchases through the System Store can be done all at once instead of one at a time.

I was going to need that. Maybe not for every purchase, but for most of them.