Chapter 118: The Novice Skinchanger
After bidding farewell to Steward Mills, Ian temporarily returned to his room under the pretext of carefully studying the merchant's information in his hand.
After all, rather than a quest that had already been completed and only required going through the motions, he was more eager to know if he could exploit the optional quest loophole.
"A large Dothraki khalasar is approaching Pentos. If you can defeat them on the road, I will pay you this gold dragon as a reward," the chosen quest giver was still the old reliable Rol, who repeated this sentence at Ian's prompting. "If you can ensure that Pentos will not be captured by them this time, you will also be considered to have completed the quest."
This was a scenario that Ian had come up with on the spot. It was based on the same logic as the Merchant Guild traitor quest. That is, objective two, 'at least ensure that Pentos will not be captured,' was also the purpose of objective one, 'preventing the Dothraki from arriving.'
[Triggering Quest: Defend Pentos]
Quest Description: Khal Drogo, leading a khalasar of 40,000 screamers, is approaching Pentos. Ser Rol hopes you can defeat them on the road, or at least ensure that Pentos is not conquered this time.
Quest Reward: 1 Gold Dragon Additional Reward: Unknown]
[Accept (Costs 1 Point)] [Decline]
[Accept]
Ding!
[Completed Optional Quest 4 'Defend Pentos'
Quest Difficulty Rating: Medium
Quest Reward: 1 Gold Dragon Additional Reward: 3 Points, 3 Attribute Points]
"Medium difficulty rating?" Ian immediately frowned.
With his current strength, defeating Khal Drogo's khalasar was a pipe dream; it should logically be rated as extremely difficult.
The reason this quest was completed directly was because Drogo was there to marry and had no intention of attacking Pentos—the core logic was the same as the exploit in the [Illyrio Merchant Guild Traitor] quest.
But why was this quest also rated as medium? It made no sense! Could it be that the only possible difficulty level for optional quests is "medium"? Or was my previous assumption about the difficulty level wrong?
Wouldn't the difficulty level assessment consider both objective one (defeating Drogo's khalasar) and objective two (defending Pentos)? If we take into account Pentos's high walls and the Dothraki's lack of siege technology, then the difficulty level of this quest becomes understandable.
However, this conclusion conflicts with the previous assessment of the Merchant Guild Traitor quest.
Shaking his head, Ian temporarily suppressed his doubts.
There's no point in guessing randomly; he just needs to test more scenarios, and with more samples, he'll naturally find the answer. Even if he doesn't find the answer, just by consistently completing medium-difficulty quests, he can create three thousand scenarios and still reach ten thousand points, right?
"Next is..." Ian told Rol about the next scenario.
"I suspect there's a traitor within the sellsword company under Strong Belwas. They might pose a threat to you. If you can capture him, I'll pay you this gold dragon as a reward," Rol smoothly cooperated. "If you can guarantee you won't be killed by the traitor, then you'll consider the quest complete."
Ian further simplified the quest using the same logic, eliminating variables like Pentos's own strength compared to the previous quest. Moreover, this quest could also test whether Belwas's men were indeed problematic.
[Triggering Quest: Traitor within Belwas's Sellsword Company]
Quest Description: Rol suspects there's a traitor among Belwas's men and hopes you can find him, or at least ensure you aren't killed by him.
Quest Reward: 1 Gold Dragon Additional Reward: Unknown]
[Accept (Costs 1 Point)] [Decline]
Ian clicked [Accept] again, but this time, instead of a quest completion notification, a message popped up:
[Cannot Accept! Notification: You have reached your monthly limit for accepting optional quests.]
Limit? Ian was stunned for a moment, then remembered that last month he only accepted two optional quests: [The Truth About the Death of the Black Falcon] and [The Blackfyre Treasure], without triggering the notification that the quest limit had been reached. This month, he had already accepted two optional quests.
So, the monthly limit for accepting optional quests was only two, which was troublesome. Ian started to think.
According to his original plan, to test the rules for determining quest difficulty, he would need to conduct dozens of experiments by controlling variables. The monthly quest limit made such experiments very costly, or even impossible.
However, if the experiment wasn't completed, and given that even a quest like 'Defeat Drogo's Khalasar' was rated as medium difficulty, Ian found it hard to imagine what scenario would be rated as extremely difficult.
Defeat the Night King? Or, to be more straightforward, defeat the Great Other directly?
Perhaps, but testing that would have to wait until at least next month.
"Forget it, look on the bright side," Ian stopped his unfounded speculation. "Although I haven't been able to further test the rules for determining quest difficulty, as long as I follow this template for the scenarios, I'll have at least two guaranteed medium-difficulty optional quests every month."
After stopping the testing, Ian began to review his character sheet, taking stock of today's gains.
[Ian: Strength 32, Agility 27, Mental 7 Skills: Etiquette Basic, Common Tongue Literacy Basic, Swordsmanship Advanced, Riding Advanced, Lance Intermediate, Skinchanger Basic Attribute Points: 6 Skill Points: 6 Points: 35 Items: Basic Skill Selection Scroll]
Without hesitation, Ian immediately allocated all 6 attribute points to Mental, and then upgraded Skinchanger Basic to Novice.
As soon as he finished allocating the points, a large amount of knowledge flooded into Ian's mind.
First, some warnings: a skinchanger's consciousness is more likely to invade the consciousness of animals close to them. If the skinchanger's consciousness is weaker than the animal's, the skinchanger will be negatively affected.
Human consciousness will negatively affect both parties unless the skinchanger's mental strength is far superior. If the animal is killed while the skinchanger is within its consciousness, the skinchanger will suffer extremely severe damage.
If the skinchanger's physical body is killed while inhabiting an animal's consciousness, a portion of their consciousness will remain in that creature.
Then there are the methods for sensing and controlling one's own spirit, the methods for invading animal consciousness, and precautions for the first attempt at consciousness invasion.
Ian carefully digested all the information and concluded that a novice skinchanger could begin experimenting with skinchanging on animals close to them.
He then found his servant, Denzel of Dorne, and asked him to buy some young eagles and cats from the market before formally beginning to study the merchant information given to him by Illyrio's steward, Mills.
(End of Chapter)