Sadly, I got another notification saying that if I wanted to be any good at skinning or butchering, then I had to spend the XP to gain the skill. I was given the option of skinning or butchering or skinning and butchering. I hated to use this for one of my two gathering skills, but I reasoned that if this was going to be the rest of my life, food was much more of a daily affair than making potions. Two hundred XP lighter. I now got the skinning/butchering combo skill and went to work on the boar.

  Chapter 8- The Way to an Ogre’s Heart

  After cutting off a couple of generous slabs, I scrounged around until I found some massive eggs. I couldn’t think of any bird on earth that they could belong to other than an ostrich. I used some packs that were in the human loot and loaded up half a dozen eggs along with some peppers and onions that I found in the dried goods. They looked like they are on the fringe of going bad, but compared to what the stew smelled like, I figured I would take my chances.

  The last items I needed were some seasoning and herbs. I packed up some salt, peppercorns, and cilantro, cause what isn’t made better with cilantro. Then I headed out of the hut and offered my bowl of stew to the unlucky outcast who had been stuck watching the food building. He was quick to thank me, so I made sure to remember his name, Alfra. I was grateful for the Assess skill, so I didn’t have to worry about forgetting anyone’s name.

  From there, I ran behind all the buildings to the edge of the forest. It was getting dark, and I didn’t want to become dinner for something else, but I also needed some room to experiment.

  It took me more time than I would have liked, but I eventually cleared an area and put rocks around it to stop the spread of fire. I smashed up some wood to serve as the fuel in my fire pit and decided I should light it first before cutting up my bacon. I would need it to burn down before I could place the cast iron frying pan on it.

  This was the first real obstacle that I hit. I had nothing to start a fire with. But then I grinned. I was my own fire starter. My only concern was that the spell would blow up the firepit. So, I could either shoot it at something else and start a fire that I could then transfer to the firepit, or I could use Flameburst to set the wood in the pit on fire without blasting it everywhere. With my luck, if I tried the first, I would end up creating a massive forest fire.

  With that fear as a backdrop, I held out my hand and focused on making my spell as small as I possibly could. This had never been an option when I was playing the beta test, but then again, I didn’t have to cook my dinner then. Maybe necessity really was the mother of invention.

  Once I had a clear image in my head of what I wanted to do, I slowly and deliberately said Flameburst. A part of me felt like one of those people trying to speak slower for foreigners, like somehow, they could understand you then. I felt the mana gather in me, but it was a much smaller amount than normal and when it came out a pea sized fireball ignited inside the kindling and whoosh.

  I had a fire going without exploding it all around me. Add to that a couple of notifications that came up.

  You have developed the skill Mana Channeling. Most seek this in order to make their spells bigger, but you must be very confident because you learned it for the purpose of making things smaller.

  Experimentation Reward: +2 MIND, 50% reduction in cost to obtain skill.

  In order to make this skill yours you must spend the requisite XP: 250.

  I didn’t even think twice, but immediately popped the XP in. I mean it cost me 200 XP just to learn how to skin dead animals. Something as complicated as controlling how much mana goes into a spell surely should cost much more. But I don’t make the system rules, I am just going to use them.

  Oh well, now I had a good fire going, and it was time to see what this butchering skill could do. A few minutes later, I realized it was a good purchase. I had an intuitive knack for cutting the bacon properly. It doesn’t sound that complicated, but I just knew the right way to cut the meat to get the best flavor out of it.

  I looked down at the stick that I had cleaned the bark off of that was now draped in thick strips of bacon, because obviously the only way to eat bacon is the thick cut. I settled in and waited for the fire to burn down further. While doing that I focused on practicing Flameburst in tiny increments.

  The skill had already gone up twice when I gained Mana Channeling, but half an hour of practice and I was able to get it up twice more. If only all skill gains could be this easy. Since I was practicing using precise amounts of mana ranging between one and five points, I was able to cast it many more times before I ran out of mana. It also got me two level ups for Mana Channeling.

  Flameburst- Basic 8: Creates a burst of flame with range and area of effect and potency all controlled by your mastery level of the spell. Range: 30’+1’/level. AoE: 1’/.2/level. Damage: 1-20+1/mastery level. Cast Time: 1 sec. Mana Cost: 10+1/level.

  If cast normally, now the spell would have a range of 38’ which still was one of its larger weaknesses as well as an AoE of over two-and-a-half feet and max damage of 28. It wasn’t anything to write home about. Really its greatest power was trying to get it to go off in a vulnerable spot.

  More experimentation was necessary, but I was getting a feel for this. The fire was down to a manageable level, so I placed the skillet on it with some fat shavings in it. Then I added some garlic and peppercorns to it. I was using flat stones I had scorched to clean them as my plates. Once I had gotten the fat good and hot with an infusion of the garlic and pepper, I placed six strips of the bacon into the frying pan.

  There was a certain magic to the crackle and pop of the bacon as it started to sear. Then I got a notification.

  New Skill Available: Cooking - Cost: 500 XP

  Note if you take this skill, it will become your primary crafting skill. As a monster you can have double the number of gathering and crafting skills that non-monster races can have, but your secondary skills can never exceed 75% of your primary skill’s level.

  Cooking is the art of taking the mundane and turning it into sustenance. More than that, cooking in Legends of Selmia can add magic for additional effects.

  I stopped and thought about it while absent mindedly flipping the bacon with my belt knife. Would having cooking make up for not having alchemy? I knew about healing potions but had no idea what cooking could produce. On the other hand, should I really be trying to min max?

  This wasn’t a game. This was my life now. I didn’t get to log out when I got tired and order up something from the dining station. I had to remember that being able to eat edible food every day was worth a hundred times more than being able to fight monsters or players for that matter. I would keep respawning and live this endless life and I needed to think about comforts.

  With that thought squarely in mind, I accepted it and choked on spending so much XP that I was back down to one hundred and seventy-eight. But again, that was a gamer mentality and as I thought about it maybe not even good gamer logic. I needed to know the rules of the game that I was playing and leveling up might not be the best path to power. Maybe I should be looking for more of these skills that I could add.

  It was definitely something to think about, but for now I was basking in the feeling of having the equivalent of years’ worth of training in cooking all dumped into my head in a matter of moments. I suddenly knew so much more about cooking. I knew stuff now that I never would have considered before. Cooking it turned out was its own form of chemistry.

  More significant than that though, I learned about cooking in Legends of Selmia. I learned that like many of the other tradecrafts, magic could be applied to it. I quickly pulled the bacon from the skillet before it could burn. Such a travesty would have been like breaking a holy sacrament of my new religion, cooking.

  I took a bite of one of the pieces of bacon and savored the saltiness. The boar that this came from was a rather gamey beast but that didn’t keep the bacon from having a rich, full flavor. But something was missing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was definitely something missing.

  So, I cooked three more batches of bacon. I tried cooking it to the barely done stage all the way up to its extra crispy stage, but nothing changed. Oh, I got a tasty treat each time and my ogre sized stomach was no longer groaning in protest, but I wasn’t capturing that thing that was missing.

  That was when it hit me. Magic was missing. I didn’t know exactly how, and I knew that there were probably more complex recipes that would change things up, but I knew that there was more power in the flesh of this beast than a simple frying pan was capturing.

  So, I poured mana into my hands and kept myself in the constant state of almost casting, but not quite releasing the spell. I chose to use Regeneration so that I wouldn’t risk an explosion with Flameburst. This time as I cooked the bacon, I struggled to hold the mana there the entire time. When I sliced the bacon, when I put it in the frying pan, and then when I took it off and set it on the stone plate I had made.

  I was about to taste it when three figures burst into the area right in front of me. It was the head warrior, Tulbat, and two of his slashers. He yelled at me, demanding to know what I was doing. Not to be denied, I popped one of my freshly cooked pieces of bacon into my mouth. I thought that Tulbat’s eyes were going to burst out of his head.

  But instead what I felt bursting was my taste buds. I had managed to bring back to life the power of this food, probably not all of it. That would require a recipe, but certainly enough to know that this was meat from a young dire boar. It was full of magical potential, as all dire beasts are magical versions of the base creatures.

  More than that, though, I was hit with some buffs.

  Delicious Dire Boar Bacon: +2 to STR, +2 to CON for 1 hour. Stacks up to three times.

  This was too good to be true. I held up a piece from the new batch and offered it to Tulbat. But he slapped my hand away. He yelled at me, “Shaman making us lookz for youz. Youz here playing. You no have power. Youz be outcast. Worthless. Not fit to take space in tribe.”

  From his rage and intensity, I fully expected that he was about to end me. His hand was curled into a fist, and he had pulled it back as his other hand was trying to break my wrist. This was gonna hurt.

  Chapter 9- Village Cook

  I felt the bones in my wrist snap. This ogre body of mine would have been considered unbelievably powerful compared to humans in the real world, but that hadn’t stopped Tulbat from snapping it with a powerful twisting motion.

  I lifted my good arm up while ignoring the pain in the other. I was going to at least try to defend myself. When Tulbat’s fist never descended, I was initially confused. I knew that pain could confuse the mind, but I thought I was actually tolerating a broken bone fairly well.

  Fearing this was a fight for my life, I didn’t hesitate. Even if I was able to respawn, I still wasn’t gonna take any chances. I shifted my weight and brought a leg up between the head warrior’s legs. He was wearing some armor, but hopefully a direct blow there would still buy me a second to grab a weapon.

  As my foot made contact, I realized what had paused Tulbat’s hand. One of the warriors with him had picked up the bacon he knocked from my hand. That same warrior was scarfing down the bacon and moaning about how good it was. When my foot connected, I felt it hit something solid, definitely not flesh. But the force of the kick was still substantial enough that it drove the codpiece or whatever it was upward and made Tulbat release his hold on me.

  The head warrior stumbled back while I held up my unbroken hand again and shouted, “Flameburst.” For the first time, I tried to focus on channeling as much mana into a spell as I possibly could. A notification popped up and the largest explosion I had managed to create so far blossomed, centered right on the head warrior’s armored chest.

  The concussive force sent him stumbling backwards. It didn’t hurt that he had already been stepping back from the low blow I had delivered. The other ogres all seemed to drop whatever they were doing and were mumbling, “Fire. Him have fire.”

  The brush around us was now thoroughly trampled as Kerkek, the chief, Shemi, and a dozen other ogres appeared. Kerkek demanded an explanation, but didn’t want to listen to me. The bashers started explaining to him while Tulbat was complaining that I had sneak attacked him. I used the time to layer regeneration spells on my wrist, but found that a great deal of my mana has been used up by the Flameburst.

  Shemi was arguing with the chief and I thought for a while that he was going to take Tulbat’s suggestion and kill me in any of a number of rather inventive and painful manners. Eventually, though, the chief saw a few of the ogres fighting over the last of the bacon I had cooked.

  He shoved them aside. “Gimme goodies. Chief gets first.”

  His eyes lit up like Christmas lights when he tasted the mana enhanced meat. Then he raised his hand, and I prepared to defend myself again, only to have him spin and push Tulbat. “Tulbat want challenge Kerkek?”

  Tulbat growled back and for a moment, I thought he just might. But then he lowered his head and said, “No, chief. Tulbat am loyal.”

  “Tulbat, follow orders. Shaman say ooglie one have magic. Him make yummy magic food. Make tribe stronger. Make warriors stronger. Tulbat no hurt.”

  That was the best news I had heard all night. Tulbat’s yellow beady eyes and the glare he gave at me made it clear I had earned an enemy tonight but at least I would live for another night.

  Then the chief turned on me, “Kerkek want more magic food. Cook and bring me. Youz get outcasts helps youz.”

  I immediately saw the downside to this. If Kerkek hated the slop they had been serving earlier, even half as much as I did, he would do just about anything to get me cooking. I didn’t want to spend all my time feeding the tribe. And the more valuable they thought I was, the closer watch they would keep on me.

  “Oh great, chief, there are limits to how much magic food I can cook now. For now, I should cook only for the chief. But if I grow stronger or get better food to cook, then I can make more. I will need to go hunting,” I said.

  Kerkek looked at me for a second, then he looked to Shemi. “Youz makes sure him have what him need make yum yums.”

  Shemi nodded and replied, “Yes um chief.”

  After that, Kerkek started to clear the rest of the ogres out from the area and Shemi practically pulled me along to follow her. It was all I could do to manage to get my gear and the rest of the bacon to cook. As we walked back to her hut, I heard Tulbat venting his anger on some of the other ogres. His unfortunate victims were sent running out into the forest with bruises or even broken bones.

  Once back to her hut, Shemi said, “Youz be trouble already. Must sleepz here now or Tulbat give youz accident.”

  “I will need a place to cook for the chief. And will you teach me some more spells?”

  “No talk tonight. Youz go sleep now.”

  When I tried to follow her inside her small hut, she barked at me, “No. Youz sleep outside. Youz too ooglie. Me’z not want risk make more ooglie ogres.”

  I didn’t argue with her, but instead sat down with my back to a tree. I wasn’t really feeling tired and I couldn’t help but laugh at the implications of what Shemi had said. Something about me really be off that all the ogres thought I was ugly. I couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t them somehow detecting that I was different.

  Of course, it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t going to be here , so I needed to take stock of what my options were. I started with the notifications that had occurred during the fight with Tulbat.

  Mana Channeling Increased to Basic 5.

  Flameburst increased to Basic 9. You managed to cast Flameburst at 200% power for 275% mana cost.

  Critical Strike- Flameburst caused 108 dmg to the ogre, Tulbat.

  Those were interesting enough as it went. I would have to work on that mana efficiency, but that was the most powerful spell I had cast by far up to this point. My inner mage was doing cartwheels. Maybe I had not completely doomed myself by trying to play an ogre as a caster.

  There was still a great deal to learn, though. What was curious to me was that some of my skills were climbing fairly significantly while I remained at level one. That had not been an option for a player, at least not when I was doing the beta-testing. A player couldn’t have a skill more than three levels above their character level.

  Assuming it was the same as before, the breakdown of skill tiers or levels was pretty common.

  Basic 1-20

  Proficient 21-40

  Journeyman 41-60

  Adept 61-80

  Expert 81-100

  Master 101+

  It was one of the things that I liked about LoS. They didn’t try to reinvent the wheel while at the same time creating new and interesting ways to experience gaming, at least where it mattered. My attitude towards Quantum Games may have soured since they murdered me, but I could still admire their game. It was hard not to respect the attention to detail that I found in this world now that I was living here.