Courtney nods at Jason’s explanation but then remembers something else he had said. “Your farming skill advanced?”

Jason pauses at the sudden change in topic. “Uh, well, I did get an alert about it. Actually, let’s take a look at it.”

Jason goes to pull up the skill but Rosha stops him, “I know we get along pretty well but sharing a skill is, well, yeah.”

Jason laughs, “I trust you both enough to share my farming skill with you two. Plus with all the hints being dropped my guess is that Courtney there already knows exactly who I am. Though it probably doesn’t help that like her I used my actual name for this.”

Rosha frowns, “She wouldn’t have”, but stops and sighs. “Okay, yeah, Courtney should already know all about who you are. It is basically her job.”

Courtney comes up behind Rosha and hugs her, “I’m not just doing it because of the job. I really do care about you. We’ve been friends since forever and the job just lets me take care of you.”

Jason takes this moment of distraction to pull up his skill and share it with them both.

Herb Farming

You have shown yourself to be proficient at this classic skill. Don’t look down on it as these lands contain many mysterious plants with uncountable effects. Though you seem to have already taken a step towards understanding this.

Apprentice Level 1 - 13.2%

Rarity: Uncommon

Type: Passive, Production

Effects:

Sub-Skill Acquisition (Farming) - Allows one to gain the sub-skills related to farming Harvest {Apprentice+} Analysis (Plant) {Apprentice+} Distillation {Initiate} Analysis (Farming) {Initiate} Land Sense - Grants a sense for the condition of any area you could grow your plants Growth Assist - Plants under your constant care grow up to 10% faster Specialty (Herb) - Having gained the skill through exclusively growing one type of plant, all effects of the Farming skill and Bonuses are doubled for it Harvesting Common Sense - With the knowledge of all basic harvesting methods you will be prompted with the best way to harvest plant that you know of and slightly increase the success rate of harvesting

He takes a look over it and nods. “Nice, it went up both a rank and a rarity! Better yet, the specialty effect broadened. Instead of just the glowy weed, it now works on herbs in general. That likely is what caused the name change, though I am happy to see the more general effects haven’t been limited to herbs.”

Rosha glances over the skill and asks, “what’s up with the sub-skill thing, those curly braced ranks, and the plusses? I have nothing like that.”

Courtney squeezes Rosha one more time before letting her go. She turns to Jason, “let me take this. I’ve done some research on it.”

Jason shrugs, “well at least one of us has. I know what it means, but I don’t know why.”

Courtney smiles, “then this is a learning experience for the both of you! Anyway, what Jason has there has a number of names but it all comes down to his use of the skill being more of a side job. He isn’t a farmer, but he does farm. For someone who focuses on farming as their primary thing, they would be getting all those sub-skills as actual skills with their own effects.”

“However, Jason is a fighter. He has a herb garden, so he does get a skill for it, but he isn’t focused enough to get more. If later on he focuses on farming instead of adventuring, those sub-skills that he uses the most are likely to split off and become their own thing.”

“For now the System puts them all under his farming skill. They have their own ranks but herb farming both limits and lifts them up. His new sub-skill of distillation would only be at initiate rank since he just learned it. Because it is a sub-skill of farming though it gets a boost and will perform at a higher level. On the other hand, it lists his harvest skill as apprentice plus. This means that the skill on its own is higher than apprentice rank but has been capped.”

“I am going to guess you read one of those special skill books that are all linked up? Anyway, having read that book if he was an actual farmer, Jason would have received the skill at journeymen rank. Not master though, each plus represents how many ranks it is being suppressed by, so for that it would have to be apprentice plus plus.”

“Of course that isn’t possible. Book learning will at most get you to journeyman rank in a skill like harvesting. Though the plant specific analysis skill could have hit master rank because it is what most people like to call a knowledge skill. For locals, math is a popular example of this. Being able to have a new clerk ready to count stock or make change by simply cramming the rules of addition and subtraction along with the times table into their head is quite useful. Players actually can’t get the skill though, that is more because if we want a math problem solved we can just check online. No need to give us a skill we have basically had ever since the spread of smartphones came about hundreds of years ago.”

Jason nods his head, “fair enough. There is a lot more to my skill than I thought, but then again I hadn’t really thought too much about it. Still, I am a bit sad about not being able to get special effects for all the sub-skills. That would have been amusing.”

Courtney shrugs, “You wouldn’t be apprentice rank in farming right now if you did. As it is all the experience from those tasks have gone to a single skill. Think of where you would be if instead you had to split it between three or four other skills. In fact, that is how you split off the skills later on. You have to earn enough experience with them that they can stand on their own while not advancing the primary skill.”

Jason sighs, “at least this has corrected how I thought sub-skills worked. I guess that’s a thing.”

Rosha pats him on the shoulder and nods, “we both learned something new today and that is an important thing to do. My plan is to never stop learning until I die!”

Jason laughs, “I won’t let death stop me from learning.”