Ozzy had never thought that fishing could be complicated, but he'd also spent little time doing it.

Never in real life, and rarely in VR worlds.

But watching Woodrat pull in fish after fish as he struggled to get even his first had convinced him that he was doing something wrong, or that his captain was doing a lot more right.

Woodrat pulled in another, and made a count.

"My, it's a good thing I can use your bare toes to help me count, there's a lot of fine fishies sitting on my side of the line.

By my count the score is 13 to 0.

Are you perhaps ready for another lesson?"Ozzy felt the rumblings in his belly, they convinced him to pay more attention to his lessons this time.

"I reckon I am, professor.

Give me the lecture.""Then heed my wisdom this time.

You're still making your chain too thick.

Pare it down to a fine thread.

If you're worried about it snapping, force more smoke into the end of the chain and work it along the length.

We're after Golden Blinkers today.

They have a peculiar form of heat that helps them stay up at the top of the smoke.

You want a light line, a thin hook, and a chunk of bait with a couple of points of heat to attract them.

Your line is sinking your bait too low in the smoke."Ozzy spent the next couple of hours making chain, and trying to create a thinner fishing line.

He was surprised at how much easier it was.

He'd spent weeks working with Joe and only managed some clumsy links that floated off after a few seconds.

Making chain had become easier here in the smoke, and after gaining his new tattoo he felt like he was learning faster.

He had experimented with the magical chain a half dozen times.

The links were three inches long and half that in width, made of thick, black smoke.

If he thought hard he could make smaller links, which let him increase the length of the chain.

The normal version was a fifty feet long.

If he timed it right, he could make the chain even as he was throwing it.

But after a few experiments, Woodrat complained of both scared fish, and a captain scared of being accidentally strangled.

Ozzy held off experimenting more until he had some room.

Woodrat was up to 17 fish in his pile when Ozzy was finally satisfied with his line.

He made a hook and put three points of heat into the bait for good measure.

He cast his line out to the opposite side of the raft and sat back to impatiently wait for either a fish to take the bait or for a small tug and slack line to let him know some crafty smoke dweller had stolen his bait again.To while away the time, he pondered how to spend his skill points and experience.

After some thought, he dumped all 1000 points of experience into Strike Undead.

Radiance would give him more heat, and the undead that seemed to be common in the smoke were deadly when they attacked in numbers.

This increased his radiance to Rank 6, which also meant he needed to spend 2 points to increase his skill cap.

He debated buying Spirit of the Divine but Hull was catching his eye.

He needed to get to Mate to get access to that list.

It was a skill unique to the Smoke and if it carried over to the Conjunction, he'd be a lot tougher when he got back.

If he got back.

Would Joe have tossed him someplace if there wasn't a way out? He didn't see the point, but then he also couldn't see the horizon or anything except for the slightly rolling smoke and reminded himself that Joe might look nearly human at times, but he wasn't.

The list of Core Skills for a crewman was quite lacking.

Mate had a lot of gems, and Woodrat had shown him the Officer's list.

He could see why the upper ranks on a ship could hold power.

A captain on a large ship could become a true terror.

He went back through the list available to him as a contract worker.

One set of skills he'd ignored were the gathering skills.

Skilled Provider gave a better chance of getting quality materials while Abundance produced more.

He'd seen no reason to buy those.

Billy would work him just as many hours and profit more from his work.

Better to buy skills that helped the group get ahead of the game.But here on the Smoke, with fishing being so important, he saw them in a new light, and they weren't that expensive.

Skilled Provider

Your gathering skills have an increased chance of finding better quality items.

This can result in gems while mining, growing 200-pound potatoes, finding a patch of Magical Mushrooms, or a golden apple while picking fruit.

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Abundance

Your gathering skills return more resources than normally expected.(+10%/+25%/+50%/+75%/+100%)

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