Butcher's Shop

Jax had a profit of 5 stones, 1 of which he spent to get provisions for the next day. After another night, he went to the grasslands again, this time earlier in the morning, hoping to do a better job at finding the monsters.

However, even after an entire day of searching with experience from yesterday, he only managed to earn 6 stones that day.

After that, Jax decided that it was not worth it to go to the grassland at all. In fact, he needed to go to the Dead Woods this time.

Late in the evening after making that decision, Jax went to search for Loma. He knew where the man lived thanks to Danny, so finding him became easy.

Loma had a butchery of his own. It made good money. Perhaps not comparable to being a porter, but the work wasn't as dangerous.

"Hey, Loma. Remember me?"

The man looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Ah, it's you. Uhh… Jack, was it?"

"Jax."

"Right, Jax. How's your chest?"

"Fully healed. No scar at all," Jax said.

"Wow! You guys really are quite lucky," the man said. "Anyway, why are you here? You wanna buy some chicken?"

"No, actually, I came asking for help," Jax said. "I want you to teach me how to dismantle a corpse. Any corpse."

The man paused. "You want to become a porter?" he asked.

"No, just learn how to become a butcher like you," Jax said. "I tried my hands at some Giant Ants in the grassland, but my work is truly atrocious. I need some help."

Loma shrugged. "I do not know how I can help you. Unless you bring one of the ants here, it would be difficult to teach you how to dismantle it."

Jax looked toward Gemma, who immediately replied. "You can't bring a monster into the city. Not only will you be punished by the guards, you might even be kicked from the city."

Jax nodded and looked back at the man. "Can't you come with me?" he asked.

Loma shook his head. "I'm sorry, man, but I can't. I have work to do here. I need to earn for me and my family, you know?"

"But… I will pay you. How much do you want?" Jax asked.

"In the grassland? You would be lucky to pay me a single stone there. I used to be a porter for a few parties when I was starting. They could barely pay me 80 coins on a good day, let alone stones."

"What about the Dead Woods?" Jax asked. "Would you go there? I am planning on going there tomorrow."

"Is your party strong enough for that?" Loma asked curiously. Considering when Jax had started, he couldn't imagine him having improved that much.

"Uhh… party?"

Loma's eyes widened. "You do have a party, right?"

Jax shook his head. "I've been doing it solo for the past two days."

Loma was stunned. "Do you want to get killed?"

"I can run away from the monsters."

"I'm not talking about monsters."

Jax sighed. "Can you really not teach me?"

"I'm sorry. Even if you had a party, I would never go to the Dead Woods. The Cobweb Forest offers far more stones if I go with one of the other parties. And I can trust them to keep me safe."

Jax frowned.

The man looked at him. "For now, I can maybe teach you here in my shop with the regular animals. See what you can learn from them. Almost all of the skill transfers when you butcher a monster too."

Jax thought for a long while and nodded. "Sounds like the best plan I have right now. When can we start?"

"Why not right away? Grab a cleaver, watch your fingers, and I can tell you what to do."

Loma's lesson for that day lasted for the next two hours. Between dealing with customers and doing his job, he had imparted just enough knowledge for Jax to feel like the time had not been a waste.

As he was about to leave, the man told Jax, "On the ant's back, there is a small, nearly invisible seam going around the place where the head connects. Instead of carving out the back plate, try prying it open. It will come out better."

Jax slowly nodded. "I'll see if that works. Thanks, Loma. See you tomorrow."

Jax returned to the training center again, and after a while, made his way back to his room where he began absorbing the energy in the stone once again.

That night, he entered the 2-Star Opal stage.

Jax woke early in the morning and made his way toward the grassland. He wanted to check out one of the ants before moving on to the Dead Woods.

It was still early enough that he was one of the first ones to have arrived. Since he was alone, he didn't have to wait for party members.

The sun was barely up the horizon when Jax found the ant he was looking for. Killing it was as simple as ever. In fact, it felt even more simple now considering the amount of Navi in his Sea of Navi had increased, along with its quality.

Once he decapitated the ant, he searched for the seam that Loma had talked about. Finding it in the shadows of the grass was a little difficult, but he did manage to locate it after brushing his palm along its body.

Once he found it, Jax pressed the smaller dagger into the side and wiggled the sharp edge along the seam to get it to open. As soon as the seam gave the tiniest bit of leeway, he slid it all the way around the body.

Once he was more than halfway done, Jax could open it far enough to place his fingers inside and rip the whole thing clean.

Finally, on the third day of killing an ant, he had managed to butcher it so cleanly.

"Great!" Jax said in excitement and placed the shell into his inventory.

Then, discarding the rest of the corpse, he walked away, heading over to where the more dangerous monsters were.