Chapter 54: Hardcore Job Change Starts with Running Laps

Sykes hadn’t expected to encounter such a thing just by joining in on Hua Yibing’s fun.
He had always been worried about how to teach these players.
Originally, he had planned to do it himself, but when teaching Huahua about potions, the merman clearly realized what a huge amount of work it was.

This really made a fish go bald.

So Sykes gave up on the principle he had always insisted on—”only merfolk can be on merman territory”—and urged Tom twice a day to hurry up and bring people back.
The players’ self-exploration was almost at its limit.
It was time to arrange for a few mentors to guide them.

Even if they were visitors from another world, it was a bit too much to always ask them to explore on their own.
If the members of the uninformed cub protection association found out, even if they were in the Sea of Death, those crazy short-lived species might come and then ruthlessly stamp an unqualified red stamp on his mage tower door.

Unfortunately, the wandering runemaster that Tom had sworn to bring had run off somewhere.
According to his reply, he was still on his way to find the other party.
This one could be considered a mentor for now, but magic and combat skills also needed relevant mentors.

Sykes had originally planned to put up a sign to recruit a few, but unexpectedly, Xavier took the lead and expressed his willingness to teach the players.

This was also the reason why Sykes’s eyes had just lit up.

Although he still couldn’t be sure of this octopus’s combat skill level, as a lord, he should be enough to teach a group of players who were not even level ten, right?

When the time comes, what should he tell them this is called?
A profession change?

Those who can’t learn the introductory lessons will all be considered to have failed the profession change.
The merman thought without any burden.
By the way, what he couldn’t figure out was, why would the octopus lord, who seemed to have some interpersonal relationship barriers, suddenly propose such a suggestion that was inconsistent with his own personality?

But this didn’t affect his budding idea of investigating the other party first, and if he was suitable, finding a way to make him stay for the long term.
No overly complicated racial background, no inextricable interpersonal relationships, and his strength was completely below his own so there was no fear of him causing trouble.
Such talents were generally the top choices for recruitment by those human nobles.

After so long in the human world, Sykes had still learned something.

Within almost half an hour, the news of a new NPC mentor had already spread throughout the entire Sea Realm.
The players who hadn’t gone out to explore had basically all gathered at Xavier’s door, turning the originally gloomy environment into an extremely lively one.

As soon as Xavier stepped out, he was met with more than a hundred pairs of sparkling eyes.
The whole octopus was almost dumbfounded on the spot.

What to do when the benefactor’s cubs are too eager to learn?

He had originally thought he only needed to teach the three little merfolk who had come to his door, but he hadn’t expected their connections to be quite close.
One told ten, and ten told a hundred.
They had all rushed over.

What should he do?
Xavier felt his discomfort in a crowd return.
He slowly took a step back, and then saw the players follow him a step forward.

He took another step back, and the players still maintained a rather dangerous distance.

Xavier: “!!”

With a ‘thump’, he slammed the door shut, hiding behind the door panel, leaving a pile of players standing there looking at each other.

“This NPC looks so fierce. Is he angry?” a player asked weakly.

“I don’t know. It looks like it,” someone answered weakly.

At this time, Sykes, who was mixed in the crowd, called out to the little butler in his mind: [Ella.]

Ella’s reaction was very fast.
She timely released a quest notification to every player’s system bar.

[Congratulations player for discovering a skill mentor. Every mentor has their own preferences and personality. Players are requested to adopt different learning methods according to the mentor’s different personality~]

[Current Mentor: Xavier]

[Personality: Dislikes large crowds. When the number of people present is greater than 10, there is a chance he will choose to stay behind closed doors.]

Whoa! This is really arrogant!
The players exploded.
Someone started to take the lead, and they retreated step by step.

Ella seemed to have communicated something with Xavier, and soon released his exclusive quest.

[Mentor Xavier has issued a quest—Train your body. Do you want to learn powerful combat skills? Start by training your body!]

[Profession Change Quest · Train your body (1): Swim 20 laps around the residential area every day until your physical fitness reaches the mentor’s teaching standard. Quest Reward: Xavier’s Favorability +10, unlock the next part of the profession change quest.]

After seeing this quest, the players present couldn’t help but look at each other.
To train, you have to run laps?
What kind of down-to-earth training method is this?

For a moment, the otakus once again recalled the fear of being dominated by military training laps—heaven knows, they, who were too lazy to even leave the house at home, actually had to run laps in a game?

“Are we still going to do it?”, someone asked.

But at this moment, no one answered him anymore.
With a few ‘swooshes’ past the residential area, started today’s 20 laps, while the remaining half went on to continue what they were doing before.

The remaining player was dumbfounded, and with a flick of his tail, also followed… to the sky.
Sigh, who knows when the next mentor will come?
Let’s just do the quest for now.

In short, after such a quest screening, most of the players who remained were those who wanted to learn combat skills, and a part of them who were just fooling around would also gradually give up in the endless laps.

Regarding this, even Sykes couldn’t help much.
After all, learning has always been a fantasy under the help of Ella’s function, but the proficiency of the skill was still a matter of course.

Things that need to be learned with one’s own heart will definitely not be achieved overnight.

He had to say that Xavier did have some skills.
Although he didn’t know the specific structure of the players was a collection of consciousnesses, he could tell at a glance their physical disharmony—even after the server had been open for so long, and many players could swim smoothly, there was still a considerable part of the players whose consciousness had not adapted to this energy shell and couldn’t respond in time.

To put it simply,

20 laps a day, although it looked simple and crude, was also within the tolerance range of most players.
It could both screen out those who were just joining in the fun and also let the players coordinate themselves step by step for the next step of training.

Now all that was left was to see the players’ reactions.
I wonder if there will be large-scale complaints and grievances?

While Sykes was thinking this, he reached out and grabbed the collar of Huahua in front of him.
In the other’s dazed gaze, he asked him to fulfill his previous promise.

“The milk tea recipe,” he ignored the other’s wail of “Scott, how did you learn to be so bad,” and dragged Hua Yibing towards his appraisal shop.

Complaining is one thing.
After being dragged into the shop with one hand, Huahua still honestly stated his thoughts.

“Since you can’t work on the drink itself, can’t you just work on the toppings?” he took out a cup of milk tea from the pot containing the finished product and shook it twice in front of Sykes.

He seemed to want to take a sip, but then he remembered the two large cans of fruit juice that were sweeter than sugar water he had drunk at Xavier’s place before.
A wave of nausea made him immediately dismiss this idea.

“Toppings?”

“You’ve never really had a single cup of milk tea, have you?” Huahua looked at Sykes as if looking at some primitive man.
“It’s those little toppings like pudding, red beans, coconut jelly, and grass jelly that can be added.”

Sykes said calmly, “I think I’ve heard of them.”

Hua Yibing said with a complicated expression, “Next time, give me your address. Big brother will order you a cup of milk tea to open your eyes!” he patted Sykes’s shoulder with pity, as if he had missed some unparalleled delicacy.

After sending Huahua back to run his laps again, Sykes, with Ella’s help, inquired about the description of milk tea toppings in the other world.
Although Hua Yibing had never been very reliable, this time he had rarely proposed a useful suggestion.

Sykes had never thought of adding toppings separately before.
His direction of thinking had always been how to add new ingredients to the liquid, and he had been confined to one direction.

He deduced the possibilities for a while, then told the foodie girl the conclusion.
The other also had a sudden epiphany, with a look of “why didn’t I think of that before.”
She slapped her tail and excitedly went back to continue experimenting.

The next day, Contemporary Foodie sent over a dozen cups of milk tea with different toppings to the appraisal shop as a thank you gift.

Sykes checked their attributes one by one.
Compared to the previous attribute panel, besides the fixed increase in satiety and the inexplicable state of happiness, there were also extremely slight additional attribute bonuses depending on the different toppings.

Similar to health +1, magic power +1, a very small increase in understanding of the water attribute, etc.
It seemed that there was a natural ceiling for this food called [Milk Tea], but this also made the foodie extremely satisfied.
Almost every time she saw Scott, played by Sykes, she would very enthusiastically stuff him with a large pile of new products.

And once this special food called [Milk Tea] was introduced, it quickly spread among all the players.
Even the poor combat players, who were stingy with every single attribute bonus and wished they could spend every single reputation point on the cutting edge, would unhesitatingly buy a few cups of milk tea of different flavors and put them in their backpacks, and the consumption rate was extremely fast.
They would have to go and replenish it again after a short while.

Xavier had also lamented to Sykes about the players’ creativity—by the way, he had successfully bought a magic mirror and had gotten the magic information from Sykes.

“Although I don’t really like this taste, the cubs seem to like such sweet flavors,” Xavier showed the large pile of milk tea he had bought.
“When I was entertaining them, I specially added a little of the sweet powder I bought outside, but I don’t know if it’s because they were too reserved, they didn’t eat much,” he said, scratching his head in frustration.

“Perhaps, you can try not to entertain them so enthusiastically,” Sykes gave a very sincere suggestion.

He thought of the times his vest had been dragged to Xavier’s hut by Hua Yibing for various reasons.
The sweet powder on the surface of the milk tea that the other had served was an inch thick.
He had strong doubts about the “little bit” that this octopus had mentioned.

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