Seeing the advancement message filled me with something that I didn't think I could still feel at my age. The thrill of racking up levels. Even though it was something as simple as cleaning when this advancement message appeared… I felt as if some kind of strange force filled my entire body, cleaning me from all the tiredness caused by the hours of boredom that I was subjected to ever since my death and appearance in this prison cell.
"If just cleaning a single piece can advance my ability an entire level…"
Not even finishing my sentence, I realised that cleaning was the best thing that I could do in order to preserve my sanity in this boring cell. Not daring to waste any more time and ignoring the anxious question what I would do once everything would be perfectly clean, I dropped to my knees once again and using the light of the flashing messages, I started to collect all the bits of wood that once made up the frame of the bed.
A long plank here, most likely the base on which the mattress laid. Four thick pieces, probably the legs of the bed. Several other planks that I found scattered over the floor only confirmed my initial guess about the role they served in this simple construction before it was smashed into pieces.
One by one, I gathered all the pieces of wood that I could find on the floor, quickly assembling them back in order to make them at least look like the bed frame. Sadly, the people that made said bed in the first place, didn't dare to use nails to put it together, most likely worried that a prisoner would use them for some unnecessary acts of self-harm or in a stupid attempt to escape.
"Hmm…"
Using the flashing light of the messages to inspect the pieces that I put together and glued with just the faith and wishes alone, I understood that no matter how much I would try, applying any form of force to this pitiful construct would instantly result in its consecutive destruction.
If that was the case, just how the heck I was supposed to clean it?
"CLEAN!"
Shouting the name of my ability in some silly hope that it would piece the parts together, I quickly realised that I should be thankful that no one was watching me, as absolutely nothing happened.
"If that doesn't work, then how the heck am I supposed to level up my abilities, not to speak about escaping the prison?"
Once again voicing my protests, I was about to spit into the shitting hole in the corner of the room, when I realised one thing.
According to those messages that kept appearing in my vision, I had to develop all three skills of mine. Given how there was absolutely no one that I could talk to, growing my social aspect of cleaning skill was out of the question, so only the creative cleaning remained as an option!
And my natural drive to spit could come in handy here!
Taking a piece of wood, I circulated my tongue through my jaws for a moment, accumulating all the saliva that I could in my mouth. Only once the amount of the sticky liquid was satisfactory, I actually brought two pieces of wood that I wanted to connect, before opening my mouth and allowing my saliva to slowly drip on the broken part of the pieces.
Cap, cap, cap.
Droplets of the thick liquid continued to fall down due to the force of gravity right on top of the ragged side of the wood. Once it was wet enough, I slammed the other piece at the wet surface, pushing the two parts against each other with all the strength that I had in my arms.
But what was the most surprising about it once I was done, was that this idiotic attempt actually somehow worked!
"I guess I should be happy…?"
Not sure what to think about this entire situation, I spent the next few hours diligently spitting at the wood and piecing the parts together. One by one, various elements of the bed continued to fill their respective niches, slowly forming a brand new bed out of the rubble that I saw when I first paid attention to what was on the floor!
"Spitted bed, a brand new product of this world!"
Felling how my sanity was slowly fading away, I could hear myself laughing at the sheer ridiculous idea of using spit to connect broken parts of equipment together, and even using this aspect of the item to create a brand for it!
Well, to be quite frank, something like that was absolutely a child's play when compared to some of the shenanigans I employed in my previous life while hiding the dirty money away from the sight of the government!
*Congratulations!*
*You have advanced your creative cleaning skill!*
*Creative cleaning level 1(0/2)*
At this point, I was basically sure how I could advance my skills. If my guess was right, then by performing specific tasks that could be somehow related to the name of said skills, I could gain progress points. With enough of those points, the level of my skill would advance.
While it was nothing but a wild guess derived from my experience in playing various games, I decided that sticking to it was better than just wildly trying to guess just what the heck was happening!
But still, while I managed to somehow develop two of the three aspects of my main skill, without another person to interact with, how the heck was I supposed to tackle the problem of social cleaning?
A sound of steps appeared in my prison cell just as this question appeared in my head.
"Now you have done it!"
Before I could even form a single thought, the doors to the corridor of the prison opened up with an unpleasant screech, allowing some stranger to enter it with a torch in his hand. While this alone was enough to put any sane man of modern age into a stupor, I silently decided to just watch how the situation would develop.
"How dare you destroy… What?"
When the light of the torch appeared, I could finally somehow make up how this man looked. And the sight didn't fill me with optimism at all. To be quite frank, even with all those times when I dressed in some fancy costumes on the Halloween parties, I never would find enough creativity to match the outfit of the man that stood on the other side of the bars!
"Sir, I would like to profoundly apologise for allowing my anger to take the better of me."
Instantly falling down on my knee, I lowered my head. If it wasn't the chance to level up my social cleaning aspect, then what else could it be? Given all those years when I served in the organisation starting from its very bottom level, I didn't really care about putting myself down before someone of greater power than me.
After all, as long as I could benefit from lowering my head, then how could I even call it a humiliation?
*Congratulations!*
*Host actions managed to clean the anger out of the prison guard's mind!*
*You have advanced your social cleaning aspect!*
*Social cleaning level 1(0/2)*
*Congratulations!*
*You fulfiled the requirements of the side tasks!*
*Host will be rewarded with three skill points!*
*Alert!*
*The way of distributing your skills will affect the constitution reward of the main quest!*