Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system! C.115: The doubt that holds the rewards back

"The first of the rewards comes from completing the "Bounties of the Forest" mission. Or, to be more specific, the easiest out of three subquests it consisted of."

I took a moment to sort out the pop-up windows in my vision, taking the clutter they introduced as a blessing.

Any sane man in my situation would curse them to hell and back, for those windows now fully covered my vision, blocking my sight of Fay's beautiful charms…

But given how it was already a challenge to maintain my focus with Fay straddling me, removing her beauty from before my eyes was actually a blessing. Without them, I would never be able to focus on the topic.

This was one of the two main reasons why I decided to just ignore the horrendous clutter, simply moving aside the windows that I'd talked about rather than doing the one thing that would allow me to close them.

And so, I focused on the very first window that I wanted to talk about, given how it was pretty much straightforward.

[Bounties of the forest: Easy route completed!]

[Unlocked: Herbal Scavenger

- Passive ability

- Requires focus

- Allows to identify lower grade of herbs on sight]

"Let's start with how I've now gained the ability to discern the low-grade herbs from just random weeds. It's an ability that only requires me to focus and comes at relatively no cost."

With this reward, there was hardly anything worth using my time and attention to explain. It was pretty much as self-explanatory as it was useless given Leinei's help back in the celestial forest.

If anything, it was simply a convenience boon, due to how I could simply ask Leinei to teach me a bit about the basic herbs, learning how to notice them even without the help of the system.

"According to the order in which the notification appeared, fulfilling that mission brought me over the threshold of experience necessary to level up, resulting in a total of three notifications."

[Level up!]

[First milestone achieved!]

[Unlocking T1 rewards]

- Can now gain and grow elemental affinities

- Blessing of language

- Blessing of growth

- Blessing of basic knowledge]

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"First, I've leveled up, achieving the fifth level in the process. Secondly, reaching the fifth level apparently is some sort of a milestone for the system, which resulted in the system unlocking the first tier of rewards…"

Fay shifted on my lap, sensing that we were now stepping into the actually interesting part of the topic.

"Those rewards allow me to grow elemental affinities and include three blessings, language, growth, and basic knowledge," I listed out all the information within the pop-up window.

'But what is the blessing of growth? Does that mean it will be easier for me to level up? Or maybe I will get more points per level-up? And this blessing of knowledge, how is it any different from wisdom attribute? Perhaps it just adds those virtual points to this attribute? But why can't I see any further pop-up windows that would explain what those blessings are, exactly?'

As self-explanatory as the first two bonuses were, the other two were as cryptic as the rest of my system. In other words, it appeared I would have to somehow figure out their uses on the go.

"Do you know what those blessings mean?" Fay asked, her body slightly tensing up.

"Honestly, for the latter two, I have no idea," I admitted while shrugging my shoulders… Only to sense Fay relax her muscles beyond how relaxed she was before she tensed up.

"Those blessings should be something simple," she announced, only for her aura to grow slightly warmer as I sensed she now put a smile on her face. "Given how I spoke to you in the language of my world right now."

This time it was my turn to tense up a bit.

'This little…'

Taken aback by Fay's small ploy, I ended up shaking my head.

"That was a good one," I admitted, reaching out to pat her on her back. "I guess there's a chance I will be able to learn more about those once I let all those benefits come to life," I added, only to move the notification window aside and focus on the next part of the benefits I received.

[Bounties of the forest: Master route completed!

[Unlocking "Friend of the Forest" subroutine

- Gained skill: Bond of the Forest]

"The next part is pretty cryptic. It's a reward for completing the master route of the "Bounties of the Forest" mission. And to boil it all down, it grants me the skill named "bond of the forest". What this skill does, though, I will only know once I allow all those benefits to take effect."

Once again, the information I could share was limited by how all those notifications, and thus the benefits they described, were still on hold.

And that brought me all the way to the last notification, one that allowed me to keep all of the former ones on hold.

[Bounties of the forest: completed!

- Dynamic reward: Allows the creation of an additional, stable portal/Halves the Cooldown of the portal

- Doubles the benefits of the Celestial blessing

- Evolves "Herbal Scavenger" into "Herb Seeker"]

"Before I explain the last of my rewards, I should mention that I've already completed the…" I hesitated for a second when I recalled how the system named the route for the "bounties of the forest" which was supposed to be even harder than the master route. "I've already completed the hardest route from the mission set. And this last reward is for completing the whole mission set."

Yeah. There was no way I was going to bring up how gaining the blessing of a celestial protector was a "Are you fucking serious?" difficulty.

"First, this reward doubles the benefits I've received from your mother giving me her blessing. It also evolves the very first reward to a higher level… But for what benefits, I'm not really sure."

"Honey…" Fay suddenly spoke up, tightening her hold over my shoulder. "The last part, what is it?"

I had no intention of hiding the truth from Fay. Just like I decided never to lie to her… she now proved I wouldn't be able to do so even if I actually wanted to.

"The last part of this final reward gives me a choice between shortening the time we have to wait for the portal to reopen after use… Or allowing me to create an additional, stable portal."

This was the reason why all the other notifications I've received have yet to activate. But this choice wasn't as simple nor as easy as it might've appeared on a first look.

It was a reward for completing a whole set of missions, thus making it pretty valuable. And while I could certainly see the value of cutting the cooldown of the portal in half when it came to the ability to create an additional, stable portal…

"You are… full of hesitation," Fay mentioned in a fainter voice, moving her hands down from my shoulders and resting them on my chest instead. "Why?"

I took a deep breath, glancing at the two possible options before slowly sighing my breath out.

"I'm hesitating because of how great of a boon it could be to have a portal we could always return to, I'm not really sure how it's going to work with my ability to open the portals right now."