Profession

A profession is a commitment made by a player to a certain advantage in gameplay. The nature of the advantage differs by profession and level. A profession is not an irreversible decision; it can be changed at any time for a fee of, where   is the total number of previous career changes. Doing so causes level progress to reset to Apprentice, the lowest possible level. Each profession is governed by a patron Guardian, though that currently alters nothing mechnically.

Levels
A profession automatically levels as alchemy does; that is, as a player levels up in alchemy, so too do they level up in their profession. Each level typically unlocks at least one alchemy recipe otherwise unavailable. Once unlocked, the recipe will remain in the recipe book forever, though it cannot be used if the player changes profession and/or loses the required level.

If a player changes profession, their level will reset to 1. This affects both the profession and alchemy as a whole, making changing professions a significant detriment for players who need access to higher level recipes.

A player's current title will appear alongside their profession in ther user profile, and in the miniprofile on forum posts.

Adventurer
Patron Guardian: Eagle Your bravery and wanderlust inspires you to set out on grand adventures in search of wealth. Advantage:The player earns one additional step every five minutes, resulting in a total of two steps per five minutes and halving the total time it takes to reach the step cap. An Adventurer will recover 100 steps in 4 hours and 10 minutes.

This is an excellent profession for beginners provided they have the time to make use of the additional steps. If a beginner is unlikely to benefit from the extra steps, they should consider Merchant instead.

Although the primary advantage, extra steps, is identical to that of Tailor, Adventurers gain access to recipes for avatar apparel items that the Tailor does not. While Tailor's exclusive recipes are also avatar apparel, they are casual fabric clothing, whereas the Adventurer has access to armour items.

Alchemist
Patron Guardian: Snake Your ingenuity with elixirs and spells allows you to craft new and unique items more efficiently than your peers. Advantage: Reduces alchemy tool cooldown by 25%.

Because certain recipes incur a cooldown time of one hour or more, and most of those recipes are higher levels, this is a particularly useful profession to players who make regular use of high-level recipes.

Artisan
Patron Guardian: Horse Your eye for aesthetics leads you to a life of ornamentation with your pet companions. Advantage: One free skin upload per month. These stack, meaning it is possible to wait three months and then use all three free uploads in a single day.

Although monthly free uploads are not currently granted automatically, reporting that a free skin hasn't been automatically granted will result in an admin, most likely Digital, manually applying it to the account.

Hunter
Patron Guardian: Wolf ''You enjoy spending your time collecting and studying all of the minor organisms found within Novilar. '' Advantage: An overall 10% increase in minipet encounter rates while exploring, plus the ability to discover one unique minipet for each territory.

Ideal for minipet completionists or those looking for a little extra to sell. Pairs best with the Animal Magnitism boon.

Keeper
Patron Guardian: Deer You gently care for all of the Guardian’s favored creatures, and are blessed for your diligent work. Advantage: A 10% higher chance of twins, and 5% higher chance of triplets when breeding pets.

Mage
Patron Guardian: Lion You have dedicated your time to the study of magic and how it affects the world and creatures of Novilar. Advantage: An additional 10% chance of purification on any encounter with a corrupt pet.

Merchant
Patron Guardian: Alligator You are quite the savvy businessperson, and tend to get better deals for less coin than others. Advantage: A 5% discount on all restock shops selling for gold, and an additional 0.005% interest in the bank.

As 0.005% appears to be the default rate of interest, this profession effectively doubles daily interest. That alone makes this an almost universally good profession for anyone's use needs (if a different profession wouldn't provide a better advantage), but is especially beneficial to players who would earn more in daily interest (accounting for this profession's doubling of that interest) than they would by exploring as much as they are able to in a day.

Philosopher
Patron Guardian: Fox You enjoy intellectual discourse, and spend much of your time in discussion, gently challenging the beliefs of your peers. Advantage: Friendship with NPCs is gained at a faster rate, which will result in discounts once that friendship has reached a high enough level.

As the exact rate of increase is not mentioned in the profession summary on site, nor the degree of discount earned or at what point that discount is earned, the advantage of this profession over Merchant is unknown.

Scribe
Patron Guardian: Bear You spend your days cataloguing your and others’ adventures in Novilar for the history books. Advantage: Access to unique alchemy recipes otherwise unavailable.

Although all professions grant access to additional recipes, Scribe gets more recipes than any other profession, and the items those recipes produce are often further required for other recipes. For example, only Scribes can produce ink of any colour.

Tailor
Patron Guardian: Otter ''Others will seek you out for your impeccable sense of taste. You are never to be found without a new apparel item on hand.'' Advantage: The player earns one additional step every five minutes, resulting in a total of two steps per five minutes and halving the total time it takes to reach the step cap. A Tailor will recover 100 steps in 4 hours and 10 minutes. Access to more unique recipes.

Although the primary advantage, extra steps, is identical to that of Adventurer, Tailors gain access to recipes for avatar apparel items that the Adventurer does not. While Adventurer's exclusive recipes are also avatar apparel, they are armour, whereas the Tailor has access to more casual clothing items.