Luna and I had taken a bit of time to find a good place for the shrine we had been asked to build. The biggest problem was that the area was fairly flat, with rather sandy and unstable soil, meaning we could hardly dig down, as we had done before. There was no useful tree I could use to fortify the construction, nor did we come across a suitable large pre-change construction I could use as a base. The best place we could find was yet another crossroad, fairly close to a river, where the Astral River was close to the surface and powerful, the contrast between the power flowing through the land and the power flowing through the river contrasting. There was also some influence from the Charland nearby, making the place magically quite potent and significant, while giving it a fair amount of stability between the three clashing forces. All that meant it would hopefully last for a long time, which was quite important for a shrine and without alternatives, it was where we would build.

Sadly, digging a real, permanent structure into the soil would be incredibly difficult, maybe even impossible, as it would have to be wholly carried by my Crystal or Earth Magic, and with the soil on top, I wasn’t sure it would work. Instead, I decided to go for something new and attempt to actually construct a real building instead of only digging holes.

Part of that decision came from the inherent problems of digging down but the bigger reason was that I wanted to try something new. Digging would mean I’d use nothing but the same techniques I had employed in previous constructions. With the soil, I’d have to transform almost every surface into the crystalline substance I had used to reinforce certain parts before, making the whole thing a massive and massively boring project.

Finding the right material was an interesting side-project, one that allowed me to flex my Earth Magic to its limits, as I tested a huge amount of rubble and partially destroyed buildings for suitable materials before moving them to the shrine and reshaping them. It was incredibly interesting to explore the boundary between Earth- and Crystal Magic and to watch how the two different magical elements interacted with the same material and transformed it in different ways. I learned a huge amount with those experiments and the massive skill gains I received showed that progress clearly. Earth Magic went up by six, reaching level thirty-two, Earth Rune Mastery up by five, getting to level twenty-five and Crystal Magic went up by five, too, so it reached level twenty-eight. Interestingly, my experiments also granted me two points in Alchemy, raising the neglected skill to five and making me wonder what it actually entailed.

During the breaks, Luna and I continued to experiment with the strange merging technique we had stumbled upon, carefully adding Life Magic and other magical elements into different small plants and eventually we managed to find the right way to do it. The results were incredibly interesting plants, all with their own magical biases and, to my surprise, all species recognised by the system. Small amounts of Life Magic combined with Darkness Magic in one of the ubiquitous tufts of grass resulted in a Shade Leaf, granting me a point in Darkness Magic the first time we did it, with similar results for Luna.

From there, we continued to experiment and eventually managed to get the right combination for each of the magical elements I had access to, other than Mind Magic, Blood Magic and, obviously, Death Magic. That resulted in a bunch of points all across the board, with all my Magic Skills but those three getting a point, while Enchanting gained three, bringing it to twenty-two.

It also left us wondering what we should do with the plants we had managed to create until we decided that the plants should have their chance in the wild and simply let them be. They weren’t immediately destructive like the first experiment had been but they also didn’t have an obvious survival advantage compared to regular grass. Altogether, they didn’t show obvious magical abilities, other than their sometimes peculiar looks and the ability of the Lightning Leaf to give anyone trying to pick it up a small shock, much akin to what one would get from a static charge on clothing. Either they would spread or they wouldn’t. One fascinating observation was that Fire Leaf, the combination of Life and Fire, was thriving in the Charland, the odd-looking red plant growing like a, well, weed, making me wonder just how much of its success came down to the environment.

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Looking at that success, I had a feeling that Luna and I would keep creating these plants and seed them as we travelled, simply because they were incredibly interesting and useful for us and other spellcasters. Interestingly, we also gained EXP for each of the new plants, and a fairly good amount at that, allowing me to gain an entire level, letting me reach level eighty-two. Sadly, we didn’t have any success with anything more complicated than grass, all our experiments had fatal consequences, either because the test subjects died or because I had to put them down due to complications. Still, the project was fascinating even if I hadn’t received a skill for the work just yet.

While Luna and I were busy with that project, Lia, Alex and Silva luckily managed to alleviate our food situation by finding a small supermarket that hadn’t been looted yet. While the majority of goods in the place were spoiled, either due to time or thanks to a wide variety of insects, rats and other critters getting into it, they managed to find a few salvageable items, in addition to the critters they managed to hunt down. Amusingly, the rabbit population in the area seemed to have exploded, though there were also wild dogs and other animals that used to be pets running around the fields, creating a new and somewhat thriving ecosystem. Strangely, there were no humans to be found, making me wonder if they had gathered and wandered off or if they had simply been unlucky and died during the change. The number of bodies, or things that used to be bodies, implied the second but as I had no idea how many people used to live in the area, it was hard to tell.

And, in a way, it didn’t really matter, the people were gone now, and people would return someday unless the Charland made things exceptionally weird. The cycle of life would continue, until there was another major change, bringing about the extreme conclusion to the cycle while being part of yet another, larger cycle. Maybe that was the answer to the question of cycles and extremes, both, depending on the magnitude. Not satisfying but with my limited perception it likely was the best I could do for now.

In addition to foraging, Alex and Lia continued with their alchemical work, turning some of the materials we found in the Charland into marvellous inventions. There were actual grenades that exploded into sharp shrapnel without any obvious magic involved, made from ground-up Embercreeper with some other stuff mixed in. Meanwhile, the Scorchipede shells and the hide of the Serpentia Triad were turned into armour, giving all of us some fairly good protection. Amusingly, the armour made from fiery creatures was especially good at protecting from Fire, an effect I managed to enhance even further by adding some runic enchantments centred around Ice and Cold. That it made the wearer feel pleasantly cool even during the hottest times was a welcome side-effect, though one that struggled while exploring the Charland. But it helped, it helped a lot.

In a project that took cooperation between Alex, Lia and myself, we managed to use a combination of Earth, Crystal and Fire Magic to refine metal and turn it into something new. It only worked thanks to the Fire Node we still managed to tap, despite the Fire Elemental guarding it, and with the heat the node provided, a huge amount of detailed work from Alex and Lia in combination with my own efforts, we managed to get something.

We started with some gathered construction steel, all of it randomly influenced by the change and partially transformed, melted it down so we could scoop off some impurities before we separated the material into badges to which Alex and Lia added different materials. The end results weren’t as interesting as the magical plants Luna and I had managed to create but the two Alchemists were quite happy and Lia was happily banging away on what the system referred to as Steel, turning it into simple weapons and expanding our equipment that way. For now, the only thing we couldn’t reliably produce was food, mostly because none of us was interested in hanging around an area long-term, otherwise, I did not doubt that Luna and I would manage to crack that problem eventually.

But the bigger project I now had to accomplish was building Hecate’s Shrine, a project for which the Goddess had given me plans during a dream. It was a daunting challenge but somehow, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the structure she had shown me and the magic I would have to infuse into it. It looked like the Goddess truly knew my heart, as it seemed to be right at the edge of my ability, incredibly challenging but not impossible. And, knowing the Goddess, the reward for a job well done would be worth it. She certainly had come through for me after the trip into the Charland.