Of course, unlike me, Becca lacked a massive imbalance that would allow her to recover quickly, so she needed to take rest days. The first time, I had gone ahead with my own training, and while it allowed me to push myself harder than I could when co-training with Becca, I had to admit I found it rather lonesome.

And so, now, on my second rest day, I decided that such days would be better dedicated to taking care of matters around my apartment and the City.

For starters, I would fix all the terrible enscribing in my apartment. While my ki control was strong enough to allow me to roughly enscribe some basic runes—that was how I made those weights—I decided that I would want to be a bit cleaner about it if I was going to start modifying my apartment. And so, after a quick trip to the store, I found myself back in my apartment with a brand new enscribing set.

The first thing I did was enscribe a light fixture over the kitchenette. For all that the natural light from the window there usually sufficed to illuminate the space, more often than I cared to admit, I found myself cooking in dim lighting. This simply wouldn’t do. Hoping up on the top of the kitchenette counter, I balanced myself with one hand against the ceiling as I channeled ki through the enscribing stylus in the other and began enscribing the rune for a simple light. When that was done, I then began running a connector rune across the ceiling, to the wall, down the wall, around the window, and onto the kitchenette’s flat service. I then drew a brand new ki absorption rune to act as the primary switch to turn on the light. That said, I envisioned that the light would mostly be useful when I was cooking on the griddle, and so, I enscribed a splitter rune and connected it to the absorption rune for the griddle.

Inspecting the griddle absorption rune closely, I saw that it was in rough shape and likely would have broken with a few more months of regular use. Channeling my limited earth ki, I cleaned up some of the cracks and chips that had formed in the stone, and reinscribed the rune, before adding a few small upgrades to increase its storage capacity by about 30%. The overhead light wouldn’t need nearly that much ki, and so the surplus would primarily go to benefiting the griddle.

Turning to the griddle itself, I inspected the heat generating runes there and was surprised to find that they were still in decent shape compared to the absorption rune. Looking more closely, I decided that they much have been fixed in the last year or two, as there was some inconsistency in the rune typical of adding new enscriptions, but nothing that was worrisome.

With the griddle and light resolved, I turned to the wash basin which had given me such trouble that first day I moved in. Since then, I largely had fed it a constant trickle of ki, and that would suffice. Indeed, it had only been a problem when I wanted a lot of water fast. Nonetheless, inspecting the wash basin now with an eye of enscription, I was sorely disappointed. Whoever had worked on this had no idea what they were doing and had added many components to the rune that made no sense. If anything, my best guess was that they were added for artistic flair, but that had meant that the ki flow was…. Nevermind, I wasn’t even bother trying to understand all that was wrong here. With a bit of effort, I invoked my earth ki to wipe the whole basin clean.

I then began enscribing from the beginning the water generating rune I wanted. It was a fairly decent rune and, if enough ki was provided, could fill up the whole basin in a few seconds. Given that level of complexity, it took me almost a quarter bell to fully enscribe. But when I was done, I filled up the basin and was very satisfied with my work.

With the water basin finally done, I looked over the ice box and, except for one or two cracks which I patched, the rune work there was acceptable. With the kitchenette done, I then turned to the rest of the apartment.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I started by looking for the heater runes for winter in the apartment and, after a tenth bell, came to the conclusion that there were no heater runes whatsoever. I’d have to ask my landlady Lily about it, but if so, that would explain singlehandedly why this place was so cheap. I briefly considered enscribing my own heater runes from scratch, but nixed that idea after remembering that we had months to go until winter.

With that, I then turned to the only other known rune in the room, the wash basin on the dresser. I had recalled I was rather frustrated the first time I used it to realize that the wash basin had no temperature control. Being Dorflich, a cooling function would have limited utility—even the hottest heatwaves were not that warm here—but a heating function seemed like a must-have, especially in winter, but even now in early summer would be nice.

As I began examining the rune, I realized that a gap had been conspicuously left to be filled with the heater rune. Why it had been left like this was beyond me, but I decided it was irrelevant, and went about filling the space with my desired heat rune. A few minutes later, and I had a basin filled with warm water.

With that done, I settled in to cook my first lunch in the apartment since… actually, I think it was my first lunch ever in this apartment. Hard work indeed.

With the warming months, the grocer had finally gotten in some of the new crops. Green onions, new potatoes, and cherries: All made their way back to the apartment. I started by slicing the potatoes into small wedges, while the griddle heated. Once it was hot, I lubed it down with some lard, and starting sautéing some garlic cloves I had smashed and some diced onions. As those started to brown, I added the potatoes, and started on a hash. Pulling out a flank of boar, I made some thin cuts against, the grain, seasoned with salt, and laid flat on the griddle to sear and crisp up. A few cherries were deseeded and tossed on to soften up. The meat and the hash came together at the same time, and I scraped them off with my spatula onto a plate. A bowl of raw cherries on the side and a mug of cool water, and lunch was ready.

That was when I remembered I still didn’t have a table. I had looked into acquiring some wood furniture when I got my first E-core, but it still remained comparatively expensive. And though I had now eaten dozens and dozens of breakfasts and dinners here, it had slipped my mind I still didn’t have a table. I had half-a-mind to shop for furniture that afternoon, but remembered that my funds were essentially stagnant since my last hunt. For better or worse, Mountain Goats apparently were rare in the hidden valley and I had yet to cross another one.

I sighed and, thinking about my limited affinity to earth ki, decided now was as good a time as any to practice. Putting both plate and bowl back on the kitchenette, I pressed both arms to the floor near the center, and willed my ki forward to attune to earth. I began by creating thick stone pole. After a few minutes, as it rose to table height, and I then instructed the top two inches to spread outwards until it was a half meter across. Satisfied, I repeated the process in miniature to create a stone stool also affixed to the floor, but then decided to add a little backing to the chair. When that was done, I grabbed a few hides and piled them on the chair for padding. Grabbing my now lukewarm lunch, I sat down at my new table and ate.

With lunch packed away, I made myself a small cup of hot blackstrap and considered my plans for the rest of the day. Furniture shopping seemed out the window given my funds. Functionally, I was covered with the basics and while the table and chair left something to be desired, I could always fiddle with that later.

I didn’t need any groceries.

I actually had purchased incense on hand. But not the ingredients to make it myself.

I suppose I could go to Dolores’ and forge something, but I had no pressing needs.

Well shit, now what do I do?