At dinner time Alice managed to partially emulate the hunter’s business model and trade some of the deer she had hunted. It was only partial though since Alice didn’t have much that she wanted. If the goblins had any clothing other than loin cloths, Alice would have asked a tailor to make her better clothes than the ones she had, but with the current development of the village, the best she could do was trade for furniture with the builders.

Over her time in the village Alice had noticed a lack of employment. It seemed the village had been balanced for a population of ten, but with the population growing by more than double that, there were more goblins than jobs. Due to the free food and housing though, unemployment wasn’t an issue. Despite that though Alice could think of many gaps to fill in the market. One of the most obvious being agriculture, which Alice knew a bit about since Josh’s family took care of the farming while hers did the hunting and trading. Another gap would be the clothing market, and even though it was limited to animal products and it was something only Alice wanted , it was still a potential job. She needed to trade her goods for something after all.

After it was clear that everyone who would be trading had already done so, Alice set aside enough meat for her breakfast and lunch before putting the rest on the community pile. With so much time before Alice normally went to bed and nothing to do, she looked for Nadi. Alice found her in the middle of her own meal, seemingly deep in thought.

As Alice approached, Nadi remained almost entirely oblivious to her presence.

”Are you okay?”

When Nadi saw Alice in front of her, a storm of emotions flashed across her face. Starting with shock and ending with a smile.

”I’m fine. Just thinking about things.”

”Ooh, like what?”

”Just things.”

A small silence was held between them before Nadi continued.

“What have you been up to?”

”I moved things from my camp to here. I’ve also been hunting when I’m not training my magic, though I have been having some trouble with it.”

”If you’re having trouble you could always just ask chief for help. Even if he might act annoyed he never refuses.”

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”I would rather not, to be honest. I don’t really have fond memories of the last time I visited him.”

Nadi was about to say something but stopped, a look of recognition lighting across her face.

”Oh! That. You shouldn’t let it bother you, he just gets a little annoyed when those visiting him don’t show proper respect.”

It seemed as though Karandi’s opposition to Alice was started when she refused to knock. Alice didn’t feel that it jusified his behavior at all, especially since he started it with his mana sense attack.

“I’ll keep it in mind. But I think I’ll try to continue by myself for a bit. On a different note, do you know where I can find Kani? I haven’t seen him around anywhere.”

”You know Kani! That makes this much easier then. If you really don’t want to talk to chief, you can ask Kani for help. He’s been learning lots of things from chief, including magic. You can find him at chiefs house.”

”Are you too friends?”

”Yep. He’s my… oldest friend. Basically a brother at this point.”

“We’ll, good night. And good luck with those things you’ve been thinking about.”

Alice went back to her hut before cleaning a patch of floor and placing her meat for tomorrow on it. It had been wrapped in leaves but to be safe Alice placed a ward on it to keep insects away. Alice’s insect ward was self taught and was a bit different from the one she used to keep animals away at night. Her animal ward was based around changing things like temperature, heat and airflow just enough to make animals with their keen senses paranoid while keeping the mana cost manageable. It was different with insects however and she had trouble figuring it out at first, but now she never needed to worry about insects. Though she couldn’t move the ward around with her yet.

Before going to sleep Alice did some meditation to improve her mana pool. At first she thought her mana was like a muscle that would get stronger the more she used it, but apparently that understanding was wrong. Considering that the only significant increase to her mana pool was when she botched her healing spell and knocked herself out, it did seem that her ‘mana muscle’ would only grow if pushed to its absolute limit. Meditation on the other hand would be akin to a workout.

Alice started her proverbial workout and focused on bringing the surrounding mana under her control. She then absorbed and condensed it. Karandi had told her that meditation could be lethal but she didn’t understand how, so instead of thinking about it, she continued meditating.

This repeated until the mana began actively resisting her control. Normally mana was indifferent to any control; it would go where instructed and do as it was told without giving protest or aid. But now she somewhat understood how this could lead to death. Alice was tempted to continue, out of pure curiosity, but decided against it and instead decided to focus inwardly on her mana. It seemed incredibly almost syrupy compared to its normal gas like consistency, but if Alice paid close attention, she could feel the excess mana either drifting out of her or into her core.

Even though the reason for meditation was different, Alice couldn’t help but remember her mom. She stopped meditating and decided to go to sleep.