It only took another week to get the new homes built. Joe gained another level in Masonry and 2 in Stone Cutting. He spent a day making the new workshop saws for Malcolm and gained another level in Carpentry. He also had long since got back to Kela's Landing and helped the former residents move their possessions to their new homes in Rust's Edge. Meanwhile Gymmie was running the lumber mill across the river and Joe would frequently stop by and load it up with his mana so Gymmie could keep running it despite not being able to power it himself. Joe used the opportunity to practice his Energy Conversion and Regeneration skills, gaining 2 levels in each.
Next Joe spent a day working with Slivka on designing her new bakery. He'd sketch out designs for the building, then bring them designs to life with his Illusory Rendering spell so she could walk through the building even before it existed. Since the bakery wasn't a priority without a wheat crop, Joe didn't participate in the construction himself. But speaking of wheat crops, in addition to the field Joe had planted, Tyrik took all of the teens off to another section of land not far from Joe's field and had them help him start clearing it to be a new field. Well, all of the teens except for Jonny who was shadowing Tess in learning how to care for the different livestock in town.
One morning Joe was out tending his own wheat crop while Ferrite was helping the Kela's Landing people work on getting their new field ready for planting and she came over to look at Joe's crop.
“It looks like your first batch of wheat is already mature. I can't believe that. What level is your Speed Plant Growth?”
“I just got it to level 7. Oh, but it works so much better because my armor enhances the effects of all of my spells, including that one.”
“Can you make me something like that?” Ferrite asked.
Joe looked rather embarrassed. “I can't believe I hadn't even considered it. Yes, I can definitely do that. I can do that for you today, even. It will work on both your Speed Plant Growth spell as well as your Move Water spell. For now, however, I have to harvest this crop and then figure out how to make a mill to make flour.”
“I think you're overlooking another solution available to you. Your Harvest spell.”
“I wish, that only works on a single target. It would take forever to cast it on this much wheat,” Joe lamented.
“No, not casting the spell itself. You made that device in the sawmill that processes random quantities of wood pieces, right? Make something like that for the wheat.”
“And your brother calls me a genius. Ferrite, you're just full of great ideas today. Any others?”
The orc woman laughed at Joe, “No other ideas, but I do have a threat for you, Joe.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, if you figure out how to make a suit of armor that flies for Kleo and don't make me the same thing, I'm going to stab you in your sleep.”
Joe laughed back at her joke, “Noted. So you're both genius and ruthless. Good to know.”
True to his word, Joe had a new spell conduit for Ferrite by the end of the day. It was a copper bracelet with the magisteel inlay on the inner surface. He had harvested his wheat and put it in a Preservation crate to deal with after he finished his new project, courtesy of Ferrite's idea.
The Recycler in the sawmill was for scraps of lumber, but for this he wanted it to be able to process an entire crop at once. Rather than make a larger container, he just added an Extra Storage enchantment to the container during the creation process. He actually made two separate chambers inside, one to receive the input of harvested crops, and the other to dispense the Harvested products. The input was on the top and the dispenser was on the side. He also added wheels and handles so it could be wheeled around like a handcart to go to where the harvests are taking place.
Joe emptied his wheat harvest into his new Harvest Box and made sure to get more wheat seeds for his field as well as Tyrik's field. He got a few sacks of flour and several bales of straw as well. Joe pulled up the roots from the old wheat and turned it into fertilizer for his next crop using the Harvest Box.
- - - - -
Joe wanted to test out his new combat skills since he upgraded his weapon and his armor so he went to Trenos to look for bounties. There was a high paying one for a magma lion. It sounded very dangerous, exactly what Joe wanted to test himself. The lion was sighted north of Mankerin, so Joe was able to teleport over there to get a head start on tracking it down. He found it before the end of the day, having traveled nearly 1000 kilometers north of Mankerin.
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There were scorch marks all over the ground and Joe followed them until he finally saw the beast he was looking for. It was sleeping so Joe took aim with his raygun and fired, hoping to make it an easy fight. While he made a direct hit on the magma lion, he learned that unlike the previous energy-themed monsters he'd faced or sent others to fight, this one wasn't a lion with magma abilities. This was an elemental made of magma in the shape of a lion.
Joe had never fought an elemental before, but he had read about them. The ones based on earth elements were always unusually tough, so his beam of lightning didn't do anything to it. An ice beam was no more effective against the elemental. The ice shackles that tried to trap it simply melted immediately.
Fortunately Joe discovered that it could be Blinded. Joe wasn't sure how elementals saw things, but it did appear to be blind. Paralyze didn't work, however. Joe decided to get creative. He cast Trip on the lion and made it fall to the ground. Before it could get up he cast Root Trap even knowing the roots would quickly burn away. As soon as the roots appeared he cast Transmute Material to turn them into silicone cords, as that was the new material he could transmute things into at level 3 of the spell. Before the magma lion melted the silicone he used Cold Snap to encase it in an ice shell.
As the ice began to melt Joe gathered up a bunch of rocks. He cast Launch on five different rocks as soon as the ice was gone. They hit the lion with such force that they were pulverized on impact. It wasn't apparent whether they had any effect on the lion itself. Just as Joe was lamenting being unable to tell how the lion was doing he remembered Creature Status. The spell added a new bar of hit points to his CGS HUD representing the magma lion's hit point pool. It was down by 1/3, which wasn't nearly enough.
Joe got ready to cast Launch a few more times, but had to Trip the lion again first. While it was down he Launched a few more rocks at it. The hit points barely moved, so clearly whatever way it was hurt before had nothing to do with the impacts. Joe cast Trip again as it rushed blindly in his general direction and used his raygun to hit it with another lightning beam. Again, very little change to its hit points. So Joe tried his ice beam again. Just like his last several attacks it took off only a few of its hit points.
He was about to write off its current lack of hit points as something that occurred before Joe got there, but then there was a small, but noticeable loss of hit points as it melted the ice manacles the raygun produced. It seemed the magma lion could ignore cold damage with its incredible Toughness, but it was still subject to the laws of thermodynamics. The heat inside of it must be its source of life, as expending that heat hurts it.
Joe immediately cast Cold Snap to again encase it in a block of ice. As that ice began to melt Joe cast Cold Snap again to put a block around the previous block of ice. He watched in his HUD as the magma lion's hit points began to slowly fall. Once again Joe cast Cold Snap, but rather than forming more ice, he simply used it to refreeze the ice that was melting from the magma lion's internal heat. When sufficient water had melted from the ice Joe cast Move Water to gather it back up onto the block of ice and once more cast Cold Snap to freeze the water to the ice block.
Suddenly a glow emanated from within the ice and everything instantly melted and then turned to steam. Before Joe could react the magma lion started spewing lava in all directions. Joe got covered but his Elemental Shield was active and protected him and his armor. His leather clothes weren't as lucky and burned off from covering his armor. Joe's right foot began to hurt very intensely, but only for a moment.
Releasing all that lava cost the magma lion more of its health, it was hoping it would kill the threat to it so it could recover in peace, but Joe wouldn't allow that to happen. He had plenty of mana left so he cast Cold Snap to cover it in ice again and cast Levitate to position himself in the air off to its side so he was out of his splash zone and also not in the path of the steam when it melts the ice.
The ice was melting slower than before and the magma lion's health was getting dangerously low. Joe kept casting Cold Snap to refreeze the ice and after another three minutes or so the notification came up on his HUD that the magma lion was dead. Killing the magma lion had granted Joe another level in Mage with his unassigned points being spent on Intelligence as always. His Cold Snap, Trip, and Creature Status spells went up a level. His Ranged Weapons and Heat Tolerance skills also each went up a level.
Cold Snap (Level 15). This spell sends out a pulse of freezing power into the immediate vicinity. The maximum range of the spell is 1 meter for every 10 points of the caster's intelligence. The caster can exclude up to 16,384 creatures within range from the effects of the spell. The number of potential exceptions doubles every level. The damage is the caster's intelligence score times the spell level. The spell can also be delivered by touch to a single target rather than over an area.
Alternatively the caster can use the spell to instantly create a sheet of ice one meter long and a half meter wide in front of him. This version lasts for 1 minute and continues to make the ice sheet if he moves, potentially making a contiguous sheet of ice.
This spell can also be used to make simple structures of ice up to the maximum dimensions allowed by the normal version of the spell. These structures are real and as permanent as anything else made of ice.
Mana cost: 25 mana for the damaging/traveling version or 100 for the structure version
Joe picked a new spell that appeared in his options. It seemed to come a little later than he would have wished, however.
Siphon Energy (Level 1). This spell allows the caster to absorb manachlorian energy from a living target by touch. The amount of energy that is absorbed is based on the difference between the caster's Intelligence and the combined Toughness and Wisdom of the target. All mana must be absorbed before stamina can be absorbed, which must be absorbed before hit points. The absorbed energy is applied to the caster's pool of the same type of energy, with excess energy lost.
Mana cost: 250 mana per casting
Joe set himself down from his Levitation and went to step towards the ice to get to the magma lion's body inside and he immediately fell over as his right leg throbbed in pain. He looked down and saw his right foot was missing.