Felix was frustrated and just sitting in the middle of the lobby staring, with his mana sense, at an unattuned ball of mana next to an attuned one next to a high energy attuned one. He started to just spin them around and generally juggle them in the air when he heard a knock at the door. He quickly jumped to his feet and ran over opening the door to find Amelia standing next to an older gentleman.

[E - Common] Human (Lvl 45)

[E - Common] Scout (Lvl 37)

[E - Uncommon] Head Builder (Lvl 54)

[E - Common] Human (Lvl 37)

[E - Common] Healer (Lvl 32)

[E - Common] Interior Designer (Lvl 43)

Amelia appeared largely the same as he remembered except her hair looked like a commercial and her skin was pristine. He couldn't remember if that was always how she looked but it was what he immediately noticed. The man appeared to be in his 50s or so and was clean shaven with short cleanly styled hair. He also wore a full three piece suit with a tie, pocket square and everything. How he managed to either find modern looking clothes or keep his clothes this clean and intact this whole time, Felix had no idea.

"Hey Amelia."

"Hey Felix, nice tower."

"Thanks, I would have gotten you to build me one but uh, this one kind of just fell into my lap so. Also I never really wanted a tower so it never came to mind."

"Don't worry about it, this would have probably taken a ridiculous amount of time anyways. Oh this is George by the way."

"Afternoon." George said as he gave a little curtsy.

"Uh, you as well. Come on in." Felix stepped aside and held open the door to let them in.

"So, what were you thinking for furniture in this room? Or on this floor I guess." George asked as he walked around inspecting the space.

Felix shrugged, "I didn't really want a tower at all so… How about you come up with whatever you want and I'll just veto it if I need to?"

George nodded, "Works for me. Mind if we see the whole thing first?"

"Of course, follow me." Felix led them through every floor all the way up to the roof top.

"Wow, this is beautiful. And freezing cold." Amelia said as she wrapped herself in her arms.

George shivered a little but otherwise kept his cool demeanor.

"Let's head back down then."

They all proceeded back into the bedroom floor.

George proceeded to walk around the room describing his plan with display cases and trophies on the walls, many more closets than Felix would ever use and a ton of furniture. Felix pushed back on some things, especially the multiple beds for multiple uses and ridiculous closet space. They ended up with a plan to have a sitting area, an area rug, a bedside table, a modest amount of closet space, a writing desk and a dining table. Most of that was unnecessary, but the room was so big, even Felix agreed he needed something to fill it.

The last item was the bed, which Amelia promised she could improve on. Felix was certain the wood work would be superior, but he had doubts when it came to a mattress, sheets and pillows. Ultimately he relented because worst case scenario, he could simply not use it.

The next floor was the library filled with empty shelves. The only thing they commissioned for this room were sitting chairs, a coffee table and an area rug. The next floor was an empty floor.

"So what were you thinking for this floor?" Amelia asked Felix.

"I have no idea. What do other people have in their houses, or mansions."

"Lots of things, bathing rooms, sparring rooms, saunas, guest quarters, storage, workshops for their profession, lounges, game rooms, bars."

"There was also a disco room" George added.

"Oh yeah, that was a pain in the ass." Amelia groaned.

"Ooh, yeah a workshop would be great. Just lots of worktables, desks and storage. Just tables and desks everywhere would be great."

Amelia shrugged, "Easy enough. What about the next floor?"

"Sparring room I guess? I don't see myself ever sparring with someone but maybe I can hit dummies or something."

"So leave it empty for now?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I guess there isn't much that goes into a sparring room."

On the next floor, George had a plan once again, this time it was much more reasonable and fit Felix' taste. Mostly just couches, tables, area rugs along with some basic decorations. On the next floor, they decided to add furniture for staff if he ever ended up with any, otherwise there was already a large feast table and chairs so there wasn't much else to discuss.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Finally, the lobby on the ground floor. The space everyone saw right as they walked in. George wanted a statue right in the middle of the room of Felix slaying a dragon, Felix vehemently declined.

"Look, we can add seating and stuff but ultimately, you need something right in the middle. A decoration of some kind or something like that."

"What about a tree?" Amelia suddenly interjected.

"A tree?" George recoiled.

"Yeah, a tree. I always liked the look of those mansions with trees and waterfalls in them."

"Yeah I like that. How do we plant a tree here though?" Felix bent down and rapped his knuckles against the stone floor.

"Not sure. Maybe a magic tree?"

"A magic tree? Do you happen to have one of those?" Felix asked.

"Nope, that one is all you."

Another todo list item, ‘find a magic tree and collect seeds.'

"Ok, what about right now though? Got anything pretty lying around in your inventory?"

"Hmm, I have giant blue chicken feathers and shiny scales."

"Parroukan feathers?"

"Yeah!" Felix was surprised they had heard of them, he realized it was likely due to the auction house though.

"Can I see the scales?"

"Sure." Felix proceeded to dump 9 Selefin corpses on the ground. To George and Amelia, they were giant six legged serpents though. They both recoiled a little before adjusting to the shock.

"These would have been perfect for the disco room." Amelia broke the silence.

"I have no idea what decoration to make with these, but I will buy them off you. These scales are gorgeous." George said as he leaned down to inspect the scales. He had completely gotten over his initial aversion it seemed.

"Uh, sure?"

Not sure where else or who else I would have sold these to.

"I don't really have many credits…"

"Just take them as payment for your work here, how about that?"

"Are you sure? These are probably worth way more than that?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it."

"Thank you." George bowed his head. He touched and stowed each corpse into his inventory then Amelia and George left to get started on the furniture. He told them to just come in and place stuff as they finished even if he wasn't there so they didn't end up waiting on him.

With them gone, he walked up to the roof and sat down. He planned on taking a quick look at the mana again then checking out the Vault of Secrets if he couldn't figure anything out. As Felix walked around with Amelia and George, he had continued to fiddle with the three balls of mana, juggling and spinning them behind his head and off to the side. He had kind of forgotten about them until he sat down and returned his focus to mana.

He pulled the three of them in front of himself and found that they were all identical now. They were each heavily attuned to fire and all had the highest energy level he had seen yet.

How the hell? If I had accidentally combined them at some point they would be a dull light attunement, the combination of all three. How did this happen?

Felix spent another hour trying to figure it out but only managed to figure out that the three balls seemed to have a Felix affinity as he felt comfortable and attached to them when compared to normal mana. They were also easier to move and manipulate in general. He decided to give up and combined the three liquid marbles into one bigger marble. Then he added two others of a slightly different size so he could differentiate them and started juggling them far apart from each-other as he descended the tower.

He made his way into the Vault of Secrets, which was a large monolithic rectangle on the outside. On the inside, it was a 10 story library, 5 of which were below ground level. On each floor there were also classrooms, study rooms and reading nooks nestled throughout. The shelves contained many books but were far from full. Luckily they were also very well organized. Felix had no trouble finding his way to the section on mana, magic, spells, enchanting, magical engineering, wards and rituals. Unfortunately, the only one containing any books was enchanting.

Felix visually scanned the books on that shelf and unintentionally scanned most of the other books he passed, with his skill, as he walked. He planned on scanning the whole thing but now that he knew he didn't have to do so before the tutorial ended, and he didn't feel the need to do so right away. The only enchanting book of value was a book on durability enchanting.

The book just explained that there were three aspects to the durability of anything, prevention, containment and restoration. The analogy given was a ceramic dinner plate. If dropped you want to prevent any damage. If damage did happen and a crack started you want to contain it to stop it from spreading. If it sustained any damage, ideally it could then restore itself. The idea was to balance all three, the hard part was doing so while taking into account the base material. If the material was naturally flexible or hard you would treat it differently. You also had to take into account how you wanted it to break, shatter, crack, tear, bend. Some of which were easier to heal but less durable up front.

It was an interesting read, but ultimately didn't help any with his current endeavors. Without anything else of interest in the library, he decided to just head back to the tower and work with mana until it worked or he gave up. He quickly checked the three marbles he had created before. The one he had combined the initial three into, which was intentionally the biggest to be identifiable, was still a bright fire attunement. The other two, were a dull fire attunement.

What the hell is happening? Do I have a natural fire attunement?

Felix pondered as he ascended the stairs up to his tower then through the floors up to the roof. He sat down and began testing out random things that might have happened as he walked around. He moved the marbles around, tossed them and even smacked them into each other, doing so only combined them though. Finally he got bored and just started playing with them, in doing so he spun them around. Gradually, the attunement shifted towards fire. Excitedly, he spun it faster, but now the attunement changed, it became more sparks and less fire. Felix tried spinning a new marble at a different speed and sure enough it changed to a brand new attunement, light.

Why the hell does spinning it change the attunement?

Next he tried orbiting some of the marbles around others, like a solar system. If he spun them at the same number of orbits per minute, they all gained the same attunement, but now the ones on the outside became brighter than the ones on the inside. The next thing Felix tried was to turn each marble into a different sized donut and spin them at the same speed again, with the same result. The donuts on the outside were the brightest, growing gradually dimmer as the donut shrank.

That's why it took so damn long, I was spinning a marble. If I spun it around my head or in circles it would have been faster probably. Why spinning though? What the hell does that have to do with anything? How am I supposed to spin mana inside of the puzzle box?

Felix was pretty sure there was more to it, but he had no idea what it could be so he put that on hold again and decided to experiment with adding mana to his energy buffing skill. . . . . .