“Becky, I can explain! You see, I was training with some new magic and-” My plea stops short as a loud crack of thunder rumbles through the room.
Colt comes in through the door soaking wet. “There was… a sudden downpour. Wonder who that could have been caused by?” He leers at me while using Hydromancy to dry himself off.
“Uh, Lucas, are you blushing… white?” Cassandra peers at me from behind Becky with confusion.
“Right, yes. I got a Perk called Pa- Titanium Blood.” Ilmarinen smacks me in the back as I almost blurt out Palemetal.
“Huh, that’s kind of like how one of my Perks turned my eyes gold!” Adreanell is already inching over to the slime pens, probably to drain our food supply further, which reminds me.
“I just remembered, I wanted to try something new on the slimes if you’ll give me a second.” Turning around, threads wrap on to me.
“Oh no you don’t. What happened to the outfit I made you?” Becky crosses her arms and glares.
Glaring right back at her, I stand my ground now. “You gave me these, they’re not yours anymore and I can do what I want with them… But I was training magic and there were a few explosions and lots of lightning.”
“He kept shooting lightning into the sky, that’s probably the reason this downpour started.” Colt points out the window where the rain is coming down hard.
Becky laughs. “Shame, I was hoping I could tease you more, I didn’t actually care about the outfit.” She grins, pleased with herself.
Sighing, I roll my eyes and head through the kitchen and into the alchemy room. Plucking a vitaleaf and a magetongue, I head back out to where everyone is standing around and walk into the slime pen room.
“Ilmarinen taught me some more on how I can get better quality out of things, maybe you guys can apply it as well. Basically, whatever you’re working with responds better to you having a clearer mental image of it.
“For instance, I’m gonna condense these plants down into aspect crystals of healing and mana restoration, so I have to think of something that gives me a clear image of that.”
Closing my eyes, I visualize healing first. The best idea I have of healing is the natural processes that go on in the body. Cell proliferation occurs after the body initially deals with an injury through inflammation responses.
That duplication of cells will lay down more fibers that close up the wound, or in some cases, the cells will reconnect and heal without leaving a scar. With this image in mind, I condense the vitaleaf into a crystal.
The result is two high quality crystals. Showing them to everyone, Cassandra already has her analytical face on and I can tell she’s replanning her own candy creations.
Kneeling down, I find Jello in the slime pen. “Hey there, Jello! Food time!” Offering the pale gray slime a healing aspect crystal, it engulfs it quickly. In a flash of light the crystal dissolves and the slime shifts to be red in color.
Level up! For empowering your first slime with a new aspect, your Talent: Fledgling Slime Rancher has reached (3/50)!
‘Oh, nice. Didn’t expect that one.’
Ilmarinen looks on in interest with everyone else. “I didn’t realize ye were rearing slimes, lad. Tis helpful fer supplies in the long run.” He nods.
“Mhm. Jello is kind of… unappealing to me now after my first experience with a red slime, but he’s too small to do anything to me so I think I’m fine.” Petting the slime somewhat hesitantly, I enjoy how smooth it feels. “Huh, it’s literally like petting jello.”
Offering the slime one of the neutral foods, it refuses it. “Well that’s weird, why won’t he eat? The pen says he’s hungry.”
“Well, he’s a red slime now, right? He must not eat neutral food anymore. He probably eats health-related things like meat.” Colt walks out of the room, probably to retrieve some food from the kitchen.
“He’s probably right.” Shaking my hand from Jello who was slowly latching on, I take the mana restoration crystal and give it to Mr. Squishels.
In another flash of light, this slime turns bright blue. Petting this one, I feel a small pull on my mana pool. “Well, this one is certainly easy to feed, it just eats mana. I wonder if this one can eat prana?”
Offering my other hand to Jello, I focus with Promethean to push prana towards my right hand, an ability that came from Echinodermal Flesh.
Prana seems intrinsically tied to the body, so it requires this level of coaxing it to the surface to feed the slime. It’s… somewhat painful, but Jello sucks up the prana happily, growing slightly in size.
Using my Aetheric Supremacy, I glance at the ambient mana in the air. There appears to be a small sink of it happening around Mr. Squishels, which indicates to me that they can passively grow by eating the ambient resources so I won’t have to feed them so often.
“Well, that reassures me that these slimes won’t try to eat the neutral one here, it’s too bland to be a part of their diet. Oh, hey, I didn’t notice before, there’s another egg in the other pen. Becky, do you want to name the slime?”
She looks at it somewhat disgusted but kneels down anyway. Cringing, she pokes the egg and sets a name. “Well, I’m trying to make them ‘in’ this season so… this one will be named Pancho, with an A.”
Handing her one of the neutral pellets, she repeats “Ew” countless times while the slime engulfs the food from her hand.
The slime pen display states that Jello and Mr. Squishels are still hungry, so I feed them both more as Colt walks into the room with a plate of meat. “Don’t worry about the meat, I figured out that they just eat mana and prana. It feels kinda weird but once you get used to it it’s not that bad.”
Becky takes the plate of food off of Colt’s hands happily and digs into it herself. “Yeh Cohlt, the fuud sichuashun ish…” She swallows. “Finished.”
He raises an eyebrow at her. “Classy as always, Becky.”
“Mhm.” She smiles happily and stuffs her face more.
Turning back, the pen indicates the slimes are satiated but they’re still pulling more, so I shrug and feed them further. The amount they’re pulling is less than my regen, so it’s easy enough for me to handle it.
The message changes from satiated to bloated and the slimes stop pulling more resources. They both wiggle for a second before some of the slime on them sloughs off into the pen.
Please provide collection bottles for storage of slime.
“Oh, that’s convenient.” Finding where to put the bottles, I fit the ones I bought from the Construct Shop into a set of valves under a panel on the pen.
There’s the slightest incline that allows the slime to slide easily into holes around the perimeter of the pen, which then slips down and seconds later collects inside the bottles I provided. There wasn’t a lot so each bottle is probably only one third filled.
Filling up the rest of the bottle valves, I assume this will be a passive process handled by some enchantments I can’t even comprehend yet.
Ilmarinen glances down at the process in interest. “I never did take on slime ranchin’ as a hobby o’ mine… these sorting enchantments be fascinating.”
Standing up and dusting off my knees from kneeling, I have Ilmarinen follow me back to the forge, I’ll check back on the slime bottles later to see if any of them have filled.
Adreanell, Becky, and Cassandra follow us into the forge.
“Uh, did you guys need something?”
“Well, actually, I found these metals in the shop and wanted to see if you or Ilmarinen could teach me how to make jewelry.” Adreanell holds out two ingots, one a shimmering gold and the other a glistening silver.
Inspecting them both, I approve of her decision to purchase them.
Sunlight Gold
Quality: High
Traits: Sunlight Recharge, Enchantment Empowerment
Description: This highly magical gold is made with a process that allows it to store the power of sunlight and empower buff enchantments with that energy, increasing their effects. Items made from this metal will require recharging in sunlight after use. Sunlight gold works best with elements such as light, fire, or lightning.
Moonlight Silver
Quality: High
Traits: Moonlight Recharge, Enchantment Empowerment
Description: This highly magical silver is made with a process that allows it to store the power of moonlight and empower buff enchantments with that energy, increasing their effects. Items made from this metal will require recharging in moonlight after use. Moonlight silver works best with elements such as darkness, water, or ice.
“Wow, these do seem like you could put some useful enchantments on them. Do you have an inscriber, Adreanell?”
She nods, taking it out of her vault. Ilmarinen inspects the gold and silver himself. “Fine quality metals ye have here, lass. I can show ye some techniques while the lad makes his swords.”
“But I thought you were gonna show me your diagnostic magic.”
“Diagnostic magic? Would you mind showing me, Ilmarinen? I have some of my own so it’d be nice to see another methodology.” Cassandra adjusts the brim of her witch’s hat, sliding it back to make eye contact with Ilmarinen more easily.
“Ah, sure thing. Tis a technique I developed meself with an anchorist Perk.” He settles into the process of explaining how he sends a radar-like pulse of mana into what he’s trying to look at, and with his fine-tuned senses, he’s able to get a good internal image of what he sees.
Cassandra explains that hers works more like an MRI in that the directed flow of her mana inside someone else gives her an image of the area she’s looking at.
Ilmarinen demonstrates the technique on my arm, a teal glow emitting from his arm as he does it. Watching his mana flows and the runes that form, I attempt to mimic his technique and Cassandra does the same on a somewhat unwilling Becky. She can’t fully reject because her mouth is still full of food.
Attempting the same technique on Ilmarinen, I get back fuzzy mental images of his complex muscle tissues. No bones, seeing as he has octopus arms. Focusing harder, I use Aetheric Supremacy to really specify and balance the pulse of mana I send into Ilmarinen’s arm.
The image I get back is much clearer this time and I can even begin to pick apart some of his individual muscles running through the arm.
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There’s a large nerve cord running through the center and the muscles all have counteracting muscles on the opposite side of the arm in cardinal directions across from this nerve cord. The central muscle around his nerve cord is almost a four-pointed star shape.
Congratulations Lucas Creo! For using controlled pulses of mana to receive feedback with your magical senses, you have gained the Skill: Scan Pulse!
‘Huh, that’s a vague name. Skills.’
Skills:
Scan Pulse - (Level 1) - Send a pulse of mana into or through any medium to receive feedback on the contents inside.
‘That might be useful if I need to look through a wall or something too, not just for diagnosing things.’
“Ilmarinen, I’m not trying to be offensive or anything, but wow this is way different than human muscles. I’d know, I had to take a lot of anatomy and physiology in college. Also, is your Skill called Scan Pulse?”
He waves an arm at me. “Yer the different one lad. Ye have bones in yer arms. And that it is, developed it on me own too.” He puffs his chest in pride.
“Hm, fair point. Seems like I got the right Skill then! Anyway, you teach Adreanell about jewelry. I’ll start on these swords.”
Moving over to my forge, I take out an ingot of steel and heat it up to temperature fairly quickly. Magic works a lot faster than a typical gas or coal forge would take.
Following all the processes Ilmarinen has taught me, I hammer the ingot to what I think is an appropriate length. Seeing as this is just steel, I’m able to subtly use Metallomancy to stretch the metal some, shortening how long I need to work on it.
Making sure I don’t ruin the integrity of the metal, I keep my Primordial Perception focused on the metal at all times and hammer it until the material aligns how I want it to. Ilmarinen gives me advice every now and then without even looking at me.
Adreanell and Ilmarinen use my forge to heat up small bits of the gold and he shows her how to shape a band of metal into a ring and properly solder it using just Pyromancy to melt specific areas of the metal.
While he does this, I hammer one end of the sword into a skinnier piece, creating the tang. Once I’m done with that, I hammer the edges of the soon-to-be sword, saving myself time on grinding the whole piece.
Once the shape is done, somewhat assisted by Metallomancy to speed up the whole process so I can make four more today, I move to grinding it to shape on my spinning wheel.
Ilmarinen compliments the efficiency of it. He’s made his own by now, using higher-end materials of course, and has been enjoying it over his old pedal-action one.
Taking out some remaining pieces of wood I have from my big block of ironwood maple, I cut off a piece with Hydromancy and shape it into a basic wooden handle on my grinding wheel.
Remembering maybe slightly too late, I take some of my excess steel that was cut off in the process and make a basic pommel for the sword. ‘Well, I can use Metallomancy to bond it on, so that’ll help me skip a step. Magic definitely helps me make up for mistakes in the process.’
With all three pieces complete, I combine them together, sealing the pommel to the tang. The length of the blade has a fuller along it to reduce the weight of the whole piece while still retaining its strength.
“Ilmarinen, how do I tan leather? I have piles of volley stag hides just sitting in my hold and it would be nice to have some leather for handles.”
He walks over from helping Adreanell shape her ring on a mandrel that she must have bought and inspects the hides. “Hm, good quality hides for the most part. Tanning takes time, lad. Ye can trade in yer hides at the shop to receive tanned leather fer a fee if ye like.”
“I can do that? That sounds a lot more convenient. I’ll be right back.” Walking out, I let Colt know where I’m going as he’s outside practicing with Pasivier again. It seems they’re arguing over fence styles, actually. Both of them have small dome shapes floating above them, repelling the rain.
Sprinting to the Construct Shop, I activate Lightning Cloak and zoom across the landscape at high speed, practicing my use of Circuit Jump and relishing in the quick jumps I can do with it.
It’s still raining out, so I use my Hydromancy like Colt and Pasivier were to keep the rain off of myself. It’s good practice for maintaining two elements at once too.
Arriving at the Shop, I turn in all of my hides, totaling 23 in all. The fee is 35 Sparks each and that’s after I haggle it down. Happy to spend it for the convenience, I receive 10 low quality and 13 medium quality leather hides.
Buying some adhesive as well, I store everything in my hold. The whole process doesn’t even take me five minutes and I arrive back at the house just as quickly.
Drying myself off with Hydromancy from any water that did reach me, I walk back inside and find that Adreanell is displaying a few mostly-complete rings.
The settings for gems are empty as she doesn’t have anything for that yet, but she’s created two rings, one a basic gold and the other a basic silver.
“Hey, Lucas! I got a Talent! Fledgling Goldsmith!” She pumps her fist excitedly.
“Nice! I just got back with some leathers and I’m gonna complete these swords.” Holding up the flat leathers, Becky eyes some of them.
“Hey, Lucas. I’ve been wanting to make some stuff with leather, mind if I buy some?” A trade menu appears between Becky and me.
“Uh, sure. If you make me something from it you can just have it.” Putting 6 of the medium quality volley stag leathers into the trade window, I reject a cost and both just pay the 3 Spark trade cost with her side showing an offer of returned services.
“Thanks.” She turns around immediately and returns to some dark robe-looking clothes that Cassandra is conferring with her on.
‘Hm, stylish witch robes for Cassandra?’
Shrugging, I turn to my worktable and slice strips of leather with Hydromancy. Applying the adhesive to my almost-completed sword, I wrap the leather around in a pattern Ilmarinen showed me.
I have to ask him a few times if I’m doing it right, and he corrects a few small details, but in the end, I have a nice leather sword hilt.
Deciding to not name the piece, I Inspect the end result.
Steel Shortsword
Quality: Medium
Traits: Durable
Description: A shortsword made of weapon-grade steel. It has been properly tempered using magic instead of normal heat processes. The steel that makes up this weapon grants it a normal level of durability one would expect from a weapon of steel.
Testing the edge on my finger, it only manages to slightly cut my skin, so I take some time to sharpen it slightly more before being happy with the edge.
Storing it away, I spend the rest of the morning and late into the afternoon completing the other four swords. All but one of them are of medium quality, the last one being high quality after I tried more methods to improve my technique.
The price on the quest seems set, so I don’t think I’ll receive any more money for it being higher quality than the quest stated, but it was good practice regardless.
Level up! For working to perfect your sword-smithing techniques and making steady improvements, your Talent: Fledgling Blacksmith has reached (47/50)!
‘Nice, I certainly feel more prepared to make swords with neutrite now. Going back to the basics is helpful sometimes.’
Ilmarinen states that he has to go, making Adreanell sad that her mentor is leaving. He seems to have tolerated the chatty brunette better today, probably because he was mostly talking to her about his favorite subject, metalworking.
“Bye, Ilmarinen! Have a nice night!” He repeats the same to me and closes the portal door, but not before I see his shoulders sag in relief.
‘That damn antisocial octopus, he was just putting up with all the interaction today.’ Smiling at realizing the likely positive effect we’re having on a man who was so set in his ways, I walk out to the main room, letting everyone know I’m heading to the quest board.
Adreanell and Cassandra follow in interest, deciding they’ll look for quests of their own to take on. Looking out the window, the rain has stopped and the sky is lit up in tones of orange with the setting sun.
Walking outside, I stop dead in my tracks. The previously simple fence is now an ornate lattice with many designs decorating the trim of the entire structure.
Glancing toward the back of the house, Colt and Pasivier seem to still be fighting over the design scheme as they’re both manipulating the wood differently.
Chuckling, I have Adreanell and Cassandra follow me to the quest board. Arriving there, I select the quest and find that I can receive the reward directly from my hold, so I don’t even need to take the swords out to turn it in.
Quest complete! Rewards received are: 50 Glints, 500 XP (Optional, costs 5 Glints)
Would you like to receive 500 XP in exchange for 5 Glints? Yes/No
Selecting no, I elect to gain my XP by other means and save the money. Checking my hold, I find an extra 50 Glints sitting with the rest of my money.
Adreanell and Cassandra are currently busying themselves looking through the quest menu, so I decide to do the same.
‘Huh, never noticed this city tab before… Oh, these are like, advancement quests?’
The menu shows that this quest can be completed by any number of people in the city and the reward will be an upgrade to the stock of the Construct Shop as well as higher tier quests for the quest board.
The requirements for the quest are to reinforce the walls with internal metal structures for higher stability and to increase the number of houses in the city.
Finding another quest, my stomach sinks. ‘A mine? That sounds really good for resources… but that requirement, sheesh. 300 Gleams? Well, I’ll leave that one not taking up a quest slot, it just requires money anyway.’
Electing to participate in the city advancement quest, I find that advancement quests take up their own slots separate from the crafting quests.
That doesn’t tell me if crafting quests are different slots from say, combat quests, but it’s at least reassuring to me that it won’t be taking up a slot that may be important to me in the future.
Quest Obtained! Improve the city of Portland.
Requirements: Reinforce city walls with metal structures internally, double the number of houses in the city from 2000 to 4000. Current number of houses: 2,346
Reward: Increased Construct Shop access, Higher Tier Quests.
‘No wonder we need to increase the number of houses, the population is like, 20,000 people. That’s a lot of people living in the same houses.’
The situation is in part that many people are living in larger structures built to accommodate a lot of people right now while houses are being built, but in the end, most people should have homes.
Adreanell and Cassandra both happily accept the quest as well once I tell them about it.
“That shouldn’t be too hard if we can teach some people Metallomancy or Metallokinesis.” Cassandra chews on some candy while we walk back to my house.
“Yeah, that’s what I was figuring too. Here, maybe you can donate this.” Taking the ferroglove that I learned Metallokinesis from out of my hold, I hand it to Cassandra.
“Oh, this will work perfectly. It’s always easier to learn Skills when you have an example like this.” She tries on the glove, floating the metal orbs in an orbit around her hand.
“I’ll bring this to some of the people that were working on the walls before in the morning. I can make sure they know about the quest too.” She stores it away in what I assume to be a storage Perk.
“Huh, storage Perks are pretty common, aren’t they? What’s yours called?”
“Personal Apothecary, it came from my Candy Witch Talent.” She produces a piece of candy from it and hands it to me. Inspecting the small, purple sphere, I learn what it is.
Rejuvenation Drop
Quality: High
Traits: Rejuvenation
Description: This candy combines the effects of a healing potion and a mana potion into one, restoring 512 HP and 528 MP. Doses: 1
“Oh, this is like a single dose of the potions I can make, but it does both? Last time I tried combining vitaleaf and magetongue it was… catastrophic.”
“Did you try using sweetkiss chimes to settle the effects? I find the resonation helps a lot to calm down the clashing.”
“Well, actually, I made a potion that increases the healing of mana vessels and it used both healing and mana restoration aspects, but I figured it was because I had recovery in there too. I used resonation in it, so that must have been what made it work.”
“That sounds a bit like the Recovery Star I gave you. That came from an ichorium herb though. I… haven’t been able to find another of it since then. I didn’t realize they were so rare when I made it into candy.” She blushes at the memory.
“That’s fine, Cassandra! It helped Lucas in the end, so maybe you were supposed to do it. That act basically saved Portland.” Adreanell gestures to the city at large, indicating its current non-destroyed state.
“Huh, when you put it that way I feel a lot better about that blunder.” She looks considerably less embarrassed now as we approach the door to my house.
Opening the door for both of them, I let them into the house. The smells of food fill the air and I can hear the clanking of dishes upstairs as Colt cooks.
Adreanell and Cassandra walk over to the forge room, likely to check on Becky’s progress with her witch outfit.
Walking up the stairs, I find that dinner is actually done, so I help Colt set the table for everyone. We continue discussions on what the shop stock will be like.
Adreanell is happy to be able to contribute jewelry now and spends most of dinner talking with Becky about pairing accessories with her outfits.
The general consensus is that if we go hard at it for a bit, we should be able to start up the shop soon.
The night comes to a close and everyone heads home, happy with a day of progress.
Colt and I settle into bed and fall asleep quickly. He’s mentally exhausted from the creative efforts with Pasivier all day and I feel the same from developing Skills all morning and then spending the rest of the day smithing.
The day ends with happy dreams once again.