Broka 19 10,391

Six awoke the next day and observed a level up in carpentry. He did his morning meditation, stretch, kata routine and went to find the pocket of forest where he had left the blood tree log. He was going to retrieve the other section of bloodwood as it was the most important material as it was most likely the only part of the monster that he could craft into something so he wanted it.

Unfortunately when he arrived at the site of the burning the rest of the log was gone. Something had taken it in the middle of the night, Six cursed and looked about the area and found a trail that indicated something massive passed through, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for whatever carried it off. It can keep it.

He sighed. No use in crying over spilt milk. It was time he helped Franklin so Six made his way back to the village and found the woman organizing building materials. Now that the longhouses were up many of the previous helpers had moved to their original trades and took helpers of their own. Her crew was still large but it was nowhere near the size of the previous one. When Six mentioned this she waved it away and he received a prompt.

You have been invited to Rose Franklin’s Work Crew

Do you accept Yes/No?

Hell yea. Yes!

You have joined Rose Franklin’s Work Crew.

Condition gained.

Work Crew Construction 51: All Construction related use of mana or stamina is reduced by 25.5%

Work Crew Construction 51? What is that? Six’s mind was instantly intrigued. “Yo Franklin, do you mind if I ask what your construction skill level is at?”

“Not at all.”

Six waited a second and then went to ask. “Whats you-”

“It is considered rude to ask!” came a voice from behind.

Six lurched at the familiar voice of Charles, the boy jogging up to the pair of builders.

“Especially don’t ask any combat classers or nobles,” the kid added.

“Hey Charles,” Six greeted.

Charles gave a slight bow and smiled. “Six. Sorry for interrupting but, you know, just thought you might want to know.”

“Hey it’s no problem dude thanks. I usually just go around analyzing people.”

“That’s rude too.”

“Yea, that makes sense.” He wasn’t going to stop until it became a problem though. He needed to train the skill. ”Anyways. Franklin?”

“Oh, it’s 51.”

Six knew it. “Cool, how’d you make this work crew thing?”

Hmm? My construction skill, people generally evolve the ability to create a work crew, and the capacity of the crew increases at each evolution. At apprentice rank it is 10, at journeyman its 50 masters can oversee 1000, I’m a fair bit away right now but I do think I’ll get there. People outside of the workcrew can still help on the project but they won’t receive the buffs and it risks the quality of the finished product going down a rank or two. We needed those longhouses so their quality didn’t matter. This building matters.“

“So no more than 50?”

“Unless someone with a work crew evolution of their of the same or lower rank joins me, then my work crew construction condition would be shared through the entire summed

“Would your subordinates' work crew condition be applied too?”

She shook her head in the negative.

“Neat. Well, anyways,” Six clapped his hands together. “What are we building today?”

Franklin motioned for him to follow and the entire crew of 50 approached the lake.

She projected her voice for the entire crew. “We are building the town hall close the the shore of the lake.” And with some gestures indicated the general area they would put the building. “We’ll be building a open auditorium with connected meeting rooms. A peaked roof and a stone floor.

“You say it matters but can’t you just do townhall stuff in the longhouses?” Six asked Franklin.

“Well I suppose you could but, you would be missing out on a scholar bonus that it would give out. Not to mention the main thing is building the townhall allows our settlement to be officially recognized and unlocks the town interface, Alison says we need it so that’s what we’re building.”

“Why’d you want me here? More earth beams?”

“Well, yes but also because you managed to make an unusual rarity building. I want the townhall to be as good as it can be and having competent helpers goes a long way to the final rarity of the building. See, I want you to make the floor the same way you did for Ravna. The better the quality and rarity of the initial townhall the better the returns for the town will be, even if we could get a five percent increase in town productivity that would grow significantly as the building was upgraded.”

Six nodded the build being able to be upgraded made sense in such a game like world. “How do you upgrade the building?”

“There are requirements but yes the town hall can be upgraded from townhall to cityhall, to administration complex, after that is planetary administration complex but no city has even achieved that, not even the K’gans.”

“Ok, so rarity is a matter of skill and type of technique?”

She nodded.

“What determines quality?”

“Rank of Material and mastery of technique.”

Now Six would be happy to share some of the techniques he adapted from his world, that would help with rarity. Quality was a whole different challenge and the only thing he had that might help with that would be the blood log. He had wanted to keep the blood log for himself but if what Franklin was telling him was correct, and why wouldn’t he trust her expertise, starting with a strong initial building would help it grow to something monumental. He had begun to like this place and this might be the thing it needed to snowball. There were the magic seeds but he felt extremely reluctant to give those away. He always wanted a magic tree and putting an item that had potential to grow into an inert structure seemed wrong. Also, he was curious and wanted to see what would happen with the whole blood theme.

“Are we gonna work with any special materials?” he led.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“One of the hunters found an enhanced rock that we are considering embedding in the floor.” she said simply, might produce something interesting but at the very least it would increase the durability of the building I’m sure.”

“Hmmm. If we were to work with other special materials how would that go?”

“Depends on if we are using it as an actual construction material or just an item reagent?”

“Yo, what is the difference between a material and reagent?”

“Most of the time, nothing. It’s really just about how you use it. I know there are some mages or scholars or whatever that would have some better explanation but the way I figure it, the material is what it's made out of, the reagent is what changes it.”

“What would produce a better effect, using something as a material or a reagent?”

She shrugged. “Depends on the material but bonuses based on materials are usually simple and direct, increased health or decreased weight for the item, something like that. Bonuses based on reagents enhance or upgrade that simple bonus to a more unusual variant.”

“But which one is better?”

“Generally using a small amount of enhanced material as a reagent is preferable to condensing all that potential into one material hog of a project but, if you had an additional reagent and wished to create something grand, using all of it as material is not unheard of.”

“I think I have something back at my camp that might work as a reagent.”

At that Franklin perked up.

Six waited.

Franklin looked at him expectantly. “Well what is it?”

He smiled. “Ah, A log from a blood tree I burned to death.”

Charles and Franklin looked at each other with a gaze of disbelief yet worry.

“You burned a blood tree to death?” Charles asked.

“Took like an hour.”

“Is it enhanced quality?” Franklin asked.

“Superior actually.”

Franklin got a far off look before nodding. “I’m willing to work it in but we have to clear it with Alison.”

Six shrugged, he didn’t care and it only took a moment for someone to run and get her.

They explained the situation and Alison looked thoughtful with her arms crossed. She stood tall with her greatsword strapped to her back.

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion at Six. “What would it cost us to gain this?”

Six smiled. “I’d like something but if you have nothing thats ok too to be honest. I’m just curious and want to see what happens. The way Franklin explained it, it would be pretty cool and provide a magical benefit? Also, because a log in essence is a construction material and it is clearly the right decision, for long term growth of this village. Also what else would I build with it? A boat? Sail the rivers on a bloodboat? Clogs? Walk on the corpses of my enemies in bloodclogs? How bad could the negative side effects be? ALLLLSO, I would also probably receive more progress in the skill if something of a higher quality is created.”

“What’s a clog?” Charles murmured.

“Wooden shoe,” Six informed the boy. “But now that I think of it, free food would be nice.”

Alison grimaced. “That is more than fair, if we use it. It could be very bad Six, very bad, I’m no crafter but it will have a strong effect. I find it reassuring that you’ve considered that magical reagents not only alter the properties of the items but also how that item affects the user. Magical buildings even moreso, if it was a classical elemental alignment I would not hesitate to accept but blood? It sits in the third orbital of magic, within the primordial dualities and thus is fundamentally more powerful, its effect would be, in turn, innately greater. Not to mention, If the church ever found out the entire town might be purged and I’m already worried about the doctors coming here if we dont get more housing and that healers hut built.”

What would be wrong with doctors coming here? His province was doing everything it could to attract doctors. “Yo, not gonna lie, the tree was definitely evil.” Six felt like that needed to be disclosed in this discussion. Once again he thought of offering a seed as those seemed unaligned with the whole blood thing but he quickly shut that down. The seeds were something that he felt he could best use, especially with Plant Growth. They could take the log or leave it.

Alison pursed her lips at him and her ears wiggled in frustration. “Definitively evil yet you still suggest such a thing.”

Six shrugged. “You don’t have to listen to it. I’m just curious about the potential effects. If you don't use it here, I’ll probably use it on my house or armor, or something, I bet the bonuses would be really good. I just think it would be kinda silly to not use it, it's basically free power.” Nothing more important than power.

Alison crossed her arms. “As I said I’m no crafter.” She gave Franklin an inquiring look.

“When we go to install the piece it should inform the work crew of the reagent benefits before we use it.” Franklin explained. “As for side effects? Those are observed over time and I wouldn’t worry about it until the townhall reaches tier 3. But, it could be anything between an increase in passionate behaviour to cannibalism, we won’t know how we’ll respond until we are exposed to it.”

This all seemed like gambling to Six but he was learning a lot still. “Are there not buildings like this out there already? Can we not learn of similar effects from bloodwood?”

Franklin nodded. “Yes, but it would require travel to one of the great cities and access to their records and most of the augmented buildings out there are not townhalls. The townhall has an innate area of influence that naturally radiates the side effects of such reagents. Not to mention that most of the few cityhalls and administration complexes that were improved with reagent were done so after initial construction. We would be building an improved townhall at its initial tier one, something that has the potential to produce a great buff.”

Six nodded. “Always important to set up systems that let you snowball. Could we salvage it if the effect was too detrimental?

“Snowball?” Franklin shook her confused face. “By the time the effect is significant, the townhall would be a cityhall or complex, and destroying that would be a monumental waste of resources, not to mention that much of the town infrastructure would be relying on that tier of administration building, and destroying that building would severely impact the production boosts of the buildings that require it. It’s not feasible even if you were a master in Construction which would allow you to demolish things and receive salvage of the same quality. “

Six sighed and nodded. It was good he was learning this now.

The discussion lapsed as Alison chewed her lip and considered. She nodded. “We have lost too much martial power to not use all we can. Especially with this Amog rattling our doors. Thank you Six.”

Six smiled. “Don’t thank me yet, this is an experiment. Which is pretty fucked up when I say it out loud but I would do the same to myself so its not so bad I guess?”

Alison shook her head at him and laughed. “How else would we learn? But know that I do not authorize this because of your curiosity, I authorize it because we need the power, Lady De’tair’s team was lost, they were our strength. The soldiers are gone, we are holding against the beasts and animals well enough but this Amog has followed Leoka unfortunately. We need more power.”

Six nodded. “I’ll get to work then.”

Alison thanked Franklin and Six and left them to the build. Franklin began the excavation of the foundation while Six took Charles and two other helpers back to his cave.

They arrived and Charles let out a confused hum. “This is where you’re staying?”

“What’s that supposed to mean, eh?” Six liked his cave.

“Nothing, but I had expected something more like you built Ravna.”

“Nah, not yet. Used to be spiders but I cleared em out. I think I'm too weak to protect something out in the open and this gets the job done for now.

“Spiders? You killed them all right?”

“Yea?”

“Good, monstrous insects must be purged.”

Six didn’t argue with that, he just showed them the log and rigged up four pull lines. It was far easier to drag the log as four. It took just over an hour to get the log back round trip and they dropped it next to the foundation pit which was well underway. The four of them joined the others and Six got them to get a section to down depth so he could begin to produce sheets of stone for the drainage layer. As his mana bottomed out he soon realized that it would take too long for him to produce enough stone, the footprint of the townhall was just larger than the cozy smithy he created and he just didn’t have enough mana regen.

So Six said fuck it, he refused to keep it a secret any longer. They were in the middle of nowhere and the whole point of this settlement was to let these people live free from the laws of the empire. He was confident in his ability to defend himself now, or at least escape from any sticky situation. He didn’t want to hurt anybody here, they’ve all been quite nice. Even if the soldiers came back Six doubted they would do anything. Well, perhaps Irduth as his only real danger was an inquisition from the church. Those that worshipped Kynairos in the village were mostly of Leoka’s people and while they had gathered under irduth for prayer, they had never acted with his level of fervor. So fuck it.

He bottomed out his mana, which produced a painful thumping in his head, then he bloodcast. The first bloodcast of Stone Wall produced a prickling sensation, the magic drew from his blood and fueled itself in a transformative effect. He felt thrilled and his mind screamed in pride. Some of the blood was lost and wasted in the imperfect conversion but Six cared not. He pushed himself and cast Stone Wall twice more. A red mist was drawn from him and coalesced into arcane power, the remnants sat upon his skin like crimson sweat. He breathed as the last cast was pulled from his veins. He had doubled the output of stone and it might be possible to finish by the end of the day, hell, he was feeling pretty smug right now and might work into the night to get it done.

But there was a pull from the side, something resonated with Six’s blood and Six could tell it was the blood log. The log, although dead and burned, still resonated with blood, it called for the waste of Six’s blood casting. For a moment Six hesitated, he didn’t understand what would happen but, at this point he felt he should let go.

Once he let go of the spell waste the blood remnants were almost pulled by gravity towards the logs, condensing into deep red droplets. The blood impacted the bark and near instantly seeped in.

“Neat,” Six muttered.

Charles coughed, “Six, blood magic is not something that the average person is well versed in and as a branch it is outlawed. Even in the mages guild.”

Six laughed and wiped the last bit of blood off his face before looking back at Charles. “Charles, I don’t give a fu-” Looking past the lad, SIx saw the entire work crew watching him. He cleared his throat, “I don’t care. If it becomes a problem, so be it. The townhall will be a bigger problem than me.”

Charles looked uncomfortable but Six really didn’t care. He felt like he could explode, in anger or joy, either direction was fine. He stopped at that thought, it was dangerous to be uncaring. He observed his internal state and realized that he needed to calm the fuck down. So he took three deep breaths and slapped on a wide smile. He pointed to the slabs of thin stone. “Gravelize these please.” He left the pit slowly, each movement painful. His HP was low from all the bloodcasting and it made his entire skin tender, but his pumping blood allowed him to not care about the pain. He found that internal observation interesting. The blood magic was doing something to his mind.

Skill gained: Mindfulness - Initiate - 1

Improves resistance to mental effects and increases internal perception. Each level provides an increase of 1% to mental resistance and internal perception. Current increase: 1%

He sat down and pulled out some smokeweed, blazing a bit might mellow him out too his mind justified. He wasn’t worried about his ability to make more Stone Walls, but instead hold his shit together. There was a slight feeling of relaxation but he still felt his blood pump furiously, so he put it away and began to meditate to regain his resources. It was hard to focus on proper focused meditation while somewhat stoned but keeping a steady rhythm of breath was easy enough to maintain. Slowly, the intentional breathing calmed his body and eased him back to equilibrium.

He did this until his mana and health was full then he stood, stretched and returned to the pit. Some of the crew stared up at him with wariness, some with fear. He laughed, whatever, he didn’t need their acceptance or love. He just needed them to do their job. He cast Stone Wall until his mind and body thundered pain with each beat of his heart. The log drank what he failed to transmute.

He breathed and meditated himself to equilibrium.

Once more he riled his blood with blood casting and once more the log drank.

So it went.