Cal frowned as he was woken up by a soft ping. He blinked as he read the interface with a blank expression.
[Advanced Pickaxe] has degraded to Poor Quality.
[Advanced Pickaxe] has degraded to Trash Quality. Further use of the tool could cause it to break completely.
[Advanced Pickaxe] has been broken from overuse.
1 primary equipment has been removed.
What?
It still didn’t register in his mind until he remembered that he had given the tool to the golem.
Cal sat up on the bed with wide eyes before quickly exiting the house. He had become so accustomed to the golem using the pickaxe that the silence was almost strange to him.
He could see the golem kneeling on the ground while swinging its arm down repeatedly. The barest hint of metal was in its massive hand, but any damage to the ground was done more with its rocky hand than the tiny bit of metal.
“Stop,” Cal ordered as he swept past the golem. He searched for the broken pieces of the pickaxe and found them scattered over a large area.
It looked like the handle of the pickaxe had deteriorated long ago, with the metal head breaking apart recently, getting his interface to alert him of the destruction. He returned to the golem with the broken pieces of the pickaxe in his hands and just stared at it.
“I feel like blaming you, but you literally do not have a brain,” Cal sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “That means this falls back to me. Great.”
He looked around and saw that the golem had broken up nearly five to six acres of land. At the very least, the destruction of the pickaxe wasn’t senseless.
“Just—“ Cal stopped himself and really thought his words over to see if there was any other way the golem could mess things up. His intent was obviously not enough to prevent mishaps. In the end, he decided to forgo the use of tools entirely. It had no benefit for him anyway. “Clean up the land you just broke up, and do it without throwing anything. I want you to pick up the debris, walk to the area with the rock piles, and drop it off.”
The golem immediately bent down, compacted the rocks into a tight ball, and lumbered to the rock piles.
If the golem can somehow screw this up, I should use this thing in enemy territory.
Cal let the golem do its thing and decided to start the day's work. The sun still hadn’t risen, and it wouldn’t do so for another couple of hours, but given the new areas of the field that were ready for repair, he would need all the time he could get.
The first thing he did was start the repair on the old patches of soil that already gave them a harvest. He raked the damaged soil flat – as much as he could — but that still left holes where he had planted the Sunfire Grains.
Cal took some tubs of loam from his massive stockpile of supplies and filled the holes before casting [Rainfall]. With that done, he proceeded to cover the rest of the field with the loam.
The stone paths that he ordered to be built conveniently separated his field into four fifty-foot-wide chunks. It gave him a clean target when he wanted to water the loam he had recently spread on the ground.
Hours passed, the sun having long risen in the sky when Cal was finishing the last part of the field near the pond. There were only a few tubs of loam left in his stockpile. The amount delivered gave him enough to repair 1 acre of soil, as he had estimated when he had taken stock.
Cal collapsed the empty wooden tub before casting [Rainfall] on the last part of the field.
Your [Secondary Tier] has increased by 1 level.
Initiate 7—>8
He dismissed the interface and threw the collapsed wooden tub onto the massive pile, which he started right beside the rock piles. It had never been a problem before, but that was only because he didn’t use many of them. With enough loam to cover two acres of soil, the wooden pile almost exceeded the size of the rock piles.
Cal saw the golem returning with a handful of compacted rocks. He let it drop off its quarry before ordering, “Compact the wood as much as you can and do nothing else than what I just ordered. Only compact the wood in this pile.”
He was so fearful of the golem somehow finding a loophole to mess things up that he gave the order twice. He left the golem to do its job and went to the house.
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Tavia happened to be leaving her room right as he entered. She was dressed in clothes that suggested she was heading out.
“Did you want to go to Lumina now?” Cal asked with some confusion. He had told her they would get something to eat in the city, but he assumed it would be later in the day.
“Well, no,” Tavia looked shifty. “I was going to make a quick trip to Silverpine.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “I’ll come with you.”
“To Silverpine?” Tavia asked as if she had heard wrong.
“I’m guessing this has something to do with your friends. I’m not sure what new information you get in such a short time, but I’m sure it must be very important.”
Tavia saw that Cal was about to change out of his clothes for the trip. “I’m not planning anything dumb, Cal. I’m just feeling a little nervous, so I wanted to check if there is something new. I really don’t want to waste your time for what is most likely nothing.”
He didn’t believe her. Not after she revealed that she was more than willing to throw her life away in a foolish attempt to save her friends. But he also wasn’t her keeper. She didn’t want him to accompany her for whatever reason, and it wasn’t in his nature to be pushy.
Cal already felt a little strange that he tried to insert his presence on her trip in the first place. He gave her a long look before finally nodding. “Well, try to get back before sunset. I wouldn’t want us to miss dinner.”
“I’ll be back far earlier than that,” Tavia assured with a confident smile.
Cal watched her carriage leave the farm a few minutes later. He had no reason to suspect that she lied, and he honestly didn’t think that she did, but if she learned anything that required immediate attention, she would jump headfirst into danger without notifying him.
What am I doing? Since when did I worry so much? Nothing will happen.
He prepared to leave the farm himself. He notified the half-asleep wolf leader to watch the field before loading his harvest onto the two carts he hired yesterday and left for Mariner's Rest.
***
“Here you are,” Drex handed him a coin pouch. “Seven gold and seventy-two silver for the crops. After the guild's cut, you get three gold and eighty-six silver. This was an amazing yield, Initiate Cal.”
“I might have gotten lucky on this one,” Cal said humbly. “The next harvest will need ten carts. Make sure to send them to my farm in a week.”
Drex noted down as he nodded. “Of course. The guild will be surprised with how fast you complete the contract.”
Cal hummed noncommittally, adding, “Send me more supplies to repair the soil in a few days. Give me enough for another two acres.” Drex noted that down too. “Speaking of supplies, you haven’t asked me for payment for the last few deliveries.”
“My apologies. It completely slipped my mind to mention that the guild will cover the repair costs after the contract was in place.”
“Oh,” Cal narrowed his eyes. “Is this standard?”
“Well, it’s not uncommon.”
He nodded slowly, accepting that at face value since he didn’t see the need to dig deeper. The supplies didn’t cost that much anyway. “All right, I’ll leave you to your work. We’ll speak at another time, Drex.”
Cal didn’t have any intention of staying in town any longer. It would be better for him if Seris and Nibbles took their time to visit the farm today. It would be even better if Nibbles did something to delay Seris from visiting the day.
As much as he found amusement in their company, he preferred a day without distractions. He planned on testing some [Traits], which could get dangerous.
“Are you Initiate Cal?”
Cal found himself blocked from getting on the left by a man who looked around ten years older than him. The man looked down his nose as if it was a chore to speak to him. He guessed that was due to the man being an Apprentice.
“Who are you?” He asked rudely.
“Watch your tone, Initiate,” the man growled with narrowed eyes. He unceremoniously shoved a piece of paper at his chest before looking at him strangely.
Cal gave the man a bored stare and waited for him to back up. That shove to his chest would have knocked the wind out of any Initiate. Whoever this man was felt a need to show dominance in a basic interaction with a stranger.
He sneered as he plucked the note out of the man’s hands. What an insecure weakling.
Cal could guess who sent the note and why the man was so angry about it. He supposed that he would’ve felt the same in his past life if he had been an Apprentice and was told to be a delivery boy to someone he thought was an Initiate.
“Why are you giving me this?” Cal asked with a raised brow. He wanted to test if the man knew anything about it.
“I have no idea,” the man seemed slightly less confrontational now that Cal had shown he wasn’t a pushover. “Someone in the core guild wants to get this to you, but that thing is just a blank piece of paper.”
Cal was a little surprised at that since he could see that the paper wasn’t blank, but he was thankful that there was at least some sort of security. It made little sense otherwise for Overseer Marek to contact him through notes. It was such a basic style of communication that it was almost embarrassing.
“Take care… Initiate,” the man gave him a brisk nod before walking back to the port.
Cal glanced at the piece of paper before folding it and putting it in his pocket.
Your friend, Oleg, is in immediate danger. If you want more information, go to Silverpine and hand this to the bartender in Dragon’s head.
He found it hard to believe Overseer Marek would send him a note such as this. His care for a failed Trainee was wildly out of character. But there was nobody else that would bother to send him a note.
Cal had to consider Tavia as well. She left for Silverpine with little to no warning, and then the note conveniently came to him. However, he didn’t know how she and the note could be connected.
In the end, it didn’t really matter. He would be going to Silverpine even if the note was suspicious.
The only thought blaring in his mind as he rushed out of town was that this had never happened in his past life, which meant his return had somehow caused Oleg to get into this situation.
Cal wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let Oleg somehow get himself killed.
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Complete stat sheet in author note (under spoiler tag)
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