"Chance?"

My brother doesn't respond. He's been absorbed in something for the last couple of hours, ever since we cleaned up the mess from the fight and finished transporting goods from the storage building to the house. The only break he's taken was when we ate lunch, and he scarfed that down before getting back to work.

I think the attack by something strong enough to seriously put me in danger has rattled him a bit so it's understandable he's trying to direct his attention to something which can take his mind off of it.

Thankfully, the walls held up to the squirrel's attacks but I'm not too surprised by that. The stones were made of stuff far too tough for her attacks to hope to damage. That's even before factoring in the alchemy brews infused into the stones and the brew used for the mortar, too.

No damage occurred in the slightest, not even from the [Stone Missile] that slammed into the house. Not one scratch or dent or chip.

I've been relaxing since we finished and am now contemplating heading to the System Shop to claim my rewards for killing the queen. I didn't see what the reward is so I don't actually know what I'll receive. In the moment, I was too focused on getting my Attribute Points allocated before the pain set in and just dismissed the notice.

Unlike my relaxing state, my brother's been really focused on that project. I want to know what he's doing since he's used up almost a gallon of water slime goo and some water maginiite and has now switched to using holy slime goo and holy maginiite. That stuff is kind of valuable right now since we have an extremely limited supply of it.

Chance apparently bought a tome on magic smithing at some point over the last two weeks and is using it as part of his current project. How the slime goo and the maginiite factors in, I'm not entirely sure. That's part of why I'm curious, though mainly because the holy goo and maginiite is valuable to us right now.

I think this is his first time actually using the knowledge from the tome for magic smithing. He's pretty focused on his work, which also includes some metal ingots that he'd bought at some point.

Magic smithing is a spell-intensive job by the looks of it and Chance has had to use quite a few of his mana potions as he worked. I think one of the things he worked on for this was making an alloy, though he's currently reshaping the metal using magic. It's a small object and he seems intensely focused.

"Chance?" I repeat, once again to no response.

Since my brother is either ignoring me or lost in his own world, I decide to brew up another batch of healing potions. My right arm still hurts like fuck but it's not hindering me from doing too much. Just fixing it up to the point I've done so burned through most of my supply of System-made potions and I want to restock a little, even if these will be of a lower quality.

As I'm bottling up the potions, Chance approaches me looking worn out but holding something in his hands.

"Here," he hands it to me. "And sorry for taking some of your more expensive supplies without permission, I'll pay you back at some point. Once I can. But this was more important."

Curious about it, I examine the crafted object in my hands.

It's a necklace with a one-inch medallion. The metal for both the chain and the medallion are grey with a slightly-yellow hue to them, as if steel touched with gold. In the very center of the medallion is a half-inch piece of mana crystal, a medium-blue in color. The crystal was cut into a half-sphere and set into the coin. Surrounding that are five eighth-inch pieces of holy maginiite, also cut smooth and into half-spheres. Silvery runes wrap around the edges of the coin, which has a small loop fixed to the top for the triangular connection to the chain.

All of the runes remind me of ones in spell circles, though I only recognize some of them from the [Lesser Heal] spell circle and some from the spell circle for the breezestep deer's aura thing. Most of the runes and markings, however, are unfamiliar to me. The magic formula on the medallion seems to connect to the six crystals set into it, based on the way the lines interact with them.

That has me even more curious, but I was going to call up its information, anyway.

[Amulet of Lesser Regeneration] This amulet forged of holy steel provides a passive, minor regeneration buff to the wearer. Magic: 23 Magic Mana: 297

"I couldn't get the alloy right," Chance says when I look at him. "Don't have the right components for it. Even a holy slime's core would have boosted the Magic of the amulet a little bit more. Well, and I'm also a complete novice when it comes to magic smithing, so I'm impressed I was able to do so much. Probably comes from our bloodline."

"Probably," I say. "This is what you were using the holy slime and maginiite for?"

"Yeah," he answers. "Experimented with the water slime and maginiite first since that's much more renewable than holy slime and maginiite are. Uh… I didn't waste the crystals that were cut away from the ones on the amulet. Those went into the alloy to strengthen it. Cut them first – wouldn't have thought about that if the enchanting tome hadn't mentioned it."

"Cool," I frown a little. "Though I take it that once the crystal runs out of Mana, that's it? Or can it be replaced?"

The crystal probably started as a one-inch one I found in a chest in the Dungeon. I'm too lazy to do the math, but those had 500 Mana in them. From what we could tell, the magical energy is distributed evenly within the crystals so the cut pieces would have as much as would be proportional to what the whole had.

"It can be," Chance tells me. "But you can recharge the crystals, too. Mana crystals have a 'capacity' based on their size and quality. I'm not sure what this one's was, I didn't want to use more mana potions than I already had just to try it out. You can recharge it by touching the crystal and pushing Mana in."

That doesn't seem intuitive to me, as mana crystals came off as just a form of magical battery. While there were rechargeable batteries, those were specially designed for it. Mana crystals are just crystallized magical energy… I'd assumed that they vanished when used up.

Since we've only used them in potions before, I guess we didn't have an opportunity to see that the crystals would stick around.

"How'd you figure that out?" I ask

"The book on enchanting," he answers. "They can also be set up to absorb ambient Mana but I'm not that good yet. It's my first proper enchanted object. Excluding the lanterns, but those are extremely basic. Just runes set to glow when Mana is fed into them and then connections from their mana crystal batteries. They do lose capacity over time, but I don't think that should be a problem for now? At least, not for the ones in the lanterns. That one might since it'll probably get recharged more often."

"That's pretty neat," I say.

"Yeah," he nods. "Anyway, put that on, Carter. You're not a tank yet you're being treated like one and you need healing. Passive healing. Including right now. So put that on."

"Yeah, yeah," I pull on the necklace, though I can't feel any difference. That might take some time. "By the way, I was thinking about something we could do."

"What's that?"

"Don't look so suspicious," I say. "We have plenty of parts left over from the prep. We also didn't think about putting a kitchen in the house since we've been using a fire pit. What if we built a stone oven and a couple of stone stoves, plus a covered patio? Would require ripping out part of the gutter if we did that, but we have plenty extra to make for the covering."

This would give us a better way to cook while also granting us some degree of shelter from rain while we do so.

Chance thinks about my suggestion and realizes it's a good idea, so we start moving stuff over. There really is enough left over for this from what we'd already treated, even for the bricks meant for a fireplace. That was a result of Chance being extra in making the brew to treat them with and me not wanting to let them go to waste.

Well, his reasoning was that we might need them if the current design isn't good enough without actual fire aspects in the reagents, so he made plenty of extra so we could replace the bricks as needed.

The patio floor is made from extra foundation stones, and we stretch it across the length of the back of the house and make it fifteen feet in width. When we go to rip out the guttering on the back of the house, we find that the seal/glue is a lot more sturdy than we expected, so that takes some extra effort on our part.

Instead of getting to work on the new roof immediately after that, we first build the oven and stoves. They need chimneys, which are important to install before the roof.

One stove is constructed directly across from the back door, with an oven on the side to the right, their corners nearly touching but not quite. These will be for our kitchen and the open corner between them will have a support post. It probably isn't necessary since the oven and stove both have a chimney, but we add one in anyway.

The other stove is on the left-hand side of the patio area when exiting the house, set into the middle of that side. A chimney is constructed for it, then we add in the support pillars. One is set up at each corner of the patio, including the two touching the house.

"Hey, Carter?" Chance says once I've put into place the last pillar. "Should we add in counters? We do have enough treated wood and stone. Can do them a little to each side of the stoves and oven, and that'll fill in the rest of that corner, too."

Counters for prep space instead of using the picnic table? Why didn't I think of that? It also means we won't have to share space if someone wants to brew while someone else is cooking.

"That's not a bad idea," I say.

Once those are all installed, we finally add in the roofing frame, the roof, and the new guttering. Chance continues to use the makeshift brewing station we set up for this, as it fits the cauldron and the alchemy-intended stove doesn't.

By the time we finish the added construction, I can tell that the amulet works. My left arm no longer hurts and the constant burning has reduced just a tiny amount. Not enough to be noticed without me paying close attention.

We move the table Chance made into the patio area and I rebuild the fire pit outside of it, just so that we can still sit around a fire if we wish.

"Won't help much with winds or keeping bugs out or if there's slanted rain," I say as I examine the covered patio area. "But it's better than nothing."

"Yeah," Chance says. "Feels like a proper home. Though once one for me is built, I think I'll want a kitchen inside. Having to go outside if it's hot, cold, windy, or rainy out won't be fun."

That's definitely supposed to be a poke at me not thinking about installing a kitchen in the house. There were five guys who didn't think about that, though, so it's not entirely on me.

"Eh," I respond. "It's not as if I'll live here forever. Either it'll fall apart and we need to rebuild it or we'll just get better at this and build a new, improved one. We've already learned some stuff from this construction, too."

"Fair enough," he steps over to where his brewing station for the added construction was. "Let me get this stuff cleaned up."

"Once you're done, you can make yourself one of the healing charms," I tell him. "I'll charge it up if you're not able to maintain it."

"I think yours uses Mana faster than I recover it," he says. "Even if less than your own rate. And I can't pay you back for using up the materials on yours, much less on mine."

"Chance," I say. "You're going to pay it back. Just not in materials. It'll be better if we all have one, though just make one for yourself for now."

"Why just me?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"After you do that," I say. "Let's head to the System Shop. I want to find out what the reward for slaying the queen stoneshot squirrel was, but also do some trades."

Maybe ask a question or two as well. Something I've realized is that the information given by the System Shop doesn't add up to facts. Why didn't the Mana Flood simply kill us in the time it had? Or destroy structures and things? Everything still seemed structurally sound here for at least a little bit of time.

In addition, there's a "threshold" that the fail-safe brings the world down to for ambient magical energy, yet the amount of ambient Mana varies significantly across the land? Then there's the fact that I'm pretty sure the levels are increasing faster than would be logical if there's a membrane to regulate things.

Grandma may insist that the gods are fundamentally different from us and don't act to harm us, but I've become suspicious once again now that I've realized these things.

Chance gets to work on crafting his amulet and while he does that, I start a brew of my own in the new alchemy station. This is more of me experimenting with something rather than following a recipe but I'm doing it because I'm bored and have plenty of materials for it. My goal is purely to see what happens.

First, I grind up a couple of small water maginiite crystals. Once they've been turned into a fine powder, I mix them into 6 cups of water slime goo. I then slice and mash 1.5 cups of strawberries and 1.5 cups of blueberries.

The goo-maginiite mixture is split into three parts, with the mashed strawberries mixed into one, the mashed blueberries mixed into a second, and the remaining third added to 3 cups of water, which I then heat up on the new stove.

It takes a bit longer for the goo to fully merge with the water than when making potions, but that's understandable considering that there's a higher amount of it in the mix. The resulting mixture isn't as thick as I expected it to be, but I still want a little bit more water, so I add another half-cup of it. That takes some time to merge in so I stir the berry mixtures a little.

I test the cooking mixture for texture and consistency once I feel it's merged again, then I mix in both berry-goo mixtures. The hope here is that the water magic in the goo and crystals works toward what I want to happen.

Because of how much goo there is in comparison, however, it still takes time for it to fully homogenize. I want to add in extra water but my gut says not to, that I've done enough and this should work.

As the bluish-green, purplish-red, and red slime mixtures mix together, they start to shift to a fully purple color. About a minute after I think the entire thing is a single goo mixture now, it begins to glow with a vibrant purple light.

I pull the pot off the heat and set it on a small cooling grill and wait for the glow to subside. When it does, I examine the clear, light purple substance in the pot.

[Personal Lubricant] A purple-tinted personal lubricant made by an amateur alchemist. It has a mixed-berry flavor and a moderate slickness level. Expiration: 4/30/2023

Well… that's not what I was expecting. I can't really say much for what I was expecting, though. This was basically just me being bored and seeing what would happen if I used normal berries in goo. We know that mixing in heartberries with that ratio to holy slime and maginiite results in a weak healing salve. The effect of the salve is boosted by using the relevant herb.

My goal with this wasn't really anything in particular, so I wanted to keep the ratio roughly the same. It didn't reduce down as much as I'd expected it too, probably because of the water magic in the goo and crystals. This was a fun experiment with a result I really should have seen coming… and now I know it for the future.

"Carter?" Chance is peeking over my shoulder.

"I was expecting some sort of food result."

My brother snorts, then holds out the amulet he was making as I turn to face him.

"This one has a higher drain than yours," he tells me. "But I think it's more efficient. Want to swap?"

"I have a higher resistance, so I'm taking less damage," I tell him. "With four caster-based people here, keeping yours topped up shouldn't be a problem. I can sacrifice some mana potions until they return to keep both topped up, too."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah," I answer. "They should be back today or tomorrow, anyway, so it's not too much of a problem. Let me get this stuff cleaned up, then let's head to the System Shop."

Chance pulls on his new necklace and starts to clean up his station while I clean up mine. Once both of those are ready, we load up a wagon and cooler with stuff to trade in, the cooler set onto the wagon and strapped down.

One downside to the lack of roads and sidewalks: pulling the wagon on the soil is actually a little bit of a pain. I might convert our path to the System Shop to stone for an easier time. Without any buildings in the way, I can even make a more straight road that will save us time. I already had to make a bridge over the creek, anyway.

Especially with it now being about eight feet in width with the gully it's in having expanded to accommodate. I might actually need to fix up that bridge soon, too. It's not a proper one, just a long stone slab I conjured, and will probably fall in even if the stream doesn't continue expanding.

"If I manage to figure out the plumbing enchantments and get them to work," Chance says as we walk toward the System Shop. "Where do you want to build the shower and toilet? In the house, or outside?"

"Outside," I answer. "For the first house, that's not too much of an issue. We'd have to alter some of the stuff inside and ripping out the guttering was already a pain in the ass. We'll just have to deal with continuing to have to leave if we want to go to the bathroom or take a shower."

If Chance has figured out plumbing enchantments by then, then the second house we build will have those inside.

"Can I at least complain about that?" Chance asks.

"Sure."

"I'm going to hate having to leave a warm house to go pee in the middle of the night."

"Could… could you at least put some emotion into that?" I try to hold back my laugh.

"I'm going to hate having to leave a warm house to go pee in the middle of the night," Chance says in monotone.

"Hey," I say. "At least we'll probably have a warmer place to go pee in the middle of the night than we do right now."

"True," he says. "Do we have the materials for that?"

"Yeah," I answer. "There's still plenty of materials left, just not enough to build an entire second house. We'll definitely need to get more, but that's a bridge we can cross later."

The rest of our walk to the System Shop goes without much incident. No stoneshot squirrels attack us and only a couple of other monsters attempt it. When we reach the main path from the old road, I notice a significant difference over how things looked yesterday.

"Is it just me," Chance says. "Or are there more trees there?"

Across the "street" from the System Shop, where businesses and roads and small parking lots and railroad tracks were, are a bunch of trees. They're all fairly young and not even chest-high on me yet, but there were hardly any beginnings of them there this morning. Some of the trees are ones that were there before the Mana Flood and which have grown, but… this is a bit faster of a spread than we've been seeing.

"Not just you," I say. "Let's ask at the shop. I have questions for them, anyway."

Chance and I enter the System Shop and approach the golems.

"Hello, Carter Elm, Chance Elm," the golem greets us. "How may I help you today?"

"I have some sales to make," I answer. "A Quest to turn in, and some questions to ask. Let's start with the questions."

"What do you wish to know?"

"How come there are more trees here than we've seen sprouting new?" I ask. "Across the street, I mean. It seems to have been a rapid development. Everywhere else, the sprouts start nearer the existing trees, then more appear beyond those over the course of days. This one seems like it was suddenly massively seeded."

"I do not possess the information on that."

"Seriously?" Chance asks. "How can you not?"

"I only possess basic information," the golem answers. "It is not within my-"

The golem stills for a few moments, then blinks a few times before its breathing shifts to a more noticeable one. When it speaks again, its voice is deeper.

"How much ambient magical energy is in an area is determined by the number of mana veins flowing through the area," the totally-a-god-possessing-the-golem focuses on me for its response. "In this area, there is a high amount of them, including the five largest ones in the world, which intersect at a location near to your current place of residence.

"While the membrane created to cover the world's mana veins as they repair limits the amount of Mana which leaves them," the god continues. "It does not prevent the flow entirely. This results in more magical energy continuing to flow out of them. That then results in it flowing into the area.

"Eventually," he continues. "This energy will reach its current stabilization point. An area's stabilization point is not necessarily where the level of magical energy is or what can be handled by the area. Instead, it is the point at which the area can withstand that level of flow. The current stabilization point for this area is at the equivalent of Level 21 while the current magic level handling is equivalent to Level 4, nearly Level 5.

"In order to avoid a rapid increase in magic," the god tells me. "Magical energies above an area's current handling are harvested and stored far above in the atmosphere. These excess energies are used to reshape the landscape to match the area's new characteristics, create new Dungeons, fuel the System Shops, create the items sold in the System Shops, and more.

"As an area's growth and development allows it to hold more Mana," he continues. "The amount harvested is less and less until it reaches the stabilization point and there is no excess magical energy entering the area."

"This has been very informative," I interrupt. "But this only answers other questions I had. It doesn't answer the one I asked."

"Carter-," Chance tugs on my sleeve, his voice barely above a whisper as he leans in close. "Please don't interrupt the possessed being."

"It's fine," I push his hand away. "I want to know where the god is going with this. Does planting trees count as 'reshaping the landscape'? At least that answers why the ponds are expanding and merging."

Also why the creek grew bigger. The increase for the water areas is probably both to support the developing forest, but also to add in more places for animals and monsters to drink from or live in. That, in turn, may also affect how well the area can handle the ambient Mana levels.

"That is correct," the god responds. "However, I am not a god, this is simply a personalized informative experience."

"Sure it is," I roll my eyes.

I guess they need to keep up appearances even when it's clear I know the truth.

"In order to raise an area's ability to handle ambient magical energy until it reaches its stabilization point," the god says. "Some changes are made to assist in this. Plants naturally intake Mana from the soil over time, allowing for faster growth. The faster they grow, the more Mana magical plants will need to survive. The more plants there are in an area, the more of this energy will be absorbed."

"So to speed up reaching the stabilization point," I say. "More trees were planted so that more plants will be absorbing the Mana in the soil. That, in turn, will increase how much is used in the area, and the trees will eventually need the higher amount to survive."

"That is correct," the god states. "All of the trees planted were done so utilizing this excess magical energy and match the natural foliage of the area. However, they may further alter as they take in more Mana, until the stabilization point is reached for Carelm Forest."

"Please don't name it that!"

"Uh… am I missing something?" Chance asks.

"Chance," I say. "What is the naming scheme used by the System, and probably the gods?"

"First three letters of… oh," he says. "Well… I guess that settles it."

Despite me leaving here after six months to live somewhere safer, they're naming the forest after me.

"How long will it take to reach the stabilization point?" I ask.

"That is dependent on the area," the god answers. "In areas with weaker levels of magical energy entering them from the mana veins, it has already been reached. In an area with a stronger amount, it is dependent both on the amount of nature absorbing it and how much is being fed back into the land through decomposition and other methods. At the current rate, Carelm Forest will reach it in approximately six years. However, it is possible for it to reach that within three months."

I really, really hope that the god is just giving a rare scenario we have no hope of reaching as I'm guessing the stabilization levels are Status Level equivalents. I also feel like the numbers given are different than what I was given before. Didn't the golem tell me it was equal to a Rank 3 Dungeon? I could be wrong, but I'm not sure.

"Okay," I say. "I take it this is all basic information the golems don't know?"

"The golems are only provided such information for the duration of a personalized informative session."

In other words, we can only find this out if a god straight-up tells us.

"Okay," I say. "Something which doesn't add up is why the Mana Flood didn't simply kill us and destroy everything immediately."

"In worlds without the System," the god says. "There is a protective membrane over everyone and everything. Invisible, intangible, and unnoticeable. When the System activates, this membrane is dissolved. Its purpose is to shield them during the event you are calling the 'Mana Flood'. Whether or not that membrane has dissolved is the measure used to determine if a world's ambient Mana has grown too high."

"So if a world's Mana awakens violently like Earth's did," I say. "Its people are shielded from the full effect of it by this membrane, which dissolves from the Mana Flood, which then initiates the System. I take it that whether or not someone survives the ambient Mana after that is based upon their body's own resistance and how much is in the air in their area?"

"That is a correct summation, even if a basic one," the god responds. "And your assumption is correct."

That answers those questions.

"How come I'm getting more divine interaction than I supposedly should?" I ask. "Grandma said her dad said-aaaaaaaand he's gone."

The golem went still again and as I finish commenting about the god evading the question, the golem returns to normal.

"This personalized information has come to you at no cost," the golem states. "A free benefit to assist you in your survival in this new and dangerous state Earth is in."

"You weren't kidding about that," Chance says.

"Nope," I say. "Let's finish up our business here, then head home."

"Not going to investigate the location for the old dairy plant?" He asks. "We can do that while we're already out here."

I look toward that direction, then shake my head.

"Nah," I look at my brother. "Some part of me just wants to see what happened there, but it's probably just more forest getting added in so it's not important. Let's just do the sales now."

I sell the goods we brought with us, then turn in my Quest for the stoneshot squirrel queen. When I do that last one, I find myself quite surprised.

As part of the reward, I receive both a [Basics Pack] and a [Hunter's Pack], on top of five mana crystals. The [Health and Healing Kit] and 5,000 syscre are fine and all but damn. Each of those five crystals is an inch in size and has 750 Mana in them already. They may be able to hold even more than that.

The [Hunter's Pack] is a kit which contains tools for bleeding, skinning, and preserving hides and meat, no selections given. For the [Basics Pack], however, I do get to choose things – it's the same as a [Starter Pack], minus the tool and scroll but plus a hygiene kit and a second pair of clothing choices.

"Alright," I say once I finish. "Let me check the shops real quick and unless you need something, let's head home and drop this stuff off."

"Drop it off?" Chance asks as I start walking toward the food supplies side. "We're not staying?"

"Based on the changes to their Aura and Mana," I say. "I'm estimating that they'll be finishing the Dungeon soon. We can walk back with them if that's correct."

Doing that will also give me time to play a little prank on them.