I made my return to the home base without gaining another level, which cemented the idea that the achievements had slowed down my speed of progression a lot. I had to remind myself that my growth was likely much more explosive than most, and the dull ache from hours of battling was soothed somewhat. Thinking of dulled stingers brought me back to the reason I needed to return, and I picked up my pace, even using Haste sparingly to get back to the rubble which was once Clive’s quicker.
“He returns!” Naea announced as I broke the treeline. She was over to me in a flash, her wide amber eyes scrutinising the various places I had taken damage like a worried mother. I assuaged her worries, telling her I’d be healed already if I hadn’t been rushing to get back.
“All so you wouldn’t be bored without me,” I pretended to lament my struggles with theatricality. As I did, I removed the weight from my inventory. Dumping out around a hundred scorpion carcasses noticeably lightened the load in the Xaverweave Pouch. The “important” materials were already gathered for me by the System, but I had collected the bodies in full for Naea. From the scorpions, the important materials seemed to be their poison sacs, of which I had twelve, and their chitin, which I had an actual tonne of. Every enemy gave over some of their exoskeleton in death, but only a few had dropped the poison sacs, suggesting there was a luck-based hidden system. Or maybe I had just done too much damage to most of the horrible arachnids. Either way was possible.
“Whatcha going to do now?” Naea asked, her interest genuine. Smiling, I sat down with her and shared some of my breakfast bars. The supplies from Clive’s would still last a fair while, but I hadn’t rationed very well to start with so now I was being forced to slow down. It was a shame nothing in the dungeon seemed particularly edible. If I were more of a chef, maybe I could do something but…
“Wait. There’s a cooking skill, right?” I asked Naea, only now thinking of it. There were so many things I was excited to get around to when I had the chance. The System didn’t have to all be death and destruction. Forced to live with it, I was determined to find the wonder in its existence in spite of the brutality it enforced.
“Of course,” Naea replied before looking around with a doubtful expression, “but you don’t really have the facilities.” Gesturing to the shack of a building I had made and the mess of the other, I couldn’t disagree. I shook my head. I wasn’t thinking of right now, but I was limiting my thinking on skills a little. Construction had led to Architecture which then gave me the work shed. I just wanted to try more things when I could.
It was spur of the moment, but the desolation of the area was getting me down. Even my work shed had been bashed a little by the collapse of the café. I looked at the massive pile of scorpions, which Naea was staring at like a pile of crab legs, and then over to the slightly smaller pile of debris. Merownis had pushed it into more of a pile before leaving, which was all I had really asked of him. “Facilities, huh?” I hummed to myself.
Now the Xaverweave Pouch was mostly empty, there was probably more than enough room for all of this…
Holding it open, my fingers started to tingle as the pouch’s dimensional magic began to activate. Whatever was happening within the bag was so beyond my level it didn’t even seem like mana or Spirit was being used, but I could tell both were. It was just so miniscule, and so efficient the Pouch only had to draw on the ambient energy around itself to perform its tricks. In this case, it was a disappearing act.
After walking a few quick lengths of the mess, the Pouch had gathered up the fallen sanctuary. All of it. Even things which I would have struggled to pull from the ground were swooped up confusingly into its maw. It also did gain additional weight. It was subtle, felt mostly in the changes between full, empty and now full again it had undergone. I patted the pouch, feeling its rotund happiness with a chuckle of my own.
It really was quite cute.
A quick check of my inventory told me I had been right. The old brick used to make up the walls of the building and the concrete used later all counted as simple “Stone” to the System. Which, along with a few of my thousands of gold coins and a bit of lumber was enough to upgrade the work shed.
Building Options
Workshed
Upgrade
10g, 10 units of lumber, 10 units of stone
Demolish
20 units of lumber returned
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Happily accepting the upgrade, I felt a slight breeze of Spirit burp out of the Xaverweave Pouch and shoot over to the shoddy building. Like a pop up book and a carousel all in one, the wood and metal of the shed expanded and rose into the air. With a blink of System mana, the additional wood and stone were added to the mix. The materials spun in the air above the foundation, Naea and I taking a few steps back just in case.
Building Upgrade options available for Work Shed.
Barn Workshop
It was a very basic building, so I was more surprised to have options than to be limited. I didn’t have any use for a barn unless I wanted to piss Merownis off, so while it was tempting, I selected Workshop. It was gracious of the System to consider my small room with a few heavy pieces of wood as tables a “work shed” to begin with. The stone spinning in the air above the building fell to the ground, joining the foundations before extending upwards at the four corners. With the support structure in place, the rest of the puzzle pieces fell into place. With a procession of satisfying clicks, the System slotted all of the remaining materials together neatly and with rapid precision. Even after the building was finished being constructed, there was the noise of some kind of work from within for a few seconds. After that…
Building Upgrade Complete - Work Shed -> Workshop
My mouth was agape, so I didn’t get the chance to speak first. “Wow, it even has a door now,” Naea said, clearly not as impressed as I was. I ignored her, walking over to touch the outer wall. The wood had been altered, improved in some way. It was still the same wood as before, I thought, but the System had made it tougher. I rapped on the side, nodding happily at the deep thunk it made. I had just enough levels in Architecture and Construction to know this was far beyond my current skills and equipment.
Except, if I was right-
“Yes!” I pumped my fist in the air as I poked my head inside. A neat and efficient looking work space was laid out perfectly. Multiple shelves and tables were arranged for different tasks, with stools at some for the longer, more intricate jobs. At the far wall were a few storage containers for materials. I assumed they weren’t going to be useful with the scale of scorpion chitin I had, but when I touched one the System simply asked if I wanted to store my crafting supplies.
Almost shakingly, I accepted, and the weight in my pouch disappeared once more. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when the System showed me the “Workshop inventory.” It was more than I expected for the amount of coin and effort I put in, which is to say minimal. There wasn’t much more room to work with, but for an extra fifty gold which I paid, the space was doubled. The next doubling was one hundred, but I could wait on that.
I didn’t want to let myself get lost in the room just yet, so I simply scanned the equipment the System had provided before leaving. There were chisels and hammers, small knives, pliers and more in one corner. Another had gardening tools like a hoe, a rake and a shovel. The third looked almost custom made to cobble some shoes together, though I hadn’t seen a lot of the tools there before. The final corner was mostly free, ready for a larger project. The workshop was sizable, taking up around two hundred square feet.
All told, I was very happy.
Building Options
Workshop
Upgrade
500g, 100 units of lumber, 40 units of stone, 30 metal
Demolish
25 units of lumber, 5 units of metal returned
I could get a lot of good things started here, but I would be distracted if I didn’t handle the nagging thought first. I hadn’t seen Merownis since I returned. I had barely seen a single orange hair of his since his evolution, and I was starting to get curious. “Where is Merownis?” I asked Naea. Last I had seen him, he was holding his head from the magical migraine of evolution.
She responded only by smiling widely and pointing in the direction of the arena.
In an effort to not get sidetracked with skill hunting, I went to find him. Considering he was supposed to be a party member, I hadn’t seen much of him since he awoke. As I approached the overgrown area of the forest, I couldn’t help feeling slightly worried. A fox darted through the brush ahead of me and I had to control myself not to lash out with a Mana Bolt. The furry thing kept pace with me, watching as I made my way deeper into the forest.
I believed I had missed these creatures in my early wanderings because they had avoided me, not so much due to luck. There was a fair collection of woodland animals in the forest which were all around level five or lower. While I hadn’t seen any monsters appear yet, the ecosystem of the area was becoming somewhat clear. The lowest level creatures, the critters, were hunted by the slightly more powerful, like an Attack Animal.
Once an Attack Animal got strong enough, they challenged Ents or Sundercats and then… I wasn’t sure. Maybe the Claimant would have been overthrown at some point, though I couldn’t imagine many things defeating Master Thorn. For myself it had basically been dumb luck, after all. Without learning to control Spirit and using it drastically, surprising both Thorn and I with an overwhelming Mana Bolt, I would have died and the balance would have stayed where it was.
Now the aura of aggression in the forest had died down, creatures like this fox were able to be more visible. My Perception attribute had also taken a large leap recently, and when I activated Tracking, the whole forest around me lit up. There were dozens of trails I had failed to spot, despite my large ego just preening over my Perception. All of them were headed in the direction of the arena, which caused me to frown until I felt the wave of force press against me.
Come, the energy said, witness my power.
It was a challenge I couldn’t ignore.