I announced that we had wiped out the enemy, and thus the festivities began. We danced, we sang and feasted from dusk till dawn. The humans were irritated in the beginning, but the merry mood was so great, that even they had joined our party.

I was also relaxed due to the festivities, but there were still a lot of things to be done. When the party was dying down, I summoned the key figures of the tribe and Clara to discuss the oncoming events.

"Clara, I remember you mentioned something about Court Mages, Nobles and war? Could you clarify? Were those explosions and huge torrents caused by mages?" I asked, the other looked towards Clara with curiosity. She was sitting cross-legged since the ceiling was too low for her to sit up straight.

"I suppose goblins wouldn't know much of human affairs." She took a hefty swing of some Supple Springer wine and wiped the droplets from the mouth. "To summarise, nobles hire court mages to keep other nobles and court mages in check. If a noble doesn't have one, an enemy mage would decimate their armies. So as tradition, mages fight each other to a standstill, then the nobles send in their armies to do the dirty work."

Since the others did not know the human language, I translated all her words.

"I see, but who could hire a mage with that power we saw?" Voglo stroked his beard. I translated the question back.

Clara shrugged her shoulders. "A mage on that level is an Earl or King tier. I don't know too many details."

"What about the baron? What about the war?" Zotnik asked impatiently.

Clara scratched her head and took another shot of her wine. "Judging by the destruction, it must be a war between big figures. Duchies, kingdoms, or even some of the churches. Regardless, the baron is going to want to muster his forces and claim that alchemy crop we were meant to be farming."

I leaned back into my rock throne and rubbed my temples. "Right, that's why you came to us, you've been too busy with trading to do any farming. And the baron is not going to be happy with you."

Clara blew a tuft of her curly red hair from her face and gave a cheeky grin. "Bingo."

I sighed and dismissed everyone. It was useless to keep talking with a drunk and we couldn't expect what would happen anyway. I needed to start training myself if I had any hope of fighting a court mage, even one at a baron's level.

Olma came up to me and tugged my shirt. "Lord, have you started preparing for the Exchange Ceremony?"

I raised my eyebrow. "No, I don't ever recall ever hearing of such a thing."

She smirked. "That's right, it's a good thing I informed you. Let me give you a summary."

There was a celebration called the Exchange Ceremony. It was done whenever there was a victory over an enemy tribe. We didn't have the resources nor the time either. The gist was that each goblin would present an artistic craft they made to their friends and family. The amount of effort you put into it determined how much you valued your companions. Not all goblins were dedicated craftsmen, nearly all of them practised some sort of artistic art form in their free time. Some sculpted clay, some carved wood, others carved stone. Even a few painted on slabs of stone with charcoal and depicted dramatic scenes of combat.

For this celebration, I thought of using my new skills from my subclass, to create a gift for retainers. I also wished to create a nice gift for Olma.

Interface Cutting (Beginner) This skill is a passive skill, which improves the quality of the cuts you make upon stone and gemstones. Faceting (Beginner) This skill is a passive skill, which improves the quality of the faceting and setting of your stones and gemstones. Polishing (Beginner) This skill is a passive skill, which improves the quality of your polishing upon stones and gemstones. Inlaying (Beginner) This is a passive skill, which improves the quality of your cutting and inlaying of stone unto a stone matrix, to create images. Stone Appraisal (Beginner) This is a passive skill, which improves one’s ability to determine the quality, type, identity and grade of a stone. Stone Appraisal (Beginner) This is a passive skill, which improves one’s ability to determine the quality, type, identity and grade of a stone. Gem Appraisal (Beginner) This is a passive skill, which improves one’s ability to determine the quality, type, identity and grade of gem

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Crafting items with [Stone-Shaper] was a grey area. I decided to try and make something without relying on magic. Since we had no gems at the moment, I decided against creating a piece of jewellery.

[Inlaying] indicated I had to cut stone into shapes and then place them together to form an image. A simple image would be best for my first try, I attempted to make a depiction of a 5 petalled flower.

The variety of the stone in our mines was not great. But the river provided a decent collection of coloured rocks I could use. Since I could not walk freely, I mounted Dodge. He acted like a support mount, and was far more obedient than usual, I assumed it was because he felt a bit bad for me.

Upon reaching the stone riverbank, my nose began to twitch. My [Gem Scent] was being triggered. I dismounted Dodge and tried to balance myself on one leg, but it was far too difficult, so I "fell" onto the ground. I searched through the stones, but the skill was not very accurate and the tingly feeling in my nose was very faint. After a while, my eyes were caught by a reddish stone, which was perfect for what I had in mind. As I picked it up, my nose began to twitch once more, only much more intensely. I used my appraisal skills on it.

Interface Gem Appraisal This is a red agate.

My skill was still at [Beginner] and thus it only gave me a basic description of the gemstone. As I took a deep whiff of the stone, the scent surprised me. It had a faint smell of artificial cherry flavouring, which was quite odd but very memorable.

I had picked up a rock that looked as if it was covered in moss. I would use it as the stem for a flower, but as I lifted it, my nose began to twitch once more. The rock had a wispy aroma of wet grass, once more, it was not something one would expect a rock to smell like.

Interface Gem Appraisal This is serpentine.

Satisfied with my acquisitions, I crawled across the shore and climbed up on Dodge. I transported the gemstones back to my room. I lacked modern equipment such as power saws, sanders and other tools. Yet I would try my best regardless.

I began by filing down the gemstones, with a rough iron file. I aimed at the rocky parts of the stone that did not contain any rare materials. I had nothing to cut the gems with apart from a chisel. Splitting the agate revealed a brown-reddish stone with white stripes going across it. I rubbed the cut pieces together, to polish them against each other, grinding them into rough oval shapes. I repeated this until I had 4 more flat oval pieces of agate, and one long strand of serpentine.

I took a piece of regular, old grey stone, and smoothed it out. I chiselled out holes matching the carved gemstones so that I could place them into the stone. Me chiselling it directly resulted in an unappealing product. Finally, I applied some glue to the underside of the carved gemstones and fitted them into their respective holes. The final result was a picture made of gemstones of a simplistic flower.

Interface You have created a Crude Pietra Dura. You have received 15 experience.

I was astounded, I had gained experience not from killing something, but from creating a piece of art. Was this an effect of having a subclass of a lapidary? Is this how regular people gained experience, through their subclasses? But you needed to reach level 10 to gain a subclass. Voglo explained that people can gain experience from high-levelled non-combat skills. So a [Beginner] cook wouldn't gain experience at least until they reached [Budding].

I practised my skills more, to create some more half-decent Pietra Duras. The crafts I made were smaller compared to Olma’s because I couldn't find enough materials to work with. For Voglo, I made a simple herb made of serpentine. Rugum received a sword out of agate and Zotnik got an image frog with an agate tongue. From this, I gained some experience, but it was negligible. The gifts were all very well received. Rugum had even cracked a smile.

Each one of them had given me a gift as well. Voglo gave me a wreath adorned with carved stones resembling birds, fish and little goblin faces. Rugum had given me a gorgeously carved bow that had blue feathers attached to its ends. Zotnik provided me with a small clay statuette of myself. Olma’s gift was unexpected she had given me a small wooden sword, covered in ornate markings.

I took the sword and made a few swings with it before Olma stopped my hands. “It’s not for you,” she spoke softly. “It’s for the new child.”