Hushar raised one hand, and energy started to swirl around it, yellow power mixed with streaks of red. Around him, the ash started to bubble and heat up, and the rocks that were strewn across it liquified. With a bubbling hiss, they started to coalesce into a dome, rising up until they stood over Hushar’s head. A few minutes later, he was left with a crude hut, with a single window and a door. Seeing the potential of this ability, Jonathan asked a question.

“How much earth can you manipulate in that manner?”

“Hmm? About ten times this amount, but it would bottom out my elemental energy and mana. Why?”

“Would you be able to fortify this plain against any invaders?”

Hushar looked around himself, taking in the flat landscape that stretched out from the base of the city wall, marred by the trench that the mages had dug. He nodded.

Without another word, the man raised his arms high above his head, summoning larger amounts of energy than before. The earth shook slightly as his will was exerted upon the world, and it started to rise up. In order to save energy, he took the earth from long strips of land, creating trenches that extended in front of the walls.

When all was said and done, about a hundred feet of stone, fifteen feet high and about three thick, spread across the plain. It was nothing compared to the main wall, but it could be added to over time. It seemed that Hushar would be even more valuable than Jonathan had thought.

With a smile, he left the towering hulk of a man, heading back towards the city. It was time to continue adding his more personal touches to the defenses. He had already created a few layers of runic arrays, but he had other configurations that he wanted to try. Nothing close to another array, but enough.

His Rune of Consumption was volatile, but it had an upper limit of mana that it could ingest. That upper limit was generally higher than that of most beings in this world, and it had been used in the past as a trap.

Starting in the middle, he began to add clusters of the runes in between the other traps. By the time he was done, a few hours later, the wall looked like it was surrounded by a god’s sketch of some abstract scene, constructed out of light. However, all Jonathan could think of was Granath’s overwhelming might, which put quite a damper on his pride. With nothing more to do on the outside of the city, Jonathan headed in. He had done all he could in terms of his runic abilities, the one thing that put him head and shoulders above the other defensive crafters. Now it was time to hone his other skills. Those that would help him in battle.

With what was likely less than a week left until the city was besieged, Jonathan planned out every day from that point on. He was not so naive as to believe that the other Uthraki leaders would flock to his cause like Hushar had. Some of them might come, but most would simply try to kill him. He would have to balance out his need for allies with his own safety.

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With about sixteen hours left until his token recharged, Jonathan trained. And trained. And trained. Working his highly durable body to the bone was difficult, but not impossible. Using his full speed and power with every strike and technique that was part of his martial style allowed him to act as if he was in a pitched battle. The air seemed to thrum as his powerful strikes tore through it. It was getting to the point where he was creating tiny vacuums with every punch that tugged on the dust around him. Useless in a normal fight, but something that would possibly help him if he gained more power. Perhaps after his second or third threshold in Strength.

That was coming closer and closer the more power he gained, and soon he would be able to get there with his stockpile of free points. Before the upcoming battle, he would allocate all of his free points. There was no need to hold back for something like this. However, that time was not yet to come.

As he worked through his martial abilities, Jonathan concentrated on his more mystical powers. He could contemplate his elemental energy as he worked, partitioning his mind to work on multiple things at once. His high intelligence was the main reason behind this. He also was beginning to form an idea of just how the various stats really worked.

The physical ones were straightforward to the extreme, except for Constitution. Strength increased physical strength. Dexterity increased speed and reaction time. Resilience increased the overall durability of his body. However, Constitution was less clear. It seemed to do the same thing as Resilience, at least nominally, but it manifested itself in a different way. Constitution did nothing for durability. Jonathan suspected that if he had his current Constitution score, but a ten or so in Resilience, even a glancing blow from a similarly leveled being would severely injure him.

It seemed that the two stats had a multiplicative effect. There was his nominal health, and then a secondary health bar that was likely created by the confluence of those stats. This created a level of durability beyond what was written on his stat sheet. He could tell that he was nowhere near fully comprehending how this all worked, so he moved on to the mental stats.

Intelligence had two functions. It increased the processing speed of his brain, and increased his mana reserves. The former of the increases was not as noticeable as one might think. It did not increase his functional intelligence anything beyond what he already knew. He did not magically have the ability to comprehend rocket science or anything. Rather, it seemed to mesh somewhat with his other stats in battle, allowing him to keep up with the rapid pace of conflict.

On the other hand, Wisdom was a lot more inscrutable. It seemed to influence his mana regeneration rate, but seeing as Strength was the only stat that corresponded with his stamina, it did not really fit.

Then an epiphany hit like a bolt of lightning from above. What if his stats were all paired? He had three stats that increased his resource pools, and three that did not. What if the other ones all increased his regeneration rate? Dexterity for Strength, Resilience for Constitution, and Wisdom for Intelligence. It all made sense now.

Jonathan had solved part of the mystery of how his stats worked. Although it seemed mostly useless now, it might come in handy later.