With lunch done I headed up, I hoped to get to level fifty of dirt control today since I was at forty-four and change from the various things I did yesterday. Especially that blender thing, using that fourth thread of control on one object really helped. At the top I saw the stone ridge was nominally completed, it can still be stacked higher with a second pass but more then that would be cumbersome, best bet without a way of binding the rock into a real wall would be a pallisade with the stones packed behind it as a backstop. I explained that idea to the two workers currently stacking so they stacked the rocks in a way that it could be transformed easier when it was time, then headed to the river where I left my bowls of materials.

Once there I sat down in my regular position but this time I trained by handling four items at once instead of just three like before. With five items that gave me five different sets of four to work with, which I quickly burned my way through, but then I hit a roadblock on the last set. I was level forty-nine and I felt I had around ninety-nine percent exp but it suddenly stopped going up, just a hard brake on growing. Level fifty was clearly a milestone that needed something extra to break into rather than hard grinding. Hmmmm, intermediate gave me enhanced ability to control mixed elements, and I already tried some experiments with mud before that, not very well but I tried. Perhaps I needed to at least attempt something weird that the mastery bonus will enable me to do, but what could it be?

I attempted to form fifth thread of magic, but it flat out refuses to happen so trying to hold all five dirt types at the same time is out. I started quad juggling with magic sense on as I thought about it, I kept it low impact so I could think at the same time but i didn't want to just sit there doing nothing while i thought about it. Several minutes later and a magic sense level I had an idea to try, the next level of my being able to stand on dirt with minimal support, standing on a disk of dirt with no support. I gathered the dirt carefully and went through the hassle of turning it into a slurry before hardening it into a disk, added several layers until it was as big as It could get while still being able to hold it with only one magic tendril, and grabbed it with all four at once.

Carefully I set it on the ground before mounting it, I sat down cross legged so I wouldn't need focus as hard on balancing. At last I flared all tendrils to full power and and tried to lift the disk with me on it. First attempt was a completely failure, it was less lifting and more trying to pull it towards me, but since I was already touching it that didn't work right. I needed a... repulsion effect instead of trying to just lift it directly. Round two I infused the disk with energy and like a hovercraft I had it blast out the bottom in an even sheet with an effect that made it push the away from the ground, making sure it pushed after entering the disk instead of pushing the disk was complicated and I was sure I needed all four threads to pull it off.

I floated only a couple centimeters off the ground and held it there for a few minutes, I felt the weird sensation like when I first held myself up with a dirt foothold all that time ago and it got easier to control. I started slowly hovering around the area and after a bit I unceremoniously dropped when I got too close to the water since the ground was muddy and my repulsion effect was set for dirt. Even after all that I didn't gain a level, so hovering wasn't what blue box was looking for to give me that mastery bonus. Think think think, what other weird thing could it be looking for? I pulled my hover disk from the mud and turned it and magic sense back on while I was thinking over what else I needed.

Ah ha, maybe I should try to compress it's mana even harder! no idea if laser looking is the next form or if there is some in between stage, regardless, it could be what is needed. I hopped off my hover disk and held it in front of me and poured on the juice through one thread. I focused in on it and started mentally squeezing it as hard as I could, it wavered and squashed a little just past the focal point in my hand but it puffed back up right after that. Maybe if I used my other threads to squeeze this one? I released the other three and tried using them to grip the primary one but it gained no purchase and they just passed through eachother smoothly. Seeing the tangle of magic beams I had a new idea.

I set down the disk, pulled out my book, and looked up rope making, was a few pages on what material makes good rope and then what I was looking for, braiding. Following the book I started braiding my four magic threads like a four strand rope, over, under, cross, and repeat. Once it was long enough I maneuvered myself physically to be in range of my hover disk and grabbed it with the weave, once attached I filled the whole construct with power. It wavered, blurred, and was an overall a turbulent mess, the threads somehow interacting with eachother like this when they didn't before, which meant I was on to something. I pulled and pushed the threads to make it a smoother weave, and as I worked I felt something building up before suddenly it all snapped into position and it surged stronger than ever which gave me a notification.

Stolen novel; please report.

You have gained trait "Magic Braider 1"

Due to braiding at least four mana channels into one with no assistance

Huh, that is interesting, it essentially lowered the focus needed to use the braid by half a thread, so it only took three and a half threads to run the four thread braid. Unfortunately it still didn't level up dirt control, I really don't want to get help for it since that is what got me that genius trait and getting the next tier probably requires doing the same thing but harder. Ugh... what else have I done with dirt control, and what else could I do with it? I start pacing while twirling my hover disk around me with my new mana braid and watching it with magic sense. I zone out and let the sensations wash over me as I steadily walk in a circle, pondering what the hell I am missing, it is probably something so simple that I just forgot I could do it.

Mid ponder I stepped on an answer, I walked into a muddy section and the magic surge from my foot solidified the ground, I completely forgot I set that up since I haven't been walking around with magic sense active recently. The interesting part of it was it happened subconsciously, I already had active threads running the mana braid connected to my hover disk but it still activated without drawing any extra concentration. Subconscious control is a thing I hadn't practiced at all, therefore it is probably what I needed for the breakthrough. I took off my shoes, covered my legs in a dirt shell converted from my plate, and turned off magic sense, I had to make it stick without thinking about it and magic sense made it too easy to think about.

It was harder then it seemed, at first my new dirt pants did not like bending, so I added some joints like metal armor and then tried repeatedly to force myself to not think about it. I even resorted to singing the song that never ends, but that didn't work, the fact I was distracting myself meant I knew there was something I was trying not to think about. I had to do something that made me accidentally forget I had it on, best bet is put it on right before I went to sleep, so when I woke up I moved before I realized I had dirt pants on. I decided to take it off and save it for later, crumpling it into a sphere and then flattening it back out into a disk and having it hover behind me.

While taking a roundabout path back home out of aggravation I saw some wilted flowers, which I thought was odd considering the grass around them was healthy. Examining them for a bit I realized they were wilted because they were already pollinated and fruiting, I focused on the smallest plant and willed the dirt to spit it out, and was surprised by what was on the roots, potatoes. I didn't know potatoes fruited, I thought maybe they grew regular seeds but fruit was interesting. I unburied all of them and stacked them up on my disk, deciding to bring them back and plant them next to the cave. 

After greeting the guard I walked to an area to the right of the hole near the wall, leaving some space for the wall to thicken, and opened a hole in the ground. I grabbed a potato plant, lowered it in, and had the dirt flow around it and carefully propped it up into proper shape instead of all the potatoes dangling down and clumped up. Several holes later I reached behind me to grab the last one, missed on the first grab but got it on the second one, and then felt that weird sensation when I gain competency in an aspect of dirt control. Looking back I realized I was being stupid with those dirt pants, my disk had moved up and to the side a little "by itself" because I wanted to grab the plant on it.

I had distracted myself with the potatoes and I was so used to making dirt hover after me that I was able to forget I was doing it, dirt pants are unnatural in comparison so they are hard to ignore. Even with that I still didn't unlock level fifty, I hoped I only needed greater competency in auto dirt or I would be back to square one in figuring out what the hell I needed to do to get that. Moving on, this last plant is the biggest one, two secondary potatoes on it looked big enough so I snapped them off before replanting it. Hmmm, actually, this makes me the best potato farmer possible, usually digging up the plant to get the potatoes kills it because you destroy the root system, but I can dig without causing any real damage.

After that I called the two wall workers over and explained that these plants were food plants and should be kept safe so they should be careful not to step on them while working and to spread the word to the others. They understood easily enough so I turned around and went over to the cooking fire that already had some meat cooking and set the taters up on skewers and started them cooking, I but them a bit further back so they slow roast. Looking over I see one of the water jugs had nearly fallen apart and scold the soldier on cooking duty for not bringing the issue to the hive's attention. I gathered more dirt and replaced the compact earth jug with a solid stone one, I tried my hardest to pull back on the power and managed to make the jug just stone instead of dense stone. With that done I waited for the potatoes to finish before I grabbed them and some meat and headed down to give Victoria some dinner.