The description of [Lodestone Creationist] was vague, but wasn’t that the same with all his skills?

[This rare skill allows you to craft lodestone access points and create private markets outside of the System Market.]

The System had never been big on handing out instructions. Besides, Logan was betting that all he had to do was find a place to craft a lodestone and then deploy the skill, just like his others. But would the place he chose impact the quality of the ‘private market’? There was only one way to find out.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, he circled around the group who were sleeping, looping past Chase who was guarding the outside, and then approached his monster carbon tree. In the dark, it seemed like a living monster. So tall it towered over him, twenty stories at least, its blooming, mutated leaves rustling in the breeze. Even standing underneath it made breathing easier, the air clear and the smog dissipating. If anything, he should have set up Lara and the kids underneath this behemoth since at least it would help with their red eyes and sore throats.

Logan tried to keep an ear out for any disturbances while he scanned his surroundings, but he trusted Ernie. Ernie together with his minions would be strong enough to handle anything that came at Lara and the kids, at least until Logan arrived.

Logan climbed up the immense roots that breached the ground. They were so large it was like climbing a tree by itself, the bark knotted, thick, so thick it looked like an old growth tree.

He hesitated. If this lodestone were like the one on the willow tree back at the cabin, it would materialize on the trunk of this tree. But if the tree were so large that it was difficult to climb over top of the roots, that wouldn’t be easily accessible. Eventually, he wanted to transport Chase and Brooke’s group to the cabin, which meant that they’d no longer have access to it. If he wanted to attract other people, it didn’t make sense to add the lodestone here.

Clambering over the roots, Logan jumped down until he was on solid ground, and then considered a way forward. The orange glowing moon provided light, but even with his high perception attribute, it wasn’t much. His massive behemoth tree was behind him, the dead pine trees around the picnic clearing were in front of him, and then there was the path that led to Richton’s Tomb.

Huh.

Well, the skill didn’t say that he had to build a lodestone on a tree; he only assumed that he had to because that’s how his Tree Fridge worked. But if he wanted a location that was convenient that had the highest potential traffic, the tomb would work the best. In fact, it was his only option if he wanted to take advantage of whatever sparse foot traffic would show up after he moved everyone to Jack’s cabin.

Logan approached the tomb, staring. As far back as he could remember, Richton’s Tomb had been there. Originally, this land had been privately owned. When Richton passed away, he willed the property to the city, donating it, with the condition that the tomb would remain and would be undisturbed.

You could access the tomb from underwater, which is where he’d stored his canoe and the supplies he’d left for Lara, but you could also access it from above ground, the massive door that had been locked with a padlock, inaccessible to the public.

Logan had no desire to break through the door, since he already knew what was inside the tomb, but why wouldn’t the door work as a base for the lodestone? Either way, he would only find out if it worked by trial and error.

The door was black, rusted, overgrown vines and moss covering it and making it seem like something out of an unkempt garden. Squinting at it, his heart racing, Logan focused on the middle of the door at about eye level and then concentrated on [Lodestone Creationist].

And concentrated.

And concentrated again.

“Fuck,” he muttered. It reminded him of when he’d first received his skills, of trying to figure out how [Idiot’s Inspect] worked. Logan didn’t like feeling stupid, and staring at a door while nothing happened wasn’t helping.

Well, one thing he’d learned throughout this whole Integration ordeal was that anything was possible. All he had to do was visualize it. If staring at a door and trying to deploy [Lodestone Creationist] like he would his other passive skills didn’t work, then that meant it needed something else.

When he thought of a ‘private market,’ he couldn’t help envisioning an online shop, something that he could click on like pressing on a touchscreen. Somehow, he knew that wouldn’t be the way forward.

His tree fridge had a lodestone that was in the shape of his hand, a stone with an etching inside of it. And yet, Logan hadn’t created it. It had appeared after Eleanor’s death, after his resolution to change. In a way, it had been a reward from the System, something that had also given him access to [Life Cycle Master] which eventually merged into [Life Fabricator].

But strictly speaking, Logan knew what a lodestone was, and it wasn’t an engraving with a handprint. They were naturally magnetized iron stones that acted like magnets, used in the past as magnetic compasses to lead sailors and help with navigation. Logan only knew that because he’d been so bad at biology in college that he’d had to sign up for an Ancient History 101 course in order to pass his first semester.

So, iron. Magnetized stone.

He already had a knack for manipulating stone via [Mimicry Armour]. He could take a bucket full of sand and craft it into flexible sandstone, creating his Logan exoskeleton. Was the skill related? Something that required Karma, and for him to manipulate stone? But if it were, it seemed like an odd requirement. After all, this skill had to be available to other users within the Collective, and there was no way they all had [Mimicry Armour].

Unless… was it connected to [Life Fabricator]? He’d received [Lodestone Creationist] from his class selection, which meant that each of the skills had to be related. And there was an undeniable part to [Life Fabricator] that was crafting related:

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

[Through intricate and highly precise work, this skill allows you to build, repair and control the life cycle of beings by cutting, bending, and assembling.]

Huh. And yet, Logan wouldn’t think that a stone was a ‘being.’

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“System,” said Logan, “for once in my life, it would be really nice to have an instruction manual.”

There was dead silence, but by now, Logan wasn’t expecting a response. The System only responded when it wanted to piss him off.

All right, well, he might as well try something. Throw enough crap at the skill and eventually he’d figure it out.

Logan rummaged through his spatial collar, looking for anything he could use to craft into a stone. Iron would be best, but it wouldn’t be magnetized even if he found it. It wasn’t like he had a magnet inside of his…

Holy crap, hold on! Logan had cleared everything inside of Lara’s house, absolutely everything. That included the fridge magnets! The kids had gone crazy with them, sticking artwork and food menus to the fridge, so he had a ton!

Logan had no idea if he were on the right track, but a lodestone was magnetized metal, so at least he had a start. Lastly, he willed out the nails from his tactician trial, the ones the blobs had used to construct the wagon wall in the canyon. Even the nails from his grandfather’s tool shed.

With a blink, a pile of rusty and shiny, brand-new nails plopped onto the ground in front of Richton’s Tomb, including two dozen magnets.

Running a hand through his hair and pulling on the ends, Logan glanced from the door of the tomb to the pile of crap. He supposed that whether he used [Mimicry Armour] or [Life Fabricator] for this next step didn’t matter; as long as it worked, Logan would use whatever was at his disposal. It may be that [Lodestone Creationist] was meant to be used in conjunction with [Life Fabricator], but then again, Logan might have the unique benefit of having a skill that worked even better.

It once again came down to visualization.

Just like with the sand, Logan concentrated on one nail to start, clenching his fist until he’d managed to move it, an inch at first, a small jerk. It was only a slight movement, but it still made excitement surge through his chest. Taking a deep breath, he tried to stay as calm as possible. He wouldn’t get anywhere if he were too excited to concentrate.

His nails digging into the palm of his hand, Logan scrunched his eyebrows as he kept his focus on that one nail like it was the most important thing in existence. Gradually, as if it were held up by an invisible string, it rose in the air until—

Logan hissed.

A larger, thicker cloud had drifted over the moon, causing the light which had already been poor to worsen. Logan still had his barbeque lighter, and it was easy enough to create another makeshift torch, but he worried about the dryness of the ground around him. Even though Richton’s Tomb was next to the lake, the air was sweltering. Still, he wouldn’t be able to do anything if he couldn’t see.

Making a snap decision, Logan removed a long golf club from his spatial collar. Lara had been a casual golfer, picking it up last year, and she had a whole golf bag full of clubs. In a pinch, a metal torch would work better than a plank or a tree limb, since it would be less likely to catch on fire. Lastly, Logan removed a towel and wrapped it around the end of the golf club before slamming the end of the club into the ground like hitting a spike.

He'd used so much strength that the golf club was sticking out of the ground in a straight angle. Oh well, he supposed that worked. It wouldn’t allow anything to catch on fire, at least.

Lighting his makeshift torch let a plume of light illuminate the area, allowing Logan to see each nail in detail.

All right, all right. Logan cracked his neck, and then focused on another nail, clenching his fist as he concentrated and inched it into the air. It rose a foot, then two, and kept climbing, the nail rotating in the air. Keeping that one aloft, Logan latched onto another, then another, forcing them to rise into the air, the sharp ends of the nails clattering against each other.

This would be the hard part.

With his other hand, he clenched his fist once again, half his attention on keeping the nails in the air, the other on latching onto the magnets. He separated the magnets from their plastic encasings, until he had ten tiny magnets that jumped up and down in the air. This time, he didn’t have to direct them, since they were attracted to the nails and naturally drifted over like a floating cloud. In fact, they went too quickly, wanting to pull each nail into the magnets like shrapnel.

Logan didn’t want that.

He needed to figure this out just like he’d figured out how to merge sand into sandstone. It was as if he needed a smithy, a place where he could take the two divergent metals and merge them into one.

A smithy.

Fire.

Logan’s mouth grew dry, uncertainty eating away at his stomach. Was he really going to try this?

He was trying it.

Keeping the nails and the magnets swirling together in the air like a metal cloud, Logan turned and looked at his makeshift torch, at the fire blooming from the end of the towel.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, as he concentrated on a ball of flame the size of his fist, forcing it away from the torch and hovering it in the air. Damn. But as soon as he did that, the flame snuffed out like a meteorite that naturally depleted in the air.

Shit. Okay, he had to figure out how to move the fire through the air but keep it burning. Was that where [Life Fabricator] would come in handy? After all, if anything, fire was alive.

But again, that was down to visualization. If he visualized that the flame wouldn’t die, it naturally followed that the skill would obey.

Keeping the nails and the magnets hovering in the air while puzzling this out was challenging, and he suspected that his Karma pool was depleting, but he thought he had a way forward.

Logan snatched another fistful of flame from the torch, but this time, he pictured it flaring and burning like an endless flame. A flame that never died, that kept burning even when separated from the torch and with nothing to fuel it but oxygen.

The ball of fire drifted through the air, flaring brightly, and as it did, the torch extinguished as if his ball of fire had sucked its lifeforce, sucked its fire.

Holy crap, it was working! Logan was a frigging fire wizard! Letting out a bark of laughter, of excitement, he forced the fireball to drift over to his hovering iron and magnets, and then envisioned them fusing together, a mass of flame and magnetized iron merging into one. He molded it, then clenched his fist once again as he forced more and more nails into his hovering ball, so much metal that it burned, flaring white, red, white, red.

Until with a gasp, Logan separated one piece from the mass, sculpting it, shaping the edges, and then finally letting it drift to the ground where it could cool. Then he repeated the same steps, sculpting more pieces, more and more.

As Logan felt his airways grow tight, his Karma stretched to the breaking point, sweat beading down his forehead, he felt a surge of achievement, of knowing that he’d fucking owned this. He’d fabricated the hell out of these stones, and although they weren’t yet lodestones, they were kickass.

Biting his lip and smiling, he looked down at his new stones. He now had ten stones, right in line with his quest:

[You’ve received the quest, Build an Empire! Craft ten lodestone access points and sell 100 items within 48 hours.]

Although they weren’t yet access points, he suspected he could transform them into ones. Throwing nine of the stones inside of his spatial collar, Logan concentrated on the one that remained. It was flat, the size of a piece of printer paper. The edges glinted, looking razor sharp.

Making sure that his Karma pool was replenished, Logan forced the metal into the air again, this time sending it soaring like a bullet until the flat edge banged into the door of Richton’s Tomb.

Concentrating on [Lodestone Creationist], Logan willed the new metal to mold into the door, envisioning the stone as the gateway into another world.

Ding!

[Lodestone access point created! Would you like to set up your inventory for your private market?]