Needless to say, I ended up helping Agus with his endeavors. Exactly from the moment I dumped 900 Spell Infused Cores on his Enchanting table.

"How many is that?" He asks.

"Exactly 900!" I show him the four different symbols; a not red red-cross, a tunnel, an ugly coat and a turret, as well as how many of each there are.

"Dang! You're done Infusing all 900 of them?"

"Easy peasy." I grin while showing off. Among two geniuses, what need is there of being humble?

"That's awesome! I better get started right now." He replies with a grin. "What'll you be doing now?"

"Be on standby for any Quagxyte attacks, I suppose. There was no attack last night. Might be, there'll be one today?" I say rather unconvincingly.

"We're done shaping the area below." Pointing at his left index finger with his right, he begins checking off our plan on his fingers. Pointing at his left middle finger next, "it's not mine nor your responsibility to select and train the 300 new recruits. The same goes for constructing the siege weapons—well, not for you at all, and not for me too—until the Enchanting part that is. Which leaves us with my job of crafting new gears for all 300 of them, and your protection duty."

"A very simplified list, but that sounds about right." I shrug and grin. "You better hurry up then!"

"Yes, that's a good idea! I wonder though." Agus squints at me, the fingers on his left hand subtly moves, as if typing on an imaginary keyboard. "Do you have to be in your tower to be on standby? By my calculation; 500 meters, which is what I know to be the range of your Mana Sense–should cover the lowest point of our tunnel, even from this exact point you are standing on now. And we all know what that means, right?"

"Uh, yes~?"

"Well can you?"

Delegating one part of my thought, I figured that I really am capable of Sensing that far. I grin, "seems you're right. So? Are you just helping me point out my awesomeness?"

"Of course I'm right." See, not a shred of being humble between us. "But unfortunately no, feeding your ego is not even in my todo list. Rather, what that means is; you're available to assist me, and will still be available for Quagxyte duty at the same time."

Which brings us to the present.

I am bored out of my five minds sitting before a table that holds this one furnace construct of sorts. Its sole function being to expel a quick burst of very high temperature flames surrounding a central platform that is made to hold a gem—or in this case, a cut Mana Core. Each burst costs 600 mana, or about 5x the mana contained within a to-be-refined Core. So, I wait for Agus to cut a Core, give or take 5 - 10 minutes a piece > grab said object and place it into the platform > feed mana > press a button > rinse and repeat.

Did I mention I'm bored!?

—

My mind wanders to early morning during breakfast where our Territory's family of cooks were happily doing their jobs. And how the moment I come close, the daughter; Renita Goenawan, yells. "Mr Zane! You're here!! What would you like to have for breakfast? We got Bacon and eggs, toast, porridge—"

And the list goes on, they are amazing cooks to have prepared such varieties of food so early in the morning. "I'll have coffee please, biggest glass you have! And whatever food you recommend."

I might have mentioned them in passing to the people in charge. Now, besides cooking for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as making sure what's left of all three meals are readily available for anyone at any time of the day. Which is just their usual job. They're allowed to sell their own food and beverages in between the three main meal-times, made with ingredients that are procured by themselves. Words in the air are that Mr Goenawan is brewing a few barrels of beer, and both the ladies are angels at making desserts. Soon, I was served porridge with a dozen different condiments and a bucket sized glass of coffee.

"My compliments to the chefs!" I say after a meal, which includes a piece of to-die-for cake. Gratis!

"Thank you Mr Zane," Renita giggles at my impersonation of one cartoon food critique. Feels like I use this one a lot.

"Perchance I may invest in your business?" Pausing to peek at how much System cash I own. "How about 10 million Creds for a permanent 25% discount for buying your works of arts?"

Renita's smile froze awkwardly. Turning my head to look at her dad, I find him overly busy with cooking their dishes while the mother has a very neutral smile on her lips. Everyone around our table is silent. So I look at Agus who is sitting beside me and asks, "what?"

"You're asking me?" And he continues eating with the gracefulness of a polite barbarian.

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On my other side, Linda elbowed me very gently. I barely felt it. Then, while rubbing her elbows, she stands and whispers to my ears. "Do you know that we can get 10 kilograms of flour for 1 cred? And that is for some of those weird tasteless ones from the CredStore."

"I do now…" She stares at me with dead eyes, therefore I ask. "So?"

"You can probably make 90 cakes with that! Include butter, sugar, and the various fresh ingredients they use. One cake, the whole thing, not this piece you just ate, probably costs 1/10th of a Cred!" She says exasperatedly, all pretense of whispering gone since the emphasis on fresh.

"Yeah, so? What's that got to do with me investing in their business?" I understand that I might have offered way too much. But the look on her face is hilarious.

She glares at me for a while before her face turns to show defeat, then looking away from me, she throws her arms up in surrender—moving off to pat Renita's shoulder with an understanding look on her face. That made me laugh out loud! Which made her glare back at me, while still acting like the understanding adult to the older Renita.

"Uh, how about a million?" I ask our youngest chef, she refuses by shaking her head in abject horror. "100 thousand?.. no. 10 thousand?.. still no."

"There is no need for any investment Mr Zane, you can have some of our cakes for free anytime." Renita says. "We still owe you plenty for Will-o'-Weal."

"Nonsense! 5000 Creds then, I'm not gonna go lower than this!" I insist. Sparing no delay and sending her that exact amount the same instant. "Who wants free food, I want discounts!! For such a low amount; 10%. Take it or take it!!"

"But.. but.."

"We accept." Mrs Goenawan appeared beside her daughter and wisely made the decision. At her mother's insistence, she finally accepts my transfer of System Cash. The mother is probably experienced and intuitive enough to understand that I'm just finding reasons to give them cash. And that the amount I offered was nothing that would influence me much, if not at all…

---

I grin at the memory.

"Agus, can't you cut faster!?" I ask him for the nth time. We're on our 41st Refined core a little less than 30 minutes before lunch. About 6 - 7 minutes spent cutting per Core, he's getting faster. We can't spend another 94.5 hours to finish processing all 859 Cores that are left!

"Don't rush me! This is delicate work, okay!" He argues back.

"Let me try!" I say, just for the sake of relieving my boredom. Expectedly, like every other crafter in the whole world, he has a spare gem cutter lying around. It is a tool that looks something like a pencil and a lightsaber fell in love and had a child. A rod-like construct made of multiple small parts with a button. One end is rounded, while the other has a blunt tiny knife shaped object. At the press of a button, the blunt knife gains a blueish edge seemingly made out of light. This knife is what Jewel Cutters use to work on their craft in the multiverse.

It is delicate work. A Mana Core consists of a solid outer layer that holds energy within. What we're doing with the cutter is trimming the outer layer while pushing the energy further inside using the cutter; this creates a newer outer layer—courtesy of the cutter—and further condenses the energy within. I don't really understand why this is necessary, and when asked, Agus simply tells me that it is a process of slightly increasing the quality without reducing the quantity. I guess it is both understandable and not, at the same time. Uh, all these Sensing the Core is a very good exercise for Mana Sense and focus.

"Agus, you got any more spare tools around?" He points at a shelf where I see two more of the exact same gem cutter.

—

"Stop cheating!" He yells at me. I'm currently investing four of my five thoughts on the task, each thought focused on one Core laid on the table before me and my two arms. I even have one left to Fabricate even more Core-150s. To explain the process; while each of my four minds utilizes Mana Sense to analyze the cores and which cuts are best made. My two arms, each holding a Gem Cutter, does the deed in turn. This way, I spend up to 15 minutes on one session, but can finish approximately four in that span of time. Almost double the speed of Agus.

"What, I'm not cheating!" I reply back with a grin. "You know what would allow us to finish even faster?"

Haste! And would you look at that! Due to the improvements to my attributes since, the spell now increases a target's speed by 10x their original speed. So we ended up getting the task done in less than 30 minutes, and even then due to us being extra diligent just in case the boost in speed makes us prone to error. It was still very much boring!

"You're a cheat man! Damnit!" Agus kneels on the ground in despair. "Why do I even bother with you around!"

"I can't enchant, okay!"

"Not yet, you mean!"

"Who knows." I grin at Agus while I continue blasting the cut cores with bursts of high temperature using the earlier machine, while watching him carve runes into wands he carved out of a big piece of log he had in the Enchanting Chamber.

"We don't have enough time to make specialized wands like the one we used for your Hilt-Foci of Weapon Conjuring, so these won't cut the mana cost of the Spell. But hey, we're aiming for quantity not quality this time so, eh!" He shrugs amidst working non-stop.

"I don't feel like the Hilt-Foci is mine. But yeah, expecting the smithys to craft 900 Wands in one day is light years beyond overexpectation." I shrug too. "187 mana should be fine for now. Beam Torrent and Blink do not need to be cast multiple times to use, the same for Latent Coating as there is only a 4 meters cube area to cover and each cast would already affect a quarter of that."

Agus nods at my words. A chime from my VICOS draws in one of my thoughts.

Henry: Zen! Unfortunately, VLOS is not an option.

Zen: Why?

Henry: Range of 15 meters, remember?

Zen: Ohh~

Zen: Well, It's about time I upgrade the spell anyways.

We're gonna need a wand for this, as any change in the Spell's AoE will be something that would take effect on the Intermediate mastery. And one with Cores containing more than 150 mana, preferably above 450 even; to provide a minimum of 3 casts before the Wand needs to regenerate. So, while Agus goes to have lunch, I carry on refining the 800 or so Cores left. We need this done, and better to give the family some time without seeing me. Ironically, I'm not all that hungry after all. Not to mention there is so much more to do! I grin to myself, unexpectedly, I am quite enjoying crafting stuff.