My current status is kind of satisfying. Powers of two are the new “multiple of ten” as far as I’m concerned. Lots of satisfying even numbers here.

Self status (click to expand)

Tier 32

Status: Healthy

Skills 5/6 ->

[Triboadhesion] Tier 16

[Mana Crystal Creation] Tier 4

[The wings of fell] Tier 4

[Phantom Breath] Tier 4

[Eyes are the window into the soul] Tier 4

I didn’t mean to raise everything up to tier 4 it just sort of happened? It is the easiest jump to make but it still feels kind of crazy.

Triboadhesion definitely hit 16 the moment I started gluing partially gathered environmental mana to Len’s wings. Of the rest of my skills, eyes seems the easiest to level considering how fast it hit T4. I can probably bang them out as fast as Triboadhesion if that first jump was anything to go by? It’s strange because it feels like it should be as hard to level as MCC when that’s obviously not the case. Maybe it starts off easy? We’ll probably figure that out together in more ways than one.

The wings of Fell on the other hand feel relatively easy to level – effort wise – but actually sitting down to do it takes so much time. It’s an involved skill by default – I don’t think I’ll ever be able to toss some stuff together in a moment considering it gets stronger with each feather made.

A proper pair of wings able to lift more than a paper airplane up into the air is hours of effort and feels like a less productive use of those hours than MCC because I don’t have immediate monetary gains from making a pair of wings. MCC is the skill I’ve grinded nearly as much as Triboadhesion but the only thing that seems to raise it is getting a higher tier of mana pearl. Tier 2 pearls are tier 1 but more work. Tier 3…is a huge amount more time or something I’m missing. Tier 4 will take days if the same…

At the same time as I hit 16 in Tirbosticky I think I got Tier 4 in finickywings. Gluing mana feathers seems to be a double wammy…but we need some field data from Len before I can say it's anything more than a cool effect.

I wonder if Len will be able to fly with a full bucket of water? How strong are his new wings?

Anyways I think it was the mana feathers but it could have just been another completed pair. I might start selling wings far in the future but I want the skill to be a much higher level before I trust any squishy person to use them which means I have to stop looking at the money at some point and switch to skill level.

I’m not being mean to Len I promise. I said squishy person – his bucket is stronk! I believe!

Continuing my skill review – Phantom breath is a deceptive amount of time-effort per level. Effort wise it seems pretty easy – like I just spend a tiny bit of time and focus then get the levels handed to me… but secretly I’ve lost a day of effort while I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry, I’m tripping over my own words aren’t I? Effort to level is lowish but time to level it’s up there with mana pearls.

Triboadhesion I can use for everything. Literally everything. If it doesn’t work to solve my problem I’m probably not using it well enough.

Stick all your problems away! I say stick all your problems away.

What have been my skill evolutions so far?

Pearls I can now…make bigger pearls? That feels wrong – maybe I can better filter the mana I’m crystalizing? It did happen around when I made a frustration pearl from my discarded affinity. I’m going 'go with that…I need spots with high concentrations of different types of mana to really see if that’s true but that’s that.

Wings…I can’t tell. There's not a lot of feedback from it. We can see if something has changed but for now, I’ll just say it's maybe being able to use mana feathers.

Breath I can actually notice that I can’t notice anything.

Eyes…I don’t even know what they would have looked like as a tier one or two skill so I’ll ignore it.

And finally – don’t leave I only have one more – we have Triboadhesion.

First evolution at T4 was an ability to turn my sticky permanent. It made it much more like real superglue and is much more useful for creating things. T8 was the ability to control how and when my glue stuck and unstuck…I can now prevent it from sticking together until I’m ready and I’m also able to hold it sticky while it’s not permanent. Kind of like holding it together until I’m done and want it to separate again? Back in T8 I could only push it for an extra minute or two but after days of construction and pushing these effects I can now extend both of them for hours although this ability breaks down a bit if I go far away... T16…I think is the ability to stick ethereal mana to things. Does that extend to other hard to glue things like water and air? Extend to weird stuff like gluing emotions or something? It’s probably just mana and I haven’t fully figured out what mana even does yet. Definitely need to practice when I finally get some time for skill experiments.

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Anyways. I’m happy enough with my progress.

I close out of the status and self reflection to check the market for new supplies. Nothing new – I do buy some more boards however while I’m here. I have quite a bit of money in my account after those last few high rank pearls I sold – I’m mentally dividing everything by 10 so I basically made 700 dollars with that last pearl.

The boards I’m buying are basically 30 dollars a pop. Seems expensive for a piece of wood but with how evenly cut and shaped they are it's hard to go back to my versions.

I could just keep using the wood I already bought – recycling them by slowly raising the mould up the wall as I work…but then I have to make it a perfect seal and lift a heavy box. It’s much simpler to just build it up as I go. When I’m done I can pull the wood off and use it for other things. You can never have enough wood!

Removing a board from my inventory and hoisting it up onto my shoulder in proper construction-gal fashion I make my way over to the house building site. Hi ho. Hi ho.

You know…I should figure out how to set up that plan I had with temporary wings. If I get one of you to pilot them, I don’t have to figure out how to get them to flap when they aren’t my wings…but it feels kind of rude to stick any of you in a weak body and then pop you out moments later. Maybe if I get a volunteer?

Thefishyminer you’re offering? Alright! And a harness? You’re right! Why was I stuck on connecting to a temporary body! If we make you the super harness and glue you to stuff we need to shift…That definitely sounds better. No jarring on and off. It’s the difference between gluing wings to things and gluing wings to a body that can then be glued to things. I like it! We can make that this afternoon.

Alright. We are at the house. It's coming along real nice – I cheated and pulled off some of the molds earlier and wow. The layer upon layer of sand cement has created an amazing pattern. It's like almost like sandstone with stripes of blue. The weird reddish tinge has mostly disappeared but flickers across it when you look at it in a certain angle causing streaks of red to rush across in a simmer. I think that's why the stones are blue and the sand is blue-red – the red only appears from a certain angle. Neat

I’m glad my walls look nice. Makes my effort worth it.

We are reaching an important point in the construction. Our 4 walls are just above chest height and I have some important questions. Windows? Should I add some high windows? Now when they would be head height is the time to do it.

I think I will. Natural light is important – or as natural as you can call the fake sun flying across the fake sky. I also don’t know how I’m going to set up artificial light yet and don’t want to sit in a dark box in the meantime. One on each side? Does that seem excessive?

…I’m doing one on each side. I’ve gotten good at making fake hinges – just glue cloth to both sides with as small a seem as I can. They aren’t pretty and don’t swing as well as the door hinges I bought but they work.

So step one is to make these window frames got it.

I sit down and watch Len gathering water before heading off towards the garden. Part of me wants to follow him to see how the body works but…I feel like I’ve already gotten distracted today and need to step up and start actually working.

First things first. I’ll chop this board here, then use it to mark off where I want to cut on the next board.

Chop both as evenly as possible and continue on for another six. These are my shutters. Maxie isn’t the best at fine details like this but she tried her best and that’s what we care about on this farm!

I’ll pair off the most even of shutters and use them as a sort of mould for how big I want the window frame…these windows are going to be really deep now that I think about things. My walls are chunky bois I definitely could have done with making it thinner…ah well I want it to stay together and without someone here to tell me what's safe overkill seems the best.

Now some repetitive measuring, marking, chopping, gluing and I have my frames. I’ll glue the shutters in later – that pile is my shutter pile no one let me pillage it for parts!

Alright, I think this will look good and this…

I kind of want to drop the window on the door side and maybe add it so there's two at the back?

Stepping through my doorframe I stand in the middle of my construction side slowly panning about and imagining what the finished product might look like. It’s a good way of eyeing where I want stuff – I could put two windows on each side side and keep the front and back clean? What direction does the sun travel again…I think that’s the best yes. My window frames just fit in between the wooden columns. Now I’m going to measure it off with string so both sides are even – them being offset would piss me off enough we might have to trash this whole building.

Alright. I’m done gluing the frames between the columns at these four locations. Now to head back for more boards I keep running out for some reason…and now to extend the mould up higher.

I think I might just finish all the windows and doors first they are the hardest to keep sealed.

Alright!

Time to get on cement duty. With my new levels in Triboadhesion I might be able to start setting up multiple buckets at! Efficiency! I will get the walls done today! Get a little assembly line going while len is watering and then have him help me pour cement in upper area the hardest part is raising buckets of cement above my head.

…

I wonder if I can mix environmental mana into my cement by gluing partially formed pearls into it?

No! Stick to the plan. If you start on that you won’t finish the walls today and I want to start working on the roof pronto.

I’m starting to believe I might have a real focus problem.