He had spent his morning hours hunting together more with Leica to further explore, map and mark dangerous areas. They found a few of these bloodthirsty trees and almost tripped over one that was apparently asleep. At that time, the sweat was pouring off his body! It certainly didn't want to end up as fertilizer.
He used these excursions to find at least some herbs, identify them and prepare them for further processing before finally storing them for lack of equipment. These joint ventures should also further deepen their bond. Last week Leica brought him home a couple of live specimens of a rat-like creature for the first time, so he pampered them with an hour-long tummy tuck. Probably he would have petted her like that too, but there was something proud in her eyes.
In his laboratory that was being developed, he shipped the creatures themselves into small stone cages, which were cut very tightly. Once Leica brought a dead one with him, which he dismantled with the tools from the magician's laboratory. The contents of her stomach indicated anything devouring. Which made the nutrition of these animals much easier. He would probably have reworked the tools by now if his metal molding had been able to do so. But all the tools were made of high quality material. Presumably it could only be forged or changed with a special magic?
He also collected some mushrooms, some different wild-growing fruits, which were listed in the compendium under poisonous. Whenever possible, he used some of the metal to form a small shovel to dig up some of the plants in the hopes of growing them near his home. Most of them, however, appeared to be shady plants, for their natural space to grow was constantly obscured by the canopy of leaves. He also hoped to find a source for his quartz sand or clay somewhere, which he could process into vessels. They were supposed to be a viable alternative to glass, but he couldn't guarantee their effectiveness unless he could test them.
But first he wanted to try out some of the enchantments. On the one hand, there was a rune there, which stood for a simple light with which it could illuminate a room. He planned to use these runes for each of his rooms. They could be fed simple beasts crystals, but needed a base. This pedestal could be created from stone, copper, iron, and basically any mana conductive material. Basically, mana could penetrate almost anything. However, stone, for example, reduced performance enormously and if he didn't want to live in a dungeon so that the ambient mana fed his enchantment, then he would have to sacrifice some of the metal if something more powerful than light was involved. At the thought that he was slowly running out of metal and that he didn't want to sacrifice his last dagger either, he preferred to use the metal for a rune of heat, which he set to exactly 40 degrees Celsius.
For this purpose, he went outside and formed a slightly larger round bath in the outside area directly below the rock wall. In the rock wall itself he let a massive water tank with the molding.
He created an access to just that from the side and connected it to his water supply. The most important part was located below the floor slab of the bathing area, which could also be reached through the access below. The plate itself was slowly and steadily decorated with the rune for heating the water over it, creating a base in the stone, which was filled with some metal that was connected with the lines of the runes.
It was a simple and very simple enchantment, but at least his first enchantment. He even included a slight rotating mechanism whereby the base, even if it contained a stone, had to be rotated first to connect to the pattern.
A little overblown, he looked at the system message prompting him to take on a new skill called [Enchanted Runes]. Increasing this skill would make it easier for his enchantments to become more energy efficient with a slight increase, but it would also require less willpower. Even when the addition was small, every little bit of the practice was a great relief. With that he had created his first real luxury in this new world.
Overjoyed, he let the water heat up only to then step naked into his new open-air bath. He also took some herbs listed in the Alchemy Book for soaps and added them to the water, which gave off a wonderful scent in his courtyard.
Unfortunately, Leica could not be persuaded to take a bath together. Your companion just couldn't appreciate the relaxation and luxury. Nevertheless, his lack of metal puked him massively. If he wanted to make a change, he would probably have to dig for ore or try to leave the forest and trade what he needed in a town. But would strip mining work like it does in Minecraft?
Perhaps he should have investigated the sinkhole further? Some corpses seemed to have more than enough metal for myriad pedestals and other necessities?
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
The next day he spent improving his new enchantment skill. Because of his persistent metal poverty, he decided to go the inefficient way instead. The environment was also quite rich in mana, so he wanted to try out some of the simple patterns that environment mana fueled.
Inevitably, he also had to ask himself whether it was possible for him to connect one of the arrays, the patterns or even a rune to two sources of power. Was it possible to create something like an emergency supply? Or would the additional mana supply be hindered? Could there be any interactions? Could he design it so that the other pattern would only work if there was a failure from the crystal supply? In his mind it should work like an emergency generator.
However, before he got lost in questions, he turned to the wall in front of him. He created the base right next to the door, whereby the base pattern should work again via a rotating mechanism, a direct connection with the later pattern. Unfortunately, the crystal had to be connected almost directly to the pattern itself. This required the pattern to be affixed to the wall so that it could shine easily from there. In fact, it didn't work the first time. There was a flaw somewhere in its design.
It took another hour to find the one spot that didn't quite match the pattern on the paper. The patterns differed from the arrays and runes which were just imitations of the original in that it was almost like a language of its own to be learned. He was even sure to have seen a certain pattern of a line that allowed him to further remove the base from it. The usefulness of these books led him to keep them in his attic as well, rather than openly.
After he set the mechanism in motion, the whole wall began to glow softly along the pattern, saturated the room with a dull light. With a satisfied smile he looked at his new light source, which was neither lumen nor the mana eyes that he normally used. In addition, he had more than enough crystals to keep his enchantments supplied in the long term.
The modified runes were actually much easier to create, but terribly modifiable or not at all, because they were based on the runic language of the dwarves and he did not have it. In addition, there were no original runes, but human reproduced runes, which is why the language itself had errors, so that he could only use the few runes from the books according to exact specifications.
It was hardly any different with the elven arrays being transformed into human beings. The only images of a single known dwarf rune and a common elven array he could actually compare how much worlds lay between what humans and other races fabricated.
He repeated this one pattern in every room he owned, as well as in the staircase area. It was a pleasant luxury to have light with a simple twist. Now all he had to do was teach Leica not to nibble on those crystals.
He unnecessarily gave his front door, as well as the beam inside, one of the copied runes for durability and self-repair! Not necessary, because the wood alone was incredibly durable and resistant compared to normal wood. It would probably have been easier for an intruder to break through the wall than through the door itself! But that was the irony of the situation, because mostly humanoids believed that a door was the weakest point of a construction and not the wall attached to it.
Mostly he gave the walls and other areas of his dwelling the runes for self-repair or durability, which were enriched by the ambient mana. This should keep the new home in a tidy condition even if it wasn't around or if it was affected by environmental factors.
Were they very far to the east? He didn't know exactly where east was, but it was the exact opposite direction of the former hut in the forest. It was also not clear to him whether the forest was getting thicker to the north or south, only that he was about 50 km deep inside. A depth that was actually nothing compared to the fact that the forest seemed to brush the horizon. You could even say that he was still at the beginning of the forest!
It just took so much more time to get to this place because they followed the meanders of the river and not a straight line. The turns had been really strange at times. Sometimes they briefly led deeper into the denser forest, only to then meander through the lighter parts again.
The rate at which his enchantments rose felt tremendous to him, and the practice had a higher yield of experience that he could gain. Unsurprisingly, he was close to a level of it, as profession-related things seemed to provide more experience than ordinary skills, but they still didn't compare to killing creatures above your level.
Regular morning hunting with Leica brought a slow to steady source of experience. Most of the creatures were slightly above them, and they hunted a little more than they really needed. He turned a lot of it into dried meat with the help of the smokehouse and some he kept in his attic where it remained frozen in time. The whole experience added up to 3 more levels for both of them.
Surprisingly, he found that regular feeding by the creatures above their level also had another side effect. The abundant meat represented a slight increase in his stats in the areas of strength and agility. Both statistics gained a small increase of five free points over time. However, this increase appeared to be a one-off.
His next project was about trying to find clay again, only to be surprised that he didn't have to go very far. Near the river, barely a few meters deep, there were some clay deposits that he must have walked past countless times without realizing it. It was at these moments that he wanted to hit his head against a wall.
Resigned at what he found, he simply stared at the deposit and reluctantly began to dismantle it. Basically, this deposit was a sting that forever reminded him to be more attentive or to get his hands dirty from time to time.
Maybe hethe couldmana dome used to find something like that? Basically everything reacted somehow differently to the mana or could he use the sound waves and find out what was directly below him based on the way they hit the sound, ores and other things?
Torn between a new possible practical spell that could serve as a depth radar, he had to force himself to deal with the sound right in front of his eyes. For this purpose, he could use the formation of the earth to divide it into cubes of the same size that he could transport in his warehouse. He also had to keep the clay moist, believing they were better off in the store for now.
Soon he was finally able to try some of the alchemical recipes, but before that happened he felt a strong sting from his connection to Leica ...