"It still ain't lookin' like a barn to me," Thomas says as we look at the slime barn.

Thomas, Dylan, and I spent the last two days building it and with the three of us working together, we managed to finish the structure. That's longer than when I was setting up camps during my travels, but only because my cabins were usually constructed by a much larger team. Having ten to twenty people working on a cabin, including with magic involved, really makes things faster.

I'm not complaining, though. This is faster than I expected to have it done since I originally wasn't going to ask for assistance with it. I'm quite grateful for their help and will make sure to give them an extra-special dinner as thanks once we're fully done with today's work.

The structure is forty feet on each side, though the front of the barn has a small foyer that's seven feet on each side, jutting outward from the right-hand side. That part was added on after we built the rest of the walls, so when entering, there's an additional wall with a door in front of us before we enter the barn properly. It will act as an extra barrier in case the slimes get loose, preventing them from being able to leave the barn.

Stretching from the part which juts out down to the other end of the front is a porch, with the steps leading up to it at the opposite end from the entrance. Windows are spaced out on the barn, ten feet from each corner on each side, though there aren't any glass panes in them yet, just shutters. I won't be putting in the glass windows until after I have the goo to create the barrier between them.

A two-foot-tall wall of stone rests under the barn, holding it up off the ground with an empty space within. Well, a mostly empty space. I did convert the ground beneath in into a flat slab, and there's a wardstone sitting there as well. Sturdy stones were used to create the "foundation" wall, as they're strong enough to handle holding the supports for the barn.

Collecting that many sturdy stones is why I had to stop when I did during my last visit to the mines. Almost two-thirds of my stasis pocket was filled with them as the ones on the tenth floor were a decent size. We used quite a few for the foundation walls here, so I'll definitely need to make another trip into the mines to acquire the ones for my cabin and for Dylan and Nolan's.

Those will both be a little bit bigger than the barn is and so will use plenty. I might have enough, but I'm not one hundred percent sure on that and it's better to be safe than sorry.

The interior of the barn is an open space, nothing fancy set up yet. We do have the flooring installed, and it's just about time to begin the next step.

"Yeah," I say. "It's not your classic barn. We could do a slime barn the same way you do ones for animals, but it's not necessary. You three stay out here for a minute, I need to set the enchantments."

Thomas frowns a little as Dylan just nods, and I head inside. Nolan wants to follow me in, but Dylan's holding him so he's not able to try.

Once inside, I cast the spell to finalize the enchantments set on the building. These ones were done differently and mostly rely on specific spots rather than needing to be drawn all over the place. Some of the stones underneath the barn are actually spatial stones rather than sturdy stones, and help with this enchantment.

Doing it the way I did basically ensures that even if the barn takes damage, the enchantments won't break. That's important when putting on a spell which expands the space within an object.

The moment the spell completes, I feel the air within the building shift, though nothing really happens. Not visually. There's no expansion of space, no warping, nothing.

Exactly as intended.

"Alright," I tell Thomas and Dylan after rejoining them. "Let's start building the stalls."

"What was the enchantment you set?" Thomas asks after entering, curiosity and confusion in his mind as he looks around. "Just a strengthening one?"

Since the effect of this enchantment set isn't as obvious as the one on the temporary cabin, it's understandable he'd be a little confused.

"There's that," I say. "And some others. One of them is a specialized spatial expansion one."

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news," he says. "But looks like it failed. Space is the same."

"It doesn't expand the space automatically," I explain. "Instead, what it does is allow me to expand it as needed. We'll only build two stalls today – a normal one and one for air slimes. That's probably all we have time for today, and it's all I have slimeballs for. We won't be able to do the others until I have more goo, anyway."

"More goo?" Dylan asks. "Why? You brewed something up before Thomas got here this morning. That's for this?"

"Yeah," I nod. "The stall will get a coating of the goo brew, which will make it impossible for the slimes to escape. They can't grip it or stick to it, so they'll just slide off the walls. There will be slats for viewing on the upper half rather than solid walls, but enchantments will ensure the slimes don't slip through them if they try jumping. I could buy more of the goo in town, but I want to use goo from my own for that. Alright, let's get them built."

We build the stalls on the left-hand side of the barn, with one on the back wall and one on the front. The stalls come out twenty feet from the side wall, and twelve from the front and back walls. They're also built three feet above the ground with the floors of the stalls made out of a single slab of stone that's three inches in thickness.

The stall floors are designed to be pretty smooth, but not so smooth that slimes can't grip them. At the front of the stalls – the side facing the walkway formed between them – there are three one-inch holes. Those holes narrow as they move further from the top of the floor, until they're only half an inch in diameter.

Beneath those holes, glass bins are placed, each three feet wide and long and two tall, with a leather cover for their undersides. They're set onto a roller track to allow them to be pulled out with ease, a simple magic contraption set up to cover the hole when the bin beneath it is moved. The magitech contraption will also close the hole above if the bin is too full.

Basically, if goo won't go into the bin or can overfill it, the hole is closed.

"Slimes don't like their homes being too filled with goo," I explain to the others. "So they normally hold onto it, eventually splitting when they have too much. That's if they're able to produce it. They'll be able to here. A mature slime produces around three gallons of it in a week, and the bins can each hold around a hundred and thirty-four gallons, or roughly forty-four weeks' worth of extra slime. You want a space roughly four feet on each side per slime you have, so this space can hold twelve slimes, though I'll probably only have seven so that they've got more space. Fully-mature slimes are about a foot in size."

There's confused concentration in the minds of both of the other men. Nolan, meanwhile, is peeking into the underspace for the normal slimes, a few mid-rank spirits doing the same with him. I think there are some playing peek-a-boo from behind the bin based on the small giggles in the boy's mind.

"Roughly six or so weeks' worth of slime per bin," I say. "So longer than that since there are three. And it doesn't include if a slime decides to hold their goo to make an egg. They do that sometimes as well."

"And now that it's done, you'll… hatch the eggs?" Thomas frowns a little.

"Not yet," I say. "We still have to put in the water trough. Slimes don't 'eat' the way we do, but they still drink water. A lot of it, actually. They drink about three gallons a day. Don't ask where it all goes, magic's involved. We'll put in feeding troughs as well, though they won't see much use."

They can eat stuff, but prefer to only eat things with magical aspects the same type as their own. When they absorb it, they retain the essence and it provides a boost to the quality of the goo they produce until the essence has been used up.

"We ain't that close to the stream here," Dylan says. "And won't it take a lot of magic to keep the trough full?"

"Not in the way you're thinking," I say. "A gallon is probably less than you think. And anyway, water magic crystals can be used to produce water, if you set them up right. The Tier 5 ones I acquired on the tenth floor of the mines are roughly fourteen cubic inches in size, and will produce up to two hundred and fifty gallons of water per cubic inch. That's almost six months' worth of water per crystal, if I did my math right, and I can always go back and acquire more when needed."

"Damn," Thomas says.

"Yeah," I say. "You two get started on the other stall while I get the first water trough set up."

Once I finish setting up the trough and its enchantments, water begins pouring into the trough from seven holes set just-above it on the wall. According to the tome I read, that's better for slimes than sticking the water exits in the trough itself, as the slimes will play with the flow sometimes. I do make sure there's a regulation enchantment so the trough doesn't overflow, though.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

With that finished, I build the feeding trough on the opposite side of the stall from the water one and explain its purpose to the others. Then, I pull a slimeball and a plain magic crystal out of my storage. A section of the crystal slices off, then floats into the slimeball, which I set into the stall. I repeat this until there are six of the slimeballs in the stall, each one dissolving and absorbing the magic crystal.

The first of the seven finishes as I set the seventh one down, and it rapidly expands until it's a blob of slime around half a foot in diameter. Slimes take about a week to reach their full size once they're born when it's via slimeball, according to the book. They won't produce any extra slime until they reach that point, so we have more than a week until I can expect goo from them.

Which is fine. Installing windows doesn't need to be immediate.

Now that the slimes are forming, I exit the stall and make sure to secure the door for it, then help Dylan and Thomas with building the air slimes' stall. The basic layout for it is the same but with some changes to account for the different slimes' nature.

Rather than being just a plain stall, a few posts are set up within it, some with holes in them and some without. They aren't large posts, but they're more than enough for air slimes. A few enchantments designed to produce wind are also set up within it.

"Slimes like their living spaces to have something resembling their types," I explain as we work. "Plain slimes don't care much about that, but when it comes to specialized ones, it's something you have to keep in mind."

"And air slimes like stuff with air," Dylan says. "So they want a breeze in their area. And… posts with holes?"

"The posts are because of them playing with their magic," I gesture toward one. "The ones without holes, the slimes will just wrap their air around for giggles," I gesture toward one with holes, and a tone sounds out. "And the holes are set up in such a way that when air passes through them, they play notes. Like a flute."

"A flute…" Dylan thinks for a few moments. "Only ever hear those from travelers here for a festival, if one brings them."

Judging by the feeling in his mind, he likes the sound of them quite a lot.

"I know how to play an ocarina," I tell him. "It's a type of flute. If you want, I can teach you."

"Thought you said you only knew how to play the violin and guitar?" Thomas asks.

"Well…" I trail off for a moment as I think about how to respond. "Ocarinas tend to have a pretty specific user base. Almost no one outside of it uses them. So it's not something I mention often."

"A specific user base?" He frowns. "Ain't that most instruments?"

"Yeah," I find myself rubbing the back of my head and stop. "This is a much smaller user base than others. Anyway, let me get the troughs built, then the slimes born, then I'll make dinner."

The slimes that form from the greyish-white air magic crystals have a similar coloration, though still retain a decent level of transparency. When they're fully-grown, the center part will be distorted the most, while we'll still be able to see through them around the edges.

I close and secure the stall door, then we exit the barn. Upon doing so, we find Nolan running from Aluci while carrying as many spirits as can fit between his arms and his chest. More spirits hang onto his shoulders and head, faces filled with mock horror.

He'd come out here while we worked on finishing the air slimes' stall, with Aluci supervising him. It seems the spirits decided to play around some more to keep him entertained.

Panic fills Dylan's mind at the sight, only seeing a wolf chasing his son rather than a boy playing with friendly spirits.

"Nolan!" I call out before Dylan can say anything, and Nolan stops and looks over. Aluci stops chasing and looks over as well. "We're heading back over to the cabin now, and I'm going to make dinner."

Nolan looks down at the spirits in his arms and comes to a decision about something, then walks over to us without releasing them. We all walk back over to my cabin, and Nolan and Aluci resume playing as I begin working. Dylan feels a bit more relaxed now that he's processed the situation, though he still feels nervous watching a wolf chasing his son.

Especially the first time Aluci "catches" Nolan. He knocks the boy to the ground and "attempts" to lick him. The spirits "fight off" Aluci, then they and Nolan return to fleeing him.

"He really does handle children well, doesn't he?" Thomas asks after a few minutes, sticking close as I begin pulling things out to work on dinner.

"Aluci?" I ask, and he nods. "Yeah. Like I said before, Aluci's great with children. It comes with being a dream beast, I think. One of the things which brought him up to his level of power was using mind magics to enter dreams to protect them. All noble spirits are caring beings, just like the gods."

The reason all of the gods are caring is because the evil ones were thrown into another plane of existence a long, long time ago. Each realm has a godking or godqueen, and gods cannot enter a realm without its godmonarch's permission. That means that as long as our godking dislikes evil gods, the ones which were originally native to this realm won't be able to return and any which might turn evil will find themselves thrown into another plane of existence.

If they ever even make it out of that plane of existence. It was chosen as their punishment for a reason.

As for spirits… well, it's just in their nature to be good beings. What we view as "evil" or "malice" from a spirit comes from when they're angered – such as when their special people or sacred places are messed with. Spirits are, at their core, magical forces of nature.

In other words, we can't hold them to the same moral values as we hold people.

"Speaking of spirits and goodness," Thomas says. "You said disasters occur in Mistlands if they get exploited, right? You ain't gonna cause the spirits to get mad and wipe us all out, are you?"

"It's not the spirits that do that," I tell him. "And no, I won't. This particular Mistland Region can hold about ten thousand people, give or take, without causing a problem. The reason it doesn't is because of its relative isolation. Enchantments which enable things like trucks to exist are a relatively new invention, so crossing the mountain pass has always taken days until recent times. You can also only do it while the weather's good. And then there's the barrier. Those factors combined has kept it relatively low in population. Me building up my own home and using a bit of the land's resources for my stuff won't cause problems."

"Barrier?" He frowns as confusion enters his mind. "What barrier?"

"The ones Robin and Rose placed over the entire Mistlands," I answer. "It's actually why you have those 'conditions' for someone to live here. You really think it's normal for someone to be able to take on a stoneseeker wolf when they're thirteen? Or when they have very little hunting experience?"

I set down the knife I was using and hold up my hand. An earth spirit manifests on my palm, seated and looking at Thomas.

"The spirits make the arrows strike true," I say. "Ensuring the beast dies regardless of your own abilities. And when it comes to the pearls for women and girls, the spirits choose whether or not they find the oysters. And if the person isn't allowed to live here… they prevent the arrows from striking or oyster with a pearl from being found."

Shock fills his mind at the news, and I return to cooking, the spirit remaining floating in the air. He's nodding at the hunter, so I know Thomas knows I'm being serious.

"The spirits… so if a local can't find the pearl on her thirteenth birthday…"

"Then she wouldn't be able to stay here, had she been an outsider," I tell him. "But would probably be allowed to stay since she was born here. She'd have to actually cross a line to get kicked out by the mages. People can change, too, so there's always the possibility that whatever caused her to be rejected would go away and she'd be accepted by the spirits and the barrier."

It seems like there was someone in the past who couldn't find the pearl, since he specified that one, specifically.

"I did always wonder how we managed to kill the wolves," he tells me. "It never made sense to me how we could since they were always so strong. So it was the spirits?"

"It was the spirits," I confirm.

"Another question," he says. "Or is this too much already?"

"I don't mind," I tell him. "And you're not distracting me from cooking, so it's fine."

"Alright," he says. "You said it's not the spirits that cause the disasters? What does?"

"Nature," I answer. "Remember mana veins?"

"That thing in the ground you supposedly can't sense?" He asks.

I almost roll my eyes at his wording and eyebrow raise. It became obvious after a bit that he'd realized I could sense mana veins directly, even if he initially believed me about not being able to.

"Yeah," I say. "The world's mana veins produce mana at a regular, high rate. The excess leaks out of them and into the air. Unless it gathers up somewhere, it eventually dissipates, turns to nothing. If the mana in the air drops below a certain level – based on the mana veins in the area – then the mana veins will actually put out more mana to bring it back up.

"That's important," I say. "And we'll get back to that in a moment. When you plant crops, they draw on some of the mana in the soil – which is also provided by the mana veins. Some of them will even tap directly into mana veins. This is all well and good, because the mana veins simply produce more to fill in the drop."

"So the world tries to maintain a mana level in an area?" He asks.

"Essentially, yeah," I answer. "And that's where the problem lies. In an area without massive mana veins, it's fine. The maximum amount of mana flowing through the area is actually pretty small in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't do anything.

"But in an area like here?" I ask. "Where there's potential to multiple your crops' yields by fifty times? You can draw quite a lot of mana out of the air, soil, and mana veins. And the world's mana veins will just do what they always do and keep pumping out more to fill in the space."

"And that's a problem?"

"It is," I say. "Because in that high of a quantity… going from a low amount of mana to a high amount too quickly can cause problems. And if you have that happening from multiple large mana veins, or ones of differing types, well, the problems culminate, combine, and amplify. Not necessarily in that order. So you may have the normal mana eroding an area as lightning magic creates sparks and lightning, air mana generating powerful gales and tornadoes… all at once. And that's before they clash and combine. Imagine lightning which creates tornadoes when it strikes. That's the sort of thing possible when an immense amount of mana flows through an area all at once."

Nerves fill Thomas just from my words, and that's without me describing it properly. My explanation is a toned-down version of what actually happens.

"And if you're wondering just how much mana would be required for something like that," I tell him. "I think of all the mages I've ever encountered, only Robin and Rose potentially have enough MP Regen to create a small-scale effect like it, and it'd just be contained within their bodies. They probably have an immense Constitution just to keep themselves from being killed by their own recovery rates."

"Seriously?" Shock fills his mind. "They have enough mana to hurt themselves?"

"Contained within them, but yes," I say. "Only small-scale, nothing compared to what would happen if the world needed to replace an immense amount of it from here."

At least, based on what I felt when Robin visited me to acquire the recipe for ice cream. He wasn't masking his mana pool then and it felt comparable to a noble spirit's energy force.

"Anyway," I say. "What I'm doing won't have anywhere near the potential to use up that much mana from the world. And if you're still not sure about me… you can always ask Robin and Rose. For now, could you please grab nine tomatoes from the garden?