Winter melted into spring, the ground unfroze and the temperatures raised. Star had begun restoring her gardens to their former glory, once the plants that survived the winter began sprouting once more. Salem replaced their life stock, mostly by simply summoning a few chickens to wonder the island.
“Hey, Star.” Salem called one spring afternoon.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could make a beehive or two? I’m thinking we can get some honey.”
Star light up at the prospect, “Yes, absolutely.” She pulled her book out of the little bag on her hip. She’d traded off her normal baskets for the expanded bags a little while ago. Star quickly flipped through the book looking at a few different woods she could make the hive out of. “I’ll be back!”
Star moved to her large alchemy room, expanded by Salem’s spacial magic. She weaved around a few selves and boxes on the floor. Her focus remained on heading to the back where she kept her different woods. She began picking though her pieces trying to find the right amount of the right wood. She had pine, oak, and cedar, but which would be best?
Star settle on pine, pulling out her left over wood from previous projects. She picked up each plank, placing them in a stack to be carried out of the house. Once she’d collected enough she lifted the stack up and brought it outside. Once Star arrived she dropped the wood just to the side of the door before she went back in, she had a few more things to gather before the beehive could be made. Star first grabbed a small bag of screws from the bucket next to her wood pieces. She then grabbed her super slime glue, made from real slime.
Once all ingredients were acquired and put in place, Star moved to the next step -- synthesizing a bee hive. The wood, screws and glue glowed, merging together to combined and formed a new object. The light dimmed and a beehive dropped to the ground with a small thud. Star immediately rushed over, picking it open and looking it over.
Well built honey beehive
A beehive crafted using alchemy waiting for new bees to make it home
5% beehive growth rate increase
10% honey increase
5% bee docility increase
“I got it!” Star cheered, calling Salem over to her.
“That was quick.” Salem stated looking over the newly build beehive. “Well I’ll get this set up then.” She took the beehive walking away.
“Beh! Let me help.” Star demanded, chasing after her.
Salem and Star walked into the forest, headed to a little field of flowers that would be blooming soon. “We can set the hive up near the flower field under a tree.”
“Alright.”
“You go make a stand for the hive.”
Star sputtered, “Huh?”
“The hive needs to be off the ground, so you go make a stand.”
Star groaned, but nevertheless head back to the house with haste. She once more pulled out a few wood planks, screw and glue and headed outside again. Focusing on the intent to make a stand for a beehive she activated synthesis. The materials glowed, compressed and reshaped, the light dim to reveal a stand.
Star picked up the stand without bothering to look it over, rushing back through the tree line to Salem.
“Oh good your back,” She rested against a tree, playing with her magic, “I’ve picked out a place, here.” She stood and pointed to a little place under a tree.
Star plopped the stand down, “Happy?”
Salem just smiled placing the beehive on top. “Now to summon the bees, you might want to back away these bees will be a little angry before I tame them.”
“Your gonna tame them? You have bothered to tame anything after that one bird that you sent to look for other islands.”
“Well I haven’t seen a reason to, but I’d rather not get stung trying to get honey you see.”
“That makes sense,” Star mused backing away, “I’m gonna hide then.” She moved behind a tree, peering from behind it to watch Salem work.
A honey yellow color circle appear suspended in the air, then a orangeish light appear above, moving like a swarm. Salem wasted no time, activating the second feature of her skill tame. As the orange color dimmed a new color took its place, Star’s signature color, a deep purple. The angry swarm of bees calmed settling down as the purple glow over took them.
“I’ll call you all junni bees.” Salem announced. The purple glow intensified for a moment before disappearing all together. The bees flew lazily around settling on flowers, the beehive, and Salem.
Salem smiled down at all the little bees. “Well, are you cute,” She cooed. “Settle in then, I’ll check on you in a little while.” The bees flew off Salem joining their brethren on the flowers and hive.
“That looked easy.” Star mused once Salem joined her.
“So you’d think.”
Star rolled her eyes, “Anyway, I got that compass you wanted.” She pulled out a little compass from her bag, “Here.”
Salem took the compass from Star, examining it for a few moments. “It looks nice.”
“It’ll always point to me so you’ll never lose home.” Star replied with a cheeky grin, leaning over to Salem.
Salem deadpanned, pushing Star away once more, “Dork.”
Star laughed, “But no seriously, the compass will only point to me for some reason. The only other variation I could make was to make it always point north so ya know, I figured this would be more useful. Ya know, considering we’re always floating around.”
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“Well thank you, that means we can move on to the next step of the plan.”
“Summoning and taming a dragon.” Star nodded sagely.
“Well yes, but I’m not going to try that until summoning reaches level one hundred.
Star faltered at Salem’s proclamation, “Then why’d you make me make that!” She complained.
“I’d thought it take you longer.”
“You’re a jerk.” Star muttered, crossing her arms.
Salem laughed. “Well the beehives will help me with that. I figure if I got better at taming and commanding my summons my level will go up a bit.”
Star nodded, “That makes sense – wait, hives?”
“Well yes, you do want more honey yes?”
“Yeah…”
“So I figured you wouldn’t mind making me a few more hives.”
Star paused thinking it over, “Fine, you I need more pine planks then.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll get you the wood.”
Star nodded, turning and stalking to her gardens, “You can find me in the garden.” She called back, pulling out her book and placing her hand on the cover. The book glowed and dimmed, signaling a few new entries were placed inside.
Star moved into her garden, kneeling down and pulling the weeds that had began to sprout. It felt meditative to her. She breathed in the clean air as she reflected. It’d been a whole year since she and Salem arrived on this little island. Four season have came and went since they arrived, and yet they had yet to spy even one other sign of others since they arrive.
Star tugged on plant up form the ground with more force than necessary, ripping it from the ground. Seeing how she’d been leveling Star had thought her abilities would have reach a hundred by this point yet that’d been stagnating in the mid seventies for ages now.
Perhaps in order to level them farther she need a more in depth understanding of the skills? Star pulled up her skill screen as she tossed another plant off to the side.
Current skills:
* Deconstruct [75]
* Gacha gathering system [70]
* Lucky [73]
* Scan [79]
* Synthesis [77]
Star bit her lip as she look them over. She understood each skill and how they functioned, what was holding her back? She was still leveling but significantly slower than before. Maybe once they entered the seventies it took far more experience to level up? Star sighed dismissing the screen. Then a new idea hit her. What if she used scan on her skill. She’d never thought to do so before, maybe she could see the requirements to level?
Only one way to find out.
Deconstruct level 75
One of the required skills for any alchemist, at this level the user is able to take apart any object made with alchemy with barely an degradation of materials.
Nothing new there.
Gacha gathering system level 70
A system with six tier levels, [F D C B A S]
F tier – the most common plants with minor alchemy uses.
D tier – common plants and the most common, mundane animal parts with alchemy uses
C tier – rare plants with no special traits and common, mundane animal parts with alchemy uses
B – common plants with magical traits and mundane animal parts with alchemy uses; random chance of a book on alchemy.
A tier – magical plants and magical animal parts with alchemy uses
S tier – rare magical plants and rare magical animal parts with alchemy uses
That is actually shockingly useful. Star eagerly moved to the next one.
Lucky level 73
The user has extremely luck able to win chances of 1 in 1000 with 73% consistency.
Shockley informative.
Scan level 79
Highly in depth scan, able to tell the user about unique facts, traits, and skill about what ever the user scans.
Dang she was hopping for a little bit more.
Synthesis level 77
One of the required skills for any alchemist, at this level the user is able to create object with up to three [3] unique properties or three [3] unique skills. The user can use plant and animal parts up to A tier quality with a 60% success rate.
She can? Star’s eyes widened at that, so many options were now available to her now. Star had been avoiding A tier materials since her first few failed, taking her wonderful magical plants with it. Star was nearly vibrating in excitement.
Abdoning her garden for the moment she ran around the island in search of Salem, she found her hacking at a pine tree.
“Salem! SalemSalemSalem guess what!”
Salem spun around to face Star, “What?”
“I just found out I can use A tier materials!”
“Oh how’d you find that out?”
“I used scan on synthesis and found out!”
“Oh? Can you do it on my skills to?”
“Sure!”
Salem pulled out her skill screen.
Current Skill:
* Mana manipulation [77]
* Mana: 230/1,820
* Mana regeneration [68]
* Mana regeneration: 13.40% per hour.
* Affinities [3]
* Chrono [70]
* Spacial [73]
* Summoning [78]
* Summons: beehive (junni bees)
* Upkeep: 2 mana per day
Star quickly began scanning them, showing each screen to Salem.
Mana manipulation level 77
At this level mana moves to the user will with minor intent needed.
Mana regeneration level 68
Mana is regenerated at level*.05
Chrono affinity level 70
The affinity of time, at the current level this ability is able to slow or speed up time in a select area, and reverse time on a select area.
Spacial affinity level 73
The affinity of space, at the current level the user is able to expand, contract, and dissipate space according to her will.
Summoning affinity level 78
The affinity of summoning, at the current level the user is able to summon up to 10 separate entities of a C tier rank or one entity of a B tier rank. The user is able to tame entities up to a B tier rank with a 60% success rate. The user is able to specify up to three [3] conditions of the summoned entity.
Salem blinked in surprise at the information, “Well that is certainly useful.”