The trip up the mountain was fairly uneventful. A lot of the areas that had mudslides have started to grow plants through the wreckage. It'll still be a long time before it's fully healed, but it's at least starting to recover. I noticed some small lion roots as we ascended in altitude, so I know there is at least a single food source available already.
The imp summoning went fine as well. Two more goblins for Zaka to return to the village with. Zeb and I then spent the next day butchering imps and cleaning up corpses. As for our plans moving forward, we want to finish Zeb's house up here that we were working on before the storm hit, plus I want to start refining more lightstone. That way I can hopefully send some lightstone back with Zaka and the other goblins when they come visit, so I won't have to make multiple trips when I want to make those valves in the future.
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It took nine days to finish Zeb's house. In that time, it's started lightly raining almost every day, which will make working outside a bit of a pain. One task that was still left from when we left last time was to clean up the rubble from making the terrace farms. I'm thinking of just leaving it until the weather becomes nicer. Instead, I think I'll finally start working on looking into the points of interest from my cave survey from all that time ago, beginning with the ones that seemed like native metals.
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Thankfully excavation down to the first of the points only took about half a day. I wish I could say it was something rare or exciting, but it seemed to just be copper. I say that, but finding a native metal at all is great. Although there are some sizeable chunks, it's generally in small bits intermixed with the rock, so getting the metal itself is actually still going to take some work.
As for uses for the metal itself, well, I honestly don't have anything right now. The benefit of many metals over stone is that they're easier to work with, but my magic has gotten rid of that downside. The next benefit of metals I suppose would be ductile strength and plasticity, so I'll need to keep in mind situations where that would be more useful than stone. Although I suppose a final application is that I can teach the goblins how to use and recycle the copper, so they wouldn't need to rely on me to make all their tools for them. That said, elemental copper is actually quite soft, so it'd be a large step down from stone shaped stone tools.
Either way, I want to check each of the deposits in case there are any other metals. I suppose if in a distant time I decided to do anything with electricity, then the copper would be useful at that point as well.
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I checked all four of the points of interest that seemed like they were metal over the last four days, and each was copper. Unfortunate, but not that surprising. I only excavated a portion of the metal bearing rock in each spot, and then closed them back off so that any future imps don't go messing around in the holes. Incidentally, I've also reached level 100 today while I was working, so tonight I should expect to go through the prestige or evolution process again, with that in mind, I think I'll take the rest of the day easy, and go to bed early.
Level: 100
HP: 2161/2161
MP: 908/908
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Earth Spike
Available Traits:
Improved Dexterity: Increases dexterity and manipulation beyond what your form would normally allow.
I'm a little disappointed that I only have one option available this time, but considering I've put off picking Improved Dexterity for quite a long time, I guess I should be glad that I at least can still pick it. I make my selection, and quickly lose consciousness.
Stolen story; please report.
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When I wake up, I check my status.
Level: 0
HP: 974/974
MP: 454/454
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Earth Spike
Next, I decide to try to figure out exactly what Improved Dexterity actually does for me. Some basic stretches reveal that I'm more limber than before, able to stretch and bend further at my joints than I used to be able to. This extends to my hands as well, where I feel like I'm capable of finer motion with them. In fact, as I test out all my muscles, it's like my motor controls have become sharper than they were before. While it isn't as impressive as being able to shape stone with magic, I think that the daily utility is going to pay dividends over time.
Zeb's English is near perfect now, so I think now is as good a time as any to discuss traits and magic with him, and see if he can give me extra insight into the status window.
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"So, Zeb, I've been meaning to talk to you about this for a while, but what does your status window look like?" I ask.
"My what?" Zeb says confused.
"Status, like your HP, MP, Traits and Magic? All the things you get when you prestige or evolve, that thing." I reply.
"I mean, I don't quite get your question. A window? Like on the house?" He says.
I almost immediately say no, but actually, in a way that is kind of right, "Uh kind of, but like the numbers and things that represent how much magic you have available and how close you are to dying." I say.
"I'm not sure I get what you mean by window, but I have a general sense of both of those things, although I don't have any magic to use, so it's not like I use that one ever." He says.
"Okay, but what about your traits, like things you got when you prestiged. What are those?" I ask.
"Well, I remember what I took the one time I got offered one, Mimicry." He says.
I have an idea of what it does, but I ask to be sure, grabbing a tablet, and marking things down as he responds, "Mimicry lets me quickly copy the behaviors of others, which let me learn English so fast, I presume. Although most goblins learn language pretty fast anyway." He responds.
I mark down what he says, then decide to etch him an image of what my status window looks like, and explain each part, going through some of my records of each of my previous forms stats with him. He nods along the whole time, seemingly understanding. When I'm done, I ask him to try to visualize a status window like mine.
To my surprise, he says he can see it, and it's not just his imagination. If I had to put money on it, his Mimicry trait is probably assisting him in this. Either way, I take the opportunity to write Zeb's status window down as well in a new record.
Level: 82
HP: 845/845
MP: 129/129
Traits: Mimicry
This brings up another question for him though. "When did you get mimicry?" I ask.
"When I became a rare goblin." He says.
"Okay, but what did you get when you became an uncommon goblin?" I ask.
"I didn't get anything, I just became an uncommon goblin." He says.
"Is that a normal occurrence?" I ask.
"I mean, it kind of used to be until you started having all the goblins start doing particular jobs. I think a few goblins got Improved Dexterity, some received Heightened Perception, and Kaga got Improved Strength." He says.
"I have a bit of a hypothesis, but do you remember which goblins got what?" I ask.
"Not exactly, but I think the ones making rope got Dexterity, and the hunters got Perception." He says.
I jot all these notes down. Looking back on my own traits, and thinking back to when I got them, they seemed to show up after I was doing a lot of tasks related to each of them. That does leave a few holes though, such as why the goblins don't get offered Carnivory.
"Most of the goblins have only been eating meat all the time, right?" I ask.
"Yeah, I mean, I don't know for certain, but almost all our meals have been meat." Zeb responds.
Well, I've got a new question as to why they haven't been offered Carnivory as a trait. I scribble the question down in my notes, and put them away for now. As much as I'd like to immediately start researching all of this, even if I were to run down the mountain, I don't think I'd be able to get all that much info from the goblins, even with Zeb's help. So for the time being, I think we'll focus on working on more of the tasks up here. I'm interested in what Zeb might get offered next. Since he's got mimicry and been working with me on all these stone projects, I'm very intrigued if he'll get offered stone shaping or not.