"The question of how to spend skill points is complicated. Technically, any skill in the System shop can be obtained through practice, so there are those who refuse to use SP on anything other than traits. Realistically, skills can take months if not years to learn if you lack a teacher, as such the answer for what is worth it and what isn't makes it so that any hard rule would have more exceptions than inclusions, so it is down to your unique situation to decide whether to hoard or spend points."
-Loremaster Squibb
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On our way back to our houses, and over the course of the dinner that followed, we talked about how much work was left, and how everyone planned to set up their work areas once it was done. The general consensus was that it would take another three or four days for the structure itself to be finished, with the workshops themselves depending on how quickly they could get tools. While I could make some of what they would need, I was only able to make small things, so they'd have to acquire most of their stuff by themselves. Thankfully, we had plenty of contribution points to afford food for at least long enough to complete the main structure, but we would definitely need to start earning some sooner rather than later.
The thought of contribution points made me think of the offer that I had received from Roxy, and her desire to go deeper into the forest, which lined up with my desire to explore, so I planned to visit her once the main structure was done and get some more details about what the specifics of a deeper dive into the forest meant. Letting everyone else know about the offer I received and my plan to check it out, nobody really had anything to say, other than telling me to be careful and a few teasing remarks about going to visit Roxy's house.
After dinner, I spent a few hours practicing my connections before making a set of permanent wood chisels for Leo's dad, since I had decided to use up all my mana before bed making the tools that they would need in advance. The process of making them went much the same as before, though this time I was ready for the sudden draw of mana when the energy shifted, but it still took a massive chunk out of what I had, barely having enough to make the three chisel bits that he had told me about.
The next few days were more of the same, waking up, walking to the building, making whatever tools were needed for the day, sawing wood and placing it down, eating dinner with everybody, practicing connections for a few hours, and making permanent tools before bed. While this schedule left me with almost no time or mana to experiment or practice with any of my abilities, I was much faster at shaping my energy then before, and while the mana cost for permanent crystals hadn't gone down, it was much easier to do then before. It wasn't until a bit past midday on the fifth day since we started that my dad announced the completion of the reconstruction, saying that his skill hadn't picked up any unstable walls or floors and the building was ready to be used. The building itself wasn't the prettiest, with the floors being part stone and part wood and lacking any interior walls with support pillars interspaced to keep it stable, but it was significantly better than what we started with, and we all felt satisfied when seeing the fruits of our labor. None more so than Leo's and my dad, who had both gained a level over the course of the construction, Leo's dad getting a bit whenever he made something out of wood and mine getting a large amount once the building was done.
Now that the building was done, all that was left was the construction of workshops and the acquisition of tools, as even those who started with crafting classes got weapons instead of tools in their starting gear. At this point, I had already made whatever I could for them, being chisels for Leo's dad, a scribe for Jackson, a leather scraper for Jackson's dad, a mortar and pestle for my mom, and nothing for Jason's dad, whose class of [Blacksmith] didn't have any tools that crystal would work for, as it was too brittle. As such, there wasn't actually anything for me or the other non-crafters to do, so I decided to drop by Roxy's house and see if she was there while the others did their own things.
The directions she gave me were pretty vague, but she had apparently fenced off an area behind it where she build a wooden training dummy. Walking past multiple almost identical houses, clearly made by someone without any skills specifically for house building, since most doors and windows were slightly different sizes, I noticed that while most houses were undecorated, there were some that had writing on them or small decorations hung on the windows or doors to make them stand out from the others, and that there were a good amount that were only the stone parts, lacking doors or window shutters. While a few more houses had been added since we moved in, as the guy with the [Earth Shaper] class who was responsible for the frames was apparently told to make as many as possible, it still took less than an hour to find the only house with a fenced back and a training dummy, though there were one or two that had one or the other.
Thankfully, I didn't have to wonder if this was the right house or not since I could see Roxy in the backyard, seemingly practicing her aim with her new class by shooting crystal shards at her dummy, which was just a log she had planted in the ground, while running and doing various actions, only hitting with every other shot. Calling out to her as I approached, she came to a stop and started walking over to me, hopping over her fence as she came to the front of her house, starting the conversation as soon as she was in front of me.
"Hey there, I take it you're interested in my offer?"(Roxy)
"I am, but I'd like to get some more details before making any decisions."(Mason)
"Fair enough, what do you wanna know?"(Roxy)
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"What's the group makeup, what do you consider a deep dive, and what do we do if we find something?"(Mason)
It seemed that Roxy needed to think about my questions for a few seconds, but she did reply after a moment.
"The group itself isn't determined yet, it's harder than I thought to find people with both classes full, I'd like the group to eventually do multi-day trips into the forest, but that will need to be worked up to once its formed, and I guess any points of interest would need to be settled as we find them."(Roxy)
Hearing her response made me realize that she hadn't put as much thought into it as her confidence had led me to believe, but it wasn't like I had any plans of my own.
"How many people have you found?"(Mason)
"Well, other than the two of us, there's one other guy that I've invited who had some kind of rogue build with a rare and an uncommon, but I don't know what exact classes or skills he had. On that note, I know about [Bestial Constructor] but what is your other class' rarity and combat style?"(Roxy)
"It's rare and it's also a mid-long range class, a bit more direct than [Bestial Constructor], what about you?"(Mason)
"Mine is a rare melee class focused around absorbing damage to empower future strikes, so assuming the other guy agrees, we'll have two melee fighters and one ranged, and I'd like to get a full team of five, don't suppose you know anyone?."(Roxy)
"Two of the guys in the tutorial with me might be interested, but both of them only have their first class."(Mason)
"Hm, for now I'll keep looking, but if I don't find anybody in a few days could you invite them?"(Roxy)
"I could, but what about the people you were in the tutorial with?"(Mason)
Hearing my question made her face crack, and a sad look overcame her features for a second before she seemed to pull herself together and return to a confident smile, though this time it was noticeably strained.
"One of them has a few broken bones and is bedridden, and the other two left when the tutorial ended."(Roxy)
Deciding not to push farther on what was obviously a sensitive topic, I just nodded and told her to come find me when she got either a full group or wanted me to invite Leo and Jason. Heading back to my house, I thought about what to do while I waited for Roxy. Naturally, I was going to spend as much time as possible practicing and testing my abilities, but it would also be smart to go hunting a few times to get some contribution points since I was running low.
With about a quarter of the day, and most of my mana, remaining, I decided to finally do all the tests for my [Construct Beast] skill that I had been unable to do when I was spending all my mana on tools, so rather than going home, I went in the forest, staying in the fringes but also making sure that nobody was nearby. The first thing I tested was something I noticed both when I read the skill, and when I made a copy of Sir Lora, which was the part about how my understanding of the animal affected its strength. I decided to put it to the test by making two constructs, both with 50 mana, one of them was a hawk, an animal I had a passing understanding but no real knowledge of, and a housecat, an animal I was very familiar with due to having had multiple cats as pets. I also wanted to do one of a creature that I had absolutely no understanding of, but the skill failed if I wasn't able to clearly picture whatever animal I was trying to create. After making both of them and ordering them to do various physical activities, I was able to clearly see the difference between them. They both had similar levels of transparency, but the cat had significantly less leakage, and when I whacked both of them with my staff to test their durability, which proved that taking damage rapidly depletes their mana, the cat was able to take three hits compared to the hawks one before they dissipated. The cat was also a bit faster than the hawk despite the difficult terrain and the hawks ability to fly, which the cat was incapable of despite both of them being made out of mana.
My next test was how/if elemental energy changed the strength of the constructs. I decided to use hawk constructs for my future tests, since I hoped that it would increase my understanding of the animal and give me a powerful flying construct to use, as I didn't want to be limited to the basic household animals. For these tests I made three hawks, one with mana, one with Lightning, and one with Crystal, and I noticed a slight pressure in my skull after the third formed, not painful, but it was noticeable. After I formed all of them, the elemental ones actually slightly easier to make than the pure mana one, there was an immediate and obvious difference in their appearance, with the mana one being the normal pure white, the lightning one being electric blue and having small arcs forming in its body, and the crystal one being much more transparent and reflective, seemingly made out of diamond. Ordering all three to run to a tree, attack it once, and come back, I noticed right out of the gate the lightning construct was much faster than the other two, and there were small sparks arcing of of its talons when it slashed at the tree, meanwhile the other two were the exact same speed as far as I could tell, and the crystal construct didn't have anything noticeable about its attack. When they all returned, I whacked them with my staff until they dissipated and found that while the crystal one was much more resistant to damage, the lightning one was actually weaker to my attack than even the regular mana one, though I did feel some electricity travel up my staff when I hit it that probably would've hurt had I not been immune to my own energy. Upon examining the tree, it didn't seem like any of them hit harder than others, but the crystal construct's did have slightly cleaner cuts than the other two.
Now that I knew that elemental energy very much did affect the performance of my constructs, I moved on to testing the differences with various animals. I already saw that hawks were still capable of flight and cats had retractable claws, but I wanted to check if things like a porcupine's quills, or a snakes venom would work. Quickly making a king cobra, a porcupine, and a poisonous tree frog, I had tested each of their natural capabilities to see if they still had their natural weapons. A quick bit of testing showed that the king cobra didn't have any venom, but it could inject the mana that it was made of using its fangs, the porcupine was still covered in sharp quills that it could flare out, but the quills could not detach from its body and it would leak energy far faster if they were broken off, and the poison tree frog displayed absolutely no kind of poison, nor could it expel energy through its skin like the king cobra through its fangs.
These results were interesting, because it showed that only some of the natural weapons would be carried over, with others being slightly changed or even lost entirely, and while I was disappointed that i couldn't just create loads of poisonous creatures, I wasn't all that surprised since none of my constructs actually had any internal organs that would make poison, nor did I know how to turn my mana poisonous. The rest of the day was spent with me making hawks out of various amounts of mana to see if there was a minimum and to reduce the time it takes to make them, and while I found that the least I could use before the construct failed to form was 20, I was already below half from the previous activities so I didn't try to see if there was a maximum. Once I was down to around 60 mana, I went back to my house and talked with my parents before dinner, then practicing forming connections until I went to bed.