After another day’s travel, my next boon finished integrating, leaving me with a surprising lack of choices for my next boon.

Codex: Credit Stipend

Grants a number of credits each day to facilitate integration into society.

The day after, my stipend had finished integrating and another boon was available.

Capstone Boon: Outlander

Increases daily stipend rewards. Increases mana resistance. Greatly increases the maximum amount of information that can be stored in the codex.

I was surprised that I was already being offered the capstone boon for the class. My novice magician class had twice as many boons before it reached its capstone boon. Evidently, not every class offered a full ten boons.

If some classes offered only five boons, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that some classes would give more than ten. I wondered what a class that gave a hundred boons would be like.

After selecting the boon, I took a look at my interface.

Name: Kyo —-----

Class:Outlander

(5/0%)

Mana Pool: 120/200

Codex: 72.01%

Credits: 5

MR:254

TPEL:40

Boons:

System Initiate: 10

Novice Mage: 10

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Outlander: 4

Emergency augmentations: 2

Environmental Conditions:

Mana level: High

Danger present

System Messages:

Update Available

I didn’t dwell on my interface for long as we were drawing close to our destination.

The others had been telling me about countless marvels that they treated as commonplace. Robert was particularly enthusiastic when talking about the tools he would usually use when cooking. He spoke fondly of a magic box that would use runes to directly heat food without the need of fire.

I was more interested in his descriptions of an ice box, another magic item that keeps things placed inside it cold. According to Rob, the cold would stave off rot and keep food good for longer.

I was certainly interested in seeing this for myself. While I knew how to conjure frost with my heat repelling spell, the chill wouldn’t last long in the heat of the jungle. Repeatedly casting spells to try and preserve something with the cold would have been a swift way to empty my mana pool.

The one I really wanted to hear from was Liam. I was sure the rune carver knew of even more astonishing tools and wonders. Unfortunately, I never could get him to say more than a few words at a time. I was just going to have to see what I could discover once we made it to his village.

I was quite excited as the clearing came into view. Though I had seen the village from afar, it hadn’t prepared me for what I saw.

The clearing around the village was expansive, providing no cover for any monsters attempting to creep inside. The walls, formed from the rounded trunks of mighty trees, towered high. Even at a distance I could make out large runes carved into the wood at even intervals.

As we drew closer I spotted movement at the top of the walls. Men stood next to giant versions of Norbert's projectile weapon. The large constructs looked like they could launch spears the size of small trees. Interspaced between the oversized wooden weapons were large metal tubes that I didn’t know the purpose of.

Standing by the gate was a pair of strange metal statues. The statues crudely depicted people a full head and shoulders larger than Norbert. Their rounded heads had a single large red stone in place of a face. Affixed to the forearms of each figure were huge blades twice the size of the giant knife Martin fought with.

Intimidating though the statues were, I doubted monsters would be scared off by the works of art. It wasn’t until we drew closer that I realized that there was probably a great deal more to these things than I first assumed. They were filled with an impressive amount of mana.

My attention was torn from the statutes as a man called down from above. I could understand most, but not quite all of the words shouted down at our group.

“Welcome back Martin!” He shouted. “You found a local!”

“Yes Lenard. Open the gate.” The group’s leader called back up.

“Yes Sir!” He shouted back before disappearing back out of sight.

I thought ‘Sir’ was an odd nickname for Martin until a trickle of information from my codex informed me that it was a respectful address for another of superior authority.

After a moment, a grinding noise drew my attention to the large wooden gate. I was impressed with the structure, considering that even the largest doors in my village hadn’t been even half this size. With a rumble of protest, the gates swung open.

I had finally made it. A new village to call home.