“Oh, that was a good rest.” Elijah walked out of the Chief’s Hut and stretched as he bathed in the noon sun.

After he returned home last night, Elijah began cultivating when twilight arrived. All the energy he gathered from cultivation was sent to his village core and he cultivated until he had only a little bit of mental energy and stamina left. Completely drained, Elijah was ready to go to bed, but he didn’t log out.

For the first time, Elijah decided to sleep in the game. He was curious to see how it would feel and Elijah was confident there wouldn’t be any harm to his real body. However, Elijah didn’t have a bed in the Chief’s Hut, so he laid on the ground and used his Chief’s Cushion as a pillow. He thought it would be difficult to fall asleep, but he quickly drifted off after his head settled on the cushion.

Now, since Elijah wasn’t sleeping in the best conditions, he didn’t expect a great sleep. Therefore, he was pleasantly surprised when he experienced the best sleep he ever had in his life. At least, Elijah couldn’t think of a time he slept better in the past few years.

Waking up, Elijah felt like he was full of energy and a little lethargic at the same time. In this twilight state Elijah walked out of his house to stretch and take in the sun. the lethargy was instantly broken and only energy was left.

Vitality surged through Elijah’s physique as the sun warmed his face and he breathed in the fresh air. His body felt strong, and his mind was alert. With a smile on his face and his eyes closed, Elijah happily indulged in the sensations that came from his surging vitality.

Suddenly, Elijah’s eyes flew open, and he rushed into the Chief’s Hut. He quickly sat down on the Chief’s Cushion, dumped twenty free stat points into his vitality stat and activated his Supreme Meditation skill. The results were as follows.

Congratulations! You have improved your understanding of vitality. You have gained the Master of Vitality talent.

Talent: Master of Vitality

Tier: 0

Description: You can utilize the vitality stat to a greater extent than the average person. 10% increase to vitality.

Congratulations! You have improved the BMS (Body Mind Soul) talent.

Talent: BMS

Tier: 0

Description: You have a greater understanding of the connection between your Body, Mind, and Soul than the average person. This talent is dependent on the connection between your soul and each stat.

Willpower (T0): Increases health, stamina, and mana by (Will/10) * 10

Vitality (T0): Increases the recovery of health, stamina, and mana by Vit/100

Reading the information about his talent brought a smile to Elijah’s face. It proved that his decision to conserve his free stat points until the opportune time was correct. When he felt his vitality surge Elijah knew the opportune time had arrived and he was able to gain a lot more than he normally would.

“This is going to be a great day.”

…

“Where is Melissa and Walter?” Elijah asked.

Currently, Elijah was standing outside of the building he built yesterday with Samuel and the others. Standing with him was Caleb and most of the craftsman Elijah asked to move to the crafting building the other day. All of them looked sweaty, a little tired and unhappy.

“They wised up and ran away from this terrible heat,” Shin said.

Shin was a middle-aged man with tan skin and dark hair. Despite his current disorderly and sweaty appearance, Shin was considered the best village mason by everyone in the village. His work helped protect many of the villagers and their homes from the natural elements.

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Barnum said with a smile on his face. “A little heat never killed anyone. You wimps will get used to it after a few days.”

Barnum was a short man, with dark hair and a long dark beard. He was a blacksmith and the heat that everyone was complaining about was caused by his work. Naturally, Barnum was used to the heat and was happy to be engaging in his craft again.

“Little Brute, who are you calling a wimp.”

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“Hmph, all he knows to do is swing his hammer at metal and bathe in fire. Don’t talk down to us like some expert.”

“I doubt he could still use his hammer well if he was working with stones,” Shin said.

“Or with wood.”

“Yeah, let’s see if your hammer hands can work with cotton.”

Elijah didn’t immediately interrupt the crowd of craftsman. He could tell that there was no real malice or hatred behind their words. Instead, Elijah sensed the unhappiness the craftsmen felt began to fade away as they bickered with each other, so Elijah knew it was wise to stay silent for the moment. Also, Elijah gained a better grasp of the situation by listening to their complaints.

“Okay,” Elijah said. “From what I’m hearing, everyone is bothered by the heat from Barnum’s forging. However, it doesn’t seem like it’s bad enough to inhibit you from doing your jobs. I gathered you all here, in this building, to improve everyone’s performance. The work you're doing will benefit the territory and everyone in it, so I hope you all can endure the heat for a little while.”

Working in a hot place definitely sucked, but he knew people could bare it if they needed to. Plus, Elijah was forcing characters in a game to work in these conditions and not real people. Elijah channeled his inner shitty boss and tried to convince everyone that things weren’t so bad. He was confident that the villagers would start singing a different tune after he used his labor skill.

“Chief, the heat is only part of the problem,” Caleb said. “There’s the banging and the smoke as well. This place is terrible.”

“What Caleb means is we find it difficult to work in this building,” Shin added. “The heat, smoke and the sound of metal makes it difficult for all of us to successfully make the items that we are working on.”

“Performance is only one of the issues,” Hana said.

Hana was one of the Elders of the village. She was a frail woman with fair skin, grey hair, and green eyes. She had the seamstress at the first tier, which allowed her to work with different types of fabrics and materials.

“For some of us, the heat and smoke can damage the materials that were using,” Hana continued. “This will lead to creating items with lower quality or a complete failure in creating the item. Also, it will be difficult to bring some of the children in to assist us with our work.”

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on,” Elijah thought to himself. A slight frown started to appear on Elijah’s face.

Once again, Elijah’s compliant villagers were having individual thoughts and expressing their opinions. However, that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was Hana’s argument was completely logical and reasonable.

Listening to the issues Hana and the others brought forward, made Elijah instinctively want to use his Supreme Speech skill to shut them up. However, Elijah didn’t do that because he knew it was important for a ruler to listen to his people. Also, he would suffer a loss if he didn’t use his skill properly. Supreme Speech was a great skill that had several beneficial effects, but mind control was not one of them.

“Staying here is a waste of time, energy, and resources,” Hana said. “I can’t speak for the others here, but for me, this building isn’t an effective workspace.”

“Melissa and Walter felt the same way,” Shin added. “Both of them immediately left when they realized they would be sharing the building with Barnum. They said they couldn’t work here, and you would understand why they left.”

“I don’t want to work here either,” Caleb said. “Ahem, what I meant was, this place isn’t an effective workspace for me.”

“Well, this sucks,” Elijah thought to himself.

Elijah couldn’t stop himself from letting out a sigh as he scratched his head in frustration. He thought the crafting building was a great idea, but now it looked like he failed to acknowledge several problems. Of course, this failure wasn’t a big deal. However, Elijah was still upset by the blunder since it seemed so obvious in hindsight.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” Elijah said. “Everyone who wants to return to their previous workspace is free to do so. But this means I can’t let everyone benefit from my abilities, so I suggest that you all try to group. I will be prioritizing the use of my abilities on larger groups. Is that clear?”

“Understood.”

“Yes Chief.”

“Got it.”

Although they didn’t do so in unison, all the craftsmen responded to Elijah. Elijah nodded his head in satisfaction when he saw no more complaints came from the group. However, Elijah paused and considered that hearing the complaints of his people wasn’t a bad thing.

“Does anyone have any other concerns?” Elijah asked. “Any suggestions? I’m open to making changes based in the ideas that you guys bring up.”

Fortunately, or unfortunately, nobody said anything. “Okay, everyone’s free to go. I plan to visit Melissa and Walter. If anyone has any ideas or concerns, they can come look for me or tell me at dinner.”

Barnum and Caleb were the first to move after Elijah dismissed the group. Barnum had no problem working in the crafting building, so he immediately went back to work. Caleb was eager to head back to his original workspace, so he quickly began gathering his belongings in preparation to leave.

Shin and some of the other craftsmen gathered together and began discussing working together. Elijah was happy to hear that some of the craftsmen were open to sharing a workspace. However, before he could continue listening to their discussion he was interrupted by Hana.

“You shouldn’t have a problem finding Melissa, but Walter should still be outside of the village.”

Elijah nodded. “No problem. He should be checking out the grass, right? Which side is he on? North? South?”

“No,” Hana replied with a shake of her head. “Walter went to the forest. He left with Jenny and a few others.”

“What?! Why did they leave and why didn’t anyone tell me?” Elijah wasn’t shouting but his voice was definitely raised.

Both the hunters and the warriors were working to understand and minimize the threats in the forest. However, the forest was still a dangerous place and the last thing Elijah wanted to do was lose the only healer that his village had. Also, the memories from his night hunt with the goblins were very fresh, so his reaction was very strong.

“Please calm down Chief,” Hana calmly replied. “Before you arrived everyone in the village was trained on how to safely traverse the forest. Now all of us are a lot stronger after we practiced the cultivation techniques you gave us. I’m sure Walter and the others will be able to safely-”

“Eli!”

Turning his head Elijah saw BB running toward him. She was sweaty, out of breath and her clothing was damaged. Before she arrived in front of Elijah, BB was desperately trying to get a few words out of her mouth.

“Jenny… and the others… were taken.”