As night starts to set in, I leave the village. It has been a little time since I was fighting for a whole night.
Without delay, I seek out the wolves in the night. With more experience in the activity, I can easily find their tacks. In 20 minutes I’m sparing with a pair of wolves.
I am not sure what would be the best course of action. Each time I leave to increase my experience, I'm confronted with reality. No matter how hard I try to limit how strength, I hurt the wolves. To make it painless is an infinite search. I’m also strengthening these animals with each encounter. For now, we were safe, but the possibility one of the wolves would be able to eventually kill someone did weigh on my mind.
How I longed for the past. When all the morals dilemmas I faced were if I should cut down a single tree or not. Those were simpler days.
I don't let my doubts stop me. Only an hour and I was already closing in on the third wolf pack.
Even with the dilemma weighing on my mind, I keep pace. Each of the encounters I learn a little something and I taught something. With absolute concentration, I debilitate all the wolves without doing permanent damage.
Throws to put them in the wrong position, palm strikes to their heads stunning them. Repeated hits to their tendons, making their muscles sluggish. By no means was I a master of the craft, but slowly I was getting the basics out of the way.
I only spend a few seconds on each wolf pack. The entire night goes by. By the end, a quick peek at my Exp. gain lifts my mood. I was not the most enthusiastic of grinders, but I had well over 10k Exp. for a single night. With exp like this, what could the highest levels from our village expect?
They may be approaching level 30 soon. I didn't want to feel left behind. A few people already had higher stats than me. The only reason I was not left in the dust was my avg being very high.
Very few people were approaching 20 in all their base stats. Choosing a random class now would be very bad. There was a choice or two that attracted me, but nothing amazing so far. Druid and friend of the forest sounded like something I should choose. Most people would tell me to choose it in a heartbeat, but I still did not feel as if this was the perfect choice for me.
If I had seen a friend of the grove or something similar perhaps I would have chosen without excitation. But Pando was far away. Choosing my class based solely on the nature-alignment felt wrong. I could not put my finger on it, but I trusted my instincts.
And considering that for a little while longer my stats would not be any big impediment, I could hold out for a better choice. Meanwhile the Exp. points would accumulate a little. Making the wrong choice was just too big a risk this early in the game.
From all I learned, the choice was clear. The only real option for power was to choose something that fits you very well.
Steeling myself, I put all my remaining points in Willpower. I’m left with 35 pints in Willpower. I would not be focusing solely on a single stat in the future, but for now, this seemed like the best bet.
Perhaps its not the best course o action to focus so much focus on power. I risked becoming power-hungry, but I took the risk and kept going. That was the only chance earth had. Doubts and excitation in a measured amount were important, but only if you make a choice instead of letting the world pass you by. Each of us would need to make our choices, do our best, and work together. Otherwise, the council would steamroll Earth with no problem.
By the time sunrise was arriving, I get closer to the village. Awaking up to a high-level mob stomping me would be no fun. Too bad I didn't run into a wolf. If I could observe one of them in a few minutes I could get a better look at the runes from the despawn.
I find a tree that looks to ever so slightly bigger than the others. Laying down, sleep takes me only a moment.
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After waking up, I head straight for the village. Limbering up my muscles I run at a comfortable pace in the first few minutes. But each step is faster than the last until I’m pushing harder than ever. My stamina gauge starts to go down quickly and the whole trip lasts less than half an hour.
I try to pay attention to the movement from the mana. But I don’t focus on it too closely. Every time I tried it before, all I managed was to get too anxious. My body needs to naturally pull the mana from my pool or something. This is the only way I have a chance to figure out. Right now, I have absolutely no control over the activation of the skill. To depend on chance or the perfect mindset is a very bad idea.
We are not talking about art. This is my life would be risking if I try to count on the help from mana to arrive the moment I want it. You have your entire life and thousands of attempts in creating the Monalisa. I only have one life.
It's not sustainable to rely on chance. And don't even know if my analogies are anywhere close to accurate.
I could be missing an entire line of thought. The proper infusion of mana on my body could be on my feelings, specific training, or a dozen other things. It could be I never would be able to achieve real control. Maybe not even predict how it affected me. Though after the smith’s words I was a little mollified, he seemed to think this was a harder but more rewarding path.
This whole situation may look like a game, but it was as much a game as starships were magic. Only people from outside would confuse it. Things were all too real.
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Getting to the city, I try to take it in the changes. The difference was not so drastic as in the days before the goblin attack. But you could see indices of things slowly improving.
The walls were reaching 7 meters tall. With entire trees having been cut to measure and fitted with iron nails. With a flat wall showing no gap bigger than an inch and a mostly flat surface, an imposing image was being formed in the minds of anyone entering our village. The price was also clear. All the labor and the damage to the band saw were significant investments. Luckily, only a couple of teeth had been knocked out and we could still use it for a while longer.
Any time someone thought it was overkill, all they had to do was remember the goblin attack. In that light, dedicating a bigger portion of our budget to defense seemed a sound measure.
After crossing the gates I see all around me the changes that have begun to take place. Doors are starting to become more prominent. A couple of the houses have been painted. And the mood is not from people unfamiliar walking around, we were slowly making the village our own. With each new decoration being hanged the doors and every couple moving in together the atmosphere was changing.
I stop by a new restaurant in our village. Paying the exorbitant price of 2 copper I sit at a table for a quick bite. Though exorbitant was only compared by the standard all you can eat at 1 copper standard in the other places.
This time I eat something different. No longer am I eating only cooked food. Now I have the pleasure of tasting uncooked and properly seasoned food. How I missed this. The simple pleasure of a salad. I don't know how long I would have been able to keep going.
From my seat, I see someone running around the village without carrying anything. Not even a sheet of paper to deliver someone else.
I pay attention and a picture slowly forms in my mind. Sweat drips from his whole body. He looks able to sustain the rhythm for a while. From his demeanor its obvious how much effort he puts in. He is keeping a pace to make any marathonist proud. His eyes are focused and no distractions enter his mind. A few seconds later he turns a corner and I can no longer see him.
He is pushing very hard. If everybody keeps doing that, we will know how to access the map room in no time.
I finish my meal and stop thinking about the changes our village has gone through in the short time we since we got here. With a slow step, I head for the morning meeting. It was not always there was anything useful for there, but I don’t have anything pressing at the moment.
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Today was another day without anything too important. Though I got the impression Charlie was not telling everything. In the next few days, he should start to talk with everyone about whatever it is.
With a purposeful stride, I head for the scheduled class.
To no surprise, I encounter a mass of people. What strikes me, is how I can stop a third of the village, and nobody complained about it yet. After a moment looking over them, I don’t even bother to try counting this throng of people.
My class starts in seconds. This would surprise anyone back on Earth but make perfect sense here. My word and the work we were doing here focusses everyone’s minds to an incredible degree. I jump in seeing someone holding a sheet of paper.
"Ok, today we will be continuing our experiments. Anyone brought the diagram on the specifications I asked?"
A dozen hands shot up and paper stars to come out. Without hearing a single word from anyone I keep going.
"Ok. These look good. So we will divide it into 2 teams for each of the exercises that bore fruit. Each group will draw up in the ground the most basic form of what we wanted to test.”
“How are we gonna do that? We are not going to be able to do over twenty different lines and the complete working in the space we have here.”
“Anyone has a better place in mind,” I ask and a few hands shoot up, and someone volunteers.
“We can do it in the clearing to the east. The few trunks there were there, the guys ripped out. Now It’s mostly sand. From everything I know, sand might be better than doing in the ground here.”
Thinking over his suggestion and another couple muffled words behind we head for the clearing. Drawing on sand would be good enough for our tests. We can fix any mistakes easier in the sand. Even if it was not even as good as chalk or earth, it would be enough for our purposes.
Arriving in the clearing less than a mile from the village we all spread out. Without even too much care, everyone has plenty of space to work. Drawing even bigger circles than last time, sticks are dragged in the sand to form the shapes we settled on.
The class goes quickly and smoothly. With plenty of space to go around, we the first few groups finish even faster than usual. Getting to a good distance from the action, we all pay attention as the first few runic inscriptions are activated. I push my self hard to as mana is shared with me and I guide to the proper place.
We do all of it in a few minutes and people continue working. As the hour goes by I change the way we work. With organizing ourselves better we can even increase the output.
“Nash, if some records the experiments we won’t even need to concentrate so much on everyone watching as we activate. We could make things turn even faster this way.”
Someone else volunteers:
“Yes, we could also modify the way we transfer the mana. We waste too much mana.”
I complement the line of thought. “Yes, if we put a few underground copper lines we would be able to transport mana with nearly no losses, or much farther. Let’s see…” After thinking a little, pointing to one of the groups, I ask: “You guys are up to inscribing a little?”
Most of them nod and the group splits. To the people with available time, I say:
“Ok, you guys can get copper from Stuart. Just say you need it for a project. See what works best. Maybe a tube or a strip of copper. He will give you a few, and we can make even better use of the Mana. Just try to do something that will transfer well to the sand after the copper ends. Do some testing, you have enough people and knowledge for that. With you all, an hour or two would be enough.”
With no further stops, we all keep trying new ways of implementing the runes I learned. I even saw it earlier the experiment people were running in their spare time. I still want the workshop to be more focused, but for smaller projects, to ‘draft’ people is a viable strategy, I think.
After these times, we have started to observe the pinpoint aberration we create staying longer and longer. We were inputting 300 mana in our most promising designs, and the result was the anomaly staying for almost a second.
Anything that got too close was damaged and destabilized the experiments. Perhaps this would be a useful attack eventually, but for now, we would need thousands of mana to harm someone seriously. At least that was my impression from our tests.
Everybody goes their own way after we finish. This was one of our most productive classes, but also one of the fastest. We spend an hour and a half until everyone's mana was low.
When I leave there are even a few people behind. They are starting to focus on magic more and more. In the first few days, no more than a pair of students would have stayed without prompting. Now, I see over fifty exchanging ideas and drawing in the sand rough sketches. Just enough so everyone can visualize what was in their minds. Things are coming together. We are slowly becoming more than a rag-tag group just trying to survive.
Our village is starting to have an identity. A collective way of thinking. For now, it was fragile and tentative. Everyone was trying to make sense of this new world. But as time went by, few things would be able to shake our shared sense of purpose. Now we just need to make sure our goals were good. That every day we added something instead of taking away.