In the perpetual twilight, Din was walking alone. His eyes glazed over. His thoughts on his family. He was stuck in reverie.
His hand held a wooden sword. A flowery sword. Any warrior would tell you it was more an ornament than a weapon.
This was something Din had carved out from a branch of a tree that he had carved hundreds of items from. This was one of his tier two items.
They weren’t difficult to make at this point. But Din almost never created the same thing. Only when passing out rewards would he reproduce something.
This sword can be said to be unique. It one of his latest creations. On it are symbols of the Laq Docte family. These symbols have their own meaning. But Din knows them as sacred.
Most items Din creates have these symbols engraved on them in some manner. It is Din’s tribute. As all things he does are.
Din has been walking for the better part of an hour. His thoughts completely out of his reach.
Only when a small bird nearly flaps his wings into his face does he snap out of it. His eyes on the small bird.
It’s wings flap so fast they blur. Yet somehow it stays remarkably stable, as if it were sitting down. Din can’t help but think he’s seen this somewhere before.
The bird itself begins to move about. It inspects Din’s ornament sword. Something about this item makes it feel good.
Not until it sits down on the weapon does it feel content. It’s entire being telling it, this is a good thing.
“You like this?”
The bird’s eyes are closed. If its chest wasn’t heaving up and down gently, it might be mistaken as a part of the sword.
“You got a good eye. This a Laq Docte sword. Not that there is such a thing. But there is now I guess.”
It’s be months since Din spoke so many words. Usually matters are dealt with through their devices. The Town is self sufficient enough to not incur extra work for him.
“I’m not sure what these symbols mean. But Great grandfather always wore clothes with them on.”
Din moved the sword about slowly. He sat down, a great tree resting against his back. The bird shifted about to maintain balance.
“But you know. It’s still missing something. Today I’m going to add a symbol to it”
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Din’s knife began carving into the wood. The bird shivered with every curve made, as if it felt the pain of the sword.
“I like this scriptions because they remind me of grandpa.”
Not only did the Laq Docte ancestor like these kind of designs, everything he wore had at least one unique marking on them.
“I never asked him about them. But these days.”
Din never stopped moving his hand. He wasn’t looking at his work but instead watched the bird.
“These days I’m thinking maybe they were scriptions patterns. And grandpa wore them for that reason.”
When his hands finally stopped moving the energy in the area oscillated. Din couldn’t feel it, but the bird did, and it swung in rhythm with it.
It appeared to take a short time. But Din had spoken very slowly. Every phrase with minutes apart. This kind of sense of time was hard to understand.
He could do this because time didn’t seem to move in the Twilight. Only through sleeping and waking up could people feel it.
This blissful moment was whisked away by the flickering notification Din was very familiar with. Yet another recipe was discovered. This was what he thought.
He had no reaction to it. Only after staring at the bird for a few moments did he focus his mind on the blinking in his peripheral vision.
You have discovered a tier three Scription recipe.
You have discovered a tier three Carving recipe.
The carving finalizing the inscription was both a product of his scription and his carving. As engraving was just a different technique to carving.
Along with these there was a whole slew of rewards. His map was instantly update. Multiple locations of exotic materials sprung up.
He could buy many undiscovered tier two recipes. This included a more indepth extracting method and refining techniques.
But the greatest addition was that the flag building was no longer grayed out. This didn’t make sense to Din. He knew there were more things to unlock after the tier three recipes.
Yet here he was. Staring at the option to upgrade the building. He didn’t even have to physically move there. With a thought he could finalize it.
What Din didn’t know, was that the clauses to upgrade the building were safeguards against chance encounters.
Just like Daerer had discovered a tier three recipe. In the off chance that this occurs two times. The safeguards were that an adequate amount of work had to be put into it.
The requirements were over a thousand tier two recipes. This requirement finished half a year ago. Something Din wasn’t counting.
It could be said a staggering amount of recipes. Most of them were food related. But this was still thanks to the entire town focusing on crafting.
Din felt this was unreal. He willed it and the building was upgraded. He read on. His eyes shone.
“This is all easily doable.”
The cost of returning home was breathtakingly large. Majority of his resources points had to be spent and a tier three item had to be sacrificed.
The tier three item wouldn’t be Din’s sword. Instead he’d sacrifice the simpler Erer drink. Nothing said he couldn’t do just that.
And indeed, he could use an Erer drink. But the quantity was far higher than he expected. It would require at least a few days to manufacture this much.
Din arranged for everything to be created. People had no idea what Din was planning. But Din was still considered a leader.
A week passed in a blink. Today Din would return home. The highest leaders in the camp were present when Din vanished.
They understood the price paid. But the resource points alone was something they didn’t understand. Even if they sold the camp's resources three times over, they wouldn’t have enough.
“He’s gone.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“He just left? He didn’t even say goodbye.”
This was who Din was. None of them mattered. Not even Jao got more than a glance.
He had hamstered his resource points and was finally rewarded for his miserly ways.
Din would wake up somewhere on Earth. What he did from there, that’s for him to know. Presumably he would return his family.
The people he left behind were left without a leader, but in its place was a working government. Whether it could stand the test of losing its founder, is hard to predict.
Unlike Din, Jao was a person of emotion. But her stance towards people was like a wide net. Din was gone, but she still had her people. She cared for them as much as she cared for Din.
Whether this was the end of Din’s journey is difficult to say. One thing is sure, he is no longer the person who he used to be. Whether it is enough to test his resolve, is still unknown.
And that is all there is to this chapter. To this introduction to the person who isn’t his own person. One, Din Laq Docte. Loose ends and all.