The clamour of the hustle and bustle of the populace of the fortress attending to a variety of daily tasks woke Ryan from the depths of dreamless sleep. He first checked on his shoulder, full rotary movement, no stiffness, no pain and good to go. Having a capable healer was a wonderful advantage. Alexis had operated on him after they returned last night, cutting open his shoulder, puzzling together the pieces of bone and then exhausting her Energy on healing the entire thing, all while he was blissfully lying on the operation table pumped full of local anaesthetic. Ryan was glad he was free from the pain that had nearly undone him during the awful trek back, a memory he could definitely do without. It had probably taught him a valuable lesson he admitted to himself. Don’t be stupid.
Going over the fight in his head he belatedly remembered the Notification of experience gain he had received on the Rhino’s demise and pulled up his Character Sheet. God almighty, he had received 420 Experience for the kill, almost halfway to recovering the deficit his choice of Class had burdened him with. I need to solo kill more higher levelled opponents was his next thought. I need to find John was the one following immediately afterwards. Then, I need to keep notes on what I need to do.
While he moved to the kitchen Ryan went through his plans for the day. First, breakfast. Second, thank Alexis. Third, speak to John. Fourth, cultivation for an hour, but inform Miguel first so that he can collect the people that want to observe. Fifth, train Inventory. Sixth, upgrade one of my bows. Scrap that, sixth, get a notebook. Seventh, make a written to do list. Eighth, upgrade one of my bows. Speak to Johannes, Gabriel and Katrina. The plan sounded workable, he hadn’t been assigned any duties for the day so had plenty of time on his hands.
He munched on some cold porridge and shot Miguel a message that he would be performing his poemsae in the garden in approximately half an hour. While he waited for the coffee to percolate, he grabbed another helping of porridge. The taste was familiar and when Katrina appeared in the kitchen a few moments later he knew why. The old gal rushed to hug him, assaulting him with a babbled torrent of words which he barely followed as she was sniffing and crying. Awkwardly returning the hug, he finally managed to squeeze out a “Katrina, kalm, kalm. Stadig.”
The torrent abated and finally he could make sense of what Katrina was explaining. Katrina was happy to see him hale, stricken with grief that her community had ceased to exist, satisfied that she could choose a cooking related class and ecstatic that the three had survived the journey. Proud of her son Gabriel who had fiercely defended her life, relieved that she was currently safe, worried for what the future might bring, confused by the Interface, hopeful that they might find a way to survive and interested in what had happened to injure him so severely yesterday. His head was spinning, how could one person deal with so many conflicting emotions simultaneously was beyond him so the only logical action he could identify was explaining his near fatal encounter of the previous day, then escaping her clutches by asking: “Waar is Johannes?”
Johannes was apparently going on an excursion with a couple of others to see if they could capture and tame a couple of animals as he had chosen a Class that required taming a companion beast, or several, from what limited knowledge he could obtain from Katrina’s incomplete explanation. With the wonderful image of Johannes’ pets decimating his foes in mind, he excused himself and went to the garden. There, he found a group of people gathered, excitedly discussion the possibilities of cultivation. He sighed inwardly, more than half the group had gathered. He hadn’t expected that big of an audience, naively thinking that, at most, Miguel, Leah and Carmen would choose to observe them. Even John was present, so Ryan approached him first and asked whether he should report on their scout.
“No, Miguel already reported and we all gathered to observe you cultivate. Please proceed and we can discuss your report once you’re done with the demonstration and everyone has returned to their duties.”
“Okay, if you think that’s best I’ll proceed with a short explanation and then demonstrate my cultivation.”
“Everyone, listen up. I’ll run through my observations on cultivation beforehand, especially for those that haven’t heard my previous explanation and then proceed with a poemsae, which is Korean for a kata. My cultivation style or method is movement based and the poemsae allows me to focus on cultivation while exercising my body. As far as I understand cultivating the energy also improves my base stats, but I haven’t noticed any changes in my character sheet that might not be explained by the normal training. To be honest, it’s all a bit confusing.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
He continued with his explanation on his experiences when unlocking the core and how cultivating energy felt to him. Then he finished by suggesting that they try to observe and visualise energy flows, a concept he didn’t understand himself, but which felt right to him. Reminding John to notify him once his self-allotted hour was up, he moved into the first form. The hour, not unlike the first time he had used this form of cultivation a mere three days ago, passed in a blur. Ryan had the indistinct impression that he was more aware of his surroundings than during his prior attempt, something he wanted to confirm with repeated observations before informing John of his suspicions.
Streaming rivers of sweat, Ryan unceremoniously left the group to its own devices, heading for the water reservoir to take a quick dip. His mind focused on the pool, he ran through his agenda. Shit, he had forgotten to report to John and ask him for a notebook, well, that could wait for after the swim. Suitably refreshed, he went looking for John and found him in the fortress’ study, which had clearly been converted to the administrative centre of the group. He quickly reported his observations of the Obelisk to John, paying specific attention to the orgy of synaesthetic impressions the Bifröst had subjected him to in the presence of the Ascension Obelisk. After he had finished his report he grabbed one of John’s empty notebooks and a pencil and settled down in the lounge. Writing up his quick to do list for the rest of the day he idly started disappearing and reappearing a coin through his Inventory. Continuing with the near mindless practice, he considered his plans for upgrading a bow. First decision, which of his three bows would he be willing to potentially sacrifice on the altar of experimentation? His answer, none, he would ask William if he could use the old double cam Hoyt that William hadn’t used in years and still had lugged to the fortress. Problem one thus solved. Secondly, how to best increase the draw strength? Hmmm, probably forge laminate a piece of leaf spring to the arms of the bow. Or better, forge entirely new arms from a leaf spring first and test the resulting draw weight. Materials and tools? Shit, I need to speak to John again.
While he moved back to John’s den he shot William a message, asking if he could experiment with the Hoyt, explaining that he wanted to increase the draw weight. William gave his consent near immediately and John had pointed him in the direction of the workshop, which still had a small old forge where his grandfather used to forge the horseshoes for the farm’s horses. He was also welcome to cannibalise the leaf springs from the old Landrover, provided that he would eventually get to forging some bladed weapons for the rest
The Landrover was already lifted onto a couple of blocks, its engine removed and hanging on a hefty block and tackle made from chain, clearly in a state of disrepair. Removing the spring blades was a quick process, needing only a bit of elbow grease and after he moved everything to the workshop Ryan got busy disassembling the Hoyt. Because it was unstrung with the string preserved in a tinder box, everything was in good order. Comparing the arms to the leaf springs he found that the curvature of the middle of the larger springs closely matched that of the arms. Knowing that he had no method of cutting the spring without heating it to a forgeable temperature, he fired up the old forge and got to work. Cutting the leaf to the required shape with the hammer and some chisels was a quick process, but he didn’t find any punches of a suitable size that could punch the holes needed for the pins of the cam-wheels. So he elected to punch a smaller hole and file it out later. His accuracy was abominable so one pinhole wasn’t aligned with its opposite. Damnit, now he needed to recut the entire arm.
Three tries later, he had two rough forged arms, in the desired shape and with the mounting holes and pin holes in the correct place. They were ugly and rough. Now, he would file the edges smooth, quench and temper them and see if they could be used. It took a few more hours before he was satisfied and reassembled the bow. It wasn’t pretty, but it just might work. Restringing the bow was an exercise in frustration because they hadn’t moved the bow press to the fortress, something that Ryan intended to rectify with the next excursion to town. In the end, he jury rigged a contraption with the use of several clamps and a vice that definitely wasn’t the safest way to string a bow but which served admirably nonetheless.
Carefully he removed the strung bow from his makeshift bow-press and immediately noticed a new problem, he could nearly feel the flimsy cam-wheels groaning under their new load, and from what he could see, the cable wouldn’t hold up much longer either. Drawing the bow proved impossible, even with his strength now significantly elevated. Judging from the feeling the resistance to his exerted strength engendered taken in combination with his strength stat, the draw weight exceeded 200 pounds but was probably below 300 pounds. A bow, which with further modifications, he could use in the future, but which now was beyond useless to him. Well, that’s it for today, he thought. I’ll forge a new set of arms tomorrow and keep these with a new set of cam-wheels for later.
With a coin disappearing and reappearing next to his hand, a practice he had continued throughout the entire day, Ryan strode of to dinner, ravenous because he had skipped lunch and nobody had bothered to keep him fed. He was actually looking forward to some company now, a strange feeling.