Jasper walked back toward his camp as the light of day dimmed and the shadows grew underneath the canopy of the forest. He had found the hunt enjoyable, not only getting some of his anger out of his system but also because he’d been able to find some appreciation in the beauty of the forest. When he wasn’t fighting a 10-foot bird he slowly dragged behind him he’d been able to see new plant life and even smaller creatures that Jasper could only describe as cute. He’d found the bird in a small meadow of flowers only about a mile from his camp. The flowers looked similar to roses, except that they didn’t grow on a bush instead sprouting from the ground and they didn’t all have the same color of red, or white that Jasper had been used to seeing in the city.
Instead, there were several colors, including blue, purple, and pink. The only similarity between the colors was that the base color was black and had an ombre effect as the colors changed toward the tips of the petals. That was where he found the colossal exotic bird that was munching happily on one of the goats’ creatures, he’d fought in the mountainous area he had traveled through before reaching the forest. Jasper gulped upon seeing the scene and thanked whatever gods were out there that he hadn’t come across the bird while he was still deliriously thirsty in the last area before the forest.
The fight hadn’t lasted long because the bird was busy, and he had been keeping himself low and quiet, doing his best not to step on any sticks or dried leaves. When the bird did notice him, it spread its multicolored wings and screeched, before swinging one of its wings at him. He dodged out of the way of the attack but didn’t notice the smaller projectile feathers that sprang from the wing. One of the smaller feathers slammed into his leg stabbing him like a knife. Jasper panicked, slightly swinging his hand towards the bird and directing Effen into the large amber and pink eyes of his opponent. Effen struck home and was more effective than Jasper had expected it to be sinking into the eye effortlessly and out the other one so fast it caused the first eye to explode.
That was the end of the fight and Jasper decided to go ahead and end his hunt for the day. The bird was heavy, as large as it was, but with his strength stat he managed to drag it all the way back to his camp, unfortunately, he still had the dagger-like feather in his leg, so he couldn’t find any more enjoyment from the nature around him. Instead cursing the bird’s entire bloodline while he slowly dragged it through the brush. Still, though he did feel better than he had earlier after the cat’s attack, and by the time he’d made it back to camp dropping his new kill outside his house he felt almost nothing but relief that he didn’t have to drag it any farther. He silently added to his to-do list which was growing at a prodigious speed.
He quickly imbued the ambulance and crawled inside going through the process of yanking out the feather dagger and watching the magical threads sew up his leg in that area. It still hurt, but just like the wound on his buttocks, he knew that it would heal completely in just a few days. A combination of his vitality and the magic sutures made healing wounds a lot easier than it used to be. Jasper didn’t feel like dressing the bird tonight, so he once again chose to have fish for dinner. He was excited for the time that his vitality got high enough that an attack like that wouldn’t even pierce his skin at all.
Still, he had stacks of the bleeding status effects so after he’d stopped bleeding for a while he gained another 6 vitality, and after dragging the bird for a mile he’d gained another 2 points of strength. Because of his new understanding of protective circles, thanks to Effen’s upgrade his proficiency with the ambulance had gone up again which added some new functionality to it. The emergency homing beacon had an on-and-off function but when Jasper turned it on nothing happened.
It didn’t surprise him too much though because to home in on something there would have to be something to home in on. Jasper doubted that if there had been something with a matching signal to tune into and follow odds are it wasn’t in use anymore. There was also an automatic defibrillator, but that didn’t translate to his language, so he wasn’t sure what it did. Even though Jasper couldn’t use the new functions he still found it thrilling to be learning more about the ambulance and couldn’t wait until he was able to unlock all of the functions.
“Hope the next ones are more useful though!” After he’d eaten and spent some time in the ambulance it was time to go to bed again. Another few days passed in this way. Jasper would wake up and exercise until he’d raised his strength by one, and then he’d spend several hours studying runes and experimenting. On the second day of his new schedule, Imbue Runes finally leveled up.
IMBUE RUNES II: Just the carving of runes will give no power to your creations, you must be able to imbue them with mana. This ability will teach you how to best imbue mana into your creations for maximum effect. This skill can level up over time to give you greater proficiency. Imbue Runes: 74%
II: You have learned the basics of imbuing runes using a protective circle and have given power to your creations! You will now be able to recognize mana patterns more easily making it easier to control your mana as you imbue your creations.
Jasper had been ecstatic with his new level-up in the Imbue Runes skill, but it didn’t compare to what happened just a few days after when he’d managed to level up both of his other skills in one fell swoop. He had just finished upgrading all of his shocking landmines. Which is what he’d chosen to call the flat stones with the electricity runes that he’d used in his fight against the cat monster. After days had passed and Effen still hadn’t lost its charge Jasper had begun wondering why it was that all of the rest of his crafts lost mana so quickly while Effen was still flitting around gracefully.
He got lucky early in his experiments by deciding to try imbuing Effen with more mana allowing him to enter into the white space. When he did he didn’t immediately try putting more power into the weapon, but instead inspected each of the runes, and how the mana moved within them. At first, Jasper didn’t see what he was looking for, but it didn’t take long after entering the white space for him to make the connection that would allow him to upgrade almost all of his crafts. It was the rune of contain that was the crux of Effen’s ability to maintain power for longer periods. It wasn’t just that rune that was helping with this process, but also one that he hadn’t recognized when Effen had first been crafted. It was called a rune of cycling, and it worked in tandem with the rune of containment.
How it worked was when the mana made its way throughout the protective circle and into the other runes the contain rune captured all of the mana except for enough to activate the cycle rune. In turn, the rune of cycle would pull mana out of the containment rune and cycle them slowly to the rest of Effen. In this way, the mana loss that had been experienced by all of his experiments so far had been cut by at least 75% if not more. He noticed that some of his mana did still escape, and he attributed that to the fact that Effen’s protective circle; while better than the one that he’d been using so far, still wasn’t nearly as good as the one used in his runic ambulance.
Once he’d made all of these notes in his Journal, he got about to changing his electrical landmines. Instead of using just the electrical run though he added the ones of control, contain, cycle, and magic. He had to change the order in which he’d written them several times before he found one that worked in a way that excited Jasper. This time when the runes were activated it didn’t just randomly hum or spark instead it caused bolts of lightning to form a kind of cage with a small area of effect.
He’d made a mistake in this crafting, however. Because he hadn’t added enough control runes to his new device the lightning crackled and popped striking at random locations within the circle of influence the device was able to output. Jasper had to use Effen to push the lightning cage landmine farther away from his workspace so that he could both observe it and work on new ones. It took him another three attempts to get one to work exactly the way he needed it to, only forming the cage when he directed it to.
He set to upgrading all of them and set them in a perimeter around his camp. He still let enough power output at any time that it would give any beasts that managed to walk across them a proper shock. As soon as he finished his final upgrade, he received the notifications he’d been waiting for with not only his toolbelt leveling up but surprisingly enough his journal leveling up as well.
SUMMON TOOLBELT: A craftsman is nothing without the tools of their trade. Summon a tool belt to yourself, the tool belt may level up over time giving you more options. Summon Toolbelt: 0.0%
Summon Toolbelt II: You have gained mastery over your first tool provided by your tool belt. Based on your proficiency with saws you have been awarded a crystalline saw. Based on your proficiency with your crystalline runic pen it will be upgraded upon your next summoning of your toolbelt. BONUS TOOL! You have taken a step toward being a master of runic crafting and gained an achievement! You will be rewarded with a runic adamantine set of pliers upon your next summoning of your toolbelt.
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SUMMON JOURNAL: As a Runic Crafter you will of course need to know runes. This journal will keep all the runes and notes you make about your journey and crafting. While this journal is unsummoned, you can recall any of the information within it as if you were reading it. Journal Can level up over time to provide you with more pages. Summon Journal: 0.0%
Summon Journal II: You have gained a certain level of true information through study, note-taking, and experimentation. You have been awarded a new page in your journal available upon your next summoning of your journal. Based on the use of your journal so far it has gained an extra effect. Extra Effect: Truth seeker I. When you write information in your journal you will have a vague feeling on whether or not the information you have learned is truthful. This should help you from making detrimental mistakes due to false information.
Jasper grinned from ear to ear while reading his new notifications. He had expected the extra tool because of his achievement, but he hadn’t expected the Truth Seeker effect from his journal leveling up. He summoned his journal and stared at all of the information that he’d managed to collect so far. While he read, he was happy to feel that most of it felt true to him. There were a couple of things that made him feel a little off when he looked at them, but they were mostly earlier notes that he’d taken before he’d learned all of the runes on the ambulance.
He then flipped to the next page taking some childish glee from flipping the page back and forth. After he’d gotten over the original surprise and excitement of the new page, he decided that it was time to resummon his tool belt and check out his new tools. When he summoned it there was an immediate change in the makeup of the belt. Instead of just the leather bandelier over his chest that carried his pen, instead an actual belt appeared at his hip. On the belt was a loop with a rivet snap button that held onto the handle of his new crystalline saw.
The handle itself wasn’t crystal, instead, it looked like a deep walnut wood that had been shaped into a simple loop and embedded into the blue crystal saw blade using a few simple silver rivets. Jasper reached down and unsnapped the button holding his new tool grabbing onto the handle and pulling it away from his belt. As soon as the tool was fully in his hand the wood of the handle started to warm up startling Jasper enough that he almost dropped the saw. He managed to keep his fingers wrapped around the handle though and in the next moment, the wood of the handle began wrapping around his fingers, growing and stretching up his forearm like spreading vines. The silver rivets traveled up his arm until they encircled his arm just below his elbow.
He looked at the thin transparent saw blade with tiny, sharpened teeth and wondered how something so thin and delicate could even be considered a saw. He walked over to a tree nearby and placed the blade on a thin branch. As soon as the teeth of the tool touched the wood the blade changed into a more knife-shaped saw blade with teeth that pointed forward and back. He began sawing and with one quick thrust, the saw cut right through the branch like water through a strainer.
He tried placing the blade at other parts of the tree with different thicknesses, and as he did the saw changed every time to a different type of blade with different teeth. After watching it change and completely decimating every branch, he could get his hands on it without scaling the tree. He decided to try it on the trunk as his final test. This time the vines that had covered his forearm split and instead formed two gloves made of the vines with the rivets covering each of his knuckles.
The blade grew three times larger in length than it had when he’d first pulled it off of his belt, yet the thickness of it stayed the same. In a quick six strokes three forward and three back the tree cracked and fell. Unfortunately, the tree must have been on a slope toward Jasper because in the next moment, he had to dive out of the way of the big tree falling towards him. He fell on his hands and knees scraping the skin off of both of them. Jasper stood up brushing himself off feeling embarrassed and thankful that there wasn’t anyone around to see his blunder.
He looked back at the tree shaking his head ruefully. “I might have gone a little overboard.” He said to himself while Effen floated beside him silently. That’s when he noticed that the wooden gloves he’d been wearing had disappeared along with his saw. He panicked for a few moments before finally realizing that it was hanging on his belt again. Relief flooded him now that he knew that he wouldn’t have to move the entire tree just to find his saw. For the umpteenth time today, he wondered how these tools worked.
As far as he could see there weren’t any runes carved on the surface of any of them, and when he tried to imbue them with mana nothing happened. Jasper figured he’d eventually figure it out, but for now he was going to try out his new pliers. The pliers had handles made of the same type of leather that his toolbelt was made of. Swooping designs like waves before they crashed on the shore were carved into the leather and it felt soft when Jasper brushed his fingers against them. This time the pliers were in a small leather pouch hanging off of his belt secured with another rivet snap that came up between the two handles of the tool and fastened to the pouch.
Jasper undid the snap and pulled out his new tool. They were a simple set of needle-nose pliers made of some kind of green metal that Jasper assumed was adamantine based on the description of the tool provided by the system. The nose opened up after about an inch displaying ridged jaws and lower down there were also two sharpened slopes that Jasper knew would be for cutting things like wire. “Not that I have anything like wire to work with.” He thought to himself a bit grumpily.
He couldn’t figure out what extra abilities the pliers might have even after hours of grabbing, ripping, and chipping things with the tool. Jasper was fine with it though; he was sure that they would still be useful to him as he learned more about crafting. He’d spent a lot of time learning how to read and use runes, but aside from his arrowhead and Effen, he hadn’t done a lot of real crafting. He looked around his camp noticing that he’d made kind of a mess of it.
There were stones and pieces of bark strewn all over the place from Jasper’s many experiments. His little hut that he’d made was starting to lean more to one side. There were fish bones, and bird parts just tossed half-heartedly wherever Jasper had felt like dropping them. Being out in the wilderness must have made Jasper slightly blind to how messy his camp was, but now that he was looking at it, he knew that he had to do something about it.
He remembered seeing some reeds close to the river and his creativity stat started a spark in his mind. He went over to the riverbank and used the sharp slopes on his new pliers to snip several reeds close to the bottom of their growth. Jasper would keep doing this until he had filled up his arms then carried them back over to his camp. While he looked at his materials new ideas and techniques filled his mind and he began his crafting.
Jasper grabbed several of the longest reeds split them evenly and formed a cross using both of the groups right at the center of both bunches of reeds. After that, he grabbed another reed and placed it over a single spoke in a group which secured it underneath the other spokes in the bunch. Then he took the reed he’d just secured and began weaving it over the next bunch then underneath the one after that until he’d completed five rounds which seemed to lash all of the bunches together. He separated each of the spokes into groups of two and began weaving over and under each of them.
After a while, he realized that he’d made a mistake and had to unweave till he figured it out. He had started with an even number of spokes and that appeared to be the issue that was causing him to feel like he’d made a mistake, so he cut off one of the spokes before beginning his weaving again. He started again going over and under each spoke with the reed he was using to weave and this time he didn’t feel like he was making a mistake. With every round he completed he noticed that the pattern would switch from over under to under over, so he continued to weave in that way making sure that he was keeping the spokes even as he did.
The basket seemed like it was starting to form but Jasper thought that it was too flat, so he started pushing the reeds away from him causing his craft to form a bowl-like shape while he continued weaving. This took him a long time and he had to add more reeds as he continued. Unfortunately, the reeds must have dried out while he was crafting because when he tried to add another reed the spokes snapped off causing Jasper to start again. This time he sat by the riverbank and would soak his reeds now and then to maintain the flexibility the reeds had when he first started. When he finally felt the basket was big enough, he paused not being sure how to continue.
He studied his craft for several minutes before deciding what his next step should be. Grabbing one of his spokes he pulled it over the other spoke next to it and secured it with his thumb in a downward position. He continued this with each of the spokes to go from left to right and secure them each time. As he did it, he noticed that each spoke would form a small loop which helped him in the next step of taking each spoke again and threading it through each loop. As he did this, he no longer had to secure each spoke with his thumb instead allowing it to be held down by the loop.
Once Jasper had completed one round of this it became simple to know what to do next. He would take a spoke through the following loop but this time toward the inside of his basket. Now and then he’d pause and soak the entire basket for a little while longer, not wanting to have to start over again when he knew that he was close to finishing it. When it was finally finished there were still long tails of reads poking out of the top of Jaspers craft but now that he had his pliers it wasn’t too much of an issue. He quickly cut each of the spokes off leaving enough of the reed inside the basket that it would hold, and by the end of it, he had a basket approximately 30 inches in circumference and a little over a foot tall.
Jasper stared proudly at his project and even received a couple more points in creativity and dexterity for his hard work. Creativity didn’t seem to give him all of the answers, it just allowed him to come up with ideas and made it easier for him to think critically and problem-solve for something that he was working on. He was nowhere near good enough to start building magitech devices or skyscrapers that reached into the sky, but he was able to make a basket which was something that he wouldn’t have even started to think about days ago let alone be able to figure out how to make. It had taken him a couple of hours to make the one basket he had, but he knew that with practice and raising his dexterity he’d get faster.
Jasper didn’t dwell on that though, instead choosing to sit down and make another one. He continued to make baskets until the light was too low and he couldn’t continue crafting for the day. He’d been right about just needing practice and to raise his dexterity because he kept getting points in the stat and now, he was able to make a basket like that in only about 45 minutes. Now he had five and a half baskets that he would use to clean up his little campground the following day. Jasper set up his perimeter of electrical cages and allowed them to work at a higher power.
He knew that the amount of mana he had placed in each of them would at the very least let him sleep peacefully throughout the night. He stacked all of his baskets and carried them inside his hut. There was very little space in the hut already, but Jasper didn’t want to risk his new crafts blowing away in the wind. He decided that it was time to upgrade his little house as well, at least making it slightly bigger. That was a problem for another day, however. Jasper was tired and his fingers hurt slightly so after sitting in the ambulance for a while he went to bed for the night looking forward to what he might do tomorrow.