Soon enough Dante was placed into his bed at the Crystalfoot Inn. Quietly the door was closed and he was left alone in his room for the night.

Soulful Rest has triggered...

The first thing Dante did was yawn before rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

When he opened them he found himself beneath a familiar tree. In the distance he saw a tower standing tall and proud.

"Huh...guess it did auto trigger, sweet. Now what should I do?" Then he smiled as sleepiness faded from him and memory returned.

"Ah yes. I still have to read 10 pages. So, to the hobbit hole." Dante said as his steps carried him. Crossing the intervening distance in seconds, what should have taken an hour to travel.

Gently he came to rest before the hobbit house and the fields flanking it.

'Hmmm, Let's do some experimenting after we read.' He thought as he stepped forth, opening the door only to find Virgil reading one of the books from his shelf.

"Oh hey Virgil. What are you reading?" Virgil's eyes darted upon hearing the voice only to see him.

"Ah Dante I see your new skill activated on its own just fine..." Virgil spoke beginning a conversation, they spoke to one another for a while.

He learned Virgil had been reading the monster encyclopedia in order to better prepare to help him when they went hunting. Which was a good idea as that would likely be tomorrow.

He also learned that while Virgil was privy to lots of system information, that knowledge did not extend to subjects beyond the system. Essentially requiring Virgil to learn non system things alongside him.

As Dante sat down upon the bed he couldn't help but notice that it was far more comfortable than it had been. Upon closer inspection it even seemed to be of somewhat higher quality than last he had seen it.

"Must be Soulful rest manifesting. What do you think Virgil?"...

"It's possible but..."

---------------

30 minutes later...

Light Reading Pages Read: 10/10 Rewards: 100 exp, 1 small gp

"Well I'll be damned. I forgot this was a daily rewards kind of quest. If memory serves, there are more than 4000 pages total to these books I have to read. Assuming I only read 10 pages a day that's...more than 400 days to completion. Also more than 400 small pieces of gold. So, at least if I keep up this quest I have a small but steady income for a while. If it gives 100 exp every day by the time its done that's over 400 thousand exp. How many levels would that be for me right now." he thought aloud for a moment before a notice rolled across his vision interrupting him.

29 levels at current rank....

Dante smiled a smile that grew wider by the second.

"...That is amazing. Now then Virgil mind coming out here to help me? I have some ideas I want to experiment with." Dante said as he returned the book to its shelf. Virgil smiled as he placed the book he had been reading back upon the shelf before following Dante out the door.

------------------------

Dante looked upon the small orchards that surrounded his small hobbit house.

"Virgil? Is it possible for my skills to gain experience while I'm here?" He asked experimentally.

"Yes and no. Some skills can be turned on while you are here. Though doing such might terminate your Soulful rest. While other skills cannot be activated..." Virgil spoke but he stopped listening.

'Damn it there goes that...' His train of thought was immediately interrupted by what he heard next.

"...But I didn't say that trying to use those skills here was useless."

"Wait what?" Dante asked scrambling to refocus.

"There are certainly benefits to trying to utilize skills within your soul space. Let us take Farming and Horticulture for example..." Virgil paused to motion towards the orchards and the farm house.

"While you can't technically gain experience from trying to farm inside your soul space. That doesn't mean you can't train such skills while you are here. While you cannot spend the necessary stamina to earn exp in such skills you can strengthen your images of them. Which can serve as a form of pseudo leveling for your skills." Virgil spoke with a beaming smile as if he had just revealed a grand secret.

"Image?...Can you explain that a bit more?" he asked quizzically, his mind beginning to turn with new ideas.

"Imagine an image as a representation of how you perceive a skill. For example, farming. You have never truly farmed in your life. The skill was only granted to you as a byproduct of being taught another skill. This you know. But what you don't know....It would just be better to show you one possibility." He spoke as Dante felt a gentle tug at his mana.

Virgil raised his hands and mana slowly flowed from them. Slowly an illusion began to form. An indistinct illusion of a farmer. Slowly it began to move.

He stepped from where he had been made, moving towards the orchards. He looked upon the trees as if inspecting them. When one tree was done he moved onto the next. With each step he grew faster. It took him only a moment to inspect every tree in the three orchards that bordered the small hobbit house. Suddenly he reappeared back in the front yard with them.

Or had he simply moved faster than he could see?

The farmer held a shovel in his hand as he began to dig. The first shovel full went at normal speed but the speed increased with every following scoop. The illusory dirt began to pile up around the hole that grew deeper by the second. Was he digging...

"...a well?" Dante asked curiously. With a rough estimate he put the well at about 6 feet wide. A fairly sizable well.

"What do you expect? Plants need water to grow, among other things. There are no readily available sources of water..." Virgil paused and the illusion paused with him as his eyes followed where Dante was pointing towards. His eyes settled a few seconds later upon the fountain that stood in the yard.

Turning back with a non pleased look he spoke.

"...Let's say for the sake of argument that the farmer doesn't possess some nigh infinite source of water like a river or large body of water nearby." said Virgil as the illusion began moving again, quickly regaining its previous speed.

When the hole became too deep the farmer brought a ladder and buckets. The work was slower now but still the farmer continued.

It was now that he noticed another detail Virgil had created. In the area of the illusion Virgil had created an artificial day night cycle.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

The sun set and the farmer went to bed. The sun rose and he was back to digging. This cycle continued for several minutes but for the illusion, weeks were passing.

He watched the well be dug and a small structure be erected over it. He saw a bucket and a pulley be set up and water was drawn from the well.

The farmer made dozens of trips each day from the well to the trees.

Many days passed and he saw the trees grow and bear fruit.

The farmer picked the fruit and for a moment he vanished. The sun raced across the illusion but the farmer did not appear.

12 seconds and about 5 days later the farmer reappeared.

"...He harvested and took the food to market." Dante said softly watching the illusory man carry his burdens day in and day out.

Slowly the weight of Farming began to settle into his mind.

"A farmer grows his crops and brings them to market. He grows food that he can feed himself and others..." he paused upon glancing through the window of the hobbit house and seeing a large illusory bag on the table.

"...And of course for a profit." He smiled as he shook his head. New possibilities swan in his mind as he began to think more about his skills and their uses. Still the illusory man went about his days.

Years began passing in moments before they slowed once more.

Virgil's arms began to fall as a look of defeat crossed his face. He looked about ready to speak when he suddenly stiffened.

Something passed through the air unseen but not unfelt. Virgil began to raise his arms once more and his eyes glowed gold.

A woman appeared standing hand in hand with the farmer.

Dante could almost swear the illusion looked happier than it had before. But perhaps that was his mind playing tricks on him.

What had just happened to Virgil? It looked like he had been about to quit just a few seconds ago and now...

The man went about his days as he had before but now another joined him in his work.

Years flew by and a small child joined the two.

He watched this mans life, the life of his family being played on fast forward.

Years more passed and before he knew it there were 10 people working the farm.

With each new child added to the family a few trees were chopped down before new trees were planted in their places. The wood being used to expand the existing house.

Making room for the ever growing family.

It was then as the illusion slowed that he took in something he had forgotten. The trees.

They had grown by at least a dozen feet while he had been focused upon the man and his family in their toil.

More people appeared but they didn't seem to be the children of the farmers. He watched as small children ran up to and played with the elders as they sat on their porch. The children sitting in their laps.

New couples appeared as he realized that they were the farmers' children all grown up. Now they had families and children of their own. New smaller homes appeared as the farm expanded to hold the many children and grandchildren.

He watched the two parents slowly rocking back and forth upon rocking chairs on a porch that hadn't been there before. Or had it? Perhaps it had been built while he was watching something else.

Orchards moved a dozen feet this way or that way as the years passed.

New fields were marked out, plowed, and planted. Each field tended to by a family all its own.

Pens filled with animals appeared, each tended to by its own part of the family.

With every passing second he came to understand what the idea of this image was.

One family traded their eggs for cured meat, another traded leather clothing for tools.

Each family had a role in the greater whole.

Years continued to pass and all at once the lightning fast illusion began to slow until it ran at normal speed.

The family stood together in front of the main house that had been rebuilt several times over the many years, always expanding to make room for more kids. Each admiring all that they had accomplished.

The family was massive now. 3 maybe 4 generations all stood together looking upon what they had accomplished together. He didn't bother to count how many people there were. He suspected the number of people present was over 100.

Though they were faceless illusions he felt what he could only describe as the weight of time clinging to them. With that weight coming mostly from the mother and the father. The weight of their many years of hard work.

The farmer turned back from the farm house, now strewn about with clothes lines and a flourishing garden. Away from his 6 orchards and 12 fields filled with crops.

The farmer turned and looked at him.

Slowly, ever so slowly the illusion began to walk towards him. The younger children tried to aid the farmer but he refused, having set out to do this for himself.

Dante stepped back a few steps looking at Virgil with eyes filled with questions only to see him unresponsive. His eyes glowing with golden light.

The faceless farmer stood before Dante a moment later and placed a hand upon his shoulder.

No longer was he faceless, now he was a simple man, unremarkable in every way. His once powerful physique withered by time. Yet he smiled with a warmth that could rival the sun.

And for the first and only time the illusion spoke.

A soft voice rang out as the illusion fell to pieces. All that had been built fell away revealing that nothing had changed. The fields, the orchards, his home, his family and even himself in the end. Leaving only his parting message.

"I see the makings of a great farmer in you!" The man's soft voice rang out as he smiled oh so brightly even as his illusory world fell around him.

For a moment Dante felt that he was a part of something greater than himself.

He felt the farmer take his hand and press something into it. Dante unconsciously clenching his fist around the small object.

The man looked in his eyes and an unspoken message passed between them.

Before the farmer too ceased to be, leaving only what had been.

Virgil's arms lowered as his eyes became normal once more. He fell back into the grass.

Dante's expression was one of shock, his face turned downward to the earth.

"This was an image? What the fuck was...what did I just..." Silence reigned as Dante tried to order his thought, Virgil not stepping in to assist.

There is more to farming that simply...To be a farmer makes you part of something greater.

That's what he had seen. As what he had seen played over and over again in his mind he realized just how many skills that the farmer had needed to do his job by himself in those early days.

Woodcutting to bring down trees, crafting and construction to make things from them. Animal husbandry, tanning, leather working.

Many skills and sub skills, all employed to not only keep the farm running but to improve it.

A dozen or more skills being used together to make it all work.

Dozens of people working together for a common purpose.

He finally understood the image Farming, well at least one version of the image.

"A community..." He spoke softly, smiling as he did so. For it was such a beautiful notion.

A community...

He felt the world around him shift and something forever changed.

Skill, Farming, has leveled up! Lvl. 12->15...

Road of the Earth has opened to you...

You have leveled up!...

Congratulations! Your mana has surpassed 5000!...

Error!...

Road of Wizards III has yet to be completed...

Road of Wizards IV is currently unavailable...

Recalculating...

Behind him he heard the sound of his tower growing to be another floor taller but he paid it no mind.

Slowly he looked down at his clenched fist and opened it to see what the farmer had placed into it. What had remained when all other things had vanished.

He looked down to see in his palm a simple seed no larger than a raisin resting there in his palm.

For a long moment Dante just stared at the messages as his mind wondered. Then he closed his eyes for a few seconds, taking in a deep breath.

He opened his eyes, clenched his fists, and spoke.

"Virgil, let's see if we can't acquire a few of those farming related skills shall we?"

His voice was determined.

Congratulations! You have been granted the Rare passive skill, Resistance to Magical Exhaustion...

Resistance to Magical Exhaustion- Your body has adapted well to the presence of mana due to its abundance within you. Small Increase to your tolerance for magical exhaustion per level of the skill. Slight increase to resistance of magical exhaustion effects per level of the skill. +100 mana and +2.5 mana regen per level of the skill...

"Sweet, more castings for me." Dante said with a wry grin.

Remembering the new road he had obtained he opened his roads menu to see it cost only 10 Rp.

10 points went in to the Road.