I woke up and shuffled a bit to get more comfortable, then jumped in shock as something crashed to the ground off the side of my bed.

“Well, I’m certainly awake now,” I complained, heart pounding, and stuck my head over the side of the bed to find out what I’d knocked off. The movement of my blanket as I did so caused another crash from the other side.

Both my bed and the surrounding floor were awash with mythril-wire mana circuits, their skeletal structures seemingly unsupported by anything. In reality, each was embedded within a piece of the completely-invisible echo block. I’d created them while under temporal acceleration from the Temporally Compressed Craftsman Title active effect, which had the handy side-effect of having the same impact in terms of knowledge of the mana circuits as though I’d done it by hand.

Just like the carved-into-obsidian mana circuits, these couldn’t produce an effect. The only exceptions to this were the items normally made exclusively from mythril, namely Mythril Armour, Anvil, Pickaxe, Drill, and Chainsaw. Those mana circuits still worked, though they weren’t much use in the form of disembodied mana circuits. The Mythril Sword, Waraxe, Repeater, and Halberd all lacked mana circuits.

From what I could tell, the materials used in parts of the mana circuits were as- or nearly as- important as the actual circuit itself. Plus, the circuits seemed to generate mana to fuel themselves somehow, a process supplemented by absorbing ambient mana. Some kind of resonance between shape and material maybe? I had no idea.

“Maybe I should go to magic school,” I joked to myself, “I might actually get some clue as to what I’m doing.”

In the meantime, the next step would be to mimic the items’ mana circuits in skeletal form, using the actual materials used for each section, then, if that produced a viable effect, attempting to combine pieces from different circuits.

But first... I got out of bed, stretching stiff limbs, and headed over to the window, pulling back the curtain.

Finally! It’s stopped raining!

But wait... I inspected the clouds outside with a suspicious eye. They were dark and heavy, threatening rain, but not actually releasing it.

“If I go outside, it’ll start again won’t it?” I grumbled rhetorically, then sighed. “Screw it; I’ll take that bet.”

15 minutes later, Tear and I were touching down in the woods close to the entrance of the Outpost. Another 5 minutes later and we were climbing the worn plank steps of the Town Hall. I pushed open the sturdy door and stepped inside, sending a brief glance across at the spot where Stone had absentmindedly planted his tower shield, noting with quiet appreciation how the shattered floorboards had been replaced seamlessly both in grain and colour, then flicked my gaze up to Lupia’s desk. The wolfkin sat behind it, reading from a sheet of paper. She laid it down as we approached, and gave us a tired smile.

“Busy?” I asked and she nodded.

“First rains of the rainy season, lots of work for me, what with being the local landowner,” she nodded again. I winced inside; this being the ‘first rains’ meant there were more coming, and I was really starting to get cabin fever. It wasn’t that I didn’t have plenty to occupy my time inside, just that I wanted the option to be able to do things outside as well. Even if I didn’t actually do any of them. “So,” she continued, “what brings you here?”

“I’m pretty sure it was boredom,” Tear cut in before I could answer.

I raised a finger and opened my mouth to refute that statement, then realised it was completely true and settled with changing the subject completely. “I see you have a new feature,” I said, using my raised finger to point at the noticeboard attached to the wall close to the door, as though that had been my intention all along.

From the snicker Tear let out, I knew that she saw straight through me. I employed my trademark Ignoring Tear TechniqueTM as Lupia replied.

“Yeah, we should have had an adventurer quest board up for a while now, but since we’ve never had any adventurers in this village, we never needed it.”

“They’re still here then?” I asked, a bit surprised.

“Dranner left the day after the test, but the others are still here. They’re staying in the Old Boot, it’s the tavern first left down the road and two buildings along.”

“I think I know where you mean; I think I passed it at some point,” I replied thoughtfully.

Lupia and I made some small talk for some time, Tear chipping in occasionally, then Tear and I excused ourselves to go see other people while it wasn’t raining, letting Lupia return to her work. Since we now knew where the adventurer party (minus Dranner) was, we decided to go pay them a visit first.

The sky outside was still looking like it wanted to rain, and was only holding off to trick gullible fools into straying further from their homes before unleashing a deluge onto their unfortunate heads. I however, had a secret plan to foil the clouds’ schemes. But that would have to wait for when the heavens decide to open.

The Old Boot Tavern was, from the outside at least, that cliché tavern. Two stories, somehow shabby and battered despite surely having been built recently, a slightly crooked door, the works. It looked like the kind of place a DnD party would meet up in and possibly burn down.

As we approached the tavern, the door flew open with a crash, a figure flying halfway across the street before landing and rolling to a stop in a crumpled heap.

A moment later, a large hand gripped the doorframe as Steven stepped into it from inside the building. The ejected figure leapt to their feet, yelled something slurred about telling Steven to fornicate with a cold cheese, whatever that meant, using a language which was definitely not the common one used round here …note to self: ask Tear what the local language is called. Steven replied in the same language, saying something about feeding said cold cheese to the matriarch’s camel… additional note to self: some translated idioms clearly don’t have understandable English equivalents.

Whatever it meant, the inebriated person didn’t take it very well. She snarled, reaching into her coat and hurling a dozen shurikens in a blistering volley aimed straight for Steven!