It was another three days of work to finish rooting out all the grass in the first quarter, and by the end of it he’d gained another four points in strength, constitution, intelligence, and wisdom. In addition, his level finally increased.

[Congratulations on increasing your level! 0 à 1]

[You have received 100 Leveling Points, please distribute them now]

John threw the clump of grass he was holding onto the nearby pile, one of many which now dotted his land. Running a hand through his dirty beard he considered. It had taken six days to reach level one, and he wondered how many more it would take for level two. Glancing at the notification again he spoke quickly, before his desire for advancement overcame good sense.

“Bank all leveling points.”

[100 Leveling Points Banked.]

John smiled, that gave him 350 leveling points banked after his increase to Mana Sight. He’d been using the skill constantly since he got it, and was now mostly used to the swirls and rivers of mana that he could see moving about, still it could be distracting, and he was glad he could stop now. He hadn’t had the same luck with Mana Manipulation though, it was much harder to use on the fly. He couldn’t manipulate his mana and clear the land at the same time, it just took too much concentration. Still, he felt he was making good progress, and now that he had his first acre cleared he could plant something and then take a day or three to work on skills.

Taking out some stakes and a roll of twine John started pacing off an acre worth of land in the cleared space. He knew from doing the math that his stride was around two and a half feet in length, slightly more actually. So an Acre paced off this way should be between 80 and 81 strides to a side.

After pacing out the length of it, John set down a spike at each corner and tied them off, he then re-paced and re-paced again, adjusting each time. Soon enough he got the desired message.

[Skill Gained: Measuring.]

Smiling to himself he paced off the other sides and soon had a box cordoned off for his first field. Measuring told him it was an acre, though Loren had said it was imprecise at low levels, so he didn’t take that at face value. Looking around John decided to take the last few hours of daylight to work on Meditation, and then call it a night.

Sitting down in his tent he pulled open the web browser and delved back into the rabbit hole that was meditation research. He’d been looking into it a lot over the last few days, and after 15 minutes or so decided he’d got the basics down. He needed to do two things, clear his mind, and not fall asleep. Easy, right?

John wriggled around until he found a comfortable position and then closed his eyes, turning off mana sight as well, as it now allowed him to faintly see mana even past the obstruction of his eye lids. He then started breathing in a slow, steady rhythm. Breathe in the light, he thought to himself, breathe out the darkness. It was a silly little mantra, but he’d decided it would work for his purposes. As he breathed he imagined taking in a stream of light, and letting out a stream of darkness. Each time he told himself to relax, and tried to ease the tension out of his body. Thirty minutes later he was still trying.

After an hour John found his mind wandering aimlessly, and tried to task it back onto paying attention to his breathing again. Keeping it there was difficult, especially without ruining near meditative state he’d finally achieved, but as he continued he slowly felt himself sinking deeper and deeper into a state of concentration, and finally he felt himself enter that space that Still Mind had brought upon him. John just floated for a time, letting the world pass by around him, until finally a small chime interrupted him, knocking him back to full consciousness.

[Attention: You have been in game for more than 8 hours, as it has been determined that you are in a relatively safe space you will be logged out at this time. You will receive a one hour lock out, during this time please see to your personal needs.]

Abruptly John found himself laying in bed. Reaching up he took off the headset and put it on the night stand to charge while he stood up and stretched. Running through a quick set of exercises (as suggested by the manual) he prepared himself for dinner and bed. Tomorrow he had to till the field, and it was going to be a long day.

***

The first thing that happened when John logged in was a message from the system.

[Skill Gained: Meditation]

He wasn’t terribly surprised at the gain, as he had been fairly sure he’d succeeded at the end there. However, it was nice for the system to agree with him.

Standing up and exiting the tent John Looked out over the cleared portion of his plot and realized he had a problem. He hadn’t been thinking about it last night, but he had several piles of grass that needed to be dealt with before he could move on. He was tempted to till it right back into the soil, but he didn’t want to risk the roots sprouting again and having to fight grass. That left composting and burning, the former would take time and needed a composting location, and the latter he didn’t have the materials for, and couldn’t risk since it hadn’t rained since, apparently, before he’d first come to Runic Rock.

Looking at the piles he tugged at his beard and then sighed. He got to work moving all the grass off the cleared land and into the untamed grasses beyond his plot. After several hours the grass was out of the way and he was ready to begin tilling.

Lifting his hand he began to cast Move Earth, shifting the dirt in his plot to make it loose and ready for planting. It was slow going, he could only move a ‘moderate’ amount of earth at a time, and only for 22 seconds before he ran out of mana, then it was a 20-minute wait to recover his pool, during which time he sat and did his best to meditate.

For the next five days he tilled the acre and worked on his meditation, and during that time he gained six increases to intelligence and wisdom and, after much effort, brought Meditation to Apprentice rank. Standing from his final bout of meditation, John finished the last section of tilling and looked over the plot. Just as he was about to reach for his seeds, the thought hit him.

“How am I going to water all this?” He asked in exasperation.

The simplest answer was magic. The problem with that answer was a lack of Mana. He could only hold the spell for 22 seconds and by his best estimate he was getting only a few gallons per second out of the spell. That was somewhere around 100 gallons per casting, and in order to get an inch of water across an acre you need 27,154 gallons. That would be around 272 castings of the spell at its current rank, or almost four solid days of doing nothing but casting the spell. It wasn’t quite that bad of course, if he used the spell for a solid day it’d rank up, which would likely shorten the amount of time considerably. Still, perhaps there was a better way?

Both Theodore and Grandma Loren had mentioned mana stones, and if this was like other games those were receptacles for mana that could be tapped for use in spells. So what he probably needed were mana stones to draw from somehow, which would then give him the mana he needed. John nodded and rinsed himself off with Create Water, then started the walk toward town.

***

The town was much as he left it, bustling with people, though this time he noticed new stalls set up, hawking all sorts of goods, though most of it clearly was poor quality. Pieces of battered armor, tattered clothes, lumps of unprocessed ore, even some cracked and occluded gems. John slowed down to take it all in, and found that several of the stalls were also selling Mana Stones of different varieties. He was tempted to stop and purchase them right then, but he decided he’d check the price at the general store first.

Once more he entered the well-lit interior, and this time skirted around the other shoppers to make his way to the back of the store. Once there he found large baskets each with a little card that said they were Mana Stones and then listed their particular element. There were six large baskets labeled Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Light, and Dark, and then five smaller baskets labeled Time, Death, Life, Space, and Raw. The Life basket was empty, and the fire basket was only a quarter full. Air was about half full, and water and earth were each at three quarters capacity. The rest of the baskets were filled to the brim.

John checked the prices and found that the major elemental stones were going for only a couple coppers each, while the minor elemental ones (Time, Space, Life, and Death) were five coppers each. The Raw stones were most expensive at 10 coppers each.

Given that there were elemental types, John deduced that using the correct elemental type must have some kind of benefit, and he further guessed that Raw was pure, unaspected mana, which he supposed could be used for anything.

Unsure how many he would need, John grabbed a handful of the thumb-sized water stones and poured them into one of the nearby pouches (which he assumed had been placed there for just that purpose), and then put five of the thumbnail sized Raw mana stones into another, smaller pouch. Ten minutes of waiting in line later he found himself a silver poorer but also the proud owner of ten water mana stones and five raw mana stones.

Walking out into the bustling square he made a beeline toward the rock and checked its bench. Sure enough here was Grandma Loren talking with a tiny Ursine. “Grandma Loren!” he called out in greeting as he made his way over.

She looked up and smiled at him, then gave the kid some candy. The little bear-child giggled and ran off clutching its prize.

“Well, hello again John. How’s your homework coming?” She asked as she gestured for John to take a seat next to her.

“Pretty good, I’ve got Meditation and Mana Sight up to apprentice rank, and I figured out how to get measuring, but I haven’t spent much time on it yet,” He explained as he sat down.

“A good start,” Loren said with a nod. “If you dedicate yourself to it you could be done in a couple days. That in mind, what brings you into town?”

“Well, I’m about to plant my first crop, and the only way I currently have to water them is Magic. Using my own mana pool is taking too long, so I decided to come buy some mana stones.” He pulled out a mana stone to show her.

She looked at the stone and then nodded. “A good idea, make sure you use all your own mana before drawing from a stone though. If you just draw directly from stones you won’t increase your intelligence or wisdom over time, your pool and regeneration are like muscles, they need to be used.”

John thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “Thanks for the advice. Uh… can I ask you one more thing?”

“Of course, but I don’t promise to answer if it infringes on your lessons.”

“How do I use a mana stone?”

“You need an implement. That’d be a wand, stave, or even piece of jewelry that you set the stone into, and the implement needs to have skin contact with you. For the raw shards you showed me, I’d suggest a ring, or maybe several of them in an amulet or a bracelet. If you’ve got something bigger like an earth stone I’d suggest a wand, unless it’s truly massive, then you’d want a stave.”

“Why a wand?” John puzzled.

“Because it’s easier to point with. Remember that gesturing is one of the requirements of casting. A stave is unwieldy, and can only be moved so much. Rings, bracelets, amulets, even crowns and some pieces of armor don’t require that you hold them at all, making them an almost perfect choice. The middle ground is a wand, or short rod. They can hold larger stones, are light weight, easy to store on your person, and easy to point with,” Loren explained.

“What about some kind of wrist armor, like a bracer? Couldn’t that hold larger stones and leave your hands free?”

John turned to look at the owner of the new voice, it was a Draconid who’d stopped to listen.

“A bracer could work, yes, but usually you don’t find any with sockets in them, not if you intend to use them as armor anyway,” Loren considered. “I’m Grandma Loren, and this is John.”

“Ah, sorry, I’m Sally.” The Draconid, Sally, said. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

“That’s fine dear, I wasn’t trying to keep this conversation secret,” Loren said in a kindly voice.

“Oh, uh, so, why do mana stones disappear when empty?” Sally asked, looking a little awkward.

“Because a mana stone is just crystalized mana. When you use it, you’re unbinding it from its crystal state, if you use all of it, there’s nothing left to hold a physical form.”

“Can you recharge a stone then? If you don’t use all of it?” John asked, curious.

“Hmmm there are Feats that allow you to create mana stones, I suppose that’d also let you ‘refill’ a nearly empty one. Though it’s hard to get that feat,” Loren said as she pulled out one of her ubiquitous honey candies.

“Hard to get? I thought you just bought feats like skills and spells?” John asked, perplexed.

“Oh! Oh! I know this one!” Sally all but jumped up and down, Loren popped the candy into her mouth and nodded, prompting the Draconid to continue. “According to the forums there are hidden feats that can only be obtained by doing special things or accomplishing special tasks! Like the Dynamo Feat, which increases mana regeneration by 100% which requires that you regenerate one hundred thousand mana.”

Loren crunched on her candy and then nodded. “Just so, for creating mana stones you need to make a mana stone manually using nothing but Mana Manipulation and your own pool. It’s very difficult without system assistance.”

“Sounds like a good way to try training Mana Manipulation.” John said with a grin.

“Cheeky boy.” Loren swatted him. “Alright, it’s time for my nap, and you need to find an implement. Maybe Sally here could sell you some? She seems like the dungeon delving type.”

“Could I ever!” Sally said enthusiastically. “I can hardly get rid of these things, most of them are junk.”

“Good, then I’ll leave you two to it,” the elderly woman said as she shuffled off.

John watched her go and then looked at Sally awkwardly. “Uh… I guess show me what you’ve got?” he said uncertainly.

“Come on! My friend Ex has a stall set up where he’s selling our things,” Sally said, and then grabbed John by the arm, dragging him toward the one of the nearby stalls.

“EX! I’VE GOT A CUSTOMER!” Sally yelled over the crowd.

A thin elven man looked up from where he’d been staring into space. His look of interest became one of bemusement when he saw Sally all but dragging John his way.

“Look,” he said in a high voice. “I know business has been slow, but you don’t need to kidnap new customers for us.”

“Grandma Loren told me to sell him some implements, and then he asked to see them! I’ve kidnapped no one!” Sally said with mirth.

Ex looked at John. “Are you okay? Do you need an adult?”

John choked on a laugh. “No, I’m fine. I’m John.”

“Excelsior, at your service. Sally says you’re looking for Implements? What kind?”

“Jewelry and wands or rods!” Sally said and John nodded in bemusement. “Show him the good stuff!”

Ex raised a brow. “We have good stuff?”

“You know what I mean!” Sally all but shouted.

With a grin Ex started clearing a section of the makeshift stall, putting pieces of mismatched armor into his inventory. Once cleared he started pulling out items instead. Soon there were five items on the counter. Two bracelets, an amulet, a ring, and a short, stubby wand.

“And the other thing!” Sally said excitedly.

“There’s no way he wants that.” Excelsior said.

“You don’t know! He might!”

With a sigh and rolled eyes Ex put a tiara on the counter as well.

“Happy?” He asked.

“Very!” She responded.

John looked over the items. They were all clearly pretty poor quality, dented, chipped and scratched, but still serviceable. The Bracelets had three empty sockets each, the ring had one, the amulet had a full five, the wand looked like it could hold one larger mana crystal at the end, and the tiara looked like it could hold eight, three of which could be larger.

“Are these all from the dungeon?” John asked as he examined them.

“Yep! We’ve run it several times now! I’m level five already!” Sally said with an enthusiastic grin.

“Run is a bit of misnomer, we’ve not gotten past the second floor, and it’s currently a three floor dungeon,” Ex explained.

“Level five huh? I guess adventuring does level you faster.” John muttered.

“Better than what?” Sally asked.

“Crafting… well, farming in my case,” John replied.

“Farming? Like planting things in the dirt farming?” Ex asked, looking intrigued.

“Yep, food gives buffs, better food gives better buffs, food is made from ingredients and if I grow those ingredients, I can sell them to people who want to make food,” John explained.

“Nice!” Sally exclaimed.

“Well, that’s currently a better business plan than we’ve got, dungeon running isn’t bringing in the cash like we’d hoped. No one is buying because we’re all getting the same stuff. Except the tiara, we’re the only ones that’ve found a tiara,” Ex commented.

“Well, I do need some implements, and that Amulet and the Wand look about right for my needs. How much do they cost?” John asked.

“Well, the smith offered to buy them off us as scrap for a few coppers each, so let’s call it… two coppers per socket for the jewelry, and ten coppers for the wand,” Ex replied hopefully.

John mulled it over for a few moments and then nodded. “Alright,” John said as he deposited twenty coppers on the counter. “I’ll take the amulet and the wand.”

“WOOOO WE MADE A SALE!” Sally cried, several of the other nearby vendors gave her the stink eye. She didn’t seem to care.

“Yes, yes, simmer down.” Ex said as he passed the two objects to John. “You know, if you want levels we wouldn’t be opposed to having you join us in the dungeon.”

John shook his head. “Not combat oriented, it’d basically be an escort mission.”

“Eh, we could work something out. Let us know if you change your mind,” Ex said, and then John received a prompt.

[Excelsior would like to add you as a friend.]

[Y/N]

With a mental nudge John accepted the request, then did the same again when Sally’s prompt came up.

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind. Oh… hey, do you have any Earth Stones? I just realized I’m probably going to need some.” John said.

“Sure, we’ve got ten. No one is buying earth, and Theodore refuses to purchase any more. I can give them to you at a copper each,” Ex said.

“Perfect. I’ll take all of them,” John replied.