By the time John got back to his farm it was almost noon, and therefore time to log out and see to his personal necessities. However, he still had some time before that and he decided it would be best to learn Create Earth as quickly as possible.

Sitting down at the edge of his field he began comparing spell weaves. First he compared Move Earth and Control Flame, and then Create water and Evoke flame. It took him almost twenty minuets to determine the similarities and differences, but eventually he felt he had the weaves for creation and movement down. The problem was holding the weave for creation in his head while he also learned the weave for earth. He kept having to switch back and forth between the two, making it hard to hold completely. What he needed was a way to model the weaves in three dimensions.

Gritting his teeth John asked, “How much for the blueprint module?”

[It seems you’re considering purchasing the Blueprint module, would you like to do so for 20 USD or 20 Gold?]

He sighed heavily. “Yes.”

[Verifying Purchase]

[Purchase Approved]

Opening the blueprint screen, John quickly modeled both the weaves he needed in it, then he began linking them together in his best guess as to how a complete weave of Create Earth should look. It was becoming perilously close to the forced logout time before he had a weave he thought would work. After a few moments he found a setting that let him project the weave as a holographic construct into the world, and he soon had it floating just above his palm.

Concentrating, John pushed his mana against the construct, and after a few minutes of straining he felt the mana give and flow into the desired form. A small pile of dirt appeared in his hand and he cut off the flow of mana.

[Spell Gained: Create Earth]

John smiled and stood up, then he logged, just before the game kicked him.

***

Logging back in John immediately checked the information on his new spell.

[Name: Create Earth]

[Description: Create a brick, pile, or mound of dirt/stone/clay/sand/gravel of a type dependent upon the environment.]

[Current Rank: Novice]

[Amount: Small]

[Mana Cost: 20/ second]

He found it a little odd that the cost didn’t change depending on the type of material, but it was good for him with his small mana pool. Taking stakes and twine out of his inventory he began measuring out the length and breadth of his new wall. It didn’t need to be pretty, just functional. He was probably going to tear it down after this harvest anyway; he was going to create smaller plots, like Frank had suggested.

After measuring out the wall, and some time with the calculator, John determined it’d take somewhere around 16,900 earth mana to complete. That was almost seven earth stones. At first he considered just using just mana stones, then he stopped to think about it. Using Mana Drawing his regeneration rate was doubled, meaning it’d be 10 minutes to regenerate all his mana, not 20, meaning he could slowly create the wall over the course of ten hours instead. The benefit of using his own mana was that he’d work out his intelligence and wisdom scores. It was a little past noon now, call it one in the afternoon. If he worked a full eight hours, then logged for a short time, he could log back in after and work the last two hours… It’d be midnight before he was done though… No, best to work the full eight hours and then finish it off with mana stones.

The decision made, he started casting. Holding the image of a solid, granite wall in his mind’s eye he first used Mana Imprinting to color his mana with earth, and then began to create the wall itself. The mental effort turned out to be much higher than he expected, apparently it wasn’t terribly easy to use Imprinting and cast a spell at the same time, and he was grateful when he finally ran out of mana several moments later. For the next ten minutes John focused on using Mana Drawing instead, which was far easier on his mind.

Quickly after that John fell into a rhythm, imprint, cast, draw. Over and over again he performed the requisite tasks and a little over an hour later he had a wall that spanned an entire side of his field. He also had a budding headache, and he decided to take a few minutes to just relax before tackling the second wall. After 30 minutes he felt refreshed enough to continue and began once more. By the end of the second wall he officially had a full blown headache, but he wasn’t willing to give up just yet. This was good practice for both the skills and the spell, and something he’d have to learn to deal with if he wanted to use Mana Imprinting with spells.

After another short break John worked on the third wall. By the time he finished he really wished he was less stubborn, the headache was starting to edge into migraine territory. Still, he took only another 30 minutes, and then got back to it. By the time eight hours rolled around the wall was almost entirely finished, and John had a headache that pounded with each beat of his heart. Unfortunately he knew he wasn’t done yet. Taking out his wand he affixed an earth stone and began casting once more. It cost him one and two fifths a stone, but the wall was complete. Groaning he crawled into his tent and logged off.

***

John logged in the next morning and crawled out of the tent to find that the bunnies were back. They were sitting at the edge of his plot looking at the wall morosely, clearly dismayed at being stymied by the stone construct. Some of them were half-heartedly chewing at the nearby grass. Interestingly, they were indeed bigger today than they had been yesterday. Though the largest of them still only came up to his shins.

Looking at the field itself, John could see the now waist high grains were beginning to ripen, giving it a nice, waving field of green. If one ignored the bald patch where the bunnies had been at it. Satisfied he looked back at the rabbits and moved to shoo them away. With great reluctance and tiny growls they left the property.

[Quest “Bunny Business” Complete]

[For completing the quest without further loss of crops, you have been awarded 250 leveling points. For failing the hidden secondary objectives, you have not received any further bonuses.]

John looked at the notification and shrugged. He wasn’t sure what he’d missed out on, but the 250 leveling points were more than enough for him. He did a quick check of his character sheet to see how many he had.

[Name: John]

[Race: Basajaun]

[Level: 1]

[Mana: 280]

[MRegen: 14/minute]

[Leveling Points: 975]

[Attributes]

Strength: 22 Constitution: 22 Dexterity 10 Intelligence: 28 Wisdom: 28

[Skills]

Engineering – Novice Farming – Novice Inspect – Novice Light Armor – Novice Mana Drawing – Novice Mana Imprinting – Novice Mana Manipulation – Apprentice Mana Sight – Apprentice Measuring – Apprentice Meditation – Apprentice Swordplay – Novice

[Spells]

Create Earth – Novice Create Water – Novice Control Flame – Novice Evoke Flame – Novice Move Earth – Apprentice

[Racial Perks]

Disaster Prognosticator Megalith Mastery Plant Tender

John grinned as he saw that he had 975 points banked. That was almost enough for a feat all on its own, and most of it came from skill ups. If he kept gaining points like this he might be able to afford three feats.

Looking around once more, John began planning his next moves. First he needed to go into town and talk to Ellie so that he could schedule the use of her thresher, then he needed to work on clearing more of the land. He might erect a small hut to store some of his inventory in. He really didn’t need the tools on hand at all times.

As he contemplated storage, he looked at the field and realized something. He had nowhere to store his wheat. Worse, how was he going to carry all of it once he’d finished harvesting? He only had eight storage slots open, and each slot could only hold twenty of a given item. He might be able to bundle large handfuls of stalks together as sheaves and have them stack, but he figured that still wouldn’t be enough. And then of course he came back to the issue of where to store the kernels once threshed.

The more John looked at the field, the more he realized he’d made an error. He’d prepped and planted the field without having any of the support in place for the harvest. He didn’t have a wagon or cart to ferry his wheat, nor was there a road upon which to take it. He had no silo in which to store the grain, nor even convenient shelves on which to place bushels. This had been poorly thought out, with no real planning involved. John leaned against the fence and thought.

He needed a plan of action, one that would address these issues. First thing on the agenda was recoup his losses. He had most of an acre of wheat, which supposedly would produce around 60 bushels of grain, though given the poor quality of the wheat, the flood irrigation, and the bunny predation it was actually likely to be less than that. However, so long as he gained a few bushels it’d be enough. He’d have seed to try again later. So, harvest the crop but only process part of it. What to do with the rest though? For that matter, what would he do with the straw once he’d processed the wheat?

“I have to compost it,” he muttered to himself while he ran his fingers through his beard.

The problem he had now was the same one he had earlier when clearing the land. Where was he going to compost it at? He decided that would inform his actions after harvesting. He needed to clear an area, and create a composting site. A pit maybe. He then briefly wondered if there was a spell that could make the composting go faster and resolved to ask Ellie when he went to see her today. After that he needed to devise some kind of storage space. Perhaps a cellar or barn of some kind, maybe both. With Create Earth he should be able to generate the needed stone, even if it would be slow.

After he finished with the composting pit and storage he’d need to clear the rest of the land. From there he could consider designing new garden plots of smaller size. Then he needed some way to fertilize his plants. He didn’t have any animals, and without manure there was precious little else he could compost to create good fertilizer. Maybe he should get animals? He decided to table that idea for the moment, animals were a lot of work.

John snorted at his own thoughts. Animals are a lot of work? What exactly have I been doing these past two weeks?

Shaking his head he looked around at the farm and, finding nothing amiss, decided it was time to head into town and speak with Ellie.