The next day started as the last ended, with John communing with the tree. He sat with it until noon, trying once more to find that resonance with portals. The magic seemed to be solidifying in that direction, but he wasn’t sure, there were still echoes of other abilities he could feel, such as teleportation and displacement. He focused on the image of the portal the Knights had arrived through, but it didn’t get a strong reaction, likely because he didn’t know exactly how it worked. He did, however, gain another point in each wisdom and intelligence.

After noon had passed and he’d taken his obligatory lunch break john went and checked on the cleansing ritual. It had finished running and now that the bodies were clean, he could finally work with them. So he loaded them into his inventory and headed for the garden plots. He filled the first one with the bodies and topped it off with grass from a nearby pile. As he did so he realized the grass piles were starting to give off a certain odor, and that it was probably time to burn them. Turning back to the plot, he began to decay the bodies and grass.

As with his last experiments in composting the smell was both intense and awful as waves off thick air came off the decaying materials. As with the last time he’d used the spell, it took him almost five hours to finish off all 40 of the bodies. But when he was done, he had a rich brown sludge which he happily mixed into the dirt below using Move Earth. Following that, he created deep furrows for water to flow along and prepared the raised portions to hold seeds.

Using Move Earth he opened a hole in the plot wall and walked inside. The ground was unpleasantly squishy, and smelled, but that was okay. He started seeding the bed with wheat. It didn’t take very long until he’d seeded the plot with about a sixth of the bushel. He put it away and carefully covered the seeds in the dark soil. He then began to water the plot, a job that took a few minutes before his instincts told him that was enough.

John looked around at the growing twilight. It was getting darker sooner, he realized. When he’d first started, he’d been able to get up near four and go to bed near eight and have light for most of that time. Now, however, it was dark most mornings and heading toward true dark around the time he logged off. He was going to either have to work less hours, or learn a light spell. Or maybe make some kind of light enchantment he could wear.

He sighed as he thought of all the things he still had left to do. He needed to continue paying attention to the tree so that Green Thumb would kick in. He had to take care of the wheat field too now, and he needed to get and cleanse more bodies, which meant he needed more money. For that matter he should redraw the rituals he’d set up since he now had a better grasp of how they should work. He also needed to find time to work on enchantment. More and more enchantment seemed like an automation solution, and he definitely needed more automation. And last, but certainly not least, he was going to need more storage space. He’d need to build a barn, or perhaps pay the squires to do it. Speaking of paying squires he also needed to spend another few hours making life stones so he could pay for the road they were going to make.

Thinking of the road, John looked over the wall. Sure enough, there was a trench. The bottom of the trench even appeared to have sand and gravel in it already, no doubt the work of a Dirt to Stone spell. Someone had apparently even lined up the road so that it ran straight east-west from town, which meant it terminated dead center of his farm with a turnoff toward the shrine. He wondered if that was going to cost extra, he hoped not.

Turning back toward the cellar he created a small flame for light, found his way to the bedroll, and logged out for the night.

***

Once again John’s morning was taken up by feeding the tree and trying to coax it into developing a portal affinity. He was certain now that it was working, the resonance was even stronger today than it had been yesterday, but he also felt he was getting diminishing returns by reiterating the same knowledge over and over again. He wasn’t sure what else he should do though, and the roiling mass of magic within the tree was heading in the right direction for now. However, he did only work with the tree for four hours, as he needed to head into town and talk to Ex and Sally. This would be so much easier if he bought the communications module, but he didn’t have a lot of cash left. Perhaps he could make some extra life stones and save up the gold for it.

Standing up he dusted himself off and began the long trek toward town. Along the way he got to see the progress of the road so far. It had only been a day and change, but they’d managed to get halfway to town already. When he finally caught up with the current progress, he found six of the squires working together. They alternated between digging the ditch and turning the resulting dirt into stone and sand. They also did not look happy, with more than one glare being thrown his way. He chose, wisely he thought, not to stop and talk.

Arriving in town he headed straight for Ex and Sally’s stall where he found both of them sitting on stools and staring into space.

“Hey Ex, Sally,” he said as he walked up.

The two blinked and then their eyes focused on John.

“Oh, hey John,” Ex said.

“Hi!” Sally said with a cheery wave. “We were just watching some movies!”

“I figured it was something like that. Why don’t you guys run the dungeon more? It seems like you spend a lot of time in town.” John remarked.

“Limitations of a low-level dungeon, it can only split itself so many times. The dungeon can create instances, but only so many, so we normally only get one or two runs in a day. We already had our morning run, so mostly it’s just waiting around until our evening one,” Ex explained.

“Ah, you guys have any luck getting past that Prismatic Ooze?” John asked.

“Yeah! We teamed up with this ice user, Sarah, she’s great! It worked pretty much like you thought, it would adapt to one of us and then the other could get in a shot, so we ping ponged back and forth until it was dead!” Sally said, sounding pleased.

“What was the loot like?” John inquired.

“Mostly the same, we got a couple small raw mana stones though. Better than getting the tiny ones, but still not worth much without a market,” Ex said.

“Hmmm, anything interesting on the sixth floor?”

“Packs of large rodents,” Sally said, sounding mostly disinterested.

“I thought that was floor three?” John asked, confused.

“Nah, floor three is large rodents in singletons or pairs. Floor six is packs ranging between four and six,” Ex explained.

“And floor seven?”

“Not a clue, haven’t beaten floor five yet. Keep dying to the Rat King.” Ex explained.

“Tell me that’s not what it sounds like,” John said.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like!” exclaimed Sally. “A set of giant rats with their tails all tied together, it’s horrible! And they’re weirdly coordinated. On top of that, if you kill one the others consume it an get more powerful!”

“That’s gross and makes me glad I’m doing a different kind of farming,” John said with a wrinkled nose.

“Speaking of, you here because you need more bodies?” Ex asked.

“Yeah, I could use more bodies. I want to plant some corn next. Once that’s in the ground I can take some time to work on other things, like enchanting, and maybe Alchemy.” John replied.

“Ooooo Alchemy sounds fun!” Sally said excitedly.

“I don’t know about fun, but it could certainly be useful. I got really lucky and managed to make a Crude Void Serum in one of those urns. I was never much for chemistry though, so I probably won’t do more than dabble.”

“How are you planning on powering enchantments?” Ex asked

“Don’t know yet, I’d really like a Mana Well, but you need to be Apprentice rank just to follow the basic blueprint, and Journeyman to actually understand it. So it’s a long way off, especially since I don’t have a week to just sit down and work on it,” John explained.

“Well, you could try embedding Mana Cores in the enchantments, I read somewhere they can be used as a power source. Course we only have the poor ones, so those are likely to break,” Ex said.

“Yeah, all the ones I purchased last time broke when they were discharged.”

“Didn’t you set up some kind of purification ritual? Maybe that can purify the cores too!” Sally enthused.

“You know, I remember thinking that, but I’d forgotten about it until now. I need to redraw that ritual though, last time it almost failed to work,” John admitted.

“Well, it sounds like you still have a lot of work to do,” Ex said.

“Forever and always,” John agreed.

“How many bodies do you want this time?” Sally asked.

“Let’s go with eighty, that should give me enough for two more plots,” John said.

“Alrighty! We can pick them up during our evening run!” she said.

“Thanks,” John said.

“Same rate as before, right?” Asked Ex.

“Yep, same rate,” confirmed John.

“Excellent. A pleasure as always John,” Ex said with a smile.

John smiled back. “The pleasure is all mine. Thanks for the help guys!”

“No problem John!” Sally said. “Talk to you later!”

“Later!” John said back, then waved to the two as he headed for the square.

Heading into the square, John looked around and spotted Grandma Loren sitting in her usual place, once more reading a book.

“Morning,” he said as he took a seat next to her.

“Good morning dear, how’s the tree?” she asked as she closed the book.

“Pretty well, I think I’m making headway, though it’s growing much faster than I expected, I’m worried I’ve ruined its quality,” John admitted.

“Hmmm, you set up that ritual didn’t you?”

“Yeah, that was one of the first things I did,” he said.

“I don’t know much about rituals, but I suspect therein lies your answer. I’d bet the ritual has a growth acceleration component,” she said.

John pondered that for a moment. “It… did seem to speed up after the ritual was in place,” he said hopefully.

“There you have it. Besides, there’s no fixing it now so don’t worry over it. Besides, trees are one of the few things that can change their quality over time, assuming they’re well taken care of,” she explained.

“That actually makes me feel a lot better.”

“Thought it might. How’s your homework coming? I know things have been a bit hectic for you, but there’s no reason to go slacking now.” Loren said.

“Pretty well, I’ve got everything done except Hasten Growth. Honestly I’m not sure I’m going to get that one to apprentice rank. I don’t want to use it on the tree and the only other crop I have going right now is a small bed of wheat. Also, now that I think about it, I have this feeling it’s not good for the crops,” John admitted.

“It’s not, unless you know what you’re doing. I’d guess your farming level is too low, a Journeyman of the skill would know how to offset the effects of Hasten Growth. Usually the answer is more fertilizer, more water, only do it during the day, and depending on the crop you might want a secondary spell, such as pollinate,” she explained. “How’s your Mana Sight and Mana Manipulation coming along?”

“I’m using mana sight constantly. It’s weird, I thought it’d effect my ability to see things, given that there’s mana everywhere, but it’s actually really easy to ignore if I’m not looking specifically at it,” John said. “Mana manipulation though… I haven’t gotten a lot of chances to practice it. I use it whenever I have to make Mana Stones, and when I made the marble for the shrine, but there’s not a lot of time to just sit down and practice.”

Loren nodded. “You’ll get there, though I’m afraid you’re going to need it for more advanced spells. Normally I’d say you could buy a few of those at your next level, but with the sacrifice you made…” she trailed off.

John grimaced. “Yeah, I get the feeling I’m going to regret that later.”

“Well, what’s done is done. You may want to find a quest or three to help get you more points, though.”

“About quests, how do those work? I’ve only gotten a few non-deific ones,” John said.

“Hmmm far as I know it depends on the difficulty of the task. The more difficult it is for you, the more likely the system is to assign a quest. The reward is also based on how difficult it is and can range from almost nothing to Deific ranked items and great piles of leveling points,” she explained.

“I guess that makes sense. I haven’t really been in a lot of positions where a task was extremely difficult. Except with the rabbits,” he said.

“Just so. Though with your goals I wouldn’t be surprised if a quest or two popped up to help encourage your success.”

“Here’s hoping,” John said. “Alright, I really stopped just to say hi, I’ve got to get back to work if I’m going to get everything done.”

“Best of luck to you dear,” Loren said as she took her book back out.

“Thanks,” John said as he stood. “I think I’m going to need it.”

With a wave he headed toward Ellie’s stall, which was the second to last stop he intended to make today.

“Hi Ellie, how are the sales?” he asked as he walked up.

“Hello Hon. They’re doing pretty well, thank you for asking. What brings you by today?” She asked.

“Well, I was thinking of growing some fruits, but I honestly don’t know how to start a berry plant from seeds and I was wondering if you could help me with that,” he explained.

“Oh, that’s not hard hon, you just use Hasten Growth. It’ll work on seeds just as well as on crops, just don’t hold it too long, the equivalent of a day’s worth of growth should be fine. Something to remember is that you don’t have to use the spell at its fastest rate, you can always tone it down to get a slower speed out of it,” Ellie explained.

“Thanks, that’s really helpful, I thought I was going to have to learn a new spell to germinate plants,” John admitted.

“Nah, just Hasten Growth, do you know the spell already?” she asked.

“Yeah, Grandma Loren taught it to me,” John said.

“Well there you go then! Anything else I can do for you hon?”

“How much for… how do you sell the berries?” he asked.

Ellie pulled a small reed basket out from behind the stall, it was about the size of a small dessert plate. “I usually fill one of these and charge a copper for it.”

“Ah, alright, I’ll take one each of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries,” John said as he pulled out four coppers.

Ellie filled the four small baskets and covered them with tiny reed lids. “All yours hon,” she said as she passed them over and received her coin in turn.

“Thanks Ellie, I’ll see you later,” John said with a parting wave.

“Bye,” she responded with a wave of her own.

Berries safely deposited in his inventory, John stopped by the store where he topped off his meal bars and then returned to his farm, where he spent the remainder of the day making Mana Stones.