For a wonder the next morning was neither rainy, nor overcast. This made John’s time with the tree and weeding the plots far more palatable, although it was still noon before he finished. As he ate lunch, he had to wonder how long this was going to be his routine. He wasn’t opposed to putting in the effort, he’d been doing that for over two months now, but the early mornings and late nights had begun to get wearing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure exactly what he could cut out and when.

The tree was growing visibly each day and he suspected that wouldn’t stop until it hit a certain threshold; what that might be he didn’t know, and until then he couldn’t stop his daily work with it. Though, if he was being honest, he didn’t actually know if his daily ministrations were helping it or not; the amount of mana flowing through the sapling was starting to dwarf the amount he could give it each morning. Given that fact, it might be time to start cutting down on how much time he spent with it.

The weeding was another matter, it was taking him a full three hours each day. While that didn’t sound exorbitant, especially for almost an acre of land, it was still nearly a full half of his morning. He wasn’t sure what to do about that though, he didn’t have any herbicides and wasn’t sure he’d use them if he did. A more mundane approach would be to lay down mulch, but he didn’t have much in the way of ground cover.

John’s fork paused partway to his mouth as a thought struck him. He actually did have a good ground cover available, and quite a lot of it actually. He’d literally been sitting on it for a while now. His first adventure into farming around two months ago had been an entire acre of wheat and the byproduct of that had been around 70 bales of straw. He was down by maybe ten now, as he’d been using them in the chooker coop, but that still left him with… at 60 to 70 pounds per bale, over 60 bales, somewhere near 2 tons of straw. That was enough for his purposes, possibly more than enough. Quickly finishing his meal John hurried back into game.

Reappearing on his farm, he immediately set out of the cellar. Once there he cleaned out all the straw bales and filling up three full inventory slots. He also ended up leaving a pile of equipment on the floor. There were all sorts of things he’d forgotten he had down here; the tent, his sword and armor, even the nails he’d started with. All of these could go on the shelves in his new house, he’d just have to remember to move them later.

Heading back out to the plots, John began to spread a thick layer of straw on the ground, making sure to leave a good three inches or so around each of the sprouts. While the work wasn’t exactly back breaking it was tedious and John once more considered purchasing the Entertainment Module. Not wanting to spend either gold or money on it though, he resigned himself to silence.

Four hours later saw the last of the plots mulched, leaving John with only three or so bales of straw left. He returned the bales to the cellar and then moved his stored items to the shelves in the house. This wasn’t actually any more secure than the cellar, as the only locks they had were bolts that needed to be thrown from the inside, but it was what it was.

With that finished John went and saw to the chookers, who’s evening meal had arrived. As he finished feeding them he got a notification that Animal Husbandry had reached Apprentice rank, granting him another 125 leveling points. With darkness setting in, John retired to his room and laid down. Content to spend the rest of the evening reading and sending mana into his land.

The next dawn was dark and wet, and thus promised a thoroughly miserable day. John made the trek out to the shrine, and paused before entering. Two of the new knights had been on duty yesterday, and it seemed that another pair had the duty today. The two were wearing heavy cloaks with their hoods up, clearly trying to ward off the rain, and for a moment John wondered why they didn’t just build an awning, or perhaps even a booth, which might provide cover. Then it hit him, this was his land. They didn’t have the right to change it, and they were probably observing the law by not doing so, if not just being polite.

Shaking his head John admonished himself for not recognizing it sooner. How often had Axia and Tet had to stand out here in the rain? That didn’t even mention he previous batch of knights; which had likely fed into their prejudice against him, no doubt. What should he build though? Seating seemed unlikely… He was an idiot, he didn’t need to build anything, he could just give them permission to build an appropriate shelter.

“Excuse me,” he said to the knight on the left of the bridge.

The knight, who looked like a very short, almost child sized draconid, turned their head to look at John. “What can I do for you, groundskeeper?” He asked in a sibilant voice.

“It’s more of what I can do for you this morning. I’m afraid I hadn’t given much thought to what it must be like to stand duty rain or shine until right now, and I was just thinking that you needed some kind of guard post or checkpoint to shelter under. Who would I talk to about arranging that?”

“Knight First Class Tet would be an appropriate person to speak with about that,” he responded.

“Perfect, thanks, I’ll see about talking to him today,” John said and then went to spend time with the tree.

Once finished with his morning communion and the chookers’ breakfast John made his way down the road to the knights’ compound. It didn’t take him long to get a conversation with Tet, as he was apparently not busy at the moment, and it took even less time to explain that he simply wanted to give them permission to build whatever accommodation was necessary for those standing guard. Tet let him know it’d be taken care, then provided him with his share of what the gateway had so far earned (a modest five silvers), and then sent him on his way.

Upon exiting the compound John found himself looking at a pair of large people across the road. They appeared to have claim spikes in their hands and one of them was pacing off a length diligently, the other just looked bored. It took John a moment to connect their large size with their race, and then he felt stupid for not realizing it immediately; they were Titans. But why would a pair of titans be setting up claim spikes way out here? John got a sinking feeling in his gut. He knew the answer, he just didn’t like it. The Titan’s Guild had arrived in Ruinc Rock, and they were clearly setting up shop.

He watched them for a few moments more, but ultimately there was nothing he could do to stop them. For all intents and purposes that was free land, even if it was closer to the Gateway of Worlds and his farm than he ever wanted the guild. With a sigh and a shake of his head he returned to his farm, only to find another Titan standing on the road outside his wall and surveying the interior.

John paused, uncertain whether he should just ignore the man or not, he could open a hole to get in just about anywhere after all. Unfortunately ignoring him stopped being an option when the man turned to look at John.

“You must be John,” the man rumbled, his voice low, but not as low as Axia’s.

“Yep,” John said, not feeling particularly chatty.

“I’m Chronos,” the titan introduced himself. “I understand a few of my guilders have been giving you trouble?”

“If by giving me trouble you mean destroying my things, yes,” John stated bluntly.

Chronos looked unmoved by the statement. “I see, I take it they’ve soured the well on purchasing the shrine?”

“To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have sold it anyway, but I definitely won’t be selling it to you,” John continued his blunt assault.

“In honesty, I don’t really care,” Chronos decided to be blunt himself. “They had some quest or another to obtain it, which would have been nice, I’ll admit. But the reality is there’s just as much money to be made owning the land around the gateway as there is owning the gateway itself.”

“What?” John asked, looking surprised and perplexed.

“It’s simple really, the gateway is going to be both a portal hub, and a trial location for some time to come. People are going to want accommodations, lodging, storage, and such, after using it, or while waiting to use it. If we own the land we can build taverns, inns, warehouses; all the amenities that people will pay to use,” Chronos explained.

John just stared at him for a moment. That wasn’t a bad plan at all, and John was annoyed it hadn’t occurred to him. Not that he had time to go building all those things, but he certainly could have claimed the land and then sold it, or rented it out. “And you’re telling me this why?” John asked.

“Because I want you to see that we’ve no need to be enemies. We’re going to be neighbors for a long time after all, and there’s no need to hold pointless grudges,” the leader of the titans said.

“Not sure calling it pointless is correct. They did kill me and destroy my crops,” John rebutted.

“Then let the blame lie at their feet, not that of the guild,” Chronos suggested.

“Isn’t the point of a guild to regulate its members and set policy? Do you really want your guild to be known as a bunch of players who just kill to take what they want?” John challenged.

Chronos seemed to pause and consider that for a moment. “Hmmm a fair point, I’ll talk with them and see it doesn’t happen again. Fair?”

“Maybe, it’s not going to get me my lost time back. As for future relations, that’ll have to wait for the future I suppose,” John stated.

“Fair enough,” Chronos said with a nod of his head. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it then, neighbor.”

With that the big man walked off, headed back down the road. John glanced to the two titans with claim stakes. They were still pacing off, it seemed they wanted a very large parcel of land which wasn’t surprising given Chronos’s professed plans. Shaking his head, John entered his farm, resealing the wall behind himself.

As he headed toward the garden plots, he briefly considered expanding his land once more. However, considering that he had the equivalent of 37 acres worth (most of which he currently wasn’t actually using) and his lack of desire to rent land out to others, it seemed pointless to try and out-claim the guild, which almost certainly had dozens of members working on it already.

Arriving at plot number 12, John opened a hole in the surrounding wall and stepped inside. For a moment he just walked among the plants, examining them. The plants were small, as to be expected given they were only three days old and hopefully of at least Good quality ranking. They still had signs of insect activity, but it was less than it had been. All told, they looked mostly healthy.

Satisfied with what he was seeing physically he focused on his mana sight as well. He’d had mana sight active for a long time now, well over a month of constant use (though only for about 16 hours a day) and he’d mostly learned to tune out what he was seeing magically. Now however, he paid close attention. The mana in the air seemed to be swirling around the plants, though he couldn’t tell exactly what was happening. However, as he watched John became more and more certain that this was the key to whatever made this plant magical.

Focusing back on the physical, John made his way to the southwestern most corner of the plot, and stopped next to the plant there. Crouching down he reached out and touched the plant. Frank had said he’d ruined an entire crop by using an alchemical pesticide, that it had absorbed the magic of the substance. The problem there was that the alchemical solution almost certainly hadn’t been made with pure mana, and he wondered what would happen if that was used instead.

Taking a quick look with Inspect, John got the plant’s starting information.

[Name: Alchemist’s Sponge Seedling]

[Quality: ???]

[Description: The immature form of the alchemist’s sponge plant.]

A quick look to the nearest plant in the row showed the same information. Having confirmed that the plants were functionally identical as far as Inspect was concerned, John began his experiment.

With an effort of will he pushed out a tendril of pure mana, and let a few points flow into the plant. There was no sense of connection like he had with the tree, it seemed that was indeed a special case, however he could tell that the plant was doing something with the mana, and it seemed to be greedy for more.

Slowly he ramped up how much mana he was extruding, going from a single point to ten points over the course of just as many seconds. It didn’t seem to matter how much mana he poured into it; the plant simply drank it up. By the time he bottomed out his mana pool he was up to 45 mana in a single second, with no apparent end in sight. The seedling had just absorbed over 1,000 mana in a little under a minute and showed no outward sign of it. With a thought he Inspected the seedling again.

[Name: Alchemist’s Sponge Seedling]

[Quality: ???]

[Description: The immature form of the alchemist’s sponge plant.]

To his disappointment there didn’t seem to be any change to its description John was, however, painfully aware that his Inspect skill was still at the Novice rank, it was possible he was just missing lots of nuance that someone more skilled might obtain. Still, did the plant seem a bit bigger or healthier? It was hard to tell, but he thought it might at that.

Standing from his crouch, John picked up his makeshift umbrella from where he’d set it next to the wall and held it over his now thoroughly soaked head even as he continued to contemplate the plant. Was it possible that alchemist’s sponge as actually some kind of manavore? Did it eat mana, or somehow supplement itself with it? If so, that might explain why it did better in some places than in others.

If ambient mana was a thing (and both Grandma Loren and the Help Module said it was so) then it made sense some places might have higher ambient mana than others. In turn, if alchemist’s sponge drank in mana, then a higher mana density would mean it could draw in more mana at any given time. The question was whether or not this was a correct summation. If so, he needed a way to increase the ambient mana, or somehow concentrate it around he plants, that would make them grow better. It probably wasn’t going to happen for this batch, but he’d have to keep it in mind for the next set he grew.

Finished with his experiment for now, John made his way back to the house. A quick application of Control Water saw him more damp than wet, and he then settled in for a session of land saturation. By his calculations he’d filled in almost a quarter of his remaining land now, leaving maybe 80 hours of saturation left. Given that he had nothing better to do for the rest of the day, he felt it was acceptable to kick back and relax while he solidified his claim. So he settled down with a book, and got to work.