John considered the morning as he did his midday stretches and exercises. He hadn’t had any more trouble since Lord Tragwynn had left, mostly (he suspected) because the knights had taken care of everyone else who might have disturbed him. So he’d had plenty of time to tend to his crops. He started by checking for weeds, of which there were (thankfully) precious few, and then moved on to checking for insect activity. There were some signs that insects were still a problem, fortunately there was no sign of disease or rot.

He had done a little more research since his last pesticidal attempts and had decided to try a different substance; kaolin clay. The material was said to be an irritant to all manner of pests, which caused them to ignore plants upon which it was spread. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure he could create it specifically. In the past he’d let the spell take care of the specific composition of what he was making, with the exception of sulfur, and that hardly counted being a single element substance.

For instance, John didn’t need to know the specific makeup of quartz, he simply pictured quartz and that’s what he got. Similarly, dirt and rock came out mixed the way they were supposed to be (though he suspected the dirt was sterile). The one thing he’d really enforced his will on was the nebula marble, and even then, he hadn’t tried to dictate specific chemical compositions, he’d just used an image of what he wanted it to look like.

Kaolin clay however had a very specific composition indeed and he wasn’t sure he’d get what he wanted if he just pictured a fine, white clay. He’d wanted to just try it and see what happened, but how would he know if he’d gotten the right substance or not? With that in mind he resigned himself to trying to force a specific composition.

He’d begun by imagining what the clay should look like, an easy task given the plethora of pictures he’d seen on the internet. Next he brought to mind the specific composition of the clay, which consisted mostly of aluminum, silicon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Finally, he pictured the models he’d seen of the clay’s chemical structure. Then, with a gesture and a thought, he tried to bring it into being.

The magic had resisted him, not as strongly as it had when he’d been making nebula marble for the first time, but enough to be noticeable. He’d pushed through and succeeded in creating a large pile of the powdery white material. From there coating the plants had been an easy application of move earth. He’d then moved on to the next greenhouse, and the next. By the time he’d finished all twelve of the plots he had a slight headache brewing, proof that he was pushing the boundaries of his magical ability. Fortunately, however, that had used up the rest of his morning, which lead to where he was now; heating up another frozen meal and considering his plans for the evening.

What he needed to do first and foremost was go into town and purchase any mana core he could find. If mana stones and cores were rare in the rest of the empire then it was only a matter of time before the nobles caught wind of the fact that people were selling them for coppers. Once that happened they’d probably buy every crystal and core they could get their hands on. Or maybe they wouldn’t? The crystals and cores were only poor quality after all. Still, better not to take the risk.

After purchasing the cores he’d need to find a ritualist to refine and combine them. He could have made the rituals himself, of course, but he was only Apprentice ranked and he didn’t have any of the resources the trial takers had gained. That meant they likely were better at making rituals than he was.

Once he’d taken care of that he could focus on expanding his domain for the rest of the evening. He was more than halfway done but was by no means eager to be finished with the task. It had been nice, this last week or so, to have some downtime in which he wasn’t constantly running around doing something. Once he had the farming well in hand he would be able to cut down on his working hours, and he could hardly wait for that.

Finishing his meal he cleaned the dishes and set them aside to dry, and then returned to his room and logged back in.

***

After checking with the knights on duty (who had constructed a nice little guard post complete with built in benches) John made his way into town. The walk was interesting as he got to a few dozen new buildings being erected by both the Titan guild members and the nobles alike. Some, mostly the ones the nobles and their guards were building, looked like proper houses, if overly fancy, while others looked like little more than stone shelters. It was also easy to tell who had and hadn’t brought dedicated mages, given that some buildings were being constructed in moments while others had clearly been under construction for a while.

Arriving in town, John found it to be a hive of activity. Apparently word had gotten out that nobles were arriving for some reason, and everyone wanted to be on in case it was some kind of event. This seemed to be both a good and bad thing, as it meant there were more people to buy from, but also some of them were already increasing their prices.

For the next two hours John went on a spending spree, buying up every core he could convince people to part with. About thirty minutes in word got around that he was looking for cores, and from there it mostly devolved into standing in one spot as people came to him instead. By the time it was over he’d managed to purchase 812 cores, at an average price of around a silver each.

Spending 8 gold and 12 silvers was painful, that was almost a full third of his gold. However, it meant that he now had so many cores that he’d had to get a bag to carry them. He had cleaned his inventory of everything except the displacer cloak and the ritual primer, but that still left him with only 18 slots of 20 each; space for just over 300 items if they all stacked.

Finished with that he started moving around again, looking for a ritualist that could do what he needed. There were more than a few to choose from, but he knew he wanted one with Ritual Master and a racial feat that increased ritual bonuses. It took about thirty minutes to find someone, but he eventually ended up standing in front of a very bored looking human sitting at a small wooden table and etching a metal plate.

After a few moments he seemed to notice John waiting politely, and looked up at him owlishly. The ritualist then put down the etching stylus and plate, sat up a little straighter and gave John his best smile. “Sorry, I got a little lost in my work there, you’re John right? The guy buying all the cores? Sorry, I don’t have any I’m willing to sell.”

“That’s fine, I’ve got plenty already. You’re uh… SlipperyWhenWet? Right? I’m looking for a ritualist with the Ritual Master and Ritual Mastery abilities,” John said.

“Call me Slip, and yes, I’ve got both those. They give my rituals fifty percent more efficacy, which means their resulting effect is quality is increased by half again. For example, a Ritual of Cleansing that’s good quality will be able to cleanse up to Great quality poisons before modifiers are applied.” Slip explained.

“That’s exactly what I’m looking for,” John replied. “I need you to make a few rituals for me. A Ritual of Purification, a Ritual of Fusion, and a Ritual of Imbuing.”

“I can do that, but all three of those are a bit more advanced, so don’t expect a quality rating above good,” Slip cautioned.

“That’s fine. How big can you make them?” John inquired.

“Uh… What?” Slip asked, looking a little surprised.

“Well, I need to imbue a big chunk of stone, maybe a rectangle about four feet tall and then three in width and length?”

Slip looked thoughtful for a moment. “I guess if I had a flat surface to work with that was big enough for it. Though I’d want to be paid extra for the time and discomfort, since I’m assuming I’ll be doing this at ground level.”

John nodded. “That make sense,” he said, and then paused as a thought struck him. “Hey, how does the Ritual of Fusion work anyway? The primer that I have just said it can combine substances and that caution should be used.”

“That’s basically it. There’s no real limit to the things you can combine, but it always lowers the quality rating by at least one step, assuming both items are of the same quality and of different materials. Items of the same material and same quality always maintain their quality rating. You can fuse poor quality items of different substances, but that results in items with a rating of Trash, which usually just fall apart,” Slip explained.

John pondered that for a moment. “What happens if you try to fuse mana crystals or cores with objects?”

“From what I’ve read, crystals tend to react violently when combined with other materials. No idea what happens to cores, they aren’t mentioned,” Slip said with a shrug.

John nodded, then asked his next question. “And how does the Ritual of Imbuing work?”

“Basically, it alters the structure of the material inside so that it’s more receptive to mana. Though weirdly infused items are also harder to change using magic. Infused stone can’t be shifted using Move Earth and stuff like that,” Slip replied.

“What happens if you infuse a core?” John inquired.

“You’re just full of hard questions aren’t you? I have no idea, not even mana crystals were mentioned in this one,” the ritualist explained.

John pondered for a moment before speaking again. “Well, it sounds like I might be paying you to do a few experiments as well, I’d like to see what happens when you combine cores with other materials, and what happens if you then try to infuse those materials.”

“Just so long as I don’t have to be in the vicinity when you try that. It sounds horribly dangerous,” Slip said.

“That’s fine, I’ll probably only need you to come back if the rituals get damaged, so you should be free to leave once they’re set up,” John agreed.

“Then I guess I can come make the rituals whenever you’re ready,” Slip returned.

“Now is as good a time as any,” John said.

“Fine, just let me pack up my stuff,” Slip replied.

John nodded, then got immediately distracted as a new popup appeared in his vision.

[Mana Sight has Ranked Up due to continued use. Journeyman to Expert]

[750 Leveling Points Banked]

The change in his sight was almost instant, the colors and swirls of mana he’d managed to ignore all became sharper and more vibrant. Further he could now see even the most delicate of strands, such as those SlipperyWhenWet had been maintaining in the ritual plate he’d been etching. There were to other major changes that he could suddenly see now. The first was that he could clearly see the mana inside others now, their cores were visible as glowing masses in their torsos, and he could see mana moving around in some people as they used Mana Drawing or spells. The second change was even more drastic, as he could see a massive vein of mana pulsing through the ground beneath his feet.

John stared at the ley line, for that’s what it had to be. It looked like it ran east to west, right down the main thoroughfare, and thus directly down the road the knights had built for him. That was great news, it meant that it probably ran right under his farm as well, now he just needed to figure out how to tap it. It was a bit odd though, why had they lined the village up so that it ran directly down the street? Was it a deliberate choice or just coincidence? He wished Grandma Loren was around so he could ask her.

He took a quick glance toward the town square, where the Runic Rock of town fame was sitting. It looked like there was a massive pool of mana sitting under it, with the ley line feeding into (and coming out of) it. Briefly John wondered what that meant. Was the rock some kind of ley line anchor perhaps? Or was it creating a pool beneath itself to draw from? Hadn’t Loren said she wasn’t even sure what it was for?

Shaking his head, John looked back to Slip, to find the man had finished packing up his items and was just staring at John.

“Is the ground really that fascinating?” the ritualist asked.

“No, but the ley line we’re standing on is,” John rebutted. “Mana Sight just leveled up to Expert.”

“Huh, that’s good to know, pretty sure there are some enchanters who can create something to tap a ley line. Might be good to get something like that set up,” Slip commented. “Anyway, let’s get going before we’re out of light.

John nodded, and then led Slippery down the road, and towards his farm.