Author’s Corner: Know this won’t mean anything to most of you, but I wanted to thank everyone for reading the story! World Seed was at the time of writing this bit ranked 7th in the weekly views, which made this author-sama very happy and motivated me to write a second chapter, enjoy!

Also, want to throw a shoutout to blitflame1 for editing the front page pic. We now have colors! Ooooh

While I was waiting out in front of the crafting ‘school’(it was a wide building which actually taught many different skills, from crafting to combat, but there was a fee you had to pay for each subject. The basic crafting tutorial for Yang cost five silver), I started to think about what I wanted to do from now on. Now that I had my advanced class, I could start training to be able to transform other people. From the information that Celeste gathered, the skill benchmark for that would be Advanced Level 5 in Mana Manipulation, and Intermediate Level 1 in Nature Magic. That was still a good bit away yet.

The first thing I would need to do would be to do some research. “Celeste, do you have any idea why monsters don’t spawn inside the cities here?” Obviously, they didn’t use the same void mana trick that I did, or nobody would be able to breathe.

“Sorry… no, but I could look it up for you, if you want?” I looked over towards a nearby terminal, and thought about it.

“How’s the lesson going with Yang?” I asked, while the other lovebird happily sat on my shoulder, apparently glad to be out of the grove more often now.

Celeste giggled slightly when I brought that up. “He’s used the term bird brained five times already. Wait, make that six. She understands the concepts, but not the means to implement them. He brought a knife out to show her how to carve wood, and she jumped back thinking he would stab her. I’m doing my best to help her to understand, but it’ll be at least another two hours before she is finished. Unless she manages to improve a lot, you’ll be the one doing the enchanting on whatever items she makes.”

I nodded my head at that. “That’s fine, I was expecting that part. And sure, since it seems we have time, go ahead and get the information. Not sure if anyone on the outside has it yet, but it wouldn’t hurt either way.”

Celeste smiled, and I temporarily let her take over, my body standing up and walking over towards the terminal. She did the same high speed information transfer that she had done when I had her look up clothing sizes, making the whole thing last just a few seconds. Afterwards, my body went back and set down where I had left it. “Hmm… well, this will be a bit complicated.”

“What’s wrong…?”

“Well… according to what I just learned, cities are built in three stages. First stage, scouting, to make sure the land is suitable. The second stage, is to set up the barrier against monster spawns. It doesn’t keep them out, just prevents them from spawning inside. The method is similar to what you used in your house, but more advanced. I can teach you the spell formation for it real quick.” After she said that, I felt a brief rush of information. Since it was only a single formation, as well as the runes that went with it, I was able to absorb it quickly.

However, the information made me frown deeply. The formation wasn’t all that complicated, but it relied on the presence of mana gems to function, and fairly large ones at that. “Is there a way to artificially manufacture mana gems?”

“No, they only form after years of mana condensing and purifying in a single location. This most commonly happens on asteroids, where they can be left undisturbed for long periods of time. In your world, where mana was just introduced, finding a mana vein would be impossible. However, there is an alternative that you might be able to do, a more primitive method that doesn’t need mana gems.”

“Alright, well don’t keep me in suspense over here…”

“If you refine an element seed of all seven of the primary elements, with each one being at least medium quality, and then combine them like you did when making your grove… You can create an enchantment on a large glass sphere that creates a similar effect. However, in this case, a circle will need to be drawn around the city and linked to the enchantment.”

I groaned as she mentioned that. While it was possible for me to do that for Oakland, there was no way I’d be able to make that for every city on Earth! “Anything else, that doesn’t require druid abilities?”

“There is one other. There are ways for mages, druids, and priests to all set up the barrier. For mages, it is the spell formation. For druids, it is the seeds. And finally, for priests they must construct an altar to their patron and pray for protection for their city. I didn’t mention that one first because, although it is the most common one, your world has yet to accept the pantheon. Building altars to what others perceive as false gods would create more problems than it would solve.”

“True… so we have one that can’t be done, one that shouldn’t be done, and one that is simply very hard. Why does it have to be a medium quality seed collection?” I glanced to Celeste as I asked that.

“Ah… well, that was an estimate based on the size of your city. Larger cities would require high quality, or even perfect seed combinations. The point is for the energy to be poured into a large glass sphere, with an enchantment of cycling mana. That will cause the mana to shift and spread out, keeping it from gathering in one place with enough density to spawn a monster.”

“I see… so smaller cities would only need low quality seeds, yes?” I looked up in thought, and quickly got a confirmation. “Well, that’ll be useful information. Do any of these methods have expiration dates?”

“Not unless the focus object- the glass sphere, formation circle, or altar- are destroyed. Otherwise, they will continue on indefinitely.” After saying that, Celeste suddenly giggled. “Well, it seems that Yang finally made her first staff… by singing to it.”

I suddenly recalled looking into my grove and watching her in her bird form sing to a tree to help it grow. “Huh, thought she would have lost that habit when she evolved. By the way, you said that Natural Craftsmen had the potential to create items on the same level as most technology, but how is that possible? No matter how you look at it, a wooden staff will never match up to a plasma staff, and a bow will never match up to a rifle, right?”

Celeste raised her lips into a grin as she looked back at me. “Ah, but it’s precisely because they use natural materials that they can do it. And the best is from formerly living creatures. After a creature dies, and its soul dissipates, the aura is left withered, a shadow of its former self. You saw that when you studied your scale armor. But because of that hollowness, that emptiness, those items have far more room for improvement of their auras.

“A weapon made of only natural materials can support roughly two or three times the enchantment as a processed item. With that, you could easily create a staff that can match up to a plasma weapon, or a bow that will never miss its mark. And with the Natural Craftsman able to modify the auras of natural items in the same way that you shapeshift yourself, they can create high quality items more easily.”

I felt myself smiling as I thought of that. If she was right, then I could get another good set of items. Maybe even better ones than my plasma weapons. “How much would it cost to get a Skill Shard for a Natural Craftsman?”

Celeste blinked, looking as if she hadn’t considered it. To be honest, I hadn’t either until just now. However, it was the easiest way to train Yang up without spending weeks for her to understand. “I.. don’t know. But let’s find out!” I felt my body standing up before I even had the chance to accept, and we raced over to the terminal. Turns out, the basic skill shards for advanced class skills cost one gold each. At least, if you buy them from a reputable store. Looking at my funds, I saw that I was lacking quite a bit.

“If I take the time to restore my grove, and then make another few batches of pills, I will be able to afford that pretty easily.” Next, I looked up Skill Shards that had information on cultivating mana. While I didn’t expect instant affinities with this, being able to use it to teach Yang how to cultivate would be helpful. And since this was information for only a basic class skill, the cost was only twenty silver. However, it only contained information about how to isolate an element and cycle it to begin cultivating. Identifying the element you wanted was left up to the user.

“I can help her find the right elements, Falenel.” Celeste spoke up reassuringly. “We’ll need to teach her Aura Sight first, and then from there I can show her which elements to focus on.”

“Alright. We’ll do that after she has the class.” There was one more thing I was interested in, and I found it rather quickly. A Skill Shard containing the auras of various sentient races. This one was obscenely expensive, costing ten gold per race, unless you had a letter of recommendation from a hospital. While some races may still be worth it, I didn’t really want to spend that much. In the end, I decided that I wouldn’t buy any Skill Shards, aside from the two for Yang.

Looking over to the terminal, I decided to ask it a question. “Why don’t the creators of Skill Shards simply use them on themselves in order to mass produce them?”

After a moment, the terminal answered in a monotone voice. “Possessing too many skills on a single person will cause higher level skills to decline. In order to not suffer from this side effect, the creators will only absorb the information of skills which they already possess, in order to expand their knowledge.”

“Huh… well, that explains that.” I shrugged, moving back over to my seat across from the skill school. “I don’t even really know about the ranks passed Advanced. Do you have information on that, Celeste?”

The AI appeared next to me again, nodding her head rapidly. “There are actually five ranks beyond that. The total list of skill ranks is Beginner, Basic, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, Master, Grandmaster, Legend, and Godly. There are almost no instances of anyone possessing a Godly level skill, aside from the incarnations of the gods themselves. For regular people, Legend is considered the true peak skill level, and represents knowing everything there is to know about the skill.”

I chuckled slightly as I thought of that. “How much would a Legend ranked Skill Shard cost, I wonder.”

“Going by the pricing standards they listed on the terminal just now… a Beginner level skill would cost half a silver, a Basic level one five silver, a Novice level one fifty silver, and an Intermediate level one would cost five gold. That means they increase by tenfold each time. An Advanced level skill would cost you fifty gold, then five hundred gold for a Expert level one. A Master one would be five thousand… but I suspect that the price would shoot up even higher than a million gold for a Legend ranked skill.”

Hearing the estimated price made me gulp. I was considering it amazing that I could earn one or two gold a day, but hearing that a Legend rank skill, the epitome of perfection, would cost me a million gold… And that was just for one skill, mind you. I also realized that the basic price of 1 gold for a class skill of an advanced class could even be considered cheap, as long as it was at least of the Novice rank. “Okay… going to forget any dreams of buying Skill Shards to quickly advance my skills. However.. what about ships? Do you know how much those cost?”

Celeste laughed lightly as I asked. “I knew that eventually you would ask that. You think about having your own ship all the time. A basic shuttle capable of interplanetary flight costs one hundred gold. This is without giving it weapons or anything, just the most basic version. If you wanted a cruiser like the Nostromo… You’d need at least twenty thousand gold. And then the maintenance fees, ammo, and so on would raise that even more.”

My shoulders dropped and I suddenly found my feet very interesting. “You sure know how to ruin a man’s dreams… you know that, right?”

“It’s what I’m here for, Falenel… it’s what I’m here for. Ah, looks like Yang is just about to finish up. Since she found out her singing Nature Magic works, she was able to complete it faster than I expected.”

Just as Yang was coming out, I got a message from my AI, alerting me that I was getting a call at home. Dammit, can’t they wait a few minutes? Well, I’ve got time thanks to the time difference.

When Yang came out, I congratulated her on finishing the training, which made her grin broadly and leap at me for a very tight hug which I should not have allowed to continue nearly as long as it did. However, after that I took us all back to the hotel, paid for the next two weeks, then transferred everyone to my grove so that I could log out and see what is happening in the real world that would need my attention.

Sometimes, I look back and wish I could have just stayed logged in.