[Moderate Ruptured Core Debuff: Unrestricted Mana Regeneration]

John stared at the ground as he constantly continued to cast, his mana regeneration had become 870 instead of 87 and it was almost enough to keep up with continual use of Hasten Decay. Unfortunately he was still a far way off from finishing the field and was beginning to realize it just wouldn’t be feasible without ranking up the spell and having more mana. That of course was the least of his problems. It’d been three hours since he’d talked with Ex, and he was beginning to think that maybe he should call him again.

“I SEE HIM! HI JOHN! IT’S SALLY!” The yell rang out over the grasslands with enthusiasm.

“Hey Sally!” he called back without looking. “I don’t suppose you brought a healer with you?”

“That would be me,” said Ex as sally bounded into the clearing, himself just a few steps behind. “How bad is it?”

“I upgraded to Moderate Ruptured Core Debuff about an hour ago, my mana regen is 870 per minute. Which is insanely useful, but if this pattern keeps up I’ll bet that becomes 8,700 at the next stage, and there’s no way I can cast fast enough to keep up with that,” John explained.

Ex hurried over and placed a slender hand on John’s shoulder. A brief flash of white light followed after and John sighed in relief as a new message popped up.

[You have been affected by Cleans: Modurate Ruptured Core Debuff has been cleansed.]

“Thanks Ex,” John said with relief.

“No problem. So this is your farm?”

All three looked around at the barren patch of land with the single staked out plot.

“It’s a work in progress,” John said after a moment.

“I can see that,” replied Ex.

“HEY! He’s got one of those magic rocks!” Sally exclaimed excitedly as she pointed at the megalith.

“Okay that’s pretty cool. Does it do anything?” Asked Ex.

“Not really. When I set up here I got a message about unkown bonuses, but I’ve still got no idea what it does. Just looking at it is raising my Mana Sight though,” John explained.

“You picked up Mana Sight?” Ex asked. “What’s it do?”

“Just lets you see mana and learn spells,” John responded.

“Learn spells? Don’t you learn spells at level up?” Ex sounded puzzled.

“Ah, I took the Adventurer class, I can learn any skill or spell by doing it. At each level I get a number of points to spend to improve my abilities.”

“Well that doesn’t sound entirely, totally broken,” Ex muttered.

“HEY! I DID IT! I’M KING OF THE ROCK!” Sally shouted down from her new position straddling the top of the megalith.

“I swear, if you fall off and break something I’m not healing it!” Excelsior shouted back, he then turned to look at John. “So how did you know I could heal you anyway?”

“I didn’t, I just thought you might know someone who could.” John looked back at Sally who was still standing on the rock. “Is she always like that?”

“Am I always like what?!” Sally asked, looking up from her inspection of the top of the rock.

“Yes, she’s always like that,” Ex affirmed.

“Like what?!” Sally asked again.

Ex just shook his head and John grinned, neither deigning to answer. For her part, Sally harrumphed and then poked at the top of the rock before sliding down and trotting over to the empty field and looking at it.

“What were you doing?” She asked as she examined the squared off area.

“I was using Hasten Decay to make the grass I plowed into it decay faster,” John answered.

“Oooh, for like fertilizer or compost or whatever!” Sally looked pleased with her own deduction.

“Exactly. Unfortunately it’s taking way too long. I don’t have the mana to keep it up constantly, and even if I did I need to spend a full 30 seconds per foot of area. That’s only 120 feet an hour, and an acre, which is about the size of this field, is about 43560 feet,” he continued to explain.

“Oof, that’s gonna take a while,” Excelsior said.

“Yeah, I’m probably going to have to just plant and hope for the best,” John grumbled. “It’d be easier if I knew how long it actually takes to rank up a spell.”

“24 hours of continuous use,” Ex said as he watched sally poke about in the tall grass.

“Huh?” John blinked in surprises.

“It takes 24 hours of continuous use. Do you not read the forums? Someone timed it last week, cost a fortune in mana stones but some people have the money to burn I guess. They still have no idea how long it takes for the second rank up. Everyone agrees it’s better to just raise your level and get the next rank that way.”

“You get spell ranks when leveling up?” John asked, curious about the ‘normal’ leveling paths.

“Hm? Yeah, you get to choose a number of skills and a number of spells and they automatically gain a rank, then you get to distribute your stat points,” Ex explained.

“I get three skills and a spell!” Sally exclaimed from the grass where she was studying something intently.

“And I get two spells and two skills. Sally is a Mage-Knight and I’m a Cleric, pure mundane classes get four skill ups. You really should read up on the forums. Also, I take it by your look that’s more than you’re getting?”

“Yeah, I think you get 100 leveling points per level, it costs 100 points to purchase a new spell or skill, and.. uh.. One half your ability score times ten to get a new point in that ability,” John explained.

“Huh, that sounds really low… how much does it cost to increase a skill or spell?” Ex inquired.

“it’s 100 points plus the amount you paid previously. So Apprentice is 200, Journeyman is 300, and so on.”

“Well, your class still sounds broken, but in the opposite way now. I guess maybe if you focus on learning new skills and spells rather than buying them, but even then you sound like you’re going to be at a point deficit for a lot of levels,” Ex commented.

“That’s what Loren said, but she also said that it gets really strong later. But if what you’re saying is right, I’m not sure I believe it. It sounds like, by level ten, you could easily have several thousands of points worth of stuff.”

“I GOT IT!” Sally yelled over a sudden shrill keening noise. She then bounded back into the clearing clutching a terrified bunny in her draconic claws.

“Oh for Pete’s sake sally! What are we gonna do with a bunny?!” Ex shouted.

“Uh… eat it?” Sally asked with a grin.

“Do you even know how to skin, kill, and cook a rabbit?!” Ex looked at her in exasperation.

“Yup! I took cooking and skinning as skills!” Sally said proudly even as she wrang the neck of the still screaming bunny. The noise abruptly cut off.

“Well that was disturbing.” Ex said, looking faintly ill.

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to skin and then kill it.” Sally retorted with a grin. She then looked around the clearing. “Um… there’s nowhere to sit.”

“Nope,” John said.

“Aaaand nowhere to cook anything.” Sally was starting to sound less cheerful.

“Nope,” John repeated.

“Okay, I may have made a mistake,” She said, looking down at the dead bunny.

“Yep,” John agreed.

“Er… what do I do with the body?” Sally looked around, and then imploringly at Ex.

“Put it in your inventory and then we’ll cook it when we get back to town, I guess,” he told her.

Sally nodded and the dead bunny vanished, presumably into her inventory.

“Speaking of heading back to town, we should probably get going if we want to fit in another dungeon run today… and if we want to cook that bunny.” Ex eyed Sally who grimaced.

“Alright, thanks for your help!” John said, even as the other two turned to leave. “Oh wait, do you have any more mana stones?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah we picked up a few. Let’s see… four earth, a couple death, five water, one space, that’s a rare one. Um… ah, four fire and an air,” Ex said.

“How much for the Earth and Death?”

“One copper per earth, Theodore charges five per death stone, so that’s probably a safe price,” Ex responded.

“Alright, I’ll take all your earth and death shards then,” John said as he willed another 14 coppers out of his inventory and handing them over. Ex in return handed over the stones.

“Good luck!” Sally called as the two started walking away.

“You too!” John yelled back, then turned to look at his field once more.

He looked at his field for probably another thirty minutes, just contemplating. 24 hours of continuous use to rank up a spell, probably the same for skills. That was insane, it was no wonder no one did this the hard way. John sighed, and then grimaced when another thought hit him. How am I going to water the field?

With a shake of his head John created furrowed trenches the length and width of his field, evenly spacing them for flood irrigation. Where he was going to get the water, well, he’d tackle that problem later. That done he created light furrows in the raised areas. Then, taking a look at the time, he went to bed.

The next morning he started broadcasting the wheat kernels over the plot. At first he was worried that he wouldn’t get it right, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy, almost natural feeling and soon he was in a groove. He would throw down the seed, gently cover it with some dirt, then move to the next patch. Rinse repeat. Doing so he realized something quite interesting. He didn’t have to move an entire cubic foot of dirt at once. In fact, none of his spells stated that they needed to affect their maximum amount, just that they could.

With a little experimentation John found that he could move a comparatively small amount of dirt for only a single point of mana per second. While this was still a fair bit away from sustainable with his mana regen, it did present some possibilities for training spells.

John continued his work and just as he was finishing up he received another point in each intelligence and wisdom, brining both stats up to 30.

Smiling, John looked back at his completed plot, then frowned as he remembered he needed to water it. Silently he lamented not picking up some water mana stones, even as he considered the problem. Pulling up the web interface he quickly determined how much water was in a cubic foot (7.48 gallons) and that to irrigate an acre you needed 27,154 gallons minimum. With a little help from an online calculator, he arrived at a little over 3,630 seconds of spellcasting to irrigate the field, or, 36,300 mana total. If he used a water mana stone the cost would be cut down from ten mana per second to two mana per second; or just over 7,260 mana. John brooded for a moment; at this rate he was going to go broke long before he saw a return on his investment.

“Help, is there a way to aspect my own mana?” he muttered as he considered his options.

[Answer: It is possible to aspect your Mana using the Mana Manipulation skill.]

“Help, how do I aspect my mana using mana manipulation?” John suddenly found himself far more interested.

[It appears you are looking for tutoring in a subject. Would you like to purchase the Tutor Module for 50 USD or 50 gold?]

“Of course it’s not that easy. No,” John answered, then considered his options.

He could try to create aspected mana on his own, but that might end as badly as learning active drawing had. He could go back to town and see if Grandma Loren was up for another lesson, but he felt guilty that he only ever saw her when he needed something. Finally, he could of course go back to town and purchase more mana stones.

Putting away his excess seeds John grumbled and began the long walk back to civilization.