John returned to his farm three hours later, eight water stones richer and 16 coppers poorer. The trip to town had been entirely uneventful, he’d not seen Excelsior, Sally, or Loren anywhere in the square, and the shopping around at other booths hadn’t netted him any stones cheaper than those sold by Theodore.

Once back John wasted no time slotting the first water stone into his wand and began watering the field. For the next hour he paced up and down the field filling the trenches with water. By the time he’d finished he’d used up three stones and a small part of a fourth. Putting his wand away he quickly checked how often he’d have to do this. Unfortunately Google didn’t offer any real answers this time, as most sources stated it varied depending on a variety of factors he had no easy way to measure.

After a moment of contemplation John almost smacked himself. It would be easy to learn how often he needed to water his crops. He just needed to ask another farmer. As he contemplated how to approach the problem he received a prompt.

[Congratulations on increasing your level! 1 to 2]

[You have received 300 Leveling Points, please distribute them now]

John smiled, then frowned, looking at the number of points. He’d thought it was 100 points per level, but it looked more like he got 100 points per level, plus the points from the previous level as well? He wasn’t sure, he’d need to see level three before he could be certain.

As he looked at the floating text he found himself torn, he wanted to rank up one of his spells, but he also wanted to purchase new skills. Thinking back on what he needed most recently he sighed and then spoke.

“Purchase Enchanting for 100 points, and increase Mana Manipulation to Apprentice Rank for 200 points.”

[Enchanting purchased: 100 points.]

[Mana Manipulation rank up purchased: 200 points.]

Once more John felt a cool, water like trickle over his scalp, and he instinctively touched it to see if he’d somehow gotten wet. His hand came away dry and he frowned. Finding nothing he shrugged.

“Alright,” he said with a sigh, “Purchase the Blueprints Module with the Mana Well Blueprint for 50 USD.”

[Verifying Purchase]

[Purchase Approved]

“Great, now if I can just find 10 bucks more maybe I can purchase the tutor module too,” he muttered to himself.

[It seems you’re running low on funds. Would you like to contact an employee about a possible loan?]

John snorted. “No,” he responded firmly.

Shaking his head John opened his blueprints. Unsurprisingly there was only the one there labeled Mana Well. Focusing on it, John found he could project it into the world like a hologram. To his surprise the Mana Well blueprint wasn’t an actual structure, but a series of runes and lines that overlayed, and conformed to whatever he placed it on. Although so far that was the ground, his shoe, and a nearby clump of grass.

Pondering for a few moments John moved to the center of his plot and set about clearing a circular area about ten feet wide, using his wand and an earth stone to simply churn the dirt up and over the grass, pulling it under and then compacting the surface. That done he moved to the edge of the circle and started channeling one of his new spells, Create Earth.

Focusing he imagined a classic megalith, a large standing stone. Mana began flowing out of the wand and soon stone started growing out of the ground at a rapid pace and in just under a minute he had a standing stone six feet wide and long, and 12 feet tall.

“So far so good,” He muttered to himself and then overlayed the Mana Well enchantment on the rock. It stretched and warped to fit the new form, but eventually it settled and he could see the outlines of the runes and lines he needed to carve clearly. At first John gripped his wand like a fat stylus and prepared to carve away the stone using Move Earth, but then he realized that would be an inefficient use of Mana. He could use a minimum of one unaspected mana when working with Move earth, but the same held true for using aspected mana, which was far, far more efficient. In effect he’d be wasting most of a point of earth mana.

Putting his wand away John started running his fingers over the lines, whorls, and runes projected onto the rock. He made slow and careful movements, despite the fact that it meant he was losing mana. He figured that quick movements would lead to mistakes, which would then have to be fixed, wasting either just as much, or even more, mana in the end.

two hours later he’d gone through all his own mana twice, and all five of the raw mana shards he’d bought. Despite that he was pleased, he’d managed to cover almost a fourth of the structure. He was tempted to dip into his earth mana stones to finish it quickly, but he resisted and waited the thirty minutes required for his mana to fill up. It took him seven more hours to finish, during which time he had to create more than one rock to stand on. Finally finished, he went to bed.

The next morning John checked the field, to find that it was still quite wet, and that little green shoots the size of his thumb had already poked through the surface soil. Pleased with that progress he went back to his current project. First he examined the stone closely and fixed a few small errors he’d made last night. Then he paused to consider it.

Looking at the lines he realized that some were carved quite deep, and others were shallow. He also knew that was right, that the lines were supposed to be like that, even thought he blueprint hadn’t had a depth overlay.

He frowned to himself as he thought. How did he know that was right? Thinking about the process he’d been following he also knew he’d need to embed mana stones or mana stone dust into many of the lines in order to make the megalith function. How do I know that? He wondered, almost worriedly. One idea niggled at the back of his mind and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Help: is the system implanting information directly in my brain?” he asked.

[Answer: No. However, While the device cannot directly stimulate the growth of new neural pathways, it can give information as needed to encourage such through the act of learning while doing.]

“So it’s basically telling me what I need to know about a subject as I need to know it?”

[Answer: Correct.]

John nodded, his fears mostly put to rest. Turning back to his project he looked over the monolith once more, considering how many raw mana shards he’d need. His enchanting skill told him that he needed raw mana stones, though he suspected that if he used aspected mana stones he’d get an aspected well. Right now, however, he needed mana for multiple different aspects, so a raw mana well would be best. He could always make smaller, aspected versions later if needed.

After careful consideration he decided he could get away with just twenty of the shards. It wouldn’t be enough to fill all the lines, not by a long shot, but it would be enough to allow the device to function. Still, it would cost him two of his dwindling silvers. At this rate he thought he might need to start delving the dungeon just so he could get free mana stones.

Turning away from his project, John started walking for town… again.

When John arrived he found it strangely empty, with only a few players hanging around. Looking through the nearby stalls he quickly found Ex and Sally putting items on display.

“Hey Ex, Sally, what’s going on?” he asked the two as he walked up to their stall.

“What?” Ex asked, looking around.

“I think he means where is everyone.” Sally said as she played with some kind of puzzle cube.

“Yeah, that,” John affirmed.

“Ah, the Dungeon ranked up. It’s got six floors now and can support 24 instances at a time. Turns out that dying in it repeatedly does have some benefit, it makes it grow,” Ex explained.

“What’s an Instance?” John asked as he tried to get a better look at Sally’s puzzle box. It was brightly colored in blue and gold and seemed to be about the size of a small book.

“Basically the dungeon creates parallel versions of itself that people can go into. With 24 instances that means 24 teams can be inside at once, and each time the first floor is vacated another team can go in behind the first one. So the turnover rate in the dungeon has really gone up.” Ex placed some worn pieces of armor on the stall counter.

“Cool, what are you doing Sally?”

“I found it in the dungeon! It was part of our loot, it’s gotta have something good inside!” She exclaimed even as she clicked open the last of the slats and pulled the top free. “HA! I WIN!”

Ex leaned over and looked into the now open box even as sally pulled out a large mana-blue crystal the size of a human thumb. John inspected it.

[Name: Raw Mana Stone]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: A raw mana stone of poor quality, it currently holds 2,500/2,500 points of mana.]

“WOOOO I FOUND A MANA STONE!” Sally shouted. John and Excelsior both winced at the loud burst of enthusiasm.

“Tone it down!” Ex exclaimed.

“How much do you want for it?” John asked, almost at the same time.

Ex looked at John and just shook his head. “What are you going to do with a raw mana stone? The aspected ones are way better for casting spells.”

“I’m making a Mana Well and I need raw mana stones and shards to fill some of the runes. I could fill almost a fifth with that alone.”

“What’s a mana well?” Sally asked curiously.

“It’s a passive mana accumulator.” John explained. “It has a large mana reservoir that it refills from the ambient mana.”

“You’re going to blow up your farm, the same way you ruptured your core.” Ex said immediately.

“I am not going to blow up my farm! I bought the enchanting skill and the blueprint from the system,” John snapped back.

“How much did that cost?” Ex wondered aloud, then winced as he read something. “Oh, that hurts.”

“Tell me about it, but I just don’t have enough mana to do everything I need to,” John explained.

“You could use tools! And muscles!” Sally said with a saurian grin as she flexed a bicep.

John just stared at her for a few moments, considering. He wasn’t sure how long it would have taken him to do what he had with only conventional tools. Not finding a good argument he went with an old standby. “No.”

Ex snorted, Sally laughed.

“Well, how much are you offering for it?” Ex asked after a moment.

“Well, it’s got about as much mana capacity as four of the shards, so 40 copper?”

Ex looked at Sally, she shrugged. “We’re probably getting horribly ripped off. But we’ll take it,” he said.

John handed over the silver and took the mana stone from sally. “Sweet. One down, 16 to go.”

“Anything else we can get you while you’re here?” Ex asked as sally began poking the items on display. Occasionally picking a piece up and displaying it with exaggerated, showy motions.

“Nah, just here to pick up the mana shards. OH! And to talk with a Farmer, I really need to do that bit,” John said as he looked around the market, seeing several stalls selling produce and grains.

“Good luck then!” Ex said as he went back to putting items on the counter.

“Bye!” Sally waved at him as he headed off.

John walked a short way and then stopped at the stall selling an assortment of grains. “Excuse me,” he said to the older man who was watching him intently. “I was wondering if you could answer some questions for me?”

“I’ve time for questions if you’ve got cash for spending.” The man indicated his stock with a wave of his hand.

“Er, sure. How much for a couple bushels of corn?”

“Ten coppers per bushel, down to nine if you buy ten of them.”

“Okay, I’ll take two please,” John said genially. The man nodded and accepted john’s coins, passing over two bushels which immediately vanished into John’s inventory.

“You’d be the lad who’s starting a farm then?” the man inquired.

John nodded. “I’m John.” He stuck out his hand and the man took it.

“Frank,” he introduced himself.

“Good to meet you frank, I was wondering if you could tell me how often I’m going to need to water my crops?”

“Out here? ‘Bout once a week. Course most crops’ll be fully grown by then, so won’t matter,” frank replied.

John blinked as he considered that. “If crops grow so fast, how do you not have an overabundance of food?”

Frank gave John an odd look. “I’m not sure I understand the question. I grow a few bushels of grain a week, and people purchase as needed. I store whatever I don’t sell, which is usually a fair bit. Though that’s changed since you newcomers showed up. Might have to plant a whole ‘nother field.”

John digested the information and was about to excuse himself when he remembered a final question he needed answered. “Sorry, one last question. How do you thresh your wheat? By hand or…”

Franks gave a short bark of laughter. “By Hand! Son, I’ve never hand threshed a day in my life. Nah, Ellie owns a Thresher.” He pointed to a middle-aged woman running another stall filled with vegetables. “Lets anyone use it so long as they schedule ahead of time and bring their own mana stones.”

“Ah, thanks, I’ll be sure to ask her about it,” John said. “Thanks for your time.”

“No skin off my nose son.”

John nodded and left, though he wasn’t very far away when he heard a soft chuckle and the words “By hand!”