After a quick stop in at Theodore’s store, john returned to his farm another silver and 60 copper poorer.

Checking first on his crops he found them to be a vibrant green and have grown slightly. Nodding in satisfaction he turned back to his current project and walked over to stand in front of the monolith. Taking out the mana stone and shards, he quickly identified the key runes that would have to be filled. Placing the first shard against the carved rune he used a small amount of mana to mold it into the frame using Move Earth.

It wasn’t precise, he couldn’t shape the gems into faceted things of beauty, but shaping them like putty turned out to be well within his skill. After a few moments of work he moved on to the next rune and repeated the process. Soon he was left with only the larger mana stone, fortunately it was no harder to mold than the shards, and soon he had filled the requisite runes.

Stepping back he looked at the rock with a critical eye. It wouldn’t be winning any design contests, and his enchanting skill (and the forums) told him that stone was a really poor conductor of mana, but it would have to do. Reaching out he touched the monolith and pushed mana into the runes.

Power rushed out of him, quickly emptying his mana pool and for a moment he thought it wasn’t going to be enough, but then he felt a thrum underneath his hand, and the lines and runes across the stone began to glow.

[Megalith ‘Stone Monolithic Mana Well’ detected. Manalogical Items can now be linked to and draw directly from this source.]

[Unkown Megalith has automatically been connected to Stone Monolithic Mana Well, capacity reduced by 25%]

John frowned at the messages. He glanced at the rune covered rock off to the side and saw that several of its runes were shining brightly. One fourth the mana capacity of the well seemed a steep price to pay for something that appeared to do nothing. Still, there was no help for it at this point. Stepping back so he could easily see the entire mana well he used Inspect.

[Name: Stone Monolithic Mana Well]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: Crafted by a novice enchanter this Mana Well actually came out surprisingly well. Due to being crafted by a race that specializes in crafting megaliths, all abilities have been enhanced by 25%]

[Connected Devices:

Unknown Megalith – 25% Capacity and Collection Reduction]

[Total Capacity: 1,620,000]

[Current Maximum Capacity: 1,215,000]

[Total Collection Rate: 1,125/Minute]

[Current Collection Rate: 843/Minute]

[Current Charge: 210/1,215,000]

John grinned as he saw the amount of mana it was producing. Intellectually he knew it wasn’t actually all that much. In fact, it wasn’t enough to fully keep up with any of his spells running at full tilt. Still, it was better than what he’d been working with. After looking at it for a moment he decided he definitely needed mana wells for Water, Death, and Earth mana as well. As he prepared to create another Monolith he felt a little niggling, and paused, letting it resolve into system supplied knowledge.

Suddenly he recognized that he couldn’t just add another Mana Well so close to the existing one, they needed to be designed to work together or they would simply interfere with each other. With a sigh John gave up on that for the moment, as he couldn’t think of how that would be done.

Shaking his head John considered how to best go about filling his various empty stones. He could link the amulet and the wand directly to the monolith, and he would, but that would only charge the stones they held. He could… he could create a charging plinth, with sockets for gems to go in. Or at least he seemed to know the theory of how to do so.

First he linked the Amulet to the monolith, meaning it would now charge its stones whenever he was in range, and then he took out his wand again. A few moments later he had a standing plinth, it’s top the size of a serving platter and set at a 45 degree angle. Hesitantly he started drawing runes, symbols, and lines on it.

After a couple hours of careful concentration, and having to redo more than one section, he had finished the carving. Then he took three of the mana shards out of his amulet and lined several of the runes with them. Stepping back he eyed the device and triggered Inspect.

[Name: Stone Charging Plate]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: Crafted by a novice enchanter this charging plate can be used to move mana from a Mana Well to Mana Stones.]

[Connected Devices:

Stone Monolithic Mana Well – 25% Efficiency]

John nodded and placed his empty water stones in three of the eight sockets. He watched proudly as they began to glow with a faint light. Pulling up a calculator and doing some quick math he determined that the stones would be filled in about five and a half hours. A moment later a new prompt intruded.

[Congratulations on increasing your level! 2 to 3]

[You have received 600 Leveling Points, please distribute them now]

John smiled, pleased, but also puzzled. He’d received 600 points this time, that was 100 per level, plus all the points of the previous two levels. He wondered if it kept going at this rate. It couldn’t, could it? He’d have tens of thousands of points per level by 20, there’d be virtually nothing to spend it on. Shaking his head he began distributing points.

“Increase Hasten Decay to Apprentice Rank, Increase Enchanting to Apprentice Rank, increase Farming to Apprentice rank,” he said with little thought.

[Hasten Decay rank up purchased: 200 points.]

[Enchanting rank up purchased: 200 points.]

[Farming rank up purchased: 200 points.]

[Name: Hasten Decay]

[Description: This spell speeds the aging process of all things, dealing entropic damage to whatever it is targeted at.]

[Current Rank: Apprentice]

[Current Amount: 2 creatures, or V = (2*L)3 ft3]

[Current Rate: 1 week per second]

[Mana Cost: 15/CF/second]

There came that same trickle of coolness across his scalp he’d come to expect, though he was still unsure what it meant. The game wasn’t implanting knowledge, or so it said, so what was that sensation?

“Help: Why does it feel like cool water is trickling across my scalp when I gain new skills?”

[Answer: The sensation is provided to give the feel that something is materially changing, thereby improving immersion.]

John eyed the prompt skeptically, but decided to accept it for now. Looking over both the Mana Well and the Charging plate he saw plenty of mistakes he could now correct, but he decided to leave those for the moment, as the well was serving its purpose. He’d definitely want to fix them later though.

Turning back to his farm he decided that what he needed to do next was finish clearing the land. With the earth mana stones he should be able to make quick work of it by tilling the soil up and over the grass and simply burying it directly. So, with a flick of his wand, he got to work.

It was amazing how fast the work got finished with sufficient mana to do the task. It took him only 30 minutes to clear the rest of the plot, leaving him with a little more than three acres of cleared land, not including the area his current field covered. Next, of course, he had to decide what to do with it.

First, he decided, he would need to erect some kind of building, he was tired of putting his avatar to sleep in a small tent at the edge of his plot. He needed some kind of house. After some consideration he decided to build a simple, one room cottage. The walls would obviously be made of stone, the roof would be harder though. While there was a small copse of trees nearby, he didn’t know the first thing about turning a tree into roof supports; and he definitely wasn’t willing to waste leveling points to find out how. He supposed he could burn that bridge when he came to it.

For a moment he just walked the plot, deciding where he’d put the building. Eventually he decided on the north-eastern section. The first thing he did was outline the area with stakes and twine. He then spent nearly an hour straightening and restraightening the lines; in the end he was mostly satisfied.

Once he was finished defining the area he started digging the foundation. He honestly wasn’t sure how deep it should go, but some googling seemed to indicate that it needed to go below the frost line by about twelve inches. Having no idea how deep the frost line was, he decided a yard would probably be safe.

After compressing as much dirt into the walls and floor as he could, John was still left with a large pile. Unsure what to do with it he moved it off to one side and focused instead on filling the new foundation with stone. Almost three minutes later he had filled the entire hole with a solid plug of hard granite. He then began growing the stone up into walls half a foot thick. Once the walls had reached about a foot past his head he stopped growing them and considered his next move.

First he used Move Earth to shape a doorway in what he decided was the ‘front’ of the house. Then he added windows on all the sides; placing the resulting slabs of stone with the mound of dirt. Then he tried something new. Instead of simply letting the spell create the most appropriate stone for the region, John concentrated on what he wanted, crystal clear quartz.

As he began, he felt like he was trying to grasp mana with slippery fingers once more, and this time it was actively resisting him. Fortunately, with his upgraded mana manipulation he found he could keep adequate hold, and guided the power into the shape he wanted, filling each of the windows with the clear quartz he imagined. Satisfied with the work he let go of the spell and put his wand away.

Stepping out of the building he looked up and considered the roof, or rather lack thereof, and he wondered if he could grow an arched roof using stone supports. With a shrug of his shoulders he decided there was no reason not to try. Stepping back into the room he took his wand out once more and began raising stone pillars. It took him three tries before he got one up without it collapsing.