John spent the morning sitting on the sofa slowly devouring a bowl of cereal. He knew which choice he wanted to make. Bespoke Divine Blueprints was the most tempting offer, he really wanted to see what he could come up with given the opportunity. But in order to have uncontested ownership he needed to “tame and work the land for a year and a day”. Obviously people couldn’t just come in and take it, but there were half a dozen ways he could think of off the top of his head to get the land out from under him. Release wild beasts, hire bandits, any number of shady but viable tactics, and if players got wind of it there’d be no shortage of people trying to push him out.

The boons were just as much a trap, they could make him the greatest farmer that ever walked the world. Or the greatest adventure, or the greatest chef, or none of the above. Finally there was the money offer, which (as Ledos had said) was the worst of the lot, even if it was totally safe.

He sighed and his spoon plinked as he let it fall into the empty bowl.

“What’s wrong?” His father asked as he went about tying his tie.

“I have to make a decision that’s going to massively effect what I’m doing, but the options are simultaneously too good and not good enough,” John complained.

“Well, what are the options?”

“A bespoke set of magic blueprints, that I have to obtain the materials to use on my own. A set of boons which may be exactly what I need or may be completely worthless to me. Or a gift voucher for 100 USD.”

“Alright, well, I take it that the benefits of the first two are leagues better than the money, otherwise you’d have already taken it. So, let’s talk it out. Bespoke magic blueprints, I take it those are hard to come by?” Derrick asked.

“So far as the forum is concerned, I’m the only one ever offered such a thing.”

“Alright, so there’s the rarity factor to consider, it’s worth a lot. But you have to source the resources yourself. I take it that’s going to be expensive?”

“Very, the AI in charge wasn’t sure it’d be possible for me to even generate enough money to succeed, at least not in the short term,” John said as he carried his bowl to the sink and started washing it.

“Alright, but would it be able to make you money?”

“Sure,” John said over the running water. “In fact, once it’s up and running it’ll pay for itself in practically no time at all. Problem is that I don’t have any way to defend it, what stops someone from walking in and taking it away from me?” He dried the bowl and put it in the cupboard and deposited the spoon in the silverware drawer.

“Alright, so security is an issue. You’ll need to hire someone to protect it. So that’s the problems with that option. Let’s talk about the boons. It sounds like they’re random?” Derrick asked as he checked his brief case.

“Not quite random, more that they’re being picked by people who’ll be giving me either what they think is best or what they think I deserve. It’ll definitely be a boon, but it might not be one I’d pick.”

Derrick nodded as he slipped on his coat. “Well, I have to go, but there’s a couple of things that spring to mind. Usually when people have a big project that’s going to make a lot of money, but don’t have the funds to enact it, they find investors, or take out a loan. That second one is not something I recommend. As for the boons, they’re a solid choice, they can’t be taken from you, they will be beneficial in some way, though you don’t get to pick the way they help you. What you have are a massive risk, massive reward scenario, and a no risk variable reward scenario. If you want to be safe, take the boons. If you feel up to the challenge, and are willing to gamble, take the blueprint.”

John thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Thanks dad, that does help some.”

“You’re welcome. Now I’ve got to go or I’m going to be late. See you later,” Derrick said as he opened the door and walked out.

“Bye,” John said to the already closing door.

***

John logged back in and looked around. Everything was pretty much as he’d left it last night, except the conjured chairs were gone and on the rock sat the muddy brown opal. He picked it up and willed it into his inventory. Sighing he sat down. He desperately wanted to take the blueprints, but there were so many risks involved, could he really justify it? It wasn’t like he could build it immediately anyway; the whole portal idea was a mad passing fancy. He didn’t have the materials and he was strapped for cash. He should just go back to farming.

But who was he going to sell to all the way out here? The locals clearly didn’t need his food, and he hadn’t done anything to make it special yet. Hell, what were his plans anyway? He had some ideas, but he really didn’t have many funds for them either. It all came back to money, didn’t it? On the other hand, the boons were free and potential game changers right now. He should take them. Taking a deep breath, he made his choice.

“I choose the Boons.” He said aloud.

[You have been granted a Major Boon by Ledos: Mana Stone Maker]

[Boon: Mana Stone Maker]

[Type: Major]

[Description: You have been granted the spell Create Mana Stone. This is a limited spell that may only be unlocked by divine intervention.]

[You have been granted a Major Boon by Aarus: Bigger on the Inside]

[Boon: Bigger on the Inside]

[Type: Major]

[Description: The number of inventory slots you have, and the amount each slot can hold, are multiplied by five.]

[You have been granted a Major Boon by Ira: Master Builder]

[Boon: Master Builder]

[Type: Major]

[Description: All structures you devise have their quality increased by one step, this increase can push construction past the Artifact ranking to Deific ranking. All structures you create will be 100% more effective at any task which may be affected by the quality of their construction. These bonuses stack with any other benefits granted by other effects such as Boons, and Racial Modifiers.]

John blinked and then pulled up his new spell.

[Name: Create Mana Stone]

[Description: This spell can be used to create Mana Stones, the type of which is dependent upon the type of mana used. The cost of this spell is equal to ten times the capacity of the stone to be created. The cost of this spell cannot be reduced by any means. The quality of the stone created will be based upon the user’s rank in this spell and their Mana Manipulation skill. The rank of this spell cannot be increased through use. The cost to increase the rank of this spell is four times the normal cost. Stones created by this spell are initially empty and must be filled separately.]

[Current Rank: Novice]

[Current Amount: Variable]

[Mana Cost: Variable]

“How is this not more broken than the ability to make opals?” He muttered to himself. “Can’t I just sell an infinite number of mana stones?” He shook his head and sighed.

Standing up he went and checked on his plants. The wheat was almost fully grown now, which made sense given the seven day cycle. The corn was only a day behind, and he realized he was going to have to start making plans for dealing with it. To make seed corn he’d need to shuck and air dry the ears, and currently he had nowhere to hang them that wasn’t his house or outside.

“Great, now I need a storage barn as well. I wonder if I can extract moisture from them using Move Water?”

His inspection of the crops done, John moved on to the land clearing project. Ten more minutes of work cleared another fifth of the land. Several hours later found the now barren earth dotted with more piles of grass, and netted John a nice bonus in the form of a point each to strength and constitution.

Standing up straight, John was glad that the game didn’t faithfully replicate things like pain and muscle strain with 100% accuracy. If he had to guess it was more like 20%, enough to know it was there, not enough to be a true deterrent. He could only imagine how sore he would’ve been each day if it did.

Circling round his fields, John returned to the house and sat on the rock next to it, opening the blueprint module once more. He brought up the ‘Portal Henge’ blueprint and examined it. Seeing it as he had left it, the ditch surrounding eleven trilithons and a single empty space, he began working on it again. The eleven outer megaliths were going to be Mana Wells. He’d bet that he only needed the Space Mana Well for this, but he’d wanted to expand his mana well anyway, and this seemed like a perfect excuse. Turning his eyes to the center of the circle, he hesitated. He had no idea what a portal looked like. Was it a large doorway? A circle of standing stones that teleported anyone that entered them? What?

He paused and opened the forums, looking for pictures of Portals. He immediately got a few dozen hits, one of which was by the same person who had posted about Mana Wells.

“Today we’re going to take a look at Portals. The name is a bit of a misnomer, it draws to mind the idea of a gate or an archway that you step through to go from one place to another, and truly some of them are like that. However just as many are what we might consider a Teleportation Circle, that is to say an engraved area in which anything that enters is teleported somewhere else. There are a few more variations on these travel structures, but those are the two main options.

“Now you may be wondering how to direct where the teleport goes or the portal opens. There are two answers to this. A Portal can be opened to (or deposit anyone at) a location the user has seen before. Allowing portals to be opened anywhere from the deep wilderness to the middle of a city (though that is strictly illegal outside of specifically designated arrival areas). Of course, you might be wondering what one does when they’ve never seen where they’re going before.

“Many cities have what is called a Beacon (please see pictures below). This is a larger stone, approximately the size of a person, that resonates with the location it’s placed creating a unique ‘frequency’. These frequencies are noted and catalogued by the Temple of Knowledge and are sold as a set to anyone who would like to purchase them. Once you familiarize yourself with a frequency you merely need to hold it in your mind while activating the Portal, and the device will do the rest.”

John browsed the posted pictures and sighed as he saw the complex rune work and sigils on both variants of the portal. He definitely would be needing a blueprint, which of course meant spending money. He was also going to have to install a Beacon, probably down the road a bit so that portals weren’t opening on his farm.

Shaking his head he closed the blueprint and got up, walking over to his current mana well. It wasn’t operating at peak efficiency, but he could fix that now couldn’t he? Focusing on his new spell he began to cast, drawing first from his own mana pool, then from the mana shards in his necklace, and through them the Mana Well itself. His mana writhed and bucked like a living thing, but he quickly took a firm grasp on it, his new proficiency in Mana Manipulation making the task manageable, if not easy. Guiding it he started creating a brilliant blue stone in his hand. As he worked it grew larger and larger, soaking up all the mana he could throw at it. When the mana finally ran out he was holding a small lumpy raw mana stone. He examined it.

[Name: Small Raw Mana Stone]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: A small mana stone of good quality.]

[Mana: 0/15168]

John frowned, the stone was much smaller than he would expect from the amount of mana it held. Each of the thumb sized mana stones held 2,500 mana and this stone held six times that amount; yet it was barely more than twice the size.

“Help, why is this mana stone so small?” he asked the air about him.

[Answer: Mana stone storage capacity is a factor of size and quality. The larger the stone, the more mana it can hold, but the better the quality the larger the mana density. That is to say, a better quality stone can hold more mana than a poorer quality stone. For instance, the mana density of the Good quality stone is three times that of a Poor quality stone.]

“That’s helpful in all the wrong ways.”

In truth, John had been fantasizing about creating Megaliths of pure Mana Stone. However, if mana stone size decreased the better the quality, it was going to be some time before he could even begin to build a monolith of that size. Pulling open a calculator he did a bit of math. The size of a small stone was around two and a half inches long, and about a half-inch in diameter and held 2,500 mana. That was about two cubic inches, and came out to 1,250 mana per inch. His good quality stones, therefore, held around 3,750 mana per inch. His well could provide him with 1,215,000 mana in one go, allowing him to make a mana stone with 121,500 points of mana storage. That came out to a total volume of… 32.4 cubic inches, if it were a sphere it’d be slightly bigger than a softball.

He frowned as he ran the numbers over in his head and then plugged a few more into the calculator. A poor-quality mana stone the size of his Mana Well would have a capacity of 933,120,000 mana before his Megalith bonus. That meant his mana well was functioning at 0.0174% (rounding up for sanity’s sake) the capacity of a poor mana stone. He’d known the capacity of rock was small, but he hadn’t realized it was that small. John shook his head; it was what it was.

Looking back at the mana stone in his hand, john used Move Stone to break it into a pair that would fit into the charging plate. After settling them into the slots he decided to call it a night.