Logging in the next morning John went straight to his wheat field. The stalks were almost completely full grown; however, they were missing that characteristic golden hue. Tomorrow, in theory, was harvest day, so hopefully he’d wake to find them golden and ready to harvest. The corn was likewise looking good, having started to develop its ears. Nodding to himself, John grabbed the two fully charged mana stones and headed for town.

The walk, he found, was much more pleasant on the flat roadway he’d created. Being able to see where he was putting his feet was a definite plus. As he reached the end and started pushing through grass again he decided that finishing it would definitely be one of his next tasks. He’d just need to find time to fill the Earth Stones. He’d found (with some testing) that his amulet could draw from his mana well only within about half a mile.

Finally finding himself in town John started looking around. It was a little early for most players, so there were only a few people sitting behind small booths. A few, recognizing John from his previous spending spree, looked up hopefully, but sighed in resignation as he gave them a friendly smile and a shake of his head. He wandered into the central square and looked around for a moment before he finally spotted Ellie. He walked over to where she was setting out her produce in one of the permanent stalls.

“Morning,” he said genially.

“Well good morning,” she replied with a smile. “You must be John, Frank said you’d probably be visiting. Are you ready to thresh your crops then?”

“Tomorrow, I think? At least frank said it was a seven-day growth cycle, so here’s hoping.”

Ellie nodded. “Seven days for most crops, if you’ve got the right kind of magic you can make that shorter; most people reserve that for when they need a lot of food right now though.” Ellie explained as she set a basket of strawberries out. “Now, most berry plants take a bit longer to grow, two to three weeks for full maturity, and I’ve heard of some taking as long as a month but those were a rare variety. However, once grown they produce full grown berries every other day all season.”

“How about trees?” John inquired.

“Depends on the tree. It can be anywhere from a couple of months to a full year to reach maturity. Those you may want to use magic for. I think the spell is called Hasten Growth, if you’re interested. Though Grandma Loren could certainly tell you better than I.” She adjusted the baskets until they were just so. “But I’m sure you didn’t come here to listen to me prattle on about crops.”

“Actually, that was all really helpful,” John told her with a smile of his own. “I’m still really new to this and know only some of how it works in my world, which I’m suspecting doesn’t translate as well to this world as I might have hoped.”

“Better you than I,” she responded with a shake of her head. “I have a hard enough time keeping one world straight, two would be one too many for me. So, what does bring you out to my stall?”

“Actually, it is about the thresher. Mostly I wanted to know what kind of Mana Stones to bring with me,” John confessed.

“Oh, well, that’s easy. You’re going to need about four raw mana shards, a small earth stone, a small fire stone, and a small wind stone,” she rattled off.

“Will a small raw mana stone work?” John asked.

“Yes, that’d work fine,” Ellie replied.

“Thanks, you’ve been a big help.”

“No trouble hon, see you tomorrow!”

John gave a small wave as he left her stall and headed for the temporary stalls of the players. Looking around he spotted Sally wandering around. He headed in her direction and caught up with her in front of a stall selling odd bits of armor.

“Hey sally, what’s up?” he asked as she examined a bracer.

“Looking for something to replace my last set of bracers, one of them cracked and it’s cheaper to just buy a new set than to get them repaired,” sally said seriously as she tried it on. The bracer automatically resized to fit her. “Great, I’ll take them!” sally threw a few coppers onto the stall counter and scooped up the second bracer. She grinned at John. “Best part of everyone having nowhere to sell is that everything is cheap!”

“I was noticing that myself. Got a bunch of space stones for real cheap. Though now I’m wondering if it was worth it,” John admitted.

“Why’s that?” Sally asked as she disappeared the bracers into her inventory.

“I’ll show you in a bit,” John replied with a smirk.

“What?! No! Tell me now! Sally moaned.

John just grinned at her as he headed for the center of the square, where he found Loren sitting in her regular spot.

“Ah! John and Sally. So good of you two to pay me a visit.” Loren said with a smile. “Do sit down and tell me how things are going.”

John took a seat on Loren’s left and Sally sat to the right.

“How’ve you been grandma?” John asked while sally pouted.

“I’ve been alright, a lot less request for quests.” She offered them both honey candies.

John took his and popped it in his mouth, Sally just held hers. “About that,” she said. “Are quests even a thing? I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone getting any.”

Loren snorted. “They aren’t, at least not to my knowledge.”

Sally nodded and popped her own candy into her mouth.

Silence stretched for a moment and then Loren poked John in the side. “Out with it boy, what did you do?”

“How do you know I did anything?” he asked through a mouthful of sticky candy.

“Because you don’t need the priest class to be a correspondent of the Temple of Knowledge. You think I get my books from the local library?” She deliberately panned her eyes around the village square, taking in the rustic stone buildings.

“He wouldn’t tell me either!” Sally exclaimed.

“Oh he’s going to tell me because I bet I’ve got something he wants, and two can play the withholding game,” Lauren said with a sniff.

“Alright, alright!” John held up his hands in surrender. “So I found a bug in the way magic works, or rather worked. Basically, I used some knowledge from our world and a low-level spell to create an Opal.”

“What! YOU CAN MAKE OPALS!” Sally shouted, eyes wide.

“Calm down dear, he said worked I take it that Ledos fixed it?” Loren inquired.

John nodded. “We had a conversation about it, for the moment the spell just won’t work for it. He wasn’t sure what the long-term resolution would look like.”

Loren nodded. “No small thing to restructure magic on a whim, even if a major flaw is found. Do you think you could do it with something other than Opals?”

“Do you have the opal now?! Can I see it?!” Sally was practically vibrating.

John produced the mud opal for them to take a look at.

“Wow! It’s a lot uglier than I expected!” Sally exclaimed.

“Well, it is made from a spell used to make mud,” John explained.

“Not bad for someone so low level. Now, tell me what you got out of it.” Loren poked him again.

John shrugged. “He, Ledos that is, gave me some offers, divine blueprints, boons, or a voucher.”

“Hmmm interesting choices. Which did you choose?”

“I really wanted the blueprints, but I worried about the build costs and defending the completed structure. The money wasn’t very good either, so I chose the boons,” John confessed.

“What do they do!” Sally asked immediately.

“Well, I got three, one from Ledos god of Magic, Knowledge and Wisdom. One from Aarus, god of Trade and Wealth. And one from Idra, goddess of Civilization and Cultivation.”

Loren nodded as she listened and sucked on her own candy. Sally bounced up and down. “Yes, but what do they do!”

John grinned at her. “Ledos gave me the Create Mana Stone spell, Aarus increased my inventory by five times, and Idra gave me the Master Builder perk, which gives anything I build a 100% boost to its functions.”

Loren paused her nodding and considered while Sally all but exploded. “FIVE TIMES?! YOU’VE GOT 100 INVENTORY SLOTS?!”

Heads in the square swiveled at the outburst and some of the players started to gravitate toward the bench.

“Well that cat’s out of the bag.” Loren said cheerily.

“Oops,” replied a somewhat contrite Sally.

“It’s fine, what are they going to do, steal me so they can use my inventory?” John glanced at some of the players who had stopped a short distance away. “Sorry, not answering questions!”

The group looked at him, then at each other. They shrugged and moved off.

“The inventory space is nice, I’ll grant you.” Loren said after the curious players had wandered off. “But the real prizes are the spell and the building perk.”

“I understand the spell, but why the building perk?” John gave her a puzzled look.

“Well John, were you planning to just grow temperate crops? If not, you’re going to need a greenhouse or the equivalent. Though I suppose if we ever get a portal up and running you could have farms in a tropical region somewhere. Still, you can use magic to cool or heat an area, which is a lot easier in my opinion.”

John paused as he digested this. He hadn’t really given thought to tropical plants yet, but that wasn’t surprising given the way he’d been ping-ponging from one project to another. “I suppose that makes sense. And I guess they’re better for my long-term goals than the blueprints. But those were really tempting.”

“I’m sure they were, but I bet that in time you’ll be able to build lots of very good structures, instead of one extremely good structure. You chose the tools that will let you do it on your own, instead of the step-by-step guide that’d show you how to do one single thing once.” Loren sounded satisfied as she explained.

“Well, I didn’t pick the boons knowing that,” John reluctantly admitted. “Ledos just said I’d get a boon from each of them.”

“Still the smart choice.” Loren said. “Alright, sorry sally but things are about to get boring.”

“That’s okay! Ex is gonna be on soon and we’re gonna run the dungeon first thing this morning!” Sally said as she hopped off the bench. “Later!”

“Goodbye dear, good luck in the dungeon!” Grandma Loren called after her.

“Bye,” said John.

They watched Sally leave and then Loren turned her eyes to John. “Well, with the Create Mana Stone spell you’re going to want to learn how to aspect mana, aren’t you?” Loren asked and John nodded.

“Good, now listen carefully Aspected mana is all about perception, specifically you need to dye your mana with your perception of the thing you want it to act like. For instance, water is wet, that’s the most basic perception of water. Once you have a basic perception start adding in new things. Water is fluid, water can be vapor or solid, water envelops, water buoys. Think of its taste, smell, and texture, imprint those things on the mana as you draw it.”

As he listened John worked to block out the extraneous noises around them and tried to find his center once more. Grandma Loren chattered on quietly, extoling the virtues of water, the various states it could be found in, how it tasted. Anything she could identify about water was discussed. Slowly he sank from awareness into that place his mana lived. Once there he grasped it with firm mental fingers and drew out a strand.

He was pleased with how easily he handled the mana now, but didn’t let that distract him from his goal. His strand of mana caught; he pushed his will against it, bringing to mind what he knew about water. He began with something many people of his era knew. Water is composed of two things, Hydrogen and Oxygen in a two to one ratio. Pure water is clear and, at least to the human mind, tasteless. Pure water does not conduct electricity, though water heavy with particulates can be an excellent conductor.

On and on his thoughts went as he pressed his will against the single strand of mana, and slowly it began to turn the deep blue he associated with water mana. Swiftly he let his consciousness rise and found himself in the square once more, though clearly some time had passed. There were far more players and stalls than there had been earlier, and Grandma Loren appeared to have fallen asleep. Opening his hand palm up John let his mana unfurl within it. The deep blue mana sat on his palm like a placid pool and with a smile he released it.

[Skill Gained: Mana Imprint]

John’s smile widened as the system informed him of his success. He hadn’t expected to get a new skill, as the Help Module had told him that Mana Manipulation would let him aspect mana. If he had to guess though, this was some kind of linked skill, or one you could only get if you already had mana manipulation. If that was right though, then he absolutely needed to convince Ex and Sally to take Mana Manipulation. This skill would make them less reliant on Mana Stones going forward.

Opening his contacts he selected Ex and waited as it pinged.

“What’s up?” Ex asked, sounding a little strained.

“I had something of a revelation right now and thought I should share,” John explained.

“Can it wait thirty- nope never mind she killed it.” There was a loud thump and an exhausted exhalation.

“Sorry, we’re fighting some kind of roided out rodents, one of them was on top of me,” Excelsior explained. “Now what’s the revelation that couldn’t wait until we were out of the dungeon?”

“The Mana Manipulation skill opens up the Mana Imprint spell which lets you aspect your own mana.”

There was a long silence before Ex spoke again. “You’re sure?”

“Pretty positive, Grandma Loren just walked me through getting the skill. I had to use Mana Manipulation to imprint my own concept of water onto my mana. So it’s at the very least closely related, if not a requirement.”

“Damn, that’ll make things so much easier. What’s the conversion ratio?” Ex asked, sounding less and less out of breath.

“Sec,” John said and started converting his mana. It was difficult and required all his concentration, but it was leagues faster than using Mana Manipulation had been. “Looks like a one to one ratio,” He said finally.

“That’s good, really good. Can you aspect mana from stones too?”

John pondered that for a moment, and then started drawing from his amulet. It was harder and he felt himself mentally straining to manage it, but eventually he pulled a thin stream of water mana clear of the stones.

“Yeah, but at novice rank it’s just this side of impossible,” He said, voice carrying his weariness.

“Well, I’d be willing to sacrifice a few skill points for it, Sally says she would too. Thanks for the heads-up John!”

“No problem. I’ll see you guys later, gonna head back to my farm and tinker with a few things.”

“Alright, later man!”

“Later,” John said, and cut the connection.