On his way back to the farm John tried to experiment with his new skill, only to find that he couldn’t concentrate on it while he walked. With a sigh of annoyance he got back to walking and soon enough his clearing came into sight; as did the small group of people milling around in it. John stopped short, looking that the group of (what he assumed were) players.

“See! I told you this road lead somewhere!” an elven woman in dark leathers was saying.

“Sure, it’s lead us right to a farm. Not even a good farm, it’s only got two plots, a hut, and whatever those giant rocks are,” a large, almost eight-foot-tall man in mismatched plate said.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a Mana Well actually,” spoke the third member of the party, a beefy human wearing chain.

“Yeah? What’s a mana well?” the elven woman asked.

John decided now was a good time to step in. “It’s a device that passively charges from ambient mana and can be tapped to power things.”

The three looked at each other and then turned around to look at John.

“Uh… Hi?” said the elf.

“Whoa, hairy,” said the Human.

“That’s rude hax,” said the giant.

“Hi,” replied John. “So… uh. What brings you all to my farm?”

“Oh, this is your farm? It’s um…” the giant started.

“Not very good?” John asked, the giant winced. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve never farmed before so it’s bound to be rocky at the start.”

“Well you got them to come up out of the ground, that’s more than I’ve ever managed. Then again, I’ve never tried farming in a video game before. Not my style,” The elven woman chimed in.

“Riveting as this agricultural conversation is, one of us should probably answer the actual question,” the beefy guy said with a roll of his eyes. “We found your road and wondered where it went, honestly both I and Ball were pretty sure it went nowhere interesting, and surprise, it didn’t. No offense.”

“Saying no offense doesn’t actually make it less offensive Hax.” The elven woman gave the beefy man, who was apparently called Hax, a look.

Hax just shrugged unapologetically.

“Sorry, can we start over? I’m Baulder, this is Haxxor, and that’s Ilithanil,” said the giant.

“I’m John, nice to meet you, and welcome to my farm.” John gestured expansively.

“Why are we starting over? I thought everything was going fine,” Hax said.

“Because you’re being rude and Ball wants to make a favorable impression,” Ilithanil retorted.

“Why? He’s just some guy with an admittedly crappy farm. No offense.”

Baulder sighed and Ilithanil rolled her eyes, John just shook his head.

“Because it costs nothing to be courteous to other people and you never know who’s going to be helpful. For instance, John has a Mana Well. Given his description, it’s got to be a magic item, which either means he can enchant, or knows someone who can. Now what’s more likely to get us his help with getting our own enchanted items? Being nice, or being an asshole?” Baulder asked in an exasperated tone.

“Oh, well if that’s all we want. Hey John, know where we can get some sweet enchants for our gear?” Hax looked at John, completely unrepentant.

“Nope, I don’t have the engraving, embroidery, etching, or… What do you call it when you make patterns and designs on leather? For that matter how do you make patterns and designs on leather? Let’s just call it Leatherworking. I don’t have any of those skills. Just enchanting.”

“You’ve gotta have stone carving at least,” hax pressed.

“Nope, I used Move Earth to pull off the material in the patterns I needed.”

“There, see?” Hax turned to Baulder looking smug. “Not helpful to us.”

Baulder sighed again. Ilithanil looked like she wanted to hit Hax, but womanfully resisted the urge.

“Anything else I can help you guys with?” John asked politely.

“Not really,” Hax replied.

Ilithanil shook her head.

“No, thanks though, and sorry for bothering you,” came Baulder’s reply.

“No trouble, today is a slow day anyway.”

The three started off down the road back to town, quietly bickering with Hax. John shook his head in bemusement as he turned back to his farm. He really needed to decide what to do next.

Wandering over to the Mana Well he examined it and found that it’d finished filling up. Paused, considering what he wanted to do with all that mana. He could make a large mana stone, and he was going to have to start stockpiling them at some point for what he wanted. The biggest problem with that idea, however, was that he was pretty sure he wanted to increase Mana Manipulation again next level, and that might raise the quality of his mana stones again.

While this would mean the mana stones he could make would be smaller, it also meant that whatever he built out of them would be better. Given the long time between level ups he normally wouldn’t wait for it, but he felt certain one would be coming after his harvest. So instead he turned his mind toward what he needed next. Specifically storage for his grain, and a place to dry his corn.

The problem of storing grain was how to go about it. He didn’t have large throughput on his grains, so a few bags would probably be enough for the finished product. However he needed a dry, cool place to store it. Normally this would mean an underground area, such as a cellar. But how did he keep it from flooding, further, how did he keep rodents out? He considered this predicament for a few moments, and then realized he was once again falling into the trap of thinking about this like the real world. There was almost certainly a magical solution for his problem, all he had to do was think about it.

It took a moment, but eventually he dredged up an enchantment that would prevent creatures of a given size or smaller from passing a boundary. A few more minutes of thought netted him an enchantment that would keep out water and heat. Satisfied he chose a section of earth next to his cottage and staked out a box that was roughly 21 feet to a side. Stepping back he reviewed the stakes, and then adjusted them a few times until he was satisfied that they were straight enough.

At first John was tempted to try imprinting his mana and casting a spell at the same time. Then, however, he remembered how his last attempt at splitting his focus had gone, and decided against it. So, with only one option left, John took out his wand and affixed an earth stone to it. Next he began to draw from the Well using his amulet. As he drew in the mana he began to imprint his understanding of earth on it.

What is Earth? He thought to himself. Earth is dirt, soil, stone, rocks. Silicone is pretty common, usually found as quartz. He thought of all the little factoids one picks up over time, and then moved on to other things. The smell of rock, of soil both damp and dry. Eventually it all ‘clicked’ and the mana he was holding turned the deep brown he associated with Earth mana.

Quickly John began feeding the mana into the stone, and found that with each moment that passed it became easier to hold the imprint. Soon the earth stone was filled and he released his hold on the mana. Examining the stone he found it just as he expected, filled. With a small grin he turned toward the staked off area and started moving and compressing the dirt to make a hole. He had to stop and fill the earth stone three more times before he was finished. However, in the end, he had a hole 21 feet to a side, 10 feet deep, and a ramp with about a 15-degree incline.

John stepped back and looked at it with a critical eye. He didn’t like the ramp, it was much too long at almost 35 feet in length. However, any steeper of an incline would be difficult to get a wheelbarrow up and down. John paused, he was an idiot, he didn’t need a wheelbarrow, his inventory could carry more than that. He’d never be in a position of throwing something over his shoulder or putting it in a wheeled conveyance smaller than an actual wagon. If he could lift it, it could go in his inventory. With a shake of his head, he filled in the ramp and then dug a hole for a set of five foot wide stairs instead.

Satisfied john started laying down stone. First he covered the bottom and then the walls in a foot thick layer of stone, bringing them to a stop about a foot under the edge of the hole. He then drew a large pillar up from the center of the floor before he finally started in on the roof. He carefully connected the roof to the pillar with thick strips before he began filling in the corners, hoping not to have it collapse. Soon he had a solid roof a foot thick. He looked down on the solid granite and nodded, then filled in the last foot of the hole with dirt. Moving around to the stairs would go he started filling them in as well, making them long and wide for an easy descent with a lip around the entire edge that he could place spellwork on. Finally, at the bottom he molded a standard doorway into the blank wall, creating a three foot wide and six foot tall opening to his new storage space.

John grinned and stepped into his new storage area, then stopped dead. He’d forgotten something terribly important. There weren’t any lights! The storage area was lit only be the doorway, leaving the space shadowy in the center and dark in the corners. Shaking his head (something he found himself doing all too often these days), John began to draw from the Mana Well once more, and this time focused on his understanding of Light.

Within a few moments John had light mana, he then realized what he was planning and became unsure if he should continue. He wanted to make a light stone, but it was already taking a good portion of his concentration to just hold the aspect; who knew what kind of disaster could come from losing control? Still, it was either this or walk back to town. After a moment of indecision, John cast his spell.

It was like trying to hold two active fire hoses at once. The immense strain was all but unbearable and he could quickly feel himself losing focus on both tasks, despite his recent increase in Mana Manipulation. He managed to hold it only for a few seconds, but in those moments he’d dumped 25% of the Mana Well’s total capacity (apparently the maximum amount his amulet could draw at any one time) into a single, lumpy, silvery mana stone.

[Name: Small Light Mana Stone]

[Quality: Good]

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

[Mana: 0/32,400]

Smiling, John started channeling light mana into the stone and quickly it was completely filled. John’s smile slowly slid off his face as he looked at the glowing mana stone, it wasn’t giving off very much light, which was odd because he was certain Theodore had said he was using them to light his store. Thinking about it, however, John realized they had been inside ornate cages, was it possible those cages were enchanted in some way?

Even as he thought it John knew just what enchantments would be used to create the effect and added it to the list of things he’d need to add to the cellar. Glancing outside he could see that the light was already starting to fade, and he decided he’d call it a night. He could deal with the storage tomorrow, or in a couple days when the harvesting was done.