While walking John pulled up some YouTube videos about Roman road building techniques and listened to them on his way home. By the time he got back to the farm he felt he had a descent grasp of how a stone road should be built and made a note to try it out in the not-too-distant future. Stepping back onto his plot he looked around at the still present projection and decided what to work on next. If Phillip was coming to measure for doors today, then he’d want to measure the barn while was out here, so best to start with that.

Taking out his wand John moved over to the projection of the barn and started digging out the hole that would become the foundation. He knew, intellectually, that he could move somewhere around 4000 cubic feet of dirt per second, however it was hard to visualize that amount making the pace of excavation considerably slower than the 5 seconds it could have taken. John had a rough outline of the hole in about a minute, and then spent several more minutes smoothing out the sides and bottom, while compacting as much dirt into them as possible.

Soon the hole was ready and he switched over to Create Stone once more. Just 40 seconds later he’d filled the entire hole with a hard plug of granite, and began working on the walls which he raised to 11 feet before erecting the roof. Next he began to raise the stalls.

A little light research had suggested he needed at least 80 square feet per cow, and he was hoping to have two or three milk cows, maybe four at the outside; so he had designated four 10x10 stalls for cows. He then added an 10x20 stall which, again according to google, should be sufficient space for as many as six goats. Afterward he finished with a final 10x20 stall which should, in theory, be enough space for six ewes, assuming they were all lambing.

Satisfied he stepped up to the small doorway he’d left in the southern wall and began digging the foundation for the final addon to the barn, the creamery. He’d decided the creamery needed to be only 20 feet by 30 feet, that gave him plenty of room for counters, cupboards, and (if needed) barrels. To be honest it was probably too much room, but it would work. Finishing up he filled in the large southern windows with quartz and stepped out the door to examine his work. A couple trips around the confirmed for him that he’d gotten what he needed done.

Pausing in his work, john took a trip down to the cellar to examine the Mana Well, only to find the cellar dark. It took him a moment, but eventually he realized he’d never connected the Light Plate to the new well. With an effort of will he rectified the mistake, and light bloomed in the space. Satisfied with the current lighting arrangements John took a quick look at the Mana Well.

[Name: Mana Well]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: Though made of good quality mana stone this well was crafted by inexpert hands, leaving it lacking in the sophistication that would make it truly great.]

[Connected Devices:

Light Plate – 75% Collection Reduction (Active)]

[Total Capacity: 2,585,399]

[Current Maximum Capacity: 2,585,399]

[Total Collection Rate: 2,393/Minute]

[Current Collection Rate: 598/Minute]

[Current Charge: 2,584,396/2,585,399]

Glancing over at the light plate John pulled up its stats as well.

[Name: Light Plate]

[Quality: Great]

[Description: Crafted by a journeyman enchanter this device, made of good quality materials, was crafted with care, despite poor conditions.]

[Connected Devices:

Mana Well]

[Current Charge: 60,750/60,750]

[Current Charge Rate: 179/Minute]

[Mana Discharge Rate: 30/Minute]

Pulling up a calculator john fiddled around with numbers until he came to a result he liked.

“Reduce Light Plate connection to 15% instead of 75%,” he said aloud, the words helping him visualize the result he wanted.

Glancing back to the mana well he checked its status again.

[Name: Mana Well]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: Though made of good quality mana stone this well was crafted by inexpert hands, leaving it lacking in the sophistication that would make it truly great.]

[Connected Devices:

Light Plate – 15% Collection Reduction (Active)]

[Total Capacity: 2,585,399]

[Current Maximum Capacity: 2,585,399]

[Total Collection Rate: 2,393/Minute]

[Current Collection Rate: 2,034/Minute]

[Current Charge: 2,585,399/2,585,399]

Nodding in satisfaction John exited the cellar. He was pleased to find that the increased regeneration rate of the new well was enough to keep up with what he was doing.

Having finally finished with the buildings John next started creating the garden plots. Overall, these were much simpler, he simply dug out a trench, and then filled it with stone until he had a wall about waist high, then he moved on to the next one. The real time waster was moving between plots as he’d left a little space between each one, and a nice large aisle down the center. When he finally finished with them it was barely early afternoon.

Next on his agenda were the runes he needed to carve into each wall. They were simple, just creating water and dispersing it over the area within the boundary of the runes, but the task was still time consuming, taking easily an hour per plot. He was only on the sixth plot when Phillip showed up.

“Hello the farm!” Phillip shouted as he approached.

John looked up from where he’d been scribing on the wall and then walked out to meet the man.

“Hey Phillip, thanks for coming.”

“No trouble, so this is your farm? I have to say I expected less, what with it having exploded and all. Did you put all this up today? That’s rather fast, though I suppose you must have made another Mana Well?” Phillip inquired as John walked toward the house with him.

“yeah, it’s kinda required with all the magic I’m using. If I had to rely on my own mana pool it’d be basically impossible.”

“Yes, most low-level people don’t have much mana to play with, it’s why mana stones are usually in such high demand. Too bad we’ve nowhere to sell ours.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, hopefully someone will be able to build a portal soon to alleviate that problem,” John commented.

Phillip snorted. “Not likely, I think Grandma Loren once said it takes an expert to just set up your basic portal. It’ll probably be some time before we see anyone at that rank out this way. Unless one of the players spends their skill ups on it, I suppose. Though they all seem more interested in dungeon delving than actual work.”

John and Phillip came to a stop in front of the house and Phillip eyed the door critically. “You don’t have a very high measure skill, do you?”

“Er, no, it’s only at novice rank,” John admitted.

“That’d explain it. Word from the wise, what you currently see as ‘mostly right’ is in fact entirely wrong. You’re going to want at least Journeyman rank, possibly Expert if you’re going to keep building. All your proportions are off.”

John looked at his house in consternation. “It… doesn’t look that bad?”

“Trust me, it’s bad, you just can’t tell because you’re not high enough ranked yet,” Phillip said as he patted John on the arm.

“Is… is the system screwing with my perception?” John asked, worriedly.

“John, it’s screwing with everyone’s perception. I have Measure at Master Rank, I can measure things to within an eighth of an inch just by looking at them, and I’ve heard that Grandmasters simply know the absolute sizes of whatever they’re looking at. Normal people can’t do that. Point in case, your door is lopsided, as are all your windows, and your house has a definite slant to it. You’re going to need to redo all this once you’ve increased Measure, or it’ll drive you nuts. I suggest at least Journeyman rank. As it currently stands, I can’t even take measurements for your doors because whatever I make would have to be just as lopsided.”

John frowned. “That’s actually kind of depressing. I really thought I was nailing it today.”

“Nailing it?”

“Ah, it means getting it right, or doing well,” John explained.

“Ah, well, sorry. But the good news is you have time while the trees grow. If you increase your Measure skill, or maybe find a caster who can straighten this out for you during that time, everything should be fine.”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t start trying to build a road either.” John gave a weak smile.

“Don’t be too downcast, most of us have been there… Not on this scale, admittedly, but for your first work it isn’t too bad.”

“Well, thanks for coming out. Sorry I made you walk all this way for nothing,” John said, a little downcast.

“It wasn’t any trouble; I didn’t have much to do anyway. Let me know when you’ve got it all straightened out and I’ll come on back,” Phillip said as John walked him back to the roadway.

John watched as Phillip started down the road, and then he turned back to his current project. The fact that his measurements were all wrong sucked, but there was very little he could do about it right now. So, he found the wall he’d been working on and got back to it. He finished up the runes on the eighth enclosure as the sun set.

After setting out his new bedding, John sat down and started creating water stones. With a full well he managed to churn out 34 of the thumb sized water stones before going to bed.