Logging in on game day 32 had me impatient. I had wanted to log in immediately after physical training and a meal, but I had been neglecting shooting practice the last couple of real-world days, and I was feeling bad about that. On top of that, I had gotten roped into helping the kids with some of the games they had started playing. It was an enjoyable hour, but it had me chomping at the bit to get to what I really wanted: To make magic items. Or more precisely, magic lunchboxes.

When I finally got into the game, I had a very irritating chore in front of me. Making fertilizer for twenty-nine fields. The last few times I had done this, it had taken me the better part of three hours to do it, because of the relatively low chance of success. This time I hoped it would be better. Going downstairs I first made my way to the kitchen, which now stood finished. There was the firepit in the middle of the kitchen, and plenty of tables for working at, which was perfect. The best part was that the stairs leading to the basement were in the kitchen. I was going to abuse that a bit for Mentor.

Philmore had also informed me that the Alchemy Lab stood fully furnished as I had asked for.

Blue Lotus’ Guild House

Lotus Hall

Unassigned Rooms

0

First Floor

-Philmore's Study-

5 CPs

-Bunkroom-

5 CPs

-Bunkroom-

15 CPs

Hidden Vault

65 CPs

Ground Floor

Kitchen

150 CPs

Entry Hall

70 CPs

Great Hall

135 CPs

-Kira’s Study-

0 CPs

-Ed’s Study-

10 CPs

Storage Room

90 CPs

Basement

-Growing Room-

5 CPs

Alchemy Lab

90 CPs

There were a lot of rooms waiting for me to finalize them, but at the moment I only had my focus on two of the rooms. The Kitchen and the Alchemy Lab.

First I sorted out the lab. It was easy, all ninety points were invested in supporting people using the Alchemy skill. While in the room their chances of success would increase by 2%. Not a lot, but lowered my failure rate from 52% to 46%, so overall very much worth it in my opinion.

Next, I turned my attention to the Kitchen. 90 crafting points improved Cooking by 2% leaving another 60 crafting points to play with. Half of which was invested into providing Butchery with a 1% bonus, the other half went to do the same with Brewing.

Satisfied with everything, it was time to multitask. First I put a cauldron over the fire, so it could make some rabbit broth, I asked Mia to butcher rabbits at the table next to the staircase. That meant I would be within range for Mentor the entire time. Even when I went downstairs to the lab.

Downstairs, I started making more manastone solution. Not of the Poor quality, I had been doing so far, but instead of Below Average quality. The success rate was abysmal, but I would need much better manastones if I were to use them for Runesmithing.

While my assistant butchered and the broth upstairs and the solution downstairs simmered, I started on my fourth task: Making fertilizer. Since Nise had not gotten rid of the chicken poop, I was able to get a few extra crafting points to play with. Instead of a Success providing a bump of 7%, it now provided 9%, a significant increase.

The alchemy lab saved me half an hour of work. It still took me two and a half hour making fertilizer for 29 fields. Which was way too much time for me to waste. Sure it provided me with XP, but it was hardly worth the hassle since it took two minutes per attempt, and only provided a base of 10 XP. Either I would need to get a magic device that could do most of the manual work for me, which was an interesting project I could tinker with when I learned more runes or Blaze’s mother would have to become more active and learn Alchemy. Then she could provide fertilizer for her own and Nise’s fields, while I took care of my own and Mia’s.

It had been a busy time, running up and down the stairs, going from one project to another, but it had to be done, and it had netted me a good amount of XP. However, except for the manastone solution, none of it got me closer to what I wanted to be doing: Runesmithing.

I set up in the kitchen at a table close to Mia, to keep that Mentor XP ticking in. Sometimes it felt like we were joined at the hip because we had to remain fairly close to each other for the skill to work. I was looking forward to the higher tiers where it allowed a greater degree of separation. Not because she was unpleasant or hard on the eyes. I just liked working alone.

When I started pulling out my new manastone kits, Mia asked, “Why do you have four manastone kits now?”

“Well, there are four sizes of manastones. Small, medium, big and large. To create each one you need the specific kit, so last night before logging out, I bought one of each that I didn’t have,” I said and winced a bit when I remembered the price. I had paid over five and a half platinum in total for the three new kits. Fillard had been overjoyed of course, since they had been collecting dust for quite some time.

“Okay, but they all look the same to me,” she said when I opened them. “Why do you need a kit for each size?”

She had a point. Though each kit was larger than the next, with more and bigger wheels on it. However, there should be no logical reason for me not being able to create a large manastone on the manakit I had already owned. I gave the only real answer to give in such a situation: “Video game logic.”

“Ah, like the no guts while butchering, despite it being so damn realistic.”

I gave her a smile and nodded. “Indeed. Or like felling a tree and you don’t need to cut off the branches or cut it into smaller pieces. When it’s felled it just become a stack of smaller logs.”

“Really?” she asked incredulously.

“Indeed, just asks either of the Phils,” I said before we lapsed into silence.

I turned my focus on the manastone kits, the collection of jars and rocks in front of me. I had one example of each of the different rocks, including the gemstones that had been found in the ancient outpost, in front of me, as well as the two different quality of manastone solution.

I had been doing some calculations. To make a successful magic item with three runes I would need crushed manastone worth thirty-three mana or more. That would not be so bad, however, there was just one problem. It needed to be contained within two manastones, if I used three or four it would fail, which was more mana than any of the manastones I had created so far had contained.

That meant I would need to create some better manastones. I would need manastones that contained twenty mana instead of the usual ten I was making. Even with Below Average quality rock and solution, a small manastone would at most give me thirty crafting points, and to create a manastone with 20 mana, I would need 50 crafting points.

Medium rocks would double the crafting points received from the quality of the rock, meaning 30 plus 15 from the solution. Still 5 short, and that was if it was a Success. I would need Exceptional Successes or higher for that to function.

Big rocks would triple the crafting points, meaning I would end up with 60 on a Success, while a Flawed one would only give 45. Which would still be enough to create a manastone with 15 mana. If I could pair a Success and a Flawed it would be enough to satisfy the mana requirement for Runesmithing.

Large rocks would quadruple the crafting points, meaning a total of 75 crafting points. Absolutely the best of the bunch. The only problem with all this was that I had relatively few Big and Large rocks of Below Average quality since I could only get them from mining nodes. 23 large and 31 big rocks. It would not be a lot of chances to get it right. In a pinch, I could use the gemstones as well, though they could only provide me with 45 crafting points on a Success at most since they were of Poor quality, but Uncommon.

I would need to see if I could find somewhere on the island to buy rocks, or otherwise, I would have to start joining on the rabbit warren runs again. Though with the lack of local supply the prices would be inflated, which was why I had asked the Captain to buy some at a port with a surplus. However, waiting 20 days for the Captain to get back would be too long.

It was all so frustrating. Finally, I could make magic items, but now there was this new hurdle to get past. I just felt like punching something really hard. Or someone. Yeah. Someone would definitely be better to punch than something.

Letting out a long loud sigh, I tried to let the frustration melt away, and grabbed the first large rock. It was the size of a tennis ball. There were both pros and cons to using the bigger rocks. The pros were more crafting points and XP. The cons were a worse chance of success and they used a lot more solution. A large rock used seven times more solution than a small one, while a big one used 5 times more.

Large Manastone

Gem Cutting Level: 4

Design Used: No

Size: Large

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Combined Crafting Points: 75

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15 (60)

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 65%

Flawed - 22%

Success - 11%

Exceptional - 2%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base experience: 40 XP

Stamina Cost: 40

The chances of Success was not great, and would only be a single percentage better with a big rock instead. Which was the reason that I chose to start with the large rocks first. Even with a Flawed Success, they would still have 50 crafting points which were the goal. Also, I hoped that I could get a level up before I had to work with the big rocks, further improving the chances of Successes, if only by a single percent.

With everything ready, I settled in for some literally grinding, as I started grinding the manastones into a round shape on the diamond-encrusted wheels of the kit.

A couple of hours working on creating manastones had borne some fruit. I had gotten my hands on a couple with the capacity to hold 25 mana each, fifteen able to hold 20 and nine able to hold 15. However, I had only crafted them, I had not been able to fill all of them.

I was just about to start on that when Ed’s party came around for the second time. The first time they had wanted to know if I wanted to join them on the resource run, which I rejected. While I did need more sour joys and could use a level up in Herbalism I had to contend myself to buy some of Marion. It was not like I was missing in contribution points to do so. Since I had close to 3 million of them after I contributed 300 platinum to the guild coffers.

The second time I wanted to reject them as well, but I could not, since they were going on the ancient outpost run. With just another run my reputation with Ilat should be high enough for him to want to teach me runes, though I suspected it would be rather expensive. So I accepted their invitation, not because I wanted to, but because it was necessary.

I asked Phil and Nise to fill some of the manastones for me if they had time. When I was asking Nise, I saw Blaze’s mom sitting on a bench sleeping. A quick Inspect showed me her name, which I honestly kept forgetting.

After telling Blaze not to interfere, I walked up to her and lightly kicked the bench, to jostle her awake. She looked around confused, mumbling an incoherent, “Wh—who? What?”

“Andrea, wake up,” I said.

“What do you want?” she asked while doing her best to glower at me. I might not have recalled her name, but I remembered she always was an ill-tempered lady, unlike her youngest son. Most of the time.

“I need you to fill these manastones with Imbue,” I said and tried to hand her five manastones.

She refused to take them. “Why should I?”

“Because I asked you to, and I’ll pay you some contribution points,” I replied. “You need to contribute more actively.”

“I plant your damn plants. That has to be enough,” she said with a petulant look.

I could feel my headache intensify. “Listen, if you don’t earn contribution points, we’re not going to keep paying your bills.”

“My sons will pay.”

“He might want to. But I won’t allow it. You’re not contributing to the guild. You’re not even trying. You’re only level three, while Mia who started at the same time is level six. And she lost two days of levelling going to and from the castle ruins,” I said, trying to keep it to only a stern tone, instead of letting the anger I felt surface.

Crossing her arms, she laughed at me. “You can’t tell him or me what to do or not to do.”

“No, but I can kick your son from the guild if you keep disrespecting me.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” she said a bit shakily.

“Try me,” I bluffed. I would probably never kick Blaze for that reason, but I needed to get her off her butt. Nise and the others had tried to be nice about it, now it was time for another approach.

“Why are you suddenly demanding I do stuff?” she asked sullenly.

“Because I’m far too busy doing tasks you should be doing. From tomorrow you’ll be making the fertilizer you and Nise needs. You can pick up bones from Mia, and you need to buy a mortar and pestle. A large one would be best,” I said and walked away.

“I’m not agreeing to that,” she shouted after me.

“It’s that or you’re out,” I called back.

“Fuck you!” Was the reply I got.

After a couple of minutes of us walking in silence towards Ilat’s gazebo, Blaze finally asked, “You’re not going to kick me or my mother, are you?”

“Not likely,” I admitted. “However, the others have been asking nicely and it didn’t work. She’s literally doing nothing Blaze. All she’s doing is the bare minimum of planting the seeds. Nise has been preparing the fields and plots for her. She has also been spreading the fertilizer and harvesting the crops.”

“Shit,” Blaze muttered.

“Listen, we’re good. I want you here. I’d like you to have your mother here as well because frankly, we need to keep everyone secure. But she needs to contribute. At the rate she’s going she won’t have contributed anywhere near enough to cover her own expenses,” I said as we arrived at the gazebo.

“I’ll talk with her and make her see reason,” Blaze promised me.

Luckily we had gotten a good time dilation, so while it still took them three hours to clear the dungeon, only a single hour had passed in the game world. Which was great news for me, because instead of looking for secret rooms, I spent my time imbuing and meditating.

When we reappeared after clearing the outpost we were in for a bit of a shock. Because Ilat asked us to stay for a while extra. When we agreed, he said, “You’ve been proving yourself by repairing the nodes again and again, and you’ve grown quite strong. I’d like for you to repair the main node as well.”

Though it would bring great rewards, I would be a hindrance, not a help in that endeavour. The boss would be particularly problematic with me with his AoE damage. I would just be an extra drain on their mana for healing. I said so, “Guys, you should run the main node without me. Ed got Imbue. I think I’d be more of a drain on resources than a help.”

Ed gave me a look, then one at Petals, before nodding. Turning to Ilat, he said, “Okay, we’ll rest up and get something to eat, then we’ll help you Ilat.”

Eating. That reminded me of another chore on the list. However, first I needed to know one thing. “Ilat, I wanted to revisit a conversation we had some time ago.”

He chuckled at that. “I thought you would. It’s about me teaching you runes?”

“Yes,” I said with bated breath.

“The answer is yes. I will teach you some of the more common runes. Half runes will be five platinum and full runes will be ten platinum and upwards,” he said.

I gulped at hearing those prices. It was more expensive than I had expected, but it was something at least. “I will secure some funding, and figure out what I need to learn, then I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be right here,” he said with a smile. A smile that seemed a bit greedy. Or maybe it was just that my opinion of him had just fallen a bit.

I left and set course towards the east gate since I had promised I would be by at midday to cook food for all the lowbies. On the way, I swung by Fillard’s to sell some stuff and pick up a few items.

“Ah, my favourite customer,” Fillard said as soon as he saw me step in. “Here to fill my drawer with platinum again?”

“No, here to make a withdrawal,” I said, trying to sound jovial, but I think I failed. I knew I was stressed and feared that it was showing. What I did know was that I was ignoring the other player in the store who was browsing. It was one of the Airgead twins. Based on the black leather I guessed it was Dawn.

“So what do you’ve for me?” Fillard said seriously. He seemed to have picked up on me not being in the mood to banter.

I started putting some different things on the table. “Two very poor manastone solutions. Fifty kilos of rabbit bones, average quality. One liter of rabbit blood of above average and eight of average quality. One hundred rabbit eyes of average quality. Ninety-six pieces of above average quality meat. My leatherworker is too low-levelled to play with these, so I got thirty above average quality furs, and eighty-six of average quality. I get that to two platinum, eight gold, three silver and fourteen copper. ”

“I like how straightforward business is with you,” Fillard said with a large smile. In a louder voice, as if he wanted to be sure Dawn overheard, he added, “No dickering of price, you know what it’s worth and the rules we play by.”

He started putting things away, as he asked, “But you’re not going away empty-handed. What do you need?”

“Give me a thousand skewers. Can you have five thousand ready by tomorrow?”

“I don’t have that many in stock, but the carpenter should be able to handle that before tomorrow evening,” Fillard and started putting bundles of skewers on the counter.

“Also need a slew of containers,” I said and started listing everything I needed. In the end, I ended up spending almost a platinum of the coins I had just earned by selling stuff to him.

The end of annoyances did seem to have no end. I had barely walked a hundred meters from the store, before a female voice called out for me, “Damian, please wait a moment.”

I recognized the accent, it was very distinct. I stopped and repressed the urge to scream in frustration. It took a couple of deep breaths before I was able to calm down. After plastering a smile on my face, I turned around to see Dawn come to a stop next to my cart. Far too close for comfort. I liked strangers to be at least a couple of meters away, not within arm’s reach.

“What can I help you with?” I said, trying to sound friendly. I noticed her bodyguards were spread out, but nearby.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your order in the store. That’s a lot of coins to be throwing around, did you perhaps buy some in the auction?” she asked, trying to act cute and friendly, almost batting her eyelashes at me.

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I suppressed the urge. This was a woman that was used to people falling over themselves to help her because of who she was or how beautiful she was. Or both. No mistake, she was beautiful, but I knew she was a rotten person. The benefit of future knowledge.

“No, I did not,” I answered succinctly.

“Oh, so you’ve earned that on your own. That means you’re a clever player,” she switched tact immediately. Instead of trying to sucker up to my perceived wealth, she tried to stroke my ego.

“What can I help you with?” I asked stone-faced.

Her eyes narrowed for a second before she recovered her pleasant attitude. “I was simply wondering why you would need so many wooden skewers.”

Seeing no reason to lie, since it would be fairly well known soon, I answered, “My guild is launching an expedition to the castle ruin the day after tomorrow. Need to stock up for that.”

“Ah, I see. Maybe I could join?” she asked, trying to give me the puppy eyes.

“It’ll be your funeral if you’re below level fifteen,” I said. Before turning around and walking away, I did add, “However, if you should choose to ignore my warning, the cost is one gold to stay in our camp, paid upfront. The trip will last at least nine days. Good day.”

I think I left her sputtering mad, but I did not know since I did not look back. After feeding the lowbies and my guildmates, I finally found my way back to the guild house. To my surprise, Andrea had done as I asked, after thanking her, I told Mia that if she wanted to butcher rabbits to do it at the same table as earlier, and to not let anyone into the basement. Under no circumstances did I want to be disturbed for the next five hours.

Down in the alchemy lab, I put one of my newly crafted cauldrons on the table. It was finally time to dive into Runesmithing.