This time was the longest night of sleep since I got to the starting zone. I really need the extra hour, given I was up for 2 days by now. I get up and start my day. At the morning meeting I pay attention when Charlie starts speaking:

"Today there are quite a few important things to address. To start, we bought the license for another book. The book costs us 10 silver, and it was worth every penny. It tells us about classes in the system.

"We already knew that everyone at level 10 stops leveling and a couple of other detail. The new information is related to how and when most classes are unlocked. You will usually unlock after battles. Only actions that were taken after you hit level 10 count to the class selection. That means, if at level 9 you killed a dragon, you will not unlock any type of dragon-slaying class.

"The biggest pitfall in selecting a class is definitely choosing the wrong type. Anything else can be worked around, but the type of class is not possible to change. To give an example, if you want to become a healer and you get a berserker type class you are stuck with it. To even come close to a healer class, you would need to upgrade to a hybrid between a berserker and a healer.

"That is not to say if you chose a melee class you lose the ability to use magic anything of the sort. The problems are that you will not have the bonuses classes can provide, and you lose access to the class's skills. Even at lower levels like ours, a class is a significant boost.

"The benefits that classes provide are skills, leveling speed of skills, stat gains, and stat multipliers. The first person with a class in our village unlocked a class simply called 'tank'. It's a common class. So far we only know it provides a 5% boost to the constitution and 1 point in constitution every 2 levels.

"Higher rarity classes provide better bonuses. But do not be mistaken, choosing a class that is not well suited to your chosen path, just because it has a higher rarity is the wrong choice. A lower rarity class can always be upgraded, but you can never choose a different type of class.

We have more information but we have much more to discuss today and who wants more information can come to the guild.

"Our scouts can now spot the places mobs like the warped mammoth roam and avoid them. For the time being, we seem to be safe from attacks of similar nature. Just don't relax totally yet. If that had been a level 100, or if it had been a different kind of mob the village would not still be standing.

"On a more upbeat note, the diplomatic team of the other village arrived a few hours ago. They were resting until a few moments ago. We will be introducing them now.

He gestures and a 4 woman and one man step up. They are all dressed in much better clothing then we are. If I'm not mistaken the material is silk. They might have found silkworms. If their manufacturing capabilities are good, they could be exporting silk. I would guess very few people are ok with being dressed in the clothes the system gave to us.

Silk has other uses and we could come to import greater quantities. It makes a strong and lightweight rope. Just this would be enough for a good volume of exports.

If we bought only enough rope for half the adventures in our town from the general store we would go bankrupt. Their prices are exorbitant. We would also be sinking the money in the hands of the village's merchant. That meant we would likely never see it back. Just like the money sinks at games. In games, they are useful to avoid too much inflation, but that is partially what we want to happen here.

I think about what we can export and paper come to mind. We are manufacturing so much paper; we could sell or trade over a thousand pages a day without causing a shortage. With a dozen people, we might be able to increase to 20 thousand pages a day. We would only need a few days at most a few days to get production up. They were also making paper of much higher quality. It wasn't quite like the smoothness of the paper I was used to on earth. It was closer to the rough side of drawing-paper.

With a product like that, we could trade it at very good prices. It was one of the first industries we set up. With more time we will start to export steel, infused wood, and other stuff. When we manage to equip more of the city we might even take to export finished 'Items'.

I stop my musings as I watch the people from the other village get closer to the stairs. I look and see who is probably in charge, she is a young woman. I would guess, 25 years old. With a light completion and graceful steps, she grabs attention from the entire crowd in a way Smith has never been able to. Smith may impart to us how important his words are, but she enchants the crowd.

I notice how affected everyone else is and wonder if it could be a skill. Probably, but as long as she doesn’t try to screw us over, I don’t care. I just hope it isn’t some kind of active skill. After a few moments she gets to the top of the stage and says while gesturing to her companions:

"Hello, my name is Sarah, and this is my entourage. I’m the chosen person to handle discussions and negotiations with your village. We hope to find an ally in these trying times. We both have things and knowledge that would benefit the other. We hope to achieve successful cooperation between our villages.

Charlie nods at that and continues.

"Sarah will be staying with us for a day to finalize our agreement. At the start, it will be limited but we will eventually be exporting more and so will our future ally. Something that might also have been intuited by some is that Sarah’s village is the other type of village I mentioned. They have an 80 percent female population. If everything goes according to plan we will set up immigration policies between our villages.

"We are finishing this meeting here. We will be showing them around our village, so they can come to know us better. I hope everyone can cooperate.

I wait for a minute but the crowd is not reducing so I head to work. I can always talk with them later.

At work, everything goes smoothly. Charlie and Sarah pass by quickly but I don't interrupt my work to talk to them. They stay for a minute with Charlie talking superficially of our efforts in forging items ourselves.

I sigh a bit in relief as I see he is not quite as smitten as half the city. Most people would have told every little secret they knew about our village if they were showing the enchantress around. She does have an effect on everyone. Our village had few women, less than 20 percent. That seemed to magnify the effect she had.

Even the married people were outside their element. They didn’t even know if their significant other was alive; let alone where to find them.

I finish work and head to see how things are going in the negotiations. Perhaps negotiation is not the best way to describe it, given there is not much we would be trading just yet. I head to the guild and I find a guard in front of the room Charlie took as his office. I try to go in but the guard says:

“Nash, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to let you through.”

“I’m sure it is ok.”

“I got posted here to stop anyone without actual business heading inside. There were too many people interrupting before.”

"Am I not the resident magic-user or whatever for the guild?"

“Ok. I mean, you are not gonna cause a problem, so you can go in." Looking uncertain the guard opens the door and I see 6 people inside.

They are all sitting down. Three are from our village and three are from theirs. Here are Sarah, the older man, and another young woman. I pay attention for a moment, but they look at me after a few seconds. Charlie scowls at seen someone interrupted the talks but as he turns back notice me, he changes his bearing.

I'm not sure if he is happy to see me here. At least he is not entirely cross. If he was I would be able to recognize. After the awkward pause he addresses me:

“Nash, good you are here. Come sit, join us.”

I sit and Sarah starts talking about the growing silk industry in her village.

"We will soon be able to produce enough cloth to make 250 sets of clothes per day. I'm sure your village could benefit from the clothing, bedding, and other applications our silk would have."

I respond.

“Yes, we can. Though most of the uses of silk are more comfort-based it's used in a couple of other things as well. Not too dissimilar to our paper manufacture. We are too used to live in a society with information. Just paper is not the same as access to the internet, but it can help remedy the situation.”

“Well put. Information is indeed something we are all lacking.”

Sensing the opening, I look over at Smith and he nods. I guess he hasn't broached the subject yet. I know that I'm no politician, but perhaps that is why Smith didn't just introduce me and send me on my way. I have a different perspective on things and he may have been looking for it in this meeting.

“Indeed. The whole system seems to be uniquely tailored to provide as little information as it can.”

At that, she gets a little more excited.

“So, we are talking about the same thing. How openly shall we talk?”

“From everything I learned, been circumspect is only needed when speaking with the original people from the village. They are firmly under the system’s restrictions.”

“It’s agreed then, we shall talk openly. Have you notice people providing misinformation?”

We talk for another half hour. Conversation flows easily and we even learn a few things. The people in their village seemed very intent in deceiving them. It was like night and day when compared to ours. Something we all find interesting is that no craftsman teaches anything false concerning their field.

After a few stumbles, they started to put a lot of effort into rooting out the people trying to deceiving them and what information they passed.

Their smith seemed to be the chief amongst the people deceiving them. He not only was the biggest source of misinformation he organized almost everyone in the village to coordinate their efforts.

This created a dichotomy, he taught his craft well, but you could not trust him about anything else.

Their governance model also seemed similar to ours. A few people were quickly selected on the first day. Ever since those people have been basically running the village. They tried to get away from depending on the village.

They managed to get their own supply of food and seasonings. Unlike us, they also have access to salt from a mine nearby. We have to buy the overpriced stuff from the general store.

With conversation now much more in-depth, I leave them to their devices and head to class.

They seemed really impressed by how fast our economy had developed. I think Charlie will be sending a few people to get them started in a few other things. If they get more robust silk manufacturing, we will all benefit. If all your neighbors are poor, that means you don't have trade opportunities. A little investment sometimes goes a long way. The best type of investment sometimes is time sometimes it's money.

A crowd is already forming on the field when I arrive. After a second trying to make sense of how many people came I give up trying to count. My class is probably halting a quarter of the village. With a sigh, I head in and start to speak.

“Today, we will be further experimenting. We will not only focus on the mana cost against the result. We will be also focussing on our manipulation skills."

I quickly go through today's exercises with everyone. Without any fuss, everybody settles in. With more mana than I know what to do with, I take the class to the drying room.

I show what the process of infusion looks like. I even fill a pair of logs the wrong way and show the mana vanishing after a while. A few people take to filling logs with their mana. Not wasting any, I burned them and go through the process of proper infusion. One student even manages a passable result in the splinters being used.

I end up giving them splinters from crushed logs. I make the bulk of the infusion. Too much mana would be wasted otherwise. I finish the class with more wood infused than ever before. I arrange the 400 logs in the drying room. I check on the fire. Dmitry seemed to be keeping it well stocked.

The temperature seemed a little higher. Before it was only uncomfortable, now I can no longer breathe inside. I wonder how much more resistant we are to heat. The system didn't change somethings, but others changed significantly. Our bodies are for the most part something else entirely.

As far as we can tell, we can heal from any injury as long as we have enough time. The limits of what you can achieve by training your body have also increased. I was getting close to a full +20 across the board. I take a few minutes to go over a few things I did not in class. With a pencil I bought for one copper, I start to write. The quality of the paper is really much higher. I precisely draw a few diagrams. I play around a bit and cast the spells with as little mana as I can. I basically pulse it. I end up using less than a point of mana even for the bigger ones.

I feel a strange logic in how these fit together. If only I could make sense of it, I could learn how to write in runic. For a moment, I stop to think of these components like magic. I think of them like the puzzles, just like electronic components. Now that is something I'm familiar with. I try to find analogs and the thought experiments forms in my mind. I try to test a few things.

Less than half an hour passes and I sense my mana getting low. Without anyone else distracting me, I can think in much more abstract terms and run experiments faster. I look at my latest sketch. To anyone else, it would look like a convoluted mess. I however cast it with ease.

The ping of the system interrupts me before I can start on the next design. This time it is a much stronger ping so I open my stat screen to see what messages wait me.

New skill: Runic Language Rank: Unique [Expand] Expand: You have acquired a unique skill. Unique skills can be new skills in the system. More commonly, they are an existing or past skill from the system with enough change to be recognized as a new skill. Your faction will have an easier time learning the skill you unlocked. Runic Language: You are able to more easily interpret and use runes in conjunction with each other. You think of runes as components in a larger system. Blacksmithing +1 Lv. 22 Mana manipulation +4 Lv. 30 Mana Infusion +2 Lv. 13 Fire +2 Lv. 4 Water +2 Lv. 3 Wind +1 Lv. 2 Earth +2 Lv. 3 Dexterity +1 Perception +1 Intelligence +1 Exp. +1702 Congratulations, you are now level 6.

Looking over the description for my new skill I do not believe it is a new skill to the system. The most likely answer is that it took my hybrid thinking of both language and electronic components, meshing them together into something different enough it got classified as a unique skill. I’m giddy with excitement. This will help everyone that gets this skill to create magic, in its various forms. I could probably start to inscribe with this.

I think over for a minute. Finding a log, I run to get my dagger from the guild. They give me another one so I won't have to wait. Soon I'm carving on the wood. I try a few things but the wood seems too fragile to test things on. It might be useful after I'm finished with a design. Or it could be something else entirely.

This opened up so many possibilities. I need to take care of it now. Not in five minutes, NOW.