The end of the night is arriving, and I head to the guild with a different plan in mind. Seeing Carlos at the usual place, I speak:

“Hi, do you have a minute?”

“Yes, I just arrived. This hour of the night few people show up here.”

“I wanted to do things a little different with these Items.” I show him 6 of the items with +2 attack stats. “These did not come with the normal shipments. I made them, so I wanted the guild to take care of selling them at full price. You guys can take half as a contribution to fuel the economy, but the other half I would keep for a few projects of mine.”

After a moment analyzing and adding up, he says:

“We would be grateful. The items add up to 2 silver 55 copper. Do you want the money now?”

After a moment of thought, I ask: “Do you guys have this much money?”

“There is usually some money around, but whenever we get enough money to buy something expensive like a book, we need to wait for more money to come in. We are far enough away from the next big purchase that paying you now would not delay anything.”

With a shrug, I take the coins and he writes my contribution down.

“You realize you are hands down the biggest contributor to the guild, right?” At my shrug, he stops and asks me: “Do you want the value from the sale of wood now?”

“Sure.”

After a moment checking the ledger, he tells me I have one silver and 4 copper coins in the balance. I take the silver coin and leave the change in the account. Almost forgetting, I return to pay for the copper ingots.

By now, I should have well over 5 silver in contribution. Just like he said, I also doubt anyone else contributed more than me. I started at the very beginning and did not slow down. A good portion of the sale and loaning of items was from my portion, and the fact no one else had managed to figure it out how to properly infuse wood did give me monopoly in another area.

I head back to the area where the kiln and the drying ore furnaces are set up. There I talk with the single worker behind.

“Hi, is Stuart around?”

“He went to the limestone mine, to help bring a load back. If you wait for a few minutes, he should be back at any time.”

“He left a while ago?”

“Yeah, he does the trip both ways in 1h 40min usually. If he didn’t stop anywhere he should be back any minute.”

Seeing him putting more firewood in the kiln, I help. Adding a few logs and checking the flow of air and temperature are all done expertly. He already has a fairly decent system worked out.

Afterward, I see him start to make a mold for the ballista tips.

“Do you want to learn how to make these?”

“Ohh, yes. I should probably set up a mold for another of my projects.”

“If it is nothing too complicated, we can even pour it for you.”

I sit and he goes over everything carefully. Each step is made with precision and care.

“See, now we only need to dry and we have a mold for the crossbow tips.”

“I thought these were the tips for the ballistae?”

With a confused look, he stares at me and says:

“Ballistae? I didn’t know we had them.”

“Yeah, the defense weapon in the walls. These tips are too heavy for ballistae.”

Chuckling he says:

“Somebody was fucking with you. Those are not for any ballistae, they are not rope-based. What we have are large crossbows.”

“What? But… Damn.”

“Yeah, I can already see you throttling a few people over it.”

I then begin chuckling and let go of the flash of anger. It’s just a small prank, how the hell I’m supposed to know the name of the bloody thing. I was lucky to know the ballistae terminology.

I quickly finish the mold I started to work on. Nothing too complicated, just two cylinders that fit inside each other. They will form an awkward ‘gauntlet’/’bracelet’ for me to inscribe. For any small changes I want, I can take the excess off with a saw or a chisel. If it works as I expect, it could be a valuable tool for combat. Especially for people with the strength to easily hold in their arms without problems and little control of mana.

My special project.

I hear footsteps behind me. Turning around, I greet the boss of the operation.

“Hi Stuart, I hope you had a nice trip.”

Huffing and puffing he drops the two baskets filled with limestone in the ground.

“Nice enough, Too bad I always too tired to appreciate it properly. These suckers are heavy.” He says pointing at the baskets. With a grin, I answer him.

“Nah.. you just like to complain.” After a huff from him, I start to talk again. “So, I have a couple of things to talk with you. How about expanding mining operations? I mean, keep everything you are doing at the pace the guild’s capital can sustain. But I will also put in some money. Whatever you produce with this additional money is separate from the guild.”

“Ok. I’m open to it. How do you envision this working? I’m not working for free.”

“A few things are open to discussion. I was thinking you hire 5 people. They make as much copper as possible. And I get, say, 80% of the production. You use the rest to make up for the use of the facilities the guild has paid for. Whatever is left is your profit margin.”

“That is a slim profit margin.”

“But you are not putting a single coin in. All you have to do is to manage a couple of extra workers, you are already doing most of the work. And as production scale, your profit would just skyrocket.”

He only takes a few moments to think. I’m glad to see he doesn’t try to haggle and extends his hand.

“Glad to be in business with you.” I take out one silver and 50 copper.

“Don’t waste the money, but don’t be cheap as well. If you need to make another kiln talk to me and we can think about it.”

“If we do that, I’m pretty sure we don’t need the potter. With a little ingenuity, we can make everything in the house. The temperature the copper needs is much smaller than iron.”

“That is wonderful. We could even pay for a bigger one, and the guild pays for the other half. We could easily share it.”

“That was my thinking as well. With your inscribing or Merlin’s and some clever engineering, we could even the final exhaust from the current kiln to preheat the whole thing. The lower maximum temperature would mean an enormous saving in firewood.”

“That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I was even thinking about a copper heat exchanger. That would make air preheating much more effective.”

“Yeah, we should take some time to go over all these ideas.”

“Let's first get production up and running. I assume the kiln is not going full steam yet?”

“We have a small surplus. We are bringing ore much slower than the kiln can smelt. We only have enough ore for another day. Don’t worry, I will start to make more copper asap. Just don’t expect it to be cheaper than steel. The mine is much farther away. Even if everyone started to carry stuff in wheelbarrows like the other village, the biggest cost would still be transportation.”

“Yeah, I know that very well. I will be going, just start it up as soon as possible.”

“Don’t worry. In an hour you will have 5 diligent employees.”

I leave satisfied with the interaction. Eighty percent of production, and he wasn’t feeling as if I cheapen out.

Heading to class my mind goes a mile a minute. If my plans for the copper were even half successful, the village would experience even faster growth. I just hopped, everything was in place in time. If the system judged us to be more advanced than we actually were, it could be problematic.

Classes go predictably. This time I draw multiple lines to transport mana and experiments at a time. The students help me, and collectively we start to make progress. By the end, we can maintain the anomaly in our sights for half a second. It does use a lot of mana. But we are making a lot of progress. Maybe in another few days, we would even have something even half useful to use the new runes for.

I chose a few of the brightest students around at the end of the class. They would be helping me with a few projects of mine. I lay out my plans to them:

“So I was thinking a little, and I have a proposition for you all. Does everyone here has at least a couple hours a day they could dedicate to magical study?”

Every one of the dozen students raises their hands.

“Ok. I wanted help deepening our understanding of magic, and to work on a few things. For now, nothing is fixed yet on what exactly your roles would be, but in a rough explanation. I will pay you a minimum amount for you to take time to study outside the class, to inscribe, to test branches of magic, maybe other things.”

One of the students asks:

“Like, being paid to discover new rune configurations, and inscribing for you?”

“Yes, though I am still not sure if that is all you would be doing. I don’t exactly have the capital to pay each of you the standard rates for a full-time job, but I can pay 3 copper for 5 hours of work every day. That should not impact too much what you are getting right now. If I start to sell the inscriptions you guys get a cut on that, but I will be focusing more on something else first.”

“What do you want to make?”

“Leave that aside, for now. I’m going to need a few things first. An effective mana conduit is the first. The less mana it needs to fill it, and the less mana wasted the better. I also want a battery, an effective fireball enchantment, and a better mana input that what we have for now.”

We split the task quickly having a couple of people on each of these tasks. After while we all go our separate ways. A few of them are not exactly enthused by the job, especially given the lousy pay. But they know it’s not like there are much better options. Not unless they want to go out hunting even longer hours.

I see the sun start to peek above the horizon and I leave the village. I need a couple of hours of sleep. And sleep I do. I take a quick peek at my stat sheet, but nothing interesting, a couple of experience points, and a couple of skills.

When I get to the classes, however, I’m slightly surprised.

Friend of the forest – Uncommon rank +2% to all stats (+ 0.05 to all stats every level) +5% connection to the forest

I got way too used to big progressions now a few notifications don’t faze me.

The class however makes me pause.

I let myself slow down mentally, and soon I’m in dreamland.

Waking up, I go straight to the smithy to work. This time already a little back in the rhythm, I just get to work. I keep my work separate from the other workers. They have other priorities.

I let my whole being focused on my work. All distractions leave my mind. With each hammer swing, it seems more knowledge is imparted into me. My previous mental picture of producing as fast as possible may have taught me a little, but it was also hampering me. This time, I truly let the system guide me, and I simply work until I’m satisfied with every single piece. Once or twice I stop work midway and throw the half-finished work into the pile for the smith or someone else to finish.

I only finish the items I’m mostly certain will be +2 items. And I achieve what I set out to do. Not a single one of my items ended with a +1 attack rating. All of them are, in theory, as good as the ones from the blacksmith. With close inspection, anyone experienced could see the differences. Mine would not last as long and were ever so slightly weaker, but improvement would come with practice.

This work pace and mentality was a lot more suited to my natural state of being. Almost at a trance, I hear the smithy call out my name. Paying attention I stop work and notice the time. It's already time for him to leave.

“Nash…”

“Sorry, you were saying something?”

“You really can tune out the word when you give your all to your craft can’t you?”

With a sheepish grin, I say.

“I hope I wasn’t in the way.”

“No, don’t worry about it. It is good to see you managed to concentrate like that. It is a very important skill for any crafter. You never managed to put your all before, now you are going to see your craft improve much faster, and I’m not talking about skill levels. I’m talking about the true craft. To understand and appreciate your creations.”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t worry boy, I told you before, you will go far. Seeing this today, I’m certain of that. Just don’t laze about. I get that you are splitting your focus in various areas, but most people do that eventually. Just don’t let yourself get overwhelmed and you will do fine.”

With a happy feeling in my chest, I agree and he leaves. Again he doesn’t pay me, but it is not like I’m helping in his work, at all. I talk quickly to someone from the guild that comes to see if there are any items not sold yet. Selling what I made and the last item from the smith, my pocket start to get heavier again.

This coin will be a big help in continuing my efforts. I place the 50 copper coins for the Axe in the jar, so he can get in the morning. Having taken care of what I needed, I continue my trance for another few hours.

By midnight I manage to forge 13 weapons. Though this is incredible money if I sell them every day, as the smithy said, I’m slipping in my efforts. I leave thinking over his words. He said most people eventually branch out in other areas. Is there a reason? Is it that they feel they cannot progress anymore in a single area if they don’t branch out, or there are benefits?

It could be nothing. But an enchanted sword may be better if the person forging it is the same person inscribing or enchanting it.

My thoughts halt at my own mental words. Hundreds of times before I made note that I need better terminology, but the lack of proper teaching from the system sometimes puts a crimp on it. What if I settle on a single term to find out it was wrong later. I have in my mind sometimes confused the terms Aether and Mana. And this is just a single and simple aspect of magic.

Even in the small things they make our livers difficult.

You bloody council bastards. I want to know the name of stuff. Why can’t you just let me know the name of stuff?

The sun was arriving. Now should the time for another trial. The winds of change had brought much change. Soon the second rotation of the sun would finish. When would his moving friend come back?

I need to grow as much as possible in the little time before the next trial gets here. To grow and to learn more about the winds of change. Ever since my friend went away, everything has begun to change. Now the changes are accelerating.

New moving beings are showing up. The past trial was even with a different moving being. A similar type to his friend’s race. Moving beings that walked in two appendages. They were also the only ones to ever wield metal implements.

They tried to down trees on the outskirts. Waiting and using a slower poison, every single one of them was killed. More and more of what his friend had tried to impart to him started to make sense.

Concepts that before were as far as clouds, became easier and easier to grasp. Some changes were occurring through his whole root net, but he did not understand it. All he knew was that it helped grow more aware and to grow faster. That was all of importance for the moment.

An hour later, goblins arrive at the outskirts of his domain. Three dozen globins. A few of them yielding axes.

Pain hit me. It’s not overwhelming, just enough to allow for much more awareness of my surroundings. That was a small modification I made to the limbs above. All of them now had much more if my attention, given how small a disturbance called could call my attention.

A few of the closest saplings to the intruders are destroyed. They start to make the track deeper. In only a minute the few who got the sap in their skin, drop to the ground dead.

Not understanding what was happening, they all yell and start to retreat. Seeing the movement the animals taking refuge in the grove charge and even with a few casualties, the combat is fairly one-sided.

What surprised me, was that one of them started to throw fire around. How was he doing that? Fire is dangerous.

Luckily in less than a minute, not a single enemy stands and the forest is quiet again.

Now is the time to grow, to learn protections against fire, and to absorb the implement used to create fire.

For the grove, for the new arrivals, and his friend.

When he came back, I will surprise him. I would be a giant forest spanning more farther then the eye could see, and my friend would see the fruits of our efforts.