After a minute, Charlie, who has been patiently waiting, sees me coming out of my thinking mode. With a grim, he continues.

“You magic-user types are all about the grand ideas aren’t you?”

“Not just us, but sure, let’s go with that.”

“Well, I have something you may be interested to know. We manage to capture the people in our village that were working with Max. Brad and about a dozen of his flunkies.”

“Did you caught them red-handed?”

“Pretty much, I was told you did something with your roots to mitigate most of the damage in the mana conduit department. That was the work of his minions. He got apprehended earlier trying to release a messenger bird.”

“Ok, but why do you say this might concern me.”

“Did you already forget? He hated you with a passion. I mean there are plenty of people that don’t like you, but I don’t think that there is a single person in the instance that hates even half as much.”

“Mehh, at least that is dealt with for the time being. Though I’m not sure if confining him is the right choice for the long term.”

“We have a prison that could hold him indefinitely, but we are not sure that is the right choice. So we are trying to think of adequate punishment. We don’t want to just kill him or releasing him. Even if we can effectively enforce a banishment from the village, it sounds like a very bad idea.”

“Yeah…” Not having anything to add, I change the subject. “Tell me more about this treasury room.”

“So far it had been a vault. We could safely store money, and it had a few conveniences like tools to administrate all the money. For example, we can see the assets of anyone we are in business with as long as we have the ‘right’ to do so. It’s a little convoluted, but full access to the information of anyone on the village, and a and some information about our closest trading partners.”

“Interesting, I imagine it is becoming extremely useful, and now the contracts that are even more.”

“Yeah, I have all kinds of ideas about that. Now you can learn more about that later, tell me what else brought you here.”

“You alresdy anwered some of it. Are you aware of the nature of the illusion Max’s army used?”

“Ohh, yeah, Merlin got a good look after you exposed them. He didn’t notice anything wrong at first, but after being pointed to him his genius made itself known.”

“That is good. If that is dealt with, I need help with a project of mine. The village will benefit immensely if it works, but I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t mostly about me. I want to grow my root network. I don’t know the limitations yet, but if it’s possible I want to connect every single village. It may take years to do it, but it doesn’t detract from the value it will add if I’m successful. Even if the mana throughput is not too significant at first, it will be enough for communication, and after a while, the natural growth of the roots, which will not incur a heavy mana cost will increase dramatically the mana it can move around. Perhaps it’s an even better choice long-term than the copper tubing. Though on the short term and very little mana they required to make and place can have advantages.”

“Now, that is a mouthful. Still, the idea is intriguing. What were you thinking about?”

“I will be developing something that plants a seed. Not sure the form it will take yet, but imagine a contraption that you place on the ground for a second or so. There will be something slowly growing there. If I can fit a couple thousand in something that weighs less than 10 pounds, even our hunters could move around slowly putting them on their normal routes with minimum hassle. Meanwhile, I’m slowly trying to connect my home and the village via my roots. Just the redundancy factor will be massive.”

“I should have guessed the crazy magic man would come up with something crazy. Though I have gotta say, the idea is very intriguing. Tell me more about it.”

Telling more about is what I do.

-----------------------------------

“So have you got my plants yet?” I ask the shopkeeper while looking at him, and try not to fidget or show other any signs of nervousness. Inside, however, my heart races like I was a kid in the candy shop, and little did he know the deal I was getting. If I was even half accurate in my assumptions, at least.

I would have preferred to use the village’s resources to do this, and it would have been one hell of a lot cheaper, but there were advantages to what the system put in place. As he turns I see a wooden organizer box with a glass lid. As he opens it, I feel the aroma of all the different plants hit me. Inside I see small cuttings of about fifty different plants. Though I’m deeply disappointed at the lack of berries, or the sweet flavor of anything even remotely similar.

“I have managed to acquire a lot actually. Even with the short time in which you wanted to move things. These are samples of all the different species closest to our village. Fifty on this box, and I have another tree. Almost 200 different plants and herbs to your specification.”

“You were even more efficient than I was hoping for. About the price…”

“Yes, we had arrived at a base price of 5 copper per cutting plus one copper for every 200 miles of distance to get to our village.”

“And no driving in circles,” I say with a grim.

“Yes, no funny business… You, humans, have the most wonderful and colorful expressions. It’s refreshing.” He replies with a gib grim, and this time I don’t feel the used car salesmen vibe off him. He is learning to genuinely like us, though me becoming a big spender on his shop probably has something to with it. “Regardless, the cost for these 197 specimens collected via express delivery will run you 11 silver and 91 copper.”

“Ok, and about the discount, I know you give to bulk orders.” Hearing my words, he looks at me sideways before replying.

“Don’t think I don’t know it was you that told everyone about that. I should charge you more to cover my losses.” At my mock grimace, he realizes I’m taking his comment in jest. He then continues as if it was his plan all along: “But as I’m a good merchant, I will cut even more of the price. I will make the whole thing for 11 silver including the wooden boxes.”

Happy as a kid on Christmas morning, I watch as he places them on top of my roots. The move is a little awkward on his part, though it shouldn’t be. Not given he has probably been part of the system much longer than any of us. I lay there and move a pair of roots to deliver the payment.

“Good doing business with you. I will come back over the next few weeks to check on how many you manage to bring in through the normal deliveries.”

“Ok, and you remember the price for those Items.”

“Two copper base plus a copper per 1000 miles.”

“I still think you should have gotten a little more of them on the fast delivery, but you are the client.”

“I will have my hands full with these for a while, see you next week. Wait, do you have any healing potions?”

“For you, such an esteemed client, I have two.”

He quickly gets both of them in my hand, and I leave after paying for them.

The normal grim I had been showing from a purchase becomes truly radiant as I allow myself to express what I’m feeling fully. The healing potions are nice, but the present I got for little Pando is the main prize. I completely envelop the boxes with roots, and when they are out of sight, bring every one of them to my inner world.

Selectively, Pando starts to explore them. In a spot separated specifically for this purpose, I move each of the cuttings and plant them. In normal conditions, only a couple amongst the hundreds would grow, but all of them are directly connected to Pando’s seed root network, and that changes everything.

It takes me only a moment to do this, and I leave him to his exploration.

I just wonder what the merchant is thinking is my goal, does he hope that I will be ordering tons of something if I find it tastes good or something? I found even a little strange the low prices for the whole endeavor, but perhaps it’s just my perception starting to be distorted given my access to so much money this early.

As my connection sends me back the feeling from Pando’s seed, my elation only continues to grow at watching him just be happy. Even the mana he holds in the battery slowly but surely is drained as he starts to grow all the new additions at an increased rate. Not the instantaneous growth some might expect, but still far faster than was natural.

A couple of hundred mana points a day to increase the speed about ten times. As he grew more used to the exercise, I doubted he would grow worse at it. Next, I head for the smithy, it should be open any minute now. I try to grow my roots inside it, but I’m repelled on every single attempt I make. Even when I have my hand inside the smithy. A minute later the problem becomes moot as Mr. Blackwood shows up. With his deep tone that rumble your bones on each word, he speaks:

“You almost got yourself killed, and now are trying to do naughty things in my shop?”

“I just wanted to enter without interruption. I’m not doing anything naughty.”

“Never mind, I will lift the restrictions, though don’t try to get a look at any of the runes of the smithy with your roots. That would be a very bad idea.”

“Don’t worry.”

Instantly, the barrier stopping is just gone. And the roots growing all around the smithy, start to make their way in. I realize the trust he put in me, and don’t even try to skirt the edge of his request.

I keep away from the runes in place and start growing my own set of runes. The forge is already hot. Courtesy of the night shift, so he starts to work immediately as I concentrate on the mana plate.

I follow the familiar actions, even if I’m laying on the bed I made instead of sitting. But a few seconds in, my meditative state makes me forget any difference from the usual position.

Mana flows like a wave. Smoothly increasing then smoothly decreasing. The calmest and most continuous flow of mana I can make. The beat of the hammer is a constant in the universe. It is the very essence of time passing. Nothing else matters but to make the wave follow the circle.

Strike, high-point, silence, low-point.

I repeat and repeat.

Sometime later, when the nest strike doesn’t come, I continue the wave moments. A soothing rhythm, that relaxes me. I’m faintly aware that I can know all of the runes in the device in front of me or under my feet or enter my soul, or a thousand other things that require a deep meditative state, but for the moment I take no other action than following the wave.

When the next strike comes. We sync with each other. This is a new experience, but I take it in stride, barely noticing any difference, so deep within myself I’m.

It seems only a couple of strikes in it stops again. The pause is big, and something on the back of my mind nags me, so I try to know my surroundings. Not by opening my eyes, but by repeating the action that I discovered a little while ago. The smithy comes into view. I see the smithy finishing on the first of the grinding stones.

I slowly leave the meditative state and move over to observe it from a different perspective than usual. I see and feel each of his moves with more clarity than if I had my eyes open. I can barely believe the opportunity before my senses. The fine detail is still beyond me, and the range is still limited, but I’m somehow improving. Even though the different mental pictures I used to elicit this state are not the ideal ones, I’m still improving quickly. I need to find the right image. The nagging feeling that with it the sky would be the limit would not leave me.

“Boy, what you are doing?” His deep baritone voice takes me from my musings. Laying there, I answer:

“Just looking over your work.”

“How? I don’t sense mana, skills, or anything else.”

“Not sure, this third eye just showed up yesterday during the attack.”

He snorts and doesn’t do anything else. He doesn’t say anything about it, but I feel as if this discovery may be even more important than I was expecting. I continue to make full use of it, and absorb every smidge of his actions, ignoring all else.

Though the fine resolution is not perfect, it’s the next best thing to be doing the work myself. I can almost feel as he moves, the tightening of his muscles. The small corrections he tries to make, and while some are allowed by the system, some are ever so slightly thrown off course. He finishes the sword, different from his most common weapon the spear, which our village adopted as the weapon of choice.

“Another two +5 attack weapons. Too bad, this is mostly the result of mana, not blacksmithing skill. I had hope for you to improve on the craft, but it seems as if you are destined to be than just a simple blacksmith.”

“I doubt that you are a simple blacksmith.”

Though I continue to banter and learn a few things from him, his words have an enormous impact on me. From the very start, he knew I was more talented in my mana use than blacksmithing. He explicitly said the apprenticeship was still on track, but there was something different there. I had a hunch of why. It was probably because of my strange perception field.

Not to be confused with my perception filter, nope two entirely different things. The filter was learned through years trying to become just part of the scenery as I worked on Pando. This was something else, something that resonated deeply within me, and I would not waste even for a single moment until I managed to unlock all of its mysteries.

Until I could know all in a bubble around me.

Until I had the confidence that the very space was within my awareness.

And dally, I did not.