You learned the skill Enchanting.

Yeah, baby! Now we're talking.

Nala went to my newly created heat-stone and examined it closely using different tools from the lab. I watched her doings and waited for her opinion.

“That's a really nice piece of work but you were also unbelievable lucky. This base material of the stone is of very high durability. That's the reason I told you to only apply fewer runes to each side and not the mass you did. The complexity of the rune structure and the number of the runes engraved depends on the material you use, to be precise the durability and quality of the enchanted object. And as I watched now it also depends on the ability of someone to use mana efficiently. I will attend your teachings too. Looking at the results of careful mana usage it is obvious to me now what someone can achieve with mana manipulation. I don't understand why nobody did discover the connection between enchanting and this special skill.”

I thought back to my former world and remembered some examples of obvious facts that look completely logical when you have enough information, something like the earth being a globe. Hey, Tiria let me keep this knowledge!

“So I have to consider the overall ability of an object to hold runes by accounting quality and durability of an object I want to enchant. I think I can work with that. Thank you for teaching me that. Now that I have this heat-stone I will try to think of methods to use it also for defending our town. Maybe we can use it for heating water to boiling point and then dump it on attackers.”

Nala flinched a bit and I realised that she was much more delicate than I thought. Everybody had a weak point. She seemed to be a pure crafter and researcher and not much of a frontliner.

“We will continue our lesson later then, but now I want to work on my ability to control my mana.”

She disappeared like Galen did and I saw her standing up and walking over to her husband, joining the lesson there.

“Good, we can talk now,little one.”

Tiria stood suddenly in my workspace and looked at me somewhat pissed.

“Do you even remotely understand what you have done?”

I could sense her anger and took a step back and then kneeled down.

“I am very sorry, my goddess but I do not understand what I have done to incite your anger.”

Tiria watched me shortly, then she sniffed at me and sat down on sudden created chair.

“Ok, to summarize it, all the gods on this world and some others have taken notice of you and your ability to change the future of complete planets. You have to understand that my dungeons are nothing that could create bigger changes in the political and economical infrastructure of a world. Sure they provide a challenge to adventurers and sometimes threaten some regions with their monsters but they cannot influence the development of whole nations to a larger degree. You instead are able to create a city with researchers, crafters and soldiers. Such a city in an underdeveloped world can change everything. Even now these two mages you are teaching will initiate a change in the perception of some skills that will lead to big innovations. The other gods have noticed that and are hammering on my doors to also give their peoples their own city cores or limit your powers. I already have erased most of your knowledge and now I have to limit your ability to manipulate mana. You will still be a journeyman in it but you will have to level it to old heights on your own.”

I was stunned by her revelations. Never would I have guessed that my work would give her such problems.

“I will have my revenge on these idiots nonetheless. When you reach grand master of your skill you will be even better than you are now, but it will need some time and training to do so. I hate politics and therefore only created my dungeons to keep out of it, but now all the big shots will try to get favors from me and try to influence me. If I had known what a mess this would create I wouldn't have given you this body, but I stand to my creations and you're just doing your job. I will adapt and try to get as much out of it as possible. Just do me a favor and don't start building an empire right away. The other gods would release hell on me if their power would be cut down by a creation of mine.”

I reflected about it and came to a conclusion.

“If I gather many different races in my city and demand that no god is favored in my influence, would that help you?”

She gazed sharp and piercing at me and contemplated for a minute. I sweat a lot under this gaze and feared that I had angered her again.

“That could indeed help somewhat. You will have to build a temple right away as your first building in this second ring you mentioned before. I will tell the other gods to deliver figures of them to you to set them up in the building. I will also tell them to create the blueprints of it for you to build. It will take them some time to reach an agreement and this will give you enough leeway for building your defences. You only have 3 weeks before enemies will be at your walls, so man up and raise your power,little one. You may have caused me some headache but know that I am pleased with your progress.”

I sighed after getting this countdown. Not much time to work with but I had to do anyhow.

“That would all have been much easier to do if I had known magic before.”

“Oh you think, there is no magic on your homeworld? You're quite mistaken. Earth produces much more mana than most other worlds in the universe but the humans there did cause a big upheaval some thousands of years ago and were punished for it. All their mana and knowledge was taken from them and their numbers were reduced. Your people have regained some of its former power but it will take much more for them to regain their magic.”

I was shocked by that revelation.

“You mean, that there is magic on earth? Where did it go?”

“That is something you don't have time to think about for now and I won't give you the details now. Survive your next millenium and perhaps we will talk again about it. Oh and guard your core closely because the attackers will try to seize you for their own. As the only city core you are quite the precious loot, you know.”

Then she vanished again and I was alone with my thoughts.

You have learned the skill Mana manipulation.

I checked my status again to see the changes.

Name

Marcus

Race

City dungeon

Level

6

Mana

370/2100 1/h reg

120/minute from citizen

Int

16

Wis

16

Cha

16

Luck

10

Skills:

Earth

Newbie 10%

Water

Newbie 10%

Air

Newbie 0%

Fire

Newbie 14%

Life

Newbie 19%

Mind Speech

Adept 10%

Architecture

Beginner 3%

Sculptor

Newbie 7%

Mana Manipulation

Journeyman 1%

Enchanting

Newbie 15%

Mathematics

Newbie 10%

Range of influence

140 meters

Number of citizens

136 (providing 120 mana/minute)

1 City guardian

Inventory

32 m3 (1m3 used)

I got better again and my mana regeneration went up by quite some margin. Perhaps my city guardian and Gillian did this. I will have to check it out. Now back to work and I will have to talk with my pupils that I got a downgrade as I didn't believe for a moment that they will not notice my lesser skill with manipulating mana.