Just like for strength the intrinsic skill related to Willpower, increased the regeneration speed by twenty-five percent. Nik also tried to figure out what “enhances … mana strength” meant but besides the obviously he had no point of reference. It could be just as easy as taking the wording literally. The only issue with that was that Nik had no identifier for mana strength. Pure strength was represented by the system next to the health regeneration numbers and Willpower lacked a corresponding marker.

In the end, Nik didn’t feel as though as it would be something very important for now as he had no real discernable method of testing the effects either way. What mattered was that he could use the skill efficiently and it would allow the points he was planning on placing into Willpower to be more effective.

To that end, he checked his status once again. The last few levels in his race had been astonishingly easy to come to. Even more so if he compared those to the earlier level-ups and the corresponding requirements.

He had seventy stat points available, each of the most recent level-ups giving him access to one more over the previous level.

Vitality

370 Healthpoints

37

-

+

Strength

1.90 Strenght

55 Hp/hour

78

-

+

Physique

380 Stamina

38

-

+

Endurance

38 SP/hour

38

-

+

Wisdom

280 Mana

28

-

+

Willpower

12.5 MP/hour

10

-

+

He wanted to get Willpower and Wisdom up to the same stat and since he knew that the uneven numbers annoyed him he wanted to get both of those up to thirty. That would cost twenty-two stat points.

The highest value of any stats he currently had must have been Vitality. While not giving any direct benefits the healing potential of Healthpoints was something he had benefited from often enough to warrant some attention. Getting it to an even number would be pointless since he was close to a class level-up and smithing did generate an ample amount of experience points so that he would most likely rank up once again in the near future after that. So he decided to invest another ten points there.

He really wanted to dump the remaining thirty-eight stat points into strength as that was the attribute that had the biggest direct impact on his physical condition. Boosting his speed and mobility. His reasoning was that both Physique and Endurance weren’t really offering any apparent benefits as of right now. A larger Stamina pool wasn’t required because he had no skill that took more than fifty points of stamina at once, giving ample time to regenerate and regeneration wasn’t required due to his ability to absorb energy from berries.

Getting strength up to one hundred would be neat though. Nik was struggling with himself, he wanted to do it. The only thing that he really needed and could use when it came to survival would be strength. Being stronger meant also being faster, recuperating faster from injuries and

In the end, Nik decided to bank a few more points and only placed eight-teen points into Strength. Enough to get him to one-hundred with the next class level-up.

Vitality

470 Healthpoints

47

-

+

Strength

2.32 Strenght

66(.25) Hp/hour

96

-

+

Physique

380 Stamina

38

-

+

Endurance

38 SP/hour

38

-

+

Wisdom

300 Mana

30

-

+

Willpower

37.5 MP/hour

30

-

+

With fifty points spent he had another twenty for emergencies or to shore up any deficiencies, he noticed along the lines. Happy about the changes in his status Nik descended the tree and went back to completing his slowly growing task list after having a short dinner and a bath. The day was looking to be sunny and he didn’t mind the cold of the water to wake up his muscle and bones.

From the lake, he got to the cave in just a couple of minutes not even breaking a sweat, and sat down to continue the bellow construction.

Since most of the carving was done the only remaining actions were to create the previously planned tentative o-rings. Overnight his hopes of the design working well had steadily decreased but he wanted to give it a shot anyway.

Affixating blades of grass on both sides of the wooden piston proceeded surprisingly fast. The work was straightforward, the resin sufficiently sticky and the blades were all plenty long and strong. Initial test runs quickly showed that this double layer wouldn’t be sufficient for creating a tight seal thus creating too much loss of air pressure.

Another issue he came across, that could have been fixed by another design was that the piston was rubbing against the bottom inside of the enveloping wood. Harming both, the structure of the cylinder and the plunger. Additionally damaging the lair of grass responsible for preventing airflow between both sides of the plunger.

Figuring out any actual solutions would take time, so he proceeded with a cheat. He used a very flat stone with round edges from the lake and attached it to the bottom of the plunger by etching a small hole through the flat side and fixing it with a small piece of wood and resin to the plunger.

A few test runs showed promise so Nik ignored the glaring problem for now. He wanted to have something that would work first. If whatever he build worked well and had high durability he would even be ecstatic.

The last objective for the completion of the bellow was to create three holes, one in the lid of the bellow and two that would work as exhausts for both of the chambers respectively. This was ignoring the need for piping but Nik had a good option lined up for now.

The hole in the lid, he scratch out using a chipped stone not bothering to give it a specific size. The others two he worked with much more precisely. Due to the air piping he had planned, Nik wanted to give both sides similarly sized openings. Those would later be joined with hollowed-out Faun Poaceae. The same qualities that allow them to be molded into tonges - relatively easily - worked just as well for piping. The primarily hollow structure allowed for directed airflow in a single capillary. Breaking the walls allowed for further range extension. Nik had already plans in his head for an improved design that would grant long-distance piping though there wasn’t any need for that just now.

As the bellow steadily moved towards completion Nik grew increasingly more worried. The construction process had shown that design without testing was not ideal. The count of minor issues he had was in the tens and there were three potential functionality-breaking issues.

He was worried about the output, he hadn’t created valves for the output of the bellow, possibly causing them to be the main inlet for the bellow chambers. The plunger was too flexible. The lever on it bend it effectively in a way that caused overtly much friction with the bottom. The railing and stone he had implemented to bypass that could work but it would possibly cause too much material degradation. The last was the general airtightness of the construction, especially between chambers.

With a few last applications of resin, he closed bellow with the lid and waited.

The system wasn’t forthcoming with a notification even after a few minutes. Distraught Nik began inspecting the construction. He checked the inlets and their valve flexibility. The outputs seemed to function too, he discerned by blowing through the valve and holding a hand over the outputs.

Not being sure about what else he was supposed to do to get the system to acknowledge his creation he began using it. He didn’t even want to think about what not getting a notification would mean.

You have created |Flawed Poor Wooden Piston| - 25 experience points gained

Annoyed and disappointed Nik gathered his thoughts. “What a scam. This took me like two days and I only got five times as much as from a pair of wooden tongs.”

Until he realized that this was a poor attitude. He didn’t know how the system applied experience for crafted gear. Maybe he had reached the upper bounds of what an item of such quality gives. And in the end, it had been a surprise when he first gained experience for crafting something that wasn’t directly smithing anyway.

And he hadn’t crafted this so-called piston to gather experience. It was to be one of the foundations of his class. It would allow him to actually melt down iron. He wished he had found rocks with tin. It would have drastically reduced the amount of effort he would have to expend without proper tools. In the end, it was probably better to do it this way anyway. He had no functional knowledge of any bronze properties and workings.

Having been annoyed enough for what he decided was no reason at all Nik considered the present. He had a few options to finalize the smelting and refining infrastructure. He would need the bellows to supply two constructions, possibly requiring two different pipings. The bloomery and a not yet constructed forge.

Realizing that he hadn’t planned this far Nik went on a quick jog back to the lake and further away from the mountains along the shore. Having reached his destination he quickly wetted his feet and stepped into the water and snapped poaceae off, just above the waterlevel.

He went at it for quite some time. Clearing a large area off of poaceae. In the end, his efforts didn’t even put a large dent into the population, maybe one or two percent of the area cleared. His arms both extended to the sides and pressing a large number of stems at his torso he ran back and forth between the poaceae field and his improvised living space a couple of times.

He only carried a single charge of stems towards the cave with the smithing appliances but that would more than suffice.

Having an abundance in skill slots right now he was once again debating the skill he had unlocked a few days ago. Woodworking would most likely help him with his upcoming plans. He had broken off more poacaea than necessary for the piping. Being soaked by rain at night wouldn’t do, and thought while small the stems could work sufficiently well for tiling. They could also potentially help with his tree home plans.

[Woodworking] - enhances crafting with wooden parts and woodworking capabilities, a poor substitute for the carpenter class

He should have taken it before starting his bellow journey. His mind made up he selected the skill. He expected a flood of information to roll into his mind like frequently described in many stories, but nothing of the sort happened. Just like with most other skills - except for tracking - he gained a little mental activator.

It was an active skill, he realized. He was not sure what exactly it would do he sat down, ready to work on the piping some more. With another longer stick, he poked holes into the soft membrane separating the cavities inside of the poaceae from each other. When he cut of slants at the ends of two similarly-sized stems - to join them together - he activated his skill, not much happened - inducing a sort of Deja Vue from the ineffectiveness of [Tracking]. Checking his vitals he noticed that his stamina was draining slightly, which hadn’t happened during woodworking so far. His regeneration outpacing the consumption of regular tasks.

The cut, with the jagged edge of a rock, turned out a lot smoother than what he usually could have managed. Excited by not having picked a useless skill he moved on to the next stem and repeated the process.

The next step was to join them together, for which he hadn’t much hope, he would have to use resin for the joint and for adhering vines on the outside, hopefully resulting in a somewhat working and stable seal. On instinct, he activated the skill again while gluing the poaceae in a “v”-shape together and the previously poor connection tightened up somehow and resulting in him growing a lot more drained and a slight headache growing.

Too excited to look for the cost of the skill he inspected the joint closer. He noticed that fibrous strains of plant matter now permeated the thick layer of resin between the joint. It wasn’t as though he had caused growth in the plant, but dragged individual fibers through the resin into the respectively other piece of piping.

A glance at his pools showed him that he had drained over 250 mana. The headache wasn’t something that usually came with high mana usage, instead, it was usually only an ethereal feeling of being empty. The headache was something different.

Too tired to further work on the wooden piping - adding another line to the “v”-shape to get it to be a “y”-shape, he climbed up his tree to take a quick nap.