Year 2, Summer, Third Month, Fourth Week.

“I already explained it… When I need to run faster, I just push the magic energy to my leg muscles and joints, the rest is just balancing the speed to avoid stumbling. I don’t know how the energy works specifically, but I guess it improves that region temporarily…”

To understand Lew's ability and its effects, Karl decided to take the step-by-step approach, focusing on one process at a time. The chosen technique was the improving speed, which was supposed to be the easiest one according to Lew. However, Karl couldn’t make sense of what the Fighter was describing. The obvious conclusion was that the energy was modifying the characteristics of the muscles and joints to improve his speed, but the question was, how? How did the magic energy know how to modify the muscle to make it faster instead of damaging it? Magic energy by itself didn’t have knowledge or intent. In the case of the Runes, the concept guaranteed the outcome, but what was guiding the improvement in the Fighter’s case?

Fortunately, after hearing the man for the fourth time Karl thought of something. He consulted Master AI before finally making a solid guess.

“Hmm… Something has to be interacting with the magic energy in the process to guide it through modifying the right properties. I have two guesses of what, your spiritual energy and your body memory, I would bet both play a part in the process. First, when you push the energy to your legs, you’re actually using spiritual energy to guide it. Then, your body knows how to arrange itself to improve its functions, so it's probably guiding the magic energy through the modifications.”

Karl was very confident in the last part because it was something taught by Master AI, after all, he only had a general idea of how a living body worked. Fortunately, Master AI only expected reasonable conclusions from him. Once he pointed out the spiritual energy possibility, Master AI complemented with the body's memory idea.

“Finally! Does that help you with something?”

“I hope so… At least, now I can understand the process…”

‘The enhancements are great, but their efficiency is pretty low, he spends a lot of energy to power the improvements… For the Origin, he said he often has to use a MQ crystal to get the effects faster, what a waste… If we could add some Runes in the process, the energy costs would be lowered and the effects improved, but that takes tests and I need to be careful… Any missteps could result in damaging the body…’

***

The line of villagers carrying tools and materials stretched in the wildlands, forming an exquisite scene of nature and civilization. From the sides, the teams responsible for security kept their senses on full alert searching for any threats that could put at risk the lives of crafters. Soon, they arrived at the camp location, the crafters unloaded their LCs and joined the others in clearing the space for the camp construction.

Alfeur separated the newcomers into different groups, some went to the cutters that were gathering wood from the strong magic-infused trees, others to help to clear the weed and grass from the campgrounds, and the rest to tie the wood to form simple huts.

The strong summer sun bathed the villagers, making them feel dizzy and sometimes tired, but it didn’t stop them. They looked like ants, working in perfect synchrony to achieve their goal as soon as possible.

However, among them, an odd character walked from group to group without an apparent route. The man held a clay jar and a cup, he would push its contents to every villager that dared to accept. His job as health keeper under the Health Department was to watch over the overall health of this group of villagers. He walked around offering and sometimes forcing the workers to drink from his water-infused tea.

The idea to create the position poped-up in the Departments' last meeting, when they were discussing new ways to avoid common sicknesses and magic poisoning among the villagers. Although heatstrokes and dehydration were old enemies of the villagers, it didn’t take long for the healers to notice that these common woes could aggravate the poisoning.

The unusual solution came when Mary presented the problem in the Council meeting. A mix of Grandma Marlen and Karl's suggestions, improved by a long discussion, resulted in a new position under the Health Department, the health keepers. Mary loved the idea, it had the potential to solve many of the department’s problems. The first positive point was that the keepers didn’t need too much training, which would free Mary’s hands and put them to work faster than the healers in training. But the biggest benefit, which wasn’t verified yet, was the potential to prevent the villagers from getting sick.

The idea started as a way to avoid the heatstrokes and dehydration, but Mary quickly extended for every sickness that came from overworking or exposure, in other words, avoidable ones. She was even bolder than the Council, requesting more people for her department and placing 30 health keepers all around the village. They would be on the lookout for any sign of sickness or magic poisoning and use basic healing methods to deal with it before it became something serious. They would also try to prevent the problems with any means necessaries, insisting on rest, checking the meals, offering water…

The job of keeping the camp construction’s team healthy was given to the most experienced keeper and he was allowed access to more resources than other regular keepers. Since the team would be working very close to the Forest, they would have a higher probability of developing magic poisoning, so the keeper’s task would be essential here. Initially, the workers seemed to be more excited and energetic than usual, but he knew this was one of the initial effects of exposure to high-density magic energy. It didn’t take long for the effects of poisoning to start appearing, but he was diligent in his work and didn’t stop serving the water-infused tea with a high concentration of a detoxifying herb. The effects of the tea were subtle but not to be underestimated, the water element herb on it, helped cool the body and keep the workers hydrated, while the detoxifying herb helped their body process the extra magic energy.

Even so, the effects would accumulate and start acting sooner or later, he had already sent two villagers back and soon, more would follow. Fortunately, he didn’t felt any magic poisoning effects on himself, the tunic designed by the Alchemy department seemed to be working just fine. The protection tunic was just a normal tunic made with the fabric Keller brought and imprinted with different Runes. The Runes would absorb the surrounding energy to power their effects, thus lowering the energy concentration around. The method was far from ideal and could only be considered crude, but they didn’t have another option for now. Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford the solution for everyone, so they focused on the health keepers working outside the village.

Soon, it was time for the midday meal, which would be a delicacy rarely served in the village. Courtesy of Sania’s team, the workers would be eating a water-meal, fireless prepared with water snake meat. Many villagers still thought it was strange to eat meat that wasn’t cooked with heat, but they couldn’t deny the pros of eating it on such a hot day. After verifying that everyone was eating, the keeper also sat to eat his meal. He tasted one of the three small pieces of meat that formed his portion, savoring the cooling sensation that spread through his body, the acid taste left, giving space to the slight bitterness of the meat contrasted with the sweetness of some herb. The other two pieces didn’t last long and now he was facing a dilemma, should he drink the meal’s refreshing liquid or dip his bread on it. As funny as it seemed, the situation repeated with almost all of the villagers present, this was one of the most debatable topics in the village.

A few hours before dusk, dozens of wooden huts could be seen inside of the 300 square meters camp. The villagers had finished cleaning the campgrounds but less than half of the wooden fences had been installed. They worked hard, but it was difficult to manage the continuous swap of villagers due to magic poisoning. Either way, for their first experience building a camp, they had done pretty well. The villager tasked with managing the workers by Alfeur signaled their return, they would come back to finish it tomorrow. The security team also left the unfinished camp, they would only be stationed here once the fences are completed.

Back in the village, everyone celebrated with a big feast. From now on, the village had given the first step outside of the Kingdom.