After the spectacle that Ddraig just performed at the entrance of Garden, he slithered back inside the barrier and proceeded to head towards Reinhard’s house, the shock and caution of the dryads who still haven’t gotten used to him flooded the streets.

In fact, Fraenis might be the only person in Garden who quickly got accustomed to Ddraig, except Reinhard of course.

“So what are your plans for today?”

She asked Reinhard as she watched Ddraig parade through the village streets heedless of the dryads and knight’s shock towards him.

“Well… I’m going to prepare for my journey to the kingdom.”

He replied as he suppresses the thoughts within him saying “I can’t believe they really agreed to that. This is great, I can finally explore the outside world! Thank you, Sir Velram!”

“…”

“Can’t you really take anyone with you? It doesn’t have to be me, just anyone that can protect you is fine!”

She said, attempting to protest one last time.

“I can protect myself.”

He sighed as the two of them enter the barrier again.

“If I encounter a creature that I haven’t seen yet or is stronger than me, I won’t fight it.”

“Then I’ll go along with you until the border and wait for you to return there!”

“No! I don’t know how long I’ll be at the kingdom! It could be weeks at most. Besides, what if other people see you waiting at the edges of the forest?”

Fraenis suddenly grew silent.

“I’m going to be fine…”

After reaching his house, Reinhard saw Ddraig was now once again back at the branches, sleeping as if nothing had just happened earlier. He laughed internally and then went inside.

“Time to spend my skill points.”

He went inside his bedroom, at which point Fraenis automatically stood beside the door, facing the walkway.

“You don’t have to keep standing there, you know? You can enter if you want…”

“Eh?”

Fraenis’ head suddenly snapped towards Reinhard who’s in the middle of entering his room.

“I-I, uh… I-it’s fine! D-don’t worry about it!”

She flusterdly and hastily said.

“…”

“Well, if that’s what you want…”

Reinhard closed the door behind him and sat at his bed. He opened the interface to see which skills are available to be learned.

[SYSTEM]

Learnable skills:

[Weaving 1] Passive Skill

[Metallurgy 1] Passive Skill

[MP Regeneration 1] Passive Skill

[Fortify 1] Passive Skill

[Clarity 1] Passive Skill

[Enduring 1] Passive Skill

[Enchant] Active Skill – Learned at [Arcane Artificer Level 10]

[Multi Wield Staff 1] Passive Skill – Learned at [Dual Wield Staff 10]

[Leather Crafting 1] Passive Skill

Not much has changed on it, except for the two new skills that had immediately caught his eye. In particular, the multi wield staff skill which, by the coloration of its name, is an uncommon skill.

“How would that even work? Do I hold it in my mouth Zoro-style?”

“…”

“Guess only one way to find out.”

[SYSTEM]

[Multi Wield Staff] Passive Skill

The user is able to wield more than two staves more effectively.

“YES, BUT HOW!?”

“…”

Seeing as his question wouldn’t be answered anytime soon, he dropped his focus towards the skill below it, the leather crafting skill.

“I bet it’s just going to say something obvious if I try to see its description so I’ll just save it. The question is do I want to learn it?”

“…and what’s the difference between cloth armor and leather armor anyway? Except for the obvious amount of armor...”

[SYSTEM]

Clothing have very weak defense, but it’s the lightest in all of the armor classes and has the highest magic potential.

Light armors have mediocre defenses, weight and magic potential.

Heavy armors have the strongest defenses, but are the heaviest and have the lowest magic potential.

“I guess leather is on light armor and metal is on heavy armor but… what the hell is magic potential?”

[SYSTEM]

Magic Potential is one of the three stats of armors, along with the defenses and weight. It is the armor’s ability to contain magic in itself such as enchantments. Magic Potential also determines how many of that armor type is a pure magic item.

“What the hell is a pure magic item!?”

“I feel like I’m slowly going down the rabbit hole of terms that I don’t know…”

[SYSTEM]

Pure magic items, or just magic items, are items that hold magical properties but are not enchanted. This means that the item in itself is magical in nature, as opposed of being a normal item that is given magical properties through enchanting.

“Ahh, I get it now. Pure magic items are natural while enchanted items are artificial.”

“…”

“I’m most certainly not wearing heavy armor. I doubt I even have the strength to wear them, so the question is clothing or light armor? Hmm…”

“If I choose clothing, I have less defenses but I can have more unique effects on it, on the other hand leather has more defenses but less unique effects…”

“I haven’t seen the kinds of unique effect a material have on armor though. I’d imagine it’s going to be different from weapons and accessories…”

“What’s the difference between unique effects from a magical item and enchantment anyway?”

[SYSTEM]

Unique effects of a pure magic item is determined by its materials, while unique effects from enchantment is determined by the enchanter’s skills and level.

“Interesting… I should grind my Arcane Artificer class to level 10 soon so I’d get the enchant skill… Aaaah, but to even start grinding I need a steady supply of materials, and I can’t use the ones in Garden either since they’re just enough for the daily needs of the village…”

Reinhard stared at nothing, carefully thinking how he’s going to get himself the amount of materials for grinding levels.

“If I send some villagers to get the raw materials for me, not only will that slow down the current activities of Garden, as the recent battle already took a significant toll on the work force, but that would also run the chance of pissing off the sylphs if I just haphazardly chop trees left and right… Well, the latter can be solved by just moderating it, but the former… Aaah, I need the population after all to make anything… but to sustain the population I need the farms. Ugh, this is just turning into a circle of problems that causes themselves. Okay, calm down… Let’s get our priorities straight.”

He looked down on the floor while mumbling…

“First, I will travel to the kingdom with Ddraig to protect me… Then have him stay at the border until I return. He can hunt by himself and he can hide atop the trees, so no problem with that. Worst case, if someone finds him they might be able to recognize that he’s someone’s follower. Then I will go and sell the armor and weapons that I brought, and then use that money to buy noblegrass seeds and anything else that might help if I have any spares. This will significantly boost the food production as noblegrass grows faster than softrocks. Then I’d instruct Lem to build a watermill at the creek outside the village. Wait, do watermills even exist here or do they grind the wheat—err, noblegrass by hand? Well, no matter. The principles of milling are easy to understand, I just have to explain it if watermills don’t exist here. If needed, we could also make a dam at the creek to make it more effective. Only once that’s all done and food production is steady would the village be able to support additional population. Tsk, that problem with the granary really held us back…”

“...”

“Yep, that sounds like a solid plan. Now onto my immediate concerns… I’ll have to ask Sir Velram about the way to the kingdom. With any luck he’ll have a map with him, if not then that’s fine. I just need him to draw the way and important details to take notice. Then there’s the food situation. I don’t think it would take us an entire week as I could just ride on top of Ddraig, although I’ve never tried it before. Well I’m not too worried about the food, we can just hunt local wildlife and Ddraig can produce fire for cooking… or, well, cook it himself so long as he don’t burn it entirely. Still, I should bring some emergency food since they don’t appear to rot in my inventory anyway.”

“Hmm, mmm.”

Satisfied with his plan, Reinhard nodded to himself and resumed his browsing of the skills.

“…so in the end, which do I choose?”

He placed his left thumb below his lower lip in deep thought.

“The protection offered by the leather armor sounds enticing but the drawbacks are… unsatisfactory. Limiting the unique effects on my armor would only make me vulnerable to unforeseen attacks.”

“…”

“So clothing…?”

He thought for a while. He was so engrossed with his thinking that he didn’t even notice that he’s been walking all around his room for a long time now.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll just save some skill points if I don’t like it.”

And with what seems like a snap decision, he opened up the interface to try and learn [Weaving] using a skill point.

[SYSTEM]

You have acquired: [Weaving 1] Passive Skill

He immediately opened his crafting interface on the armor tab to see what he can craft.

[SYSTEM]

[Armor Crafting]

[Clothing]

“Yep, here it is.”

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Shirt]

[Common Cloth Shirt of Physical Defense]

[Common Cloth Pants]

[Common Cloth Pants of Physical Defense]

[Common Cloth Robes]

[Common Cloth Robes of Physical Defense]

[Common Cloth Hooded Robe]

[Common Cloth Hooded Robe of Physical Defense]

“Uuuuuh.”

*Cough*

“Well, for now I’ll check at the cloth shirt…”

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Shirt]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x5]

[CRAFT]

“Hmm, pretty basic. What about the magic item one?”

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Shirt of Physical Defense]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x5]

-[Common-Grade Fur x5]

-[50 MP]

He proceeded to check every single recipe, looking at their materials and making a mental note of it.

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Pants]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x5]

♦

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Pants of Physical Defense]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x5]

-[Common-Grade Fur x5]

-[50 MP]

♦

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Robes]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x7]

♦

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Robes of Physical Defense]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x7]

-[Common-Grade Fur x7]

-[70 MP]

♦

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Hooded Robe]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x10]

♦

[SYSTEM]

[Common Cloth Hooded Robe of Physical Defense]

-[Common-Grade Cloth x10]

-[Common-Grade Fur x10]

-[100 MP]

After checking them all out one-by-one, he found himself looking at the interface of the last item, the hooded robe of physical defense.

“I don’t have any cloth on me right now but…”

He walked towards a brown basket by the window and took out of it a shirt that’s been slightly browned and crisped by flames. It was his clothes when he fought Ddraig.

“Let’s see if this works…”

Suddenly, the burned shirt on his hands dematerialized into blue bubbles of particles. He had placed it in his inventory.

[SYSTEM]

Obtained: [Cloth Shirt 14/50] – Common

“Yep, it’s damaged alright.”

He checked the crafting interface again if the materials available has now updated. To his dismay, it has not. It looks like you can’t use an existing crafted item’s materials as another material.

“Hmm… Do I have to salvage it first? Rip it apart?”

“…”

He did try to rip them apart and placed them in his inventory to see if it works, however, no matter how much he rips it apart, the item only stays at [Tattered Cloth] and doesn’t change, so he gave up about the third time.

“Guess I’m going to have to get some actual cloth…”

“I don’t know if the people here get their cotton from cotton plants but I know for sure silk is obtained from silkleaves. I might have to ask Metha about this.”