Chapter 40. Hole "I cleared out the big monsters, you can kill the rest. Move around in groups of two, so that even if you find a somewhat stronger monster you all won't die." "And take these horns with you, blow them if absolutely needed and he shall come for your aid. Do not blow them for fun, I cannot guarantee you safety if you do so." Garry said right after me. The crafters had set up the camp while I was clearing out the bigger monsters. The monster did not give much energy, a level or two after clearing dozens of them but fighting them did help in increasing my skill levels. My skills were slowly nearing their limit. Sword mastery was almost level twenty as I kept on using thorn. I wanted to evolve sword mastery from novice to competent without me having to 'rank up'. I also let the weaker monsters purposefully hit me so that I could try out my other blood mage skills, and they worked pretty well. Clot did take a few seconds but it closed wounds pretty fast. Blood recovery was important too. I let myself bleed out for a time and recovery was able to restore all that blood in seconds. It was just that they took too much mana. Yes, Mana. Not stamina or something actual mana, and using mana wasn't all that different from using stamina. It was just that I had kept investing agility so I had good control over my body, i.e. stamina. But never really added points to Intelligence or Wisdom, which should be related to mana. The attributes worked in a complex manner, each connected to the other. Figuring out what they exactly did was difficult on my own. I was distributing my points on how I would in the 'Demon Fighter' class just that Str and Agi were replaced by Int and Wis. I did not fall short of strength even when I was fighting the hobgoblin, so I doubted there was a need to urgently add any points to it. The barrier that was covering my pores was near its limit and would break down any day. My progress was constant and was increasing by a sufficient amount for now. I looked around was amazed at their working speed. In just half an hour they had leveled the land where the inner city would be built, and by no means it was small. I stayed in one of the tents meditating and would occasionally observe them cutting trees and then the logs into shapes that would be useful. The city would be built of wood. I did not believe that it would hold out for long and thought that there would be a constant need to re-built the buildings, but after Garry demonstrated their 'actual' craft, I had no choice to but believe it was possible. I had mentioned earlier that there was a seed in mind palace, one that I had seen after getting skills and with four runes circling it. I thought that the seed represented my class but I was wrong. The seed represented me, and the runes were my skills. My skills from my first class were all grey initially but now they were slowly turning black as if their color got more concentrated over time. After I got my second class and its skills, another circle of runes started revolving around the seed. Now there were two circles, revolving diagonally. One from right top to left bottom and the other, left top to right bottom. These new runes were in the shade of pink and were slowly moving towards a bright crimson shade. How did this connect with Garry and his 'actual craft'? That would be the runes. After they built something, small runes would be carved on the object which strengthen it giving it special properties. The special properties weren't magical but they were special properties nevertheless. Even I had trouble breaking a piece of wood after he finished inscribing and had to use cleave to split it. Garry was shocked that I was able to damage it because no one had been able to damage these in the tutorial. The runes were obviously different than those in my mind palace. The ones that Garry drew were simple, like three lines at a fixed angle and at a certain distance. While the runes in my mind were complicated, dozens of lines crossing each other some overlapping, some curved, some darker, and some lighter. Garry said that after crafters reach level fifteen and they chose a crafting class, a common skill was available to everyone. Basic Rune Knowledge. It was from this skill that they knew how to draw runes and what meant what, but drawing them required a lot of concentration, and only ten could be drawn each day. The number increased as you leveled up but it was by one or two which wasn't that much of an increase in the early stages. It would start making a difference after level thirty as you could draw nearly sixty runes a day. I wanted to learn how to understand runes and how to draw them but building the city was more important now, so learning would have to wait until this was done. I was resting when a loud noise resounded. "That's the horn!" One of the crafters shouted. Looks like I had work to do now, either way, it got boring just watching them chop trees. I came out of the tent and rushed down the hill towards the noise, it wasn't that far away from the hill so I should not have missed dangerous monsters, it should be something else. A man sat under a tree with a bloodied arm while a woman stood guarding him with a sword in her hand. There was no monster nearby but from how alert they stayed it should not be dead. "Situation," I said after dropping down from the tree. They flinched, but after recognizing it was me they finally relaxed. "A large ant attacked us from nowhere. It chewed his arm but released it after getting hit twice. It was a lot stronger than any other monster I have seen, even D-grade goblins don't compare. After it released him it backed away in that direction." The woman said pointing in a direction with her sword. "Got it, I'll drop you back and check it out later. We have first aid at the camp, rest for the remaining day." I finally had something fun to do.