A while later Seras and the others had had the situation explained to them. Further, Seras' guard friend Horatio, the Goblin Dryad leader Morganna, and a few others were added as officers of the spawn crystal. In fact, the crystal itself had gathered enough members to the cave it reached the next stage in officer levels. A notification had risen for Swift and Adil, showing how an elder or captain to be chosen. With the nature of the goblin hierarchy, they thought it was fair to add the dryad to that position. The position of Elder seemed to grant different boons to that of the captain, allowing them to integrate their mana more closely with the spawn crystal itself, and thus it was chosen for Morganna.

When she joined the spawn crystal and upgraded to that of an elder, her green-blue skin changed to that of subtle orange, the horns becoming less root-like, turning into dark ivory. She was like a more tanned Maleficent. The Spawn crystals' forces count had reached a hundred and seven, not including Adil, Swift or Seras.

They found themselves talking in the war room, the table set out in front of them and plans for what to do being discussed. The story Seras told of her time after Adil's death highlighted how most soldiers were still left in the town, some planning to join the approaching army and push forward into the reported goblin base. An army of over a thousand had gathered to carry out the crusade's purge of the maze. It seemed as though Seras had no longer planned to help defend but only facilitate an escape for all those present. When all had been explained, Adil let out a gasp of exasperation.

"We are so fucked," he said.

"It's not too late; I think our best bet is to gather everything and then leave," Seras added.

"But where would we go?"

"East, towards the Darklands. They will not follow us past the black soil."

The merc leader Griffon objected, "That risk is greater than anything the crusaders would throw against us. Even if we could stay hidden, I don't think we would find much food."

The dryad solemnly clasped her staff and focusing mana drew people's attention through a burst of the mesmerising coalescing white and black lights.

"I have run enough of my life; we finally have a chance at freedom, a home that could sustain us and land no longer hostile. We must hold, or even if it were futile, I would rather die trying."

Adil let up." Well, ignoring calls for some sort of group suicide, from the sounds of things we only have this option. I believe we can do it."

All turned to him with hopeful gazes, earnestly wishing he had the answer, even the dryad still solemn and pushed further by Adil's insensitivity.

"Well. Given that we have time to build, prepare and plan, we can probably do more than we had before. That thing there," he said, pointing to the spawn crystal. "Can probably pull something else out."

The others looked away from him in slight disappointment; they were expecting more than the obvious. Adil looked around for the group; they were still seeing him as a leader and expected someone to take charge.

"Seras, can you work out a way to organise a fighting force, I need to sort things out here whilst Swift, and I figure out how to use the forge. By tonight, we should have sleeping quarters for us all in the back of the cave and tomorrow; we will have solid defences... Dismissed."

Seras looked to him in earnest approval, as he had taken control. Having fallen into the army style leader role she had, the place rubbing off on him like in a way that gave a sort of obligation and purpose.

Somehow, he needed to get mana shields up and running, but with the limited amount of time he had, it seemed almost impossible. All the others left the war room before he turned around to face the forge, Swift in-tow.

The piece of metal left from the shattered tool was still there on the floor, Swift was going around picking up the pieces of wood, attempting to organise the place before they started again.

"Can you give me tips on how to work the forge?" Adil asked him. Swift looked up to meet his eyes.

"I just tried to control the process like I do with my mana, it's like controlling the amount of power that flows out, trying to keep an eye on not letting too much and directing it. Then I just got a notification that the mana had bonded with the material and my infusion skill had been unlocked."

"Thanks for the baby steps man." Adil exhaled as he thought about the process, it felt like his mana was the problem, it malfunctioned and rebounded off the material. but he had no idea why

"I'll have another go." Adil grabbed a tool out of the scrap box, broke its metal out and using some tongs placed the piece in the hearth. It came out shinning and sparkling as it took the mana out with it.

"Try to imagine what you want to make," Swift said.

Adil held firm on his mana, allowing only a trickle to pass into the hammer. He beat down on the metal, but immediately his mana rebounded, striking back through the tool. A burst of electricity causing his hand to spasm between clenched and opened.

"That's worse than last time," Adil said.

Swift shrugged. "Well, maybe it's karma for shitting on all those books. And again... Whhy??"

Adil gave a stern fed up look to Swift. "I'll get this, just let me try some more," he said. With that, Swift left Adil to figure it out on his own.

After his arm had relaxed, Adil struck into the metal again. Focusing, he tried to sense the mana within it.

The Pure silver mana was coating the object, seemingly with a signature effect close to that of the spawn crystal. The mana he had used seemed to change direction with the smallest thought, but he could not think fast enough to control it. It was as though his focus on the control was counterproductive; he could not manage it at the speed it needed to go. he broke away, a tingle in his hand as the mana rebounded through it again.

He realised what he was missing then, a sort of trust. He needed to trust in his ability to manage the material, release control from the mana and rely on it to do what he needed it to do. Adil again hit into the piece without exerting any control over his mana. He saw the electricity scatter through the material and into the anvil sparks flying.

He hit the material and went into a trance; he could see it in his mind the design mode. The metal shaking with each hit as his hammer went down. The mana was being tempered with the material. Hit over and over again, he saw the mana compressed and compressed until it started bonding with the material. Almost reflexively, he tried to hold back, to see what he was doing and control what was going on. The electric mana he was using rebounded, shooting through his arm and into his heart. He shot back shaking from the pain.

Gasping for air Adil clutched at his chest. *One more time* he thought. He crawled back to the anvil and got up again.

Adil couldn't understand why he was failing. Seeing Swift work the metal so efficiently. He tried again, occasionally spasming between strikes and then he saw the metal compress. The mana fusing with it. He could tell that the mana had bonded with the material and no longer seemed to leak into the world around. He let out a sigh of relief

Notification

Congratulations, you have unlocked mana infusion. Due to your work with compressing mana into materials you are now able to infuse mana into a material. This is a delicate process that can create materials which defy common understanding but risk exploding if handled inadequately.

Satisfied Adil moved onto the next stage, he visualised the metal and tried to change its form. The mana intrinsically connected to him and the forge allowed him to influence the still hot metals state. Shaping it through visualisation in his mind's design mode. Adil needed to figure out a way that the divide could work with outside mana, and then a method for it to be converted into a shield.

Using the design mode, he tried to find out how the mana interacted with the material, to see how he could use mana to alter the material, change it to create different effects.

He thought back to Hugo, the one who brought him here from Earth. How he had managed to create sophisticated mechanisms dependent only on the channelling of mana, how he had even managed to slow time to a standstill. Adil looked through the mana around the device, seeing how ti could be changed. He felt as though it was moving differently to the material, as though the material was... Wait, Adil realised just then, the mana was not affected by gravity, but somehow it was drawn to the material. It was a sort of viscosity, like a drop of water clings to the edge of a cup the mana was sticking to the material.

Adil theorised that this stopped mana from coalescing in the centre of this planet. More so, though. The mana had always seemed to obey the laws of thermodynamics, moving to a state of equal spread, defusing across the landscape and increasing in complexity in closed environments.

Hugo had said something about how the matter was made from light, and that is why gravity affected it. Adil remembered that a proton was just two top quarks and one bottom quark, how a neutron was just a proton and electron and how quarks and electrons held wave functions just like light. Hugo explained how gravity affects mass by making it slow down facing the direction of "gravity" giving the illusion of being pulled as they meander closer, it's like a river changes direction when part of the water loses speed, or when a laser is shot into a crystal. But if that was true, why did mana not interact with it in the same way. Does a beam of mana change direction if it hits a crystal?

Wait, Adil thought, why did he remember this so clearly. Was this a part of his learnt skill? Is this the information he needed to build the mana circuits? Everything Hugo said was strangely starting to make sense. Without knowing why Adil knew he needed to make an on/off switch and a way to store externally created mana before finding out how it is transformed into a shield.

He contemplated on how mana was not like electricity, but it could turn into electricity. So does it start as something else? Or turn into something else again? How come everyone can use these crystals when their mana is so different?

Adil held an immense pain in his head started to throb, and he dropped the metal.

Notification

Mental ability +1

Information processing speed increased, forced grey to white brain matter conversion in hippocampus. Connections with cingular gyrus and Amygdala increased. Result of heightened short term memory as system one database working memory increased from 7 to 8.

"Oww," Adil groaned, happy about the levelling but still suffering the pain from it. If this is what happens when I think too much, maybe I just shouldn't he joked. His brain feeling rammed, but as the pain dissipated, strangely more clear as though there was an empty space for thoughts to build. He could hold more in the back of his mind whilst he worked or build on a multitude of concepts as his main focus. Still, a bit sick Adil slapped himself back to reality and carried on with the project.

Adil connected his mana again to the metal and brought it up into the air in front of him. The piece rose into the air, and he closed his eyes, again in design mode he began working on creating the mana shield.

Ah, he needed a transistor or even a capacitor to store the mana? What were those though, what did those words mean? Ah, a transistor changes mana into something, but a capacitor helps store it. That would require something highly conductive to mana and able to go on and off. *Heh*, Adil thought, if he was playing Minecraft he would need a redstone torch, a mana powered button and some redstone wire. Then probably some sort of device that turns the mana current into a shield.

But what would store mana? Adil wondered for a while. He thought for a moment and realised he was missing the gem, the crystal. All mana shields he had seen had or were crystals. That's probably what could hold, convert and distribute the mana. Adil looked up to the spawn crystal and realised that must be the case, obviously. He slapped himself in the face. Adil walked towards the junk bag and rummaged through. He brought out a *shiny* that the goblins kept, a damaged purple crystal.

Notification

You have received an amethyst cluster.

quality: unrefined

Adil focused on the metal and folded it into a chain and necklace, leaving a space for a crystal to be placed. He grabbed his newly made creation from out of the air before shouting from the pain and dropping the scorching hot jewellery. After gathering some water he poured it on the newly made mana shield, and then when it was cool enough, placed it into his pocket ready to move on.

Notification

You have created a mana infused metal necklace without a gem hole.

Adil moved his mana into the crystal and saw how when it went inside it bonded with the crystal as if trapped by some force. As mana was put towards the crystal, it could either draw out or add in the mana already present. Strangely as the mana was drawn out, it was slightly purple, as though the nature of the crystal had altered the composition of the mana. There was a definite limit to the power the crystal could hold. The question was, could it be increased and how could effects be added to the power of this crystal.

Adil focused on bringing up a schematic of the mana shield token. He saw how the crystal had an intricate pattern inside it; it was like the signature from before but manufactured. He inspected the crystal and saw how it made the mana more "purple". It seemed to be with how tight and separated the bonds were inside the crystal. It was like the diffusion of light on a chameleons skin. After a while, the formation of the crystal had been roughly copied to the style of the token. When he put mana through the crystal the output was not like a type of mana but closer to the mana version of white noise. It was like when you saw the fuzz in the back of the tv screen. Somehow a disruption that interfered with the frequency of mana around it. His mana, only taking the form of electricity or wind would fall apart and no longer be able to sustain itself as the entropic mana generated from the crystal came into contact with it in the field Adil was now creating.

Adil broke off a bit of the crystal carefully carving and shaping it through delicate and precise tools until it could fit into the slot he had made. After inserting it into the gem space, he received a notification and grew a wide smile over his face.

Notification

Lesser shielding token.

This token using low-grade materials can create a mana shield with mana provided but will easily break upon use.

Quality: well-made

If Adil could unlock mana in his forces and allow them to use these, he rubbed his eyes not realising how tired he had become. Looking over the edge of the cave, he saw how the area had been further carved out. The drones had managed in all this short time to carve something resembling a building out of the cave wall, big enough to house the lot of them. He could see Goblins, soldiers and the dryad already moving towards the area. He was almost nodding off to sleep and decided to move the drones away from the sleeping quarters, their silvery goo and strange high-pitched sounds made whilst working would be a pain around the weary people right now. He sat up next to the wall under the spawn crystal, the last glance around before he nodded off to sleep.