As expected eventually I was forced to stop working on the statue because doing the more delicate work like Tarko’s clothes and face was a little difficult for me right now. However, the statue had come a very long way in just a day and now resembled something like a manikin in a store but a bit blockier where I was trying to start work on the clothes and things. The problem was that I couldn’t use tools for the detail work like a real sculptor would. I had to use my hands for everything, and my fingers were just a bit too big for what I was trying to do.

Still, I had definitely succeeded in training my Nature Shaping Skill so I decided to head back towards the hollow that I was using as temporary shelter so that I could start improving the facilities. First things first was making sure that the place that I was sleeping was going to remain dry. There were actually quite a few small rocks lying around nearby so once I had gathered them up, I created a sort of step in front of the entrance with a small lip that would help keep ay water out with my Nature Shaping Skill.

Once I had done this I headed over to the large branch that Tane had given me permission to use earlier and once my MP had regenerated a bit sliced the broken fragments off of one end and then made another cut so that I had a roughly circular piece of wood. This was why I had wanted to increase my Nature Shaping Skill; it was much more efficient now that I had spent most of the day working on the statue and I had a much better idea of the best ways to use it.

Returning back to the hollow I placed the wooden disk up to the entrance and started removing the excess of what I needed. I had to take several breaks to regenerate my MP but eventually I had a very makeshift door that would fit into the opening. Placing it in the opening I used my Stone Spear spell to create a long, thin length of stone that fit through the holes that I had made for this exact purpose. Then I moved on to adjusting it further until I was happy with it. All told making this door and fitting it properly took about three quarters of an hour, mostly because I was forced to stop and regenerate my MP a few times. Unlike when I was working on the statue this time, I decided that it would be more worth it to meditate since that Skill was starting to lag behind a bit.

While I was working, I also explained what I was doing and why to an interested Tane. This time, Tane actually had an easier time understanding what was going on because there were quite a few creatures in this world needed shelter to survive. I was actually quite thankful for this because despite enjoying Tane’s company explaining everything to the tree was starting to get a little old.

“Right, that looks okay,” I said with a nod as I carefully opened and shut the door that I had made. My little home now looked like something that wouldn’t be out of place in Hobbiton but more importantly now I could be sure that I wasn’t going to wake up one morning in a puddle. It wouldn’t provide much protection from a monster that wanted to get in but thanks to Tane I didn’t have to worry about that. So even this makeshift door would work just fine.

Now that I was done making the door for my new residence, I started work on my next effort to make it actually habitable. Last night I had slept on a bed of leaves but that had been far from comfortable. After considering my options for a little bit I decided to make a hammock using the leaves that I had slept on the previous night. This was what I had meant by Nature Shaping being a broken Skill. I could use it to make just about anything so long as it was made out of something that had come from a tree or rocks. Once I had finished making the hammock, I hung it from two long spikes that I grew out from the wall in much the same way that I had made the pivot for my door.

“Awesome,” I said as I carefully climbed into the hammock. “This is much more comfortable. Alright I suppose that I should start making something that’s better to cook on than an open fire.”

Lying on my hammock I pondered my options for a couple of minutes before deciding that I only really had one option. Back when I was a kid some friends of ours had this old brick barbeque in their back yard and I was pretty sure that I would be able to make something similar relatively easily. Except for the fact that I didn’t seem to have enough stone right here to make something on the scale that I wanted to so I was force to go and grab some of the rock that I had cut off the statue of Tarko that I was making. At the moment I was just going to make a little stone box that I could make a fire inside of and a thin piece of stone on top for a hot plate. I could always add to it later because that was yet another great thing about my Nature Shaping Skill.

Naturally because I was working with stone again making this little box took quite a long time to make because I had to stop multiple times to recover MP. However, when I had finished it actually looked pretty good.

“Right then,” I said as I picked up the sticks that I’d ordered the amoeba to collect while I was working and placed them in the box before creating a Mana Bolt in my hand and using it to light the fire like I usually did. Now that I’d had a bit of practice doing this, I managed to avoid burning myself, but I still reminded myself that I needed to find a better way of lighting fires.

Now that I had a fire lit, I started putting chunks of the bug meat that was left over from yesterday onto sticks and then placed them onto the hotplate which created a very pleasant sizzling sound. Now that the meat was cooking, I closed my eyes and started meditating, it was time to finally try and get some Fire Affinity.

Once I had entered the state where I could sense and directly absorb the Mana that surrounded me, I turned my attention to the fire that was currently cooking my dinner. Sure enough, there was a type of Mana that was very different from the ones that I was already absorbing now. Reaching out towards it mentally I discovered that actually absorbing this Mana was going to be a bit more difficult than I was expecting…

Mostly because it burned me.

“Ah, shit!” I shouted as the pain ripped me from my meditative state. Glaring at the fire in front of me for a few seconds as I considered what this meant before checking to make sure that the meat that I was cooking wasn’t burning.

Once I had turned the meat over, I started meditating again. It was pretty obvious that the reason that I was being burned by the Fire Mana was because I had absolutely no Affinity for it at all. In fact, if there was such a thing as negative Affinity for an element then I probably had that. I was guessing that was the case for most if not all Yajash but getting even 1% Fire Affinity might be enough for what I wanted to do. I just needed enough Fire Affinity to make a tiny flame for starting fires and that was it. I could use my other Elemental Affinities for almost everything else. That shouldn’t be too difficult, right?

Wrong. Very, very wrong. Even when I was prepared for the pain that came with trying to absorb Fire Mana it still broke me out of my meditative state several times. Thankfully this meant that I was able to check on my dinner so that it didn’t burn but eventually I was forced to stop before my dinner actually did start burning.

“Damn it,” I grumbled as I chewed on the meat that I had cooked. Thankfully my sour mood soon faded as I ate my dinner which despite the meat being left out all day was actually still pretty good. I really needed to try and make some sort of way to store meat though because leaving it out all the time was a bad idea that made my inner cook recoil in horror.

Once I was done eating, I started meditating again. Soon sweat was pouring down my back as I attempted to absorb the Fire Mana created by the fire still burning in my makeshift barbeque. Eventually the burning sensation caused by doing this started to lessen although it was hard to tell whether this was because I was getting used to it or some other reason. Either way I decided to take it as a good sign and redoubled my efforts.

I have no idea how much time passed but by the time that the burning pain had faded to a dull throbbing I decided to stop. I wasn’t sure what forcing my body to absorb too much Fire Mana would do to me and I only needed a small amount of Affinity to do what I wanted to do.

Opening my eyes, I was surprised to see that the fire had actually nearly burned out. With a grin I decided to try something a little different out instead of just blowing it out. Holding out a hand I concentrated on summoning a small amount of Wind Mana into my hand before releasing it in a burst. The gust of wind that shot out from my hand not only put out the fire like I wanted it to but sent what remained of the wood and more importantly the embers flying.

“Shit!” I exclaimed as I quickly brushed off the embers which had landed on my unclothed upper half and quickly stamping them out. “Okay that was a bad idea.”

‘What was that!?’ Tane asked. His mental voice had become much more emotive as the day had gone on and this time, I could literally feel the horror that the tree was feeling wash over me.

“Sorry I didn’t think that the spell would be that powerful!” I replied quickly. “I think I got all of the embers though.”

‘Just don’t do that again please,’ Tane requested. My friend’s tone made me feel pretty guilty. I really shouldn’t have tried something like that without knowing how powerful the spell would be.

However, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t happy about the new spell that I had created and after making sure that there weren’t any embers that I had missed I brought up its information.

Gust Unlocked!

A powerful blast of wind that knocks an enemy back and damages them slightly. Cost 35 MP.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Gust!

Well… I think that Tane is a bit upset with me but at least my new spell seems useful for creating space. I did already have Mana Blast which did that. But Gust also dealt a bit of damage so even though it cost more MP to use I think I’ll get quite a lot of use out of it.

“Okay well let’s have a look at my Affinities I guess,” I muttered glancing guiltily at Tane as I did so.

Affinities

Fire

1%

Water

6%

Earth

10%

Air

8%

Nature

6%

Time (Locked)

2%

All that for 1% Fire Affinity. Yajash really weren’t very compatible with Fire Mana.

Sighing I wondered whether 1% would even be enough for what I wanted to do. Well I guess that there’s only one way to find out.

Holding up a single finger I channelled what little Fire Mana I had into my fingertip in an attempt to create even a small flame. Once again, I gasped in pain as I instantly came down with a headache much like I had when I had previously made spells that were beyond me.

“Oh screw you,” I growled as I tried to make up for my lack of Fire Mana by pumping more neutral Mana into the spell and when that didn’t work I tried channelling some Air Mana into it in the hopes that it would act as fuel and be the final push I needed to create the spell.

“…That’s it?” I asked when all of my efforts only amounted to a tiny flame about the size of what you would expect from a small candle appeared on the tip of my finger.

Yeah, I’m definitely not getting any more fire spells any time soon. Still this was actually what I wanted so I guess I couldn’t really complain too much. It was still a bit disappointing though.

“Oh well it’s still a new spell I suppose,” I muttered as I carefully blew out the flame and brought up the information on my second new spell of the day.

Candlelight Unlocked! (Lvl Max)

Creates a tiny flame only suited to starting fires. Cost 5 MP/min

Growth Rate increased by 1 Wisdom

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Candlelight!

Oh, for goodness’ sake even the description was telling me how weak my new spell was!

And it can’t even get any stronger this is just ridiculous!

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself down and look on the bright side. Even this spell increased my Growth Rate by 1 Wisdom. I knew that this spell would be weak and that Yajash weren’t good with Fire Mana anyway so I shouldn’t be surprised but it was hard to see after how painful it had been to even get to the point where I could even make this weak spell.

Now then I might as well keep making new spells since I didn’t have an awful lot else to do right now. I didn’t really have a lot of things that I used my Nature Mana for so it would probably be a good idea to give making a spell with that a shot.

After thinking about what sort of spells I really needed right now there were two types that I really needed. The first was some sort of healing spell which I thought Nature Mana would be well suited to. The other was some sort of attack that can hit multiple targets at once which after thinking about it didn’t really seem to be something that Nature Mana wouldn’t be too helpful with an attack that dealt damage over time maybe which was something else to look into but I was looking for something a bit more direct for now.

“Well I should make the healing spell first I suppose,” I muttered to myself in thought. I technically did have a healing spell already but that one only worked on my minions. Still, it was a place to start so I cast it on the amoeba. It didn’t actually do anything since the amoeba was perfectly healthy, but I was able to sense how the spell actually worked a little. “Okay then, let’s see what I can do.”

Pulling my kunai out I made a small cut across my index finger and started to concentrate. Heal Minion obviously worked a bit differently from the spell that I was actually going to make since it used a mixture of Neutral Mana and the strange Mana that I had only been able to sense when I had made my Share Senses Skill up until now but for some reason seemed to be able to use to some degree despite it not being listed on my Affinities Screen.

However, it did give me some idea of how to apply my Nature Mana. Infusing Nature Mana into the cells that surrounded my small injury in the hopes that this would accelerate my natural healing seemed like a pretty good idea so that was the first thing that I tried. I had to work quickly because of my naturally high HP regen though and, in the end, I had to cut myself again before I got the hang of things.

This second cut was a bit larger, but it had to be to last for more than a few seconds. This time when I started channelling Nature Affinity Mana into the cells surrounding my injury it started healing even faster than it would normally leaving me with a small mark and a mild itching sensation both of which also faded pretty quickly.

“Now that’s more like it!” I exclaimed as I rubbed the spot where the cut had been up until a few seconds ago. This was much more effective than my previous attempt at making a spell which went a long way to restoring my confidence in my ability to make new spells.

Instead of bringing up the description of my new spell I instead decided to move onto making the next one. The closest thing I had to spells that hit multiple targets were my Mana Blade, Mana Blast and Gale spells but in the end the only spell that was primarily for damage was Mana Blade and it wasn’t really the best sort of spell for attacking multiple targets because it was a single projectile and as such was fairly easy to dodge. If I cast a bunch of Mana Blades one after the other, then chances were that I would be able to hit a group of enemies with at least some of them. However, the problem with that was how much MP doing something like that would use up.

In the end I decided that my best option was using my Earth Mana to make a spell that fired a barrage of stone shrapnel like a shotgun. This was actually a bit more difficult than I had anticipated because of all of the (literally) moving parts involved and in the end the accuracy of the attack was absolutely appalling. Not that it mattered since when I finally got the spell to work the storm of shrapnel that ensued tore a nearby tree to woodchips.

Seeing this I instantly cringed as I wondered whether Tane was going to get angry at me again but all I felt from the tree was mild interest in what I had just done and a little bit of something I can only call schadenfreude.

“Wait, you were okay with that?” I asked in confusion as I stared at the ruined stump that had once been little more than a sapling.

‘Why would I care about you killing that tree?’ Tane asked. ‘That species is a type of parasite that attaches itself to my roots and syphons off the nutrients that I collect. They don’t bother me when they’re that small but if it got too much larger, I was going to ask you to kill it anyway.’

Well that was a little chilling. I mean I couldn’t judge Tane I had killed more than a few other creatures to stay alive since I had arrived on this world. And that was without even considering all of the animals that I had eaten (as well as a few that I had killed myself) back on Earth.

Still now that I had created both of the spells that I had wanted to make so I brought up the descriptions of the new spells that I had made.

Regenerate Unlocked!

Increases your natural HP regen by a small amount. Cost 25 MP/min

Growth Rate increased by 1 Wisdom.

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Regenerate!

Gravel Shotgun Unlocked! (Specialised)

Fires a barrage of small, sharp stones that each deal a small amount of damage in a cone shape. Cost 45 MP

Growth Rate increased by 2 Intelligence.

2 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Gravel Shotgun!

Oh, now this was more like it. These two spells were actually awesome especially Gravel Shotgun.

Looking at the description Regenerate seemed to be a heal over time spell but that didn’t matter too much since I already healed pretty quickly anyway. It didn’t actually cost that much considering how useful it was as a spell. Also despite it supposedly being a small increase according to the description I estimated that the cut that I had made on my arm had healed around twice as fast as it normally would not that I was planning on cutting myself again so that I could check this.

And Gravel Shotgun was hands down my best spell. It was expensive but it was also a little bit overpowered. If I had to point out a single flaw with the spell it was that it would damage anything that was hit by it and that included my minions.

However now I was exhausted so after eating the last of the fruit that I had collected earlier I went to bed. I had used up the last of the bug meat which meant that I would have to go hunting for food again tomorrow which if I was lucky meant that I would Level Up again.

Clambering into my hammock I quickly got comfortable and shortly after that I fell asleep.