Once I was done eating my meal of slightly scorched bug meat, I found myself craving something other than meat and fruit.

“I really miss potatoes,” I sighed sadly. I suppose that finding something similar to the humble spud could actually be possible. But much like anything else there was no way of knowing whether something like that would be edible or not until I ran some test. Actually, finding some sort of leafy plant that I could make into some sort of salad would probably be easier than finding some sort of potato replacement. “Well that’s something to think about anyway.”

I had spotted a few animals eating certain plants during my run through the forest on the way here, so I did actually have some ideas for finding some sort of vegetables to round out my diet. The only question was now was how many of those plants that I could find in the surrounding area.

“Right time to try and work out how my new Enchanting Skill works,” I decided. I was really hoping that I could work out how this Skill actually worked. It would give me another increase to my power which would in turn increase my survival.

“I guess that I should consider everything I know about the Skill itself,” I said to myself as I rubbed my chin in thought. “All the description said was that I could imbue an item with Mana to give it special effects. I don’t really have any other information than that.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t think of how this Skill might actually work. But I had to try something so I drew the knife that I’d had since appearing in the clearing and examined it. Maybe if I just tried to make the blade stronger so that it would last longer?

Channelling some of my Mana into the blade of the knife like I would if I was going to shape it, I instead attempted to imagine it become harder like diamonds and grinned excitedly as I felt my MP beginning to drain. As I concentrated other things crossed my mind and started to form a sort of pattern in my mind. By the time the drain on my MP started to slow down the patterns in my head had solidified into a single shining form that seemed to resemble that of a mountain with curling lines that reminded me of the carvings that could be found on Maori buildings or art. In reality I wasn’t that surprised that the pattern had ended up looking like that since I had grown up seeing that sort of thing a lot. You could barely walk down a street in New Zealand without seeing some sort of Maori art and I had always had a fondness for the almost organic looking patterns.

Opening my eyes, I saw that the blade of my knife now had the same glowing pattern on it. Judging by how much my head was aching right now Enchanting the knife had used up most of my MP but hopefully it would be worth the pain.

“Wow, that’s cool,” I muttered as I examined the knife closer. From what I could tell the pattern had actually been etched into the blade but had sort of been drawn on with Mana instead. As I examined it the glow thankfully faded until all I could see was a series of faint blue lines on the side of the blade.

“Alright let’s have a look at what this actually did,” I decided as I activated my Observation Skill to have a look at how that knife’s description had changed.

Shaped Obsidian Knife of the Mountain

Weapon damage: 9-12

Durability: 18/20 +2

This simple looking knife was made by a Yajashian Craftsman using the best materials. While it can be used as a weapon it was actually intended for use as a tool.

This weapon has been Enchanted by a complete giving it slightly increased Durability.

“Okay so I did manage to Enchant the knife with extra Durability like I wanted to,” I muttered to myself as I rubbed my aching head. “That’s a start at least.”

It would be nice if I had managed to give it a bit more Durability than I had but overall, I was pretty happy with how my first Enchanting attempt had gone. If it was this effective with my current low Skill Level then Enchanting would definitely become a Skill that I used a lot and hopefully I would be able to improve the Enchantments that I had already made as it Levelled Up.

Checking my MP levels made my eyes widen as I saw that even making this relatively weak Enchantment had used up over 400 MP once I had factored in my MP regen which definitely explained my headache which was slowly beginning to fade. Hopefully, the speed that I created Enchantments increased as the Skill Levelled Up as well or creating more powerful and complicated Enchantments was going to cost huge amounts of MP and take several hours.

I sighed as I realised just how long it was likely to take to Enchant everything. At least most of the Enchantments should be pretty simple. Attack related Enchantments for my weapons and defence ones for my vest and one of my bracers. For the other bracer I was planning on trying to give it an Enchantment that increased my MP regen instead since I wasn’t really planning on focussing on fighting in melee combat if I could avoid it.

But before I started doing that I should probably try and do something with the meat that was currently just lying around.

However, the question was; what the hell I could do to stop the meat going off. It wasn’t like I could just make a freaking fridge! In theory I might be able to make something like that eventually if I combined my Enchanting Skill with some sort of ice magic but even if I could make some sort of ice-based magic there was no way that I could make an Enchantment like that at the Skill’s current Level.

Eventually I came to a conclusion. I would create a hole and fill it with water using my Condensation spell and then putting portions of the meat into some sort of container made of stone using my Nature Shaping Skill and chucking them right in there. I wasn’t sure how effective this would be, but I figured that it had to be better than just leaving it out to rot.

Turning towards the scorpion which was still watching me with its beady black eyes I commanded it to start digging and then called my Amoeba back so that it could start digging as well. Scorpions live in burrows so I knew that they were fairly decent at digging but it would still take quite a while for a decent sized hole was made. It was actually pretty amusing to watch the scorpion start digging. It used its two front claws to dig and then its legs to kick the dirt out of the hole that it was making.

While the scorpion dug the hole, I went looking for several rocks that I could hopefully use to protect the meat from the water while still keeping it cool. I only needed about 5 reasonably sized stones, so this didn’t take me too long and by the time I returned the amoeba was also helping the scorpion dig and after checking how much longer my MP needed to regenerate completely, I too went to work digging.

As soon as my MP had regenerated, I sat back down and started work on Enchanting the rest of my stuff. Enchanting everything took a really long time. So long in fact that by the time I was done the hole that I had ordered my minions to dig was almost large enough for my purposes.

Each of the Enchantments basically looked like I had taken a blue pen and drawn on the pieces of equipment and they actually looked pretty decent now. I had gone with the same style for each of the Enchantments that I had made because the art style I had used was actually deceptively simple. Activating my Observation Skill I checked all of the pieces of gear that I had just Enchanted chuckling in amusement as I realised that I had only used Observation on my old axe so this would be the first time that I had seen the description for any of the pieces of gear that I had just Enchanted.

Crude Stone Hatchet of the Shark

Weapon damage: 6-11 (+2-3)

Durability: 6/7

This small axe was made by a complete beginner and this shows in both the design and in the technique used to make the item.

This weapon has been Enchanted to deal increased damage.

Crude Stone Kunai of the Falcon

Weapon damage: 4-8 (+ 1-2)

Durability: 6/8

This kunai was made by a complete beginner, but it will still serve its purpose. This weapon has been further enhanced by a simple Enchantment that decreases its weight making it easier to swing.

Primitive Wooden Vest of the Turtle

Defence: 7 +3

Durability: 9/9

This odd piece of jury-rigged armour was made by someone who was in a hurry and can only be put on and removed using Nature Shaping or by breaking the vest. Nonetheless it does provide some protection from attacks.

This vest has been Enchanted to provide extra protection from attacks.

Primitive Wooden Bracer of the Turtle

Defence: 3 +1

Durability: 5/5

An extremely basic piece of armour that fits over your forearm and provides a small amount of protection from attacks.

This bracer has been Enchanted to provide extra protection from attacks.

Primitive Wooden Bracer of the River

Defence: 3

Durability: 5/5

An extremely basic piece of armour that fits over your forearm and provides a small amount of protection from attacks.

This bracer has been Enchanted to increase your MP regen.

Increases your MP regen by 0.5/min.

“Okay, that seem to have worked out quite well,” I muttered to myself once I had finished reading the descriptions.

I had chosen a shark for the inspiration for the Enchantment that I had put on the axe because that was something that I knew how to draw in this particular art style that seemed like it was going to give me a reasonably large damage boost. That seemed to have worked out fairly well as had the Enchantment that I had put on my kunai which should increase my attack speed and the defence Enchantment that I had come up with.

In fact, the Enchantment that I’d had the most difficulty coming up with was the one that I had put on the bracer that was currently on my left arm. In the end I had used a river for the inspiration and that had actually worked out, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a better way of doing things.

“I really need to use my Observation Skill more though,” I sighed. While I was quite pleased with how my equipment seemed to be working, I really needed to get better at making it because it was pretty obvious from the descriptions that I could do better.

“Oh well,” I sighed as I grabbed my kunai and started to head over towards the hole that my minions were digging. “Crappy armour and weapons are still better than no armour and weapons.”

While I was digging Tane decided to start asking me questions again.

“What have you been doing Rick?” Tane asked suddenly. “I can sense some of your energy have split off from you.”

“Ah, that must be the Enchantments that I’ve been making,” I replied as I wandered over to help my minions dig again.

“What is an Enchantment?” Tane asked.

“That’s actually a bit difficult to explain,” I said as I continued to dig into the dirt with my kunai. “Well you know how I can cast magic right?”

“That thing that allows you to cause the earth to rise up and strike down your enemies or send your energy flying into them, right?”

“That’s right,” I agreed. “Well an Enchantment is related to that, but it creates a permanent effect instead of something that just happens and that’s it. For example, one of the Enchantments that I’ve made makes things harder so that I can use it longer before it breaks.”

“How interesting,” Tane replied. “Would you make something for me if I could think of something that I wanted?”

“I mean, sure,” I said. “If you can think of something that you could use.”

For the life of me I couldn’t think of anything that I could make for the tree but if Tane decided on something then I would do my utmost to make it. In reality I probably owed the tree more than I would ever be able to repay but maybe making something that it could use would help even the scales a little bit.

“Thank you, Rick.”

“No problem,” I replied as I continued to dig. Tane had apparently decided to finish the conversation at this point though because they didn’t respond. Oh well that was okay I still had plenty of work of to do today so there was no point in pushing the issue.

A few minutes later I decided that the hole was large enough for what I had planned so I ordered my minions to stop digging. As soon as they had clambered out of the hole, I started casting my Condense Water spell.

About 10 minutes later the hole wasn’t even a quarter of the way full and I was starting to get really frustrated. This spell was really only designed for creating small amounts of water, so it was clear that filling this hole up to the brim was going to take a long time.

In fact, by the time it was done I was completely exhausted. Thankfully the Skill had Levelled Up significantly to the point where there was an actual stream of water shooting from my hands. However, even though I really wanted to go to sleep I still had one last thing to do.

“Goddammit,” I muttered to myself as I looked over to where I had left the meat and rocks. “You know what, let’s just do this the quickest way possible.”

Sitting down I started to make a sort of makeshift box out of the stones that I had made. I had to take a couple of breaks while I was working to regenerate my MP. But, in the end, I was fairly sure that I had saved myself a bit of time by doing it this way instead of making individual containers for each portion of meat. I might add compartments later but for now this box would do. After placing all of the meat in the box I took the flat piece of stone that would serve as a lid and fused it with the main box before lifting up the surprisingly heavy object and carrying it over to the pool of water and slowly lowering it in by the large handle I had made sure to attach to it.

“Well then that’s finally done,” I sighed as I stood back up. “Time for bed.”

The next morning, I woke up and hauled the stone crate that I had put the meat in out of the pool of water and took some of the meat out so that I could cook some of it for breakfast. I made sure to grab some extra meat for my minions too. The scorpion in particular seemed to be quite hungry and the meat that I gave it disappeared into its gullet with a speed that would’ve made my parents’ dog jealous.

Chuckling to myself I made a note to feed the scorpion more often before I turned back to making my own breakfast. Once I was done with that, I decided that I should go and have a look around the area for some of the plants that I thought might be edible.

My minions trailed behind me as I walked and soon enough, I spotted the first likely specimen. Picking a single leaf from the slightly odd-looking plant I handed it to my amoeba which quickly absorbed it into its fleshy body where it quickly dissolved.

When I was certain that the amoeba was suffering no ill effects, I plucked another leaf from the plant and took a small bite. To my surprise it actually had quite a pleasant minty flavour and when I checked my Status I was even more pleased to note that it didn’t seem to be poisonous so I carefully dug it out of the ground with my kunai and placed it on the scorpion’s back.

In the end I found about three different leafy plants that seemed to be edible and only encountered one plant that was actually poisonous which forced me to use my Heal Minion spell for the first time when the amoeba started writhing like it was in pain before spitting the half-eaten leaf that I had given it out. The only One of these plants that I wouldn’t eat on its own was extremely salty and unpleasant to eat but I decided to grab it anyway so that I could it for seasoning.

When I got back to the base of Tane’s trunk I quickly dug several holes and replanted the bushes and watered them with my Condense Water spell.

“Oh yeah, it’s all coming together,” I muttered to myself in amusement. Things were really starting to look up now that I had a fairly safe place to live but it would still be some time before I would be ready for the refugees to arrive.

Seeing as it was now nearing midday, I headed over to the statue of Tarko and tried to fix the mess that I had made of the face. By the time I stopped for lunch I was much happier with how the statue was looking.

After a quick lunch of Bug meat with a small side of salad I decided to take a short nap in the warmth of the sun. I had been working ever since I had arrived on this world, so I felt that I deserved a chance to rest. Sadly, my little break was rather rudely cut short by a request from Tane.

“Rick would you be able to help me with something?”

“Huh,” I grunted as blinked blearily. “What is it?”

“I have detected a small group rather unpleasant creatures intruding on my territory,” Tane explained. “They aren’t very powerful on their own, but a group could injure me quite badly if left unchecked.”

“Uhh, okay?” I yawned. “Can you give me any more information?”

“They are individually weak creatures that you wouldn’t have any real difficulty defeating,” Tane replied. “They do have a strong outer shell, but they are quite slow. However I would advise you not to get caught fighting too many of them at once as they have been known to tear smaller predators to pieces in groups but if you attack them with your ranged attacks you shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

Now that I was fully awake, I nodded thoughtfully. I knew that Tane wouldn’t be asking me to help out if dealing with these things wasn’t relatively urgent and relatively safe. Besides, the aura that Tane was using to keep the more dangerous predators away was too precious to me to lose and if Tane was injured then who knows what could happen. So, in reality I didn’t really have much choice as far as I was concerned.

“Alright, I’m in.”