Clambering up my makeshift ladder once again with one half of the roof piece in tow I ordered the scorpion to lift the other end while the Gel wrapped itself around the base of the ladder to brace it so that I didn’t fall off again.

Now that the scorpion was both larger and stronger it was easily able to lift the roof piece to the top of the stone pillar and I was finally able to use my Nature Shaping Skill to fuse the corner that I was holding to the top of the pillar my ladder was leaning against. Once I had done this I quickly climbed back down and moved the ladder over to where the Scorpion was so that I could fuse that end with the pole that was bracing it. I made sure to leave a little bit of overhang on both ends so that the rain would be more likely to drip onto the ground outside of the makeshift shelter that I was making. I planned on making a channel that would function as a gutter later, but I wanted to get the roof up first.

About an hour later we had finally finished putting the various pieces of the roof up and secured but I had to take a break to regenerate my MP before fusing the different pieces together. I was quite pleased with how the shelter was coming together. You could find similar shelters like it all over the place back on Earth to protect people from the elements. But this was different because it was something that I had made without any modern tools and just a little help from my two minions.

It truly was remarkable what I could do thanks to the powers that the System had given me. I would have struggled to carry even a single piece of the roof up a ladder back on Earth and it would have been much less safe for me to do so. But thanks to the Strength increases that the System had given me I had managed it here without much difficulty and I had even managed to fasten it much more firmly with my Nature Shaping Skill than it was possible to with even something like a welder let alone the bolts which would normally be used for something like that. And that was without even considering the fact that I was using two monsters to help me with what I was doing.

Once my MP was finished regenerating, I fused the different pieces of the roof together then blinked in surprise when the flashing light that signalled that I had just obtained a new Skill appeared in the corner of my vision.

Frowning I slid back down the ladder and brought up the notification which only made my frown deepen.

Nature Construction (Racial) Unlocked!

Nature Construction is a Crafting Skill that uses Nature Shaping to create buildings that are much stronger than buildings made through normal needs. Due to the inherent magic used when making buildings with this Skill it is possible to add magical effects during construction which make these effects part of the building instead of being added later.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Endurance, Intelligence and Wisdom.

3 Aspect points awarded for unlocking Nature Construction.

“Okay, what the fuck!?” I snapped irritably once I had finished reading. “How the hell have I unlocked a Skill for making buildings but not one for making weapons or armour!?”

What was even more irritating to me was that this Skill seemed to be quite powerful due to its relation to my Nature Shaping Skill. Despite how annoyed I was that I had unlocked this Skill before one that would allow me to make more powerful weapons or armour I was looking forward to working out how to add these magical effects the Skill description mentioned to the buildings that I could make. However, there was something that I had to get to the bottom of first.

“Hey Admin, can you explain something for me?” I asked as I activated my Contact Admin Skill for the first time since I had received it.

Message from Admin-51340

Of course. That is the purpose of the Skill that I gave you.

“Thanks,” I sighed. “I just gained the Construction Skill just from making one fairly basic building but haven’t received one for making either weapons or armour when I’ve made more of those. Can you please explain why this might be the case?”

Message from Admin-51340

Ah, that would be because of your Affinity for those Skills. Everyone has a certain level of Affinity for a certain Skill and you Affinity for Construction is apparently considerably higher than your Affinity for a weapon or armour-crafting Skill. You can still learn Skills that you have a low Affinity for, but it takes much longer.

“Okay that makes a certain amount of sense,” I acknowledged. “Can you tell me anything else about how Affinities for Skills work? Like can you increase your Affinity for certain Skills?”

Message from Admin-51340

Of course. You can increase your Affinity for any type of Skill by completing an Aspect related to it. For example, you can increase your Affinity for Crafting Skills by completing the Aspect of the Crafter. However, your Affinity for a Crafting Skill that you previously had a low Affinity for will still be much lower than that of someone who had both a high Affinity for that Skill who has also completed that Aspect. There are a couple of other ways as well, but you don’t have access to them at the moment.

“Alright,” I replied as I nodded in understanding. “That also makes a lot of sense. I do have one more question though. Have you artificially increased my Affinity for some Skills?”

Message from Admin-51340

Technically yes. I increased your ability to learn Weapon Skills example since they were necessary for your survival. However, I wasn’t able to do this for more than a couple of days, so you got quite lucky when you managed to learn two Weapon Skills.

“I see, well I think that’s all my questions about that,” I said eventually. “Can I ask how the other humans that you recruited are doing?”

Message from Admin-51340

Of course. Though I warn you that you might not like the answer. Many of your fellow former humans have perished now that the barrier that had been protecting them has faded.

“Yeah I had actually guessed that would be the case,” I sighed sadly. “I was quite lucky to survive myself. Can you tell me how many are left now?”

Message from Admin-51340

Including you there are 18 former humans left of the surface of Edra out of the several hundred that I originally transported here. The others have all perished. I am sorry.

“Don’t be,” I told the Admin sadly as a pit opened up in my stomach. I knew that many of the humans that the Admin had recruited had likely died horribly but that wasn’t the Admin’s fault. Like me all of the people that the Admin had recruited had already died and had agreed to the Admins deal to be given another chance on Edra. “They knew what they were signing up for.”

Message from Admin-51340

Yes, they did. However, I had hoped that more of them would survive. Sadly, I overestimated them and now the pressure on you and the other survivors has only increased. I am… proud of what you and the others have accomplished so far, and I hope that as many of you as possible last until the Yajash are ready to join you.

I blinked in surprise as I read this message. The Admin had never really shown any form of emotion before. Not that it was easy to do so when you primarily communicated by text, but it was definitely nice to see.

“Thanks Admin,” I replied eventually. “I hope we do as well. Anyway, I have more work to do now and I suspect you do too, so I’ll leave you to it.”

Message from Admin-51340

Very well. As always, I wish you luck.

I pondered what the Admin had said in its messages for a few more moments before dismissing the final one with a sigh. I had been telling the truth when I had told it that I still had work to do so, seeing as my MP had regenerated again, I decided to get back to it.

By the time I had finished shaping the channels that would function as the shelter’s gutter I decided that it was time to make dinner and head to bed.

The next morning when I woke up, I made a quick breakfast before moving on to finish making the axe that I had started yesterday. It was still frustrating to me that I didn’t have a weapon crafting Skill yet, but I was still hopeful that I would be able to learn one. Come to think of it the fact that Skills had Affinities made a lot of sense to me. It had taken me a long time to learn my Running and Controlled Breathing Skills after all.

I was currently assuming that my Soul Aspect had something to do with the Skill Affinities that I had but even with that I still had no idea why I had what I was assuming was quite a high Affinity for Construction.

My train of thought was cut suddenly short when I realised that I had finished making my newest axe and I stopped to admire it for a few seconds. The new weapon looked quite a bit better than the old one had. I had been using my Enchanting Skill while making it which had left it looking quite different to my previous weapon and a quick check with my Observation Skill made my eyes widen in surprise.

Poorly Shaped Stone Hatchet of the Shark

Weapon damage: 10-13 (+4-5)

Durability: 12/12

This small axe was made by a beginner using a combination of Nature Shaping and Enchanting making it far stronger than a weapon they would normally be able to make.

“…Holy shit,” I gasped once I had finished reading the description of my new weapon. It was almost twice as good as my old axe had been and looked better than it to boot. The handle of the axe somewhat resembled the body of a shark and the blade of the axe was serrated like a shark tooth and even came to a slight point.

As I admired my weapon, I noticed the familiar flashing symbol that told me that I had once again learned a new Skill. My heart almost literally skipped a beat when I noticed it as I knew that there was only one sort of Skill that I could’ve learned this early in the morning.

“Oh, hell yes,” I said as I brought up the new notification.

Weapon Shaping (Racial) Unlocked!

Weapon Shaping is a Crafting Skill that increases your ability to make weapons. As this Skill uses Nature Shaping it is much easier to add magical effects to weapons than with a normal Crafting Skill. The result of this is that the weapons created with this Skill are much stronger than weapons made using normal techniques.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence, Wisdom and Willpower.

3 Aspect points awarded for unlocking Weapon Shaping.

“Holy shit,” I repeated once I had finished reading the description of the Skill that I had just unlocked. Like my Nature Construction Skill it seemed to be much stronger than a normal Weapon Crafting Skill but unlike my Nature Crafting Skill I actually knew how to add extra magic to what I was making with my Enchanting Skill which might be why I had finally unlocked the Skill.

What was clear to me was that this Skill would give me a big advantage if I used it correctly. However, it did have one major drawback and that was the MP cost of using both my Nature Shaping Skill and Enchanting at the same time. In fact, even after getting a good chunk of the work done yesterday, I had to take two breaks to regenerate enough MP to complete my new axe. I had no doubt in my mind that the benefits were worth it but the headache that I had just started pulsing in my head was desperately trying to convince me otherwise.

I decided to send my minions out hunting again while I took a small break while my headache faded. While I did kind of want to try my axe out, I also wanted to do some more training while my minions went out and got stronger. In the end I decided to go for the best of both worlds and train until lunch time and then go out and hunt afterwards.

I meditated while I was recovering from my headache. Mostly since there was no point in wasting time but also because I knew that meditating would make the headache fade much faster. Once my MP had fully regenerated and my headache had faded, I moved onto the training that I wanted to do.

I had decided to mostly focus on using my Mana Bolt and Stone Shot spells for the moment. Both of these spells had been steadily increasing in power as they had Levelled Up and my Intelligence increased. Yes, they were still among my weakest spells, but they also cost the least MP to use. I was kind of hoping that they would become much more powerful once I Levelled them up enough.

I just felt sorry for the trees that I was using for target practice. I only targeted the trees that Tane told me were parasites like the one I had killed earlier on. Tane actually seemed pretty pleased that I was taking care of these things despite the fact that the tree told me that they didn’t really harm it that much.

Every time I stopped to meditate, I checked up on my minions first. The first few times they hadn’t found anything to attack but about an hour and a half into my training I stopped when I felt a flash of pain through my connection with the scorpion and I immediately stopped what I was doing to cast Heal Minion. As I cast the spell, I tried to figure out what was going on and discovered that my minions had run across a group of familiar and worrying enemies.

“Oh crap,” I muttered as the group of what seemed to be about twenty Crawlers continued to swarm my minions. “They found me.”

Obviously sticking around and training was a bad idea because I couldn’t really afford to lose my minions right now. Acting quickly, I grabbed my axe and checked the rest of my gear before running in the direction of my minions. Thankfully despite the fact that they had been hunting for over an hour they actually weren’t that far away. In fact, they were close enough that I was surprised that Tane hadn’t warned me that the Crawlers had gotten so close and I asked what was going on.

‘Do you remember what I told you about this species sometimes having the ability to avoid my senses?’ The tree asked and I groaned in irritation.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I said as I ran. “There has to be twenty of those things!”

I had already ordered the Gel to climb a nearby tree so that it could attack the Crawlers from above while the Scorpion tried to hold them off. Even with that and my Heal Minion spell I wasn’t confident that I would arrive in time to save both of my minions. I cursed internally at my decision to not check my Skill increases earlier and use my Aspect Points because there was no way I had time to do something like that now which. Thankfully despite the vastly superior numbers of the Crawlers that were attacking my minions they seemed to be pretty weak which slightly increased the likelihood that I would arrive in time.

“Hey Tane,” I gasped as I sprinted through the forest. “I don’t suppose that you can help me out now that you know that they’re this close?”

“I’m sorry but no,” The tree replied, and I could swear that I could hear disappointment in its telepathic voice. ‘Even if I know where they are none of my abilities can affect them if I can’t sense them.’

“Well then can you do something to help my minions before they die?” I asked desperately.

This time Tane didn’t answer immediately but I did get a sense that the tree was considering what I had asked. I really hoped that Tane would be able to help. While I was of course able to create more minions, it would cost me a lot of the Essence that I had been saving up which I really didn’t want to do.

‘I’m not sure actually,’ Tane said as I leapt over a fallen log. ‘But I am willing to try. It takes a lot of energy to use but I have the ability to enhance creatures under my control slightly. I don’t know if I can use it on creatures that you created though.’

“Can you use it on me?” I panted.

‘That… could work actually or at least it’s worth trying,’ Tane replied. ‘However, I would like to warn you that the ability I am going to use will cause me to go into hibernation for at least a week and the aura that keeps the other dangerous lifeforms away will fade.’

“Do it,” I replied after considering my options for a few seconds. “The Crawlers that my minions are fighting right now are immune to that ability anyway and if they manage to kill my minions before I get there there’s no way that I will be able to defeat them by myself.”

‘Very well,’ Tane replied. ‘Prepare yourself.’

The next thing that I knew heat filled my limbs and suddenly I was moving almost half again as fast as I had been only moments ago. In fact, I was moving so fast that I nearly ploughed headlong into a tree but managed to leap to one side just in time. Of course, that meant that I ended up slamming my side into another tree, but it hurt a lot less than it would’ve if I’d run into one face first.

I gritted my teeth as I felt my HP regen kick in to heal whatever damage that I had done to myself and kept running. As I ran onwards only two things were running through my head; whether or not I would be able to get to my minions on time and how powerful Tane would be if it actually used the System like I did.

With the speed that I was now moving I estimated that I would be joining my minions in combat in about a minute or two and quickly cast one last Heal Minion on them before beginning my mental preparation for what was going to happen next. Both of my minions were still pretty messed up even after I healed them so it was entirely possible that they would still die but at least I had a chance of saving them now.

Nearly a minute later I ran around a tree and started casting Mana Bolts and Stone Spikes at the Crawlers that were assaulting my minions before quickly drawing my new axe and slamming into them at full speed.