“What do you think?” Burl asked once we had finished going over my Aspects to find the ones that would be the most useful to me right now.

“Sounds good to me,” I agreed. “I was kind of thinking that I should complete the first of all of the Stat-based Aspects as possible. But I suppose that it is a better idea to specialize now that I’m not alone.”

“There’s no reason why you can’t do that later,” Drem pointed out. “I just want you to complete specific Aspects when you unlock them.”

“I see,” I nodded. “Alright. I believe that you wanted to teach me to Upgrade some of my spells now. I’ve Upgraded Skills before but I’ve never done it intentionally. How do you actually do it?”

“I can take it from here of you want to go and help someone else Drem,” Burl chuckled as the younger Yajash frowned slightly.

“Thanks, old man,” he agreed before wandering off.

As he left Burl turned to me and started to explain how Upgrading spells worked. Apparently, the process was a little different to Upgrading other types of Skills. Combat Skills like my Stab or Chop Skills could be Upgraded easily enough but something like my Running Skill was practically impossible to Upgrade without relying on the intervention of the System.

“So why are we trying to Upgrade my spells instead of just making new ones anyway?” I asked once Burl had finished explaining what he wanted me to do. “I have a Skill that makes it easier for me to create new spells. Shouldn’t we be using that?”

“Because the more Skills you learn the harder it becomes to learn new ones,” Burl replied with a sigh. “If you keep going the way that you have been you’ll probably start noticing this in the next few days and by the end of the year the only way that you will be able to learn new Skills will be through Aspects.”

“I see,” I nodded, “Alright that makes sense. Thanks for telling me.”

Burl nodded and gestured to one of the targets that had been set up for us to use. I closed my eyes and started forming a Mana Bolt as I’d been told to. Unlike normally when all I had to do was will the spell into existence, I was actually paying attention to the pattern of the Mana that went into making it like I had when I’d first learned how to cast the spell. As soon as the pattern had completely formed, and I understood what every part of the pattern did I started making changes.

“That’s right Rick,” Burl said. Apparently, he had some sort of Skill that allowed him to see what I was doing and had agreed to teach me it at a later date. He had told me what he wanted me to change in the pattern earlier, but I had some ideas of my own.

At first Burl seemed confused by what I was doing but he fell silent when the pattern started to get properly fleshed out and he realized what I was doing. When I was happy with how the spell worked, I opened my eyes and fired my newly Upgraded spell at the target which disappeared with a thunderous roar as the melon sized orb of energy collided with it.

“Well, that was much more effective than I thought it would be,” I muttered as I stared at the smoking crater where the target used to be.

“Yeah, I think that you might have overdone it a little,” Burl agreed. “Why don’t you take a look at your new Skill?”

I nodded in agreement before doing as he suggested.

Mana Bolt has been Upgraded to Magic Missile! (Specialized)

Fires a large homing projectile made of Mana that explodes on contact dealing a significant amount of damage to anything within 2 meters. Cost: 100 MP.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence.

2 Aspect points awarded for unlocking Magic Missile!

“Wow, that costs way more MP,” I muttered.

“Of course, it does. It’s much more powerful than a Mana Bolt,” Burl chuckled. “It’s also a bit different from what I asked you to make but it seems to be more effective as well. Well done. Do you want to move onto some of your other spells now?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I nodded. “I think that I’m going to move onto Stone Shot first.”

We spent the next couple of hours going over most of my spells. We decided to leave some of them as is for now since I still needed some spells that I could cast without having to worry too much about running out of MP. Once we were done, I brought up the information on all my newly Upgraded spells and whistled appreciatively.

Stone Shot has been Upgraded to Rock Bullet! (Specialized)

Fires a small projectile made from compressed stone at an enemy at high velocity. These projectiles can penetrate weak armor and deal a small amount of damage. Cost: 50 MP

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence.

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Rock Bullet!

Rock Spear has been Upgraded to Stone Lance! (Specialized)

Fires a large spear made from stone out of the ground under their feet dealing a large amount of damage. Cost: 250 MP.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence.

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Stone Lance!

Mana Blade has been Upgraded to Air Slash! (Specialized)

Fires a large blade of wind that deals a moderate amount of damage to anything in its path. Cost: 120 MP.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence.

1 Aspect point awarded for unlocking Air Slash!

Mana Edge has been Upgraded to Charged Weapons! (Specialized)

Electrifies your weapons increasing the damage that they deal by a small amount and giving them a chance to paralyze your enemies. Cost: 75 MP/min.

Growth Rate increased by 2 Wisdom.

2 Aspect points awarded for unlocking Charged Weapons.

I was quite happy with the results of the past few hours of work. My new Rock Bullet spell was probably going to be my go-to spell for most situations since it didn’t cost much MP to cast and could punch right through the targets that I had fired them at thanks to their penetrative abilities. Rock Spear would be a good way to deal a lot of damage to a single large target and Wind Slash would allow me to deal damage to small groups of enemies or dismember larger ones. Finally Charged Weapons should give me a decent boost to my melee abilities.

“What do you want to do now Rick?” Burl asked.

“Is there someone who specializes in making clothes or armor?” I asked. “If there is, I want to show them something that they may be interested in.”

“Yeah, I’ll take you to them,” Burl agreed. “What do you want to show them?”

“A material from my internal world,” I replied with a grin. “It was a very tough and light material back on Earth and this stuff is magical so it should be even stronger.”

“Hmm, sounds interesting,” Burl said as he led the way towards an old lady who was sitting at a bench. She had a pile of tunics next to her and was currently repairing a large tear in one of them. “Afternoon Berril. How are you today?”

“I’m good Burl,” she nodded with a smile before noticing me. “And it’s nice to meet you too young man. It’s Rick, right?”

“That’s right ma’am,” I nodded. “I wanted to show you something that you might be interested in.”

“And what would that be?” she asked curiously.

“A material similar to this,” I replied as I started casting my Spider Silk spell. “This is just a spell based off of the material which one of my Minions can create and I was wondering if you would be interested in it before I committed to summoning one of the creatures that produces it.”

The old lady took the length of silk from me and examined it for a few seconds before placing it down on the wooden table in front of her with a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Yes, think that this would be quite useful,” she said eventually. “I could make some good strong clothes from this for the children and anyone else who wants them. If the stuff that your Minion creates then I could also make some light armor for people who want it as well.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “I’ll summon the Webspinner later tonight.”

“Why are you going to wait until then?” Burl asked. “You could do it right now.”

“I was thinking that it would be a good idea to show anyone who was interested how my Skill worked,” I explained. “Since my Minions are a bit different from the ones that they’re used to. That way people won’t be surprised when they see something that looks like a monster running around.”

“Ah, that’s a good point,” Burl agreed with a nod. “Was there anything else that you wanted to talk to Berril about.”

“Not right now,” I replied. “Thank you for giving me a moment of your time ma’am.”

“That’s no problem, dear,” she replied with a smile. “Thank you for your help finding this place. Your friend has also been very helpful.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I nodded as I realized that I hadn’t even spoken to Tane at all today. “I’ll come and talk to you once I’ve summoned my new Minion so that we can see what you can use it for.”

Burl continued to chat with Berril for a bit longer while I watched her work on the tunics which I assumed belonged to the kids before we left.

“What do you want to do now?” Burl asked. “We’ve got about an hour before dinner.”

I thought for a few seconds as we walked before blinking in surprise when I spotted something that definitely hadn’t been there this morning.

“Are those supposed to be houses?” I asked and Burl chuckled as he nodded in agreement. “Holy shit. Your builders work fast.”

“Yeah, they really do,” Burl agreed. “Some of them are getting a bit old now but they’re all masters in their craft.”

“Could we take a look at those?” I asked. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

“Sure,” Burl nodded. “I’m sure that the people building them won’t mind you taking a quick look around.”

As it turned out Burl was right, the builders were perfectly happy for them to take a look around. As I had expected most of the builders were older Yajashians and had a lot of questions about how Humans built their own houses. I knew that they probably wouldn’t like the answer, but I decided to be honest with them. Sure enough, they didn’t seem particularly pleased when I told them about the number of trees that we cut down to build most of our houses. However, they also understood that Earth didn’t have magic to make our lives easier and had to use other methods instead.

Personally, I was more interested in the houses that they were building. As one might expect the houses that the Yajashians were building looked much more organic than most of the houses that I had seen back on Earth. I think that I had seen some houses that looked somewhat similar on some of the shows about weird houses that my parents used to watch on TV. The Yajashian builders had actually grown the houses out around the trees that they were attached to using a specialized version of the Nature Shaping Skill that a Yajashian who completed both the Aspect of the Crafter and another Aspect called Aspect of the Builder. This Skill allowed them to manipulate the living wood of the trees that they touched allowing them to grow buildings from the trees themselves.

The Skill was called Controlled Growth and only worked on large plants like trees which had enough energy to survive being forced to grow in certain ways. It took several hours to make any real progress. In fact, the houses that they were making right now wouldn’t be able to be lived in for another day or so of work. Most of them were just a lump of solid wood that they were starting to hollow out.

I wasn’t sure why they were going about it this way, so I asked. As it turned out the ‘lump’ had formed on the trees was caused by them pumping a massive amount of Mana into the tree forcing it to grow to contain it. Once they added enough Mana to the tree, they gave it instructions on how to grow by converting the wood back into Mana which it could use to grow. Apparently, the trees were actually willing participants in all of this since they could use whatever Mana that was left over after growing the house in the way that the Yajashian builders asked them to however they wanted to. This was a little confusing to me since the Yajashians had seemed surprised that Tane was an intelligent tree but according to the builders the trees of their world did have a minor form of intelligence. It was far less then Tane’s level of intelligence. Perhaps more on the level of a dog, but it was enough for them to communicate with the trees in some manner and it seemed that the trees in this world are similar enough that their abilities still worked.

The builders suggested that I return tomorrow afternoon so that I could see the finished product and I happily agreed. One thing that I was learning about the Yajash was that for the most part they were quite understanding people. I was willing to bet that the Admin had explained my situation to them in some depth which was probably helping the situation a lot since worshipped the Admin like they were some sort of god.

Since we still had a bit of time before dinner was going to be served, I decided that I would see what Tane had been up to today. As I thought this, I sensed Tane’s presence nearby and turned around to see the tree’s wooden body heading over to me.

“You wanted to see me, Rick?” my friend asked as they approached.

“I was just wondering how you were doing,” I replied cheerfully. “This is all pretty new to you after all.”

“It has certainly been an interesting day,” Tane agreed. “The small ones seem to like climbing me, so I’ve been making sure that they don’t get hurt.”

“I see,” I chuckled as I glanced sideways at Burl who was frowning slightly. “Kids are like that aren’t they Burl.”

“That’s true,” the older Yajashian sighed. “I hope that they’re not bothering you too much Tane.”

“They’re not,” the tree replied. “I think it’s quite interesting behavior. They are quite adept at climbing.”

“I’m sure they are,” I agreed. “We can check up on them if you’re worried Burl. I don’t mind.”

“I suppose that you should introduce yourself to them,” Burl sighed. “Maybe you could tell them a story from your world?”

“If I can think of one that’s suitable,” I replied. “A lot of our stories have quite a bit of violence in them and I’m not sure that they would be the best thing for kids who survived a war.”

“Perhaps not just yet,” Burl agreed as we followed Tane’s avatar who had decided to lead us to where the kids were. “Maybe you could just answer any questions that they have?”

“That’s an option,” I nodded. “Actually, now that I think about it maybe I can think of some old fables that might be good to tell them.”

“If you say so,” Burl sighed as he looked up to where the kids were slowly walking along one of Tane’s larger branches. “What are you lot doing up there?”

“Playing!” One of the smaller kids shouted down at them. “What are you doing here old man Burl?”

“We just thought that we’d come and make sure that you weren’t bothering Tane too much,” Burl shouted back. “But Rick here has promised to answer any questions that you might have for him and if you ask him nicely, he might even tell you a story from his world.”

Upon hearing this the smaller kids all shouted excitedly and started climbing down from the branch while the older kids tried to act aloof, but they soon followed the younger kids as they helped them climb down. As soon as they were on the ground the younger kids started bombarding me with questions about life on Earth. The questions ranged to what I looked like before becoming a Yajashian through to whether we had magic on Earth and just about everything in between. Every question that I answered seemed to spawn five more questions, but I made sure to take the time to answer all of them that I could.

I knew that these kids would tell their parents about what I was telling them later so even though some of their questions would normally be irritating I made sure to answer them as politely and with as much understanding as possible. Eventually the kids ran out of questions and started asking me to tell them a story.

After dredging through my memories for a few moments I decided to tell them a story that I vaguely remembered about how giraffes got their long necks. Naturally, this only led to more questions from the kids, but I was all too happy to answer them.

“Enthusiastic, aren’t they?” I muttered to Burl as someone started shouting out that dinner was ready, and the kids immediately started sprinting away. From what I had already seen of them they were much more agile than I was, but I wasn’t expecting them to be able to move as fast as they could. Only the oldest were faster than I was but they were all much quicker than I expected kids to be. “And quick too.”

“Yeah, they’re faster than I was at that age,” Burl agreed with a sad smile. “It’s a product of how difficult their lives have been so far. A lot of them had to run while their parents held off the Redians.”

“I thought that might be the case,” I sighed. “Hopefully their lives will be better here. However, I think that we should encourage them to improve their Skills as much as possible. This world ids still a dangerous place and the Redians are sure to follow you here once they fix the portal.”

“Agreed,” Burl nodded as we started following the kids to the area that had been set aside for eating.

“By the way you two some of the Yajash have been asking whether they could grow me into one of their buildings like they have been with those other trees that you were looking at earlier,” Tane mentioned. “I was wondering what you thought about that.”

“Honestly Tane, it was my idea to ask you,” Burl chuckled. “There are a lot of advantages to both of us if you agree to let them use their Controlled Growth Skill on you. If you agreed, then they could turn you into a fortress that we could use to protect our people if something like that becomes necessary. In return you would receive a significant amount of Mana which you could use to fuel your growth and a smaller amount of Mana from us over time.”

“Wouldn’t turning Tane into a fortress make Tane into a target?” I asked nervously. While there were definite advantages to making Tane into a living fortress I really didn’t like the idea of turning my friend into a target.

“If the Redians get there Tane will be a target for them no matter what we do,” Burl pointed out. “In many ways making him into a fortress will make it easier for us to protect them.”

“That’s a good point,” I agreed thoughtfully before turning to my friend. Tane’s avatar looked much more alive now than it did when the tree had first unlocked the Skill and I could see the confusion written all over their wooden face. “In the end it’s up to you Tane but I think that it might be a good idea.”

“Let me think about it for a few days,” Tane decided. “I want to see what the houses that they’re making look like when they’re finished and see for myself how they’ve affected the trees that they’ve grown on before I make my decision.”

“That’s fine,” Burl nodded as we headed over to stand in line for our dinner which looked like some sort of stir fry without rice. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure that you have some input if you agree.”

Once we had our meals, we made our way over to one of the tables where Drem and vera were already waiting for us. Vera gave me a tight smile as I sat down opposite her but other than that she didn’t say anything to me.

When we had finished eating Burl announced that I was going to summon some new Minions that would be helping them out around our quickly growing settlement. Some of the Yajashians didn’t seem to be particularly interested but most of them decided to stick around and see what was going to happen.

Some of the people who stuck around to watch started muttering when the green tendrils emerged from my hand and started forming a cocoon. According to Burl and Drem normally when someone summoned a new Minion it came through a portal, so this was quite interesting to them. Another thing that I hadn’t expected was that summoning Skills were apparently very rare. There were only two ways to learn a summoning Skill. The first was through their Soul Aspect if they were lucky (or unlucky) enough to have both unlocked their Soul Aspect and it happened to give them a summoning Skill which wasn’t common either. The other way was to find a monster that was intelligent and magical enough to forge a contract with the summoner which were also incredibly rare.

I stepped back as the pulsating cocoon started to grow and turned towards the crowd to tell them that they could ask some questions if they wanted to since it was going to take a few minutes for the Minion to finish growing. Only three people asked questions, but they were quite good ones. One of the questions was what this specific Minion was going to do for them which I quickly answered before moving on to the next one. The next one was probably the most interesting question. I hadn’t even considered whether or not my Minions would be able to breed but it was definitely something that I would have to test out when I had enough Control Points to do so. The final question was about the level of intelligence that my Minions had at which point I was forced to explain my Hive Mind Skill.

Several of the Yajashians paled slightly as they recalled that two of my Minions had been killed during the fight with the Redians the other day. Seeing the looks on their faces I nodded grimly and admitted that I had felt the pain of my Minions dying the other day just as I heard a tearing sound from behind me and turned around to see my new Minion emerging from its cocoon.

Coming face-to-face with a spider that came up to my waist was far from a pleasant experience, but I clamped down on my disgust and reached out to pat the creature so that the Yajashians could see that it would do them no harm. Then I ordered it to produce some silk so that Berril could test it out before retiring for the night.

This new chapter of my life here on Edra was proving to be an interesting one and I was excited to see what would happen next.