“Wow, no this wound – well lack of a real wound – is quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The way it has healed thus far is unique. Usually, you heal through blood, but it seems like the skin, and maybe cartilage and whatever else was damaged is growing back just from contact with any of your healthy body parts, even without blood flow,” Vera marveled. “At least I didn’t see any blood flow earlier. There shouldn’t have been any in the first case since it was completely cauterized.”

Nik had to digest that for a moment. He had assumed that health was more a property of potential rather than an actual indicator of health for a long time, but to have it this blatantly confirmed was disorientating. Max on the other hand only grew more excited by the confirmation.

“So, Nik is good to go help me hunt some monsters?” the supposed mage asked the medic. But before she could respond the last remaining human joined the conversation.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you kid. Calm down. If you have so much time, you might as well help me finish the bedding. Or create some cord from fiber for a door and walls. Actually, Nik, if you are feeling better, I feel like you should work a bit more on that piece of metal of yours. Max found a few rocks earlier, that looked like they might have a lot of iron, further up the mountain, so you could maybe make a few more tools for us,” Timothy recommended as he joined the group at the cave entrance.

“You went up the mountain Max? Are you mental? I told you to take care of stuff here. The things up there are like level twenty-five and higher. I couldn’t even identify most of them – whatever that means,” Nik added.

“Well, that’s right around your level,” Max shrugged.

“I don’t think it works like that. You don’t get combat experience for your race, in fact, it doesn’t seem to matter at all for combat, even though it gives you stats and skills,” Nik retorted. “Also, what does my level have to do with this. You went up there and you aren’t anywhere near that level.”

“You are a bit too excited Max. We haven’t even properly settled in and lack basic amenities and you want to endanger your life already?” asked Vera.

“If you want some downtime that is fine maybe take a swim in the lake, Nik said it is nice, if a bit fresh,” Tim suggested. “I can how one might be interested in distractions but I agree with Vera and Nik here.”

That is a really good idea. I could even tell them to swim a bit out into the water, if they end up gaining the same deed as I did back then that would be good. Was that two or four levels, maybe three, hmm I don’t remember anymore. It might be dangerous. If I tell them, would they still get the vacation deed? Too many questions and not enough answers. I guess we’ll see.

“Going for a swim sounds great. And washing up a bit sounds amazing. We should all head in for a dip, as a team-building exercise maybe. We can do a contest. You all can swim right?” Nik proposed.

Max grew way too excited all of a sudden. Nik should have known that his friend would react that way. His borderline unhealthy, competitive side really was the signature feature of the man.

They did conclude that they would go the next day together with Max and Nik going today as well, after a bit of work, in the afternoon.

Nik decided to continue working on the plating for the stump, which would hopefully work as an anvil and Max promised to gather more materials that could help them for the night.

For the next few hours, Nik brought the bloom back up to heat in his miniature forge and began hammering it into shape around the log. The work proved rewarding, and only barely tiring. The scrap wound on his pinky healed completely over the course of the next hour. The current theory, especially when compared to his initial encounter with the boar, was that certain types of injuries took longer and more energy to heal. Regrowing skin and tissue seemed to be more expensive than reknitting wounds.

The implications were interesting and would favor some combat styles over others. Timothy speculated that it would make piercing attacks completely ineffective for most targets unless you hit essential organs.

So why do bullets work so well? Nik wasn’t quite able to figure that out but Vera had chimed in her thoughts about how trauma and vital organs might still be damaged. But in the end, none of them could determine it for sure. Potentially there were other factors that governed damage and resistance to healing. Or maybe monsters didn’t have access to the system, or had a different system governed by different stats. It had been a lot of speculations while he had been working initially.

When the others left him to his work by himself, driven off by the loud noises, he further pondered his skill choices. He was once again leaning more and more towards metal control. But Max had made valid points. Restructuring had so much more potential for his crafting. Not only purification the only applications he had seen for the skill came to mind, but also forming metal itself. Potentially removing the hour-long forging process or at least reducing it.

The disk he slowly formed over the stump was a surprisingly large obstacle to overcome. While his continued hammering managed to shape and refine the bloom, which now identified as a formed steel ingot, to fit the indentations of the stump the very same success of creating a low tier steel also caused a lot of extra work when reheating and affixing it to the stump.

To properly bind log and metal together he had begun drawing out six longer metal flaps with spikes at the ends. Those spikes would be bent downwards and hopefully help with vertical displacement of the anvil surface once the whole thing was completed.

All in all, it would be sort of like a star, a vastly overweight star, with six boxy semi squares in somewhat equidistant intervals that each ended in a small, one-centimeter thick, and five-centimeter long spike.

As far as progress went, he was rather happy. He had imagined that the project would take him a lot longer than it currently did. The only issue was that he would have preferred more metal, to create a larger layer of metal. Currently, he had an around four-centimeter thick surface he didn’t completely trust on its own.

During the reheating progress after the final spike had been shaped, Nik was interrupted.

“Hey Nik, you ready to go for a dip anytime soon?” asked Max who had been watching him for the last few minutes.

“Just a moment,” Nik responded as he heated the entire plate again. “I might be able to finish this in a couple of minutes. Once all the spikes are at a ninety-degree angle I just need to heat this up one last time.”

The actual issue though was getting the flaps at the sides to properly angle down. Thus far Nik had tried using stone as an edge to fold the flaps over, but he was yet to see success. Timothy had offered his knife to be used at an edge but since it didn’t guarantee success either Nik had declined with thanks. A broken knife wouldn’t do any good.

The last option, what he was currently trying was to reduce thickness in the fold region with the rim of the hammer.

With a flap heated up to a red glow, he moved rapidly to lay the anvil plate on a stone placed conveniently.

Each hit was downwards and at a slight angle, to apply force properly and prevent slipping. It worked somewhat. However, as the third hit created a noticeable dent the support rock shattered.

“I’ll get you another stone if you promise to be quick about it,” Max offered.

“That rate at which he’s been breaking stone he is gonna need at least three or four,” Timothy yelled from further away.

“He is right you know. Your strength is quite impressive. Going further down the magic route would just kinda waste those stats,” Max said.

“Hmm, sure. Just get me those stones please,” Nik responded not listening whatsoever.

Nik sat down and began using the piston again to heat the metal. Creating an anvil and working with steel, in general, proved to be quite taxing on his charcoal supply. As much in fact that Vera had begun to collect wood to dry.

The remaining grooves took only three more heating iterations, a speed that was very fast in Nik’s eyes. Especially for how flimsy the process was. [Haste] worked better than [Lesser Hammer Strike] in this instance since it allowed for faster working and offered similar amounts of speed for his strikes. It cost more resources too. But with Max, Tim, and Vera collecting plenty of berries in the morning he had a good supply once again. Several amphoras in fact.

Heating the entire anvil construct sadly was impossible now due to its size, the protrusions, and the lack of foresight when Nik had built the forge. Two of the flaps were the maximum Nik could efficiently heat now.

In the next three heating cycles, he hammered the spikes to point perpendicular down from the anvil surface.

As he had done that, he noticed another issue crop up on the horizon. An issue that almost begged him to take [Lesser Heat Control]. Since he couldn’t heat all the spikes at the same time a similar issue held true for the flaps, which would make it borderline impossible to drive the spikes properly into the log. Thus not allowing for the final part of the anvil construction.

Nik resolutely ignored that issue until it was time to come up with a solution. Meanwhile, he used another three heating cycles to bend all of the flaps to a forty-five-degree angle so that the fixture barely fit over the log.

I do have the mana available, so I might as well try. Nik turned to Max who had sat down next to Timothy, helping him with something.

“Hey Max, can you get me a couple of amphoras with mana berries? Thank you.”

He began slowly turning the flaps in the fire while giving his best with generating copious amounts of airflow with the piston.

His mind was singularly focused on asking the mana to keep the heat. To aid in the creation, and it worked. To just keep the flaps at a red hot he required hundreds of mana per minute. Luckily [Digestive Herbology] was up to the task. With a skill level in the low twenties, it was able to supply around 200 mana per minute as long as he was continuously consuming berries. It reduced the efficiency of the skill by a large margin, at least seventy percent, but since he had never stress-tested the skill this much before those numbers were only a vague approximation.

His mind began to feel a little hazy as the ten-minute mark passed by but his concentration didn’t suffer from that just yet.

Fully aware that he would not be able to sustain his current actions much longer he moved the slab from the forge and placed it on the log – hopefully for the last time.

Keeping the heated metal plate in place was tough, barely doable with the assortment of wooden tongs in his possession. He was down to his pair last, with both Nik and Max pushing against the impulse that the hammer blows brought down on the metal flaps.

Nik had to let the mana flow subside as his stomach began feeling sick in addition to mental exhaustion. Now the metal was cooling just a bit too fast, and Nik was already worried about the outcome should he not manage to bend the last two pieces into the log.

It would hold, just wear out a lot faster with a reduced count of fixations.

The residual heat was running low when Nik was driving the fifth peg into the wood, but he was able to set the metal protrusion flat against the log.

To properly drive the sixth peg into the wood Nik would have needed to expend more mana, or maybe taken [Lesser Heat Control], both options he thought he was justified in not doing.

Yet, despite his not complete success, the system approved of his actions.

You have created | Basic Lesser Flat Anvil | - 23 exp. gained

Advanced Deed Unlocked – [Class Advancement Step Two: Workspace] Create a suitable environment for you to practice your craft.

Nik Thems: {(Evolving) Extraterrestrial Human} Level up! You have accomplished the Advanced Deed [Workspace]. 21 Stat points have been awarded. One General Skill Slot unlocked.

Class development. 250 exp gained for reaching a class milestone [Workspace].

Nik Thems: {Smith} Level 9. Current Progress 891/900 XP

Through sustained stress and brute force, but also attention to detail you have brought the [Digestive Herbology] to its limit. The path you are trotting down is developed by entities that frequently get themselves into high stress situations that offer only miniscule regeneration times.

Do you want to evolve [Digestive Herbology] into [Overworked Plant-Digestion]? [Overworked Plant-Digestion] requires [Internal Energy Control].

[Overworked Plant-Digestion]: Offers the same effects as [Digestive Herbology]. Passively increases the speed of digestion by a very large factor at the expense of efficiency. You gain intrinsic control over efficiency or speed when using the skill.

“Dolly gosh darn, that’s close. I really need to pick up [Solidify Energy] as soon as possible.” Nik grunted as he heaved the log upright again.

“What is?” asked his friend.

“My level-up. Only nine experience. But that’s not important, I feel like a swim, how about you Max?”

“Sure, whenever you are ready,” Max said, extending a thump upwards and rubbing sweat of his forehead. “You guys sure you don’t wanna come?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want to be drenched before I go to bed. I’d rather see what sort of weather we are gonna have tomorrow morning and decide then,” Vera said.

“I’m not done with the bedding just yet. You guys have fun without us.”

***

“Ohhh, noo. Nope. Thank you very much. I’ve decided against going in there. This has got to the coldest lake out there,” Max complained after having taken a few steps into the water. “How is it not frozen. I swear it’s below freezing.”

“Ohh, buuh huuuu. Didn’t know you were such a chicken,” Nik said while starting a sneak attack on Max. With all the might of his increased strength, he splashed several handfuls of water at his friend.

Squeaking Max ran out of the water all the while cursing Nik and his ancestors. The cold water running down from his entire back.

“You utter shithead. You are so annoying Nik, like a child. I’m gonna get you back for that.”

“That’s strong coming from you, Mr. ‘Yeah, I’ll go pick up groceries for the bank-holiday',” Nik showed his tongue. “Watcha gonna do? Push me underwater?”

With a giant splash, Nik dove into the water and took a few strokes. When he came up to get air Max responded.

“Hey, I told you I got busy.”

“Yeah, busy trying to get late. Pretty sure that doesn’t count. Now don’t be so boring and get in here. Didn’t you say you were gonna race me yesterday? You’ve done nothing but talk oh great mage of legends.”

***

Expectingly Nik looked at Max. The man had twitched when they had approached the middle of the lake and stared off into space for a good ten seconds already.

“You knew of this,” Max stated. “Is that why you wanted me to get in here with you, Nik?”

“Yeah, pretty great, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure it is safe being here? I think it best if we head back to the shore. Like yesterday.”

“Calm down Max. We are fine here. I’ve been swimming here almost daily, and I haven’t seen a single monster or anything.

“Nik if there is a fucking unique deed that gives me as many levels as fucking interdimensional teleportation, I’m sure as hell not going to tempt fate and wait for something to snack on my feet. Heck, you’re already a toe short, you should be the first to know how stupid this is.”

“Weren’t you the one who wanted to go bergams hunting just a couple of hours ago?”

“That’s different, you do you, but I’m heading out.”

“I just wanted you to catch up in level, Max. Don’t be like this. At least wait for me.”

“This is the equivalent of a water-level Nik. Why would you think this could be a good idea? What if we just got sucked into the dungeon,” Max responded as he turned around to swim to shore again.

***

“I’m sorry for taking you out there, Max. I should have informed you first. I just didn’t really expect there to be any dangers. I think my perspective is screwed, given that there have never been many monster attacks before. I’m not making excuses, just informing you. I’ll try to supply you with better information and not withhold information, even if I think it would be to your and the other’s benefit.”

“It’s fine man. We live and you still have all nine toes and I my ten. Just… You know think for a moment. I know you tend to be free-spirited, but this is a bit much, even for you. And I did get two new race skill slots, so there is that. Another 28 stat points is pretty good as well.”

“You leveled four times just now? I think I only leveled three times from going out there the first time. Unfair dude.”

“Yeah, but you got almost the same amount of stats and a skill slot extra. So, stop whining.”

“So, what do you think I should spend my slots on. I’m kinda jealous of your running speed, but I don’t think I can get even [Haste].”

“You could go for the mana regen skill – though I don’t know how I unlock that one. Also, it would be useless for you, since… you know... your a spell-less mage. Haah. Back on topic though. [Lesser Intrinsic Willpower] felt pretty random for me and probably just required using a bunch of mana. On that front have you tried using your class skill on a race skill slot?”

“I haven’t. I assumed that [Lesser Spell Slot Formation] is for class skill slots only. Lemme try,” Max answered scratching his imaginary beard.

Nik watched Max do some odd movements that remotely looked like drag and drop commands on a computer. Max’s smile began to grow and even Nik could see something changed around the man that stood two meters away from him. [Ambient Essence Sense] told him that something was happening around Max.

And then the other man just dropped like a sack of potatoes.