Linus had Hanna follow him back over to his partially constructed garden to start her lesson.

"Now did you have a specific skill in mind?"

"No sir, but I'll take your advice to learn the [Mana Manipulation] skill."

"Excellent choice, it really is the basis for so many other skills. Now pay close attention, the first step for learning the skill is learning to feel mana. Technically lots of skills use it upon activation, and we'll explore that when you have a better grasp of mana but the easiest source to sense is pure and dense mana." Linus held his hand out in front of him, palm up and fingers slightly curled. He focused on pulling a strong stream of mana and pooling it in his hand, forming it into a sphere and increasing the density as more joined it.

“I want you to focus right here and see what you can feel. It will probably take some time but once you do the next step is to try to move it. It can be pushing into the ball of mana, pulling a bit out, even sliding some along the surface. Those are the only two steps required for this skill.”

“That’s it? Why don’t more people have it then?”

“First just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it's easy. Second, this is the assisted approach to learning it. Without someone already with the skill along with the time and willingness to learn it you have to do all those steps with either naturally occurring mana or mana that’s being used for something else. This is me holding up a sign with bright writing saying ‘look at the mana here’ whereas the other way is you looking for a needle in a haystack while blindfolded. Now less talk, more work.”

At that Linus turned back to his unfinished project. It was significantly more difficult to convert the stone back to dirt with only one hand and divided attention, especially with [Basic Earth Manipulation] limited to only 5 levels. As he tried to focus on the stone his attention drifted from the ball of pure mana and it started to leak away at the surface, gradually losing its shape and density until he turned back to it.

At first he kept the hand with pure mana extended to the side while he reached down with the other hand to liberate small fragments of stone from the larger rock before converting it back to soil. It was a balancing act, trying to complete all the steps before turning back to the mana sphere and recovering it, one he was slowly losing. Eventually he decided to eat his pride and sat down on the ground, propping the hand holding the mana on top of the stone he was working on while resting his other hand on the side of it. Not having to move or focus on holding his arm up allowed him to better concentrate on the mana he was using for both activities.

They settled into a comfortable silence, with Linus focusing on the stone and Hanna on the mana. Hanna held her questions for the built in breaks when Linus needed to shift to a new stone to work on and he tried his best to answer and share any tips he could remember from his tutor. As the day continued Linus got a few notifications and he was able to change up the pure mana shape, first to a cube then to a cone, letting Hanna know when he was shifting the shape and the new dimensions.

Finally a bit after dusk had descended Linus had finished reducing the last bit of stone. He released the pure mana shape and quickly moved all soil he had produced over the last several hours into the stone planters he’d assembled what seemed like eons ago.

“Good work today Hanna. I’m going to retire to my room for the night. I’ll be around here tomorrow if you want to continue working on the skill.”

“Thank you and good night sir.” Hanna replied as Linus walked off.

As he made his way back to the barracks he finally acknowledged the notifications from earlier.

Mana Manipulation has increased (12/20).

New Skill Available: [Teach]

Accept | Decline

Mana Manipulation has increased (13/20).

He was excited to see the two new levels in [Mana Manipulation], it had been awhile since he had leveled it up. As for the new skill he’d leave it in limbo for now unless he found himself teaching a lot more skills to his merry band of scouts. Upon returning to his room he was relieved to find Archie had once again anticipated and addressed his need. Dinner was waiting atop the small table in the corner and an ancient, dented tub full of steaming water took up the rest of the room. Whatever his father was paying Archie it was not enough. The food was plain but hearty and sated his hunger while the bath did wonders for his filthy state. Fed and cleaned up he slipped into bed early and was out like a light.

The next morning Linus was slow to wake up and start moving. The previous day’s efforts had exhausted him. Only the knowledge that today held the promise of plants and maybe alchemy convinced him to get out of bed. He got dressed in his least dirty set of clothing and headed over to the mess hall for breakfast. Laure, Emmet and Luke were all still finishing up their meal as served himself a bowl of the oatmeal and joined them.

“How are you settling in?” Asked Emmet.

“It’s a work in progress. There seems to be a growing list of issues that need addressing. Any chance you know where Galen might’ve kept some of his creature comforts? I find it hard to imagine a Tier 4 putting up with these conditions.” His comment drew a chuckle from Emmet and a sigh from Luke while Laure was the one that actually answered.

“Galen had a storage skill. He might have left some nice tea or booze in his office but unlikely since he had another skill to keep track of inventory and what not. Could tell you everything in the fort and pack up most of it before walking out.”

“Should’ve expected that from a logistics officer” Linus said as he poked at his oatmeal.

From there the conversation was mostly carried by the other three as he ate. Luke was excited to finally be able to explore the woods without being burdened by Linus and Archie, and was planning on joining whoever was scouting on his days off.

“It will be great to have a second person out most days and I’ll be happy to show you our normal scouting loop today.” Emmet told him. Eventually they all finished eating and dispersed, Emmet and Luke towards the gate, Laure back towards the barracks and Linus to the crafting hall where he found Hanna waiting.

“Still willing to try to teach me [Mana Manipulation]?” She asked hopefully before he had even fully entered the building.

“Oh, sure. There will be a lot more interruptions today though. And I’ll need some help.”

“Of course! Anything you need!” At least someone is excited to be here, he thought to himself before responding.

“Find any pails or buckets we have around here and fill them up from the well. I’ll be around back, meet me with the water.” She was off as soon as he finished speaking while he grabbed his pack of seeds and clippings before walking around the building to his raised beds.

First he started carefully unpacking the clippings. Most of them were in rough shape, dried out, bent, torn, or crushed. He was ecstatic to find that the short piece of vine that produced his favorite mundane wine was in practically pristine condition.

Despite knowing he’d need to transplant it into a larger area in the near future it was only fitting that this would be his first planted here. He picked a corner of the planter on the end and reached out with his empty hand, evoking his [Enrich] skill. A glow of rich brown with dark green streaks drifted from his hand and settled into a small section of the soil. Next he planted the vine in and hit it briefly with a brighter green from [Growth], just enough to help it root. He then realized it’d be easier if he used a more methodical approach. He placed the pack and all the unpack clippings on the second planter and turned back to the first.

Once more he called upon [Enrich], focusing on spreading it across more soil and keeping it going as he walked the perimeter of the bed, eventually covering the whole area. After that he finished unpacking the clippings on the second bed of soil and started sorting them into piles.

First there was the edible and food related plants, next alchemy specific ones that needed processing before consumption but were generally harmless or beneficial, third was neutral ones, typically inert on their own but key for a wide variety of potions, concoctions or pills and the final pile was any toxic ones.

He needed to take a moment, trying to hold back the sorrow that this is what he’d been reduced to. A few small piles of clippings and whatever seeds were still stored in the bag. Heck he only had one vine a few centimeters long from a single variety of grape, previously he’d had fields of different base varieties and always a handful of specialty strains. The green houses he’d previously had access to could mimic various conditions and probably were larger than this whole fort.

Pausing his pity party he started moving the first pile to the first planter that he’d already enriched, sorting them depending on which would grow nicely together before planting them. By the time that and a round of [Growth] was completed Hanna had returned with two pails of water.

“Perfect timing” he said as he reached for one of the pails. As he watered the freshly planted with the first pail and half of the second one Hanna ferried a few more full pails from the well over to their workspace.

“This is all the pails I could find in the hall. I’m sure there are more in other buildings but didn’t want to waste too much time looking for them.”

“No worries, this should be enough for a while. Now that you are here let’s talk logistics. It’ll be harder than it was yesterday since I’ll need to be moving the whole time. I think the best approach will be for me to hold the pure mana sphere behind my back and you can follow behind me as I enrich the soil and grow the plants. We’ll need to take a break while I’m doing the actual planting and watering so I can use both hands. Any objections?”

“We’ll be sticking with a sphere today?”

“Yes, it will be difficult for me to maintain the sphere while using other skills and moving. We can try other shapes later on but for now we’ll stick with the sphere.”

“Makes sense,” Hanna acknowledged.

With a plan in place Linus shifted to focus on the second planter while Hanna trailed behind. They fell into a rhythm that was only interrupted during the third planter when Linus ran out of water. Hanna went to fetch more water while Linus took a break. As soon as she returned with the pails he returned to the [Enrich] soil, plant clippings, [Growth] on them all, and water them cycle while Hanna focused on the sphere of mana. Surprisingly soon he was done with all four planters, once again realizing how little he had out here on the edge of civilization.

Enrich has increased (11/20).

Enrich has increased (12/20).

Mana Manipulation has increased (14/20).