Returning to his farm, John fed the chookers and then went to check on his plants. Over the course of the last week they had all grown to be the size of small bushes, and John had a feeling they’d reach their full growth soon. Given that, he’d need to obtain a pair of shears from somewhere, otherwise he’d have to uproot each plant in order to harvest. He made a note to check the auction later, and if he couldn’t find something there, to see the blacksmith in town.

After checking on the soil’s moisture level he paused to give each of the plots a bit more water, and then went to check his workroom. As he’d hoped BR was inside working on some project or another. A few moments of waiting saw the gnome look up and then put his project aside. “Good morning,” he said even as he stood up.

“Morning,” John replied. “How’s your progress?”

“I reached Journeyman just a few minutes ago and was testing a few harder enchantments,” BR explained. “I should be good to create the ley line tap any time now.”

“Great! The sooner we can get this up and running the better,” John responded, a trace of excitement leaking into his voice. “If you follow me, I can show you where it’s set up.”

BambooRooster nodded and then followed John out of the workroom, through the house, and down to the basement where they paused only a moment to cast light spells. From there a short trip down the stairs to the cellar and then a walk down the tunnel found them in the ley room.

When BR saw the large chunk of marble he paused to inspect it, his brows rising slightly. “I know you said it was Great quality, but I don’t think a part of me really believed that. How did you get it to such a high quality?”

“I visualized exactly what I wanted. Not just had an image, but also the knowledge of how it would work, the chemicals and stones involved. Then I forced my will on the spell,” John explained.

BR shook his head. “I’ve heard of players trying similar things, they said the result is usually a very accurate simulation of a migraine.”

“It is,” John admitted with a grimace. “The first time I made nebula marble was torture, I hadn’t yet figured out how to dim the pain settings.”

The gnomish player snorted. “Someone didn’t read the manual.”

“I have now,” John replied crossly. “Anyway, the harder something is to do, the better the end result, thus, Great quality nebula marble.”

“I guess that makes sense for a stone type that doesn’t occur naturally, but I wonder if you can do the same with regular stone,” BR mused.

“I wouldn’t bother trying. It’d be easier on me to just purchase the stuff,” John said.

The gnome nodded. “Alright then, I’ve seen it. I’m gonna go make a few light plates so I don’t have to keep up a spell while I work. Think you can create some light stones for me to power them with?”

“Sure,” John said as the two made their way back up the tunnel.

Once they reached the main floor BR headed for the workshop and John went and took a seat in the bedroom. Making himself as comfortable as he could on the stone bench, he started channeling Create Mana Stone and began to shape light stones. A little over half an hour later he had eleven light stones with one thousand mana each.

Heading into the workshop, he found BR fiddling with a small metal plate attached to a leather strap. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing, but once he figured it out, it made sense. “It’s a head lamp,” he noted.

“Correct. I realized that instead of placing light plates all over the room I could just tie one to my head and I’d always have perfect lighting,” the enchanter replied.

John walked over and placed the small pile of crystals on the bench. “This should probably be enough. They’re a thousand mana each.”

BR paused a moment and then nodded. “That’s about twenty-seven hours of light, it should be more than enough.”

“Great! How much are you going to charge?” John inquired.

The gnome shrugged. “Depends on how many times I need to start over and the end quality. I’ll be honest, odds are good we’re not going to end up with anything better than good, and that’s really hopeful. So, let’s assume this takes me a couple of days to figure out, and the quality is common. Let’s call it… three or four gold?”

John nodded. “Alright, if it’s better or worse we can discuss it then I guess.”

“Well, if there’s nothing else, I’m going to go get started,” BR said as he strapped on the head light and scooped up the crystals. “Whish me luck!”

“Luck,” John replied as he watched the shorter man head toward the basement.

With that taken care of John took a quick look through the option for a set of garden shears. As he’d mostly expected there weren’t any, however after a few moments of prodding at the interface he remembered something that’d come up when he was researching tools. In ancient Japan they’d used a tool called a kama for cutting crops. What made it important here was that it had eventually also been used as a weapon, and it had even been incorporated into more than one martial art.

With a quick change of search terms, a new list spawned and John found himself with a small wealth of choices. As he’d hoped, the kama was popular with at least a small subsection of players. The quality of the items on offer was pretty low, with Good being the highest. That was expected though, given that this was the wrong country for an eastern style weapon they almost certainly were all player made. With only a moment of thought he purchased the Good quality Kama for twenty-five silvers.

Taking out his new tool he Inspected it.

[Name: Kama]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: Made of quality steel but crafted by an inexperienced hand this item is an effective weapon and gardening tool.]

It was about as he expected, and a quick visual examination didn’t show any problems or defects. The shaft was smooth and felt good in his grip, and the blade appeared well sharpened. All in all, he was pleased with his purchase, though he’d need to be sure to pick up a whetstone, oil, and wax for blade care. He paused as he considered that. Did he need to sharpen and coat the blade? A quick forum search said yes, just as damaged armor needed to be repaired so did damaged weaponry. That said, it didn’t seem to be the hours long process it would take in real life, simply running a whetstone and a rag of oil down a blade was sufficient. Armor was similar for small dings and dents, but required an actual blacksmith for heavier wear and tear.

Just as John was finishing his forum search, a change occurred. At first, he had a hard time pinpointing what it was, but then it hit it. It was the sound, or rather lack of it. It had stopped raining. He looked up and through the skylight to see the clouds above slowly dissipating, leaving blue sky in their wake. Only now did he remember that Abigail had mentioned they’d do something about the weather.

At first, he smiled, it was nice to have a rain free day, even if it was almost half over. Then he frowned suddenly. No rain meant the chookers would be free to roam. That could be… problematic.

He left the house in a hurry and started toward the coop. Fortunately he reached it just as the drake was sticking his head out.

“Oh no you don’t,” John muttered. “You’re just liable to get yourself killed by someone and me fined!”

A quick gesture and a thought saw a latticework of stone growing between the support pillars of the coop’s awning, cutting off its open-air portion from the rest of the world and neatly penning the chookers inside. The drake chooked in outrage and threw itself at the nearest lattice, but alas it was too late; John had effectively sealed them in.

The young man breathed a sigh of relief; the last thing he needed was chookers running around and upsetting the nobles or running afoul of the imperial guard. Still, this was a temporary solution at best, he really need a better way to corral them on the farm without also letting them run wild across the entirety of the local area.

Maybe I can erect some kind of anti-animal force-field around the farm, he mused to himself. After a moment he shook his head. The cost of such an enchantment in terms of mana would likely be very high, and it wasn’t worth it. It’d probably be better to just expand the chookers’ patio but keep it enclosed. Although that would prevent them from doing their job of eating small rodents and bugs. A job they weren’t currently doing anyway. Shaking his head, John decided there wasn’t really a good answer right now; he’d have to think on it more.

As he made his way back to the house, John considered what he was going to do after his current harvest. If things went well, he’d be basically breaking even in terms of money spent so far. That was a good start, but he couldn’t just keep growing alchemist’s sponge over and over again; the increasingly thin mana on the farm suggested that was a bad plan. So, what did he grow next?

With his soon to be installed ley line tap he could continue his previous experiments with mana infused grains; the life infused wheat alone would probably go for a pretty penny if he could create a stable growing environment. Other options included rare plants, or just trying to grow the best possible versions of the current plants he had. How well would Exceptional quality grain sell? Could he even get it up there? He was still considering the problem when he logged out for lunch.