“Did you manage to plant everything successfully?”

“Not everything,” the wood elf shook her head. “I had to leave behind the seeds of some of the more important reagents since I’m not able to provide the necessary habitat requirements.”

“What do you mean?” Regis looked up from his bowl of soup, the young woman’s words making him curious.

“I found a couple of more advanced formulas for potions and even a few elixirs, but the plants needed would require special conditions to grow. The Ethereal Nightshade for example needs a dense shadow elemental energy to grow properly while the Crimson Wormwood needs blood energy and the Molten Grass only grows where there’s dense fire energy.”

“That sounds tricky,” Osmond agreed with her. “Wouldn’t it be enough to mix ground elemental crystals into their soil?”

“No,” Letty shot off the idea. “They wouldn’t be able to absorb it through the roots.”

“What about an emitter?” Regis thought aloud. “I should be able to alter the runic diagram of the arcane stove to work with different elemental energies and disperse it more gently compared to the original. That way, it could work like a grow box of sorts.”

“You haven’t even made us a proper arcane stove and you already plan on modding it?” Fabien argued immediately.

“Amanda suggested that I’d take a few hours for myself between the wall buildings to rest my mind,” the spell weaver explained. “It should be enough to set you up with one and to alter her forge as well. That should give me enough experience with the enchantment to see if it's indeed modifiable.”

“Sounds good to me,” the blacksmith agreed with an unsurprising eagerness. “The sooner I have a proper forge, the sooner I can get to work. That is if we can go back to East Fork for the surplus materials we left there.”

“I can help with that.” Valerie offered as she instinctively reached up to touch the gateway talisman beneath her shirt.

“I also took a look at the stables and that old carriage as well,” the dark elf hummed. “Both looked useful.”

“We’ll still need to get a few horses.” Fabien said.

“That won’t be easy. Or cheap,” Regis remarked. “By the way. Didn’t you guys say that you fixed up any damaged areas along the wall?”

“We did. Why?” Quentin looked at his companion puzzled.

“When I got to the stables, the gates on that side of the wall were broken along with the archway and the main columns that held it.

Broken? It was completely fine when I did my morning afternoon yesterday.

“Well, it wasn’t fine today. It looked like something big burst through it from our side. Judging from the large paw and claw marks, I’d say it was a bear.”

“How did a bear get inside the village without us noticing?” Letty asked with an obvious worry in her tone. “All of the gates were closed and we would have noticed if an animal of that size was walking around the village.”

“I mean,” her sister hummed. “The village isn’t that small. We could have just missed it.”

“Or it might have been consciously avoiding us.” Osmond brought up the disturbing thought.

“It doesn’t matter,” Valerie shook her head. Hopefully, it's gone now and the gate got repaired.

“It does matter, Quentin sighed. What if it attacked one of us while we were alone?

“I guess we were lucky that no one was moving about alone then.”

“You should still do a more thorough morning patrol tomorrow.”

“Agreed.” The rest of the group nodded as they looked toward the inn's door and the darkness behind it.

“It’s officially a plan then,” Cruz concluded as she finished off the remains of her dinner. “We should turn in early tonight. There will be plenty to do tomorrow.”

“Before that,” Valerie turned toward the dark elf. “Sophie managed to hunt down a pheasant while we were outside the walls. Mary had already cleaned it and we also drained its blood. Do you have time to turn it into bloodstones, or should we just trash it?”

“I’ll need more bloodstones for some of my enchantments, so we shouldn’t let it go to waste,” the spell weaver shook his head slightly. “Mary; can I use that table over there?”

“The table? Sure.”

“I’ll bring over the bowl.” The infernal woman said before heading over to the kitchen.

Regis stepped beside the small table near the wall and placed his left hand on it. Blue strings of arcana snaked out from beneath his palm, forming a runic circle on the surface of the table. With the ward in place, the dark elf began to create clear quartz pieces using his magic. By the time Valerie returned, several thumb-sized stones were already prepared.

“You sure work fast.” She remarked as she put down the wooden bowl filled with a dark red liquid.

“As my mastery over to spell grew, I became able to grow larger pieces, but with a little experimentation, I figured out that the crystal can be split into smaller pieces during the process. This way I can grow several smaller ones instead of one big piece.”

“What’s the largest crystal you can grow now?” She asked as she picked up one of the quartz pieces to examine.

“About the size of an energy drink can. Or I can split it into seven thumb-sized pieces.”

“Damn,” Valerie cussed. “Crystalmancy sure is awesome. Why did you never delve deeper into it?”

“Because it’s rare? I couldn’t find even a single crystalmancy spell in the library of East Fork. The only other spell I have besides the crystal shot and the cluster growing one is this.”

As he finished his words, the small quartz amulet hanging from his wrist secreted a clear liquid that soon covered his arm guard, hardening into a crystal shell.

“Oh, it's pre... tty.” Val tried to praise the looks of the crystal arm guard cover before it suddenly cracked and grew nail-like quartz needles.

“Yikes,” she hissed. “Wouldn’t want to be holding your hand when those appear.”

“I’m pretty sure that the ghoul that was trying to chomp down on my forearm felt the same way when it got spiked in the mouth. Anyway; this isn’t even its final form.” Regis recited the age-old meme as the spikes melt away, forming a crystalline dagger blade that reached forward above his closed fist.

“Assassin much?” She joked as she knocked on the blade with her fingernail.

The crystal cover crumbled apart a few seconds later.

“You really should try to look for more crystalmancy spells, or at least try to master these. It would be a shame to let them go to waste.”

“I’ll try when there’s time for it. So, should we get started?”

“Yes”. Valerie snapped out of her musings, casting a blood magic spell using the blood from the bowl.

The dark elf placed a clear quartz in the middle of the runic circle, allowing it to drain away the elemental energy of the infernal woman’s spell time after time. Half an hour later the bowl was empty and the spell weaver had five new bloodstones to work with.

“Thanks for the help.” Regis said as he dissipated the ward, heading towards the slightly renovated bathroom where he filled one of the repaired wooden tubs with water. As it turned out, shoving one’s hand into the water while it was covered in the arcane flames of the ‘scorching touch’ spell would work as an excellent water heater. Half a minute later the dark elf had his first proper soak since leaving Escroft, draining away the soreness and mental strain of the day. After finishing his much-needed bath, he returned to his room where he unceremoniously collapsed onto his bed, not waking until someone knocked on his door the next morning.

“Regis,” a worried voice called out to him. “Is everything alright in there?”

“Wha... I’m awake.” He said, still groggily as he climbed out of his bed to open the door.

“Sorry to keep banging on your door,” Mary apologized. “But you didn’t come down for breakfast even after Cruz said to have knocked and called you down.”

“Did she?” the spell weaver tried to reign in his messy hair. “I didn’t even hear that.”

“You must have been sleeping too deeply to notice it. Everyone else had already left for work. You should come down and eat while it’s still warm.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.” He promised as he got out of his bed, donning his spare clothes.

Mary wasn’t joking when she said that the rest of the crew had already left. The inn was empty with only the young woman jotting about between the different rooms, busying herself with some quick cleaning before inevitably heading out to join the others. After wolfing down his breakfast, the dark elf brought his plate over to the kitchen and headed out to continue building the wall of the settlement.

First, he spent some time creating the arch of the future gate with the battlements on top, then went on with conjuring the wall along the line he drew on the ground before. He managed to work surprisingly fast, creating nearly seventy metres’ worth of the granite wall before Quentin came over.

“Hey man,” the paladin called out to him while looking at the slowly growing defence line. “Lunch is ready.”

“Already? What’s for lunch?”

“Some grilled cheese and sausage sandwiches.”

“Sounds good.”

“Letty wanted some leafy greens at first, but the smell of the grilled cheese swayed her.”

“About tomorrow,” the spell weaver brought up the topic. “How many people do you think we should try to recruit?”

“I don’t know,” the paladin shook his head. “We have quite a few empty houses, but we’ll have to wait and see what our crops will amount to. We can’t bring in more people without being able to feed them properly and we can’t always spend our time spamming the ‘growth boost’ spell on the farm plots.”

“It would be better if the Landwaker could pitch in, but still a bit far away.”

“More like weeks away,” Quentin corrected his friend. “With everyone working on the field, we barely cast the ‘growth boost’ spell on the tree a couple of times these past two days.”

“I planned to create an arcane stove for Mary at the inn before making an arcane forge for Amanda, but after that, I could spend some time with the tree as well I guess.”

“And the wall?”

“I think I could build another fifty or sixty meters long section before nightfall.”

“If you two keep on strolling about like a pair of geriatric grandpas,” Valerie called out to them from afar. “Don’t be surprised if you won’t get anything for lunch.”

“Is she threatening us with our lunch?”

“Sure sounds like it.” Regis chuckled as the two picked up the pace.

As soon as they stepped through the door, the smell of grilled meat and cheese filled their noses. The rest of the group had already sat down around the table, picking at the plate of still-steaming grilled sandwiches.

“Took you long enough.” Cruz noted between two bites as Regis grabbed some food for himself.

“How’s the wall coming along?”

“Slowly.” The crisp answer resounded.

“We were talking about the recruitment plans while walking,” Quentin claimed. “Anyone has a suggestion?”

“Could I go to East Fork instead?” Letty asked as she shifted on her seat. “I want to get those seeds I left behind and have another look around the place. Maybe I overlooked some alchemy notes the last time.”

“I would rather go there as well,” Osmond agreed with her. “There are still a couple of books I didn’t have the time to read, plus we left a lot of stuff behind.”

“I’ll stay with these two.” Cruz joined in.

“I should go with them as well,” Valerie stated. “I have the second gateway talisman anyway, not to mention that I’d rather not go back to Hunor if possible.”

“Okay,” Regis nodded. “The rest of us will go to Hunor then. That is after we harvested the crops.”

“If they keep growing like this,” the wannabe druid hummed. “Then we should have enough to feed thirty or so people for about three weeks if rationed well. That should be more than enough time for the next harvest to grow, even if only I tend to it from time to time.”

“We should try to find people with a talent for magic,” Fabien noted. “That way we could teach them the ‘growth boost’ spell and they could pitch in with the work.”

“It would also help a lot if we’d have a proper greenhouse.” The infernal woman remarked.

“Val,” her brother called out to her with a stern voice. “You’re doing it again.”

“Oh,” she lowered her gaze awkwardly. “Sorry! I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay, just don’t get used to bossing people around,” the spell weaver sighed. “That’s supposed to be my job now.”

“You wish, your lordship.”

“A separate place for the herbs Letty needs would indeed be nice though.” Sophie noted, earning a perturbed gaze from the others.

“I’ll see what I can do after I set up the arcane stove here and the forge at the smithy.” Regis promised nonchalantly as he finished his third and final slice of grilled sandwich.

The dark elf left the room after thanking the food, heading over to the kitchen where he found the stove he would have to work on. It was an old-fashioned stove, a chimney snaking up the wall behind it. The embers of the cooking fire were still hot, forcing him to carefully clear them out before he would be able to take a better look at them.

The stove, if it could be called that, was built in three parts. One was an open fireplace where the meal would be cooked, another turned out to be a baking oven. The third part was the preparation area made from solid stonework. All of it was created using earth magic, at least the seamless building method and the tinge of earth elemental energy trapped in the stove made him believe so. Regis placed his hand on the stove as he cast ‘earth to stone’ on it to reverse it back into condensed earth. He then cast his innate terraforming to reshape the work area into something more modern and comfortable.

Once everything was turned back into solid stone, he took out his ‘endless’ tome and turned its pages until he found the one detailing the makings of the arcane forge and stove. ‘Looks like I’ll need some fire and earth elemental stones along with a hollow arcana stone and some arcanite.’ He summarized inwardly as he began to cast ‘grow cluster’ to form a couple of clear quartz pieces. The dark elf then formed wards on the nearby table depicting a transmutation circle and the crystal-altering circle. Half an hour of back and forth later he held a handful of magic crystals in one hand while following the drawings of his book with the other.

The diagram of the enchantment was a bit complex, but at least it could be built in separate sections. Over an hour, Regis recreated the runic diagram on the fireplace along with its slightly altered version on the oven. The hollow arcana stones were embedded into the stone surface, surrounded by the runes, serving as the mystical battery of his new creations. After he finally infused the last ‘trash’ grade rune, he looked at the all-grey diagram with a deep sigh.

‘They’ll have to try it out and give me some feedback before I’d increase the enchantment’s level. This thing takes way too long to make.’ As a small bonus, he reinforced the refitted cooking station to increase its durability and its fire resistance, so it would need less maintenance.