[Tainted Lands] 13 – Home Improvements

The sky remained red even in what amounted to the 'night,' where I noticed yet another change. The moon that hung in the sky? It was gone, replaced with two vicious-looking red moons that hung in the sky, one further in front of the other, making it look like the two moons were in the shape of a Venn Diagram. It bathed everything in a bloody red hue, and I could swear I could hear distant roars and screeching out in the forest, which put me on edge. Something was seriously wrong with the world.

Throughout the entire night, I was on edge, thinking that more of them would attack, but nothing happened. Morning came and went, and I spent the whole night practicing with magic, needing something to do with my restlessness. So, I spent all night practicing my mana skills, practicing Mana Manipulation, Mana Bolt, Mana Infusion, and Mana Shaping, along with Meditation every time.

For Mana Bolt, I continuously tried casting the spell at a lower and lower cost, but not actively launching the spell, and trying to recycle the spell with only Mana Manipulation instead of letting the spell collapse naturally. However, this typically led to a loss of Mana. As for Mana Shaping, I grabbed a few locks and even a block of concrete and spent a few hours trying to mold the rock and concrete into more complex shapes while also infusing the stone and concrete with my own Mana, somehow making them more pliable with Mana Shaping as I pumped more Mana into the material.

Doing this granted me far more level-ups than I expected.

Mana Manipulation went up by two levels, to level 27. Mana Infusion by three, to level 19. Mana Shaping by four, to level 12. Even Mana Bolt itself went up by two levels, reaching level 11, and so did Meditiation, reaching level 20 and going up three levels. After some thinking, I realized why that is: it's because I'm using skills that all synergize with one another; they are all related to Mana and require a conscious effort and use of Mana to operate.

If I kept it up, I'd soon have enough Path Points to unlock a new path, but I was more interested in my skill gains, as with each level of a skill, I could feel the improvement. I was having a blast.

Come the morning, I had bloodshot eyes and was unbelievably tired, but still wide awake. I drank some of my precious coffee and did some morning inventory to keep track of everything I had before stepping outside with my axe and a Mana Bolt at the ready for any sudden ambush. Better to be safe than sorry with the monsters about, after all.

Rooted right in the middle of my back yard was the Doll, vines and grass having seemingly grown over it overnight, with even some vines snaking around its body and giving it a strange allure, like a Nymph or Dryad in fantasy stories, or well, one made of wood rather than flesh and bone.

Leaving it be, I stepped over to my pile of logs and started hauling them over to my shed. With my Mana Shaping skill, I could now make my own furniture, so I wanted to start by making my own little workshop. Tossing the wood down to the dirt, I stepped inside my shed and grabbed a shovel before stepping out. 

From there, I began work on digging out a small plot the same size as my shed, about a foot deep, where I'd put the flooring. I'd never done this before, so I would have to cheat, using Mana Shaping to its fullest.

I planned on making the floor of this makeshift workshop out of rocks and boulders. I'd flatten them down by hand with Mana Shaping before melding each piece with Mana Shaping as well, to make one large slab of rock that would be as flat as I could make it, so that it wouldn't accidentally pierce through my shoe or foot by accident.

The floor would also be strong and durable enough not to break from dropping something, hopefully, and if I infused it with my mana at the same time, maybe it would make it even tougher? That's certainly something else to test. As I made my plans, my body worked on autopilot, digging away at the soil and grass and dumping the soil into a bucket that I'd use to fill any potholes I found around my yard, front and back.

I'd need to keep myself physically active, and if anything, this little project certainly helped.

Once I was done, I grabbed what logs I could and made a sort of mesh to line out the foundation and to act as a guideline and extra support for the foundation, while also being a good way to test if I could meld stone and wood together.

That took about an hour or two, but after that, I grabbed another bucket, a metal one this time, and turned to look at the Doll.

"Come, guard me."

Suddenly standing, the grass and vines retreated from its form as it stood tall, or well, short, and began shadowing me into the forest, where I grabbed every small and big rock I could fit into the bucket until it was full and heading back. 

I then dumped the bucket into the hole and headed back out to grab more rocks and repeat.

I did it for hours, in the end getting enough to fill up the foundation before finally putting the bucket down and starting to play with what was essentially very thick Play-Doh. I did that until I ran out of Mana, leveling up Mana Shaping once more to level 13. 

I then meditated until I had my Mana back and continued from where I left off, grabbing each stone and melding it to the increasingly growing slab I was making as a foundation. It was certainly strange that it went from a loose bed of stone to a growing solid block of mismatched stone, but it was oddly satisfying seeing the growing slab as each stone I melded onto it seemed to just 'snap' on with some effort on my part.

I spent the entire day doing this, until sundown when I finally finished and was left with a small padio of stone, and to answer my earlier question, I could indeed meld stone and wood together. However, it required far more mana than normal, and now it was time to get some rest and plan out the supports and actual roof without it collapsing on me as I worked.