B5 C24: Architectural Failure

Stupefied, I read through the construction notifications twice and then a third time for good measure before I found my tongue.

“Wait. So you’re not going to give me anything for that? Like, anything at all?” I hadn’t expected to suddenly gain immortality or be able to shoot laser beams out of my eyes, but I’d been hoping to repair my Stygian Citadel at least a little bit.

Even though my questions weren’t rhetorical, it still came as a surprise when I actually received a response.

All constructs within the space must match a submitted schematic.

Current schematics encoded in your Stygian Citadel skill:

Citadel Walls

Central Citadel

Dungeon of Tragedies

Shrouded Barrier

To receive bonuses, build one of the above schematics to sufficient fidelity or submit new blueprints.

While I hadn’t expected my mental space to be quite so talkative, maybe Legendary skills came with a bit better customer support than their Common alternatives. Still, that didn’t mean I had to like what I was reading.

It’s blueprint-based? No real chance I can build the citadel right now, and like I said, I’m not keen on building the dungeon. Did that mean I was just stuck?

“If I can’t make any of the ones I already have, how do I get new blueprints to submit?”

This time, no answer was forthcoming, but in fairness, I didn’t really need one. I already knew what I needed to about schematics.

Rarely, I could loot them, just like I had for the Stone Bathhouse blueprints from Drawgin’s dungeon. Even though I was in a dungeon, I doubted that method would work here, as something told me that blueprints for Soul Forging were a bit rarer than their standard counterparts.

Obviously, I could also buy them, much like I had with the Vassal Spatial Trading Post I’d grabbed from Sylum’s architectural guild. For obvious reasons, that was a no go for now.

Lastly, I could try making them myself. While I’d never seen an architect in action, Foreman Tuk had once invited a few architects from Sylum to sketch out some blueprints for Elphaea’s dryad bar as part of a blueprint exchange. From what little I understood of the craft, those architects could make schematics from scratch, too.

I spent a while trying to wean more information from the system largely to no avail, only to belatedly recall I had a better resource at my fingertips: Verin.

As a native, she already knew much more about the system, but that paled in comparison to her knowledge as a noble. 

Ejecting myself from my mental space, I rushed over to her room, happy to find her awake and practicing her Woodcarving.

Noticing my hasty arrival, she raised a brow before placing her knife down, her expression enough to convey her question without the need to speak.

“I’m having some trouble with my mental-space skill. What do you know about architecture and building blueprints? Is it an easy skill to learn? Do you know how I’m supposed to do it?” 

A glint appeared in Verin’s eyes as she straightened herself up with a slight smile. Does she enjoy explaining things, or is she just happy that I need to rely on her for something like she’s relying on me? Or maybe she just enjoyed knowing something I didn’t. 

Maybe all of the above? Regardless, I resolved myself to bug her more, as it was clear she was glad I’d asked her.

“Quite a bit, as it so happens. Many nobles manage vassal settlements, similar to your own, or failing that, they have vacation homes like the Larins’ lakehouse. While most architectural matters go through the guild, can you imagine what might happen if all the nobles were constricted to the same set of schematics?”

Not… really? Why would that be an issue?

Seeing my confusion, Verin openly laughed, the sound seeming to startle her more than it did me. She’d hinted that something had changed about her Etiquette skill -- which was the only reason I wasn’t dragging her down to Sett to see if she’d been possessed -- but it looked like she was still getting used to the changes.

“Clearly, you have not spent enough time around the nobility. Imagine you’re invited to a noble’s vassal settlement only to discover it’s a near-perfect copy of your own! Or, worse yet, the same happens when you set foot in their summer villa. Truly, a horrid affair. A competent construction team can modify blueprints here and there and make some exterior aesthetic changes, but the end effect is still quite easy to notice.”

So basically, if you use the most popular schematic for your vacation home, all the richer nobles will call it a mass-produced McMansion behind your back. Not entirely unexpected, but still weird.

“With that in mind, for important structures, the richer families will often outsource to an independent architect to create a one-time-use schematic. House Sylum, on the other hand, finds it simpler to train new architects from the ground up and then keep them on retainer. As such, I am familiar with what it takes to train the profession.”

With a lazy wave of her hand, Verin continued. “It is not a particularly difficult skill to earn, even less so for you. With your Construction background and the cabin you’ve built, you’ve met the prerequisites. All you’ll need is to grab a few wooden boards and do your best to draw your intended design.”

While that was exactly what I wanted to hear, I was sensing a but coming. “If it’s that easy, why don’t all the nobles train up architects or buy custom schematics?” Hell, how did the architectural guild even survive if so many independent architects were running around?

“Gaining the skill? Simple. Training it? Ruinously expensive.” Coming from Verin, that meant something, too. Having seen the kind of wealth she tossed about, anything that she described as “ruinously expensive” likely involved more money than I’d ever seen, and then some.

“Lower-tiered schematics are largely useless, as schematics made with low-grade materials. You’ll find that anything you draw on wooden boards will be rather limited. By the time you get to the Expert ranks, you’ll need specially treated, mana-infused parchment with matching infused ink. For explicitly magical buildings, there are often additional expenses to create the blueprints as well. It’s often decades before a house will see a return on their investment, and even then, it can be cheaper to buy schematics dropped from dungeons instead.”

With each successive word, my spirits fell further and further until I forcefully tried to pick myself up. It’s not like I need Expert-tier schematics, though. I’m not trying to build a high noble’s mansion. Maybe it would be fine?

I thanked Verin for the info and decided to keep her company as I attempted to grab the skill, moving off to the corner as I removed a few wooden boards from my storage. Having leafed through a few schematics back in Emer’Thalis and Sylum, I had a decent idea of how they were supposed to look, and what sort of details they were supposed to contain. 

Something easy to start with. Maybe just a one-room cabin. Using a flaming needle to burn my writing directly into the wood, I listed out the material requirements and dimensions. From there, I drew the building from multiple angles, sketched out the exact notching patterns I’d used to stack the logs, and tacked on a very simple, flat plank-and-nails roof.

In the end, it took several boards to draw out everything I wanted to, and by the time I was done, I wondered if I’d made a mistake by doing this all in Verin’s presence. Despite my Dexterity, enhanced memory, and strong spatial awareness, my actual drawing skills remained laughable at best. I wasn’t sure I wanted the artistically gifted noble to see my childish doodles and chicken scratch.

As it turned out, the system was more forgiving. Or, at least I thought it was after the first two notifications rang out. 

You have learned a new skill: Architecture.

You have crafted a building schematic.

Reading on, however, I quickly learned that the system was a far harsher judge than Verin ever could be.

Your schematic has been graded on the quality of the designed building, the quality and suitability of the materials used to create the schematic, and your skill in drawing the schematics themselves.

Designed building quality: Poor

Schematic materials: Poor

Design skills: Trash

Final blueprint: Dilapidated Cabin (Fragile Blueprint 0/1) 

This blueprint can only be used once, at which time it will be destroyed. Due to the quality of the schematic, construction skills may intermittently fail when constructing this building. Mistakes are easier to make, and any final building bonuses may be reduced or entirely negated. 

Dilapidated Cabin

Unnaturally leaky and creaky, the only redeeming quality of this cabin is that it counts towards Settlement housing requirements. While inside the cabin, skill leveling speeds are reduced, and many basic skills will receive penalties. Placing this building in a settlement will reduce the settlement’s morale.

Building durability may periodically decrease, requiring constant maintenance lest the cabin collapse on itself. 

I did my very best to mask the look of horror on my face in case Verin noticed I was done. I absolutely did not want her seeing this absolute abomination of a blueprint, and had I been outside, I would have immediately burned them.

The ones I make for my mental space can’t be that rough, though, can they? Soul Forging is a Legendary skill. Maybe it’ll bump things up a few levels?

Hoping against hope, I stowed away the Dilapidated Cabin plans and took out a new set of boards. Not entirely sure how to create a mental schematic, I dipped half my attention into my mental space, trying to focus on my Soul Forging skill.

Thankfully, it was largely intuitive. Simply selecting a plot of land around me, I found I could easily visualize filling it with whatever sort of building I wanted to. Almost unbidden, my hands began to move, the fire mana in my stylus joined by a dash of mental mana.

Like before. Something simple. I tried to just make a single room, but I sensed that Soul Forging required more intent than that. There needed to be a use to what I built.

How about a bedroom then? One tiny room. Made for sleeping. The walls can be made from dark mana bricks. Dark mana is good for sleeping, right? Maybe a dash of mental mana for sweet dreams?

Either due to my new Architecture skill or the increased feedback from Soul Forging, I found the process both faster and more mindless this time, and before I knew it, I had another finished schematic in my hand.

Even before I checked my notifications, though, I knew something was wrong. Warped and burnt, the wood I’d started out with was barely recognizable. In some spots, the lines I’d drawn had worked their way through the entirety of the wood, creating holes that blotted out important details.

You have created an unusable building schematic.

Frankly, I wished that was the only notification I received, but the system was rude enough to continue, showing me the building I would have created had I succeeded.

Abode of Tortured Dreams

Increases your susceptibility to all opposing sleep and nightmare effects.

Your sleep will be troubled with restless dreams and nightmares.

Whatever sleep you gain will grant you reduced relief, making you increasingly tired.

After waking up, you receive a poorly-rested debuff that reduces experience gained.

This building will root itself to your soul when successfully built, making it difficult to destroy or modify once locked in.

This time, I failed to hide my sheer exasperation, throwing my head into my hands as I read through each new line. My reaction hardly went unnoticed by Verin.

“Show me.” Her tone made it clear it was more of a friendly request than a command, and I considered denying her outright. Knowing she had a far better grasp on the profession than I did, though, I reluctantly took out my original schematics and handed her both sets. 

She pursed her lips and scrunched her brows as she looked between the two, the Abode of Tortured Dreams bad enough to earn a disgusted grimace. Despite that, her words were less harsh than I feared.

“As to be expected. At least for the cabin, that is. This… soul schematic of yours is quite something. It seems you will need better materials to even craft such a thing. I have a number of notes that should help you improve, but your largest, most glaring issue will require more time to fix.” For whatever reason, her earlier grimace was replaced with a wide smile at that.

“In a way, this is somewhat fitting, wouldn’t you say? You’ve been teaching me to cook. To carve. All manner of things, really.” Pointing to an image that could only loosely be considered a cabin, Verin only smiled wider. “And in this case, it would appear that your number one impediment moving forward is your artistic ability.”

Handing the schematics back to me, Verin lifted herself up, all traces of her usual frailty momentarily disappearing.

“It is rather fortuitous that you have an able and willing teacher, then, yes? Tess, what do you say we teach you to draw?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have learned a new skill: Drawing

In a strange way, I was glad that I turned out to be such an architectural failure. While Verin had already been handling her situation far better than I’d expected, it was clear she needed more to fill her time with. 

Fixing my intense mediocrity turned out to be just the thing for her. Even if she was a bit harsh and had high standards, it was fun for me to see Verin in teacher mode, too. After weeks of having me guide her through the introductory steps of my own hobbies, Verin was energized by the prospect of returning the favor.

I even received a pleasant surprise in the form of a notification I hadn’t seen in a while.

You are being trained by a Journeyman in Drawing! Leveling speeds increased.

It’s like I’m back in the academy again. Who needed stuffy Sylum instructors when I had the best tutor right here?

Actually earning the skill took a solid hour, and the tasks Verin gave me were as simple as they were embarrassing. The first was to draw a circle, which we slowly modified with shadows and shading until it morphed into a sphere. Or, hers did, at least. No matter how much I tried to match what she was doing, mine just looked like a messed up circle.

Ah well. Like she said, it takes practice.

Especially once we both had our primitive art supplies in hand, the room was feeling more and more cramped. When I wasn’t drawing with Verin, I attacked my mana manipulation training with a new fervor, eager to make some frost converters to earn us some more space. 

Combining it with some Enchanting practice, I found myself back at my trusty forge, melting a large hunk of copper into a stone crucible. This time around, I didn’t even bother using makeshift tongs, instead using my Forge Fingers to grab the crucible with my hand.

A stone box sat at my feet, and before the metal fully melted, I unspooled my mana, doing my best to recreate the frost-converting portion of Sett’s enchantment. Shoving the spellform out from my hand, I guided my mana threads down into the box before firming my control. When I was fully sure that the spellform would hold, I then carefully poured the now-molten copper into the box, letting it submerge my threads. 

With a flex of will, I commanded my mana to repel the copper around it until the metal solidified. Dropping my connection to the mana threads, I watched as they dispersed, leaving me with another finished enchantment matrix. I hadn’t actually placed the other portions of Sett’s enchantment into it, so the matrix wouldn’t do much, but it was good training.

As if to prove that exact sentiment true, the system chose that moment to grant me a reward, too.

External Intrinsic Mana Manipulation has reached level 10!

Congratulations! External Intrinsic Mana Manipulation has reached the Initiate rank!

For achieving a new skill rank, you have been granted a skill augment.

Augment of Enchantment Recreation

+10 to external mana manipulation when recreating or modifying portions of enchantment matrices you have seen before.

 For an Initiate augment, the full ten-level bonus was unprecedented, likely only present because of how specific the augment actually was. While I hadn’t personally used my external manipulation for much else, I imagined it was useful for a wide range of professions and spells besides enchanting.

Exactly how much does that change things for me, though? Not even reading the crafting notifications for my new copper enchantment matrix, after cracking it out of the mold, I threw the entire copper cube back into the forge to smelt it down again. Repeating the entire process, I took out a new stone box and tried to weave the entirety of Sett’s frost converter enchantment.

It didn’t feel any different, which was initially concerning, but then again, I wasn’t actually using my external mana manipulation yet. The very moment I pushed the spellform out from my skin, I nearly lost control of it from the sheer surprise.

The difference was drastic, and the spellform practically snapped into a perfect, rigid shape, exactly matching what I recalled from Sett’s disks. After I poured my copper and waited for it to cool, the system only confirmed what I already knew.

You have crafted an enchantment matrix: Passive Frost Converter.

Supplying mana to this matrix will turn it on, at which point it will passively convert ambient mana to frost mana.

Enchanting has reached level 9!

I grinned from ear to ear as I read the item’s description, basking in my success. A few more, and I’d be able to make the common room inhabitable for Verin, freeing her from her tiny room.

But why stop there? 

After over a year of living in our tiny log cabin, perhaps it was time for some major renovations.