The next day was dreary and drizzly and after only a few moments outside John gave serious thought to going back into the cellar and spending the day there. However, he knew he couldn’t. He needed to check on the tree, then he had to go into town and see if Sally and Ex had any bodies for him, and purchase a door, couldn’t forget that. Then it was time to work on another plot, though that would have to wait until tomorrow. This time he wanted to try creating a magical plant. He wasn’t sure what would cause a plant to become magical, but the magriculture feat seemed to imply he could.

John made his way out to the tree. A quick glance showed him that it looked much as it had yesterday, though the flowers were a bit wilted with a few petals falling off. Hopefully that didn’t mean anything bad. He sat down and touched the tree, sending his awareness into it once more. The magic of the tree pulsed around him, along with its perceptions of the world. It was well, and content, he could feel the water around its roots and the nutrients in the soil. He could tell it would need more fertilizer soon, so he put that on the ever-growing list of things to do.

As he mingled his own magic with that of the tree, he could feel its mana moving in patterns centered around where the blossoms were. The tree seemed to be causing the decay in the blossoms. Could it be getting ready to produce fruit? It seemed too early for that. Should he have pinched the blossoms off as was occasionally done with younger trees? He felt a violent rejection from the tree at that thought. He continued to observe and feed the tree mana until his alarm finally went off. Shaking off the lethargy of the tree, he stood and was greeted by a welcome message.

[Mana Manipulation has Ranked Up due to continued use. Apprentice à Journeyman]

[350 Leveling Points Banked]

John grinned. Finally he’d reached the point where he’d be able to manipulate separate strands of mana! That meant it’d be possible to build more complex weaves, not to mention lessening the strain when doing things like creating mana stones or using several mana-based skills at once. Smiling despite the ongoing drizzle, John made his way back toward the farm.

The first thing he did was check the chookers, it was around eight now and they should be awake. He was surprised they hadn’t run out again yet. Checking the coop he could see the chookers all clustered around the door and chooking softly. They didn’t seem to want to go out in the rain. John couldn’t blame them. Wading through the small sea of chookers he removed the bones from last night’s meal, changed out their water, and checked for eggs. There were a lot of the latter. When John was finished with the nesting boxes he’d counted 44 eggs, all of which were of Common quality.

As he disappeared the eggs into his inventory John wondered if maybe the Knights would like to purchase them. He would put a few up on the auction, but he got the feeling they wouldn’t be great sellers just yet. It was probably too early to have players that were serious about crafting skills like cooking; still, it was worth a try. Pausing in the doorway of the coop, John did just that, listing a dozen eggs at 3 coppers each. He then stepped back out into the rain and headed for town.

20 minutes of walking found him in the town once more, it was mostly deserted, it seemed no one else wanted to be out in the rain either. So, he decided to stop by Phillip’s store first.

The little bell tinkled once more as he opened the door. “Hello?” Phillip asked as he poked his head out of the back room. “Ah! John. Good to see you again! What can I help you with today?”

“Not too much,” John admitted as he made sure the door was fully closed behind him, blocking out the damp. “Just need a door for my coop, and a flap for the chookers.”

“Ah yes, the infamous chookers. I’d heard you’d picked some up, a quest reward, wasn’t it?” The short man asked with a bit of mirth.

John grunted and tugged a hand through his damp beard. “Yeah, from a goddess no less.”

Phillip gave a short chuckle. “Could be worse, and look on the bright side, all the eggs you can eat.”

“Yeah, I got forty-four just this morning,” John replied.

“Well I’m sure you can find someone to buy eggs, maybe those knights that live out near you?” Phillip suggested.

“Yeah, I was considering that this morning,” John admitted. “Not sure how to approach them about it. Especially since I don’t know how steady a supply I’ll have. Yesterday I only got 19, not sure how many I’ll have tomorrow.”

“Well, just keep track for a few days and eventually you’ll have a good idea of how many you’ll have day to day. Besides, they’ll probably be happy for any fresh eggs they get.” Phillip said dismissively as he came to a stop in front of the door selection once more. “I haven’t got anything with a flap built in, but I could put together a simple flap that you can sink into a wall with little trouble. It wouldn’t be varnished mind you, but it’d get the job done for now.”

John nodded as he listened, examining the doors. The selection was pretty much the same as last time, though the cellar door hadn’t been replaced yet. John selected a similarly sturdy looking door and frame, though unvarnished this time. “I think this one will do,” he said, gesturing to it.

“Excellent choice. That’ll be fifty coppers,” Phillip said.

John passed over the coppers and disappeared the door into his inventory. “About how long will it take you to make a flap?” he inquired.

“An hour should be sufficient for something basic,” Phillip said.

“Alright, I’ll pick it up before I head back to the farm then,” John said.

Phillip nodded. “See you then.” John headed for the exit, as the old man turned back to his workbench.

Exiting the store, John found that it was still raining. With a sigh he trudged down the muddy road toward the center of town. Like most of the rest of the roads, the square was deserted and John wasn’t sure where to look for Ex and Sally. Usually the two would be manning their stall between dungeon runs, but he wasn’t sure where they’d go in the case of rain. Maybe they just logged out? He grunted in annoyance and wondered if maybe it wasn’t time to buy the Communications module; it was only ten gold, and he had that on him.

Sighing at the expenditure he purchased the module, and then immediately opened the communications tab. Ex and Sally were indeed online, so he sent Ex a quick text asking where they were, and stating that he was looking for forty more bodies in addition to the four he’d need for the chookers. Looking around he wasn’t sure what to do next; there wasn’t much more he needed to do in town. As he looked around, he heard a small ping and a small notification flashed.

[You’ve got mail!]

Checking the communications module he found he did indeed have a message and it was from Ex.

We’ll be out of the dungeon in ten minutes or so, we just have to backtrack to pick up some corpses and then try the rat king once more. If we succeed we’ll see you in maybe half an hour, if we fail, well, it’ll be like 15 minutes. Either way, have our money ready! Also, Sally says hi.

John finished the message and decided he could wait thirty minutes. Crossing over to the bench in the middle of the square he used a gesture and an effort of Control Water to brush the puddling rain off it, he then started experimenting with using the spell to keep the rain off himself. He first tried just pushing the raindrops away, but he had trouble controlling droplets he couldn’t see directly (which was most of them), so after a few attempts at that he tried something different. Using the same spell he grabbed the puddling water off the ground around himself and floated a thin sheet up and over his head, creating a water umbrella.

The water umbrella seemed to work at first, and he found he had no trouble holding Mana Drawing (at its lowest tier) and Control Water at the same time. However, as the minutes ticked past he could feel the draw on his mana slowly increasing and it took him several more minutes to realize why. The rain falling on his umbrella wasn’t sliding off of it, but being absorbed by it, adding to the mass of water he was controlling. Grumbling in annoyance he began manually dump water from the sides, only to find that took more concentration than merely holding the shape.

He pondered for a moment, and wondered why he couldn’t just use a thin slab of stone. Shaking his head, he realized he’d gotten caught in the trap of thinking about something only one way. Because he’d started with water, he’d felt he needed to continue with water, when a much easier solution was at hand. Dumping the water on the ground he used Create Earth to generate a thin, concave shell of stone on the ground in front of him, and then switched to Control Earth, forcing it to hover above his head.

Grinning, John wondered how many spells he could carry at the same time now. Still keeping his new stone umbrella above his head and his low-level Mana Drawing running, he invoked Control Water once more and began to coax the excess water out of his clothes and hair and onto the ground. After several minutes of work he was dry.

“Showoff,” said an annoyed looking Ex as he muscled his way under the umbrella.

“Hey! Stop! I just got dry!” John exclaimed as the elf proceeded to dribble all over him.

“Share the love, John! Share the love!” Sally said as she crowded in on the other side, leaving John nowhere to go.

“Ugh, I hate both of you, you’re getting me all damp again!” He complained, though there was little heat in it. Then he gestured and with an effort of will enlarged the umbrella to cover all three of them.

“Oh how gracious of you!” Ex intoned.

“So kind,” murmured Sally.

John rolled his eyes. “Given that it’s been, maybe twenty minutes, I’m guessing you guys died again?”

“Yeeeeeah,” Sally drew out the word with a dejected sigh at the end. “The stupid thing always gets us.”

“But we still got your bodies,” Ex said and Sally, as if on que, started dumping rodent corpses at their feet.

John handed Ex his coppers then reached out and started disappearing the bodies just as fast. “Thanks, I’m going to have to leave a standing order to have people bring me bodies I think, especially if you guys are going to focus more on the Herb Slimes.”

“Where are you going to put excess bodies people bring you? There’s no way you’re not going to have too many if you leave a standing order,” Ex pointed out.

“That’s the part I can’t figure out, short of coming into town every day and putting up a post for it,” John grumbled.

“Well, aside from feeding the chookers, do you really need the bodies?” Sally asked.

“Well yeah, I’m using them for compost,” John said, perplexed; he was sure Sally already knew that.

“Yes, but you’re using that for fertilizer right? But doesn’t the herb slime goo fill the same niche?” she inquired.

John thought about it for a moment, and then made a so-so gesture. “The goo seems to interact with the plants magically, rather than actually provide nutrients. While I could probably survive on one or the other, I think I need both if I’m going to grow the best crops I can.”

Sally thought about that and then nodded. The three then sat in silence for a while before Ex spoke up. “What if you just paid Theodore to set up the post for you each morning and afternoon?”

“Not a bad idea,” John said as Sally nodded in agreement. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Excelsior said.

“Alright, I should go talk to Theodore about that then, then I need to pick up the door for the chookers, and start working on some Mana Stones,” John said as he stood, taking his umbrella with him.

“GAH! Wet!” said Ex.

“Treachery!” shouted Sally.

“Bye!” said John with a grin.