Zach watched as Andy strode out of the Mana Pylon, turning around to Grim he asked, “Grim, What is going on? Oh and what by Lady Gaga’s meat dress is a Mushroom Goat?”

Grim laughed at Zach’s quip about the meat dress and spoke quietly. “First, as Elders of the Village they get notifications on DP purchases for towns people. Now of course, if there were thousands of people here it’s most likely that Milly and Andy would turn off their notifications or turn them on for only specific purchases.” Zach’s eyebrows raised at Grim’s last statement and Grim rolled his eyes before he explained. “Listen everything is in the shop… everything. So if someone buys a powerful scaling weapon or mass murder spell, I would want to make sure I knew who they were.” All Zach could do was nod at Grim’s statement.

“As for a Mushroom Goat? All animals have mana beasts they can evolve into. Well a Mushroom Goat is one of the few Mana Beasts that can be tamed and turned into farm animals. So when they bought them at the Store, I am guessing they bought the domesticated versions and are hoping to breed them. More specifically the Mushroom Goat is a goat the size of a small pony that has mushrooms that grow out of its body. It specifically cultivates earth mana, and if its flesh has been prepared by someone with the ‘Cooking’ skill it is said to have a mild strength boost effect or can help someone cultivate earth mana through the foundation stage. The problem with them is that they will eat everything and I mean everything if you can’t provide enough food for them. A wild herd of Mushroom Goats would strip the forest of all its plants, bark off the trees, and even rocks in a couple of years. My best guess is that now that we have a Grain Golem increasing the growth of the crops and maybe harvesting them, a large portion of the grain will go to the Mana Beasts to keep them alive during the winter.” Grim seemed to shrug at his last comment and Zach soon realized that even though the farmers wanted to increase their holdings, they may end up starving through the winter.

Looking at Grim, Zach had to ask one final question, “How did they know about the Grain Golem?”

Grim simply shook his head, “A Tier 4 Grain Golem is around eight feet tall and looks like Scarecrow without clothes. My guess is that when Kheda and Khulboc started using the stored mana to build the Healer’s Longhouse that they probably were noticed by the majority of the farmers. If some of them have migrated from a decent size City then Grain Golems were be relatively common, and probably shared the knowledge with others. Or one of them knew what a Grain Golem was and once he received the notification about 100 DP decided to be a selfish asshole. Other farmers decided to follow his example and it became one giant fuck up.”

Not sure what else to do or say, Zach brought up his log cabin and wondered what were the requirements to upgrade it. Asking Grim just to show him the requirements for upgrade.

City Quest Name:Upgrade Artificer’s Shop to Lvl. 2In order to unlock the Chain Quest to make this an Upgradable building please provide the following:

1) An Artificer of significant level must be able to add additional runes and imbue one spell into the summoning stone. (0/1 Artificer of at least Lv 10 with the skills Arcane Inscription and Spell Imbuement)

2) Four Mana Cores of 100 mana each must be set into the corners of the building. (0/4 100 Mana Cores Placed)

3) 7 books of on Artificer Class and/or Summoning must be absorbed by the building. (0/7 books must be absorbed by the building)

4) One Arcane Material of 10 lbs must be placed in the center of the summoning stone. (0/10 lbs of Arcane Material)

Or

1) 90 DP can be used to purchase for the Chain Quest.

Reward: City Core will unlock the Chain Quest for the building and summoning stone to be upgradable.

Zach looked at the quest and frowned. He needed books, Arcane material, and to be a certain level just to open the quest chain for the building to be upgraded. “What the hell Grim, this is crazy! A level requirement for your house? What if I wanted to add rooms? Hell I can get one of the farmers to dig an outhouse for me, or do I need to get a bunch of books on how to dig a hole to take a dump in.”

Grim chuckled at the thought of book on digging an outhouse hole. “Listen, before you go crazy there is a big difference between a built house and shop and one that is upgradable and recognized by the world. Let’s say you build a house out in the woods with your bare hands. The mana realm would recognize your house as a fancy camp and keep creatures out, but if you want a house that can help you grow and sell goods that takes knowledge and mana.”

“For instance, I would guess that the mana cores are used to infuse the structure with mana. The books are used to create an arcane library and tell the house what types of tools or ingredients would help you in your crafting. I imagine that the level requirement is there so that a basic knowledge of tools found in the workshop or on the summoning stone could be used. As for the Arcane Material, it probably provides a bonus based on how rare it is.” Grim said in a calm voice. “Why don’t I bring up the newly made quest for a Mana Pylon so you can see difference?”

City Quest Name:Build a Mana PylonThe quest can be completed by using one or all of the following methods:

1) Using an Earth Golem, bind them to the city and have them focus on this quest for 150 days. (0/150 days)

2) Using materials from a quarry have laborers construct a stone dais with a bench. (0/500 Stones Placed or shape into a platform and benches)

3) Summon the Mana Pylon by donating 2,500 mana into the city core. (0/2,500 mana)

Required: 1 Golem bound to a 200 capacity mana core with the agreement to cultivate mana and 1 city core.

Reward: City Core will be able to self-repair the Mana Pylon, City Core will gain a mana generation rate bonus, and decrease of city mana costs for repairs by 10%.

Grim smiled, “So already it’s amazing that city rulers will have a decrease in repair costs, I had to check ourselves and found out that all repairs that require earth mana are constantly being fed by the Mana Pylon right now. This frees up the City Engineer from checking every building for repairs and allocating mana to them. Of course, it would still need to be done with a large enough city, but even then you are saving on huge sums of mana. Now here is the upgrade quest.”

City Quest Name:Upgrade Mana Pylon to Lvl. 2In order to unlock the Chain Quest to make this an Upgradable building please provide the following:

1) An Artificer of significant level must be able to imbue subskill Core Expansion into mana cores. (0/1 Artificer of at least Lv 5 with the subskill Core Expansion)

2) Eight Mana Cores of 10,000 mana each must be set into the corners of the building. (0/8 10,000 capacity Mana Cores Placed)

3) 3 Structural spells must be placed on the stone dias. (0/3 Structural spells imbued in the stone)

4) One Arcane Metal (List: Amebynite, Blalacum, Mithril, Orichalcum, Sarandium, and Stellarine) of 1 lb must be placed in contact with the City Core. (0/1 lb of Arcane Metal)

Or

1) 50 DP can be used to purchase for the Chain Quest.

Reward: City Core will unlock the Chain Quest for the Mana Pylon to be upgradable.

Grim started to giggle at the blue screen. “One pound of some of the most expansive metal in the world?! Thank the Gods and Goddesses that they set the bar so high. I get the feeling in seven years, we will be rolling in DP.”

Zach started hearing angry voices coming from the opening. As he looked around he saw Milly get up and look his way. Sighing to himself, Zach got out of the chair and walked with Milly to the outside. It took only a second for Zach to figure out where the shouting was coming from. Andy stood amongst an angry group of farmers with Courtney’s father being the loudest voice amongst them all. Milly started walking to the group with Zach trailing behind as they got closer some of the shouting could be understood.

As Zach walked to the crowd, he saw a large metal being moving out beyond the boundary stones. As he looked at the metal monstrosity, Zach saw it had four legs shaped like the blade of a scythe, but moved like a spider. From the central hip joints appeared to be a suit of armor with two arms that were so long they could reach beyond its long legs. The blades that it held looked to be a Longsword and a Dao in the other. Children seem to run at the edges of the boundary stones watching the great steel golem as it moved it’s steel helmet head back and forth as if looking for a something to kill. It was then that he heard snippets of what the crowd of farmers were saying.

“… chickens don’t eat much and we will have the grain for winter…!”

“Why’s the Grain Golem working on a building?! It should be working on our fields?!”

“It’s our DP granted by the Gods and Goddesses, so we can spend it however we wish Elder Andy!”

The last comment came from Courtney’s farther, and who somehow made the world Elder sound like something dirty. Zach felt a draw on Earth mana and a loud boom sounded as Milly brought her hands together. The crowd stopped talking and opened itself up to face Milly, it was then that Zach noticed two large goats chewing on grass with half glazed eyes being held by Courtney. Courtney seemed to hide her face behind her long hair, while trying to keep hold of the black and white goats. As Zach tore his eyes away from Courtney, he started to notice the two headed chicks that seemed to be clucking in confusion in the shirt of a woman or the Red skinned with brown spotted piglets being herded by a couple of children. It was then that Zach realized that the full sized goats he thought Courtney had, were just kids and were likely to get a lot bigger.

“Markus, by all that is holy what were you thinking by buying a breeding pair of Mushroom Goats?!” Zach gazed up at Milly and realized that this was the first time he really was seeing her pissed. The gaze she was giving Markus, Courtney’s father, would have wilted a redwood from its intensity.

Markus snorted and gave Milly a disgusted look, “Just because you think you know what’s best for us all, doesn’t mean we agree! When we agreed to come here and setup a village with you Milly, we all agreed to certain terms. You can’t tell me what crops to grow, because I ain’t no damn slave of yours! And if I choose to buy a breeding pair of Iron Silkworms you can’t stop me! Remember we know where you got the City Core from!”

Zach saw Milly’s hand clench, “First off, Iron Silkworms do best deep below ground with mineral veins to breed on. Second, you better keep your mouth closed or I will have Andy sew those lips closed with his chains!” Markus gripped Courtney’s upper arm leading her and the other angry farmers away. Feeling a wave of possessiveness and worry started to mix with anger at her treatment. A feminine hand came to rest on Zach’s wrist and as he looked over to find Alexa and James were standing next to him. The look in Alexa’s eye told Zach they were concerned about him and his dark thoughts at seeing Courtney and her father.

The crowd continued to be angered at Milly and Andy and after several hours of talking the crowd mostly agreed with Milly’s assessment. In fact some of the farmers bought skills and tools to be a miner, a blacksmith, and a brewer. Which to Zach seemed like a win of momentous proportions, compared to Markus and the few others that made up their mind with the livestock. Milly sighed as she watched the crowd disperse, “Markus was a fool to have spent a gift of 100 DP on livestock in hopes that someone’s wife has the ‘Cooking’ Skill. Alexa, we have something to discuss about your majority. James, can you go make sure Cassandra doesn’t spend her DP on ‘Mana Leech’ or something else that she believes will make her more attractive. In fact, see if you can get her to invest in Alchemy or Tailoring at least then she could be some use. Instead of causing us so much trouble.”

When Milly made her statement about Cassandra, James took off with a look of worry. Milly walked over to Alexa and smiled, “Zach, has done something wonderful for us. In our creation of the Mana Pylon, the Gods and Goddesses have seemed to bless our family by giving us a House.”

Alexa looked up her mother with surprise. “We are now of House Ninniachel, in Ancient Elvish it means the Rainbow Soul. In order to understand the gift and curse we just received, Alexa, you need to remember your Elvish Myths. When the elves were first created on this world, we were meant to be guardians to the plane of Life. So we were given upon birth a complete foundation stage of cultivation with the plane of Life and the gift of ‘Empathy’ with creatures of Life. Therefore, elves have prided themselves on how much Life mana they could cultivate. As such the different races of elves focus on cultivating only two to three elements. So unless you are a noble mage, cultivating anything other than Life or another element is discouraged.”

Looking at Alexa and Zach, Milly spoke again, “We were given by the Gods and Goddesses foundation cultivation techniques to all the realms of Mana and the skill Mana Imbuement. Unlike Spell Imbuement, which requires knowledge of the spell and its effects. You will be infusing mana into an object and as it slowly accumulates that object will gain spell like powers. So why the difference, between the two skills? A mage would reinforce walls with spell imbuement by placing three to perhaps a dozen spells on the walls. A mage with mana imbuement would simply put earth mana into the walls over and over again with the intent for it to become stronger. Eventually, the wall would react to all the forces acting against it and reinforce itself. The true strength of Mana Imbuement isn’t that it reads intent and tries to work it out, but that it can create a Mana Node in this realm.”

“Alexa, I won’t ask you to leave your dream of being a fighter, but with this skill we can truly make this city a Place of Power. Zach, would you be open to discussing the city’s future with all of us?” Milly said as she motioned back to Mana Pylon. They walked with quiet purpose as they entered the Mana Pylon once more. Zach smiled as the rock wall seemed to once again downward and recessed into the ground. Andy was already there looking over several screens as Milly approached him. They briefly embraced as Alexa and Zach stood at the entrance.

Milly touched a blue screen that Andy had open and flicked it over to Alexa and Zach.

City Quest I Rise to Power for Schoner’s Creek!

A rich quarry of rose marble was founded long ago. The tools and golems used to work the quarry have turned to dust, but the mana enriched node has survived. Creatures big and strong have fought and died over the node. Atlas the current champion is known Stonetooth the First. As a mana monster that has cultivated to a fifth circle of earth, his skin has turned as hard as the marble and his claws grow sharp on the stone. Challenge the Champion and defeat him, once done speak the words: Vasih’ il von Schoner’s Creek.

Kill the Champion and claim the Quarry. (0/1)

Reward: Earth node for the city and a Quarry.

Do you accept the Quest?YesNo

“Accept the quest. Once, the Golems have the Longhouse up, we go to kill Longtooth.” Milly said to Alexa and Zach.