— POV Mathias —

As I go back to my main base area, I’m trying to think of some good ways to protect my main body from fire damage. I really should have been thinking about this sooner. Going back to my risk list, natural dangers like fire were pretty far up there on overall risk. With the spring I can always cover myself with a puddle of water, but there’s been cases where even small ponds have been completely boiled dry by a fire. Even if there is water to protect me from the fire, it will quickly heat up and scald my delicate leaves and roots. I need another way.

All of that without even thinking of how magical fire works. That black fire was weird, it would burn anything it touched, but the size of the fire doesn’t grow. It stays the same, even if it touches nonburnable stuff. It must be feeding off of something else other than combustable material, the damage to that stuff must be secondary. Maybe it’s a mana-burning fire? It’s the only thing that makes sense to me at the moment.

So to fireproof myself, I need to have two types of protection: regular fire, and mana-fueled fire. I’ll start with regular fire, and work my way up to the more dangerous stuff.

Fire is composed of two parts: the heat, and the flame. The radiant heat (infrared, air) dries out the surroundings and warms the area around the fire, allowing the flame to easily burn the materials when it gets near them. The flame is a hot source of heat (plasma + burning gases) that is several times hotter than the air around it, and so easily ignites the things it touches, esily bringing things above their ignition point. Scratch that, three parts. I forgot about lofted embers from the fire. A small ember can cause a fire miles away if conditions are ripe.

Typical fire-proofing merely delays the expansion of fire, or keeps things below a set temperature inside of them. Fire-breaks are also normally used to stop a fire by ridding an area of combustable material. The fire would then lose its source of fuel, and die off eventually. Luckily,. I have a kind of natural fire break called my valley. Since for the most part it’s treeless, the fire should go around. Typically, asbestos is a good material to use, but has bad cancer-causing relations. While cheap, these techniques should be abandoned. Humans made great strides in fire-proofing our space vehicles. That’s where I should start: the best of the best!

It’s not my area of expertise, but I definitely remember some news stories from before my reincarnation. There are ceramics, tantalum carbide, that are extremely heat resistant. So a thin layer on the outside of my material will prevent the inside from getting hot, as it is extremely heat-refractive. However, I don’t remember if it itself doesn’t get hot, but it still transfers some heat, or if it totally blocks and reflects the heat. For that, the only thing I can think of is ceramic fiber insulation. I had a friend who was into smelting stuff from aluminum, and bought a large roll of it. It was cool to see it withstanding heat and only warming the outside of the furnace.

Then there are those fire tents that firefighters have. I should probably design my fire shelters around that idea. Aluminum foil on the outside to reflect radiant heat. Then inside of that I should have some of the ceramic fiber.

Let’s see if my skill can help me learn to weave a ceramic blanket with tantalum carbide and an aluminum blanket.

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Fire Shield:

-Level I Cost: 1000 GP

Unlocked due to [Boundless] and [Plant Sage+]:

Fire Resistance:

-Level I Cost: 10000 GP or 100 TGP

-Level II Cost: 100000 GP or 200 TGP

-Level III Cost: 1000000 GP or 1000 TGP

Unlocked due to [Drug Compounding + Genetic Mutation + Plant Sage+ + Boundless]

Due to a unique combination of skills, abilities, titles, and classes. Allows the user to create new materials with the bonuses and discounts from the combination. Combine with for further customizations.

Fire Cocoon:

-Level I Cost: 100 GP or 10 TGP

-Level II Cost: 150 GP or 15 TGP

Fire Cocoon is made of ceramic fiber blanket with an aluminum outer coating to reflect heat. Level I resists temperatures up to 2000 degrees C, Level II resists temperatures up to 4000 degrees C. Note: aluminum coating losses effectiveness with direct exposure to flames.

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Oh shit, so my skills can combine and strengthen each other. This is the first time I’ve seen this style of combination of skills. It looks like Inner Mind can’t be combined until I activate it and create it myself. Unfortunately, I just know the theoreticals and chemical construction of what it should be. I have no idea what the process would be to actually make it. Thankfully my [Plant Sage+] class will help me fill in the blanks, and actually give me these options. I can’t imagine my life without having a status screen and utilizing its help.

Rank: S Gives the ability to create various drugs. Reduces the cost of chemical creations to 50%. Combines with Genetic mutation, decreasing cost to a minimum of 10%. Rank: S Active: Using your knowledge of genes and chromosomes, alter your D.N.A. Changes take effect immediately. Cost is based on level of complexity of change of the genetic code. Specific changes, if fully understood, will cost less than generic changes. Class: Plant Sage+ Rank: S+ Unlocked due to unique evolutions created in plants you own. Unlocks additional evolution paths for plants you design, and even custom evolutions. Contains all abilities of Plant Sage class. [Boundless] Rank: SSS Normal lifetime/ability limits have been removed from title bearer. Does not affect inherent talent.

Fire Shield, I bet that’s a spell that I can activate to block direct flames. Since I’m saving up for Tree Growth Energy, I need to be careful how I spend. That upgrade costs 100,000 GP, and I’m about 73% of the way to storing that much. I’ve been using my tree as a storage location, and even then I’ve had to grow it wider and deeper to be able to hold all of the energy. I’m quickly approaching the safe dimensions of my tree I set up earlier, it needs to remain smaller than the trees near me. So near the end of my saving I’ll probably have to setup a massive potato farm under my grass here in the valley.

Fire Shield costs 1000 GP, pretty cheap comparatively, so I’ll buy that. Fire cocoon is a given. Auto-buy Level I and II. Not even worth trying to make it cheaper or better within my . Fire Resistance is tricky. 10,000 GP is a lot to spend, and only for a Level I resistance. I feel my fire cocoon is thousands of times better than that. I feel safe enough to save it for after I upgrade my energy. The cost is much lower when I have TGP, probably because trees have the capability to resist fires anyways.

Sigh. So much to do, so little time to prepare myself. I still need to practice my magic, increase my defenses and attacks, as well as raise my future guardians: Slaughter Guards, Bug Soldiers, and my mystical pets Jard and Torgue. Plus my PR lady: Taeya. All of which require time to grow. Years, maybe even decades to go with them.

Let’s try Fire Shield out, and see how it looks!

…

That was a lot easier than me trying to create a spell myself. I’m instantly surrounded by a small blue sphere of mana. It took all 25 of my mana that I stored, but with all my mana crystals being formed and my insane regeneration, it’s pretty handy. I can’t wait for my mana capacity to finish leveling up. It’s a shame though. Fire shield is a spell that is a once cast with mana spell, and not a continuous spell. A continuous spell would suit me most right now. I can create mana forever and quickly, however manually casting spells induces delays and wastes efficiency. Dang, still useful, but not ideal.

After about an hour the shield dissipated, though it looked like it was growing thinner as it was existing. Overall, this spell isn’t that useful at the moment. It can cover a small patch of grass for 25 mana, if I cast it enough times I guess I could cover a larger area. I need to experiment with mana put into the spell, which is limited for the next day on my max mana, and to see if I can layer it. It would be cool if I could spam cast the spell and have thousands of spheres protecting me, but I can’t think that fast. Even with my multiple threads, I’m still no CPU with an algorithm. Sigh.

At least the fire cocoon must be good. I did specify most everything about it.

…

And it definitely is. I can create little blankets and habitats made of the stuff really easily! It costs a ton of GP though, 1000 GP for the a person-sized blanket.

“Papa? What is this?”

Oh, Taeya came up and is holding the blanket. It must look weird though.

“It’s so shiny! Cool! It looks like a blanket.”

There we go. That’s right, I can also use it that way.

“My child, I was thinking of the cold times. I used to have a warm spot I could live in when winter comes, however, I am now here, stuck in the outside. It is not a problem for my current life, however, for my three children I had to think of a way to keep you warm. I remember these blankets from a long time ago, they are made to both keep you warm when it is cold, as well as protect you from fire if there is danger. I’ll make a few so we are prepared.”

“You mean this is mine!? I’ve never been given something so nice! Thank you! Yay! I’m going to go show it off to Jard and Torgue! They’re gonna be so jealous!”

“Be careful with it, but remember, I can always fix it if it gets torn. Just bring it back to me.”

“Okay! Bye!”

Well, as a proof of concept it works out. If I see a dragon or a fire is approaching, I can always spam a few of those everywhere to use my GP, and use fire shields otherwise to use my mana.

!?

What is that? I feel a strong nature energy being is coming this way through the forest. It’s near my periphery, and it seems to be moving through the trees. Maybe it’s some type of fairy or other magical creature. It’s making a bee-line straight to my glade though. It must detect my mana and natural energy in this region. Dang it. Worse case scenario is that it is some kind of parasite, but I doubt that myself. From what I can feel it is increasing the growth rate of the plants it passes through, and I also feel a little less wary of it when it passed near some of my roots. Is this a potential ally, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing? I need to keep my mind ready for anything.

Damnit, and just when Taeya and the pups are off galavanting who knows where. Hopefully it is just passing, or is friendly. I really don’t have the means to fight yet against something like this.