The next morning it was raining the sky dark gray and wind whipping against the cabin at Bear Cave. Henry enjoyed the strong name and the image it evoked. "Iggy, I think we'll name this place Bear Cave and take it as our base. I've got an idea to use a Bear as our coat of arms. What do you think?"

"I like the imagery and it'll be a pretty cool looking coat of arms, maybe a bear rearing up with three big trees in the background and a cave off to the side. Oh man, I really like this idea." Her consciousness slowly faded and Henry knew that she was in the study drawing up the perfect Heraldry for them. It may be anachronistic, but he thought the idea had merit.

Now to go over the gains from the last week and plan out next steps. Henry opened his notifications.

Congratulations!

Several of your skills have leveled up and new skills have been added. To simplify your experience a new Notification Screen had been Generated. At the end of every week, you will receive a Weekly Notification detailing all of your skill, stat, and level gains over the course of the preceding week. You can still access all of this information with the Status Screen, but new notifications will be consolidated unless it is deemed that your life is in danger without relevant information.

Weekly Notification Skills Gained: Stats Gained: Affinities: Pain Resistance +2 Cleaning + 3 Strength + 6 Fire 0% Machine Interfacing +10 Forestry + 5 Agility + 4 Earth 30% Nanite Control + 10 Construction + 10 Resilience + 4 Water 0% Mana Manipulation +7 Carpentry + 5 Constitution + 4 Air 0% Survival +4 Blacksmithing + 8 Endurance + 5 Light 0% Leatherworking +4 Smelting + 5 Perception + 4 Darkness 0% Small Blades +2 Mining + 5 Intelligence + 14 Herbalism + 5 Axes + 4 Wisdom + 11

I've got a lot of support and crafting skills leveled pretty high. If I focus on honing my blacksmithing I can get some weapons made and with leatherworking, I can use the bear hides to make some good armor. The crafting will only take two days start to finish. I should start with learning more about the Earth Affinity it might help with blacksmithing.

Affinities

Fire - A powerful element of destruction, but also an instrument of rebirth. Learn more about the essence of Fire to unlock your Affinity.

Earth - The ground the nurtures all life, Gaia. Earth has been many things to many peoples, but it has always been the mother of life, the world you stand upon, and a steadfast natural force in your life. You have unlocked you Affinity by feeling the Earth in your hands digging its depths, shaping its veins, and forging a means to survive.

Water - A giver of life and great destroyer. What is the essence of water? Dive deep into its mysteries to unlock your Affinity.

Air - Insubstantial as a spring breeze and Hurclean as a hurricane, Air is all around and hardly felt. Breathe meaning into this element to unlock your Affinity.

Light - Brightness and Burning. Solace and Agony. Light can be many things and has represented goodness in your world. Illuminate the truth of light to unlock your Affinity.

Darkness - Are you willing to forsake your eyes and venture into the darkness. Unlock your Affinity by submerging yourself in the dark. This will be difficult as Humans have evolved to rely on the Light.

Henry closed his eyes and channeled his mana, a much easier task than he expected. Those skill levels really do make a difference, it's almost like I know exactly what to do like lifting an arm I forgot I had. He reached out with the mana and connected to the ground all around him at his current level of control he could affect a 25-foot circle around himself. Thinking that it might be a good idea to experiment a little Henry sat in a classical meditation pose and focused only on what he could feel through the Earth. Time seemed to fall away, images of the cave and surrounding forest filled his mind and he knew it down to the smallest grain of sand. It was an awe-inspiring experience for someone who for all his life had worked the Earth in one way or another, but never connected with it on this level. His mind swept the land around him like a whip spinning going wider with every pass until he reached his limit 200 feet away. In this way, he could create a clear mental image of his surroundings with only a small delay, about 30 seconds for a full rotation of the whip. It's amazing I can scan like a radar tower.

Henry opened his eyes and stood trying to maintain his connection with the Earth without meditating. It was difficult he could only move a step at a time starting and stopping as his mind wandered. Eventually, he was able to walk slowly around his cabin without losing concentration. I'll have to keep this active all the time to get really good, it'll be awesome to have this in combat.

Henry spent the rest of the morning playing around with different Earth Affinity powers. He found that using an Affinity wasn't like casting a spell and required him to use his mana to connect with the element and coax it to do what he wanted. It took him an hour to make three rocks circle him and as soon as he tried to use the Earth Radar the rocks fell to the ground. Right now his ability was not good enough to split his attention further, casting rock walls and flying boulders would have to wait until he could run around while keeping his radar active without thinking about it. He would also need to learn some real spells and study the difference.

Around noon he stopped for some lunch. The roasted bear was all that he had and even with all the spices, he'd managed to gather earlier last week it was getting tiresome to eat the same thing every day. "I wish it wasn't raining I'd go out and find some variety."

After quickly scarfing the food down Henry knew he needed to start working on his armor and weapons, but what weapon would he use?