Understandably, my friends were all ecstatic about my success. When they got close enough to the item, much closer than I had needed to receive the prompt, they told me the information they saw was the same. We speculated a few possibilities and when I described how the metal had changed they agreed that it was probably curing the mud somehow.

"It's not hot to the touch right now, but I wouldn't put it past this weird metal to do something we just don't know how to activate," Ben said. The more I watched my old teacher interact with the magic around us, the more I could see him adapting. I'd been concerned the older members of the Bunker would struggle with that. I also had to consider that he was among the 'younger' group of those below and must have been at least familiar with fantasy games and some of the things the Entity had used as inspiration from our brains.

"Can I see it? I want to try something," Daniela said, holding out her hand. The older man passed the tool over and Daniela held it tightly in both hands as she summoned her magic circle. Immediately, the circle vanished as it was sucked into the tool. The heat coming off the tool quickly filled the small huddle we'd made to discuss the infused equipment. We all took a step back, as Daniela chuckled in surprise. "It's still drawing mana from me."

"You think that's how you make use of its trait?" I asked, ignoring the heat and watching the tool for any additional change. It almost looked like the red coloration had lightened, but I couldn't be sure.

"Yeah. I am also pretty sure that it's how you access the Attribute. I instantly felt much stronger."

"Danny, check your Status. See if it says anything about it," Sam said, a frown reaching his face as he looked between the tool and his overgrown tomato plant.

We all remained quiet while she stared off into space. The heat continued to reach us, even if it didn't seem to get any hotter. It might also have been a result of my still partly wet clothes, but I ignored it regardless. A few seconds later, she huffed in surprise.

"Yeah, there is a pair of brackets next to my Strength Attribute with a [+0.1]," she said.

"Can you deactivate the item?" Ben said, wiping some of the sweat that had started making its way down his considerable forehead. Daniela nodded and the heat was gone as if it wasn't there. The metal definitely lost some of the red when deactivated.

"Strength boost is gone. That didn't take a whole lot of mana actually, but I don't know how it would be affected if I use my other Skills," Danny said. She placed her other hand on the shovel head and I winced. She didn't so much as flinch. I should have expected that considering she'd been holding the metal handle all along, but I'd been more focused on the effects of the tool. "Anyone wanna give it a try?"

"You think it will work with mana from other Attuned?" I asked as Sam took hold of the shovel.

"Nothing to do but try?" he shrugged as he called forth his Direct Skill spell chain. Just like with Danny, it sucked itself into the metal and the heat bathed us. "Checks out. This is an interesting way of giving other Attuned access to the other elements. A sort of neutral ground for our Attuned mana."

"It was hard to make just that one tool. I also feel like something unusual happened. I only used Quotient 0 Infusions but it's a Quotient 1 Item? We'll need to look more into it," I said.

"You better get working then! Maybe on something more useful than a garden shovel?" Danny said.

"I think I am about done with experimenting for today, but I'll let you know if I have any more success. Considering the fact we can make tools that might improve our Attributes, even if it costs mana, Infusion crafting just climbed up in my list of priorities." I made a mental note to myself to talk to Ben about getting at least one set of each metal tool we had Infused with fire. "For now, I am starving!"

The rest of the evening was a whirlwind of conversation. We all spoke about the exciting possibilities of crafted items and how they would give us advantages in the wilderness. Ben was curious enough to actually try to activate the shovel, but he wasn't successful despite a few hours of trying. Sam and Danny were the most excited, listing things they thought I needed to Infuse first for them. When I told them no, they looked thoroughly shocked until I reminded them that they were able to do it themselves. If they wanted something specific from me then they would have to wait for when I got around to it.

Of course, I didn't tell them that I already intended to work on an Infusing area within the room I was building outside, but they didn't need to know that. It was funny to see how quickly they were okay with waiting when it involved them risking explosions or magical geysers in the process. I didn't know what that said about me. I couldn't blame them, however. Sam wanted to keep working with his herd and farm. Danny I wasn't too sure, but she seemed to be content blowing stuff up in the woods. Considering the unknown dangers of our surroundings, I was glad she'd taken the initiative. Not only did she have Anthony to accompany her on her fiery escapades, she had the most damage potential, aim, and speed. She was built to be a scout. Even as worried as she made me with her going off alone, I knew she wasn't reckless. Her response to the Fire Ants was proof of that.

As I placed the defensive X of stone spikes on the door, my thoughts drifted to the threat of the Fire Ants. Building up our fort would be a good first step, and getting the Entity to expand its influence was another, but even the Crystal hadn't been able to keep away the Fire Wolf. It was possible that it was simply depleted after giving us our Skills, but I had a hunch it had to do with its Quotient.

The highest Quotient we'd encountered was level 3. It wasn't hard to draw the connection between predators having higher Quotients since they could potentially take Pith from their kills. The Gossamer Spider and the Haze Wolf were threats we'd been lucky to manage. Venturing out into the woods and learning how best to use our Skills was at the top of the list after I finished the first fortified room.

---+---

"Rocks-for-brain, it's morning time and people want to go about their jobs!" Danny said, nudging me in the side and eliciting me to roll over.

"You don't need me to leave," I said from under my arm. The light from the room’s lantern was like a lance into my retinas.

"True, but they are your stone spikes. Now move it, daylight is a burnin’ and I have trees to clear."

With a groan, I rose to my feet. Focusing my eyes briefly on the space right through the crack at the bottom of the door, a stone spike materialized and knocked my defensive X to the ground. The cast was so effortless I actually gave myself pause. It shouldn't have surprised me, considering the week of work I'd been doing, but it did regardless. Danny thanked me before heading out the door. Sam and Ben weren't far behind as they went off to work on our budding farm. The trio waved to me even as I was trying to fully wake up.

"I wish we had more of those coffee snacks..." I mumbled to myself. The little chocolate encased beans had run out about five years ago. I wasn't a particular fan of their taste. Bitter had never been something I sought out in food. However, the shot of awakeness they provided was invaluable for when I was going through school. Mornings had never been my friends.

Regardless, I munched on some fresh roasted potatoes and tomatoes that Danny had graced me with. With Sam dedicating himself to growing the Farm, and with the help of Ben to manage it, we'd been able to add russet potatoes, peas and rainbow chard to our dietary combinations. We'd even sent a load down with Ben. He'd been acting as our de facto point of contact with the Bunker. Once I'd gobbled the meal down, I tied up my boots and stepped out into the shade.

I couldn't help but smile at the success of my work. Several stone spike columns rose up around me, holding a hardened stone roof over our first surface built room. The light in the space came from the Entity cluster directly in front of me and the two openings diagonally from the Bunker lobby. Throughout the last week I'd used to create makeshift beams that I filled in using . The result was a vaguely geodesic dome pattern of stone spikes that was filled in by earth. I'd wanted to experiment with windows, but without glass or something similar I opted for the defensive effect of plain walls.

My other major success had been in testing the extent of my compressive abilities. If the first cast of cost about the same as a , the second cost double and the third triple. However, by the third casting the compressed earth turned into a semblance of actual stone. When I'd been testing the compression limits of my Skills, up to the fourth cast, it had given me trouble to break through even with my pickaxe. Doing that level of compression on the entire building would take many more days, since it drained my entire mana pool in one go and left me wheezing on the ground any time I tried it.

With that completed, I was ready to put the finishing touches on the building and work on some more infusing. For the first part of the morning I worked to dig out little trenches at the base of each entryway; each gap was about a foot wide. Once those were completed, I made sure to gently compress the ground to create a smooth surface with a roughly trapezoidal cross section. With those done, it was time for me to get the rest of our group.

I'd discussed the general idea with them the night before, and they'd thought it would be a good solution in the meantime. Between the four of us, we lugged several of the logs Daniela had been working to clear away and debranch. When I got near her 'work area' I was surprised to see how much she'd managed to clear. A good ten feet wide path headed northwest away from the Bunker before hooking north out of sight. The logs in question were strewn about the edges of the path, so we collected those nearest to the Bunker's clearing.

We brought ten logs and then worked to cut them down to about seven feet. With my increased strength and targeted use of my to pin and split the still green wood, we had what we needed done just after lunch. Using a hatchet, we got the half logs as trimmed as we could and set them in the groove I'd made. Sam then used his Skill to wrap them tightly together. Using some knot wizardry that I understood less than mana he tied off the rest makeshift door.

"Ta-da!" I said, presenting the door to my friends as if they hadn't just helped me make it.

"This is the ugliest door I have ever seen." I opened my mouth to protest, but Danny cut me off. "Yes, this includes the ones we saw in simulations and movies."

With how much work we'd been doing on the surface, I'd forgotten my friends were quite resistant to my antics.

"This is pretty heavy," Ben noted. Our old teacher struggled to make the log door slide properly in the wedge I'd made. "Suppose that is part of the point of the design."

"It should give us some more space to store things while leaving the lobby for housing. I would like to add a few more buildings to the space, but I think this is enough for now. We should split one of the logs to make a little walkway across the groove I made and that should let us walk across without worrying about falling in the hole," I said. Matching word to action, I was already picking through the sections we'd cut. We laid two halves of a log inside the groove and finished the other door into the space in record time.

"Congratulations on building the first vestibule of post apocalyptic Earth," Ben said.

The man patted me on the shoulder as we all admired the sealed space I'd created. Sam and Danny were already trying to stake their claims over certain sections of the new room. The vestibule was far from perfect, and much larger than any pre-landfall one actually was, but it was a starting point. The structure was a testament that returning to the surface was not a pipe dream, but a real possibility. It would require all of us to work together, Metier Crystal included, but we were on the right path. Our hands were already paving the way.