Jason waves bye to Gregor and steps into the house. With the door closed, he deposits the money and then calls up his wealth tab to check how he has done since last checking.

{Wealth

Money

47 Gold [ +47 ] 74 Silver [ +68 ] 208 Copper [ +166 ]

Property

N/A

Businesses

N/A}

‘Huh, I haven’t looked at this in a while. Then again, I haven’t had to use my money yet either. Being in the middle of a forest crawling with undead doesn’t give you the chance. That and not having done any guild quests makes for an anemic wallet.’

Jason walks into the den room and finds Courtney meditating on a candle flame. The only quirk is that the flame is a cyan blue color. As Jason looks closer he notices that instead of a white flame at the center it turns black.

Jason jumps as a laugh comes from right next to him. Off to the side, barely outside of view from the doorway, is Peter sitting cross-legged on a beanbag chair. He gestures for Jason to join him, away from Courtney.

Once Jason has sat down on a nearby beanbag, Peter smiles, “Don’t worry about disturbing her as long as we stay on this side of the room. She has my shell set up.”

Jason nods, “So she gets to start with a meditation technique? I’ve heard of using a candle for that, though I assume the candle itself is special as well.”

Peter shrugs, “Just a foxfire candle. While foxfire isn’t required to learn the variant skill, it increases the chance by so much. Kitsune have such an easy time with a built-in source of the stuff. Hell, that is why they are the only race with the variant as a racial tradition.”

“Oh, and before you ask, Rosha is in her room doing some training. I’ve set her the task to learn basic fletching. Well, I guess I shouldn’t call it basic fletching. That is an actual skill name. Rather, I want her to learn improvised mana wood crafting. The ability to create a serviceable bow and some arrows only her mana can be quite useful. Not with active effects, mind you. Rather, the ability to form branches and such by hand with only a slight coating of mana on the fingers.”

Jason raises an eyebrow, “That sounds situationally useful. We have ended up in the wild a lot, it seems, but our weapons aren’t falling apart. Though of course you can always use more arrows as long as you aren’t using special tips or fletching.”

Peter smirks, “You would think it is too niche but there are two important details about the skill that lifts it up. If you are caught and have everything confiscated, the skill will let you create a weapon as long as there is wood around. Some goon locked you in a room with just a bed? That bed is probably wood. Get caged by some monster tribe? The cage is probably wood.”

“Anyway, the other detail is that because the skill uses only a trace amount of mana on your fingers, it doesn’t show up as magic being used. In fact, because it doesn’t use a full point of mana, you can even use the skill if your mana pool is empty. So as long as you don’t end up in a null magic zone, you can use the skill. Doesn’t matter if you’ve emptied your pool or someone is draining your mana. With just the mana in the atmosphere, you can use the skill.”

“The biggest downside when compared to normal mana wood crafting is you need to touch the wood you want to shape. And I do mean touch the wood. With the normal version of the skill you could, for instance, hold one end of a plank and have the other end change shape. With the improvised version, the area you can mold is very close to your hands. Though one side benefit of this is that it makes climbing trees stupid simple. Activate the skill and your fingers sink into the wood with no thought involved.”

Jason sighs, “Well, that sounds way too useful. There has to be more downsides.”

Peter nods, “The skill depends a lot more on actual ability to craft an item than other similar skills. Part of the appeal of many powered crafting methods is the ability to craft an item through pure will. This skill requires you to actually shape the item you want.”

Jason laughs, “You know what? I love it! A crafting skill where the downside is it requires you to craft something. Mind you, I understand why that is the case. Most mages won’t be able to focus on crafting enough to get any good at it. Though I can see Rosha getting really into it. Plus, it seems like a decent campfire hobby.”

Peter leans back into the bean bag, “That’s how I’ve always used it. Even if I’m not making new arrows or what have you, I would do a quick once over on my bow and arrows to make sure everything is still sturdy. Nothing worse than having a bow break in half as you try to draw it or an arrow snapping as you try to fire it. Can throw quite the wrench in a fight.”

“Sadly, I can’t teach you the skill since you don’t use mana. Though I wonder what the Energy form of the skill would do. I know that qi users have qi woodcarving where instead of shaping the wood, well, it carves it. Beyond that, though, it is more useful for smoothing out rough spots. With the mana skill, you need to work much harder to flatten the rough areas. The qi skill lets them use their hands like sandpaper down to however fine a grit you could want. Of course you need higher levels in the skill below a certain grit size.”

“Now what have you been up to?”