My time in the tower before coming to this world taught me to sleep lightly and to wake up instantly when feeling an unknown presence. Here in the middle of a canyon on the third floor of the tower on Aruni the only presence I felt as I slept was the fish in the stream. This allowed me to enjoy one of the luxuries that I dearly missed from earth… sleeping in. It’s a strange experience to walk out of your tent to see the camp you spend all day building was missing. On the plus side that meant I did not need to clean anything up apart from my tent when I wanted to leave. Since everything was just going to vanish after my summoned items breakdown.

Not feeling very hungry I decided now was a good time to check through my storage pouch to take stock of what I’m carrying. Using one of the rocks as a makeshift table I emptied the pouch one item at a time.

All in all I had the pouch Mac gave me from registering with the tower knights, which held a mana potion, signal flare, some foods and water, and an introductory leaflet on the tower. I placed the leaflet to the side for reading later and a smooth helmet from a troll on floor two. I don’t know why I was the one to end up with it. Something I will trade off or give away. I tried identifying the helmet but was still only given the basic information. Three sets of clothes made from a fine cloth that Sera provided me, along with some travel rations and more water. With being able to summon my own food and water I decided I don’t need to be carrying around more and summoned a bag to start placing things into that I did not want. 13 silver coins and a bunch of copper, which reminded me of Yui who lent me 5 silvers just before all this nonsense with elves started. I placed the pile of money to the side next to the other items.

That left two items, not including my tent and bedroll. One was a pack that looked like a leaf folded over itself and the other was the party ring Miko gave me. I placed the ring and everything else I wanted to keep into my storage, so I had room to look over this bag.

It took a moment for me to realise it was the storage pack I had looted from the elf back at the goblin fort. With everything that happened it completely slipped my mind that I was carrying this around. Opening the flap and tilting it to the side I emptied the elven storage onto the rock.

Inside the pack held a bunch of mixed seeds, one of which was much larger than the others. A ball made from leaves wrapped around each other, a wooden comb, a crystal flask, one health potion, and three mana potions.

I took the comb and flask and ball of leaves and used appraisal on them.

[Ashwood Comb]

Quality: Fine (Magical)

Weight: 31g

Value: 3gold – 5gold

Effect: Cleans, smooths, and polishes. Provides nourishment and repairs to damaged hair.

+1 to Appraise item skill rank.

Laughing, I stood up, held the comb up into the air and yelled out in triumph “I can see!”

After doing a little dance to celebrate I placed the comb back into my storage. It looked useful but planned to wash it before using it myself.

[Flask of Replenishing]

Quality: Fine (Magical)

Weight: 500g

Value: 5gold – 10gold

Effect: Channel mana into the flask to fill it with clean, revitalizing water.

Looked like a useful item to have if I couldn’t already conjure my own water. Maybe I’ll give this away as a gift or sell it. My skill is telling me its worth quite a bit.

[Keltus ball]

Quality: Common

Weight: 1kg

Value: 50copper – 1silver

Effect: An edible plant leaf that provides nourishment. Can be mixed with other ingredients.

More food. Guess they prefer eating this over the hard dry travel rations I was provided. I was tempted to try one but decided against it and tossed it along with the seeds into the summoned bag that held the other food items I did not want to carry around.

With that task done I had a small breakfast and went back to training my skills and spells. Not bothering to make a fence today I just created a large pile of summoned items that I hoped would look fun when they started to break down later.

A handful of hours later I felt a presence moving at an unhurried pace towards me. Throwing a shield I just conjured into the impressive pile of items I wiped sweat off my brow and turned to look.

Coming towards me at a leisurely pace was a grey goblin wearing clean brown leather armour and a straw hat. In their hands was a stave that towered above the goblin that was being used as a walking stick. The goblin had no facial hair and once they got close enough, I could see they had grey eyes that seemed to glow slightly under their wide brimmed hat. At first, I thought they were casting identify but I did not feel the tell-tale sign of mana washing over me and their eyes never stopped glowing dimly.

The grey goblin brought up his free hand to his hat and tilted it, along with his head downwards in greeting. When he lifted his head back up there was a large toothy smile plastered on their face.

“Hello there human” said the goblin. “You want trade?” The voice of the goblin was much deeper than what I expected for their size.

The goblin was only about four feet tall and stood enough distance away that I did not tower over him. The stave in his hand was almost as tall as I was. Bending my knees to get a better look I returned his greeting.

“Hello there, goblin. Sure, but I don’t have much to trade.” After a moment I asked, “Are you a tower monster?”

A look of what I took to be anger flashed across the goblins face followed by confusion before finally settling on an amused expression.

The goblin let out a laugh and pointed to me. “You think tower monster and don’t attack? You must be very confident or just stupid.”

Scratching the back of my head, I was not sure how to take his words.

“A bit of both I suppose. I am still new to this place.”

“Yes, second day. I wanted to greet you, but angry old crone was here.”

“Angry old crone? Do you mean Sera, the stunningly beautiful and helpful half elf?”

“Bah!” The goblin spat on the ground to the side. “She most ugly of all human elfs. If she so pretty, where her winkles, warts, or scars? Too smooth all elf be.” His body shuddered for a moment before clearing his throat and looking back to me.

“Ahem. I am Teek. Exo Goblin from Exo, and you be camping in my front garden.”

Taking a moment to digest his words I looked around us. Dirt, rocks, a few bushes, the river, and waterfall a small walk away was all I could see inside the massive walls of rock that surrounded us.

“I uh, apologize. I fell from there” I pointed to the top of the waterfall “and thought this place looked isolated enough to take a small break in. I did not realize it was your uh… garden.”

Teek continued to look at me.

“Oh, I am Reigner. Human from Earth. I have only been here a handful of days now.”

The goblins huge smile returned to his face and he rushed over to me and grabbed my hand, shaking it roughly. Even with my impressive strength I was unable to lessen the speed that he shook my hands.

“You’re like me!” He let go of my hand and spun around laughing and dancing. He stopped after a moment and pointed to me and then himself. “You from Earth. I from Exo. Not of Aruni we be both be!”

He looked so excited to find another person not of this world that I couldn’t help but smile at his joy.

“It’s nice to meet you Teek. How long have you been on Aruni for now?”

The little grey goblin caught his breath, and a sad look overcame him. “Long time now Teek gone from home.” He pointed towards the large pile of summoned items I had been creating. “You merchant? You trade?”

“Uh no. If you want anything from there, feel free to take it. It will break down later though so don’t be surprised if you suddenly can’t find it a few hours from now.”

Teek picked up a sword from the pile and looked it over. “Blah!” He threw the sword back into the pile and picked up a shield only to do the same thing. He continued looking over the items while making disapproving noises.

“You made all these?”

“In a manner of speaking. Yes. My class lets me summon a few things.” By explanation I summoned a mana marble and tossed it to him.

He caught the marble and looked it over. “Bleh, more trash. You suck. What else you got?”

“Hmm, well there is this” I pulled out the helmet from my bag and offered it out to him.

He walked over and took it out of my hand to look over. It looked comically big inside his hands, as it was almost the size of his torso. After a moment he tossed it over his shoulder onto the large pile of summoned weapons. “Still bad. What else?” Running my hand through my hair I pulled out the crystal flask and showed that to the goblin.

“What I need this for when river right there?” He went to throw it over his shoulder before I grabbed hold on the item and placed it back into storage.

“Well, there is nothing else. Unless you want some travel food.” I motioned towards the bag full of discarded items.

Teek walked over to the bag and opened it up to peer inside. A high pitched squeal sounded from him as he pulled out his hand. For a moment I thought he had injured himself or some small creature managed to hide in the bag but as I got closer Teek yelled out, “Seeds!”

He pulled the bag onto the rock and slowly tipped out the seeds to inspect. There were lots of strange noises coming from the goblin as he picked up each individual seed to look over before carefully placing them in a line on the rock. Seeing that this was going to take him a while I went back to training my spells.

Some time went by, a few hours by my guess, until Teek came over to me with wide eyes and a big smile on his face. “You trade me seeds?”

Seeing as I was just going to toss them along with the other food goods I just nodded to him.

Teek started laughing and dancing again. “Come. I bring you inside. Much better than here. You training, yes? I have much better place for that.”

The goblin seemed friendly enough to me and since he did not try and kill after first seeing me, placed him pretty high on my friend or foe scale.

“Sure, just let me pack up my tent.”

Teek seemed to be in a rush as he waited for me to fold my tent and place it into my storage pouch. He was constantly looking and poking at a small pile of seeds on his palm before placing them back into the small pouch and doing it over again. When he saw that I was finished he put away the pouch and grabbed onto my arm. “Come with me. You will like Teek home.”

Teek lead me towards the waterfall to a small crack in the rockface that he pushed his staff into. A section of rock started to move as he continued to push his staff in further, until there was an opening large enough for me to walk through. Teek turned around and gave me a huge grin before walking into the tunnel that led into the canyon wall.

The Exo Goblin placed his hand on the wall next to him and said, “Watch your step” as dim lines of light appeared on the ground that led further into the tunnel. The light reminded me of emergency lighting from back on Earth. Teek made a noise of what I took to be enjoyment as he started down the long corridor. Looking down at the lighting I could see that it was made from a long script of intricate connecting calligraphy of some kind.

After reaching the end of the tunnel there was a spiralling staircase that seemed to take forever to climb. Once we reached a certain section Teek stopped me from going up further and announced “We are here.”

He placed his hand on the wall and after a moment his hand sank into the wall up to his wrist. Another hidden door opened and Teek gestured for me to walk inside.

“Welcome to Teekhome.” He entered behind me as I stepped inside.

In front of me was a huge open space with rows and rows of wooden planters filled with dirt that was growing all kinds of grain, vegetables, and fruits. There were lines of bushes with berries and trees all with different kinds of colourful fruit. The ceiling of the room cast a bright light straight down onto the carefully maintained indoor farm.

I turned to Teek and looked him over. The straw hat now made a lot more sense. He looked up to me with a proud smile on his face and his hands on his hips.

“You’re a farmer.” I stated plainly. Teek must have noticed that I was not that impressed, and his grin started to falter. Not wanting to hurt his feelings I looked back at the indoor farm and tried to put more enthusiasm into my words.

“Oh, wow. It’s so big. You did all this yourself? I am very impressed.” Teek looked at me suspiciously for a moment before breaking out in a grin again.

“Teek best farmer. Come look.” Teek led me through the paths between the grow beds and pointed out the occasional plant or tree he seemed extra proud of.

“I love finding rare plants and seeds. Here try this!” He pulled a rainbow coloured apple from a tree and handed it to me. The fruit felt both cool and warm in my hand. I took a bite out of the fruit and felt like my whole world just changed. The flavour and texture of the fruit was something I could not describe. It was like nothing I have ever had before. I used appraisal on the fruit and continued shoving it into my mouth as I read over the description. Part of me was worried this was an addictive ingredient for some kind of climber narcotic but I could not stop myself from consuming the apple.

[Rainbow Tree Fruit]

Quality: Exceptional

Weight: 262g

Value:10g-20g

Effect: So delicious you may lose track of time. Eating this fruit will permanently increase all your stats by 1.

My jaw would have dropped if I was not sucking the juices off my fingers. Once there was no trace of the fruit left I looked up and saw that Teek was some distance away. He turned around and gave me a huge grin.

“Good, yes?” he asked.

I could only nod in return. Speechless from the experience. Farming could produce something like this? Maybe I was too judgemental on those skill books. I wondered if my summon food spell would allow me to summon one of these if I could pick one off the tree myself. I reached out towards the tree and gently curled my fingers around one of the fruits.

“Mind if I pick one of these? I have a spell that lets me replicate food I acquire or create myself.”

Teek looked at me for a moment before saying. “If you can. But don’t eat more or you explode and die.”

Not sure if he was serious or making a joke I smiled at the little goblin. As I reached and went to pick the fruit it did not budge. placing more strength into my arm had no effect, I even held the fruit and the branch in either hand but as much as I tried to pull them apart they remained stuck together.

“What’s going on? Why can’t I pick this?”

Teek had his hands on his knees laughing while looking towards me. “Your face red like tomato!” He laughed a bit longer before saying. “You need skill and strength to pick that one. Reigner is weak.”

Well, I have never had anyone call me weak so casually before for a long time. Honestly it felt kind of nice. Knowing that there were capable heroes and adventurers in this world meant I could relax without having to worry about always moving forward.

“Wait did you say tomato? You have tomatoes here?”

“Yup! I trade for tomato. Come, follow me!”

My first impression of the room was that it was huge, but I was mistaken. As Teek continued leading me further and further into his farm I realised that this place was absolutely massive. Teek must have thousands of different things growing in this place.

Eventually we came to a wall with a doorway at the back that held a corridor with doors on either side. Teek walked through the corridor to the back where it opened up to a large room that held a big comfortable couch, a large stone dining table, and a kitchen all in one large area. I could see that there were more corridors that led somewhere connecting from this room also.

“This place is massive Teek. You must have spent a long time carving this place out.”

“Yes, long time but we worked hard.”

Teek showed me to a room that held a large bed, some furniture, and a large chest that rested at the end of the bed.

“You use this room while you stay.”

“Thank you Teek. This looks much more comfortable than my bedroll.”

Teek showed off the rest of his home to me. He had running water flowing through his kitchen area and a bathing room that he siphoned off from the waterfall. He also had rooms dedicated to crafting, there was a room that held a forge and anvil, one with leatherworking supplies, and one that had a large wooden device that looked to use cloth. There were more rooms with crafting supplies I could not recognise. One room caught my attention as it was filled with glowing rocks and liquids.

As Teek continued to show me around I started to hear some grunting and shouting coming from ahead of us. Teek walked into a large room that held an assortment of weapons and training mannequins of all sizes made from different materials spread out inside the room. Practising against a mannequin of stone was a familiar looking orc wearing a black leather coat.

“Training room.” Teek said to me as he gestured to the room and orc inside. The occupant noticed us and stopped his training to walk over to us. His eyes widened as he saw me. “I am surprised that you are still alive, Outworder.”