Andrew awoke early the next morning as the night watch retired for the morning and the morning patrol took their place inside of the building. The addition of a solid roof was a particularly impactful for the night watch which slept through the morning. Andrew had heard that several members of the night shift earned a 'night owl I' title, which reduced the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation and slightly increased their low-light vision. After learning this Isaac made the decision to rotate out individuals who earned the title so that everyone on the patrol team had the opportunity to earn it. Andrew probably would have joined them for the couple weeks of sleepless nights it required, but he had to be alert throughout the day to keep an eye on the camp operations. Also most of his work created a whole lot of noise, not ideal for nighttime activities.

He headed out into the morning sun with the rest of the camp, each breaking off to get started on their various tasks. Tyler and Rowan were officially finished with their grove carving. Andrew had left them in charge of carving new circles to replace harvested branches, but they had a considerable supply of branches cooking now. They instead were going to be working as Andrew's assistants while also maintaining the various circles used by the clearing and construction crews. Andrew left them to carve earth accumulation circles around two wood foundations that were laid last night while he headed over to the wagon next to his workstation. He dug through it until he found the three MK. II mana rifles that he finished last night. He pulled them out and wandered around the camp until he found Nate and Sam, trading them the new rifles for their old air and earth rifles. He handed the third MK. II rifle to Maddie, a former kitchen staff member with high fire affinity on the patrol team. Then he gave the two older rifles to Shelby so she could hand them off to other patrol members. He would make more MK. II rifles eventually, but he wanted to experiements with a few new designs first. The rifles were very complex and time consuming to create. He planned on having Tyler and Rowan take over mass production eventually, but they required blacksmithing and wood working skill they had yet to develop. The complex and delicate rune inscriptions would also take some time, or a specialized skill like Andrew's to master as well.

He headed back to his workstation, glancing across camp to see Tyler carving a water expulsion rune atop one roof, Rowan on the ground nearby finishing up the second earth accumulation circle. They would be ready to join him within the hour. He arrived, pulling out his various materials from the nearby wagon and laying them out around him. The construction team promised to make him a couple of sawhorses sometime today, so he would be able to set up a proper semblance of a table instead of using the anvil, boxes, and wagon bed to organize his tools and materials. While he waited for Rowan and Tyler to finish their morning's work he looked over his new Runic Artisan skill options.

Available Skills:

[Sense Affinity: Expand your sense to gain detailed information on the affinities of a material, item, or creature.

Arcane Brand: Create a personalized brand which can be added only to items you create. Individuals who know of you will instinctively recognize the brand as yours. If the brand is removed it will release a tiny amount of ***** mana, destroying the item entirely.

Artisan's Flow: Enter a semi-meditative state whenever you spend at least an hour peacefully crafting an item. While in this meditative state you have increased mana control and a fifty percent increase to mana regeneration.]

Arcane brand is a lot more attractive an option now that we've settled down near the other camp. The brands would only really be there to fuel my ego though, it doesn't really matter if anyone knows I made the tool, so long as it's useful. The possibility of normal wear and tear damaging the brand and destroying the item entirely is also problematic. Cynically speaking it's an excellent vehicle for planned obsolescence, even better reason to leave it alone. It comes down to increased mana control or sensing affinities, mana regeneration is rarely a bottleneck given my high wisdom. I can already roughly sense affinities using siphon affinity, and increased mana control might give me a better shot at unlocking the skill naturally.

[Artisan's Flow skill lvl 1 acquired]

Okay, the project for today then. A close range solution to the big guys. They have thick skin and tend to ignore small wounds, maybe we can use that to our advantage. The spears already have ways of dealing heavy blows, by sending blasts of metal mana out while stabbed into a wound. That didn't exactly work out for me in the last fight though, the brutes are pretty fast. They just grab the spear shaft and break it. I doubt they'll be able to manage that quite so easily with my new spear, but that's still a problem for the other fighters in camp. It should be mass producible enough that we can hand a bunch over to the New Eden folks in an emergency as well. A semi-disposable knife that operates in a similar way maybe?

Andrew's thoughts were inturrupted by the arrival of Rowan and Tyler, each carrying little sacks filled with stone and wood carving tools. "Hey Andrew! We makin guns today?" Tyler called out as they approached.

"Nah, not today, but soon. Real quick, what kind of levels and skills are you guys working with? There's certain things you'll want to work towards before you can get started on those. " Andrew said, leaning back against the anvil.

"I'm a level seventeen Grenadier, and level twenty two Mana Enhancer! Oh that’s my class and catalyst by the way, I haven't picked a profession yet because I want to wait for one that's rune related, but I don't think my skills are high enough level yet." Tyler said with some enthusiasm. His class level was below the camp's average by a bit, but the catalyst was higher ranked than most. He clearly practiced his mana skills more than he actually fought.

"Um, I have the uh, Body Enhancer class, level twenty eight, and Ritualist profession, level four. I haven't picked out a catalyst yet, they're mostly related to using mana weapons and stuff because I've been using the spears and grenades and stuff whenever we have to fight. I don't really want one that's all about fighting though, I'd rather have one that lets me help out other people and stuff, and I haven't seen one of those yet, so I haven't picked out yet. Sorry. " Rowan said, apologizing without any apparent reason.

"That's fine that's fine, that's pretty good actually. What kind of skills do you guys have?"

"I can throw stuff further and with more accuracy, and I have one that let's me sort of visualize the blast radius of something I'm about to throw. It's really handy actually, but I'm, uh, a little scared to try it out near anyone else. With Mana Enhancer I can like, power up weapons in my hands with more mana, make them stronger and sharper, though I've mostly just used it on tools. I can also temporarily boost an existing mana affinity, and I can sense mana. That's everything from my class, but I have Rune inscription and modification too. " Tyler said.

"Body Enhancer lets me uh, enhance my body? I can send mana into my legs to run faster and stuff, or into my arms to make me stronger there, uh, and I recently got a skill to improve my eyes so I can like, zoom in on stuff I guess? All I have from Ritualist so far is 'Mana resistance', I haven't tested it out, but it's supposed to reduce the negative effects of being inside of, like, a bunch of mana. Like the accumulation circles I mean. It seemed good to have, just in case. " Rowan said. "Oh! And I have the inscription and modification skills too, the rune ones, I mean."

"Okay, good stuff, good stuff. It'll be a little bit difficult for you guys to get started on making rifles right now. I want you two to keep an eye out for a skill called Mend or Mana Welding. Either one works, but they're both pretty important for making mana rifles. Empower item, Auto Mana Inscription, and Siphon Affinity are each also very important if you want to recreate any of the things I'm working on. You can probably get most of those with the right catalyst or profession, so if that’s something you still want to do, then it's good you haven't picked those out yet. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get Empower Item or Mana Inscription through your mana enhancer class Tyler, and Mana inscription for your ritualist profession Rowan. For now though, I want you guys to keep practicing rune carving and inscribing until you hit level ten, in inscription at least. I think that's what opens up some more catalyst/profession options. "

"Okay!"

"I'm actually pretty close on rune inscription already. Level eight." Rowan said.

"Nice! Now I generally get faster skill improvements if I'm trying to create something new, so that’s what I'm going to have you two try to do. You know the mana binding circles I had you guys carve way out from the mining camp?" Andrew said, "I would like the two of you to figure out a mobile version of one of those, something we can take with us and use to set a trap in a hurry or immobilize an enemy or something. If you think of something else useful while working, you're totally free to try and make that instead. Let me know if you have any questions, I'll be right here ."Andrew said. The two of them nodded and headed a little ways off, discussing the problem between themselves.

Less overlap with my own skills than I was hoping for honestly. It might be more difficult than I anticipated to mass produce those rifles. To mass produce a lot of the stuff I'm making actually. I hope one of them can get siphon affinity soon at least. It's time to get started on that brute dagger though. Focus on what you can do right now.