The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

As he worked, Joram had a look at his Inventory.

He’d already taken out, and [Delve]’d, everything that had been in his apartment, leaving his inventory almost empty. He also noticed that he now had many more slots than before. In fact, he had exactly 34 more slots than he’d started with, more than doubling his storage capacity.

He still had a stack of logs; he’d found out that each slot’s capacity was more than one hundred items of the same kind. He wasn’t sure how much he could stuff into a single slot, so he just added a stack of 100 sequoia logs, another 100 of the teak-like wood, and 100 stone blocks that he’d made into 1m cubes.

Aside from those building materials, he’d stored away the kukri-like daggers, the Desert Eagle in its holster, the clips, and the box of ammo, and Irymis’ Staff. He still needed to study the staff more to see how to put a Skill into an item, but also to see if he could manually learn those two impressive Skills. Because [Dimensional Manipulation] and [Spatial Manipulation] still sounded incredibly useful, no matter how you split it.

Then he went over his to-do list.

Learning more [Egoist] abilities was still on the table, mostly because he still wanted to be able to more easily heal other people, but also because he wanted to be a lot more survivable than he was. That close call with the ogre mages had been an eye-opening experience.

Then there were the magical Skills that he still wanted to learn more about. Or rather, more of. He certainly hoped that he could find more Skill Tomes in the future, but also hoped that he could find a tutor or something that could teach him more magic. Yes, he could use a dizzying array of Psionic Powers, but making better use of his ridiculous mana pool would also increase his versatility, survivability, and overall usefulness.

Shaking his head, he looked at the next item he hadn’t managed to cross off yet. “Experiment with Dust”.

That would take time. Well, he already knew some applications, but he wanted to know all the applications!! Or, at least, as many as was reasonable.

The last item that was on the list was somewhat solved already. His circadian rhythm issues.

From what he could tell, and comparing when the sun came up to any of his many clocks- be they digital, analogue, or apps-, he’d found that each day had roughly an hour more in it here. And seeing as how he’d been watching for the past month, he’d found that his old clocks were now over a day in advance than they should have been.

Which meant that, over the course of a month, he’d have more than a full day’s worth of crafting, experimenting, and training time!

Getting back to his Inventory, he decided that putting any of the already prepared food into his Inventory would go a long way to keeping everything fresh. So, he did. Then he got on to preparing the roasts.

He only had a large beef roast with which to work with, so he’d made more of them with, of course, [True Creation]. After that, he’d made a huge bowl of peeled garlic, then a massive bin full of potatoes, another tub of fresh salted butter, and lastly a dozen litres of fresh milk. Not the kind from the supermarket, no. That would be terrible. Instead, he created it from his memory of trying fresh milk at a dairy, pre-pasteurized.

Yes, that sounded insane. He didn’t care. It had been delicious. And given how stringent the cleaning of the equipment was, he had little worry of contracting anything beyond an addiction to the wonderfully fresh milk.

Anyways, with that made, he got to work making the mashed potatoes. It was getting so much easier to use [Telekinesis], splitting its use between multiple targets. In short order, the potatoes were all diced and set to boil. Then came the mincing of the garlic and mixing it with the butter.

Not long after, he drained the water and got to mashing and mixing in the garlic butter and a bit of milk. Even though he didn’t need to eat, he still got a bit hungry smelling one of his favourite foods, let alone the wonderful aromas escaping from the ovens….

After storing away the mashed potatoes, he used [True Creation] again, though this time he created a few ingots of palladium. Why? He still wanted to make the Rings of Sustenance for everyone. That, and he wanted to make those rings with [Anchored Navigation] so that he could find the owners if something happened.

With that done, he used [Modify Matter] to shape sixty rings from the ingots, leaving him with several ingots to spare. Shrugging, he stuffed them into his inventory for later, then started going over enchanting theory again as he busied his body with checking on the various roasts still going.

After about an hour, he realized that making rings wasn’t too different from making just about any other magical item. Or, in his case, psionic item. Thinking about it a bit more, he wondered if he could use mana to make things instead. Though, given how rare psionics seemed to be here, he decided that anything he made for anyone close to him would have to be made using the psionic method, as those items would be harder to detect for anyone with impure intentions.

Shaking his head, he decided to put a limitation on the rings, effectively making them for the person he crafted each one for. Which would mean that it would basically be a pretty ring for anyone else who tried to use it.

Nodding, he decided on that path forward. If things worked like they did in the tabletop RPGs he’d played, having such an insane limitation on an item would also greatly reduce the cost of making the item!

Doing one last check on the cooking roasts, he decided to quickly step out of the kitchen to do a check-up on each of the people that he wanted to give a ring to. With a quick [Delve] of each of them, he’d then have what he needed to finish the rings.

- - -

An hour later, and more than a few odd looks, concerned looks, and even a few blushing faces, he was done. It had been pretty quick, all things considered. That said, he idly wondered if Celys and Ilyana had gotten the wrong impression from his “checkup”.

‘They certainly looked as though they were questioning your sanity,’ Avi said from his side, smirking for all she was worth.

‘Ah, well, I guess the misunderstanding will continue for a bit longer,’ he sent back, sighing as he basted the roasts before getting back to making the rings.

They weren’t anything to write home about, design-wise. Just simple rounded bands of palladium. He liked the metal, mostly because he thought it looked nice while not being terribly gaudy, but also because it didn’t tarnish like other precious metals did, and was quite hypoallergenic to boot.

He picked up the first ring as he withdrew one of the 100 GP Dust Crystals, the full-sized one. He had also divided them into smaller portions, each corresponding to the equivalent purity of the varying Grades of Cores. Basically, creating a Crystal Core equivalent in Dust Crytal form. Which meant that each Dust Crystal was actually smaller than the corresponding Grade of Crystal Core.

For example, a Grade E Core’s equivalent of Dust wasn’t much larger than a grain of sand.

Taking a deep breath, Joram got to work. The pattern for [Sustenance] was actually fairly easy, as it actually reminded him a bit of [Metacreation] in that it produced, well, enough sustenance for the body throughout the day. On the other hand, it was very much an [Egoist] Power, as it also helped renew one’s body, both physically and mentally.

Then the pattern for [Anchored Navigation] came next. It wasn’t as familiar to him as the first two, as [Nomad] and [Seer]-type Powers were still ones that he was learning. Manipulating space and dimensional boundaries was… complicated. But making an anchor to which he could always teleport to, was a bit easier than, say, using [Planeshift] or something.

Then came the part where he attached those two Powers to the ring, and in doing so, made them into enchantments. For that, he relied heavily on the knowledge that Altaea had left for him, as well as… what felt like an instinctual knowledge that came from his Class/Path. He supposed that being a [Creationist] wasn’t something to take lightly.

As he set the enchantment, he both felt and saw a small portion of the Dust Crystal break off into fine dust and flow into the ring. A moment later, he felt that the process was complete, adding one more feature that seemed to go hand-in-hand with enchanted gear: auto-sizing. He grinned, happy that it had worked out.

Sure, he’d enchanted the breaker boxes to prove electricity, but that was just basically copying what Altaea had done. This? This ring was the first work he’d made without having something at hand to copy. Sure, the process of enchanting was basically installed in his brain, but he still felt proud to have done it.

‘Well done,’ Avi said as she leaned over, her elbows resting on the counter as her hands cradled her jaw. ‘No, you should probably check on the roasts,’ she said, giving him a wink.

A wink that just about knocked him on his ass with how devastatingly cute it was. After taking a moment to recover, he quickly went about checking the roasts, basting them as he went. Once done, he pocketed the first ring, then got to work on the rest of the rings.

After the experience of successfully making the first ring, enchanting the other rings went much faster. He found, though, that each ring seemed to take about 2 Units of Dust or, in other words, the equivalent of 2 Grade E Cores. Which, really, wasn’t that bad at all. Especially considering how much he’d been expecting to use in the first place, but he supposed that his Class Ability, [Ease of Creation], was doing most of the work there.

He shrugged, just happy that it made crafting easier, for he truly loved crafting.

With the rings fully enchanted, a thought occurred to him that led him to retrieve the stack of fifty-eight rings, placing them on the counter once more. Picking one up, he could instinctually feel that it was the one attuned to Myra. That said, it was identical to every other ring in the pile. So, he quickly activated [Modify Matter] and quickly engraved each of their names into each of their rings.

Well, he engraved their names in both common and in english, on the inside of the band. Then, on a whim, added another name, in both languages. Sure, it was as common as it could get, but he decided, then, that he would take it as his own last name here.

For the ones who weren’t “part of the family”, he just added their own names. Also, he left the last three rings “primed” for when he ran into the guys since they weren’t there for him to have gotten their data already.

With that done, he quickly stored them away into his Inventory, then got back to making supper.

* * *

Ilyenna was very nervous sitting next to the pretty elf-lady whose name was almost the same as hers, Miss Ilyana. She looked around at everyone else, wondering just how odd these fox people were. They were… so much nicer than most of the people she’d known before the bandits came.

Well, that wasn’t fair. It had just been very hard to make a living. She’d constantly heard the adults complaining about “crippling taxes” over the past few years, as long as she’d been working with them. She was proud that she’d started her training already, well onto her way to getting the [Seamstress] Path, though the Great Protector wouldn’t take her into its embrace for another few years.

These fox people were just so weird to her. Who would bother with a bunch of slaves like they had? She’d been long prepared to have her maidenhood taken from her after being bought by some master, so being bought by that Joram guy hadn’t come as a surprise. In fact, she was happy that he wasn’t some perverted old man.

There’d been whispers last night as everyone speculated about Joram. Most, though, seemed to have been won over by his treatment of them already, treating them, [Cleanse]’ing them, then given them new clothes and new beds to sleep in. He hadn’t even called for anyone to “attend” him that night. They’d asked around to be sure.

Even more of them had been won over this morning after seeing the new mess hall. Then watching Joram make another building, a bathhouse someone had called it. Yet more had been won over after Joram had freed the older girls, offering the rest of them the same once they were adults. And even more when he’d offered to help send them home!!!

For the few who had a home to return to, that had been both endearing and a huge temptation.

Then they had lunch, and everyone was now talking about how good it would be to stay there, even the freed women.

And now the smells coming from the kitchen were making everyone’s mouth water, hers included. She watched as Miss Asami Miki wiped a bit of drool away from the corner of her mouth while Miss Myra’s mouth just hung open a bit as she stared vacantly at the kitchen door.

Even the other adults from Kirkwall were often distracted by what they smelled. She couldn’t blame them. She’d never smelled anything quite so amazing as what she’d been smelling from the kitchen over the past couple of hours.

Most of them had just hung around after lunch. Some had gone outside with Shae’ra so that they could be shown the “green-house”, while others just wanted to walk, enjoying the ability to breath in fresh air and truly stretch their legs.

For her part, Ilyana had started chatting with her after having overheard her conversation with Renée about what kind of things they’d done before… now. Honestly, she was pretty excited about learning from the pretty elf lady. She’d always heard stories about how elves were so good with whatever they chose to do, so she felt that she was incredibly blessed to have been chosen by Ilyana.

Then she heard the kitchen door open, so she looked over to see Joram poke his bearded face out and look around quickly before speaking.

“Hey, Myra! Can you gather everyone? The food’s ready to serve at any time!”

Ilyenna’s heart felt as though it had jumped in her chest at those words, her mouth watering more as even more of the delicious smells escaped the kitchen before Joram could close the door again. This time, though, he was on this side of the door when it closed.

“Hey Ilyana, thanks for coming by again today,” Joram said when he got to their section of table before a chair appeared out of thin air for him to sit on.

She goggled, wondering if he had one of those crazy expensive storage rings she’d always dreamt of owning, much like a [Princess] would.

“Don’t worry about it,” Miss Ilyana said, waving it off. “I couldn’t very well leave all of these girls to fend for themselves. But getting both lunch and supper is certainly welcome,” she said as her eyes briefly drifted over to the still closed-off kitchen.

“Ah, no worries about that. Gave me the opportunity to work on something for after we eat,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Oh~~? Please, do tell,” Miss Ilyana said as she twisted a bit more on the bench so that she could bat her eyelashes at Joram.

Ilyenna just about laughed at the sight of a grownup doing that, much more used to seeing other girls her age trying that to persuade both boys and adults.

“Ah, sorry, that won’t work on me,” Joram said, giving them a fabulous grin. “My sisters over-used that tactic, forever ruining it for anyone else,” he said with a laugh.

“Foo-ey,” Miss Ilyenna pouted theatrically as Miss Asami Miki came over to join in on the conversation.

“When do we eat?!” she more demanded than asked, looking as though she was ready to pounce on Joram.

“As soon as everyone is gathered,” Joram replied resolutely.

Then Miss Asami Miki turned and ran out the doors, shocking them all.

“I guess she’s pretty hungry,” Joram said, chuckling.

“So, are you going to work your magic to get these girls some shoes soon?” Miss Ilyana asked, changing the subject.

“That’s tomorrow morning’s project,” Joram said, shrugging. “I figure that I’ll be busy most of the day working on making more stuff for everyone. More clothes, some dressers, and possibly another building entirely to house everyone. I’m sure that no one really wants to sleep with so many others all the time,” he said casually, seemingly unaware of just how crazy what he’d said sounded to everyone within earshot.

“Well, just let me know if you need a hand making anything,” Miss Ilyana said, sounding a bit… disappointed?

“Well, actually, if you could help with throwing together something more interesting than I can make for them, that would be a tremendous help,” Joram said after a moments’ thought where he’d tilted his head to the side slightly, almost like he’d been listening to someone.

“I’d be happy to!” Miss Ilyana said happily, dazzling her with her smile. “And I have a young lady here who can help!”

Ilyenna could feel the colour draining from her face at the attention of not only the other girls, but also Joram.

“I-I-I-I just helped out a b-bit b-before,” she stammered as her chin dropped to her chest as she spoke.

“Me too,” Joram said, then she felt a massive hand on the top of her head. “Ilyana’s a great teacher, and I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from her,” he said, causing her heart to leap a bit in her chest.

Is he actually a for-real-life good-guy? She silently wondered as his hand left her head, leaving a surprising amount of warmth behind.