Contrary to my childish fears, the reality of the situation was much worse. The first of three sets of scouts camping out on the highway leading to our village neighbor had returned yesterday evening. This meant an appropriate sized body of undead or enemies in general had been spotted on the march.
Considering the amount of damage down in Arguston and picking their way through the village, their previous ETA had been several days. They had cleared the village and a third of the distance from the village to our town in roughly twenty four hours. If not the morning after next then on that day's afternoon we would be under siege.
This meant changes and advancements had been made in the defenses of the town. Which meant that chances and advancements had been made in the work crews. The reason this was such being brought to me in such a manner was because I was partly responsible for them.
The town and Guild officials have decided to emphasize the anti-undead warding with more than just rows of imbued stakes in the trench. Now our local temple was accepting mage volunteers to help in the production of blessed holy water and lesser holy artifacts with which to bolster our defenses. We- and my parents heavily emphasized the 'me' in 'we'- were basically going to be the batteries for all of the mortal magic used in the process.
I, specifically, would be imbuing the trinity of religious mana into an oily water produced by the church. With all three holy, light, and life energies contained in the glass bottles of holy water, the priests would bless the stockpiles with their 'piety' and supposedly double their overall mana purity and potential. I, of course, would be compensated at one silver for every bottle which would supposedly add up to several gold.
Gryn and his friends would be doing the manual labor side of the defenses with constructing bulwarks and spike walls while lining the trench with stakes. Once the trench was done, though, the holy water and relics would be deadlined and whatever we had would be dispersed about the area surrounding the trench.
Just the act of consecrating the trench and the ground for several yards on either side of it with holy water would be enough to ward off all but sentient undead.
The artifacts or 'icons' as some of the clergy called these impartial religious tools would then be distributed further out like mines and obstacle courses. The extent to which the guards had revised their initial basic response plans was actually somewhat surprising. The head priest himself would be taking part in the defenses to serve as a ward in his own right, but I did not expect such an 'all hands on deck' type of action.
Breakfast was a quick meal of small egg subs with lots of sunny-side-up eggs and vegetables in the small loaves of bread. After that, Gryn broke off from our party to meet up with his friends while our parents led my way to where I would be working. This was the first time I had been alone with both parents since my hunting trip and my childish fears started to rise back up.
I still felt guilty about having taken advantage of the situation to experiment on nature and people, but I had made great gains both in my own and others' magics. Certainly the rewards outweighed the risks and thus proved my efforts to be of value, considering the futures I had helped shape and even enhance. Giving Gryn's friends affinities of any level would increase their likelihood to survive in their chosen line of work.
Nobody said anything for much of the walk through town which both worried and relieved me. Finally, though, the silence was broken but instead of my fears it was actually quite the surprise that my father brought up to me. However, his words quickly earned him an irritable look from Mom.
"Chuck," he said while looking down at where I walked between him and Mom. "Since it was decided to use an actual ward instead of just the old man, we're going to make a preemptive stand against the enemy. Your mother, the old man, a few others from the guards and Guild, and myself are going to take turns thinning their numbers. Would you like to take a shot at it?"
"Honey!" My mother exclaimed during my shocked silence as we walked down the street, looking around to see the otherwise empty road as if fearing someone might hear us. "We can't discuss things like that out in the open!"
"Relax, it'll inspire confidence to know we're sure enough of our plans to use a preemptive force," my father reassures her with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Especially when they recognize that we're on it. But, let's face it, our son's magic capabilities are on par with most of the lower Guild ranks. It'd be good for him to get his name out there by launching one of the initial attacks."
"Do you even..." Mom starts to ask, looking down at me only to stop when she sees me deep in thought. "Knowing you and that angry thinking face you're making, you probably do have a long-ranged attack magic or two. Do you have anything that can reach around two hundred yards?"
If I poured half of my entire mana pool into something like a wind cutter, I could easily reach that distance. However, these were magical entities which had some natural resistances to common magics and would be at various levels of power. I would need something stronger which would require greater amounts of my energy and some preparation.
"If I had a few hours at home to prepare, I could come up with something that could for sure deal large scale damage," I reply after only a few seconds of considering my options. "But, is it really okay to put all of that kind of attention on me? I don't know what kind of job I'm going to have, yet, but I know it will involve magic. This… will require using my spare antler."
Somehow, this answer seemed to satisfy both of my parents because nobody said anything again after that. Eventually, we arrived at the temple where I had been baptized. Not much had changed about the building except for some seasonal decorations for harvesting and praise to gods of nature and magic.
Inside, we were met by several large but divided groups of individuals to which my parents branched off. All they said to me was to go stand with 'the old man' who, as it turned out, already had a small following of over half a dozen people. Many of them were in clergy robes or habits, but a few were in common clothes and one was even in Guild uniform.
A uniform of rank, too, by the runic emblems on the shoulders of his coat. These gave a small boost to not only the wearer's stats but also their mana pool and recovery.
"It's good to see you again," The Old Man himself said as I walked awkwardly over to his group. The other members of the clergy simply bowed their heads in acknowledgment but the others gave me skeptical looks. "The last time I saw you, you were still a few inches shorter."
"Last time I saw you, you had more wrinkles," I reply playfully and pleasantly, having actually recently seen him at my birthday when the original baptism ran out. This was a common visit to households throughout the town, but because of my uniqueness the leader of the temple himself had come.
On this trip, children and families would be given a general introductory lecture on the individual gods, mine had been a brief discussion about my blessing. To the people of this world, something like a translation blessing was usually given to children 'at baptism' who would eventually grow up to become prophets or 'voices of the gods'. Under normal circumstances, I would be taken in and groomed by their religion at this time or any point in the future that I wanted.
After a short discussion about various options as if I was negotiating services, I was given several common and uncommon scriptures about the various gods. The old man himself had a unique piety blessing from the god of law and war, Rayven of the Balance, which. This was something that affected the physical body as much as the mind and soul, giving them not only increased stat gain but another stat entirely that most members of the church struggle to achieve.
Piety was something of an alignment monitor and in some cases was capable of falling into Heresy should the 'Balancer' turn against the church.
This man had been born pious and chose the straight and narrow to become a powerful warrior for the gods. When he finally died after the longevity granted to him through the gods and magic, he would be made a Saint. I had no desires to become a saint, but there was a chance I could acquire the Piety stat and unlock parts of my affinities I could not yet study.
Because of ALL, I had tried religious practices from both home and this world, but to no avail. Whenever I tried practices from here, though, I received a notification that told me I lacked a benefactor. Today would be a good opportunity to learn or ask about practices and backing.
After a brief introduction of everybody present, for me it was myself and my parents even though they were not here. I figured somebody of the Guild at least would recognize them and look a little more pleasantly. Then Old Man lead us off toward the center of the temple to the baptism site where large tables of pots, jugs, and crates that all gave off the faint aura of the pool in the middle.
This was probably how to made and stocked the pool liquids or was made from it. Either way, it was explained to us that we would all be channeling our respective energies into the holy water we bottle at these tables. As it turned out, only a few of the people here could use multiple applicable elements.
Everybody here could use light element, but only the clergy could use holy and only the Guild official could use life. I was simply directed away from the main group by the old man to a long, low bench table better suited to my size. Here, I found the crates were full of what looked like large corked vials.
Set next to every crate were several small bottles of decent quality mana potions and on the other side of them were small buckets of ethereal water.
With my recent magical exercise and the increase of raw magic in my diet, I was currently overflowing after having recently woke up and eaten. However, to exploit my increased potential and recovery rate, I systematically started by filling and corking vials of holy water in bulks. At first, it was slow and repetitive, but I eventually developed a rhythm and after an hour I was able to refill an entire crate.
If I wanted to speed through this, I could had splurged magic to fill and cap in bulk at a time, but if I had I would not have acquired a notification about self taught methodology increasing my Agility. Stat increases were always a welcome reward for hard work in this world, and if I actually pushed myself in the repetitive range of motions required I would also gain Endurance points.
However, after this morning's conversations, I decided I would only do this first batch by hand and see what I gained. After three hours for three more crates came the rewards of only one more Agility and a single Endurance upon actual completion. I could clearly hear conversations about how the work of the others was going and infrequent queries or remarks about my work.
The common response to any of these was either a calm, joking, or once a borderline serious, 'filling bottles'. The comment stemmed from the first thirty minutes of work when I finally developed a step-by-step rhythm. Somebody made the remark of how good I was at my job of preparing holy water for the rest of them.
Now, I simply held my hand out over the first crate and drew upon not only my own mana but also the reserves of my gluttonous wisps. Normally you would avoid using them before developing a core, but I wanted them to get used to a slow style of development. With the simple act of will, I set the table aglow with a myriad of bright white and gold lights that saturated the first crate.
When even the wood of the crate was imbued to capacity by the ambient energy of my 'radiance', I stopped and moved on to the next crate. Then the next, and the next, and only after three did I stop to top up my mana with a few sips from one of the potions. Then I dropped myself all the way down to my preset 'critical' where I got a short alarm of of actual bells from my 'soul'.
From the void, more like.
With a few brief chimes going off every three seconds, I did my best to appear casual despite the sudden sweat on my face while finishing the mana potions.
Whether due to the quality of the potion or my current increased mana affinities, finishing the one potion was enough to fully restore not only my mana pool but also the wisps who had already been completely drained after the second crate.
*