We kept trudging on. Mainly I let Ivy where she felt like going. She's been here longer than us so she probably knows where danger is.
A few times I would try to lead her somewhere for her to pull back. Seeing as she was trying to not go there I let her change direction, while maintaining the path towards the mountain.
On the way a few branches and thorns clipped her causing her to get some small cuts.
'I should make some kind of clothes for ivy'. I looked up at the sky seeing it was a little before mid day. I was getting hungry. Diana had woken up and was sitting beside me.
I got up and walked over towards the chest. The food from yesterday was still good so I used the scorch pear to heat it up.
I waited for an hour until it was defrosted and fully cooked. I took a ⅓ of it to eat and gave the rest to diana. We ate while ivy kept walking.
After finishing The ice pears still had their icy feel. I still felt cold from the blue paste I put on me a few days ago.
I grabbed the ice pears and crushed them up inside of the box. I kept crushing them until my hands were freezing.
I used a palm leaf to spread the paste across the entire inside of the box.
I then put a bunch of palm leaves on the walls of the box and immediately froze the leaves causing them to stick.
'Boom ice box'. If we got some berries or fruit or even more meat we could store it there. I then sat down on a bench.
It's been a while since I tried to control mana again. I imagined some mana moving into my finger tips.
I slowly felt the mana moving into my finger tips. I opened my eyes and saw the mana on my finger tips.
It came out as a fog without any form.I looked at it and saw it started to converge.
After a few minutes it condensed into a brownish hew. I moved my hand around, leaving a trail of grey wherever it went.
I clasped my hands together and felt something hard. I looked and saw my skin took on a dirt texture.
I lost concentration and the mana left my hands. I looked at my hands and saw the dirt texture started to fade away.
I clasped my hands together again and felt it wasn't as hard as before.
It was still harder than at first. Another thing was that my arm felt kind of heavy. Like carrying around a club with too much weight on the end.
I focused on gathering more mana when I saw a large glow. I looked down to see my book glowing brighter than before. It floated in front of me.
I reached out grabbing my book. When I touched it, it flew into my skin. I felt it move into my finger and up my arm.
Eventually to my mana pool. Something felt different. In Front of me a bunch of pop ups appeared.
I fell over out of surprise. In Front of me a huge amount of things showed up.
"Increased crafting, upgraded mana, unlocked element?" were only a few. I scrolled through the list checking things of importance.
I saw I had now become a rookie crafter and intern blacksmith. After looking through for a while I figured out everything.
"So my book finally upgraded to a status page" whenever I thought about it my book would reappear but mainly stayed near my mana pool.
Speaking of the mana now it was brown with hints of orange, red, and yellow.
"I really need to practice this" i had unlocked so much and an element?!? I had to figure out which one it was.
I willed mana to come back to my hands. It was a lot easier than before.
I looked at my hand seeing the dirt texture. 'Can't be that bad, right?'
Earth is not a bad element. Just the thought of making an earth golem is amazing. I leaned out of the wagon grabbing a handful of dirt. I set it on the ground.
I sent my mana towards it only for it to dissipate. "Huh?" i sent more mana at it but it just flew before disappearing.
Getting sick of this I just reached out and touched it. "Going off shows, making basic shapes are the easiest thing to do" it was not.
I spent several minutes trying to make a ball for it to completely collapse. I tried to shift it forwards which wasn't too difficult but anymore than that was near impossible.
"What else, what else?" I tried to think of other things but I couldn't. Honestly I started getting bored and my mana had started getting low.
I took the dirt and started playing with it. I first moved it around to make a hill. I poked a few holes in it for its eyes, added a smile and then made little arms.
I basically made a dirt blob. It kind of looked cute. I felt my mana regenerating and started practising again. I touched the head of the blob and tried to move it.
I imagined 2 hands compressing the dirt but again, only made it fall apart. Next I just flowed my mana through the dirt.
I just let it go through it. It slowly coarsed around it. I kept doing it when I felt something. I closed my eyes and concentrated on it.
I felt miniscule grains of dirt moving. I sent my mana into the grains causing them to glow brown. I did it for each individual one.
Eventually I tried moving a single grain upwards. It moved up before hitting a wall.
I kept on going at this for the next few hours.
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"Hu" i fell over onto my back. For the last few hours I've been constantly practising. Now I could move the entire dirt blob with ease.
It may have taken hours, but it was worth it. Essentially I've been using my mana to connect all of the dirt and then using even more to move it.
Imagine putting everything in a trash bag and then picking the trash bag up. You're not picking up every piece.
But instead one thing with everything in it. The thing with that is, I first have to get everything in the trash bag first before moving it.
The problem with that is if I try to just cover the entire thing with mana it only goes to the first and maybe second layer of the dirt. Anything else acts as regular dirt.
If i try to manipulate its shape it would simply only change the outside of it. Which would be fine if the dirt inside of the layer wouldn't fall out.
So instead I have to do the long practice of covering every grain with mana. Then I completely cover the entire thing to move it. The only problem with that is that double stacking layers is exhausting.
Right now I have to manipulate the inside of the dirt, by dropping the mana coating it. Then I have to adjust the shape before recoating it with mana.
It's been a long practice but it paid off.
I opened my eyes and looked at the floating square infront of me. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I did it.
"I never thought i'd see the day when i'm excited over dirt" I sat up and opened my palm towards it.
I've been using hand gestures to control it because it made it easier to concentrate.
I closed my fist causing it to return infront of me. I lifted both of my hands and put them together.
I made 2 circles with my hands. I moved them apart while looking at the blob of dirt. It clumped up rapidly before thinning out.
Becoming a long slim pole. I recoated the pole in mana before paving it around.
The main strain it took was changing its shape. After that moving the rod was easy enough.
I waved my hand towards the back of the wagon causing the pole to shoot out the back and onto the ground.
It completly collapsed when it hit. I felt my mana return to me. Well a miniscule amount but progress is progress.
I went to the front of the wagon and looked out. I saw ivy stopping and eating some berries.
I jumped down and took one. They looked and smelled good so I took a bite. They tasted exactly like blueberries.
Went to another side of the bush and grabbed an armful of berries.
I took them inside and set them in the ice box. I made a few more rounds until there were only some where ivy was still eating.
It was only around 2 pm so I thought we should get a move on. I grabbed some palm leaves and folded them together.
I weaved them for around 10 minutes. By now my hands were littered with paper cuts, leaf cuts? I made a basket and went out.
I hung it on ivy's neck and put the rest of the berries in there. Ivy started walking again while eating the berries.
Status
Lvl 3 human
mana manipulation lvl 6, crafting lvl 12, earth manipulation> [sub skills Mana crafting lvl 1 Tailoring lvl 1 Armor making lvl 2 Shoe making lvl 1 Weapon making lvl 2] I'm gonna start adding updated stats at the end of each chapter. (Ok maybe you should get used to me uploading longer and more chapters. But I still have school so I might not, what am I even saying. If I update I update if I don't, sucks to suck)