Chapter 152 - A Month Of Preparations

Come the following morning the others of Jien's cohort left with their families to spend what time they could before the next year long bootcamp. Unfortunately, this month would not be spent only enjoying the finer things in life or with family. While their mentors had given them the month to do what they wanted their pupils knew better than to waste their time on luxuries that would soon be taken from them. Instead, they started planning their preparations the very day they arrived at their own homes.Jien had an advantage in this matter as they had ended up arriving at his home after their first departure. As soon as the others left for their own homes Jien could be seen in the manor's library. Runa had decided to spend what time she could with him following in his step as a handmaiden often would despite her own standing in the household as the equivalent of an adopted daughter to the Lord of the manor. Even currently as he sat at a table in the open space between the tall shelves, with stacks of books strewn around him, she waited patiently by his side.Jien had already unloaded what he had in his storage bag the prior night, beginning to sort through it meticulously and find the items he would need for the next venture into the fog covered trees. The first time through none of them understood what they were getting into. This left them scrambling to get the ground beneath them and take strides forward. They had spent the first several weeks in a constant struggle to gather the resources they would need or create the tools that they hadn't thought would be necessary. Now however, after a long struggle they had the time and ability to start off on the right foot and be able to accelerate forward.The first lesson that they had learned shortly after they arrived was that regardless of what you may think you will walk into, always have some level of preparation or contingency plan. They had entered the Warping Forest thinking that while it would be a small amount cooler it would still have a relatively warm climate. They were mistaken on the first day and it had only gotten worse as the seasons changed and heavy snow began to mix with the never-ending fog leading to a drop in visibility that was staggering.They had also quickly learned that they had hedged their bets too firmly on finished products and not enough on the tools to perform what they needed. A good example was that though they needed to fell trees to fortify their base withing the cave that they had found, they had not brought any tools capable of cutting down the trees in question. The further discovered that the trees themselves were too firm to use the methods they had come up with. In the end they had to rely on the teachings of Johnathan, Rosalinds' mentor to help them learn how to create a variety of tools out of the stone from the cavern, only creating metal implements when they chanced upon a vein of iron while expanding the chamber they stayed in.This was just as true when it came to alchemy. They were taught a variety of methods and formulas for different alchemical salves, potions and concoctions. However, they soon found that the tools they had on hand for the processing of the alchemical mixtures was not nearly enough. This led to a long struggle with creating a mixture of makeshift apparatuses from clay that they baked in the fire in the center of their chamber.These were just some of the struggles, but one that stuck out the most to Jien was the fact that though he had brought about twenty books to read, since his storage bag was created by use of spacial magic and maintained by embedded mana stones, he quickly made it through them. He was then forced to reread them to occupy the empty moments even after having used Personal Library on them the first read through. Ultimately, he started to pull apart the context of the books line by line and speculate on them internally to pass the time. After he got back, he pulled the books pack to find them warn down, their pages having yellowed significantly, and ink having started to fade from constant use.Jien and the others had decided to fully remedy this issue with this next trip. They would focus on the tools and materials needed to smooth out the process, rather than trying to bring preprepared products. For this reason, each of them divided up the responsibilities to ensure that the load wasn't just on one person. Each would be responsible for their own clothes and anything they personally would want to have with them, but on top of this Jien would be in charge of gathering reading materials that would be helpful to them and formation building materials, since they had not considered how useful the field was until their mentors had begun listing out the many pros of using formations in survival and battlefield situations.Rosalind was in charge of tools meant for blacksmithing, both physical and arcane. Her family specialized in this field so they hoped that she could pick her parents' brain and get a better feel for what would be required. Olivia was in charge of alchemy tools. She may not have been as advanced in the field as Jien, but her family and Guberm City were known for raising and harvesting alchemical plants, leading them to be a leading force in those that specialized in the field.Lesley was in charge of cooking tools. Though they had had some they ended up finding out the hard way that a few small pots and pans wouldn't cover the needs of a larger group. Nor was the lack of proper utensils and durable plates, bowls and cups of benefit. His job was to secure all of these items to ensure that they wouldn't struggle in this field. Bell was responsible to ensuring that they had the raw resources they would need such as spare fabrics, pelts, leathers, rope, wool string among others. Though they would eventually build a supply of their own as they had in the first year there were some items such as raw fabric that they just didn't have access to, nor could they easily make it even with all that was present in the Warping Forest.Lastly Barret was in charge of supplying weapons and the items that they would need to maintain them to the highest standard. They had always had their favored weapons but had underestimated the wear they would go through. Not to mention that they would not always wish to use their favorite weapon in fights that they thought could damage them. It was always best to have a spare or several to work with, allowing for not only reserving their main weapon but also using the spares in a variety of strategies and traps.