“My second Epic skill! Woohoo!”

  I was about to open the skill description before I stopped and realized that no, this wasn’t my second Epic skill. This was my third!

  In my rush after finally gaining the Golem Creation skill, I had forgotten that the previous skill/upgrade points were refunded and went towards Mana Condensation. I still haven’t read the new description yet, though.

  “First, Dryad Creation, then I’ll read Mana Condensation. Gotta have priorities.”

  Dryad Creation (E): Active. The user imbues an autonomous, nature-based golem with energy-producing skills and a unique personality. This process is finalized by presenting the golem with a name, thereby granting the golem system access and the ability to improve. Dryads will no longer share EXP with their creators, like their inferior form: golems.

  “That’s freaking AWESOME! My golems can level up now?! Hell yeah! A bummer that we can’t share EXP anymore, but it’s still pretty cool that they have their own personalities. Well, the personality I grant them, at least. Oof. Now that I think about it, that has some seriously dangerous potential. I should imbue all future golem personalities with a serious devotion and loyalty to me. I’d hate to have a robot uprising on my hands. Ooh, I wonder if I can make metal golems? They should end up a lot sturdier than wood golems, no? Anyways, back on track! Mana Condensation!”

  Mana Condensation (E): Active. User forces mana into a super condensed form, resulting in liquid mana. Liquid mana restores the consumer’s mana at an incredible rate. Liquid mana does not dissipate and is a valuable alchemical ingredient. Passive. Excess mana regeneration after the user’s mana pool is full will be automatically condensed into liquid mana.

  The only difference I could ascertain from the last time I looked at the skill description is the addition of the passive portion of the skill. That’s not to say it’s an amazing upgrade, but it feels a little lackluster compared to the other two Epic grade skills I have. I think I would rather have been able to condense mana water into a solid form, like a mana crystal or something. THAT would have been an upgrade! But what am I supposed to do with this?

  I looked around for the supposed mana water that I’ve been creating and found a few drops of it hanging from several of the root hairs I have dangling in the mana water storage room.

  “Man, I need a better name for this room. I shouldn’t keep calling it the storage room when it holds so much of something so valuable. I think I’ll call it the battery room. That sounds at least somewhat better.”

  I watched the battery room for a few more hours before one of the droplets grew large enough to fall and join the growing lake of it underneath me. It wasn’t a productive use of my time, but it did let me think of a few possible uses for what I had.

  Over the last few weeks, ever since I had taken control over such a large area of land, I had been spending more and more time away from my main body. Sometimes, I’ll get lost in thought while watching a rabbit run around, or maybe I’ll get caught up in watching BBW and his pack hunt for food. Heck, sometimes I’ll even help them by tripping an orc or two when they’re fighting with a stray root that moved at the right time.

  The point is, I get distracted, and pretty easily.

  When my mind isn’t with my body, I don’t exactly know the details of what’s going on. But now that I have a way to create a sort of artificial intelligence, I can use that creation to protect myself while I’m ‘away’. And if I can get them ‘attached’ to the battery room, then they can use my extremely vast pool of mana in all sorts of spell work in the name of self-defense. A bonus being that since they’d be using my mana, the spell won’t be affected by my Mana Fog skill, while foreign casters won’t be able to do any spell work. At least, not while they’re in the clearing.

  “Hmm. Maybe I should loosen my hold on the Mana Fog to see if it spreads any. It’s pretty thick in my clearing, but there’s a hard stop of it outside of the 30 feet it covers. The fog looks like a solid wall of gray. If worse comes to worst, then I’ll just reassert control and it’ll thicken right up again over time.”

  I released the mental hold I had over the fog and watched as the borders started to loosen from solid to wispy to almost cloud-like. I was about to clamp down on the skill when the fog started to dim into almost like a light mist, but I decided to hold off. This was supposed to be a passive Epic skill. I shouldn’t need such a tight hold on it to work properly.

  And thus, I waited. The once-thick fog stretched and spread, becoming the thin mist that I saw now, but it went no thinner than that.

  I went to the tendril of thought I kept with Honey to check through her eyes to see how it affected the bee’s vision, only to find she was scratching at the bond we shared, trying to get my attention. When she sensed I was finally giving it to her, she burst with worry.

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  “Tree God! The holy fog thins! What wrong?! Tree God okay? Tree God sick? Tree God need honey?”

  I sent her waves of appeasement and calmness, which she readily accepted, though I could still feel her concern. I felt bad for worrying her so much and vowed to communicate with her more frequently and pay better attention to our bond. She was such a sweet and innocent queen, I’d hate to stress her needlessly.

  By strengthening the bond you share with your tamed monster, skill [Taming (U)] has upgraded to [Taming (U+)].

  And with that, I felt the connection between us grow stronger.

  “It’s okay, Honey. I was just practicing my skills. Do you mind if I look through your worker’s eyes? I’d like to see how much the fog has thinned through a different perspective.”

  She gave a little happy dance that I was okay, then gave blanket permission to use her workers however and whenever I needed to. It was a sweet gesture, but one I didn’t plan on abusing. I loved my little bee and didn’t want to interrupt her hive’s business too much.

  We talked for a bit longer before I went back to my experimentation. She told me all about her hive and their attempts to spread my flowers around the forest, and I told her of my success in creating golems. She was almost as excited about the idea of walking plants as I was about having my own personal army. It was actually kind of cute. When I went back to my experiments, I noticed that the connection we shared was now constantly in the back of my mind, even without having to pay attention to it. I would now be able to hear from Honey a lot faster if she ever needed to get my attention.

  Back on the ground, I saw one of Honey’s bees gathering pollen from one of the flowers in my garden. I formed a connection to the little bee worker and watched through its eyes as it went about its business; I was glad it hadn’t noticed my presence, otherwise it might have messed with the results of my experiment. I watched for a while before the fog seemed to reach an equilibrium that I could still see through, but would still call somewhat thick. Previously, I couldn’t see very far, but now I could see from one end of the clearing to the other with minimal effort. I just couldn’t see very far beyond that point.

  When I released my mental connection to the bee, my vision broadened to its usual girth. I immediately noticed that the fog was actually going pretty far out. The borders of the fog were pretty thin, but over the hours, as I continued to watch it, it thickened and spread. Finally, after almost a week of watching it spread, the fog covered the entire area I controlled.

  Now, only I could perform magic in this forest.

  “Master Brom! I have an urgent report!”

  Brom set down his drink and looked from his brother to the door. They had gotten rid of that wretched Lord of the city a week ago and were working on the paperwork to send to the royal capital.

  Officially, Lord Ostlan had hung himself in his chambers. Reports showed that he had been losing his mind over the last few weeks, acting erratically, calling out against elven lords for some sort of secret island. They even forged a document saying that the scrying orbs that usually watched him in his sleeping chambers malfunctioned, and that the one in the hallway was deemed unusable. They had gone so far as to off anyone saying that “Lord Ostlan didn’t kill himself”.

  The brothers covered their paperwork, and Brom turned on the concealing enchantments on his desk to hide what they were working on before calling the messenger in.

  “What is it, Sarah? We still have much to do, so this better be good.”

  Sarah, the dog kin, beast-girl, guild receptionist, walked into the room and handed Brom a folder. Inside was a report from a party of adventurers who had just returned from an orc-hunting trip. The number of orcs in the forest had been growing lately, so parties have been leveling like crazy, thanks to it. The report claimed that everything was normal, minus the increased orc numbers, up until a couple of days ago.

  “A mysterious fog that messes with magic? What does that mean?” Brom muttered to himself. He had never been good with magic, but he knew how powerful it could be in the right hands. A magic user with enough mana and imagination could bring down a whole city.

  “Sir,” Sarah chimed in, “the reporting party claims that their magic user was unable to cast any spells while in the fog. Thankfully, it seems to be mostly contained to the western side of the road, but it also stretches for almost a full mile. From what they say, magical items don’t work, either. It’s as if it were a magic dead zone, but the member also claims that the fog itself is magic.”

  Brom handed her the folder and asked, “What level is the party?”

  “Mid-twenties, sir.”

  “Damn. And the magic user’s hunting record?”

  “Impressive for his level. He is definitely not a green bean. He has experience under his belt, and not just the system kind.”

  “Double damn. Get a map and have them mark what parts are covered. Put an advisory sign on the bulletin, but mark it as unconfirmed. Have the Axe-a-lot-els go confirm the existence, and give them an extra healing potion each as an incentive.”

  Sarah nodded and jotted down some notes on a clipboard that appeared from nowhere before asking, “What of the effects of the fog? How will that be confirmed?”

  “Have Loki join them. Give him one of the enchanted wands from storage as his compensation, but tell him that the whole party better make it out alive, or I’m telling his father and kicking him from the guild.”

  Brom was annoyed at having to rely on that tricky bastard, but he was one of the best magic users on his staff.

  When she was done writing, Sarah bowed to the brothers and quickly scurried out. Her golden tail was tucked between her legs as she ran, a testament to how uneasy she felt being near Brom’s brother.

  As the door shut behind her, Seth finally piped up. “Well, it seems like you have some more work to do. I’ll just show myself –”

  Brom slapped the table and glared at his brother, who had started to stand, but suddenly thought better.

  “There’s not a chance in hell you’re sticking me with all this paperwork. Sit your ass back down and get to wrintig.”

  Brom adjusted the enchants on his table, and the two got back to work. It was going to be a long couple of days before they were anywhere near finished.

  Discord Here!