They made record time getting back home, Humphrey leading them back the way they came before night fell. Lindle did grab some of the mushrooms before they left though. He wanted as many aspects to choose from as possible to test [Ethos Ignition] with.

  Their first priority, however once they arrived in Glacerhine, was to report to the adventurer’s guild. Elias had seemed just as concerned that the undead weren’t wiped out, letting them know that the outpost would put out a general call to adventurers to be on the lookout for roaming undead and that they would pass on the information to the village rangers. With the wellspring purified Elias declared their quest complete anyway, and handed over their reward. It was about the same amount of gold as he had received from his cut escorting Dorothea and her party, but only before being split three ways. Lindle mentally remarked that Journeyman quests must have payouts larger by an order of magnitude if adventurers could afford to pay the equivalent of an Apprentice quest just for porters. He told Thalia and Humphrey to make sure to keep their versions of Frostgreed hidden somewhere, and with a tired high-five, they split off and made their own ways home.

  Lindle felt pretty exhausted once he arrived home, cleaning himself before collapsing in bed. The next day he sat down with Nothing and his mom, showing them his new skill before drafting out a plan for the foreseeable future. Ever since his birthday, Lindle had split his time between celebrating with his friends and experimenting with his class and levels, but now that had gotten his first five levels, it was time to focus and create a sustainable routine. They only had a few months before the raid on the dungeon, and even less before the first of the Soarian adventurers started trickling into Glacerhine.

  If Lindle was going to be prepared he’d need to maximize his time and do several things. Learn how to craft the most potent artifacts he could, and raise his level, but the first thing on his list was finally finishing Nothing. Nothing had told Lindle that it had been okay to prioritize other things first, but as soon as Nothing had confirmed for him that [Ethos Ignition] was the last skill necessary for their completion Lindle had insisted they do so as quickly as possible.

  Of course, that necessitated Lindle familiarize himself with the skill first.

  Start small. The less Ethos strain crafting an artifact causes, the more practice in a day you can fit in before you need to recover.

  Agreeing, Lindle’s first attempt was going to be made only using some simple magical herbs. A greenheart root, the same herb he had used to make his first item, and a purifying peony. That was a plant grown by the druids in the inner grown that worked well as a general anti-toxin. Activating [Artifice Crafting], Lindle harvested the Pelos from each plant, creating two small piles of dust for the bin. Idly Lindle pressed the two globs of Pelos into each other. Despite being as amorphous as wet clay, the two globs refused to meld together into a single mass, simply deforming but remaining distinctly separate.

  He felt for the Ethos inside each of them, the heartroot the same as before, and the peony having an interesting mix of aspects, medicinal, but in the sense of purification and removal of foreign and harmful elements without aspects of strengthening of health or repair that the heartroot had.

  As Lindle activated [Ethos Ignition], that changed. Blue flames erupted across his hands and engulfed the lumps of Pelos, and as material sagged in his hands, melting like wet clay, he felt the aspects in the Ethos grow more malleable. Grinning, Lindle mashed his hands together, the Pelos of each plant smooshing against the other, and unlike before, they mixed. Massaging the Pelos, he rolled and crushed it until it was a single solid mass. At the same time, he sent his intent inward. He could instinctively sense that he could either keep the aspects separate, making an item that took advantage of multiple aspects, or he could smash them together, fusing them into entirely new aspects. Interestingly enough, the identical aspects of each plant’s Ethos, like the plant aspect, seemed to fuse together without his input, increasing their prominence, but not by too much.

  For this first test, Lindle decided to keep the aspects separate, since that seemed like it would end with the simplest result. Keeping both the healing and purification aspects in the forefront of his mind, Lindle molded the Pelos into a ring and completed the artifact.

  A ring similar to the one he had given to his mother lay in his hands. Made out of wood with a green line running through it, though it did seem to also have some white cutting through it at various points.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Lindle tilted his head. If he recalled correctly, the Heartroot Ring had an identical benefit when it came to drinking health potions, but the boost to natural regeneration was missing. Instead, a benefit to the effects of antidotes was present.

  Lindle grabbed another pair of herbs and repeated the process, but this time, when he used [Ethos Ignition], instead of keeping the healing and purification aspects separate, he forced them to fuse. What was left was an entirely new aspect that seemed to have the traits of both yet was neither. It was… healing through purification? Well, that seemed a lot more specific and complicated than its parent aspects, but perhaps that was normal for ‘child aspects.’

  Lindle sculpted another ring, trying to keep his intention for the item as similar to as before as possible. A new ring appeared in his hand once he finished, though it looked a lot different from before. It was made out of wood like the other two, but the green was no longer a simple straight line, but a repeating helix pattern with steaks of white and now red forming simple shapes he hadn’t intended to create covering most of its surface. Its status was no less interesting.

  That was certainly different, yet similar. There was no ‘small’ or ‘minor’ in the description, so despite arguably being more conditional, this artifact already showed its effect was noticeably more powerful than most of his previous creations, and that was using some very weak crafting material.

  That didn’t mean there wasn’t some cost to it however. Lindle could notice the effects of Ethos strain creeping up on him. It had seemed that using [Ethos Ignition] increased the amount of strain caused by crafting substantively.

  Lindle continued performing more experiments, creating more variants of the ring until Nothing called it for the day. Lindle’s new routine would involve him not crafting any more than it would take for the strain to recover in a days time.

  He had planned after that to head out to the training grounds to find Madam Holly and let her know that whatever reprieve she had granted him could come to an end. Despite the joy in his suffering she seemed to have, she was still by far the best possible teacher he could have for things outside of his class, so he had resigned himself to a return to form.

  He needn’t have bothered, however, since as he left his workshop, he found Madam Holly and his mom sipping tea around the table.

  “There you are, you’ve been quite the busy badger, haven’t you?” Madam Holly winked at him. “It’s rude to make an old woman wait you know. You’re lucky your mother is always such an excellent conversationalist.”

  Lindle wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. He looked at his mom, who whistled innocently. “Oh, you know how it is. Things have gotten quite exciting lately since your birthday. It’s nice to sit down and swap stories once in a while.” She sipped her tea.

  Madam Holly chuckled. “I remember when my oldest got their class, things changed so quickly around the house.” She wagged a finger at Lindle, adopting a croaky lecturing voice. “I know it’s tempting to throw everything to the wayside, what with your fancy new skills and stats to play around with, but remember to spare some time for your dear old mother.”

  They both tittered playfully as Lindle sighed and took a seat. “I will.” He said if only to allow them their fun and get it over with quickly, even if he did mean it.

  “In all seriousness Lindle, congratulations.” She gave him a slight nod.

  “Thank you Madam Holly.” There was a note of sincerity in her voice that made him sit up straighter.

  “Now that you have your class and are officially an adult, I feel like it’s time we had a talk.” She looked at his mom. “Alyn, would you mind?”

  His mom nodded with a smile. “Not at all. Here, let me refill your tea and I’ll go reopen the store.” She filled Madam Holly’s cup and poured Lindle one too before leaving.

  Once they were alone, they sat in silence for a few moments, the veteran tier elder looking at him with a pleasant expression. Feeling anxious, Lindle brought his cup up to his lips.

  “So, Lindle. What are your intentions with my granddaughter?”

  Pffffbt. Lindle’s eyes bulged as he turned and sprayed the contents of his drink. He coughed. “I- What? I never- Thalia. We-.”

  He saw the barely restrained mirth on her face and stopped himself. He wiped his face clean and pointed accusingly at her. “That was evil, pure evil.”

  Madam Holly laughed, wiping a tear. “Ah, now that was a good one. I knew I’d be able to get that kind of reaction out of you eventually.”

  “I thought this was going to be a serious conversation,” Lindle complained.

  She tutted and shook her finger. “Ah, but it is, after all, what else is an old woman supposed to think when a boy starts giving her granddaughter fancy jewelry and other magical presents?”