Cat With a Raygun

The banquet was well-received by all. The two groups got to know one another and the newcomers felt welcome. Joe told the older residents about his current 32 skills with room for as many more as he wanted as well as his ability to learn spells by watching them be cast. None of that was as much shock to them as the tale of killing the frost dragon by himself.

The next day it was decided that everyone would go down to the mana diamond to upgrade their Guidebook interface, as well as get a lot of improvements by the new residents who had not used it before.

“This is the reason we have such a large quantity of these mana crystals,” Joe explained while leading everyone to the short, pillar-like stone formation where the mana diamond rested. “Please, everyone go up and use Inspect on the glowing gem.”

Tess and Eleanor already had Rank 5 Inspect spells, but Melanie and Malcolm got their increases, which led to Joe explaining how the power the mana diamond radiates empowers their training as well. Originally Joe was going to rank up Boost Spell and go over all the new spells he had gained since he was last here, but instead decided to hold off on Boost Spell until it was Rank 4, and only use the spells that were about to his a multiple of five. That meant Cold Snap and Minor Levitation both leveled to 10, and Speed Boost and Elemental Shield both leveled to 5.

As for skills, Listening seemed to level up as soon as he had more than one voice to focus on, bringing it to level 12. The only other skill that didn't involve equipment or specialized actions was Mathematics, but he decided to also leave that one for a higher level improvement.

Melanie's Sense Manachlorians got up to Rank 2, so Joe was able to guide her on how to meditate properly, giving her the last skill, which would be very useful in combat if she could outpace her enemies by constantly renewing her resources without needing to stop to drink a potion or anything.

After that everyone upgraded their Guidebooks to match Joe's and were playing with the different ways they could now use them.

“Joe, look at this!” Ferric called out from behind the rest of the townspeople.

Ferric had his own display open but instead of a usual information on most screens people were showing this one has 3 words on it.

Upgrade to v3?

Immediately everyone else opened the same screen in their own interfaces. What followed next was a series of disappointed groans and sighs as they all received the same message.

CWEST Guidance Service still adjusting to newest version. Please wait 180 days before upgrading again.

Everyone except Joe, of course.

Welcome to CWEST Guidance Service v3!

The words stayed visible to him, but the window itself disappeared. Instead of a singular window, it was now like a Heads Up Display, or HUD, that put all of his messages in a corner of his vision, his resource pools were visible as colored bars across the top of his vision, and he could even instinctively open up a transparent map interface and place it in the side of his vision, so it was even more like a video game now.

“I'm guessing everything I'm seeing now doesn't show up to you guys, is that right?” Joe inquired of the group.

“I don't even see blank windows, no,” Ferric assured him.

“I can see everything here that I could using the old system, but it no longer obstructs my view and it's not apparent to anyone else that I'm even looking at my CGS information. I don't even really have a Guidebook anymore.”

As soon as Joe said Guidebook a book appeared in his hand. “This is excellent! Now I can travel around and not arouse suspicions as much.”

“I also have an option to form a combat unit with others, but it won't let me invite you until you guys have the new v3 Guidebook Interface.”

Joe decided to check out his recent spell upgrades in the new interface. It was very similar to before, but he confirmed again that no one else could even see that he was looking at a window with the spell descriptions.

Cold Snap (Level 10). This spell sends out a pulse of freezing power into the immediate vicinity. The maximum range of the spell is 1 meter for every 100 points of the caster's intelligence. The caster can exclude up to 512 creatures within range from the effects of the spell. The number of potential exceptions doubles every level. The damage is the caster's intelligence score times the spell level.

Alternatively the caster can use the spell to instantly create a sheet of ice one meter long and a half meter wide in front of him. This version lasts for 1 minute and continues to make the ice sheet if he moves, potentially making a contiguous sheet of ice.

This spell can also be used to make simple structures of ice up to the maximum dimensions allowed by the normal version of the spell. These structures are real and as permanent as anything else made of ice.

Mana cost: 25 mana for the damaging/traveling version or 100 for the structure version

Levitation (Level 10). This spell allows the caster to mentally move up to ten non-living objects each up to one-half the weight the caster can lift physically. The maximum distance an object can be controlled is up to half a meter for every point of Intelligence. Alternatively the caster can target themselves along with what they are carrying up to the normal limit for the spell.

Mana Cost: 10 mana per minute

Minor Levitation lost the Minor part of its name and can now lift a whole lot more.

Speed Boost (Level 5). This spell allows the caster to triple his movement speed for a short time. The spell lasts for a number of seconds equal to the caster's Toughness multiplied by the spell's level. The caster's jumping distance also triples while this spell is active.

Stamina Cost: 10 Stamina per casting

Elemental Shield (Level 5). This spell reduces the damage from elemental effects hitting the caster while active. The reduction is a one-for-one reduction of damage for every point of the caster's Intelligence multiplied by the spell's level.

This may be cast on 1 additional creature, with the spells' costs being paid for each target protected by the spell.

Mana cost: 25 mana per minute the shield is maintained

Those last two seemed like more basic upgrades, but that tends to happen with level 5 upgrades anyway.

- - - - -

After they were done in the caverns a plan was discussed for getting the livestock set up. They would need separate housing for the different animals as they usually had different needs. They would also make fenced off pastures on both sides of the river with different sections for the cattle, sheep, and horses. They cut down several oaks to get the wood needed as well as clear the space for the pastures. Normally Malcolm would have preferred to mill the lumber himself, but they didn't have the facilities for that, and it was so much easier using Joe's Harvest spell.

Between Malcolm's direction, Joe's magic, and his own burgeoning skill, they had all of the animal enclosures created in less than a week. Malcolm would be able to expand them in the future as their livestock count increased, but for now they had room for at least one more generation. Joe's logging skill went up to 5, his Animal Husbandry to 4, and he unlocked Carpentry and got it up to 5 as Malcolm had him do most of the work, Malcolm just guided him on how to do it.

Carpentry (Level 1). This skill is for creating items and buildings out of multiple pieces of lumber. Higher skill levels allow you to create items or buildings faster and with strength that exceeds the materials. To train this skill keep joining or fastening pieces of wood together.

Key Attribute: Strength

Ferrite had three different Farmer spells that Joe could benefit from knowing. Winter was going to set in just outside of a month's time and they weren't sure they would be able to grow enough food in the meantime. Luckily Joe's Backtrack spell gave them access to markets that might have the surplus they needed, but it would be better to be self-sufficient.

Speed Plant Growth (Level 1). This spell allows the caster to bolster the growing rate of the affected plants. One type of plant can be affected by each casting, affecting all plants of that type growing in an area up to one square meter per ten points in the caster's Vitality.

Stamina cost: 50 stamina per casting

Move Water (Level 1). This spell allows the caster to move up to 1 liter of water per spell level for the spell's duration.

Stamina cost: 25 stamina per minute

Preservation (Level 1). This spell binds non-living organic matter to a container, ignoring the passage of time until the matter is removed from the container or until 2 months/spell level has passed. This spell is highly intricate and takes 2 hours to cast.

Stamina cost: 60 stamina

Joe had been interested in that Preservation spell since he first heard about it, finally he had it himself. Now that he knew it, he'd be able to incorporate it into his refrigerator designs. Of course, he also now knew how to move water, so maybe he should look into making plumbing. Before any of that, however, he needed to get to developing the plants needed to feed their new livestock.

But with an even higher priority than that, however, he had to take care of the other new resident of the town.