"Well," Jacob began as he stood up from his stool and wiped the sweat from his brow, "I think it's about time I head home. I have some chickens to feed, and I bet my father is done with his work and can help me with more skills. Do you want to come over and check the harvester and seeder before dinner?"
Bran thought for a few seconds before deciding. "Yeah, it's been a while since I had some of your mom's cooking. I was just thinking about how I miss those apple pies she tends to serve after the meal."
Jacob nodded and wrapped his kinetic magic around Bran once more. They lifted off the dirt, leaving the wainwright's shop behind, and glided smoothly back to the Hemlock property.
When they landed near the barn, Bran immediately made a beeline for the heavy double doors to inspect his previous mechanical creations. Jacob left him to his tinkering and went to feed the chickens before looking for his father.
As he threw the seed out to the chickens, the familiar sound of the mechanical voice of the system rang out.
Quest Complete:
1. Feed the Chickens
Rewards: 200 quest xp.
New Quest Available:
1. Clean the Pig Pen
Rewards: 200 quest xp (locked for 9hr 59min)
I think I'm starting to understand how this questing stuff works. I need to ask about this quest xp, though, Jacob thought to himself, am I going to level up orwhat?
Arthur was just washing the soil from his hands at the pump near the back porch. He saw Jacob approaching and dried his hands on a rough cloth towel that they kept hanging on a rack next to the pump.
"Are you ready for that lesson on Mana Flux?" Arthur asked, tossing the towel onto its rack.
Jacob nodded, and they sat down together on the wooden steps of the porch.
"What is quest XP for?" Jacob asked before they started with the Mana Flux lessons, after looking around to make sure Lila was nowhere nearby.
Arthur looked back at Jacob with a bit of astonishment, "I figured we would've already explained this by now, my bad. The questing XP is for questing levels, which determine how difficult your quests are, but also increase rewards. The quality of the quests basically increases as you gain questing levels, but I've never gotten that high due to the class lock. Your mother would know more about it, to be honest."
Jacob nodded his head in understanding, "Ok, I get it, thanks. I'll ask mom more about it later, lets work on this skill for now."
Arthur closed his eyes and began to demonstrate the active process of pulling ambient mana from the air.
He explained exactly how to draw the raw energy in, manipulating it with the natural pathways in the body, which managed the ambient magic through its own ethereal process that Jacob was unable to follow, and then compress it before depositing it into the core.
Jacob closed his eyes and mirrored his father's breathing pattern. He could feel the ambient mana easily enough, pulling it into his pathways without issue. His body then did its thing, which he was unable to follow even within his own body, but it refined the magic nonetheless.
The problem arose when the energy reached his core. Because Jacob had spent four months aggressively turning his core to increase his magical density, his center acted like a highly pressurized vault.
The thin whisps of refined mana from the farm simply bounced off his core instead of absorbing into it.
"It is not catching," Jacob muttered in frustration, opening his eyes.
"That is alright," Arthur reassured him. "If you can tell that the magic is not getting into your core, then you already have the basic idea of the method down. Your magic is just built differently than mine now. You understand how the flow is supposed to work, so you probably just need to practice compressing that ambient mana until your core accepts the density. I'm sure it'll click into a skill eventually."
Jacob nodded. He was satisfied with having a clear path forward, even if the system did not immediately hand him the skill notification.
"Let's go see what Bran is dismantling in the barn," Arthur suggested with a light chuckle.
They walked over to the barn and found Bran elbow-deep in the exposed brass gears of the automated seeder. He had a grease-stained rag slung over his shoulder and a gleam in his eyes.
"This is perfect timing," Bran said, pulling his head out of the machine's casing. "I've been looking at the linkages here. Building that golem taught me a lot about transferring kinetic load. We can tweak both the harvester and the seeder for much better optimization. I can handle adjusting the physical parts, but you're going to need to update the enchantments to match the new mechanical stress if my calculations are correct."
Jacob crossed his arms and let out a heavy sigh. "Bran, did you forget what happened to all those tools in your shop an hour ago? I'm still pushing too much raw power for standard materials to handle."
Bran grinned and slapped the heavy iron chassis of the seeder. "I didn't forget. But I think the seeder should be different since it's stabilized by a core."
Jacob blinked, his eyes dropping to the thick housing where the monster core was safely seated within the mana field of the seeder.
"The way I think it works from my analysis is that the core acts as a magical buffer," Bran explained, stepping back to gesture at the entire machine. "It can absorb and distribute different densities of mana already, so it should be able to handle the shock of your dense mana much better than a raw piece of iron or a wooden mallet. I bet it could act as the perfect training dummy for your new intent method. And if you do end up pushing too hard and cracking a gear, I'm standing right here with my mending skill. As long as you don't blow the entire machine into scraps, we can fix it, probably."
Arthur looked between the two boys, highly amused by the reckless logic. "It sounds like a solid plan. Just try not to blow the thing into scrap pieces this time."
Jacob, though, still looked skeptical. "I'll take a look at it first, inspecting it shouldn't cause any harm, and if it does, then we'll know already that trying to enchant it isn't a great idea."
Then he reached his hand out and channeled his magic through the construct without trying to implement any changes. He simply let his magic flow through the construct, which gave him a good idea of how the mana pathways and runes interacted with the core, as well as a general idea of what the intent within the materials was doing.
The material neither shuddered nor shook as he completed his analysis, when suddenly he was hit with the sound of a system notification.
System Notice: New Skill Unlocked - Inspect (F-rank) Level (1/10)
Inspect: Use your own mana to map objects to get a general idea of their structure, to determine their function, and value. Information provided by skill is limited by level.
The notification shocked Jacob slightly, so he turned to his father. "Dad, I just unlocked a new skill called 'Inspect'. It was just from using my magic to look at the seeder, but I thought you could do the same? Why wouldn't you have the skill already?"
Arthur scrunched his brows as he thought about the reason. "What do you see when you look at things that way?"
"I can see the mana pathways and the way the intent interacts with the materials," Jacob replied, "I can even tell what the materials are made of and a good idea of the mana field of the materials as well."
Nodding his head, Arthur replied, "Well, that makes sense then. I can barely get surface-level information or a general idea of the state of the core with my ability. I guess the system doesn't recognize that as a true application of the skill yet."
That reminded Jacob of the times he had used intent shaping since he had unlocked the system, but had still not managed to unlock the skill, indicating that the system requires a true application of the skill to earn it within the system.
Keeping that in mind, Jacob turned back to the seeder to attempt his intent enchantment.
"Just try to strengthen the chassis for now," Bran said as Jacob reached out, "I adjusted the weight distribution so that would be the first thing it'll need in the adjustments."
Jacob nodded and began to channel his intent. He could feel that he was pushing his power through something with weight to it, instead of an empty mana field this time. Thus, when he pushed his intent, it didn't rush to fill the void and instead layered the intent as he envisioned it, while keeping to a trickle of the dense magic without trying to flood the material.
The result was a successfully adjusted enchantment on the chassis, strengthening it enough to keep up with the adjusted weight distribution.
Once his enchantment was finished, the satisfying and familiar sound of the system rang out in his head once more.
System Notice: New Skill Unlocked - Intent Shaping (F-rank) Level (1/10)
Intent Shaping: Imbue your intent into an object to leave a magical effect, limited by magical power.
With a sigh of relief, Jacob turned to Arthur and Bran, who looked a little worried, but that worry was replaced with relief as they recognized the look of success on Jacob's face.
"It looks like the system really did want me to successfully enchant something before giving me the skill. Say, is runic enchanting not a system skill?"
Arthur shook his head with a bit of a grin, "Nope, it never recognized the skill, even with my best enchantments and the work my grandfather did. Not sure why, but it seems to ignore it. How about your magic? Your spells should have been picked up, right?"
Jacob hadn't really thought about it since his spells were nearly natural to cast now, but the system never acknowledged them. "No, that's weird though. Is there anything else like that where the system just refuses to acknowledge a skill?"
"Yet another question for old Thom, or the guildmaster," Arthur replied with a bit of a snarl as he thought about the situation the guildmaster had put his son through, "all I know is that it ignored the runic enchanting forever, and now the magic you gained outside the system. Maybe it's jealous of skills and abilities it's not needed for or something?"
Bran spoke up at this point, pulling his face from the details of the seeder, "I've never heard of the system refusing to acknowledge a skill. Anything sufficiently distinct and useful I've ever done has turned into a skill at some point. Maybe you're not fulfilling a requirement?"
Jacob turned to Bran at this point, "What about my flight spell, or the gentle hand spell? They both work just fine."
"Hmm," Bran began in reply, "You do have a point there, that is weird. But I hardly know anything about magic. Maybe those mages are hiding something from the rest of us. Anyway, the seeder is fine; you managed to adjust the enchantment without damaging it this time. I can see why the system awarded the skill."
"Honestly, this is exactly what we needed," Bran said, rubbing his hands together in excitement. "Now let's get to work on the rest of these linkages."
For the next few hours, the barn was filled with the sounds of metal clinking and gears turning as the boys worked on their machines. Arthur left them to their tinkering as he had chores to finish up around the farm.
With the monster core buffering his dense mana and the system officially guiding Jacobs' newly unlocked Intent Shaping skill, the process went significantly smoother.
Whenever Bran adjusted a gear ratio or reinforced a mechanical joint, Jacob followed up with a carefully layered enchantment to match the new physical stress.
They managed to fully optimize the internal workings of both the seeder and the harvester, pushing the efficiency of both machines far beyond their original designs.
"Now we just need to field test it," Bran stated, "I suppose we could get your brother to help tomorrow?"
Jacob nodded affirmatively, "I'm sure Caleb would be willing to help."
The ringing of the dinner bell from the back porch brought their work to an official halt.
Dinner was a lively and loud affair, filled with chatter about the upcoming harvest and the newly optimized equipment.
Jacob noted that Mira had not shown up for the entire afternoon, but that was completely normal for her. He knew that she preferred the quiet solitude of the woods and caves, usually only appearing when she felt her presence was necessary.
The true highlight of the meal came at the very end when May brought out the fresh apple pies she had promised Bran. The warm, spiced fruit and perfectly flaky crust served as the perfect reward after a long day of magical and mechanical labor.
Once the final plates were cleared from the heavy oak table, the household naturally began to split up for the evening.
Oren, clearly exhausted from his early morning goblin hunting and the events of the previous night, excused himself and headed straight to the guest bed in Jacob's room.
Bran, whose mind was likely still buzzing with mechanical schematics and ideas for his war-golem, grabbed a lantern and headed back out to the barn to review the equipment they had just tuned.
May, Sera, and Lila settled into the comfortable living area to work on their sewing and mending by the warmth of the hearth. However, Jacob could tell that May seemed to be teaching them more than just sewing lately.
Arthur stood up from the head of the dining table and motioned for Caleb and Jacob to follow him. "Alright, boys," Arthur said quietly, picking up a stack of parchment from a side table. "Let's head into the study. It's time we go over the legal parameters of this injunction."