Testing out all of his other skills, Roge found that the crafting one was the only one that worked inside the house. Confused, he then moved out into the front ‘lawn’ to try again, finding that the skill once again stopped working. ‘So… in addition to being able to summon this sick building, it enables crafting skills to be used in it…?’ He sighed as he realized he might never know the answer, giving up on it and moving on to his alchemy station, which had been moved in front of the building as well. After all, he couldn’t test the weapon anywhere in the hoard, as his [Flex Manipulation] didn’t work there.

  He knew he should work on more potions, as he’d had to offload some of his materials into Alton’s inventory to stave off the crushing feeling of his own inventory. But first, he wanted to try his hand at making paint. Partially to finally have a use for all of the pigment petals clogging up his inventory, but also so that Alton could have a steady supply to work with. He assumed it would work just like a potion, but he had to find the ingredients out himself. It was the first time he was going to try making a potion without a recipe, but Hops had told him it was possible, with the correct mindset and materials.

  The first thing he tried to think of was what gem powder he would use and if he should use one at all. So he filled up one of his cauldrons with the correct amount of water and added in twenty of the blue tulip petals. One everything was incorporated, he poured the liquid out into a wooden bottle he’d had in his inventory, humming as it just showed up as ‘Dyed Water’. Dumping it back, he looked over the various materials he had, stopping as he remembered one missing ingredient. He sighed as he realized he might have messed up already, but moved forward after looking at the numbers next to the petals. ‘I really need to get better with using the materials…’

  He then added in twenty petals with the [Color] ability from his color flowers, finding the naming scheme a bit confusing when he’d first looked at them. They incorporated almost immediately, though when he tried to add it to a bottle once again, it proved itself to be a failure.

  ‘Last experiment for today,’ Roge thought, glancing outside to see Sean up and about. He then pulled out the topaz dust and looked at it thoughtfully, knowing that the last ability the paint had was something to do with it drying to impart the color. He didn’t want to set it on fire, though, so he quickly went into the living room, made ten more wooden bottles out of ironwood roots. Since they didn’t need to be broken and he needed something tougher to sustain the reaction, he thought the strongest wood he had might be best. He then set a tenth of the powder into each bottle, wanting the [Flame] ability to be as diluted as possible. The last step he had was to pour in the ‘Blued Water’ from the cauldron, focusing on making paint before capping it and standing back.

  The bottle shook for just a moment, Roge concerned that he made a mistake, before he felt the sudden ring of accomplishment from his stomach. He felt the recipe write itself into his recipe book, moving over and grabbing the paint in excitement.

  Feeling a wide smile come across his face at the success, he then tried one more thing to try and push the paint further. After all, he didn’t just want to make mundane paints for his treasure. He wanted the best paints out there. So he grabbed sixteen of the leftover blue tobacco leaves from his inventory and put eight more [Color] and [Pigment] coins into the potion, jerking some as the potion bottle immediately burst into blue flames.

  “What did you do this time?” Hops groaned, Roge spinning around to find the elf leaning against the front door jam.

  He grimaced as a small bit of guilt ran through him, though he soldiered on as he walked over and handed Hops the bottle. “Is magic paint a normal thing…?” he asked, earning him a relieved smile from Hops.

  “It is. Guessing you were trying to make normal paint?”

  “Well…” Roge drawled, rubbing his neck. “I *did* make normal paint. And then I… had the strange urge to improve it. So Alton could have something better for his projects.”

  “Well, this wouldn’t be that useful for him, other than to use as normal paint,” Hops chuckled, raising an eyebrow at Roge’s dejected look. “Though if you’re able to do this… why not try adding that last [Detox] coin to it? I know Proton isn’t going to let you get the plant you originally got it from, but with [Purify], I don’t see why you’d need it.”

  Roge blinked at the bottle before sighing, grabbing it roughly from the calm elf’s hands and doing just that. The coin had been sitting in his hoard for the longest time, and so he didn’t feel too bad about actually using it for a good purpose.

  “Welp. Was not expecting that…” Hops muttered, looking the potion bottle over in his hands. “Magic tattoo artists are *very* rare, mainly because the ingredients they need for non-toxic paint is astronomical. What does the recipe need for it?”

  “Ground up purifying tobacco leaves,” Roge grunted, pulling out his recipe book and giving it a perusal. “It also requires hundreds of color petals, which is going to suck. Means I can only make one every day or two.”

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  “Best you aren’t able to. Might cause some things to go wrong,” Hops muttered, handing back the bottle and giving Roge a calm smile. “Now, set your setup to make some more normal paints that Alton and I can use, while you go outside. Sean wants to speak with you.”

  ~~~

  Alton left the comfortableness of the new home he had to find his dragon already leaving, the cauldrons bubbling as they automatically made… “Paints…?” he faintly asked, moving over to stand next to Hops as he felt through the magic Roge had set up. “He’s making paints?”

  “He’s been wanting to for a while,” Hops muttered, giving Alton a kind smile. “He made this when he found out you wanted paints, however.”

  Alton’s eyes widened at the bottle he was holding, slowly spinning it in his hands as he read its description. “My aunt is a magic tattoo artist…” the dracotaur mumbled, forcfully taking a deep breath to calm himself. “I always loved her designs. It’s how I got into painting…”

  “And now, you can follow in her footsteps.” The elf tilted his head to the side as he studied Alton’s face, a small smile appearing before he turned around. “I’m going to be heating up some tea for everyone. Want some?”

  “Yes please…” Alton muttered, glancing at the potion setup as it finished off the nine blue paints and started work on making yellow. “This is… too much…”

  ~~~

  “Morning Sean,” Roge mumbled, sitting up from the floor and stretching his body out. The bed he slept in may or may not have been real, but Roge certainly felt well rested. “You wanted to…” He trailed off as he saw the lion peeking his head out the front of the cart, Roge just then noticing that they weren’t in motion. “Is something wrong?”

  Sean pulled his head back inside, a conflicted expression on his face. “The workers are acting… oddly…?” he slowly responded, prompting Roge to fully exit through the front to Proton’s bench.

  He was surprised that Sean had even peeked his head out as soon as Roge stepped out himself, the dragon kobold feeling a slight chill to the air as ice literately rained down from the sky. ‘Hopefully Hops bought a steel umbrella or something…’ he thought to himself, though his thoughts suddenly screeched to a halt as he looked through the storm at the people around them. Everyone had some sort of protection against the weather, whether that be heavy coats wafting heat into the air or metal coverings to keep the ice off. Unfortunately, that was not the cause of Roge’s surprise, as he noticed everyone had a kind and upbeat smile on their face. He saw one or two people even skipping around the place, the excited whispers too low to be heard over the marble-sized ice balls impacting the ground.

  “Hello there!” one person cheered out, moving over to the two kobolds. She had blue skin and fins on the sides of her face, Roge hazarding that she was some sort of mermaid sapient. “Just arrived yes?”

  “Uh yeah…” Roge muttered, looking to Proton and seeing the same confusion on his face and feeling prompted to say, “Is the ice… that exciting?”

  “Oh heavens no! Dreadful weather!” she replied, her smile never wavering.

  “Then… why are you smiling on such a dreadful day?” Proton asked, Roge feeling more and more creeped out by the excitement around them.

  “Oh it’s never a dreadful day when Lore is in town! We can’t wait until he graces you with his presence. It’s divine!” The woman tapped her chin in thought, even as Proton and Roge gave each other worried looks. “To expedite the process, I’m going to waive all fees for you! Just so you can see him sooner.” She then turned around and skipped off, Roge quickly ducking back into the wagon to see Sean, Marge, and Hops with concerned looks and cups of tea in their hands.

  “Hey uh… Hops?” Roge asked, scratching at the base of his horns. “Is there a way to scry for [Mind Magic]? Because if that’s not [Mind Magic] out there, we’re not going into the city.”

  ~~~

  Turns out, Hops did have a way of doing so, it just required him to reference one of his books. There were so many various rune combinations he could use when his skill had hit rank ten, that it was better for him to memorize the single runes only. As Roge watched him paint out one of the runic patterns, he frowned. “Why… circles?” he asked, his mind equating runes to commands in a computer program.

  “It’s so the energy doesn’t run through it once,” Hops replied, his voice faint as he focused mainly on his drawing. “There’s always a bit of energy left over after running through all the runes, since you can’t use *exactly* how much it needs unless your manipulation skill is really high. And if you run under what it needs, it doesn’t activate. So every runic formation uses circles to make the effect happen multiple times, increasing the strength of the effect.”

  “Oh…” Roge mumbled, wanting to find where Hops’ logic didn’t make sense and couldn’t find any. Once the circle was complete, Roge realized something when he didn’t feel mana running through it. “Why’s there no mana?”

  “Because my skill changed to [Inspiration Manipulation],” Hops commented, looking up and Roge and giving him a grin. “I’m just able to use it with mana objects due to one of the additional effects.”

  Roge immediately looked at his skill sharing screen, finding the skill listed with Hops’ other skills. Since it was something he’d want to use, he selected it as the one skill he’d share with the elf, pulling up its description as he did.

  “Well that description is unhelpful…” Roge muttered, flinching as everyone’s eyes went to him. “I uh… can copy one skill from everyone in my hoard and…”

  “You hadn’t chosen mine. Fair,” Hops muttered, his concentration going back to powering and sensing the circle he made.

  “What did you get from us?” Marge asked, looking to Sean and giving him an odd look.

  “Flex, haste, and health manipulations,” Roge muttered, fiddling with his claws as he was once again the center of attention. “It seemed like the best option. And… it did make my teleport a lot cheaper. Plus it makes getting hit a lot less scary.”

  “He’s right,” Sean stated, scratching his neck as he thought it over. “Having a wide variety of manipulation skills lets him broaden what he can do with skills. And it makes it so now, his teleport skill doesn’t pull from the same pool as his wands. And health was a very smart choice for how easily you got injured.”

  “And… I think it also lets me make magic items that are powered by different resources, making them useful to everyone.” Roge Winced as he realized one major flaw. “Except Sean’s. Sorry. Now that I’m thinking about it with a clear head, I should have gone after the exhaustion skill…”

  “It’s fine,” the lion said, waving off Roge’s embarrassment. “We’ll see if we can just get you it through normal class skills.”

  “Okay!” Hops called out, frowning as everyone jumped in surprise. “From what this divination circle is saying, it’s sensing [Mind Magic], but no other kinds of controlling magic from the city. I’ll know more once we’re inside or find the source, but pure [Mind Magic] means Roge should be immune.”

  “Actually…” Roge interjected, everyone looking at him worriedly. “It’s not just me. Anyone in my hoard is also protected.” He pulled up his upgraded ability screen and showed it to his three party members, their eyes going wide as they read through it.

  “You… abilities and skills…!” Hops sputtered out, Roge belatedly realizing the language about the system integration.

  “No time for that now, I’ll explain later,” Roge said, pulling aside the curtain to the wagon and showing everyone the sleet coming down from the sky. “Did any of you receive any magic this morning? If so, it’ll make the weather a lot easier for you.”