Over four weeks had passed, and the budding settlement was steadily transforming into a true town. Sturdy walls now encircled the area, guard towers stood fully manned, and the town's layout had taken firm shape, with a dedicated crafters' quarter, a bustling market street, and an expanding residential district.

  Gone were the days when every building was made of wood, now, the mines operated at full capacity, yielding a steady supply of stone for construction. The once-muddy paths had been paved with stone, enabling carts loaded with materials to move smoothly through the growing town.

  Over the past four weeks, several new events occurred, none as defined or rewarding as the 'Guarded Spoils,' with no clear objectives or system-granted prizes. Yet for the town, these events proved more beneficial. Rather than aiding just a single individual, they brought in valuable resources that fuelled the crafters' efforts, enabling experimentation and advancement across the board.

  A growing number of townsfolk were nearing level 15 in their respective professions, standing on the cusp of transformative evolutions that promised to elevate both their skills and the community at large.

  Marla: Where Growth Belongs

  Marla was too old to be out working the fields, that was work better suited for younger backs and stronger knees. Still, she’d been one of the first to unlock a farming-related profession. The strange flora of this new world fascinated her.

  Before the System, her only real experience with plants was tending to a home overflowing with greenery. She’d been a collector, more hobbyist than horticulturist.

  Her late husband used to tease her fondly about it. They had been married for over forty years, and he would joke that every time she went shopping, she came back with yet another variation of a plant she already had dozens of. It had become his unofficial duty to install new shelves, hang hooks, haul soil, and help with the watering. He grumbled, of course, but always with a smile.

  So, when the young builder, Dane, came around asking if any of the farmers had building requests, Marla seized the opportunity. With Nan’s permission, the first greenhouse in Lakeside was constructed, a sanctuary of glass and soil where she could finally farm on her own terms.

  The grumpy old potter had somehow figured out how to make large sheets of glass, a skill that surprised everyone, including Marla. Once you got to know him, he wasn’t so bad, she had to admit. He’d even discovered how to infuse the green crystals into the glass itself, giving the panes their soft, emerald glow and subtle warmth. These panels significantly boosted the plants' success rate, helping them grow healthier, hardier, and more resilient than anything she’d managed in the open fields.

  She walked with the wooden healer staff she had received on her first day in the System, its weight now familiar in her hand. Nan had assigned a few young guards to accompany her into the forest, there was an event currently underway, one that enhanced the growth, quality, and rarity of all plant life within the area. Even the sunlight had changed, tinged with a faint green hue that reminded Marla of the glowing panels in her greenhouse.

  She had returned with a sack full of cuttings, each one a new variation, brimming with potential. Marla was helping the town in her own way. Instead of mass-producing food, she nurtured select specimens, carefully hand-picking plants with unique traits worth cultivating.

  During her last skill selection, she experienced one of those rare anomalies, what people around town had started calling 'glitches.' Only a handful had encountered them, but hers granted something extraordinary: a Legacy Skill. It allowed her to crossbreed plants in unconventional ways, blending traits that shouldn’t have been compatible and producing results no natural method could achieve.

  [Verdant Assimilation- Rare- Legacy]

  Absorb plant life through direct contact, allowing your body to analyse and catalogue biological traits. Stored plants can be re-manifested or used as templates for hybridization. Skill efficiency and speed of analysis scale with Wisdom and Perception. (This skill is only obtainable by members of the Dryad race.)

  She’d been uneasy at first. The 'Dryad only' tag on the skill made her wonder if she was changing into something other than human, and the faint green tint spreading across her arms didn’t exactly ease her mind. But after talking to others who had also received these so-called 'glitched' skills, she learned that some were indeed race locked.

  When she was blessed by Gaia, an ancient goddess of the Earth, Marla was given more than power; she was given context. Humans, it seemed, were bending the rules of the System, gaining access to skills not meant for their kind. Some gods viewed it as corruption. But Gaia was different, gentle, watchful, curious. She spoke to Marla not with commands, but with conversation, her presence more like deep-rooted comfort than divine command. And in that quiet connection, Marla found unexpected peace.

  Ren-Soul Arms

  Ren had once been just a lowly guard of Lakeside ,unremarkable, unnoticed, and content to keep his head down. But everything changed when he became one of the first to experience a so-called 'Glitch.' Where others gained new skills, his 'Glitch' had happened when he got an item.

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  He had taken a risk going out alone during the 'Guarded Spoils' event, fought off the guardian, and claimed an uncommon chest. Having chosen a caster class, he hadn’t expected much in the way of weaponry. So, when he opened the chest and found a pistol inside, he was genuinely surprised. Sure, before the System, he’d been a firearms instructor for the police force, but he never imagined the System would give him something so close to home here.

  The moment he picked up the weapon, the glitch triggered. The pistol, once simple in design with faint blue glyphs, began to shift in his grasp. The glyphs darkened, reforming into complex sigils that pulsed with latent energy. Silvery threads of mana drew directly from Ren’s body, weaving through the metal and reshaping the weapon in real time, etching new layers, reinforcing the barrel, enhancing the frame. It wasn’t just changing; it was responding to him.

  [Manabolt Pistol-Uncommon] → [Soulforged Pistol – Uncommon – Legacy-Soulbound]:

  Forged from the lingering fragments of the departed, this pistol channels ambient soul residue into projectiles of condensed mana. Each shot carries the echo of a life once lived, leaving behind a faint whisper or sensation, a fleeting glimpse of memory, pain, or purpose. (Only useable by the Shadeborn race.)

  Despite the Shadeborn-only tag, Ren had no issue wielding the weapon. The bullets it fired were strange, leaving no visible wounds yet clearly stopping targets in their tracks. They caused no tearing, no puncture marks, just impact and collapse. As a result, Ren quickly became a favourite among the leatherworkers, who appreciated not having to patch up mangled hides after every hunt.

  But it wasn’t just the weapon that caught people’s attention. A week after receiving it and after spending time experimenting with its strange mechanics, Ren unlocked something even more unusual: a glitched profession.

  [Soulforge Gunsmith – Legacy]: A master of crafting weapons from soul energy. This profession allows the user to harvest the lingering essence of the fallen to create, maintain, and enhance firearms and ammunition. Each crafted piece carries echoes of memory and spirit, forging tools of precision, power, and eerie sentience. (This skill is only obtainable by members of the Shadeborn race.)

  It was a profession perfectly suited to him, but utterly impractical for anyone else in Lakeside. Every weapon he crafted bore the Shadeborn-only tag, rendering them unusable by the town’s other inhabitants. No one else could wield his creations, only Ren.

  Ren didn’t care. These were his weapons, two soulforged pistols resting at his hips, and a custom rifle slung across his back. They weren’t made for others. They pulsed with energy that responded only to him, whispered to him in moments of quiet, and grew dead silent in the heat of a fight. Whatever came next, he’d face it armed with tools no one else could touch, and that suited him just fine.

  Nan: Anomalies

  Nan pulled up the interface tied to her Profession, an ever-growing stream of alerts and data points. The population had surged past two thousand as of this morning, and with it came a fresh wave of complications. More people meant more mouths, more disputes, and more systems straining under the weight of expansion.

  Fortunately, Callie had been a godsend. Her crystal-based inventions had played a key role in keeping Lakeside functional. From heating to food preservation to lighting, her work had quietly held the town together. That was why Nan had commissioned the construction of a dedicated research facility for her, assigning a team of promising candidates to help her unravel the deeper mysteries of the crystals.

  Dane had really stepped up to the plate. Nan could see the makings of a future leader in him. Just yesterday, he and his team had implemented a seamless design to solve the settlement’s growing sewage issue—forward-thinking, efficient, and built to last. It was one less thing for Nan to worry about, and in these times, that meant everything.

  That young teen, Theo, had unexpectedly become a key figure in Lakeside’s development. His boats weren’t just clever inventions, they were essential, enabling exploration, transport, and much-needed fishing routes. However, the mana drain was still an issue. Nan was tired of hearing complaints from drenched settlers forced to swim ashore after one of his vessels shrank mid-lake. Some had reverted to traditional fishing rafts out of frustration, but Theo didn’t seem fazed. Especially not since he unlocked a skill allowing him to craft scalable figures that acted as his loyal, silent crew.

  Nan rubbed at her temples as she scanned the reports. The sheer volume of paperwork was staggering, far more than she’d ever imagined this world would throw at her. She had retired, after all. This was supposed to be her time to rest, not wrangle logistical nightmares for a settlement of two thousand and growing.

  Then there was the issue of the anomalies. People wanted answers. Only about twenty individuals had experienced these so-called glitches so far, rare, but not unheard of.

  Those affected had quickly become highly sought after for their unique talents, which was a boon to the town’s progress, but also a source of growing tension. Prioritizing the best crafters for limited workshops and resources made sense to Nan, yet others viewed it as favoritism toward the glitched, sparking whispers of unfairness and quiet resentment.

  Her panel gave her access to a wealth of data, one of the most important being overall happiness. And lately, Nan had been struggling to keep it high in certain areas. People were beginning to forget what the alternative to this settlement had been. Many had arrived here severely wounded, grieving lost friends and family. Now, they grumbled about room sizes and being assigned housing too far from the well. Perspective was fading, replaced by petty comforts and entitlement.

  Nan rose from her seat, walking to the large window of her office looking over the lake, kids played in the shallows, a few women were sat on some rocks, threading some nets, a group of men pulled one of the fishing rafts onto the beach, fresh fish filling their baskets.

  She smiled. The complaints would come, and the challenges would keep piling up—but she'd find a way to make this place thrive. Because failure wasn’t an option. Not here. Not now.

  A soft chime echoed from her panel, a notification she’d set weeks ago, just in case. The scarred healer had returned. Nan’s jaw tightened. She didn’t know exactly what he’d done to her grandson, but she intended to find out. And when she did, there would be consequences.

  A soft chime echoed from her panel, a notification she’d set weeks ago, one she had hoped she’d never hear. The scarred healer had returned.

  Nan’s jaw clenched. She didn’t know all the details, only that her grandson had entered the forest with that scarred man and hadn’t come back the same.

  Doc, the town’s lead alchemist, had returned with disturbing claims, he spoke of an altercation, of betrayal, casting a shadow of suspicion on Richter.

  Nan didn’t trust second-hand stories, not when family was involved. She would find the truth herself.

  And gods help the ones who hurt her family.