-Callen-

  I never would have guessed the first person to be saved by the hospital emergency deployment program would be Reesia. My original idea was to retrieve injured patients and bring them to a central treatment location, but the only people able to operate my copters are the healers; nobody else invested enough in mana. So instead of dragging the injured Reesia back to the hospital, the healer decided to just treat them there. After all, healers had been running to and treating patients on-site for as long as they could remember.

  The hospital didn’t have equipment that would increase the success rate of treatment, and there were only a couple other healers on hand to help. So my rapid retrieval program was quickly shifting into a rapid deployment program. When the trainee pilots took over for operating the device, the doctors could just sit in what would’ve been the retrieval seat and treat everyone on site in most circumstances.

  Ironically, that event had turned Reesia into a small-time hero. A child without her stats not only escaped the ambush of an octopus but fought back and even saved an infant. I’m not sure if it was all the fame our family had accumulated from the shenanigans, but Reesia also unlocked her stats. After which she joined the town guard to start getting real combat experience. It was just in time for the town celebration of our unlocks.

  Callia had taken to teasing Nixie about being the only one left who hadn’t unlocked her status but regretted it the next day as Nixie took Rylin out for a walk after rigging the house with countless traps. Nixie made sure to remind everyone that traps are universal, and even if she didn’t have raw power, she would in fact never truly need it.

  I thought there would be some kind of outrage over the octopus using my sewers to infiltrate the town, but apparently this was just one of the problems living near the ocean entailed. Infiltrating octopi happened every month or so. This one was a bit worse than the others, but it was also an easy fix. We installed grates on the town's intake and output tunnels, and a guard was assigned to watch and make sure nothing big tried to force its way in.

  With that incident settled, everyone fit back into our old routines. I would experiment with different materials and designs, trying to perfect my battery. Callia had started investing in mana so she could operate the chopper and spent her time terrorizing the guards in the name of ambush training. Nixie was actually given the opportunity to expand her targets from the guards in town and was being escorted around the town to set up traps for monsters. She was thrilled by the new challenge against something other than people. Reesia was becoming something of the town's idol. Her strict but righteous personality and dedication to everything she did meshed well with the heroic impression they had ever since the incident. The mayor even secretly tipped me off that the captain of the guard was planning to groom her into his eventual successor.

  My stats gradually filled out, and my status was looking reasonably more balanced.

  And Nightshades enchantment showed.

  With careful checking, I managed to catch one of the instances that improved our capacity, and just like expected, it was raising a spiritual skill. When my Natural Harmonization skill improved after one of my practice sessions with Nightshade, the capacity increased by 3. Which happens to match the tier of the skill. Now I just had to figure out which skills were being counted.

  My experiments had also borne considerable fruit. Trying different alloys had pushed my skill at the forge to new levels, and being able to extract a specific element from the minerals I was using increased my ability to explore new metals to try in my batteries. So far a mix of lithium/nickel/cobalt/aluminum, which I had gathered by breaking minerals in Master’s storage and dividing them into pure compounds with mineral extraction. Then I set up a runic divider that sorted the minerals by element, and thus I could play around with different elements and compounds. The whole process had really confounded Master Yoren, even to the point he asked for help explaining my project in his letters to Grandmaster Slate.

  The next step would be playing around with wires and magnets until I figure out how to make functional motors. This was something I was far more confident in. Batteries had never been something I thought too deeply about, but motors and electric motors were something I was curious about. The only issue was that it had been so long I really needed to dust off the old memories. I was actually planning to make a journal of inventions and important facts to record, but I was also hesitant to write it down in case it ended up in the wrong hands. However, I was also of the opinion that even if it was in the wrong hands, it would be better than no hands, because maybe it will be a catalyst to change the futures of people living in this world.

  I spent my time walking back from Master Yoren and Gam’s workshop quietly contemplating the idea. I was certain if I handed off something like that to the Earthkin community, the ideas would spread far, but my contemplation was disturbed as I overheard a piece of news that shocked me. Lord Grammark had apparently been arrested for treason. He had assembled his soldiers without permission of the Duke, and before he could act, a team sent by the Duke had taken action. Now one of his closest knights had taken over someone named Sir Eldraine. I carried on home with this interesting tidbit to share over dinner.

  Acting Lord Eldraine

  The second son of a branch of the Grimmark family, Eldraine was sent under his distant uncle's care at an early age. To show their continued commitment and loyalty to the main family. His family had been the rulers of a backwater frontier town known as Porten’s Town. He didn’t envy his brother because he had enjoyed the full support of Baron Grimmark and easily grew into his role as a knight.

  Eldraine served proudly and with dedication but felt he was slighted in turn. He had taken a liking to the servant who was being trained to raise the lord's eventual heir. When the time came for her to do her duty, he even hid reports of the reasonable monsters from the girl's lover and managed to send him off to die by the Wither Tree. Even without the lover, he was still spurned. When it came time to finally have what he wanted, the Baron had happily set him aside and let her marry her lover.

  That’s when things began to change. Instead of pride in service, he felt humiliation at the dismissal of his dedicated work. Still he held his head high and was loyal as a noble knight should be, but when his lord shared his treasonous plan, he knew it was finally his chance to break himself free. Long ago Sir Darius had established a connection with him so he could update the duke on the barons' doings. It was all in good faith since if the Baron did no wrong, there would be no issues.

  The whole mess was resolved with ease, and Eldraine ascended to true nobility. Finally he could settle all of the grudges that had festered in his service. He enjoyed anyone he wished for and ordered his subordinates however he pleased. Most of the duties were easy to offload onto the civil servants; it had been designed that way to give the baron and his knights plenty of time to hunt and improve themselves. However, their thoughts were limited, believing he had betrayed their master, so he had the heads of each department taken to establish his authority and had the duke send men to take their place.

  It was while Lord Eldraine was enjoying one of his maids that an old memory surfaced. What had happened to that servant who had refused him? If the girl was still alive, he planned to have her brought before him. Maybe even take the heads of the woman's children before giving her new ones! After all, he was the lord and needed an heir to sacrifice to Grimmark's boy when he came of age. Loudly he shouted at his aide, who was watching from the side, and demanded him to bring the family of the former child nurse to him.