"What's in the box?" Gabriel asked.
It was nice to see him cheery and active after yesterday but his constant questions slowly wore on . Ever since the floodgates opened he had a question about everything.
His latest query was the wooden box I kept close to at all tis. I was surprised it had taken him this long given his sensitivity and the power the box radiated.
Maybe my aura overshadowed it and hid it? Or he wasn't able to tell the two apart and thought the Arctic feeling was coming from rather than the box?
I hadn't had the chance to ask many questions in return since he was firing them off so fast.
The previous day had answering most of his questions but there was one good thing managed to get out of the day. A new and shiny addition to my status sheet.
Law Acquired:
Least Law of Wind
It happened surprisingly quickly and completed after a few hours of getting pelted with my mother's wind. It showed I hadn't given it the amount of ti I should have before which would have let gain the Law a lot sooner.
Convincing her took a while but she ca around after watching Austin spear with one of his strongest skills to no effect. After seeing that, she was more inclined to use her skills on .
It was cute to see she thought her skills could hurt .
She was a long way off from being able to do that. Even without my armor, just my fortitude alone was too much for her to get through without using her strongest attacks. Her Wind Law was closer in line with what I was going for which made the whole process a lot easier. She focused on the ripping and tearing effect of Wind while also keeping the sharpness it held.
What I wanted was the penetrating effect Wind held to empower my windchill effect. While slicing and tearing with Wind sounded cool, I had my Ice for that and there were a few other things I wanted to use Wind for instead. It would mostly stay as a secondary elent to my Ice but it was still a nice addition to have.
Gaining that Law set up to upgrade one of the skills I had held off on for a while, but that was planned for later.
It was hard to get rid of the now, now, now, mindset and transition into a more llow one, but I was working on it. Sitting around camp and not fighting for over a day was a good start.
Maybe it was the constant questions distracting .
"It's called the Fruit of the Arctic," I answered Gabriel's question. Knowing he would follow up with another question, I continued, "It's a treasure I can use to upgrade my affinity to Arctic."
"Woah, really? That's cool! What does it look like? Can I hold it?" He gushed.
I should have seen that coming. I couldn't fault him too much, I had the sa thought when I picked it up for the first ti.
The box was clasped shut but it wasn't hard to open. I had taken a look at it before so I knew how to do so already. Tilting it so he could see, I cracked open the lid.
He had a confused look on his face as he laid eyes on the fruit before the feeling escaped the box and hit him. His expression changed significantly after that. With the box opened, the powers weren't contained anymore and hit him full force. A chill began to settle around us and water vapor began to condense into fog.
Letting him get a good look at it, I kept the box open until I saw people start reacting to the change in temperature before I shut it. The sadness he portrayed when I closed it only made laugh.
"Nooooo, open it back up, I wanna see it again." His pleas were unanswered.
I wasn't sure if repeatedly opening the box would diminish the powers in the Fruit and didn't wish to waste it. It was doubtful that was the case but why risk it?
"Why was it a bushel of berries?" Gabriel asked after giving up on getting to reopen it.
I was confused at first myself seeing that it was a bushel of berries rather than sothing else. I had no context for the treasure or previous experience, but for so reason, I expected an apple or an orange.
Maybe even a peach.
What I got were berries.
It looked like a tightly packed bushel of grapes that had grown together at so point. Closer to one fruit rather than being separate entities.
The fruit itself looked unlike anything I had seen. It had a build-up of frosty ice on the skin of it but underneath, it looked radiant. It had a glow to it that resounded out in more ways than one. Visual and spiritual, both glowed to my senses.
Like concentrated mana to an insane degree with sothing more, transitioned in so way by the plant that made it enticing.
Gabriel continued to ask questions about it I didn't know the answers to before Abigail walked over to us and cut him off. She had been spending most of her ti with our Mother while I was with Gabriel.
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"Are you using it now?" She asked, looking at the box.
"No, I just opened it for him to see. Jonathan still isn't back yet." I answered.
"Austin is here and Rachel is back, you don't have to keep waiting," Abigail comnted.
She had tried to get to go through with it before but I declined. The area was thoroughly scouted by now and there was only a handful of E-rank monsters found but I didn't feel right.
I wasn't normally a paranoid person and it was a hard feeling to shake.
We were secure enough for to be out of commission for a few days but I still wanted to wait for Jonathan. It was hard to trust others to defend themselves after we had lost so many.
"You will have to get better at that." She said unhelpfully.
"I know. I'm trying." The words ground out even though they didn't sound like it.
"Have you thought of a plan yet?" She asked changing the subject.
Hearing that, Gabriel pipped up to listen in as well.
My imdiate reaction was to continue pushing it off. They knew roughly what the plan was but nothing had been confird yet. I kept saying we would decide on it later when everyone was back and accounted for so I could have all the information available.
I still didn't know how many people would be coming with us as of yet.
Rachel was lucky and returned with both her parents earlier in the day and brought a few extras. Family friends and neighbors that her parents were with at the ti.
They had nowhere else to go and chose to co with us rather than remain idle.
Sam managed to find her sister but not much was left of her sister's family. The husband didn't make it through the tutorial and 2 of her 4 kids didn't make it as well.
She ca back with only 3 of the 6 people she had gone out to find but she made up for it with a few extra stragglers. They were mostly strangers who happened to be there.
Jonathan hadn't yet returned but he would no doubt bring a few extra. We were picking them up at a blazing pace and we would only gather more during our trip. After remaining isolated throughout the tutorial, we were finally taking other people in who weren't related to us.
I had mixed feelings on the issue but we couldn't remain isolated forever. If we denied everyone who wanted to co with us I wouldn't be able to build the city I wanted. A city needed people and I couldn't deny it forever.
Most of everyone who joined had lower levels than most of my family and had an easier ti of it in the tutorial. Most were around level 30 with only a few higher than that.
None were E-rank.
Our makeshift camp had grown sowhat crowded and people wanted to know what the plan was. A mass of people this large did not do idle ti very well. They needed direction and that was up to .
As much help as Abigail was with keeping everything organized, she wasn't the one who had to decide on the bigger plans.
That was my duty as the leader.
The plan throughout the tutorial was to go North. Find a place with dense and pure Ice mana that was in a good spot and had a few dungeons around it.
That plan was fine for the tutorial but now was the ti to actually map it out and commit to things. It was ti for the hard part of planning.
With all of the materials we picked up when the tutorial ended, we weren't able to carry it all by hand anymore. Carts were required to move it all and that took preparation. The tals and gems I picked up were enough to fill a few carts on their own and that was only what I received when the tutorial ended.
The farming seeds and equipnt would fill a cart. Foodstuffs and provisions would fill a cart. Just the tools people used for their craft would fill a cart. Vinny took the anvil he had made and that weighed a hefty amount adding to the trouble.
Vinny alone amounted to most of the weight we had to haul. He was in charge of stocking up on tal in case we couldn't find a mine.
"Yes, the plan." I said, "How much longer on the carts?"
After the walls were fortified, Brayden had been carving down so wood to use in their construction. Mitchell helped where he could but he wasn't as good a Carpenter as Scott had been. Plus, he had just gotten back from his trip with Sam.
"A few are already done but it will be a few days until all of them are ready." She answered.
There were still a few more people to find and gather but it wouldn't be much longer until we set out.
"Get Austin for . He should have so skills for map reading," I sighed. I couldn't put it off much longer and we needed a plan of action.
She nodded and left after that.
A good place to start would be the destination.
I gathered the map and spread it out on a table soone threw together. Carpenters could work quickly but this wasn't made by one of them. Given the gifts we now had, making sothing with brute force was markedly easier.
A slab of wood balanced on 4 legs wasn't that hard to cobble together with the stats and skills we had available to us.
Austin joined as I finished unrolling the map and we both took a second to look it over. He had the Explorer profession and I was hoping so of his skills would make the process easier.
"What are you thinking? Staring at a map without a purpose won't help us." He said.
"I was thinking up in Minnesota or North Dakota sowhere but that isn't looking far enough," I said.
The map showed the mana type and density in those areas and it wasn't the icy blue I was looking for. They had blotches of green and brown which ant Nature and Earth mana was prominent there. Blots of blue marked the Water mana around lakes and rivers.
"Well, it is the heart of sumr so it will be different when winter rolls around." He said, "But, it won't hold the density and purity you want."
There were a few places that looked like a good spot if only they had the mana I wanted. There was one in the heart of Minnesota that had two dungeons around it with a river near for water I had spotted that looked nice.
I didn't look close enough to start examining terrain but it looked promising initially, before it was ruled out.
"Further North into Canada is more likely to be what you're looking for," Austin added, running his finger upward. "But it can't be too far. We still need to grow food during the sumr."
Places were brought up and examined before moving on. Sotis noting them down, sotis not. There was a place near Winnipeg that was added to the list but we weren't sure how much it would change when the seasons shifted.
A line of different options running further North was our solution. We couldn't plan around what we didn't know so we had options for where we could place it.
Our destination would change depending on how much Winter changed things.
Starting as far South as Winnipeg, we placed markers leading upward, farther into the Far North.
Not all of them had everything we desired but they were good enough to make note of. So only had one dungeon while others had two. So were close to rivers while others were near lakes.
We both had favorites we had found but we wouldn't know just how good they were until we laid eyes on them. There was only so much you could get from a map.
There was one that stood out to . It was up there in distance but it had everything I could want. It was farther North than most but it looked perfect on the map.
At so point, Abigail had joined us and she chid in as soon as we were finishing up, "How long is it going to take to get there?"
Her statent poured cold water on our growing excitent. Austin's for the chance to explore and mine for the idea of my city and she managed to stifle both.
We traced the most recent marker we added running south through Canada, the entire length of Minnesota, southeast through both Wisconsin and Illinois, before cutting through Indiana and hitting the marker for where we were.
As the line we traced grew longer, our faces fell. That would have been a multi-day trip even before the world grew!
"A little walking never hurt anybody!" Austin tried to save so enthusiasm but wasn't that successful.
We were in for a long trip.
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