Casey woke Devin couple of hours later. Her ‘Vision of Rainford’ Boost let her see fatigue levels, so she was in charge of sleep schedules.

  She was sweaty and covered in sawdust, and Devin realized she’d cut down the last of the trees around the clearing while he slept.

  “You shouldn’t have wasted your crafting time with grunt work,” he said.

  “Doing nothing but sleeping and making potions is a sure way to lose your mind,” she said. “Besides, I’m way ahead of schedule.”

  The axe she held was one of the items Grigor had crafted from the iron he’d brought. Devin saw three shovels, a woodworking saw, a pickaxe, and a large bucket.

  “Damn, you’re fast,” he said.

  “It’s the Boost,” Grigor said. “It makes me 20 times faster.”

  “I’m not sure how fast blacksmiths back on earth were, but I’m pretty sure that 20 of them working together couldn’t have made this much stuff,” Devin said.

  “Didn’t you tell me blacksmithing isn’t a thing on your world anymore?” Casey said.

  “We have blacksmiths,” Devin said. “But it’s just a hobby now. It’s cheaper to make things in factories.”

  "What’s a factory?” Casey said.

  “It’s a place where you hire a bunch of peasants to make things. Instead of teaching them a skill, you have them do one part of the process over and over. They hand the thing over to the next person in the line and they do next part of the process. You use machines to do a lot of the steps, and you pay the workers as little as possible. Instead of getting things crafted with care to last a lifetime, you get mass produced crap that is cheap to replace.”

  Grigor shook his head. “That sounds ... awful. And wasteful.”

  “It is,” Devin said. “It got so bad that they had to make laws to force factory owners to make factories safe. And they had to allocate huge areas of land to dispose of all the junk left over from the process, and all the stuff that gets thrown away and replaced due to poor quality. They call it planned obsolescence. They make stuff crappy on purpose, so you’ll have to buy more.”

  Grigor stared at him with his mouth open.

  “Yeah,” Devin said. “People don’t even notice it. Kind of like how everyone in your village accepted how the Patriarch did things until I came along and broke the system.”

  Grigor grunted.

  “Anyway, I was supposed to have the spider holes done by now,” Devin said. “It’s going to be dark soon. Is that pickaxe enhanced?”

  “I'll enhance it now,” Grigor said. “It’ll take about ten minutes.”

  Grigor drank a Matter Restoration potion, held the pickaxe in front of him and closed his eyes. Devin fidgeted and paced, wishing he had some sort of phone app to make the time pass, while Grigor stood serene and focused. By the time the weapon was done, Devin was sure he didn’t have the patience for the Matter sphere.

  Pickaxe – (Tool, Matter, Copper, Uncommon)

  A basic pickaxe crafted by Grigor Hemming. This tool has been hardened far past normal tolerances with a temporary Copper-level enhancement. This tool will self-destruct in 197 minutes – maybe sooner, with the way you take care of things.

  Devin took the pickaxe out to the ambush area and started digging holes in the ground. It took one swing to realize it had been worth the wait for the enhancement. The pickaxe cut through the rocky ground like a jackhammer. Since these holes only needed to be a meter or so deep, Devin could break up the ground and toss the dirt aside with his hands. He’d hoped to dig a system of tunnels connecting the holes to each other and to the forest, but two days wasn’t enough time for that.

  He kept his alert window open so he could watch his stats and Skills progress as he worked. It took him about 15 minutes to finish the first hole, and he got nada, zilch, nothing.

  “Dammit,” Devin muttered. He leaned on the pickaxe and looked up at the sky. “Really? No digging ability?”

  The sky didn’t answer. Devin went to work on the second hole. He was almost finished with it when an alert popped up.

  You’ve gained 1 Endurance point! Unfortunately, it won’t make your lack of progress easier to endure.

  It wasn’t a digging ability, but at least it was something. He could see how digging would fall under both Might and Endurance, but this was the first Endurance increase he’d gotten from it. There must be some sort of ranking system with what Attributes increased from certain tasks. He wondered how many Attributes he could get from digging. Deftness, maybe - but he wouldn’t hold his breath for anything else.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Although - he’d used a Mental Attribute to get the herbalism Boost. Could he use that while digging, too? He’d sort of promised not to combine mental Attributes, but he hadn’t said anything about combining a mental and physical Attribute.

  He moved to the third and final hole. Since he’d already used Concentration, he decided to try Calculation this time. He tried to estimate how much dirt he was moving per second. The problem was he couldn’t remember any of the formulae for volume. He’d never been talented at memorization, and he’d limped through the few advanced math classes he’d been forced to take by doing the work the long way. That took time, and since he was faster at digging than math, he never got the numbers to work.

  The sun was below the horizon when he climbed out of the last hole. Thanks to his affinity, he had no trouble getting back to the cabin without getting lost. He sensed obstacles before he got to them, and if he focused on a specific area for a few seconds, he could see that area like it was daylight.

  When he arrived, Casey was setting up torches all around the clearing. Grigor had already built the frame of the cabin, and Asha was digging in the main pit. Milo was off in the woods somewhere, which was annoying. Devin had some questions about mental Attributes, and the Guide had shut down the Party Chat for the day.

  He wondered if Milo was purposely avoiding him. Whatever. He had work to do. Grigor drank another potion, then enhanced the last two shovels. Devin and Casey joined Asha in the pit.

  After about five minutes, an ‘A’ popped up above Casey’s head. Devin blinked, then noticed Asha had one, as well.

  Devin’s stomach clenched. “No way,” he said. He hesitated, then opened the alert windows. They were almost identical.

  Achievement Unlocked! A Mole – Casey dug enough holes to gain the ‘Digging’ ability. This is an easy one to get for most people, but congratulations anyway!

  Casey gained the ability ‘Digging’ (Might and Endurance)!

  Achievement Unlocked! Digging in a Hole – Asha dug enough holes to gain the ‘Digging’ ability. It’s a common ability but it can be really valuable.

  Asha gained the ability ‘Digging’ (Might and Endurance)!

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he said. “How long have you been digging, Asha?”

  “About 45 minutes,” Asha said. “Why?”

  Devin forced himself to breathe out. “No reason,” he said.

  He threw himself back into the work. After a few minutes of digging, his anger bled away, and he chuckled. At least he knew what the Attributes for digging were.

  The lack of the ability didn’t seem to slow him down much, but that might have been the tool he was using. The enhanced shovel cut through dirt, rocks and roots. It was almost like digging in cotton candy. At first, they could flick the dirt out of the pit. When the hole got too deep for that, Devin found out why Grigor had made the bucket.

  The blacksmith fastened it to a rope and a pully. It wasn’t fancy, but it was a way to move the dirt out. The bucket filled up so fast that it was easier for someone to man it full-time. Devin had decided by this point that the AI would never give him the digging ability, so he took over that task.

  Asha ran out of steam after a couple of hours and left to join Milo in the woods. Casey left not long after to work on more potions, leaving him to dig and work the bucket by himself.

  Devin decided to try a few more mental Attributes. He had a one-sided conversation with the soil for the Social sphere, made up a short story from the perspective of the worms living in the dirt for Creativity, and came up with complicated trolley-problem scenarios involving pits and buckets for Logic. Nothing worked, but at least it helped pass the time.

  Eventually, Devin entered a flow state where he didn’t even notice the world around him. There was only him, the shovel and the bucket. When the shovel crumbled in his hand, he almost fell over.

  He blinked and looked around. The pit was more than 2 meters deep at its deepest point. It wasn’t done, but it was a hell of a lot more work than he’d dreamed he could do in a few hours.

  He hopped up, grabbed the lip of the pit, and pulled himself out. It was all he could do not to laugh at what he saw.

  Grigor had crafted a heavy chain, which was now tied around Milo’s neck and shoulders. The other end was tied around a stump. Asha kept the chain straight while Milo pulled. There was a series of cracks and the stump came out of the ground onto its side.

  Devin walked over to join them.

  “Not a word,” Milo snarled.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything!” Devin said. He looked around the clearing. All the trees were down, and there were only a few stumps left. “Looks like you’re better at this than I am at digging.”

  “Of course I am,” Milo said.

  Devin smiled and scratched Milo’s head. Milo bumped him in the leg, almost knocking him over.

  “How’d they talk you into this?” Devin said.

  “Priestess Casey pointed out that as long as I stay in dog form, it won’t be insulting to cat kind,” Milo said. “I’m the best person for the job. My lack of thumbs doesn’t come into play, and I have a spell that allows me to overcome the fact that neither dogs nor cats are built for pulling heavy loads.”

  Spell: ‘Kinesiology.’ The Changeling can alter his bones, tendons, muscles, and other innards, allowing him to perform a variety of tasks from squeezing through a small tunnel to bouncing instead of splatting when they hit the ground. It’s a real hit at parties!

  “You’re a champ,” Devin said.

  “I don’t like that word. That’s a doggy word, and I’m not a dog. If you want to show your appreciation, you can haul away these stumps I’ve pulled up.”

  Devin rolled his eyes but did as he was told. It didn’t take long. He left about a half-dozen stumps in the clearing since he had plans for them. By the time he got around to stacking the wood up for Grigor to use, everyone was hungry.

  “I’ll cook tonight,” Devin said.

  “Can you cook?” Casey said.

  “Of course I can cook!” Devin said.

  “I mean, do you have the cooking ability?” Casey said.

  “He doesn’t,” Milo said. “He has no idea how to cook over an open fire.”

  “I want to pull my weight,” Devin said.

  “Then let someone with the ‘Cooking’ ability get some points,” Milo said.

  “With the added benefit that dinner will be edible,” Grigor said.

  Devin sighed. He couldn’t blame them, but he had been hoping to pick up the ability. At least he wouldn’t have to eat his own burnt food.

  Asha returned from the forest with another bag of herbs right while Grigor was cooking the meat. She took in the clearing, which was now bare of trees. Her expression held a mixture of pain and resignation. She closed her eyes and whispered something in a language Devin couldn’t understand. After a few moments, she returned to where the rest of the party were gathered and joined them for dinner.

  Devin scanned the party log. He felt a surge of petty relief when he saw Grigor hadn’t gotten any tree chopping abilities, followed by a stab of shame. He didn’t want to be that guy, but this day had been frustrating.

  “It’s 10:30,” Milo said. “Most of you are ahead of schedule. We’ll have a brief Party Chat session in about an hour so everyone will be on the same page for tomorrow. The time between 12 and 6 is yours. I’d suggest sleeping, but it’s up to you.”

  Devin grinned and looked at Asha. “It’s time to make traps and chew bubblegum, and I’m all out of bubblegum!”

  “What’s bubblegum?” Casey said.

  Asha shook her head. “I’m already regretting this.”

  One moment he’s dying in a warzone — next, he’s naked on a moon full of real cultivators.

  Jake Sullivan just woke up in the wrong body, on a moon called Verdis, inside a cultivation academy where failure means getting culled back to Earth to live as a powerless mortal—and probably die uselessly in the upcoming alien invasion.

  His memories are mostly gone, but his spirit’s intact. His classmates? Rich kids with qi crystals and family techniques. The school? Doesn’t give a damn. Let the strong survive. With enemy agents already on campus, Jake will need to out-cultivate, outfight, and outsmart everyone around him. He has only one year to become a real cultivator.

  No dying this time!

  Dark humor. Sharp dialogue. Flower picking, teeth flying. A fresh blend of sci-fi, xianxia, and LitRPG.