While he was excited to get started on making healing potions, Marge commented on how tired he looked, and so Roge begrudgingly did the healthy thing and went to his room. Each room was about the same size, as far as he could tell, each containing a rather nice looking bed, desk and chest to keep his items in. The whole room was a good bit bigger than his last one at the inn, including the closet space. As he was unpacking, he frowned at the clothing he owned, having forgotten to colorize all of them to make them look nicer. Even his jacket, which had a few holes in it, he noticed, didn’t look too fantastic with it’s solid black cloth. Scrolling through his inventory and finding his excess of [Pigment] coins, he decided to at least make his clothing look better before getting some rest.

  Counting them out, he had ten shirts, ten pants, and his jacket that he could add color to. He had barely enough for it, feeling a bit worried that his red coins stood at only ten. But it was worth it to spend time designing the patterns he wanted on his clothing. At the end, he felt exhausted, climbing into bed and falling asleep within moments, waking up feeling more refreshed and relaxed than he had in a while.

  Getting dressed in a burgundy shirt with a black, stylized paintbrush in the center, dark blue pants that he artfully made to look like jeans, his black and grey gradient jacket with a blue border around the edges, and his black boots. He quickly added a coin to to change the shoelaces and bottom the same dark sapphire blue as the jacket, feeling confident and comfortable in the outfit, even as he had to maneuver his clothing around his wings and tail. ‘Baby steps.’

  Hops was the only person out when he left, the [Wizard] pouring over notes in a book before looking up at the dragon, surprise quickly taking over his face. “Damn. You buy a new outfit?”

  “Nope. Just redesigned the old ones. Whatcha looking at?”

  “Going over my notes of how to improve your classes,” the elf said, Roge giving him a suspicious look. “No need for that look. I do this with everyone, and my [Investigator] class helps me intuit more things than the average person.”

  Roge let out a sigh, giving Hops a grin. “Fair, I guess. Whatcha got so far?”

  “Well, from what you’ve said about the buffs, I’ve got a few items for you to try buying.” He handed over a piece of paper with a rather large list of items, Roge’s eye-ridges going up as he tried to skim it. “But that’s mostly for the future. The first ones you want to get is [Glow] from the magic candles, and [Fog] from the fog bombs.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Well, we know with [Icing], that you got a solidifying effect to your skills, which helps your combat effectiveness since you can throw them. I already suspect that [Acid] will give you a liquid or corrosive buff, so all we have left is gas and rays to fill out the roles usual spells do.”

  Roge grimaced and felt his tail flick, finally looking away from the screen he’d been copying the list into. “Is that wise? Making myself look like a spellcaster?”

  “It’ll be fine,” the elf waved off. “With the church not arresting you over it, that should appease most. The advantage outweighs it, with you being able to fill the role of a spellcaster.”

  “Which is?” Roge asked, placing the list in his inventory.

  “They mainly can do three things. Buffing. Debuffing. Attack. Normally artificers can only do one of those things at low levels, and only with one effect inside those categories. I can do that to a lesser extent with my runes, but there aren’t any buff and debuff runes that I can apply directly to people. Only items.”

  “So why have me fight at all?” Roge frowned, crossing his arms. “I can heal, which you can’t do I assume?” Hops shook his head at that. “And if I can get buffs and debuffs, attacking seems like a waste to focus on first.”

  “Simple. Everyone needs to be able to fight. Or else you die more often than not.” That pulled Roge up short, grimacing as he thought of how vulnerable someone would be if they couldn’t defend themselves. “Attack and Defense are the base things an adventurer needs, and the Utility test still includes them. We still have four to five days to shore everything up, and you healing will most likely let you pass mostly anything.”

  “I guess that’s fair,” Roge grumbled, dialing his head back to the start of the conversation. “So besides the buffs, which is just me buying items and growing plants with other elements, any other suggestions?”

  “Yup. And it’s something you’d have thought of eventually.” Hops pulled out a rather odd book at that, the cover looking like solid wood, with artful branches carved into it. “A guide to working with [Nature Magic] and associated classes. It doesn’t have your class, but the sub-abilities are of particular note.”

  “Such as?” the dragon asked, putting the book in his inventory for later studying.

  “[Druidic Touch]. It’s a fairly basic sub-ability, but it’s the foundation of a lot of the druid classes. It also allows you to unlock the magical abilities of mundane plants.”

  Roge’s eyes widened at that, his mind immediately going to his Blueoak saplings. “How hard is it to get?” He pulled the book back out before seeing Hops wave it away.

  “From what the guide says, you have to pour your nature aligned mana into the plant with the intention of examining and powering it. Commune with the plant and learn what *it* wants to be, then enhancing that.” Hops was barely finished before Roge immediately pulled out one of the Blueoaks, noting it landing with a blueoak planter box and soil. It was already a good five feet tall, its branches leafy and healthy, the dark teal leaves the classic bumpy shape Roge was familiar with.

  Placing a claw onto the trunk of the tree and suffusing it with his mana was not an issue whatsoever. He even felt his [Mana Manipulation] tick up a notch, though he pushed away the notification as he closed his eyes and focused. He already knew how to ‘examine’ things, feeling his [Inspect] skill pulse and activate. Communing with the plant was harder, Roge knowing that brute force wouldn’t do anything but harm the tree. He needed to be slow and methodical. Send warm and pleasant feelings of welcome. It reminded him of when he’d tried dabbling with stage hypnosis as a teen, the meditative process similar to what he’d heard about regarding communing with nature. Those tree sound videos helped him relax more often than not, so he used those feelings as he focused.

  ‘Hello…’ It wasn’t exactly words that Roge felt in that moment, his mind just interpreting the feelings that way. ‘Are you going to hurt me?’

  ‘No,’ he responded, feeling a long forgotten part of himself ache. ‘I want to protect you. Hoard you. Help you grow to help me grow.’

  ‘A wise choice,’ the tree giggled, Roge hearing its leaves rustling. ‘I’d like something in return, though.’

  He furrowed his brow at that, feeling unprepared. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can feel my siblings in you. I want us to be together.’ Roge thought hard on that request, poking his [Farm Hoard] to see if that was possible. To his surprise, he had a lot more customization with the storing effect than he expected. He’d been putting everything in its own space, but he could add everything together in a more natural way, like the plants were growing in the wild. It asked him what kinds of environments he wanted to make, Roge picking the open field option for now. He saw interesting things like caves and deserts, though he had no plants to fill those at the moment.

  ‘Do you mind if I include everyone?’ he asked, feeling confusion coming from the tree at his question. ‘I have vines and flowers that I’m cultivating.’

  ‘Flowers are lovely! Yes, bring everyone there. I will awaken the others!’ At its agreement, Roge felt a connection form between the two of them. Light and tenuous, but it was there. He put all of the plants in his hoard into the field section he decided on, feeling that he could not have more than one environment at a time.

  Several dings chimed in his ears at that, Roge putting the blueoak into his hoard before looking at them, a grin coming to his face.

  “Got it!” Roge cheered, jumping when he found Marge and Sean suddenly on the other couch, everyone grinning at him. “When did you get here?”

  “A few minutes ago. You got the sub-ability Hops was telling us about?” Sean asked, Roge giving him a nod as he read the text out for Hops to copy.

  “So what does the window say now about it?” the elf asked, Roge pulling that up was well and whistling at the more complex box.

  “What in the world…” Marge muttered, Sean looking shocked as well while Hops just looked very focused on his writing.

  “I’ve never gotten… OH GOD DAMMIT!” he swore, having been scrolling through his hoard and finding one anomaly. He double checked, and found the only other item that was more complex was his wand, but *only* when he had it in his hoard.

  Roge smacked himself on the forehead at that, feeling like a massive idiot as things were put together.

  “What’s wrong?” Hops asked, the party members all looking very concerned at the dragon.

  “I didn’t even think about the fact that *every* coin I get comes with the ash. That the ash is used to bind things to my hoards.” At that, he focused on spending some of the ash, feeling frustrated when one unit was consumed and one of the coins split off from the others.

  After reading out that box as well, Hops grimaced in understanding. Missing something that was obvious in hindsight was apparently a familiar friend to the [Wizard]. “I was wondering why your abilities seemed to be missing information. It’s because it’s included in *other* parts of your class, hidden behind using it in certain ways.”

  “Gimme a sec…” Roge muttered, bonding coins on mass to make sure he didn’t lose his buffs. Thankfully, the list didn’t *completely* split off the bonded coins, just adding on their number to the one column.

  That’s when he also noticed each of the oaks was now bonded to him, remembering the oak he’d spoken to saying that it would talk to its siblings. Apparently that meant that he wouldn’t have to do anything to bond them, giving him the now known hoard effect as well.

  “And now the oaks just gave me a resistance…” Roge muttered, sending the other team members into a question asking frenzy, though he didn’t answer them as he stewed in his own incompetence, also ignoring the waved away messages about increasing his Nature and Draconic magic, along with his two hoard abilities as well.

  ‘I knew that the Draconic classes are all about hoarding. And I didn’t even look into binding the coins or doing anything dragon-like with my treasure…’ He rubbed his face as Hops calmed Sean and Marge down, the former looking very happy for the dragon, while the other just looked concerned. He’d address them in a moment, breathing deeply to calm himself down.

  “Okay. So what should I bond?” the dragon asked, turning to Hops. The elf had a wry grin on, pulling out his notebook to get started on listing everything in Roge’s hoard and what effects he could get.