Chapter 517 (2/2)

A pulse of life ran through them. Although they had already been picked, new roots grew out of them and stuck themselves into the ground. The flowers straightened, straining upwards for the few glimpses of sunshine that would come through the forest canopy.

Randidly frowned; it didn’t look there would be any, the tree cover was very complete. His small bed of flowers raised its faces high, undaunted.

He didn’t want to cause too much of a stir, but…

...moving a few trees to let some sunlight down onto the path wouldn’t be a big deal, right? Ghost wouldn’t notice such a thing. Besides, his use of Plant Dominance would be a waste otherwise.

So Randidly reached out again, grasping a few of the surrounding trees. Grimacing, Randidly forced them to draw their roots out of the ground and move a meter or two away from the flower bed. A break in the canopy opened up, and starlight rained down on the flowers.

After using the roots to sweep the ground and clean up any disturbed earth, Randidly smiled. Then he turned back and returned to the forge.

Randidly hadn’t realized it prior to talking to Gregory and Sonya, but metal was truly a fascinating substance. It was so rigid, and yet so malleable. It formed an internal structure with itself, and it could be blended with other varieties of metal to form other things. Hell, monster bones blended well with it. It was the medium by which weapons were made.

It was like a fire was lit in his belly. It was delightful to play and create with metal. It made him wonder whether this was something new, or had it been inside of him his entire life, just waiting for the opportunity? It made him regret choosing to take coding over metal shop in high school.

In addition, Randidly found that the more he worked with metal, the more he wanted to push the bounds of the quality of his steel. But he knew the idea right now was to remain relatively inconspicuous. Instead of quality, Randidly increased the quantity, but not in the speed sense. He focused on producing more ingots from a smaller amount of materials. To do that, he had to Extract more fully and Refine more exactingly.

It was time-consuming, which was a headache, but it also got him Skill Levels, which was reassuring. He poured over the raw ore, doing his best to get every bit of iron out of it. Then it went into the blast furnace, so he could mix in the bones. The deftness with which he used Gravity Affinity also increased at a pleasing rate.

Which was good, but it also clearly displayed the limitations of Gravity Affinity; it simply wasn’t a very powerful Skill. Randidly had done an experiment once, and an Inspired Gravity Affinity was only as powerful as his regular punch. Getting force above that simply wasn’t possible. He would need to find a way to evolve the Skill, as he had done with Root Manipulation, in order for it to be effective in a fight.

When Randidly turned in this day’s work, he was almost one-third of the way towards obtaining preliminary citizenship. Foreman Davey was as pleased as a pickle that Randidly continued to refine his steel-making process and threw an extra $50 in the deal as a reward, and an agreement for continued business.

This Randidly agreed to with a nod and a smile.

It was strange, they didn’t actually know each other, but Randidly felt some rapport with Foreman Davey. There was something reassuring about having a strictly professional relationship with another person that eased Randidly’s worries about social interactions.

Feeling relatively pleased with the day’s haul, Randidly began to wander back towards the edge of town where he had set up a small shack, to throw people off his under-construction place in the forest. But before he could return to his home, he saw a scene that made him from. It was a conversation between two women he recognized, although he didn’t know the one’s name. And with them was a man that Randidly very much wanted to forget.

The man toyed with the edge of his military uniform. “Look, I just wanted to apologize.”

Her bright orange hair swishing back and forth, the young woman shook her head. Her street clothes were gone, and instead, she wore a brown robe like she was a monk of some sort. These two strangely dressed individuals were a stark contrast to the normal population of the area. And between them stood Tatiana.

“I think you’d better leave,” Tatiana said coolly, and then she looked over the man’s shoulder and made eye contact with Randidly.