Ch. 84 Advancements

Over the next few weeks Gabriel went through every nook and cranny of the base. He took over a week to gather enough iron to make more Magic Cubes to replace every single Path Stone used throughout the cave. The time he spent making these upgrades around the base, his companions spent expanding the empty land around their outer wall. Having the cliff side and mountains behind them, they could only expand in one direction making a large semi circle with the cliff. After over 2 months, the group had managed to expand their half circle of empty land to nearly half a kilometer in radius.

During this time period Ara had been very busy planting various plants all over. The blood moats had almost evaporated over time so they began filling them with water diluted with the blood of any creatures they killed close to the walls. Large toads, frogs, and dragonflies now covered the walls at all times bringing along with them a symphony. Very few of the creatures and bugs that came near the base were a threat, the few that were felt the wrath of cubs immediately. They had finally all made it to the upper Basic Realm, the only thing stopping them from reaching the Bander Realm was having a fortuitous encounter. Gala and Acorn had also advanced into the Normal stage of the Bander Realm, increasing the Mastery of some of their abilities.

All in all, the entirety of the area looked completely different from when they had been last attacked. After the group had cleared the area, Gabriel had started putting in a small 20m wide lake using Water Gathering Stones to keep the water in a constant flowing motion, letting it drain excess water into the nearby field with a complicated grid of earth tubes. Serah had taken the time to go fishing and bring home several different kinds of fish, letting them free in the lake to breed. This had started to attract more creatures and the occasional predator, but as they had been clearing the woods of predators regularly, they were all low enough Realm that they were no threat. The lake had a 2m stone pathway surrounding it with a small dock that led a gazebo in the center of the lake.

Along the path were raised flower beds filled with herbs for tea and healing. Gabriel had filled each bed with a Replanting Stone and put a Magic Funneling Path on the outside of them to keep the herbs growing back forever, as long as they weren't completely uprooted. Several benches were put in place along the pathway, making the area seem more like a park than a random clearing in the middle of a Forest. There were several other pathways snaking off from the one surrounding the lake, making a strange spiral shape with the lake as the focal point. When the pathways reached the edge of the Forest, Gabriel would curve them back toward the other paths making another giant circular pathway along the treeline. There now stood 3 relatively large 3 storey buildings as each section of the spiral had been made into a curved triangular shaped building. The buildings had not been given any of the luxuries of the cave yet, but they gave off the same effect as the cave. Gabriel had continued to experiment while he was building, allowing his creativity to take over him while he made strange shaped columns and windows of various kinds. No two sections of the buildings looked the same, giving off the feeling that they were almost alive despite their dark color. Each building had small bridges connecting them on the the second and third floors in different locations, leading into large open areas in the buildings with what appeared to be empty apartments. In the remaining sections of the pattern were freshly planted trees from Lady Ara, she had told Gabriel that the trees she planted would take only 5 years to reach maturity with the Replanting Stones and Magic Funneling Path combination. They would grow to be almost 30m tall, twice the height of the typical trees in the Forest, with trunks nearly 10m around as well. There were only 7 trees planted in each section, making for a total of 21 saplings already spreading their roots throughout the area. Ara had also planted tons of soil beneficial plants in the area along with various herbs to help utilize every last millimeter of space.

"It's taken a lot of effort, but I think we can officially say Phase 1 is done. Thanks for the help Ara." Sitting in a couple of large chairs, covered with the new cushions they had recently started to make, were Ara and Gabriel. This was the first day in a long time that Gabriel had taken the time to relax. Sitting on the chairs, drinking tea, the two had finished discussing the next steps of Gabriel's plan. After seeing the city of Irizan, Gabriel felt he could do much, much better than that. "I want to be very picky with who we allow in. First will be Lilah and Smithy Jones from the village if they want to come that is. We can bring them out and show them around before inviting them, maybe that'll motivate them to join us. Tomorrow, I'll raise the final walls and trap the top of the cliff side."

"Are you sure you want to go forward with this? If all goes according to plan, you'll be big enough to garner the attention of the surrounding cities and you've already seen first hand how vicious they are. They'll claim anything they see or die trying."

"The boys are nearing the Bander Realm and when they reach it, I'll start the recruiting. After all, they're going to be the main line of control for this place."

"Has no one come up with a name yet?"

"They all keep kicking around the same few and they're all terrible. Hell, the other morning I overheard Sarah and the boys discussing Creature Kingdom and I couldn't help but cringe hard at the thought of it. Hahahaha...."

"Oof, yeah that's pretty awful, it'll still need a name before we can bring people in though. Not to mention, it'll be hard to do trade without a name as well."

"We could hold a contest and everyone could vote for whatever name sounds the best. If I give out a prize, I'm sure everyone will get motivated to think of something cool." Gabriel had asked the group to give him a name for their home a long time ago, but no one had come up with anything interesting. It was really the last step before their new city could be considered a city. (Oh, I forgot to check my stats!)

'Host: Gabriel

Species: Human/True Shadow Raven

Realm: Bander - Mastered - 0%

'Stats: Available Points: 50

Agility: 40

Endurance: 36

Strength: 30

Intelligence: 45

Magic: 50

Abilities:

Leaf on the Wind, Collector of Information, Language Mimic, Extreme Comprehension, Shadow Hide, Shadow Throw, Shadow Travel, Shadow Sword, Shadow Feather, Shadow Clothing, Body Transformation, Magic Heart, Magic Star

Skills:

Wind Manipulation - Alterix - 71%

Water Manipulation - Mastered - 85%

Earth Manipulation - Alterix - 99%

Light Manipulation - Alterix - 99%

Shadow Blade - Alterix - 91%

Shadow Claw - Mastered - Mutate?

Cloud Vision - Mastered - Mutate?

Shadow Cannon - Mastered - Mutate?

Repair Body - Mastered - 70%

Backpack - Mastered -8%

Illusory Space - Adept

Telekinesis - Adept'

(I'll allocate those points really quick. I'll try rounding everything up to 50.) Gabriel had been increasing the Mastery of his skills through constant use over the past few months, allowing him to break through into the peak of the Bander Realm. It had only been the day prior when he finally had his breakthrough while pushing his Earth Manipulation and Light Manipulation into the last percentages before reaching Grand Alterix. Unsure of how to push them into Grand Alterix, Gabriel was quite surprised when he had felt the familiar pains of a stage increase coming on.

'Stats: Available Points: 0

Agility: 50

Endurance: 50

Strength: 50

Intelligence: 51

Magic: 50'

'Host, stats have reached second benchmark. Reward placed into Tiny Dimension.'

(Nice, I wish I had more points, I thought I had enough to go higher in Magic.) Math was never his strong suit, even if he only had vague memories of his past life, what he could remember of his schooling, he hated Math. (System, open 2nd Benchmark Box.)

'Randomized reward added to Tiny Dimension. Please check reward for more details.'

(Let's see, I got the Crystal Heart from the first benchmark reward, this one should be even better.)

'Alternating Time by locality.'

(A book? I mean, it doesn't seem to be a skill nor a Magic Path book, I wonder what it does?)

'Would you like to acquire Time Flow Path and Magic?'

"It's both!" Lady Ara gave Gabriel a strange look after his outburst. "My apologies, just ignore me, I was thinking about something." (YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!) Before Gabriel could even feel the familiar sensations of incorporating new skills or information into his body, he directly fell unconscious and began snoring loudly next to Ara.

(Again? The look in his eyes before he passed out was the same as when he learned Backpack at my house, he must've just learned another new skill. Judging by the fact that he's snoring, it must have been a really difficult one.) After witnessing Gabriel's abilities in the past, Ara had been keeping a close eye on him to see if she could learn how his ability works. She had no real purpose behind this research, she just found it satisfying to understand new types of abilities and magic. After witnessing Gabriel's unique method of obtaining skills, she had decided to study him for a while to see just what he would achieve. She quietly took a blanket from her Backpack storage and covered Gabriel with it before setting back in her chair and watching the all the creatures that had decided to adventure into this new area today.

Gabriel had given them all a task that she was quite excited to work towards. She was to pick out any unique creature she spotted, be it a unique fur pattern, mutation, hell if it had 3 legs when it was supposed to have 4, Gabriel wanted it. The bottom floor of one the buildings had already been converted into a stable like area for any creatures they found, but they hadn't had any luck as of yet.