I woke up the next morning hungrier than I had been in a while. Yesterday I had only eaten the remains of the jerky I had gotten from the orphanage. I was ready to eat but first I would need to grow it. Standing up, I made my way to the space I had left open between the fence and the garage.

“This will do for now,” I said while pulling some seeds out of my storage rune. I got these seeds from the merchants before buying the cloak, they were a variety pack so I wasn't sure what might grow.

I Pulled my staff out as well, Before casting Earth mold. I instructed the ground to pull the surrounding Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc to one point in front of me. The earth around me shifted slightly. I couldn't imagine that the materials I wanted were in great abundance, but that was ok. I didn't need a lot just enough to grow the seeds I was going to plant.

I Instructed my spell to mix my materials evenly. Before spreading it out over a 6 x 6 area. Once it was evenly distributed I dumped the seeds in the middle. I then distributed them. I had read that the best depth to plant a seed was two times that seed’s length. Unfortunately, my seeds varied in size. fortunately, I had magic. I Instructed the ground to plant the seeds at their respective depth. There was one more step before I grew these seeds into full-grown plants and that was to add the growing rune of my choice.

There were hundreds of runes specifically designed for plant growth. Whether it be farming, harvesting, growing, or even the taste. What I was looking for was a growth rune. A rune that would grow the plant at extreme speed allowing fruit and vegetables to be picked and eaten in a minute or two after being planted.

It turns out I had already used the exact rune I was looking for on multiple occasions. The enhance rune. All I needed to do was to put down the rune. This is where I was encountering a new specialized type of rune creating. And that was compound runes or as one of the notes stated territory runes. This type of rune was the same as your normal type the difference being how it was used a normal rune was engraved on smaller items like a staff or golem maybe even something like a door. Territory runes however needed to be built larger and connected to a sort of network. This was because of the mana cost of such heavy-duty runes.

Thankfully I had just the item I needed to supply such mana. The mana generator Scrap had invented only a week or two before. It was capable of supplying my base with the mana it needed. Maybe not as much as I would like but enough for a few runes. In this way, I planned on creating my first territory rune. It was ironic that my first rune would also be my first territory rune as well.

I Pulled the dirt in the middle of the garden up into the shape of the enhance rune. It looked like a statue of the rune. Touching the statue I felt that if I wanted I could power the rune even when it was this size. I now knew for certain that my mana was somehow improving. I resolved to look into it at a later date.

At the moment though, I needed to decide whether I wanted to hook up the base now or just quickly power it with my own mana and get done with it. I decided that I would do both as I was hungry but also wanted to get the base ready for the flood.

Laying my right hand on the statue and holding batteries in my left. I began to pour mana into the territory rune. The ground around me started to erupt in shades of green and brown. All manner of plants grew from watermelon to carrots it didn't even matter if they were in season it just grew. As soon as fruits started to appear I stopped pouring mana into it. The plants continued for a second before sputtering out. “Hm what to choose?” I said

In the end, I decided to eat some watermelon as I had heard it was very good. As an orphan I had never had the chance to eat something as good as this, it usually went for a decently high value in the market. I cut it into four slices and stored the other three away. I bit into it expecting a watery flavor, but what I got was the sweetest thing I'd ever eaten. Before I knew it all the slices had been devoured. It was spectacular so much so that I had stored the seeds for later growing and then consumption.

Feeling content, I made my way back into the garage. I was about to send a mental pulse to Scrap when I caught a glimpse of something shiny. Looking over I found an entire lab area had kind of just sprouted up out of nowhere. I smiled a little knowing that Scrap must be behind this. I sent a little pulse to confirm that it was indeed him. I got a pulse back that came from the new ‘lab room’ as I was going to call it. Walking into the room I found the mana engine embedded into an altar that rose out of a circler platform. There were tubes of some kind of blue substance attached to the altar and the wall of the room.

I found Scrap next to a vertical board that had multiple tubes leading up and down, each with a rock fitted inside. Each rock was at varying heights I noticed the rune for float on all of them. Each tube was connected to the altar by the blue glowing tubes. I stood next to Scrap, attempting to make sense of what was in front of me. I took a moment to admire the runes and the care that had been taken.

If I was right. The room was my territory rune center. Scrap had predicted my next move and worked ahead of me. The alter must be so the mana generator can absorb more mana. The tubes had a massive amount of mana flowing through them making it so they glowed blue. And the board should be a way for us to tell the status of our territory runes. The rocks would represent the amount of mana flowing into them by showing the height of the rock with the float rune on it.

two things bothered me though, how had Scrap put this together in one night? I knew he was strong but not this strong. And three rocks were floating. To my knowledge the only rune up and running, that would need so much mana was the territory rune at the garden. And I had just set it up.

Thinking that I sent a mental pulse of questions toward Scrap. Scrap as if just noticing me jumped a little before turning towards me. He tilted his head in thought then pointed at the corner of the room the door was at. I turned because my back was to the door. Sitting there were three 5-foot dirt golems. I was surprised I hadn't thought that Scrap might make his own golems. But logically Scrap was intelligent enough to do so.

These Golems were slightly different from my own golems. They had a larger golem formation than the others and I noticed that just below the golem formation there was an Earth mold formation. That must be how he built them and maintained their size and shape.

I was quite happy that Scrap had taken the initiative to improve our new home. “Nice, these guys are going to come in handy,” I said while fist-bumping Scrap.

Now that I didn't have to create a control center, I could build more territory runes while scrap connected them. I had many plans but not enough mana for them all. I needed to figure out what runes I could power and which ones I couldn't. I wanted a defensive rune but the one I wanted to use would use all the mana when it was in operation. “Damn, I guess it has to do,” I said.

I was going to go defensive. The territory rune I planned to use was called Barrier. It was a dome-shaped force field used similarly to my Shield formation. The difference was that instead of air it used the mana it was made of to project a barrier. It was stronger to all forms of attack when compared to shield. The reason I hadn't used it before was because of the massive mana cost not only to maintain it but start it as well. But as a territory rune being powered by the mana generator it would have enough if only barely.

Me and Scrap went to our steel wall to start engraving the rune. I lifted Scrap up to the center of the wall where he pulled out his torch and started to engrave. It took a second as it was a complex formation. But once it was done I could see that it was being fed mana, the faint blue glow was proof of this. All that was left to do was power it on.