Today I was tired. The stress for being in another world, the worries of the future and the happiness of yesterday and much more. Every emotion I felt from the moment I heard the news on night of the festival up until now, they accumulated, burst and made me tired. My mind finally said "Let's take a rest.". It was not sleep what it wanted, what it wanted was for me to have a day where I did nothing at all.

I took a sandwich from my inventory and started munching on it. I made a seat from made of earth, dried it using fire energy since it rained recently and sat on it while looking at the work site.

Work was still going on. The Crafters build, the Vanguards helped, some of the Locals joined them and I just watched them while eating a sandwich.

I did not eat yesterday because there was no time or place to do it, so I was enjoying myself. Done with the sandwich I drank my orange-like juice.

I did not want to get up but I wanted to spend some time so I took my inscription from my inventory. It was a crescent shaped table with a basket filled with gems and different kind of pens-like utensils in a cup on top of it.

Inscriptions are enchantments that you give an object of your choice. It's like a buff but outside the body which makes it exponentially harder to do the more complex the inscription is. A big difference compared to buffs is the source of either life energy and soul energy; it can be the user's body, it can the environment or it can be gems charged with either soul energy or life energy.

I was not going to bother myself making an inscription, even if I wanted there would be nothing I want to enchant and I would not do it on a useless object. I just grabbed a gem and started filling it with soul energy. It was a small gem so it was full almost immediately and I, although I stopped feeding it energy, kept it completely full of soul energy, any more energy and it would break.

These gems are like life energy and soul energy batteries. They are mined minerals that were bathed in soul energy or life energy for a long time and adapted to absorbing it and contain inside them. The bigger the gem, the more energy it can hold. Big gems were quite valuable until someone noticed that if you keep feeding soul energy or life energy to the gems, they increased their size and as a consequence their capacity and by doing that it's even possible to change its shape. Furthermore, elemental energy can be fed to gems and transform them into elemental gems of the attribute fed.

The gems I possess were mostly pure soul energy attributed, I am a user of soul energy after all.

My hand was starting to feel heavy so I glanced at the gem and lo and behold the gem that as a little bigger than by finger became as big as my palm and it was still growing. I thought for a moment to decide the shape it would become and the winner was a tree 'I like trees for some reason'.

I put the gem on the table and while still touching it I manipulated the energy inside to shape it to a tree. The ball shaped gem started to elongate itself, sprouting roots to keep itself upright, branches started to appear and the most delicate and hard to do, leaves came into existence. Although it was still a gem, it was tree shaped gem. For the last step, I started feeding soul energy to keep increasing its size while being careful of the shape.

"That's beautiful!" 'Holy -! Since when was she here!?'

I hurriedly grabbed control of my soul energy that was about to going wild.

"Kid, you shouldn't surprise someone that is working with gems, they can explode you know."

"I did not know about that~!"

I sighed "Anyway, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your guardians or something?"

"They are resting."

"So, they are sleeping, huh."

"No, just resting."

"And why are you here? Shouldn't you be resting too?"

"I'm not tired and because there was nothing to do there, I decided to explore the new town."

"I do not understand why you are here though. Technically I'm outside of town right now."

"Nobody would let me go inside because it was dangerous or something, so I could only watch from afar. Then I saw you doing something and I decided to see what it was."

"So, it was curiosity that brought you here, huh."

"Yes~."

"No matter. If you want to watch, just watch, but try not to bother me while I am working with gems. If the energy inside goes wild, the gem may explode."

"Don't worry, I won't bother you~!" 'We'll see about that.'

I resumed my work, slowly but surely growing the gem.

"Hey. What are you doing?" asked the girl

"Like I mentioned before, I am working with gems." I nonchalantly answered

"No, I am asking how are you doing that."

"Look, kid-"

"Don’t' call me kid! My name's Lenova."

"… Look, Lenova. Right now, I am doing quite a delicate work, so I cannot be bothered while doing it or else it will fail."

"Come on, just tell me." 'This is one annoying brat I've got here. Time for some multitasking.'

I started talking with the kid, Lenova, while keeping a part of my mind busy with the gem

"You know what gems are, right?"

"Yes, I've seen them in weapons and armors."

"Do you know what they do?"

"I've heard that they keep life energy or soul energy inside. But I don't know why?"

"That is because they got used to do that and people, thanks to that fact, use them as spare soul energy or life energy. They're also used to fuel inscriptions." 'It is more complicated than that but it would be a pain to explain everything'

"But we had inscriptions at home and they did not use gems."

"That is because such inscriptions do not need large quantities of soul energy or life energy or they do not need to be always on. In such cases the inscriptions either take fuel themselves by absorbing from the environment or by having someone feeding it."

"Heh."

"You did not understand what I just said, did you?"

"Nope~" I sighed 'This kid will keep asking questions, unless…'

"Do you want to try."

"Try what?"

"Feeding a gem."

"Is that what you are doing?"

"Yes."

"I can do it too?"

"Maybe. Do you know how to use soul energy or life energy?"

"Yes, I can. I recently learned how to do the inventory."

"That's fast for someone of your age. How old are you?"

"I'm twelve."

"I see. Hang on for a second and I will make a seat for you."

I made a seat with earth next to me, she was about to seat on it.

"Wait a second. It is still wet from the weather."

I dried it and blow away the steam with a wind spell.

"You can seat now."

I gave her a gem after I emptied it.

"Now you can start."

"How?"

"Just feed it with either soul energy or life energy."

"Which one are you doing?"

"Soul. That's why my gem has a bluish white glow. Life energy gems have a golden green glow."

"Then I will use life energy. I just need to give it life energy?"

"Yes."

"That's it? Then how come your gem is shaped like a tree?"

"Because it was filled with my soul energy, I'm able to manipulate how it grows. What you will be doing for the moment is growing your gem, then you can start giving a shape."

"Ok."

The reason why I made her take a seat right next to me is that so that I could supervise her. There is no way that I would give a gem to a kid and let her play with it alone. Gems might be rather inoffensive but ignorance is, so I will keep an eye on her so that she does not hurt herself.

I glanced at my own gem and realized that it was already 30 centimeters high. With this size, I could add more details to it like a rugged bark, twisted the roots, gave a slight curve to the branches and made the leaves more distinct.

"This is hard."

"In the beginning, yes. But you'll get better at it." I added

"But I am only growing and it did not increase its size that much."

"That's because you do not possess that much life energy right now."

"But I meditate?"

"However, you do not have the years someone like me have behind it."

"That's not fair." She pouted

"Life is not fair, but that is why it is so interesting."

"Why?"

"Right now, you may not be able to do something like this but in the future, who knows what you'll be able to do. That is why life is interesting, nobody knows what the future is like."

"No one?"

"No."

"But I heard rumors that someone called… what was it? Calren…? I do not remember the name but I heard rumors that there is this Lady that is like a goddess and is able to tell the future and people went to her to know it."

"…" 'How much do I want to bet that she's talking about me. I knew the "future" because I worked with the company who made Obsidian and players wanted some leaks for future expansions of the game so they came to me, although I kept my mouth shut, mostly...'

"Have you heard about her?"

"No. But I do not think those rumors are true. They may have been exaggerated."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

I glanced at her and noticed that she was rather pale and slightly sweating on her forehead so I took the gem out of her hand.

"Hey!"

"You are done for now. You've used most of your life energy and you need to take a break."

"I'm fine. I can keep going!"

"And that's why you are a kid. Do not overwork yourself, just take a break when you are tired."

I put my hand on her head and put it on my lap. She did not have time to complain before she found herself in that position. She tried to get up but she couldn't.

"Why can't I move?" she asked scared of the possibilities

"Did you not learn that with meditation you should not overdo it or else there would be consequences. What you are feeling right now is life energy deficiency. When you use your life energy to its limits you will feel like you're out of stamina. If you're having soul energy deficiency you would feel like there is an empty hole inside you. Both will make you have problems moving your body."

"But I did not meditate, I was just feeding the gem…" she argued looking listlessly

"Mostly the same. Meditation is basically moving either your soul energy or life energy inside your body to gain control over it, increase its density and size and then expelling outside so that the rate at which they recover increase. In other words, it is just using it with no purpose. This time you were doing the same but with the purpose of feeding the gem. Now with that out of the way, you can rest."

"I am dirty because I did not take a bath yet..." she said while looking at me

"Not that I mind. However why did you not take a bath?" I asked

"They said that there was no water in town yet and that we could not go to the river…"

"It did rain recently, so the river must have various sediments mixed in the water."

I stopped talking and just concentrated on my gem.

"Don't call me a kid…"

"You are a kid in my eyes."

"You're just too old…" '3000 soul damage deflected because it does not bother me'

"Just rest."

I put my right hand on top of her eyes, turned her so that she was facing forward and started petting her head while having my other hand on the gem.

The gems kept growing, it was now 50 centimeters high and its growth was slowing down. The more a gem grows the more difficult it is to keep growing. My soul energy pool was nearing its limits so I took a break.

"What are you going to do with that gem?"

"Shouldn't you be recovering?"

"I'm fine now."

"Then try to get up."

"…"

I sighed "You're one stubborn girl. Anyway, the answer for your question is "I don't know"."

"How do you not know what to do with it?"

"Because it is something I made because I was bored."

"Will it be a decoration?"

"Most likely by looking at its appearance."

"But it is too small to be a good decoration. Maybe on top of a table would be good"

"Rather than that. It would be a waste of not using it as a house inscription pillar with all the soul energy inside."

"Don't you have to pay enchanters a lot of money to make inscriptions."

"I am an enchanter; I don't need to pay somebody else."

"That's not fair."

"Life is not fair."

My soul energy pool had long been filled so I put my left hand back and resumed growing the gem.

"Are going to keep growing it?"

"Yes. To be an inscription pillar for my house it needs to much bigger."

"How much soul energy does it need?"

"Can you get up?"

"I'll try." She got up with a little difficulty

"Give me your hand." I said while holding my palm upwards in front of her where she put hers

"You only need to touch it. Do not do anything else." I brought her hand to the gem and made them contact each other

When they did, I said "A whole lot more than that." To her

She was silent for a moment, looking at her hand "Did all that energy come from you?"

"Yes."

"Wow~! How come you have that much energy? Can I one day have that much energy too?"

"If you put a lot of work for years and years."

"Cool~."

I cleared my throat "To more a serious topic. You've used most of your life energy filling that gem, that is not something you should not."

"Filling the gem?"

"No, using your life energy until the last drop. Life energy is the overflowing power from life itself, that means that you shouldn't use carelessly because it may cost your life. You should do the same with soul energy. Ok?"

"Yes…"

I flicked her forehead "Ow! Why did you do that!?"

"Because I wanted to."

"You cannot do that just because you wanted to!"

"Yes, I can." Although she tried to escape it, I was too fast and did it again

"If you can do that so can I!" she tried to do the same with me but I just held my arm stretched between us and she could not reach me

"Too bad. This is an adult privilege. You should try growing up." I said with a cynical smile

She looked outraged, but she knew she couldn't reach me so she pouted and stayed silent in her seat.

I focused back on the gem; it had grown up to 70 centimeters. I glanced at the girl and she was still pouting. I grabbed another gem from the basket and held it in front of her face. She looked at me with a confused expression.

"This time use soul energy, but don't overdo it like you did with life energy."

A smile bloomed on her face and she immediately took the gem and started feeding it energy. 'Not even a thank you or yes. Kids these days.'

My gem reached 80 centimeters when I decided to take a break, my soul energy pool was almost empty again. 'Should I go all out and make this gem make it as big as a real tree? But I don't even have a home yet.'

I noticed from the corner of my eye that people were gathering for something. I quickly packed my stuff, grabbed the gem from Lenova, although she protested but I ignored it. Afterwards, I grabbed the girl by the scruff of her neck and started walking.

"What are you doing!?"

"There seems to be a gathering of some kind so we'll take a look at it."

"That does not mean you should carry me like this!"

"Fine."

I put my hand under her tights and the other behind her back and started carrying her princess style this time.

"What are you doing!?"

"Like you wished, I changed the way I carried you."

"I did not wish to be carried at all! Just put me down and I'll walk!"

"You're too slow."

"You… you're just messing with me, aren't you!?"

"Oh, I did not think you would realize it."

"Just put me down." She said with an expression of indignation

"Are you sure? If I let you go from this high you might injure yourself."

She grabbed my clothes with a fear written on her face "You wouldn't, would you?"

I just smiled in response and she gave up persuading me.

"You're a devil." She said between clenched teeth

"That is only because you're so easy to tease."

Complicated emotions went through her face before she just let them go with a sigh.

"You shouldn't sigh. Happiness will escape with it."

"Whose fault is that!!" she screamed 'This is more fun than I thought~'

We had arrived at our destination, I put Lenova down and waited a little way afar from the gathering. There were a lot of people, probably everyone and they were waiting for something. We waited around 5 minutes, by then everyone had gathered here and then there was a sound of metal hitting metal from the veranda of an inn. There were the heads of Green Town: the mayor and his secretary; the captain of Green Wood guards and his lieutenant; and others I did not recognize.

"Everyone!" the mayors voice brought everybody's attention to him 'he's using the [Mega Voice] spell'

"We have an announcement to make." He continued

When he was going to start his speech, I felt a pull on my clothes. I looked down and saw Lenova making a "pick-me up" gesture. I complied and picked her up, princess style just to mess with her.

"It seems you do like being picked up by me." I whispered into her hear and she punched me. Although what she punched was my shield instead of my face so she was holding her hand in pain not uttering a sound to not bring attention to her. I suppressed my laugher, applied a healing spell on her and focused on the mayor.

"… the reason why we found ourselves in this place, so similar yet different from our own, we do not know. But that does not mean we should lose our will to live just because of something like this. For we have survived through much worse and even if the sky falls on us 'kind of did', as long as we can stand, we will do so. This situation is no different! This new town will be a testament to where we stood once again and its name will be "Dawn"!"

'Dawn… Town. That's a mouthful.'

The others seemed to agree with me as they discussed among each other. The mayor's secretary came close to the mayor and whispered him something 'secretary to the rescue?'.

The mayor cleared his throat "I meant Dawn Breaker!" 'Dawn Breaker Town…? That's not bad.'

People started clapping, happy with the name. I would too if I did not have Lenova in my arms.

The mayor raised his hand so that the crowd became quiet once more.

"But we cannot celebrate it yet. The town is unfinished, there is a lot to be done. Only when the town earns its name as Dawn Breaker, we will celebrate!" Hearing the news, the crowd cheered but I did not miss the look of anger and despair cross the secretary's face.

"Now scatter people! Let's make this place worthy of being our new home!" With those words everyone went their own way.

"Can you put me down now?" A few minutes after the speech, Lenova asked me

"Are you sure you want to?"

"Yes!" 'not even a hint of doubt'

Shaking my head, I put her down.

"Thank you 'Oh. She said 'thank you''. Are you going to work too?"

"No. I can't do anything useful for the town, for now."

"Why not?"

"I may be an enchanter, but my enchants are more battle focused with a few rare exceptions. If I had to classify myself, I would be more of a Vanguard but I do not have the same experiences as other Vanguards."

"I do not understand? Enchanter aside, if you're a Vanguard shouldn't you help the Crafters?"

"You see. I do not have the same experiences as Vanguards. What I mean by that is that I don't have the necessary teamwork skill to help others without getting in the way."

"You could still try."

"I could but I don't want to."

"Why is that?"

"Because I don't want to work."

"Doesn't that mean that you're just lazy?!"

"Yes."

"Don't answer me so seriously!"

She was huffing quite a lot, so she took a moment to catch her breath. Then she slumped her shoulders and said tiredly.

"I'm returning. You're too tiring to talk with." She turned her back to me and started walking

"Lenova." She turned her head "If you want to keep charging your gems, you can always find me." A smile bloomed on her face before she went on her way, more happily this time.

'And that is why you are a kid. You just don't learn your lesson.' I thought while having, what someone would call an evil smile.

I returned to my post, took the inscription gear and the gem I was working on and resumed feeding it my soul energy. The gem was growing more and more slowly, needing exponentionally more energy for each centimeter it grew. Right now, it was around 90 centimeters and to get it at this state I had to take a few breaks. 'With all this work, my soul pool must have grown a little.'

In Obsidian, there was no cap to anything. You can have pools so big that they seem to be infinite or physical strength capable of shattering stones without buffs. There was no cap but the difficulty increases each time you cross a threshold so you had to put more and more work into something that you would need to sacrifice the other stuff to get to higher heights. That is the reason why there are specializations in Obsidian.

"Craven, do you have a moment" 'Holy -!'

I quickly regained control of soul energy.

I looked at the direction of the voice and saw the mayor's secretary. 'I have a bad feeling about this.'

"What's up? Shouldn't you be busy preparing for the celebration later that the mayor promised."

"That is exactly why I am here speaking with you. I need help to somehow make that mayor's unreasonable promise a reality so I was walking around to have my ideas refreshed." There was some poison in her words but I ignored it

"Ok. But I do not think I would be able to help you. I am mostly useless when it comes to something other than combat."

"That is not the complete truth, is it?" she looked at the gem I was growing

"I may have some skill in enchanting but I am more focused into combat inscriptions."

"No, I did not mean that."

"What did you mean then?"

"When did you start growing that gem?"

"Today. Morning."

She looked really happy when she heard my answer 'my spider senses are tingling'. She held her shin with her hand and appeared to be contemplating then she looked at me.

I began "You know that you just need booze and food to keep the people happy, right?"

"Yes, but that is not enough for a celebration of the completion of a new town. It has to be more memorable. And that's why I will ask you to make star shaped gems for now 'for now?'. Don't worry, you will be properly compensated."

"I do not need money." 'I should have a few hundred million crystals. Benefit of being a Creo employee, probably to make the unofficial boss more deadly without giving weapons and armor directly to them. Never had the chance to use that much before'

"If money is not something you require, how about the privilege to buy a house of your choice?" she said while smiling

"Any house?"

"Yes."

"Then you have a deal. Save me the top most floor from the high-rise building." 'If you want something, you might as well go big'

"I said house, not a whole floor."

"I'll buy all the apartments on the top most floor."

"Do you not realize that we have a lack of housing right now?"

"We do not have to do it right now. We can do it later. If I buy the whole floor, a lot of money will be flowing towards the economy instead of just sitting in my pocket."

"I can't have that."

"Too bad. Then I'll just have a house on the outer ridge the of town."

"There are no houses right at this moment."

"I know. That's why I want a plot of land for now and the privilege of having it built as I want whenever it is possible." 'I'm not unreasonable by wanting it built whenever I want'

"The plot can't be that big."

"No, it should be just enough for a two-story house and a garden."

"That is okay with me. Which plot do you want?"

"I haven't decided yet. I will tell you later."

I tried to negotiate with the secretary with my meager means of persuasion but I went from unreasonable to you can do that with money. I wanted to gain control of the situation but it seems compared with the mayor's secretary, I am nothing. 'At least I will be able to have my house be built as I want it be and I should be able to pick any place I want, although I will consult with an expert.'

"So, can you specify your demand?"

"Yes. I want you to make gems shaped like starts that will float in the night sky as light source." 'Fire and air'

"You do know that what you are asking contains two elements that are quite dangerous together?"

"Yes. That's why I will be relying on you to achieve it."

With that, she turned around and started to leave. 'How unreasonable that woman is. She did not even mention how many she wants.'

I had an idea of what to do to achieve that without mixing the two elements. I sighed, putted the tree gem away and picked a new gem and started experimenting.

I used fire energy to fill the gem and shaped it like star but with its tips serrated like a fishing spear. I put another empty gem on the tip and filled slowly with air energy, carefully growing around the serrated part. I shook the star shaped gem and checked if the air gem stayed connected which it did. I did the same for the other corners.

The air gems should lighten the fire gem quite a bit since they are basically filled with air energy, so I would only need to make them discharge air to make them float together. I grabbed one of my pens, charged it with my pure energy and started making pathways for the air gems so that the air energy would be transformed into air and expelled outside. 'I should not make the air discharge too strong.'

Prototype done. It was time for some testing. The result, it worked, not like I wanted to though. I needed to make some kind of artificial intelligence for the star so that it can float and not just expel air from all directions and move uncontrollably with no sense of direction. However, I did not know the As and Bs for artificial intelligence, so I took another approach. I redirected the pathways to discharge air in a specific direction only for all of them then tried once more and it worked.

The prototype was spinning in place without changing its height, although it would not fly from a corner to another. Next, I made an inscription on the fire gem to create, inside it, a small but bright flame.

Thinking that it would be better to make a two switch functions for the gems, I carefully wrote an inscription that connected the six gems together in the fire gem without mixing the fire and air energy. The switch function was not an on and off type, it was a from nothing to all out type. They would make fine tuning of the brightness and floating easier when needed.

With the fire gem and air gems working together, the creation of floating stars that will illuminate the night sky of the festival are a possibility 'and I did not accidentally make an inferno gem, so that's a plus to this story'.

I looked at my prototype and pondered 'Did she mention how big I should make them?'