The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) by Aleron Kong Read Free Book Online Page A

mind that though the mists were an effective deterrent against most humanoids, wild animals, and certain monsters would not be affected. Luckily, the guards said there had been no incursions close to the village. They also reported though, that the hunters had spied several cave bears to the north, and a pack of wolves had been close enough to hear their howls a few days ago. Richter decided to start organizing larger hunting parties. The site the village was being built upon had been wild and untouched land for hundreds of years. There was no overestimating the dangers that lurked nearby, and he swore to himself that he would not forget that.
    After walking through the fields, Richter then walked to the river that was to the west of village . His destination was the wooden cradle that had been set up to start building the village’s first ship. The closest hub of trade was the Kingdom of Yves. On foot, the journey took almost three weeks. With a ship to navigate the countless rivers in this part of the world, the journey could be accomplished in a fraction of the time. If trade was to become a regular part of life, the ship was of paramount importance.
    Richter had been lucky enough that a high elf adept shipbuilder and her two apprentices had agreed to come to the village. Skill ranks were not arbitrary in The Land. Novice was skill level one through nine. Ten through twenty-four granted initiate level, and levels twenty-five through fourty- four meant you were an apprentice. Journeymen were levels forty-five to sixty-nine, adepts were seventy to ninety-nine , and masters had achieved skill level one hundred and above. What the ranks meant seemed to vary from skill to skill as far as Richter could tell. Magic masters and adepts could teach spells without spell books, and training with someone of a higher rank than you would increase the rate that someone leveled their skills. Other than that, Richter really didn’t have an understanding of how the ranks impacted anything.
    “Ho the ship,” Richter called out.
    “Very funny, my Lord,” the ship builder said. Shivona was short for a high elf at five and a half feet. She had long black hair plaited to her waist, a petite figure and broad hips. Rather broad and round actually… Richter had noticed that she switched when she walked in a… very distracting way. Richter liked her for her confident attitude and competent manner. When they had first come to the village, she had caught him staring a time or two. She never seemed angry, though, she just gave him a challenging little smile and then stared right back. He decided to forgo that this morning, speaking up before she noticed him.
    “I’m glad to see that you’ve started on the ship.” The ribbing was well on the way to being completed as far as Richter could tell. “Is there anything you need from me?”
    “Things are moving well, but if I could have one of those Mist Workers allocated to me, then things would move a good deal faster,” she said.
    “Done,” Richter said promptly. Mist Workers were magical constructs that Richter could summon. They lacked any real intelligence, but they were strong and had good reserves of stamina. They couldn’t be trusted with complicated tasks, but were perfectly suited for manual labor. Unfortunately, he could only summon so many per day, the amount dictated by the 1,000 mana limit on the village’s mana pool. It did regenerate every hour, but only so much. When the villagers had found out about the magical beasts of burden, they all decided they had to have one. Needless to say, demand was high. Ship construction was a priority for Richter, though. There were no internet or telecoms in The Land. The only way for his village to be connected to the rest of world was to physically travel to neighboring towns and settlements. He had arranged for one of the ships that had brought the settlers to the Mist Village to return to the boundaries of the Confusing Mist spell in