Looks like I might have hit quite the lucky break. I go back to the axe, and finish it, leavih 14 mana. This time, instead of ying against the pile, I pick up one crystal, and grip it. It feels hot for a few seds, then cools down, below the temperature I'd normally expect. When I check my mana, I'm back to full again, but the crystal is at about half the brightness it was before, and I thankfully haven't lost any more hp.

  I set it aside, away from the rest of the pile, and use my mana re-writing my stats wall. Then I go bay pile, and this time select as small of a crystal as I find, again, gripping it in my hand. It feels hot for only a sed, and when I open my hand, the crystal has lost almost all brighto it. It didn't recover all my maher, so I grab another crystal, to recharge my mana.

  I repeat the process a few times, fixing all my wall stats, and the to-do list, while testing different crystals. Previously, I was supposing I'd have almost no mana, but now, it seems like I have nearly infinite mana, which lets me ge my priorities slightly. I'm living in a cave, with a rough floor, and it's more tubur than ft, although a rge portion of the floor area is ft, albeit uneven. I could work on that. The first things I'll need for that though, are some tools. Tools I make with stone.

  I make an item approximating a level by making a long, straight stick that is capable of holding a small amount of water in it. If the water inside is toug both sides of the stick, then it is approximately level. It's nothing like modern engineering, but for the purposes of leveling the floor in this room, I use it as a start. Stone shaping is fairly ve as well, so as long as I'm envisioning what I want, I make it, if I keep focused while I'm using it. So after the level is made, I should just be able thly level an area of ground, then slowly shift its ail the water is level.

  Speaking of water, I'll have three options for that. I could go all the way to the o for it, which is obviously very dangerous, especially at my level. Option two is to find a stream, which is holy just as dangerous as option one. Option three is less risky. Make a bucket, a outside until it rains. Which sounds like the best method to me.

  So, I begin the first step to making a more livable area, making a bucket. Stone shaping only needs one hand to cast, so I decide to try something this time as well. In my off hand, I hold a rger crystal, and in my main hand, I begin casting stone shaping on ay se of wall. My goal is to cut out a det k of stoo work with. Normally, my mana would run out before I isote the whole k, and then envisioning where I left off would probably be impossible, since I'm removing a small amount around the edges at a time, including behind it.

  As I cast, I feel the crystal growing hot, but not unbearably so, and after quite a few seds, the stone block makes a king sound as the remaining amount in the back breaks, and the k is now free. I made the space around the bloough I could reach to the back of it so I could pull it free from the wall, which is partly why it was so expeo do this. Before I pull it out though, I o move all the little ks of stone I removed from around the block. I 't destroy stoh my magily shape it, so I essentially just shaped the pieces around the bloto small spheres, so they'd roll free, and act like bearings for moving the block.

  Once I've suffitly cleared an area, I move the sto from the wall, and slide it to where I work on it. Now, for a stone bucket, I don't think that there is anywhere I could safely attach a handle, and expect the sto to break, so I'm going to just go with a design where my arms have a good pce to rest under a lip he top of the bucket.

  As I begin shaving away areas of the bloake the bucket, I run into a sed problem. This is igneous rock, which means it's not necessarily solid throughout. There are empty pockets in it. So I attempt something new with stone shaping, which has mixed results. I imagine removing small pockets from the rock, and shaping it such that it's more closely packed. The first thing that happens is the block breaks into many smaller pieces, basically fracturing through many points. The sed thing I notice is that the stone looks a little different than it did. Before there was an uneveo its c, but it seems to be more uniform now.

  So I attempt a sed experiment, fusing stoogether, starting with simir stohe simir stones in fact do fuse together. I then try to break them apart at the fusion point manually, and have difficulty doing so. , I try two different stones, a the process. This time, although difficult, I do break the sto the fusion point with some force. Well, at least for now I finish the bucket.

  After going through a few more crystals, I've pleted my bucket, to be ho, it's a bit heavy, and I'm a little worried for how heavy it will be when I've got water in it, but I'll have to make do for now. Although I'm feeling a little tired, I make my way out to the cave exit, and find a pce off to a side where it'll gather some water if it rains, but out of the way enough that it won't be spotted unless it's being looked for, and then I head back down into the cave to sleep.

  The day, I make my way back up to check the bucket, but unfortunately, it's empty. That's ok though, I have other things I do with my time now. Although the idea of making furniture in my room is appealing, I'd rather build it into the room when I actually have the floor and walls done, rather than making furniture that doesn't sit on the ground properly.

  What I decide to work on instead is making some trays for carrying out the charcoal, and fing roots back with. It'll take a little trial and error, because I want to make them as thin as I without them breaking, but once I get it to that point, it should make moving the charcoal and bringing the roots back that much easier.

  Speaking of the roots, the inal test group is still doing well. They haven't had any issues so far after 15 days. Which means I bring even more ba the future, which is all the more reason to have a carrying device. Because the tray will be carrying solids, rather than liquids, I'm not as ed with it being made out of rock that has small gaps in it, which should actually help with the weight of it. In fact, I have oher thing I want to try as well as makirays normally. I go an grab some of the trated igneous rock from before to do my test with, as well as a new block ur igneous rock.

  By the end, I've made 7 trays to test. It took a better part of the day, but I don't have much of a choice. All the trays are the same width ah, and have the same handle shape, all desigo be fortable for me to hahe first 4 are made of varied thiesses ur igneous rock. The wo are made of different thiesses of the trated igneous rock. The st one is the one I have the highest hopes for. It's ihicker half of the trays, but it took loo make than all the other trays bined.

  I started with trated igneous rock, and made a retively thihen I filled out the bulk of what would be the tray with a honeyb pattern of rock material, and covered the outsides of it to hide the inner honeyb.

  As I test the trays, the two thicker pin igneous rock trays are the only regur trays that don't break. That said, they were still lighter thahicker trated tray. The honeyb tray also needs a little bit of fiuning. Although it's actually retively light, in fact, it's as light as the thi igneous rock tray, one of the cs cracked part of the way through as I carried it. sidering its weight, I do with thiing some of the parts of it, if just to see how it holds up. If I make it stable while keeping its weight uhe sed thickest igneous rock tray, then it's a win.

  I set a time frame of testing and perfeg of this for 2 days. If by then it is still givirouble, I'll resort back to the regur tray. I say this mostly because I want to make a few trays before I go out, so that I take the time to load each tray up in advao minimize how long I'll have to spend iween trips outside. For now though, it's time to experiment.