Thankfully, early on in Roge’s explanation of Christmas, Hops mentioned the changes to Roge’s wand, suggesting he could use them to better *show* the others things instead of describing them. Roge had idly wondered where some of the visual effect was coming from, and it was apparently from his wand upgrading during the song.

  “I will never understand why abilities upgrade…” Roge muttered, earning a chuckle from Hops.

  “This one is easy to explain. At least for [Bardic Mages], one of the requirements is to have an instrument that they use as their focus. A focus is where the information for their spells are kept and called from, similar to your recipe book. When they gain the class, the instrument gains the abilities needed for bards to make their performances and stores the stories they tell.” Hops shrugged at that, giving Roge a smile. “Yours works similarly, but instead of it being a repository of your stories, it’s all instead memories you’re calling forth. And you channel those stories through the wand.”

  “So… basically like how my [Artificer] class works? Taking something from inside myself, and casting it through a magic tool?”

  “Right. I assume you added [Spark] and [Thunder] to the wand?” Roge nodded. “So your class basically replaced those with the new abilities. Those two might still combine to make something else, they just might need a higher rank to do so.”

  “Okay, enough!” Marge interjected, earning her smiles from the magic users. “More about this Christmas thing! And why pine trees?”

  Showing them what Christmas trees and decorations looked like took no time at all, though he couldn’t really explain how it was all done without magic. His friends seemed to think the lights were all magic items, which Roge didn’t correct. He could tell Harold wanted to ask about it, but the priest kept silent as he continued to the gift giving and songs that would be sung around the holidays.

  “Honestly, I prefer our Christmas,” Sean grumbled, earning him a sigh from the dragon. “Less muss and fuss, and you get a big meal! This other world’s holiday sounds like it’d be expensive.”

  More complaints kept piling up at that, especially since the images Roge could create were hazy at best and were bad at details. It didn’t bother the dragon, though, feeling the fun and peaceful feelings of Christmas washing over him. After some more explaining, Roge was interrupted by some more popups, though these ones surprised him some with how quickly they came.

  “That… levels up fast,” Roge commented, moving over to his stat sheet and looking at it confused. “Why does one of my skills not fill up a skill slot?” he asked, earning wide eyed looks from everyone.

  “That’s not good,” Fred commented, the wolf’s ears pinned back in worry. “It means the skill comes with some kind of drawback. Which one is it?”

  “[Emotional Clarity]. It makes it so I feel the emotion of the story stronger.”

  “Watch over-leveling that one Mr. Youngston,” Harold cautioned, increasing Roge’s worry. “From the sound of it, it doesn’t activate all of the time, but using it to not feel bad emotions can be just as damaging.”

  “I can see that,” Roge muttered, feeling tempted to tell another story to not feel his current nerves as much. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Well, I should be heading out now,” the drow said, standing up and holding out a hand to shake. “Congratulations, both on joining the league and getting your new class. I’ll be by soon to dissolve your probation.”

  “Really?” Roge breathed, shaking the priest’s hand.

  “If you couldn’t even get Bardic Mage, there’s no issue young man. Just make sure to stay safe out there. The world can be a dangerous place.” With that, the priest walked out of the courtyard, Roge watching him as something seemed to release in his chest. No more being watched. No more fearing what power he might unlock next. Just the slow gain of power and magic that he could use to improve the world and his life.

  ‘Next stop? Bed.’ Roge certainly felt like he had enough excitement for one day, looking up at the pink moon with a smile on his face as he got up to go home.

  ~~~

  When Roge put on his clothes for the next day after showering, he found that his new [Bardic Storytelling] ability activated right away, adding the same alterations to his other pair of pants. His shirt didn’t change at all, still being a gradient from dark to light purple from the top to bottom, but he assumed that was because he wasn’t in the middle of a performance. ‘At least my jacket and boots don’t look too bad,’ he thought to himself, going out and sitting on one of the couches. Activating a harvest felt almost natural to him after incorporating it into his morning routine, smiling as his materials all bumped up.

  When he’d gone and delivered the batch of leaves the previous day, Madam Madrid had let him know that her stocks were good to go for cultivating it on her own, so he’d only need to stop by with anything new. He hadn’t told her about the test, but he knew she knew and he’d have to visit her that day to let her know he might not be around much. ‘Going to miss interacting with her every day…’ To distract himself, he decided to [Inspect] the leaves and seeds, just to see if anything had changed.

  Roge froze as he noticed the seed ability, groaning when he looked over the other seeds and found that each of them had a rank one ability as well. Looking at the colored seeds showed that they only contained their respective pigment abilities, leading him to wonder how they picked and chose which ability the seed had. ‘Well… might as well start taking coins from the seeds, since the petals and leaves have other uses…’

  Once he was done getting more of his coins back to the amount he wanted, he started up by making more of the potions he’d need for Marge’s arrows. When he saw how hard the rain was coming down outside, he was tempted to use the rainwater instead of his breath, but he decided against it and got to work. The four basic element ones and the fire blight ones were simple for him to figure out, but he frowned when he noticed how many he’d need for the other potion types. Just like with his wands, it required more petals overall, each hybrid needing fifteen of the suckers. He could make one type, but be completely out of the other types. Thankfully, Marge had vacated her room by that point, Hops sitting next to the dragon as well now that he’d looked up. He also ignored the popups he saw, wanting Marge’s opinion first before he looked at them.

  “Hey Marge?” he called out, the deer woman looking up from the sharpening of her normal arrows. He got distracted for a moment thinking of making her more normal arrows before he refocused. “I don’t have enough petals. Would you prefer more explosive or electric fire arrows, or would you want me to make you some frost fire ones?”

  “Why don’t you just swap the abilities around?” she asked, Roge letting out a sigh.

  “It wouldn’t level my creation skill, though I think I just got it to ten. So that might not matter?”

  “What’s the hoard skill at?” Hops asked, looking up from his book.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Eleven.”

  “Then make them first,” the elf recommended, looking back down at his book as he spoke. “Better to only start doing swaps when they’re both even, due to being able to get the hoard ranks through other methods.”

  “Then I’d want the frost fire,” Marge decided, Roge giving her a bit of a smile as he swapped things around to unlock the potion recipe. That’s when he noticed the popups again, grinning widely at what it said.

  “That’s… overpowered…” he muttered, drawing the attention of the deer woman and elf. “A free novice crafting skill?”

  “Knew you might get that!” Hops crowed, earning him a dirty look from Roge. “The skill is never going to upgrade beyond novice, so you’ll never be quite as good as a master artisan. So it balances out.”

  “But… I can use my [Nature Magic] to shape pretty much anything…”

  “Anything related to nature,” Hops corrected as the dragon let out a sigh. “Still a big thing, but not as much as you’d think. Plus, once you pick the skill, you have to level it up to ten to reach the next level in Artificer. So I’d hold off on it.”

  “Yeah… yeah…”

  “You know what you’re going to choose?” Marge asked, looking towards Sean’s room. “Might be best to pick something our resident tank can use.”

  “Well that depends,” Roge hedged, thinking the problem over. “Is it related to the products, like crafting armor? Or is it related to the process, like blacksmithing?”

  “Usually the process. So something like nature crafting or something similar might work.” Hops hummed after saying that, tilting his head. “Actually, that would be the best option. Even though it’s a mundane crafting skill, and the norm would be woodworking, making plants grow into items could… *technically* fall under that. We’d need to check if it’ll accept it after you level your class up.”

  “Alright…” Roge grumbled, not liking the answer as he got back to work making the potions. “Could you grab me breakfast? I assume we’re not going out to train in this weather?”

  “Definitely not. We planned a rest day anyway,” Marge grumbled, Roge chuckling at that. “What? Water and fur do not mix.”

  “Fair enough.” He got started then on the ‘frostfire’ potions, thinking more and more that he’d start using that as his main attack for his wands. While yes, the flaming spark ones were pretty cool, frostfire seemed more on brand for him. ‘It also looked like it… did more damage?’ He assumed that was because of his affinity with ice, cold, and water. So any attacks he made with them would be stronger. ‘Wonder if I can use frostfire with my breath attack…’

  Once he had the potions done, made another mold out of glass and wood, he set two arrowheads to start being made as he worked on something else. He also took note of the fact that he was all out of crystal dust again, desiring so badly for there to be a way he could make more of the stuff. Since the arrowheads would take a bit, and his first plan went up in smoke due to the lack of materials, he decided to look over his plants. They’d come to an agreement that he could bond with one normal and one magical plant, taking advantage of the [Magical Bonds] effect he’d gotten with his [Farm Hoard].

  ‘Also need to source more fertilizer,’ he thought to himself, having found out that it ticked down once for every type of plant he had on Mondays. He then looked over the various other plants, sighing as he once again saw that the fire blight was also affected by his diminished affinity with fire. He wasn’t sure when he’d get enough to warrant a buff from them and couldn’t wait to see what it was. In the meantime, the magic plant he picked was his tulips, finding that he could select all of them. Made sense considering they all used to be the same plant before being augmented.

  Bringing the flowers into his growing psychic web was as simple as pushing mana towards them, silently wondering how they bypassed his immunity to mind skills. He thought about asking Hops later before finding his body filled with energy, opening his eyes to see the buffs.

  Roge frowned at the new popups, having not meant to do all of his plants at once. ‘Gonna get flack for that later.’ Knowing they might not let him pick a mundane plant after that stunt, he quickly chose to bind to a random plant in his hoard, ignoring the finished arrowheads as he closed his eyes again.

  He picked one at random, not knowing which would be useful. The orange trees seemed to be calling out to him, though, Roge focusing on the plants and feeling emotions being broadcast to him. Again, it wasn’t really words, but that seemed to be the best way his mind interpreted the intrusive feelings.

  ‘Do you look for power?’ the tree asked, giving Roge a bit of a chill.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’ he asked, the feeling of a dark chuckle running through his chest.

  ‘Of course. You seem more ambitious than most. We will join with you. To see where you go.’ It sounded way too easy to the dragon, but he soon felt the bond solidify, where he promptly gasped at the feeling that enveloped him.

  “Increased what?!” he shrieked, right as soon as Sean exited his room. The lion’s gaze quickly swiveled to the dragon, Roge shrinking back at the fiery look.

  “What did you do?”