Roge sighed as he laid the armor down on the floor of the tent, feeling angry at himself for the way he acted. ‘You’re not a schoolgirl. Get over it.’ Before starting on the armor and shield, he decided to look over the coin description for [Warding], extracting one from one of the branches.

  ‘That’s too bad. It won’t protect *him* from damage, just help him protect others.’ Roge sighed at that, looking over the shield and feeling tempted to take the [Protection] ability out of it. ‘But if I do that, I’d have to bind it to a plant it’s not suited for.’ Deciding against it, he moved on to making the armor plates for the leather armor, bringing out the grey wood he would use to make them. Due to how often the armor was worn, Roge decided to try cleaning it first, pulling out his wand and putting in the [Purify] ability. He pushed away the notification of his [Screen Hoard] ranking up, trying out the wand and finding it was pretty good at cleaning things off. Even when he used it on himself, it cleaned off the grime and smell from his scales and clothing, making the fabric feel noticeably softer. ‘Going to show that off…’ he thought to himself, putting the wand away and getting back to the armor.

  The chest was the easiest place to start, as the leather had creases and lines where Roge presumed Sean moved it a lot. He, therefore, molded the wood to the parts that were mostly wrinkle free to keep his range of movement. He kept the padding simple by just making the branches flatten out into rectangles, though he made sure the padding kept the curve of the slightly stiff material.

  The arms were a bit harder, as he needed to make sure the plates wouldn’t get in the way if, let’s say, Sean crossed his arms. The more he added, the more he grumbled at the fact that the lion would have to try on the armor so Roge could adjust it where needed. The shield arm, he left almost completely alone though, as he noticed that the shield strapped directly to the armor.

  With the legs, he used the various roots he’d harvested, once again having the issue of wanting to make sure Sean still had enough range of motion. He only then noticed that Sean had included his boots as well, Roge frowning as he wondered what the lion was walking around in. Thankfully, the boots were cleaned from his wand, so he just added plates to the sides of the boots so he could enchant everything together.

  The shield was actually very easy to make, the plate on the back of the original shield being hammered on. Thankfully, they’d given Roge a crowbar when they were prepping for the journey, allowing the dragon to yank the nails out and set the strap aside. Noticing that his supply of ash branches was getting low, he decided to start off with the front of the new shield, making it thinner than normal before pulling out some blueoak roots to make the backing. He had a hard time at first with fusing the two woods together, but he eventually made them grow into each other, securing them pretty decently in place. Lastly was hammering in the strap, making sure it was in the exact same place as the previous shield.

  Roge grinned at the added level ups, the last upgrade confirming something for him. ‘My unusually high dexterity is why crafting is easier for me.’ He wanted to move on to enchanting the items, but he decided to hold off on that until after he’d fitted it to the lion. ‘Time to go outside, then.’

  ~~~

  It took Roge a good ten minutes to get himself to exit the tent, his eyes immediately being drawn to the lion who was relaxing by the fire. Roge frowned as he noticed Sean’s bare paws on the ground, moving over to him and placing the now clean armor next to him. “You’re going to hurt your feet walking around without shoes. You could have kept them,” Roge muttered.

  Sean rolled his eyes as he smiled. “It’s fine. Besides, my high con makes it more comfortable than you’d think.” He then started putting on the various armor pieces, grunting as he inspected them. “Why is it so clean?”

  “Oh!” Roge exclaimed, pulling out his wand and bathing his three party members in the effect. “My purify wand also cleans things. Apparently. Does that mean that dirtiness is a debuff?” He mumbled that last part to himself, the effect quickly working to get everyone clean.

  “Can I have the normal wand?” Hops asked excitedly, Roge sighing as he gave Hops the rank nine wand. He was going to give to to him anyway, but now that he knew the elf was mainly going to use it to keep himself clean, Roge was a little less enthusiastic with him having it.

  “It’s a bit tight in places,” Sean mumbled.

  Roge turned around at that and found the lion in the new armor, experimenting with his range of motion. “Tell me where?”

  They spent several minutes adjusting the size and shape of some of the plates, Sean finally satisfied when he could dodge and move around well enough. That was when Roge wanted to enchant the items, frowning when he noticed he only had eight branches left. “I can only enchant the pants and boots. Is that okay?” he asked, Sean chuckling in response.

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  “That’s fine. Honestly, just the defensive increase in the armor is worth it.” Roge then deconstructed more of the ash roots to get the [Transport] coins, making sure that time to keep everything in his inventory. He then focused as he added each coin in one at a time, kneeling down to touch the pants and boots. He apparently needed to enchant them separately, which made some sense. The effect he wanted was one of speed, enabling Sean to dodge away from and into attacks better. He knew the lion would most likely use the latter more often, but he still wanted to keep the basics with them. He also wanted to swap out at least one rank of the [Transport] with the [Pigment], wanting the color to stay, but not wanting the ability there clogging up space.

  Sean jumped as his pants and boots caught on fire, though the blue flames and Roge’s smile had him calming down from the fright.

  “That’s… that’s incredible Roge!” Sean yelled, causing Hops and Marge to glance over at the two and for the dragon to stand up. “My agility is shit, but if you can keep upgrading this…”

  “I might be able to at some point?” Roge said, looking over a popup that he’d received when he’d tried to add more than nine ranks to the pants.

  “It looks like I’m capped out at adding a total of nineteen ranks to an item. Similar to my bonded tools limit. But if an item has more than one ability, it looks like the total ranks I can have in an ability is cut down. So I can have up to nine ranks each for two abilities. Would probably be less if I tried to add more.”

  “So we need to get you something with the [Protection] ability for you?” Sean asked. “Or… something that has at least one rank in it. Then you can grow more and increase my armor to nine?”

  “Pretty much,” Roge said slowly, a bit shocked by the excited grin on Sean’s face. “Is [Protection] armor… rare?”

  “It’s not rare, just expensive,” Hops butted in, giving the improved armor a once-over. “Normally it costs a lot of materials, runes, and mana to make something like this.”

  Roge glanced at his own mana and winced. “Didn’t even notice, but that crafting session drained me down to ten mana. So the cheating part is mostly not needing materials?”

  “It’s more like you reduce things down to a purer level,” Hops said, picking up the shield and looking the item over. “The materials are needed to stabilize the process, and there’s always some loss. You, on the other hand, can solidify the precise effect you want, with no loss and no stability issues. While yes, it’s a cheat, it also makes you efficient any time you use your hoard.”

  With the revelation, Roge grabbed the shield to give to Sean, making sure every bit of the armor and shield had the metallic grey color he’d wanted. “Tomorrow, I should be able to add in the [Warding]… enchantment? Make the ability a higher rank on the shield and chestpiece at least. Not sure what it’s going to do, but I’m hoping I can make it more magic resistant, since I assume [Protection] works against physical attacks.”

  “Yup. That’d be great, actually,” Sean said, grinning like a loon at his armor. Roge sighed at that, looking over to the caravan driver’s camp and psyching himself up for a conversation.

  ~~~

  “You can just… magically summon a cart?” the caravan driver, Kristi Zamora was her name, asked skeptically. Her disbelief quickly turned to awe when Roge summoned his cart.

  Roge wasn’t surprised that it was made out of blueoak wood, the construction looking more like it grew that way rather than being constructed. He had a sudden flashback to Cinderella as he looked at the wheels, the ‘spokes’ winding as they branched out. Unfortunately, the cart did not have any sort of top to it, Roge tempted to try and get more fairy cats to upgrade it some more.

  “I know it’s not needed for the trip, and my party members aren’t going to be able to use it with how cold it is, but I wanted to rank up the skill some. I just wasn’t sure if it would hinder your skills or the speed.” As Roge explained his reasoning, Ms. Zamora looked over the magically conjured cart, inspecting every detail of it. “I’m also not sure if it stays summoned while I sleep, though I should be able to do that experiment before we head out.”

  “You’re going to use that sleeping powder?” she asked, waving over one of the guards to inspect Roge’s summon as well.

  “Something like that. I can add a drowsy effect to some of my wands.”

  “Well, I’d say go for it. Not going to interfere with my skills or traveling time. It might even help me out, as I’ll get a better chance at a rank up with more carts.” Ms. Zamora received a nod from the guard, Roge presuming that the cart was structurally sound. “Just let me know about an hour before sunset. Need time to hook it up to the back.”

  “No problem. Thank you Ms. Zamora,” Roge replied, cutting the mana to the cart and letting it disappear as he walked away.

  ~~~

  “So? How’d it go?” Sean asked, Roge sighing as he took a seat pretty far from the fire.

  “Still need to see if the cart lasts while I’m asleep, but otherwise, she said it’d be fine.? Even said it would help her skills.” Roge summoned the cart once again, wincing as his mana started getting dangerously low. ‘Thank goodness my regen is higher than this thing’s cost.’

  “That’s good. So you’re going to try that drowsy effect then?” Hops asked, pulling out his notebook.

  “Yup! Wake me up a few minutes after I fall asleep if it works.” He then swapped out the purify effect on the wand with the five [Inscribe] ranks, building up a good sized ball of paint over the course of a half minute. Focusing on the sedation effect, it strangely made him feel more awake, though he chalked it up to a mental thing, as just using the effect wouldn’t lower his exhaustion. Once he let go of the blob, it fell onto his chest, staining his shirt, jacket, and pants, though he was fine with that. Cleaning it up later wouldn’t be too hard, though that was the last thing on his mind as he felt the effect.

  It wasn’t too strong, just a light feeling of needing a nap, but Roge leaned into the feeling hard, his maw lifting into a grin during the few minutes it took him to fall asleep.

  ~~~

  Roge’s dreams were a little off as he drifted, starting out with crazy scenarios like his normal dreams did. What was not normal, was for the dreams to slowly dissipate to a new scene. One he felt like he should recognize.

  Non-magical green grass covered what looked to be a field, several plants and animals dotting the area. He couldn’t see very far, though, as after about a football field, the landscape shifted into a cold white fog. At least the sun was out, it’s brightness faded somewhat with the haze in the air. A cool breeze swirled around Roge’s face as he looked around at the flora and fauna, his body jerking upright as he recognized all of them. The fairies were dancing around some younger-looking orange trees, moving over to the blueoaks. Those trees looked more mature, though they couldn’t be more than double his height. Scanning the other trees, they were all a part of his hoard, confusing Roge to no end.

  “You’re here!” one of the fairy dogs squealed, moving over to the dragon and sitting on his lap. The black wings were a thing of the past, now replaced with a rainbow of color dipped in glitter. The claws still pricked Roge a little too hard, but that was the last thing on his mind as he looked around.

  “How… how *am* I here?” he muttered, finding his voice to have a strange, ethereal quality to it.

  “We felt you dream. So we pulled you in!” the wolf crowed, the other fairies mobbing Roge when they noticed him.

  “Can I… do anything here?” he wondered, giving the orange trees a cautious look. “Can I get hurt here?”

  “I… don’t know,” the fairy wolf responded, tilting their head cutely to the side. “But we would never hurt you, Master. You give us so much magic!” Roge was about to ask another question, when he felt water splashing onto his face, the dragon sputtering as he jerked up from his sleep.