“If you look you will see a faint shimmer or light, that is because it's really weak right now as far as these things go. Really the only way to make it stronger is to grow the settlement, as more people live around that align with it or mana rich resources are present in its area will also feed it to help it grow. So something like your cave as it develops will hopefully help, but mostly it's going to be from our population developing and growing. Generally they will grow abilities that lean towards the actions of the residents as well, so the cultures involved in the early life of a settlement will influence its affections over time as well. There isn’t a lot for you to worry about beyond knowing that your cave could be a boon for this, which will introduce new abilities for the settlement core which will then either improve our quality of life by creating improvements for the area or introduce new safety measures which will also definitely make living here feel more comfortable”

  “I will reach out to a few healing houses that I know usually keep on spare healers training them up, and see if anyone wants to move into the forest with no baths or fancy bardic shows to watch, and hope they aren’t sending anyone too strange. Once they get back to me I will let you know” chuckling at his joke together I let Mircha walk me out before heading off towards my cave.

  I needed to make a checklist, or something, as I felt like I was more reacting without actually moving forward with a long term plan and this was a good wake up call to that fact. As soon as I got back to the cave I fished a page from my notebook and a pencil, and started putting together a list.

  

  
1. Finish the cave


  
2. See what this slime core can become, a tame could be useful


  
3. Train with Sula until I feel confident to tackle the next stage of the dungeon


  
4. Learn the remaining body enhancements with Sula’s assistance to avoid making a mistake


  
5. Set up a proper healing house with rules and a shift schedule with this new healer.


  

  Some of the list felt massive, others felt tiny, but overall just having this listed out definitely made it seem easier. I was going to have to remember that while I thrived from combat it seemed, despite most healer classes containing the combat tag, most healers were more safety focused and as such would usually avoid combat overall. They traded faster growth for safety, but when you can make reasonable money and slowly level I can understand why some would choose that option. This means the healer we got would likely have quite a different personality to my own mental image of a healer.

  Starting off another mana gem I checked my current total, and realised I was only a few gems off finishing the estimate we had for the cave to complete its mana saturation. As I had placed gems into their spots all around my room, the storage room, and the guest sleeping space along with the healing area I had felt the mana slowly becoming more familiar and my regen was a smidge better but it wasn’t a major difference. Hopefully once it was fully saturated it would be a notable improvement, and having the founders quest completed would be huge. It had felt like a small life time that had been sitting there in my list though I knew I was steadily getting closer to finishing it.

  With only one thing left I could really put time into, as Sula wouldn’t be free until just before dinner for any training time together, I decided to pull out my slime tame book to see what information I might get.

  Not too complex really, be nice to it, make sure it has a job to do and treat it like a pet. Really didn’t seem hard to mess up, and as much as the rest of the settlement was growing into a community I just didn’t enjoy the crowd at a lot of social spaces, five people count as a crowd when its around a single fire I feel, outside of my cave so a little friend would be a nice touch to my life here. Before feeding the slime to awaken it I decide to read at least the first getting started section as well, so I don’t hurt my new friend with lack of knowledge.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  So don’t let anyone bully the slime and give it some fun tasks, I could think of a few things, it could tidy the cave with me and greet people coming for healing. Oh maybe it could even let me know if I am not out front if someone comes, so I could spend more time in bed reading instead of outside when the weather turns.

  Deciding to not to get ahead of myself I grab out the slime core, and start to slowly funnel my mana into it to wake them up. Slowly as the mana trickles in a dark red substance starts slowly seeping out of the core, finally stopping as it stops accepting any new mana flowing in. Feeling like it's staring at me I look down at the little guy.

  About the size of a large watermelon, and a really dark deep red colour slime body but with a core that was black with flickers like embers fading in and out across it in waves. “Ember, how about that name for you?” As soon as I spoke the slime climbed up my chest and nudged my face gently on the right side with a tendril of its body. Laughing I picked him up and popped him back on my bed. “I will take that as a yes, let me inspect you then we can get a tour going of your new home alright?” focusing on Ember I quickly get a stat sheet pulled up.

  It was a bit bare, but from memory most monsters that were high in magical affinity used raw mana manipulation sort of similar to the Drakes rather than skills like we did, so hopefully he wasn’t completely defenceless just in case a bird or something decides to grab a snack when we are out and about. Oh I would have to check the book out, maybe I could get him to consume some cards or cores to gain skills too. Picking him up I am excited to show Ember his new home, though hopefully he didn’t mind sharing my bed until we had a new one ready for him.