Finishing up his work with the plants, both in his hoard and the greenhouse, Roge walked out of the side entrance to avoid the dangerous customer, finding a pleasant surprise waiting for him. Snow. It was coming down lightly, but snow nonetheless. He didn’t think it was cold enough for that kind of weather, only feeling mildly chilly with no visible signs of breath, but maybe the machines ‘magically’ kept the snow together or something. It seemed to be sticking to the ground just fine, anyway.

  Pulling up his clock, he noticed that it just ticked over into December, a warm feeling suffusing his chest. “Christmas…” he muttered, letting out a deep sigh as he banished the thought. No doubt the holiday didn’t exist anymore, which made his footfalls feel a bit heavier. It was his favorite holiday after all.

  Arriving at the League building with no issues, Roge walked over to his adventuring group who had gotten there earlier. “Hey guy. So… I’m having a bit of an issue with… expectations…?”

  “Not sure what that means,” Sean chuckled, chewing on some jerky as all three looked at the dragon, “but we’ll help however we can.”

  “It feels like it shouldn’t be… cold enough for snow…?” Roge questioned, noting the snow coming down a bit heavier and slightly coating the ground. Luckily, each picnic bench was under the canopy of one of the blueoaks, leading to their undercarriages being mostly snow-free.

  “Um Roge? It’s freezing right now,” Hops commented, Roge noting the elf shivering even as his cloak glowed and put off heat.

  “It’s your species. Focus on that like you would with your class,” Sean recommended, the lion also not looking too cold. Roge did as he was told, however, frowning as the screen popped up.

  “Well that explains a few things,” Roge grumbled, feeling the air around him but again only feeling a slightly chilly breeze. “Besides the normal magic, breath, and hoarding stuff, apparently sapphire dragons are water and ice aligned. So I have a resistance.”

  “Ooo! We [Beastkin] have a twenty percent resistance to cold effects. What do you have?” Marge asked, both her and Sean looking comfortable in their slightly thick coats.

  “…Seventy five?” he murmured, causing Sean to nearly spit out his jerky. “To water, ice, and cold. Balanced with a seventy five percent weakness to fire, explosions, and heat.”

  Sean cursed at that, giving the dragon a pitying look. “Really good for winter, but no wonder you always hated the summer.”

  “Well, I also have an increased affinity with items related to ice, water, and cold too. So I guess that explains why the icy coin only took one to get a buff.” Roge tapped on his muzzle at that, feeling his mind churning a bit better now that he was around his friends. “Means I should really focus on getting ice, water, and cold aligned nature stuff…. Right?”

  “You should also try and get some fire stuff too,” Hops recommended, Roge having to move away from the elf at the increased heat from his runed jacket. “Shore up your weaknesses. Sure it probably will take more to get the buffs, but right now even my jacket is causing you problems, and it’s at a comfortable temperature for me.”

  “That’s… fair,” Roge grumbled, pulling up his inventory and looking things over. “I unfortunately have no resources to get it. And I need to be saving coin right now…”

  “Well-“

  “Why do you need to save coin?” Marge interrupted, Hops frowning at being cut off.

  “Oh I need to move out in the next few days,” Roge stated, attempting to wave away their concern but apparently only seeming to add to it. “Since I’m no longer drinking at my parents’ bar, my mom-“

  “Oh that BITCH!” Sean snarled out, Roge flinching at the anger radiating from the lion. “She’s kicking you out?”

  “Worse. Charging a gold a week rent.”

  “That’s… what in the…” Marge sputtered, even Hops looking dangerously pissed at the information.

  “Guys. It’s fine. I’ll just find a new place that doesn’t cost as much.” Roge sighed as he thought about it, looking to the entrance to the courtyard. “I actually wanted to end training early to-“

  “Fuck that,” Sean growled, looking Roge right in the eyes. “There are spare rooms in the apartment building we live in. We’ll get you a place.”

  “But… I mean… Aren’t they expensive?”

  “Five silver a week bud,” Marge sighed, grimacing at Roge’s surprised look.

  “How… how is it that cheap?”

  “It’s for upcoming and existing League members. We sign you up today for a future test, and you’ll be accepted right away.” Hops pulled out a book after saying that, writing something down quickly. “I’ll handle the paperwork and I just need you to look it over and submit it.”

  “And we’ll make sure you’re ready for the test with training,” Marge said, giving Roge a kind smile. “Though the accuracy training is mainly so you’re a shoo in. Any Utility member who can heal like you can is already most likely to get in on principle.”

  “And I’ll have a talk with your mom later,” Sean growled, calming down with some deep breathing. “You need to pick up your stuff?”

  “Already packed.”

  “Damn. How big is your inventory?”

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Hops interjected, giving Sean a glare. “Your number of inventory slots equals your [Intelligence], with your [Strength] determining stack size. It gives too much-“

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  “Ten [Strength] and forty nine int,” Roge stated, earning him a simultaneously disapproving and wide-eyed look. “Yeah I know, it’s not balanced at all…”

  “How much is your wis?” the elf asked, breaking his own statement from earlier, which Roge found slightly funny.

  “Twenty three.”

  “Jeez, your mana capacity is huge. I have ten less in both, and I still rarely run out.”

  “Wait. You have [Mana Manipulation]?” Roge sat up when the elf grimaced, a smile growing on the dragon’s face. “You do know the items I can make just require that to work, right?”

  “Well I can’t just ask you for-“ Roge didn’t let him get much further, standing up on the table and looking up at the branches on the tree. He still couldn’t reach with his claws, but throwing up a solidified ice blade from his wand cut off a nice sized branch that he quickly smacked with his wand to put into his inventory. He intentionally aimed for a very thin branch, only funneling one point of mana into the ice blade. He expected it to take the normal ten seconds a rank one ability had, but it barely took a second.

  “Flow is ten times faster…” Roge muttered, getting distracted for a moment and swapping the rank 1 coin for the rank 4 icing coin. He still kept his solidifying buff, meaning his increased affinity was a straight ten times multiplier to the ability. Grabbing the rank 1 coin from his last icing petal, he added it to his wand, confirming his hypothesis when the ability on the wand went from a rank four to five instead of making two of the same ability.

  “Roge…?” Sean asked, giving the dragon a concerned look. Considering he’d frozen after grabbing the branch, he thought it was a valid concern.

  “One sec…” he mumbled, pulling out the branch and looked it over as he sat back down. It was easy to find an offshoot that was long enough for what he needed, snapping it from the main branch and shoving the rest into his inventory. He then pulled out one of his prepped bottles, giving Hops a cocky smile.

  “So. I can either make a straight up healing or acid wand for you, limited to ten mana per minute and which can only spray the effect. Or…” Roge looked at Hops’ robes as he trailed off, his head tilting at the elf’s confusion. “Or we could try and add your runes to this bottle to make it better. Unless runes don’t work on magic tools…”

  “They do,” Hops confirmed, his expression turning thoughtful. “I can’t get around the flow restriction that well, maybe increasing it by ten points.” He pulled out another book at that, the elf flipping through what looked to be rune definitions.

  “Any way I can learn those?” Roge asked, briefly distracted once again.

  “I’m not sure. [Artificers] have never been interested in my runes,” Hops chuckled, finding the page he wanted and looking through it. “After you complete the wand, I can add ten to the flow restriction. That’ll take up the stick portion entirely, though, so I can only put two other runes on the bottle portion. One obviously to increase the rank of the ability by one, but the other…”

  “Do you have anything with ‘solidifying’ in the description?” Roge asked, not being able to look too closely with his aversion to the elf’s heated cloak.

  “I… hmmm…” Shockingly, the book had a glossary at the back, Hops, flipping through the pages a few times before he settled on one particular rune. “I’ve looked at this before. Never experimented with it and it seemed useless…”

  “It’s how I make the balls,” Roge explained, reading off the description for the icing buff. “Solidifying seems to take the effect and compress it into a sphere. Though I haven’t experimented with much else regarding it…”

  “So a flow increase, a rank increase, and a solidifying rune?” Hops asked, turning to the other two party members who just looked really confused at their talk. “Since Roge is going to have his multi-effect wand, what effect would we need?”

  “Well… uh…” Sean stuttered, while Marge took a deep breath.

  “You’re always leaning down to make your runes or drawing them on rocks.” She turned to Roge, the deer lady giving him a wink. “We’ve had to tell him not to do that in combat. Half the time his runes come out wrong and explode in his face. That’s the biggest problem, but I’m not-“

  “Perfect! What do you use to make the runes?” Once hops pulled out what looked to be a metal stylus, Roge immediately grabbed it and [Inspected] it.

  “Thought so.”

  “Wait! That’s my only…” Roge immediately ripped out the coin, the pen’s ash scooping up into his inventory as the dragon felt his hoard ability rank up once again. The others went quiet and still as he moved on to making the healing wand, finishing up within a couple minutes to Hops muttering to himself.

  “Last step,” Roge muttered himself, swapping out the rank one [Healing] ability with the [Inscribe] one, smiling as blue flames danced on it’s surface.

  “Done!” Roge excitedly shouted, handing over the now ink filled bottle wand to the elf, only to flinch back at his glare. “Uh…”

  “This better be go-“ he growled, Hops freezing as he looked at the description. “It’s the same! But more temporary! What the hell did you-“

  Roge, feeling a fire of indignation light in his chest, snatched the wand back and channeled mana into it, moving it through the air and leaving behind a shining green line as he did. He only needed to glance at the solidifying rune and command the green lines to move, the wand feeling his intent as he did so. With a bit of extra mana, he didn’t even have to move the wand, the mana powered [Inscription] ability making the rune snap into place. He then flicked it towards the snow a foot away from the table, feeling his [Mana Manipulation] rank up and extending his range just enough to reach the snow. He felt a bit smug as the snow rapidly rolled up into a ball, though he quickly deflated at their shocked looks.

  “Please don’t tell me you used a buff…” Hops whined, practically drooling over the wand now.

  “Nope. *Any* surface includes the air,” Roge stated, drawing some more green lines in the air. “Changing the lines to form the rune was just sending intent towards the wand, no buff needed. Though I did have to activate the rune on itself first, so it kept its shape as I pushed it around.” He demonstrated that by pushing the random squiggles, finding only the portions he concentrated on moving. “If the inscription solidifies, you can push it all as one unit.”

  “Why is the flow so high though?” Hops wondered, looking closely at the wand.

  “Not sure. Unlocked that recipe just now, so…” He flinched as he found his answer, the skill description having changed, as well as him losing a hundred points of mana instead of ten.

  “Tool creation got expanded. Non-magical abilities get their flow and cost boosted times ten. So a hundred flow added to the item, and the cost to make it is a hundred mana.”

  “Yikes, that's a lot. Even more when you can get higher rank items…” Hops grumbled, grabbing the wand from the distracted dragon’s claws and trying his hand at it. It took almost no time at all for him to figure out how to draw out the solidifying runes, though he needed to look at the page more than once to perfect it. His ‘ink’ was a light orange in hue, Roge feeling the ridges above his eyes go up in shock. ‘Is that… fire?’ Hops then solidified and shrank the rune, sizzling as it placed itself on the body of the bottle. Two more runes, and the wand was fully inscribed, both of them surprised when they noticed the flow going up by another two hundred points.

  “So the times ten applies to runes?” Hops muttered, Roge nodding his head.

  “Makes sense. Ten each rank at two. Plus ten for the rune is thirty. Times ten to get its flow of three hundred.”

  “Okay enough,” Marge yelled, smacking the two of them on the backs of their heads. When she got behind the dragon, he hadn’t noticed, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment. “Too much nerd talk. Go off by yourselves for that. We need to get training! Roge’s housing is on the line.”

  “Right, sorry,” Roge muttered, getting up and trailing behind the deer woman.