Chapter 19: [Vol-1] Ch.19 Nose to the Grindstone

When I wake up, I can't quite tell if I've gotten even bigger or not. The last time I could barely tell, so maybe I'm getting close to how tall I can actually get. My head feels a little different, so I feel over it. There are two short nubs that are starting to form there. I can only assume it's the beginning of horns from the feeling of it.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 0
HP: 156/156
MP: 51/51
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

I etch my new stats into the wall, and begin my normal daily routine. Honestly, soon I'll need to copy all these stats from the wall onto stone tablets, and make more space here. I'll be running out soon. For now I'm fine, but it might be a nice break from working on the store room one day.

I finish eating, and then make my way to the store room to begin leveling the floors. While progress is going at a decent pace, I do notice a slowdown based on my smaller total MP. I have to stop a lot more to change out crystals for shaping. This will probably cause delays moving forward.

At the end of the day, I recheck my status.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 1
HP: 162/162
MP: 52/52
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

Ok, so I gained 6 HP, and one MP from leveling this time. I mark the stats down on the wall. I also only gained one level today. Maybe when I sit down and copy these down, I should do some tabulations as well. For today though, this is enough.

---

The next three days go by uneventfully, and steady progress is being made on the storage room. Tomorrow I'll need to go and harvest lion root again.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 4
HP: 180/180
MP: 57/57
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

While my MP is quite high for my level, my HP pool is still relatively small compared to what it was only a few days ago, which makes me a little nervous for going outside. I just hope that my slightly more intimidating look will discourage any would be predator from victimizing me in my weakened state. Despite my concerns I quickly fall asleep due to fatigue from working all day.

---

The next day, I get ready, and set out to harvest more lion root. I take a bit longer than normal because I'm being extra cautious and using as much cover as I can while I travel. The only time I had a little worry was when I passed by the tree where I saw the birds before. They were there again, but instead of scattering, they started making a racket as I approached, so I gave them a wide berth and went around.

The positive for lion root is that it's plentiful. I'm thankful to have found a good source of food that I can readily get. Every time I harvest it though, I'm painfully reminded of the downside that I have to spend the entire day harvesting and preparing it. With spuds, I could harvest a much longer supply of it in the same amount of time, and I didn't have to prep all of it in advance. Well, I suppose survival is a give and take. The next few days I suppose I'll just hole up in in the storage area and work on it some more until I need to harvest more lion root.

---

The next six days I put my myself to the grindstone and build the storage area. I've almost finished all the floors and walls now. The remaining work is almost exclusively carving out shelving and bins from the lower area to increase the available room. I'd guess I only have four days of work left now. I'm thankful I have an indoor task like this to work on while I gain levels. I always feel nervous at the lower levels, since I'm so much weaker than I was before.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 11
HP: 222/222
MP: 69/69
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

When all is said and done though, I am gaining stats much quicker than before when comparing levels. Something I want to be careful of though is the arrival of the fireball goblin. I've been keeping a tally of days since he arrived last near my bed, I think pretty soon he should be turning back up, so I'm going to be extra cautious. I have extra dried imp meat, so after I harvest the lion root this time, I'm going to stop harvesting until after the goblins are gone again. With my next 5 days planned, I go to sleep.

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The five days pass without a hitch. Every day, after I eat, I would go to work on the storage room, closing my room off as I leave, and closing the storage room off as I go down, making sure everything is sealed, so I'm not suddenly attacked while I work. I would then cautiously peek out into the cave though a small hole I would make in the entryway before opening the whole thing up and repeating each day.

Finally, on the sixth day, I can move all my spare buckets into the storage space. As much as I'd like to go and retrieve the water buckets on the surface, and trade them for empties, I'm too nervous with the looming threat of the fireball goblin approaching again to go outside. Even the idea of leaving my room makes me a little nervous. Tomorrow I'll run out of lion root, and I'll be back to an all meat diet until the goblins leave again. With a little bit of extra time on my hands today, I decide to carve a new area in the entry tunnel to my room. While I won't complete it today, I'd like to have a place where I can properly butcher new imps. For now I spend time breaking blocks out of the wall, and then compressing the stone into a bucket, and filling the bucket with compressed marbles, and setting it aside.

Normally, I'd just go dump the marbles further in the cavern, but now I can store them in my storage room. I'm already going through the trouble of compressing them, which I didn't used to do. Then I'll have buckets with compressed stone as a stone shaping material if I want to make anything.

For the next three days, I continue working on my new little space here. I periodically stop to check if the goblin has arrived again, but each time, I'm greeted by an empty cavern. When I'm finished, I've got multiple spaces on the walls where I can hang an imp, or other small creature, to drain their blood. I've got slightly lowered spaces underneath them where I can set a bucket to collect the blood as well.

I've heard of some people who eat blood, or use it as an ingredient in cooking, and maybe I'll try it, but as I understand it, dried blood makes a good fertilizer, so I might try my hand at that if I have the opportunity.

Satisfied with my little slaughterhouse area, I head back to my room and sleep for the day while reviewing my status.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 20
HP: 276/276
MP: 84/84
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

---

Today, I think I'll take the time to start copying the wall stats down onto tablets. I still have those buckets of compressed stone around, so if I can quickly make tablets as needed as well, so I shouldn't need to leave the room, but I will still go to check the cavern periodically.

While the tablets can't hold a lot of information individually, only about 6 stat blocks on either side, it's still plenty when you consider the amount of wall space I'm using right now. I organize them in chronological order, and only keep one kind of imp stat block on a tablet. I have a single tablet with my original imp stats, or at least what I think I remembered of them. Then repeat for each kind of imp I was, some of which take up more than one tablet.

By the end of the day, the wall is clean, and the tablets are neatly stored on a shelf. I'm quite pleased with myself to be honest. It feels very modern to have information stored away like that... even if it's on stone tablets.

Tomorrow, goblins permitting, I might even start doing some basic tabulations off the data I have. With that decided, I once again close my eyes and check my status before going to sleep.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 21
HP: 282/282
MP: 85/85
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

I'm almost past my level 100 <Common Imp> stats, and I'm only level 21. Plus I now have sealed off the door to my cave. So I feel a bit more confident going to sleep, even though I know that the goblin will be back soon.

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