[NR] Hands On - Chapter 643 (Patreon)

Jason’s basement had been a bit of a pain during reconstruction. In the end, he had to fill it in and re-dig the thing after compacting the soil. Now, though, it was time to finish it.

Which does not begin with the ritual. Rather, Jason has to remove his house’s floor. The planks are stacked up under one of the drying areas, revealing the open hole that is his basement. Though it wasn’t a simple rectangle. Along the sides are square spaces built into the wall.

Jason goes over to the nearest and puts his hands together so that the thumbs are touching and forms a rough right angle so that his thumbs and fingers brackets the space. By design, the space is a bit smaller as Jason then extends his energy out of his hands until it matches the edges of the space.

With great care to not pull his thumbs apart, Jason walks outside to where a bunch of rough stone pillars are laying on the ground. He steps over the first one and begins to pull his Energy projection down the length of the pillar. With each pass, the Energy scrapes away at the stone, rapidly forming an exact mirror of the space, though deeper.

Once Jason is satisfied with the pillar, it is only a matter of sliding it into place. The side facing the inside of the basement is still rough and sticks out a good bit, but that was easily fixed with a swipe of his hand down each. Pillar finished, what needs to be done now is simply repeating that for each space carved out of the sides of the room.

Each pillar has about two steps between them and a pillar in each corner. So since the room itself is six steps by ten, that was 16 pillars in total. A good bit of work, but with his Energy substituting for the proper tools, he managed to finish this within a day. Most of the time going to setting the pillars into place and remaking two pillars that revealed cracks when shaved down to size.

Though with that done, it didn’t mean Jason was finished with stone working. However, it did result in a new skill.

{Hands On Stone Carving

This skill represents all those who have decided to carve up stones using just their hands, not because of a lack of tools, but despite them. You specifically have chosen to use Energy for this to boost your ability to do so.

Initiate Level 3 - 7.2%

Rarity: Rare

Type: Active, Production

Effects:

• Perfect Tool - No penalties from not having the right tool when carving stone as long as a close enough approximation is formed from Energy

• Carver’s Stone Sense - While carving stone without a tool, The feedback gives you an amazing sense for the stones structure

• Rough And Ready - Instead of finding the perfect stone or bringing out what you see within a stone, you take what you have and figure out how to make it work for you; and in doing so, there is an increased chance that you do end up finding what you need in that stone}

Jason was happy to get a rare skill. Though admittedly it was probably rare because very few would even think to carve stone with their hands and those that do likely edge more towards being sculptors. However!

He had also gotten more sensitive towards System nonsense. For instance, this skill has the “perfect tool” effect his other skill had. Does it really make sense for all the penalties for not using the right tool to magically disappear? Not to say that the System is fixing things, it could instead be holding things back.

For instance, what if it is restricting his ability to use Energy forms for crafting and only allowing them to be properly effective for stuff he has the effect for? Though it could also just be the System doing a bit of error correction behind the scene. Which brings Jason to the “rough and ready” effect.

That is pure nonsense. The System is clearly going in and whenever the effect activates, altering the stone. Now, it won’t be too powerful. Jason can’t just try and carve a stone tool head with the expectation of the working edge being made of diamond, then crack the stone open to find a pre-formed diamond axe edge, ready for the rest of the stone to be carved into an axe head for it.

What he does expect to happen is for internal defects to magical not be there despite what things might have appeared from the surface. However, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. There is enough stonework that needs done for his basement that any assistance is appreciated. Besides, it isn’t like the System nonsense is bad

For most people, they won’t ever even notice the difference. After all, for most, they’d need to hit level cap and try to keep advancing before these things would matter. And honestly, they likely don’t matter for Jason just yet either. Odds are good that even after he kicks the System out of his body, these external effects will keep working.

So satisfied with his new skill, Jason moved on to the next step. Though this one would require a bit more deconstruction of his house. Not right away though as he had assumed he would gain a skill from this and wanted to only start on it after that.

As for what the next step was? Simple enough, the floor. For which he planned to use a single slab of rock for. It had been difficult, but one of the later trips to the rock outcropping had involved him slicing off a complete layer and getting it home in one piece.

To get it right, he removed a wall of his house and slathered the top edge of the basement hole with some clay he managed to painstakingly separate. Then picked up one side of the slab and dragged it in, gently setting it down over the hole. After that, he picked up the opposite side and dragged it back out into the open and gently flipped it, revealing the clay had left a clear outline on the slab.