"SERIOUSLY! YOU GOTTA MEND!" Whiskey yelled to him.

  "What?" he said, lifting himself from a swing.

  "You heard what I said. You gotta mend these pickaxes!" Whiskey pointed to a pile of broken excavation tools.

  "First of all. No. I didn't hear you. You talked right as I struck rock. Secondly, why? Why should I mend some old tools when I can help digging? We are making such good time. It doesn't make sense," he shot back, the hard labor getting to him.

  "Because you need the practice, Zan. Your mending skills are iffy at best. Trying them on an actual tool instead of a simple clay pot will do you good. Besides, you look more beat than an egg mixed into a cake. Take a load off. We will be done moving this by the new week," Whiskey said, as she maintained her line.

  He looked to the large slab of stone and earth they had chiseled half-a structure out of. The bunker was coming along nicely. About half of it had been revealed in the last few days of labor, the locals who helped out between shifts in their fieldwork and Martial training really made a difference. Sure, they only worked for the couple of hours per the days when they could afford to freelance, but the hours of a few good men, motivated by the right pay, that more than made up for the few in number who showed up.

  "Point accepted," he told Whiskey, seeing what she meant as self-evident.

  On a stool he sat down. Taking a pickaxe in hand, he carefully moved one piece to where the material had clearly broken away from. He made sure in his hand was some earth or naturalistic material, dirt, grass, bark, to act as a magical catalyst during the mend spell. Whiskey was right, he did not know much about mending, but he knew how to do it.

  With catalyst shoved into the crack and the broken pieces smooshed against where it broken from, he channeled magic into the pickaxe through his hand. He felt a heat form within his hand. He knew the magical energies were taking effect. He continued to push magical energy from his reserve into the pickaxe. He focused on keeping a steady injection rate.

  Gradually, the heat in his palm grew in intensity. Feeling the effects of rapid mana drain all at once, he stopped the flow of magic. Instantly, he felt the material cool in his hand. He did not think it likely the material had adhered at all, so he kept his hand in tight grip. He caught his breath. Then, with a full pull of some clean air, he resumed his magical flow into the tool.

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  This time, he held his magic use at a much slower rate. He learned from his previous attempt. Plus, he had the wellspring of knowledge he gained from the field, from combat operations against the enemy. He knew not to overextend himself. Go slow. Start low, go slow. Take breaks, let yourself adjust.

  Now, he intoned. Then stopped his magical flow.

  He removed his hand to find an imperfect binding: the catalyst had taken to the material, and through the encouragement of magic, had started the binding process. The catalyst looked misshapen, yes, but it was no longer broken. Right now, what he saw was an oddly colored and crooked piece of fragile pickaxe attempting its hardest to fuse with the rest of the item. Hence, he needed to work on it more. This process, it appeared, was far from done.

  "Okay, let's try this again, but smarter," he told himself.

  He took a breath in and cleared his mind. Only done once his head was de-cluttered from its thoughts, the flow of magic resumed. This time, at an even lower output, but to much his pleasure, a much longer duration; before he felt compelled to cease his magic use and call upon the Slipstream to restore his mana, he succeeded in building a mending rhythm, a somatic 'guide' to how he should perform magic based on his proficiency level. Which, although was not anything noteworthy, it was a proficiency he knew was growing.

  A solid hour of this practice later turned to two hours. And at the end of that two hours, a pickaxe -- one pickaxe -- had been mended.

  "Looks... decent," Whiskey said. "But will it hold after a swing? Let's see for ourselves," she swung the pick and slammed it into a nearby rock. The rock cracked. But so did the pick.

  "Only one crack. Honestly? Not bad, Zan. You have a long way to go, though. I can fully mend an axe in maybe twenty-five minutes. You can almost do the surface-details of a pick in two hours--"

  Defeated, in mock melodrama, he pushed his hands in the air and announced, "I surrender to the queen of mending tools. Here! Have at it!"

  Of course, Whiskey refused his offering. "Nope! All for you, my illustrious grandmaster!" She grinned ear-to-ear while speaking before going off to help Jiehong with what looked like a particularly difficult section of sediment.

  "I'm happy Whiskey decided to join us," he told himself in whisper. She really did brighten the mood. Always happy to speak her mind. He knew why Jie liked her; she was quite the woman!

  With the Slipstream faded, he knew it would soon vanish from the sky altogether. Knowing now was as good a time as any, he finished his mending talents labor and set aside his newly mended pick. It would be there for him tomorrow.

  "Who needs help on their section before the day's up?" he asked his laborers before, his luck fulfilled, he received another System notification.

  It simply read: [Achievement Unlocked: "Tooler," Mend (1) Item]

  He grinned and got back to work.