As it turned out, the slavers had been storing their stock of food for the winter in the magic bag. James withdrew countless bags of oats and flour, a bag of yeast, a large bag of salt, several dozen bags of dried meat, and several ceramic pots full of sauerkraut. Missing were any herbs for flavor or fresh meat, but James already knew that the slavers were hunting and gathering in the vicinity of camp for their own meals. Still, what would be enough for five grown adults and a meager amount for the group of slaves was a treasure trove for James.

  Lacking any cooking utensils, he put most of it back in the magic bag and for the first time in months, ate his fill of meat. Dried, hard, overly salted, delicious meat. By the time he was full his stomach ached, but it was an almost pleasant sensation compared to the ache of a stomach always on the edge of ravenous hunger.

  Once more James stuck his hand in the bag, saying “Anything el-” when his hand wrapped around a familiar metal stake. It wasn’t familiar to his sense of touch so much as his intuition as an Enchanter. Quickly he pulled it out, set it down, and thrust his hand back into the bag saying “All the warding stakes.”

  Sadly, while there might have been two dozen stakes originally surrounding the mining camp, in the bag there were only eight intact stakes.

  With a sudden sense of urgency born from the potential for actual security from wandering monsters, he quickly thrust a stake into the ground near the wall, walked a few paces forward, and placed another stake. Eventually he created an arc encompassing the exit back to the old iron mine and a decent sized portion of the cavern he found himself in. However, nothing happened. There was no sense of anything magical happening, nor was his Enchanter class providing any clues.

  After some trial and error the budding Enchanter figured it out. The stakes had to be somewhat equidistant from each other and form a bounded shape. Keeping two stakes in reserve, James pinched in the ends of his arc until the stakes formed a hexagon shape, at which point, while placing the final stake, the stake drew magic from James’ hand and with a flash of light, the ward was formed.

  James took a moment to analyze the structure of the ward; its shape, the strength of the warding effect, the way the magical energy flowed between the space between the stakes and seemed to radiate outward from each stake, and as he did so-

  [Enchanter] Class Skill [Enchantment Analysis] acquired.

  [Synergy] Skill [Efficient Crafting (Smithing and Enchanting)] acquired.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Again, James acquired one of those strange [Synergy] skills. This one was even more explicit than usual, directly stating that it had to do with Smithing and Enchanting, unlike his other [Synergy] skills [Material Identification], [Design], [Design Memorization], and [Design Copying].

  For the moment, James put the matter of his skills aside and returned to the ward. As long as he lacked enchanting materials and tools, he would not be able to repair any of the stakes that broke. The stake he had smelted down before had been physically broken, but he didn’t know if the enchantments on the stakes would eventually wear down on their own. Clearly some amount of wear and tear was expected if the slavers had a stockpile of spares prepared.

  He pulled up one of the stakes, intending to reconfigure the ward, and felt a tension in the ward as it tried and failed to configure around the remaining stakes before ultimately collapsing with a flash of light. Wincing, he realized that he might have just caused exactly the kind of wear and tear he was worried about. Upon investigation, the enchantments on the stakes appeared fine, but he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure about, however, was that his new skill [Enchantment Analysis] was already helping out. Within the design of the imbued enchantment he discerned that the ward could be disabled without strain by simply withdrawing the magical energy empowering it back into himself. Of course, this only worked for the person who set the ward up, but that was no concern of his at the moment. For now, he had a way to more safely adjust the wards.

  Considering his eight stakes, he decided to keep the two previously unused stakes in reserve, mentally marking them as “the good stakes”, and classifying the rest as “used”. With the six “used” stakes, he warded one triangular area around the exit back to the old mine, then created another triangular warded area a short way along the wall near a particularly rich set of iron ores and several of the glowing mushrooms, close enough that he felt he could dash between the two in an emergency.

  Now, feeling more secure with the wards placed and operating, James returned to the matter of the glowing mushroom. Using a piece of broken shovel, he carefully severed the mushroom at the base where it was attached to the wall. With a small puff of glowing dust, almost like glitter, the mushroom fell to the ground and instantly grew brighter, almost to the level of brightness of a small candle, before quickly dimming and fading and ceasing to glow at all. A glowing liquid had also oozed from the mushroom’s stem but that faded even faster than the mushroom had.

  James poked the fallen mushroom, trying to see if there was any more of the glowing liquid inside, when he felt the iron scrape against a small, hard object inside the mushroom. He dug it out and realized it was a tiny white stone, less than half the size of his smallest fingernail.

  A light magic stone.

  James initially thrilled at the thought of having found a magic stone. Enchanting! And now all the glowing mushrooms were more than just a mediocre source of light in the gloomy cavern, they were resources! His thoughts raced ahead as he fantasized about getting to use both his classes in peace-

  Ah, yes. James finally remembered the monster.

  Looking back at the exit to the old iron mine once again, James knew he had to make a decision. Would James, the Smith, the Enchanter, the recently-escaped Slave, the boy with no combat class, would he return to the iron mine, dig his way out, and try to escape through the wilderness to go back to civilization and risk an even greater danger than monsters: other people? Or would he remain in this mysterious cavern with potentially more monsters?

  James felt like he was in the middle of the saying about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but he wasn’t sure which was the pan and which was the fire.