Problems in the town and fourth circle.

In the next weeks, Jordan didn't get a bit of rest, instead of taking it easy as he promised to himself, he was doing the exact opposite.

It didn't matter that he took over the town, the work just kept piling on, there was so much stuff to do and so little time, when it was the daytime he would watch over the construction of the second wall, control the beasts so that they behave, train and teach monsters, purify tiny bit of mana to the fourth circle and much more.

The second wall was much longer than the first one that was only around the town´s plaza, the second one went all around the city and a bit more, the wall even went around the river that was near the town, it was to have a stable source of water. And as for why the wall was made bigger even though the population dropped, it was to have a bit of space for farming.

Unlike before the mana came, farming could be made on a smaller piece of land as the mutated plants grow extremely fast, currently doing farm work outside in the open field is close to suicide, beasts roam the open areas and no one is truly safe out there.

With all the animals mutated the eco-system is in chaos, new natural order needs to be set, the population of various beasts needs to drop or increase to stabilize. Currently, there are way too much-mutated animals from farms such as pigs, cows, chickens, once those animals mutated and escaped, they ruined any form of balance. Predators have way too much food and their numbers increase quickly, with this they increase their area of influence and once again hunt, this will continue until the farm animals are hunted down and after that, the true problem will start, the predators won´t have enough food, before this comes Jordan needs to prepare.

And this is only one problem, there is also the weather that is getting worse, before the town was in a warm climate and didn't experience any serious winters, at worst it was about 0°C (273 F) but now, it was beginning of the fall and the temperatures already once dropped below 0°C.

And with this come another problem and that is firewood, Jordan himself went to a nearby forest but the result was terrible, the forest is currently monster and beast paradise. With all the beasts and monsters constantly fighting there the mana in the forest is becoming thicker and thicker which causes even more mutations and fasten the reproduction cycle.

Normally when someone uses mana the mana becomes repelled from the user and the mana needs some time to "recharge" but with all the monsters and beasts the mana is "trapped" in the forest by all the beasts needing to replenish their mana. This causes the not-recharged mana to stay in the forest and attracting more recharged mana, normally this wouldn't happen in town as there are times when the mana isn't constantly used everywhere, like at night but in the forest its continuous fight for life.

The amount of mana even affected trees the trees started to grow to extreme heigh just like when the dinosaurs were still alive, it looks like the lack of oxygen can be replaced by mana, Jordan even saw some treants which are trees who can walk fight, and so on, those are luckily quite rare.

Still sending any humans to the forest is out of the question, it would be a pointless slaughter.

Now for the monster, oh yes the monsters and beasts, it´s just crazy, even though beasts intelligence is quite high they don't really listen once there isn't someone watching over them, leaving the beasts near humans for a prolonged time is just asking for trouble. That's why Jordan plans to create a separate part in the town only for beasts and the trainers of the beasts, once the beasts are trained or intelligent enough it will be allowed back to town but otherwise they will be kept in the beasts area, still the beasts area is going to take a while, the workers are all doing other more important jobs.

As for the monster… some are hopeless in assimilating in human society, those are from every race, rare specimens with great potential but also great thirst for the nutrients from humans, from those Jordan created a special force that for now focuses on the activities outside the city, such as scouting or hunting the free humans that have some serious grudge and decided to leave, it may be cruel but better safe than sorry, leaving no loose end is the key to long life.

The monsters that aren't aggressive from birth are rather intelligent and when mature they are intelligent almost as adults, well… slower aggressive adults, with further mutations it may change but that's yet to see. When properly taught it shouldn't be a problem for the ratman, lizardman, goblins, to even become citizens, but for that Jordan set a simple basic rule, they have to learn to write, read and count, to understand the laws, shopping and so on.

And as for the humans, so far they all behaved, the forced workers stopped crying and adjusted to their current situation, most of them are happy to have food on the table even if it's little, the free humans are mostly divided into two camps, one which wants to stay and second that wants to leave but is scared to do so. Still, even those didn't cause any real trouble, yes there was one attempt to assassinate Jordan but it was laughable, the humans that tried to assault Jordan were all captured together with their families and after few rounds of torture, they were publicly executed.

It may sound barbaric and cruel yet in the middle ages, it was all normal, slavery, cutting off hands for stealing terrible living conditions. When compared to that Jordan´s town is still quite a nice place.

And that counts especially for the citizens, those get enough food, have their own houses in the safe area of the town plaza, those citizens can even enjoy the luxury of fun, they can rent books or play some games like football or basketball.

But every citizen is required to be ready for a fight, they are all taught the basics of magic and melee fights. Strangely enough, the citizens are all excited about the lessons, they had enough of helplessness, so they try to get stronger even if it's a little bit. And the basics of magic are quite useful in everyday life, after all, who wouldn't want to use fireball to lite up the fireplace or telekinesis to pick up dropped stuff from the ground.

There were more problems and stuff in the town but naming all of it will take too much time.

***

Jordan was sitting in the mayor´s chair in the town-hall that become his residence, for now, he is guiding the grain of mana he manually refined from the third circle to the fourth one.

Guiding the bit to the center of power Jordan focuses as much as possible, black veins even start to appear on his forehead. This is his fifth try to advance to the fourth circle.

Jordan guides the grain of mana to the mana sphere and makes it settle right in the middle, right now is the hardest moment, the manually refined mana is extremely difficult to handle, and if it´s around a bigger amount of mana it will start to disperse so Jordan has to focus with all his might just to keep the grain together.

After stabilizing the grain inside the mana sphere Jordan started to create a barrier around it from the fourth circle mana. Connecting the barrier to all the tiny conductors that went to the center of the mana sphere, keeping the barrier stable and making it refine tiny bits of mana from peak third circle in the sphere to fourth circle man in the core of the sphere where the tiny barrier was.

That was the moment where Jordan failed before, right now he has to keep this state until his center of power adapts and starts to keep the barrier at its own, well that´s the theory it may not work at all. Jordan didn't know how long he has to wait and any distraction or letting the mind slip will make the barrier collapse.

One hour, two hours, four hours, eight hours, the veins that showed up before were now popped and black blood was staining Jordan´s face, pouring from eyes, nose, and yet Jordan didn't even flinch. If not for the faint sound of breathing others may think that Jordan is dead.

´I can´t… I am at my limit´ Jordan released his mental grip over the barrier and fell to his knees. The mental strain was enormous, after clearing his head Jordan started to crazily scratch all over his body, after sitting still for straight eight hours he was itching everywhere.

After Jordan calmed himself, he sat back to chair while being quite dejected… "shit, how long should I last? Is it even possible to refine mana this way… SHIT" with a "bam" Jordan hit the table before him, he was angry for wasting 8 hours when the works just kept on piling on.

Still, after calming himself Jordan used a bit of mana and started to probe his center of power, he wanted to see if any leads for him could help him improve the technique he came up with. While searching through his center of power Jordan felt strange mana movement in the mana sphere.

Directing his attention here Jordan searched the mana sphere, and here it was, a tiny barrier as big as a grain of sand, the barrier was flickering and fighting to maintain itself, but it was stable. Jordan "FUUCK YEAH"

Jordan reached the fourth circle, there is still a long way ahead of him before he can cast even one fourth circle spell, but the worst is finally done.