The shovel bit into the soil with a satisfying crunch. I'd been working for three hours straight, clearing a new section of field for spring planting, and barely felt winded. Superior Endurance combined with the physical conditioning from my various jobs meant manual labor that would exhaust most people was tolerable at worst. At least the work served as warm up and training to recondition my body.
Beside me, Sienna worked with similar ease, her movements efficient and purposeful. Where I used brute force and endurance, she applied precision—her Structural Reinforcement knowledge letting her identify exactly where the soil needed to be broken, her Material Efficiency ensuring no effort was wasted.
"You two are machines," called out Marek, one of Elliot's cousins, leaning on his own shovel about twenty feet away. He was a broad man in his forties, weathered by farm work but clearly struggling to keep pace. "How are you not even breathing hard?"
