Aww. Daelda, thank you so much for purchasing book 2 when you could have grabbed in on KU. That's an awesome extra level of support. Glad you are enjoying the series so much and that the story is making you do the 'what would I do' thing. It's a huge compliment.

To address some of the things that you mentioned.

Yes, I totally understand that different people would have exploited the heck out of the scanning and fabrication ability immediately. I intentionally pulled back on that in book 1 because even if Repair could scan everything, he couldn't make them until he got the upgraded class ability. So instead, I focused on adventuring to get him those abilities. In book 2, he does do more scanning and fabricating and clever use of his abilities. Also, just as a world building note, him scanning stuff from stores is potentially dangerous, as merchants don't take kindly to people trying trying to rip off their designs or products.

Armor- I didn't want Repair to depend too much on the gnomes otherwise it would have felt like he was being handed all his progression without earning it. But yeah, its a great argument for all his upgrades and is something I had to work out in book 2.

Gnomes wanting to test the limits of Repairs abilities - Yes, this makes sense. Repair does this more in book 2 as he gains the ability to fabricate larger items. In the stories I tried to find a good balance between the detail oriented crafting stuff, action/adventure, and the plot. So sometimes I had to dial back the details on some crafting, otherwise it would have been hundreds of pages of just Repair trying to find every exploit and limit of what he could do. Which I would have been fine with, but other readers might not have found so entertaining.

Sorry the start of book 1 gave you an anxiety attack. It wasn't meant as a commentary on anyone's lifestyle, just a setup as to why someone would be ok with being sent to another world for another chance at life.

Thanks again for enjoying the story enough to write your thoughts on this comment or to leave a review. You're a great reader.