CHAPTER 34

283 ac

For a week, I have been going to the Wolfswood every day, and thanks to that, I earned some pocket change from my catches. I mainly hunt rabbits because they are harder to hit with a bow and arrow. I always shoot after spooking them so they will dart around; it is excellent for training. I m not doing it to earn money; If I want to, I could use all of my smoke bomb material and make all of them in 1 month, but as a commoner having immense wealth would be nothing but a detriment to my health. The rabbits bring me several groats (copper currency in GOT and ASOİAF, 2940 of them make a gold dragon ). It would be a waste to hunt and throw them away in a place famous for its starving people in winter times.

Besides hunting, I have made some little discoveries about my Quersumby ( oakshield ) spell. It is impossible to cast it on an unwilling being. I tried to cast this spell on some of the rabbits I hunted, but it didn't work. At first, I thought it didn't work because the creature was dead, but it didn't work on living ones either. So I tried it on my familiars and worked on both of them. They were encased by a bark-like armor like my arm because they were smaller creatures than me. It affected more than a small part of their body. The armor covered their entire torso, but I wasn't willing to use them as test subjects in an experiment. After that, I thought it only worked on my familiars and me, but when I ordered them not to accept my mana. When I cast, it didn't work this time. Then I understood that the targeted being needs to accept the buff for it to work.

Now I knew that I dominated a rabbit; this way, it would accept my buff, and it did. After casting, the armor encased the rabbit's torso and head. I raised my sword and chopped it down with all my might. What was next wasn't a pretty sight to behold, the armor had worked, but I can't say the same thing for the rabbit's legs. Its legs were crushed, but its head and torso were safe. The armor had a big dent; I think the sword cut through half of the armor, but it was still alive. I put it out of its misery and discovered a new thing; the armor disappears when the being dies. I cut it open and looked at its spine and innards; none of them looked damaged. From that, I gathered it protects against blunt force, too. But it didn't protect the legs because they weren't supported by the spell. I have to be careful when I take hits so I won't get crushed.

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Another thing I discovered was... actually, discovered is not the right word. I have seen a beast that didn't exist on earth. It is called the icicle snake. It is a native snake to the north, and even though it is a snake, it does not hibernate in winter. It is fully active even in the winter. This snake even changes its color depending on the season. In the summers, like now, its color is light and dark brown, looks like a tree bark, so when it is on a tree, it looks like a branch. In the winter, it is white because of all the snow. It is white in color most of the time because, in the north, almost all the time in winter. It is called icicle because of the way it hunts, It is a poisonous snake, so it is an ambush hunter. It would climb up a tree and hang down from its branches. It will look like an icicle when it is on a tree branch covered with snow. It will wait for prey to pass under the tree, then fall from the tree and bites it. Because of the poison, the prey would die in a minute or so.

I almost grabbed one while climbing a tree to have a better vantage point; if Poe didn't warn me, I would have grabbed it and gotten bitten, but thanks to Poe's warning, I saw it and cast Quersumby ( oakshield ) before getting bit If I get bitten most likely have died because there isn't antidote for it. So I decided to bind with one. It could come in handy to have a poisonous animal as a bond. It wasn't hard to catch one after it got stuck in your arm. I put it in a satchel and brought it back to my room. Locked the latch on the door and released the snake from the satchel. For a second, it was disoriented, but it saw me and started to coil. I think it is getting ready to strike; like most snakes, its movement is slow, but because it is an ambush hunter, its pounce is really fast.

"letagon (snare)"

The snake was squirming in its place, but it could not move. I got close to it and held it from its head and tail. It was still trying to get out of my hand, but I was strong enough to hold it without a problem. I sat down on the ground and started the move my mana to the snake tried to begin the bonding process, but it was fighting back like crazy. Because it is not a baby animal but an adult one, establishing the connection was really hard. It resisted every step of the way. It took around 1 hour. But finally, the connection was established, and it was bounded to me, but it almost took all of my mana to bind with this one snake. I spent around 50 mana. Got better at bounding, but the mana and time spent got up, and I knew I didn't make any mistakes while bounding. I was patient, brave, and unbending, but it still took more mana and time. I think it is because it is an adult animal, not a baby one. So it is easier to bind with a baby.