Me Judy and Alana were on the way to the market. As soon as we turned the corner we could see the caravan packing up and getting ready to move on to the return trip to Lessis.
The three of us must have looked comical, me being quite a bit taller and more muscled than both of them but they both carried bigger bags on their back than me, something not all that surprising since they must have had strength stats easily 2 or 3 times my own.
“Ajax is good to see you again, I have mostly packed up but seeing how much you brought I’m sure I can get some things unpacked for you” the merchant who usually buys my herb greeted me with a sleazy smile, his eyes fixed to my luggage.
“I’m not here to sell this time, going to pay a visit to my brother in Lessis so I’ll try to sell these in the city, no need to pay a transportation fee if I’m going there anyway.” I answered back not looking to give away the fact that I was on this trip because my parents wanted me to be away from the village for a while.
He must not have liked that answer because his smile soured and he got back to work without another word.
“Wow, that ruined his mood quick, he must have been making bank on those plants of yours, when we get to the city I’ll show you where you can sell them without getting ripped off” my sister reassured me while Alana was talking to the owner of the cart we were boarding for the next 2 weeks.
It didn’t take long for us to get going and since most of the merchants knew me as the impossible kid who always wanted to argue and not buy anything, from my time raising my skills on them, word that I was along for a visit to Lessis spread quickly and I was promptly ignored by all.
“So what are going to do for the next 2 weeks?” I ask my sister 30 minutes into the trip already bored from just sitting in a slow moving wagon.
“We have to stops on the way where we will probably spend a day but other than that this is what the trip will be like all the way there, if you want to stretch your legs you can walk beside the caravan or try to find something in the forest off the trail, just don’t wander because nobody is going to wait around or look for you.” Her response told me that she saw through my boredom but her warning made it clear that I shouldn’t be too far away.
I took off my bags and hopped off heading towards the woods a bit out of sight to begin my training, or more specifically to try to recreate what that kobold had been doing with mana. I tried to focus the mana release into feet to start off with after all that must have been easier than doing so with a weapon.
A few hours and most of my mana pool later I had made no progress on actual results, the only thing I could be sure of was that my mana seemed different from the kobolds. Not just in how it had affected him but even in the way it felt.
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Deciding that there wasn’t much more I could do and that I should probably return to the caravan soon I decided to empty out my mana pool with my usual exercises so that the mana exhaustion would let me sleep away the time on this trip.
While going through my usual creation of fire water and air everything was ordinary but when I got to my earth aspect my mana suddenly appeared a lot like the kobolds to my senses. I quickly decided to try to augment my steps with earth mana to see if I could make myself move faster.
The first thing I noticed when I attempted that was the feeling I recognized for getting a new skill, sadly I didn’t get a chance to enjoy the feeling as instead of giving me a more sure footing or increasing my speed I felt the ground instead give way forming a small crater under my foot leading me to tripping and falling on my face.
The fall was other than embarrassing and not something I could even pay attention to in the aftermath of my success, sure I didn’t get the effect I wanted but the activation felt similar to that of the kobold, mana being released and quickly used to imbue something for an instant.
While I was very much looking forward to training my newfound path in using mana, the fact that a small patch of unsure footing landed on in the dirt made it abundantly clear I need to go get some rest and let my mana recover.
Returning to the caravan and hopping back in the cart and getting settled to sleep I noticed my sister's face suddenly inches from my own.
“Where the hell were you and what were you doing?” Her tone sounded angry.
“I tried to hunt around to see if there was anything near the road as well as practice my tracking skill” I responded to the impromptu questioning.
“Well next time, how about you pop back every 2 hours or so, I was this close to going to look for you” She said, picking a twig from my hair.
“Ok ok, I’ll do that tomorrow” I said lying down to sleep, in the same position that I saw the night crew were doing knowing I will sleep for quite a bit longer tonight restoring my mana pool and meditating after I wake to fill up the rest of the way before starting my new training sessions tomorrow.
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When I woke up in the morning it was still fully dark but I could feel something pressing down on my left side, a small glint of moonlight revealed that to be Alana snuggled up to me. I wasn’t going to complain about a hot girl cozying up to me but then reined in my hormones and started meditating looking to be training my augmentation in a few hours.
Alana moving is what finally broke me out of my meditation, there now being a bit more light I looked around and saw most people were waking up even the day driving crew.
“I don’t get how they do it, sleep all day, drive all night and then when we get to a village they are all ready to trade” I comment looking and the sleepy merchants swapping places with their tiered looking night counterparts.
“Well they swap every stop, if you were driving at night on a way to a stop you’re driving during the day leaving the stop, that's how most partners do it.” Alana explained it to me.
“Yeah unless you’re the newbie they are teaching, in which case you get all the night shifts” my sister groaned awake from opposite me. “ I got lucky, me and Alana joined together and we got to split the nights for the first 3 years. I don’t know how people can drive all night and expect to be able to learn something the next day.
While she complained a lot and didn’t seem to take things seriously both Judy and Alana showed promise, with the merchant organization they had joined cutting their training days short from 5 years to 3 and signing them up as low level merchant duo. No doubt that rare skill of hers was paying dividends, and I suspected Alana had one of her own to keep up with her.
“Well I’m going to see if I can’t catch something fresh for breakfast” I hopped out of the cart and made for the woods, my thoughts with all sorts of different ideas to change how I manipulated my mana. Ideally I would learn how to get any desired effect, but I wasn’t kidding myself that my progress was going to be slow.