Everyone limped off. Some went back to the boarding house. I decided it was time to check out the Large Fall. First, I needed money though. I needed clothes. I didn’t know what weapons or armor I needed yet. I was hoping Marybell would teach us all that, but I couldn’t show up every day in the rags I currently had on. I went in the guild to Kattie’s que and waited my turn. When it was my turn, I handed her my two cores I had gotten from and Orc and a Pelur. She looked at them and then me and said “where did you get these?”
“I was living out in the woods for a while you know. I trapped an Orc and a Pelur. These are from them.”
“I See.” She said “What would you like to do with them? Would you like to sell them to the guild?”
“Yes please, and if you could point me to a place to buy cheap clothes, I would appreciate it.”
That caught her attention and she looked me up and down for the first time. “Yes, yes we can’t have you roaming around town like that can we. Hold on I’ll change these and I’ll take you. It is time for my break anyway.”
She left before I could say anything one way or the other and then came back with a small purse. “Your cores were good quality and middle Iron rank size. That comes to 20 silver for each or 40 silver. Have you learned about money here yet?”
“No, I was actually hoping I could ask you that.” I said.
She explained very quickly that it was fairly simple normal money that the average person came in contact with was broken into four denominations.
Small Copper
Large Copper
Silver
Gold
Five small copper for a large. Five large copper for a silver and 100 silver for a gold. A meal might be large copper or that and a few small. A night stay at an inn could be anywhere from two large copper to a silver in town. Usually one meal came with that, but not two. Weapons were based on quality, but even with the guild membership could cost all my silver for just a basic axe. A bow depended on quality, but was less. Crossbows on the other hand were more. Swords were sold as a set with a shield usually and were closer to a gold. Kittie said that was fine though as most Bronze monsters were easily killed with bows and axes. Based on that my 40 silvers would go a long way. Seemed like if you could kill Iron rank monsters you did well.
With that we headed out and she took me around to several stores. First, she took me to get clothes. Ready-made clothes didn’t have pockets and were just for workers. They carried bags to hold their things. Tailored clothes had more options, but also cost twice as much. They were made from better quality materials though and were a nicer feel than the coarse cloth of the cheaper ones. I decided to get several sets of the cheaper clothes for while I was working and then I ordered two sets of simple yet comfortable tailored clothing to be made. Kittie took care of how much things cost. She haggled for the ready-made clothes and paid full price for the tailored. All together it was 2 silver and 4 large copper. That seemed pretty good to me. I was starting to think of the copper as a dollar and then the silver as $25 just the make it easy. Ready-made clothing sets had been 10 copper each and the tailored 20.
I asked her how to tell what to haggle for and what not to. She said it was based on the profession. If it was a merchant you haggled. If you were dealing with the person who made the goods you paid what they asked or you left it alone so as not to injure their pride.
After we shopped, I said I owed her a meal and asked her to take us somewhere I could afford that she liked. She was very happy with that and took me to an outside stand with some tables scattered around. I wasn’t sure what to get so I just ordered what she did which turned out to be the right thing because it was meat and vegetables that had been season perfectly. I put a note on my map for it so I could get back here regularly. It was 6 coppers, but worth every one. On the way back to the guild Kattie asked me how I was dealing with being here. I was pretty sure she meant this world so I told her that I really hadn’t let myself think about it too much. I didn’t have a way back and had to make sure I kept on my toes for right now. I would deal with those feeling when I wasn’t playing catch up with the whole world. She looked pensive and said “I don’t think that is wrong. You have needed to do that up to now because it was life or death. If you keep going that way you will burn up though. Please promise me you will take at least one day every five and do something fun in the afternoon.”
“You mean like shopping with my favorite guild representative?” I asked. She gave me a brilliant smile at that and I said “I shall heed your advice. Thank you.” She nodded her head a that and then we were back at the guild and she went back to work.
I went into the boarding house. I had studying to do and I wanted to figure out water magic. I was excited to learn water magic, but I knew if I did that first I would blow off studying and that would get me in trouble tomorrow. I spent the next 3 hours painfully going over the guild’s beginner book again and only when I felt I had a good handle on most of the kinds of things Marybell had been asking about did I lock it away with my left over 37 silver and 1 large copper.
I pulled up my status page and eyed the skills points. I had five. I was going to get the water magic. Should I get the sword fighting skill as well? I decided against it. I didn’t want to lose out on progress with the training we were getting though so I decided if we worked with swords again tomorrow and I still didn’t get it I would use the skill points then. I was going to need the Axe and Bow master skills as that was what I’d be starting with two… I NEED MORE SKILL POINTS I thought. If Marybell could hear my thoughts I was pretty sure she would give me a stern look, I thought with a smile. I liked her. She was tough, but it was obvious it was because she cared. If anything, she reminded me of my father.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL WATER MAGIC
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It is said there is nothing more powerful than water. It can hurt and it can heal. All healing except self-healing uses mana with water as a medium. Attack magic is usually in the form of ice magic which comes at a higher level. Don’t underestimate healing though. Nothing will keep your party going longer than a good healer. Mana intensive though it may be, healing magic is much sought after. At level one your first spell is create water. Chant Create Water and you will produce potable water. Chant Water End to stop. This pulls water from magic and will work in even the most arid of climates. One gallon of water will be produced for one mana at lower levels.
Well that was a bit a letdown, but I did have some ideas now. Just as I thought, mana did play a part. What I couldn’t figure out with my mana manipulation was how to use my mana to heal others. If mana traveled through water could I control it. I needed a guinea pig and I knew just who to use. Andy, the other boy who had held out to the end was hobbling back to his cot a couple rows away from me.
I went over and said “Hey Andy still pretty sore huh?”
Yeah. She really put us through the ringer didn’t she. You look like you are doing pretty good though. How are you this tough? Are you part Orc or something?” He asked laughing at his own joke.
“Actually I know some healing magic I was using on myself. I haven’t really practiced on other people though. Any chance you would let me practice on your legs?”
Andy’s eyes got big and he said “really? For free? I can’t pay you.”
“No need. I am trying to learn on my own after all and can’t even promise I will help much. Shouldn’t hurt though. Healing myself is actually quite good feeling. Worst I can do is not help.” I said.
“Ok! What do we do he asked?”
“I’m going to go borrow a wash bucket and some water. Wait right here.” I said and headed off. I didn’t know what I needed to do with the water, but I figured I would try with a bucket first.
After I got a wash bucket full of water (much easier to lift with my level 6 strength) out to Andy I had him roll up his pant leg and then I put my hand on the worst bruise in the water. I cycled mana with Mana Manipulation to my hand and then tried to focus on putting it out into the water. At first nothing happened, but I kept at it and then I felt it slowly move out of my hand into the water. I could still feel it though and focused on moving it to Andy’s leg once there I tried to picture Andy’s mana channels and push the mana into it through his skin. The same resistance happened and I moved the mana up and down his legs to the knee and to the feet. I did this several times checking to see if he was in distress and asked what he felt while still trying to keep focused on the mana. He said it felt like warm water running up and down his leg. I realized I should have cast Injury Evaluation first as I didn’t know how far along I was. I couldn’t do that and keep control of the mana I felt so I tried pulling my mana back to me. To my surprise I could and when I had brought it all back, I quickly checked my mana level and I was still full! Doing it this way hadn’t cost me anything!!! I also got a notification
MANA MANIPULATION HAS LEVELED UP!
I cast Injury Evaluation and saw that he still at 78% recovery so I passed more mana through the water and worked until it was 100% recovered and then again brought my mana back so I didn’t lose any. I also didn’t know what it would do if I cut it lose. I stood up and asked him to walk around.
He walked around with just a limp on one side now and said “That is amazing… um” he said looking down at his other leg
“Yes Andy… other leg in the water I’ll take care of it” I said laughing.
After I was done, I noticed several other students or should I say Marybell victims were watching us. I said “anyone else?” And it was a very fast group of limping people all of the sudden.
By the third person my Water Magic leveled up and I got a new spell a little late
WATER MAGIC HAS LEVELED UP!
You have reached level two and receive the spell water healing. Chant Water Healing and place your hand on the injured area. Chant Stop Healing to stop. 1 Mana per minute of healing.
There was one girl left and I asked her if I could try a different spell. She agreed and I tried the new spell. I could feel a thin layer of water appear between my hand and her skin and felt mana flow through slowly. When about half my mana was gone I stopped and we switched back to the water tub as it was taking much longer and was not very mana efficient.
When everyone was done there was still a couple hours of daylight left so I decided to go scout out the area around the town again by myself. I needed an escape point for Instatravel just in case and I also wanted to use Analyze. First, I went back to the Guild and looked on the job board to see if there were any herb gathering jobs. They didn’t pay very well, but I was going anyway and would be using Analyze on everything so I thought ‘why not.’ I found a couple notices for herbs I already knew so I took them Kattie and she said they were standing orders so I could just collect them and bring them in.
With that I went for a walk. I was supposed to collect five of each of the plants. One was for a mana potion and the other was the one I had used for blood loss. As soon as I left the town gates I headed straight for the nearest woods. I had my map up at half vision just to make sure I was safe and then started covering as much ground as I could. I had three goals. Get my map as detailed as possible, find some herbs and find an escape point. After zigzagging through the woods for an hour I had accomplished two goals easily. Finding a unique location to remember was much harder. The woods around here all looked the same.
I started to think about heading back when I noticed a large animal on my map. I still had daylight left and I wasn’t really that far from the town so I decided to check it out. I set my Time Slow to its regen point again and started stalking. I spotted it in about 10 minutes. It was a large bear looking monster. It was eating it’s own kill and not really paying attention. A quick Analyze found it to be
Race: Red Chuff
Level: 29
Highest Stat: Strength (Attack 35)
Edible
It looked to be about 500lbs. I didn’t have a rock big enough to kill it unless I got it with a headshot and that was too risky. I was about to stalk away when I noticed it had finished it’s meal and had laid down for a nap. I couldn’t believe it, but it looked like Mr. Luck was putting in work again! I watched for a minute to make sure I wasn’t seeing things and saw the bear’s… Sorry Red Chuff’s breathing change. Making it doubly clear it was taking a nap. I chose my largest rock, 34 inch round 900lb rock, and made sure my Inventory opened right over where his head was. I dropped my rock.
The good news was he never felt anything. The bad news was I had no way to dissect this thing. I didn’t have a knife on me to go for even his core and this thing had several valuable parts. I tried to put it in my Inventory, but it was too big with the other stuff I had in there. I decided to dump it all. The water, the rocks, even my little bowel. I would buy a pot soon. I also could make water to drink now so it seemed less important to keep in my Inventory. With everything out I could fit the bear in there. I was about to walk away when I noticed my rocks that I had dumped out made for a unique spot. This would be my escape point. That in mind I cleaned up the Chuff’s kill and took that way from the area. I walked back to town and made it in before dark when they closed the gates.
Once I got to the boarding house, I had my meal and went to bed. I checked and I had gotten 3 more skill points and was close to three levels. I felt like I should start to use my skill points soon, but not level up. Leveling up to quickly would make it difficult to explain when I updated my card. I needed to keep my power under control at least while I was here. My time here was limited I knew. I would be growing younger and getting stronger. At some point it would be noticeable and I would need to move to a fresh place where I could safely level up without raising suspicion. I would take advantage of the month of free training and map out the local area and wildlife. When I was ready to move, I would clear it out, level up and leave. I set my Time Slow again for sleep mode and got some sleep.