After morning training, Alice tried to improve her earth magic but still couldn’t make any progress beyond compressing the dirt. After some time spent failing, Alice went for the hunter training for a change of pace. If she wasn’t making any progress with magic she could at least improve a different skill. She was also doing it because she realised just how much she relied on wolves as prey when she went hunting a few days ago, catching only one deer in a day. Which was barely anything when compared to what her dad could pick up in the same time. Alice knew that she couldn’t really compare herself to a full time hunter when she had only spent a week learning, especially with most of the lessons being on survival, but she couldn’t help but set her sights as high as she could.
Alice asked around to find out where the hunters were, only to be told that they had already left. It seemed that even there were more apprentice hunters than actual hunters, so they split into smaller groups that each learned in separate locations. Finding them would be almost impossible, but Alice figured it wouldn’t hurt to try tracking them. Even if she would almost definitely fail, she could still try.
Alice found her way to the hunters meeting point and started looking around. The grass in the area looked a bit different than it should have, but that only told her they came here often. Nothing about their direction. She could of course assume that no one would be going towards the village, but that changed basically nothing. Alice found a few snapped twigs and crumpled leaves but wasn’t experienced enough to know how recent they were. If she could figure out which ones were recent she could find a general direction to follow.
Alice didn’t like the idea of using one of her skills since it felt like admitting she couldn’t do it on her own, but Alice came prepared to fail so she might as well. Alice activated [Fate Vision], finally finding a use for the skill. Alice inspected all of the possible traces of recent activity, and found that most of them were too old to be relevant. At her wits end, Alice readied herself to check every individual blade of grass for an answer. As she wandered around holding her book and reading the latest page of every single grass plant, Alice thought it would be useful if she could somehow limit what information she found to only what would be helpful. Alice kept the thought in the back of her mind as she continued on.
The tedious chore seemed to drag on forever as she tried to find even a trace of the goblins. A bit of time later, Alice was ready to put more thought into her idea of filtering the information. Alice took the opportunity to try an application of a different skill. Alice used [Eye of Fate] on a random tree and focused on it. She did so hoping to take advantage of the fact that time stopped when she analysed something. The end result was unbearably uncomfortable: She was entirely frozen in time, staring down a tree. Her mind however, was free to move, and it made sure to let her know whenever it tried to have her breathe. Her lungs felt perfectly fine but her mind continuously complained about imaginary suffocation. Her mind devolved into panic even though she knew she would be fine. Her heart rate tried to go up but couldn’t, panicking her even further. Alice tried her best to hold on but eventually she had to stop the skill. Alice vowed right then and there not to use that skill except in a state of emergency.
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After a few minutes, Alice got back to the task at hand. Alice didn’t think her idea of using [Fate Vision] was bad, she just hadn’t thought it through. When she used the skill with the book as a focus, the information she got was focused way too much, showing everything she could possibly know about a single grass plant at a time. Without a focus, she only hurt herself by trying to understand anything. The solution seemed somewhat obvious when all the information was presented like that. All she had to do was create a different focus that was focused enough to be painless, broad enough for her to scan the entire area around her, and simple so that she wouldn’t have to spend too much time on it.
Alice remembered seeing fortune tellers use crystal balls for their work. Alice always thought it was cool how they could look at someone’s future with nothing but cards or a few questions. Now that Alice could do something similar, she thought a crystal ball would be perfect for what she wanted to do. Alice had never wondered how the things made by the skill actually worked, but with how light the crystal ball was, Alice was more curious than ever.
Alice put aside her curiosity and tried to use the ball. Professionals normally just waved their arms over the ball while staring at it so that’s what Alice did. Minus the waving though, that part just felt embarrassing. Alice stared at the ground ahead of her through the ball while focusing on what happened a few hours ago. The ball slowly changed from clear to a canvas of green, brown and blue. The colours reorganised themselves until she was looking at an image of the hunting group. There were three goblins who instructed a group of five learners. Alice continued watching and saw the students match themselves to a teacher while chatting lightly. Alice couldn’t hear what they were saying but she could tell Nadi was missing from the video. The groups then headed off into different directions. Finally! She finally knew where she was headed!
”Yes! I knew I could do it!”
Alice deactivated her skills and set off for the group that Nadi was missing from, hoping the instructor wouldn’t mind having her instead of Nadi.