Symon liked the idea of having so many skills that he'd always have one for every situation, but he had to focus his efforts. It was currently afternoon, and they expected to make it to the village before nightfall of the next day. The Dumosans had passed through it on their journey towards the desert, so he already knew there was an inn and tavern combination they'd be visiting first.

He was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed. It was apparently a tiny village that had sprung up around a mine, so he wasn't expecting a high-class establishment, but he'd feel safer if he had four walls around him when he slept instead of a thin tent.

He'd been told it was so small that there wasn't any organised crime — and the adventurers hadn't had any problems when they were there — but Symon figured it would be better to be safe than sorry. His allies had already sworn themselves to secrecy regarding the power of his healing, but it was very possible that someone would oversee something and put things together.

Even if things weren't dangerous, he could easily become a target of opportunity. After all, his home city back on Earth was considered quite safe, but he'd still be a fool to walk around at night with a briefcase full of cash. And with how powerful and in demand his healing was, he may as well be made of solid gold. As far as he was aware, he could heal any physical injury as long as he had enough vitality. Well, there was the fact that it hadn't done anything to fix the other's scars, despite the magic working fine on himself. He still wasn't sure why that was, so he'd need to test it some more when he had the chance. His best guess had been that the scars were simply too old to be healed, but he'd noticed all of his had vanished. From the tiny line on the back of his thumb from when he'd crashed his bike as a kid, to the barely noticeable scars from needles in the crook of his elbow, they had all faded away completely.

Healing scars was something he already knew the more powerful healers were capable of. Despite them using mana instead of vitality, he was confident he'd be able to do it. He just wasn't sure what he was missing...

Shaking his head slightly, he refocused on his more immediate concerns. The scars were just a visual thing anyway, and they even looked kind of cool. The most important thing was to ensure he could hold his own against threats, be they monsters attacking the village or magic-empowered criminals.

So what could he do to protect himself? Well, not much that he wasn't already doing. Secrecy would be his first line of defence, then if it came to combat he had his magic and his new Sword skill. His best bet would be to continue sparring with Aslan, gaining levels in the skill as well as the mundane but no less important type of fighting experience that wasn't listed on his Ledger.

And if there were any problems, he at least had some reliable allies to back him up. Most things would avoid picking a fight with him if Atabek was nearby, at least if they were smart.

If a monster snuck up on him while he was sleeping or similarly distracted, his healing would probably give him enough time for his friends to come help. He wasn't sure exactly what types of wounds were survivable for him, but he'd been doing some thinking on this matter since a recent spar — the one where he held the tip of his sword to Aslan's chest, with a particular line of questioning standing out.

What was the worst wound he could take and still survive? If someone stabbed Symon through the heart, would he be okay?

Crazy as it felt to say, he was pretty sure he'd survive someone stabbing him through the heart. Naturally, this had some conditions to it. If someone was willing to stab him in the heart once, chances were high that they'd be willing to stab him more than once too. He'd likely be helpless if that was the case, considering he'd be so focused on healing his grievous injury before he died.

There was also the problem of what would happen if something was stabbed into him and then left there. He'd need it pulled out first before he could properly heal himself, something he hoped he wouldn't need to do for two main reasons. For one, it would fucking hurt, even with a Pain Resistance. Secondly, it would take precious seconds that he might not be able to afford. Getting a knife stuck in his palm would be an easy fix, but getting one in his throat? He'd need to move very quickly to keep himself alive.

Similarly, he needed to keep his head safe. This seemed an obvious thing to say, but Symon was used — in a certain definition of the word — to getting his body shredded up by monsters. It was easy to forget that a single good hit to his head and he'd be done for, no time for the healing to kick in.

With that in mind, he looked over his shoulder at Aslan. They were following a small creek that led to the coastline where the village was located, so it was easy to keep on heading in the right direction. "Hey Aslan, you said the village is set up around a mine, right?"

"Indeed so, I believe most of the villagers are miners and their families," he supplied.

"And do you know what they're digging for there?"

"Iron, I believe. But I must admit to not paying much attention. We mostly kept to ourselves when we were there."

"Perfect! Then hopefully there's a smith there who can make me a helmet and something to protect my chest."

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It was more of an idle thought than a question, but Aslan still considered it for a few moments before replying. "I suspect there would be someone who maintains the mining equipment, at least. They would be your best chance of finding someone with a Smithing skill — but the general quality of the village did not seem impressive."

Well, that was fine in Symon's eyes. Beautiful ornate plate armour would be great, but he'd settle for an ugly slab of metal strapped to him as long as it stopped sharp things from poking him.

"Thanks, I'll have to track them down once we arrive," Symon said. He couldn't imagine armour would be easily affordable, especially for the flat-broke Symon, but he was sure he could find a way to earn some money. Mining couldn't be a safe career, so he was sure there would be a few people in need of healing.

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That night — hopefully the last one they'd spend out in the grass — Symon took the first watch. Their journey had been uncharacteristically peaceful, but they weren't going to get complacent, especially so close to their goal. It would be downright embarrasing to be taken out in their sleep less than 24 hours from their destination.

It was odd, though, just how little monsters they'd encountered. Back in the white sands of the desert proper, he'd been attacked several times a day, every day. The monsters were all centipedes, yes, and even back then they hadn't been much of a threat, but in the grass sea they'd barely found anything.

There was the razor stalker, of course, but that had been the only true threat. The bushlike ostriches seemed like more of a prey beast, and the occaisonal snake that they encounted tended to flee as soon as it noticed them. He would have expected to find more monsters considering all the plant life and water to be found here.

With nothing else to do while he was on watch, he decided to practice his sword forms again. Everyone had pushed themselves hard on the march to ensure they could make it to the village before nightfall tomorrow, so his friends had basically collapsed asleep right after eating. Symon didn't really get physically tired though, at least as long as he had the vitality to spend.

He should be fine staying up late to practice, then getting a few hours of sleep to refresh his mind. The problem was the cost in vitality that he would spend delaying his rest. After restoring Safiya's eye and his intense sparring with Aslan, he was still only had a half-filled vessel. He would strongly prefer to have it filled up by the time he arrived at the village, both for use in an emergency and to get some money by selling his healing services.

And as it turned out, his initial estimations for how long it would take to fill his vessel had been off, and not in a way that benefitted him. Despite the grass around him growing taller, thicker, and healthier as he progressed towards the coast, the vitality he managed to absorb lagged behind. If the grass was twice as tall, it would give him twice as much vitality — or so he'd thought.

He'd come to the conclusion that there was some type of qualitative difference between the vitality inside of plants compared to the vitality of animals and monsters. A single one of those silly looking bush ostriches, even a juvenile one, gave him as much vitality as two or three hours of walking around automatically draining the grass. He could of course choose to empower his draining, but that required so much focus to ensure the grey threads of his magic snapped onto the grass he wanted it to that it made it hard for him to do anything else, namely watching for threats or keeping up a mental conversation with Keelgrave. Once his thread had latched onto something, it was easy to keep it empowered — the problem was how quickly the grass died, which necessitated him consciously moving the thread to the next strand of grass. And considering he marched for hours and hours at a time, it was incredibly taxing to keep the process going.

That was to say, Symon didn't have as much vitality as he would have liked, and wished to rectify this issue.

He was the only one on watch so instead of wandering off, he walked around the circumference of their clearing, practicing slashes and lunges with his sword as he went. By his estimation, he did this for four hours. It might have seemed strange that each of the four members of the group stood watch for four hours each, with no overlap between their shifts, but Symon had realised something he probably should have noticed sooner. The three suns visible in the daytime made it clear different the astronomy was very different from Earth's solar system, but he hadn't noticed the difference in the day-night cycle. Keelgrave had told him there were 12 months, each with exactly 30 days, so Symon had simply shrugged and considered things close enough to what he was used to for all practical concerns. But he'd originally missed just how long a full day was, considering the figure Keelgrave had told him was measured in a unit he didn't understand.

As it turned out, a full day here was somewhere close to 30 Earth-hours. It explained why he felt like he'd been here for so long, despite it only being a few days over a week — and that meant seven of these extended days to Symon, as the Common language didn't have a term equivalent to weeks, just days and months. He'd thought all the constant adrenaline had warped his perception of time, and it probably had, but there was that more mundane explanation too.

He found it easy to stay focused, even with the long nights; there was something almost meditative about repeating the same strikes over and over, feeling his body slowly grow more confident as he did so.

One benefit of having such a low level skill was how easy it was to improve. He quickly checked his Ledger, a specific line in mind.

[ Swords (1) {+1} ]

Symon pumped a fist in the air, hissing out a quiet "Yes!" as he did so, careful not to wake any of his sleeping compatriots. It was hard to determine how much of his newfound comfort with the sword was from the new level and how much was from simple experience, but it was there regardless. It was very subtle — the gap between level 0 and level 1 was much smaller than the gap between not having the skill and having it at level 0 — but it was still there.

With a satisfied smile, Symon considered his next plan of action. The rush of gaining a level, of having the knowledge that you were suddenly quantifiably better than you previously were was addicting. He couldn't do anything fancy with his sword, but it would have taken him months to get as comfortable with it as he was now if he was back home.

He could keep practicing as he was now, but swinging his sword around through the air was much less efficient training than a proper spar. He'd be better off filling his vessel instead. Draining the grass was painfully slow, in addition to ironically being mentally draining for him. Thankfully, he had a simple solution.

He needed to hunt.