Aiko spent the next few weeks working with the elves helping them with various small projects. Every morning she and Atha would wake up and spend a bit of time practicing magic. Usually, this was done while they worked on breakfast and while they ate. Then she would spend the rest of the day going between the various elves helping out anywhere she could.

Her health had fully recovered by this point and she was getting the grasp of her magic. It was a good thing that she was able to use her magic so readily because she was too small and too weak to do very much without it. It’s kind of hard to hold up a log or branch that weighs more than you.

On this day Aiko found herself helping Atha around her house. There were a lot of things that she had learned from the shaman. One of the many things that she picked up was how to do basic herbalism. She found that she was able to help out immensely with this due to her Job Ability, Green thumb.

Atha had planted a large patch of medicinal herbs along with a few spices and some more basic vegetables. Today, much like the last few days, Aiko was going from one plant to the next and forcing a bit of Mana into them. She watched on with wonder at her own ability as the sprig of clot-root in front of her grew taller and bushed out a little.

She and Atha had discovered, shortly after she got her power that, if she pushed too much mana into the plant, it was a bad thing. A plant could be brought completely to full grown in a matter of seconds but the trade-off was that the plant would be weak and it would deplete the soil very quickly. If a plant was grown in such a way, most of the time, it didn’t have very strong medicinal properties, if any.

They had experimented with a lot of the medicinal plants and herbs early on. Unfortunately, a lot of the ones that they experimented on early on had to be thrown away because they weren’t usable. They also discovered that the soil didn’t want to grow plants after that and Aiko stopped using the ability all at once. They experimented a lot before discovering that a plant could be grown about a tenth of its full maturity at a time and it would still be just as strong and potent as one that took the full length of time to grow.

It still wasn't midday and Aiko was done with her chores in the garden so she began to Wander over to the other elves. Today was a woodchopping day and she had been hearing the rhythmic chopping sounds all morning.

Aiko had heard the same pattern every three days for the past couple of months. Today was wood chopping day and she wanted to help. She made her way over to the big block of wood next to the mound where the fire would be started during every gathering. This is where Mara chopped the wood with a stone axe.

She knew that she was too small to help Mara Chop the wood but she could still hold it with her magic. Mara of course greeted her with some small amount of enthusiasm because it made her work go that much quicker. Aiko didn’t mind because she enjoyed helping wherever she could.

The pair of them were about two hours into chopping the wood and had made a sizable dent into the pile of wood. They had settled into a smooth pattern where Aiko would grab the wood with her spell and place the block onto the larger chopping block. Mara would then chop the log on the block in half while Aiko was still holding it with her spell. Aiko could then turn the block so that Mara could strike it twice again before flinging it onto the pile of chopped wood.

Aiko had been staring intently at the Stone ax cleaving through the logs. The motion was so smooth and the actions so repetitive that it almost became meditative. It was because of this that Aiko was caught so far off guard when the system notification popped up in front of her.

Aiko lost her grip on the log halfway through placing it onto the chopping block and stared dumbfoundedly at the system window that had just popped up. It was several moments before she realized that she needed to read it. What she read absolutely astounded her.

Congratulations! For your analyzation of wood chopping While repeatedly using your holy chaos magic you have gained a new spell. You have gained the spell Chaos knife.

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Aiko was even more astounded to discover that there was a second notification that had been waiting on her to acknowledge it for some time. Somehow, a system window had popped up in her vision and she had been so zoned out that she had missed it. How does one even accomplish that?

Congratulations! For your repeated use of the spell Chaos grasp the spell has leveled up. The Chaos grasp spell can now be maintained with less focus for a longer period of time.

Aiko immediately told Mara about the new spell and they spent the next hour testing it out. Apparently, Chaos knife was capable of cutting far better than Mara’s stone ax. The long thin purplish blade edge would magically descend through the piece of wood and leave no trace that it had been there, save and except that the wood would fall into two pieces. Each face of the wood had a smooth polished finish as if the wood had been used for years. The cuts were also perfectly straight.

Mara went on and on about how awesome Aiko’s new ability was and Atha Was no less vocal about it. Both women lauded her with praise and went on and on about how useful her ability would be. Aiko Though was just happy to be helpful for once.

The next day saw Aiko helping out around the village and tending to some of the crops with a couple of the other villagers. With her smaller size Aiko was perfect for going between stalks of plants and spotting pests that the elves just didn’t see. She also got plenty of practice with her new Chaos knife spell while she split many pests in half.

The next day Aiko was helping Atha around her house. There had been an outbreak of deep winter sickness recently. Atha was going around the garden and picking many of the herbs and gathering many more from the forest. Aiko was very attentive to everything she did. Apparently, they were going to make cures and poultices today.

Aiko was very excited to get started but soon regretted it as the house filled with the smell of many very strong herbs. Most of them had a very unpleasant smell as well. To make things worse, a lot of the things had to be boiled or ground, besides.

Nevertheless, Aiko was very attentive to everything that Atha did. She helped out where she could by grabbing herbs and containers from across the room when asked. Before very long Atha asked Aiko if she wanted to make some of the potions and poultices.

Aiko enthusiastically agreed and before long they were heavily in the midst of it. Aiko would use her Chaos knife and Chaos grasp both at the same time to carefully hold and chop the herbs into very fine pieces. She had gotten a lot of practice with these two spells and now had very fine control of them. The best part was if the item she was holding and chopping was very small and soft neither spell cost her much mana.

Aiko was on her third poultice when a new notification sprang up. Congratulations! For your continued practice you have been granted the skills Herbalism I and Apothecary I.

Aiko couldn’t believe her eyes and happily told Atha all about it. Atha was of course very happy for her and they began putting her new talents into practice immediately. Aiko could instantly tell the difference in her skill now and before. She was not on the same level as Atha but she had gotten much, much, better. When she asked about this, Atha told her that she had herbalism at rank II and apothecary at rank III. Aside from leaving Aiko in awe it also gave her something to strive for.

A few days later Aiko once again found herself wandering the village looking for someone to help. Today was going to be a celebration day. It was a festival that commemorated the time when the greater gods and goddesses descended and made themselves known to the elves. At one point Aiko had gone to the great carved log with the representations of all of the oldest known gods carved into it. It was quite an awe-inspiring sight to behold.

Setting aside the festive mood that everyone was in, Aiko was bored. she wanted to do something, anything, to help. That’s when she came across the man setting up the burning mound and offered to help him.

It didn’t take very long to set up the burning mound especially using her spells but that’s when they ran into a snag. The man had a piece of metal and a piece of stone that were pretty much always used to start the fire. Today however he was having a very hard time finding them.

After searching for a long while he did eventually find the rag that always held his fire-starting tools In his house. The rag was open and the contents were missing. After looking through his house thoroughly he finally found the tender and the Flint but the steel was missing.

Aiko got an idea. She wasn’t sure if it would work but it was worth a try. Since the piece of metal the steel was supposed to strike the piece of rock maybe it just had to be something hard and she wondered if her chaos knife would work. The man told her that he didn’t use a sharp edge but A dull one instead. Not to be discouraged Aiko tried striking the rock with the back of her chaos knife a couple times.

On the first three times that she struck the piece of rock with the back of her chaos knife nothing happened. On the fourth, however, she got a notification. Congratulations! For your creative improvisation, you have been granted the spell chaos substitution.

After reading through the description of her new spell Aiko got a big buck-tooth grin On her face and couldn’t stop her tail from swishing.