I woke up sore everywhere. Even moving my head was painful. At least my bed was more comfortable than it had been the previous night. The room I was in was steeped in darkness. It took me a while to remember where I was and how I got there.
I was sleeping in a room inside Silas’ compound. Which room? I had no idea. Not even how I got there. I could remember little flashes of memory from the day before. The farm, the journey back, the meal and then bed. I thought I had met the rest of the family, but I couldn’t be sure. There had been at least one woman. Or was that two? Had the children been older or younger than Boni?
I gave up on that train of thought when I failed to come up with any concrete facts. I would apologize for forgetting them. They would have to understand. Pretending otherwise wasn’t an option. I tried getting out of the bed and nearly screamed in agony. There was pain everywhere. Even my fingers were painful to flex. It felt like they were filled with open wounds. All this pain and I got nothing for it.
I gathered myself and got up again. Quickly this time, biting my lip through the pain. I counted to three before standing upright. And hitting my head on the ceiling of the room. Just how small was it? I wondered. Maybe I had gained a few centimeters in my sleep. There was that one paper I read that claimed something like that happened. Something to do with the relaxation of the vertebral disks.
I decided to do some warm up motions, in part to take away some of the pain and rigidness I felt in all my muscles and to also prepare myself for the day ahead. It would be my first pay day. A silver if I didn’t collapse, hurray.
I walked to the edge of the bed and turned around. Walked three steps and turned around again. I didn’t know how big the room was but I could estimate the size of the bed. And that allowed enough room for three average steps, at least. As I progressively got used to the movements, I moved on to exaggerated ones. Moving my arms and legs higher than necessary for a step, allowing most of my muscles to stretch and get activated.
After what felt like twenty minutes, I settled down on the bed. I felt fine, as fine as I could be. The soreness was still there, but it was dull. I knew I couldn’t stay sat for long, otherwise I would be back to square one. I regretted not having asked about time and watches. Then I remembered that there was a System that oversaw everything.
‘Clare, what is the time?’
‘Around two hours to sunrise.’
I decided not to argue about the fact that a more precise time would have been better. I didn’t have the energy for it. But based on that, and where we had found Silas the day before, it was safe to assume that they usually left the compound before sunrise. That meant I had less than two hours to get ready, have breakfast before we had to go back to the farm.
I decided I had had enough rest. Got up and began another round of stretching and basic body movements. I chose that time to review my information, see what the day before had done to me. I knew I needed to be around Level 20 in general for my body to stop feeling sore allover all the time.
‘Clare, Notifications.’
‘{Congratulations, you have gained the Skill [Weeding]}
{Congratulations, the Skill [Weeding] has leveled up!
[Weeding: 1 -> 2]}
{Congratulations, the Skill [Weeding] has leveled up!
[Weeding: 2 -> 3]}
{Congratulations, the Attribute [Agility] has leveled up!
[Agility: 8 -> 9]}
{Congratulations, the Skill [Weeding] has leveled up!
[Weeding: 3 -> 4]}
{Congratulations, the Attribute [Strength] has leveled up!
[Strength: 13 -> 14]}
{Congratulations, you have leveled up!
[Level: 10 -> 11]}
{Congratulations, the Attribute [Constitution] has leveled up!
[Constitution: 8 -> 9]}
{Congratulations, the Attribute [Agility] has leveled up!
[Agility: 9 -> 10]}
{Congratulations, the Skill [Weeding] has leveled up!
[Weeding: 4 -> 5]}
{Congratulations, the Attribute [Endurance] has leveled up!
[Endurance: 13 -> 14]}
End of Notifications.’
Now, how did my overall information look like?
‘[Identify]’
[Species: Human]
[Name: Hartie]
[Sex: Male]
[Level: 11]
Status:
[HP: 811/1062]
[MP: 1487/1487]
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[SP: 1588/1791]
Attributes:
[Agility: 10]
[Constitution: 9]
[Endurance: 14]
[Intelligence: 12]
[Strength: 14]
[Vitality: 9]
[Wisdom: 12]
General Skills [3/3]:
[Identify: 1]
[Language Proficiency: 1]
[Mana Manipulation: 1]
Skills:
[Bludgeons: 1]
[Fire Bolt: 1]
[Spears: 1]
[Stealth: 1]
[Weeding: 5]
That was nice, all those level ups, I was finally going to catch up with the average person. With all the people I had met, I assumed that to be around Level 25. Around fifteen levels, that was a lot. If I gained around a Level a day, that would be two weeks. But that wouldn’t be the case, the amount of time and energy needed to gain a Level was going to increase each time I gained a new Level. If I did a simple math of doubling the time required to gain a new Level, then it would take me around ninety years to get to Level 25. I didn’t think I could live for that long. I needed to find a more efficient way of leveling.
A knock on one of the walls disturbed me. It felt like it had come more from above than on the walls. Was I underground?
“Hartie, are you up? Breakfast is ready,” Boni called. His voice definitely came from somewhere above me.
I moved towards where I had heard his voice and collided with something. Feeling around with my hands, I realized it was a staircase. I followed it carefully as it rose higher. After less than ten steps, I reached what I assumed was a door on the wall. The stairs hadn’t gone all the way to the ceiling. Just part way. I pushed it open tentatively, and walked outside.
I was at the end of a corridor, opening to what appeared to be the dining room. There was a dinner table with six chairs on it, and three were already taken. One by Silas, another by Boni and the last by a woman who I assumed to be Boni’s mother. They shared a resemblance; the nose, the jawline, they had all come from her. I couldn’t tell under the low light of the room, but her hair didn’t appear as black as the ones I had seen.
“You didn’t die in the night,” she said when she saw me, her voice a soft alto.
“No.” I said as I began to walk to the dinner table. “But close.”
“If you survived the first night, you’ll live,” she said.
On the table, there was an extra plate with bread and, a meat and vegetable broth. Boni pointed at it with his head and I assumed it was meant for me. I took the seat and dug in.
“Don’t lie to them, today is usually worse,” Silas said in between bites and chews.
“Didn’t you see how he walked here? He doesn’t have soreness in his muscles,” the wife said. I really needed to ask her her name.
“Still sore,” I said after swallowing what could have been my fifth mouthful in as many seconds. “Warm up and stretching help.”
“I guess you don’t need my healing touch then?” she asked as she wrinkled her hands on the table. She was already done with her plate.
“You healer?” I asked surprised.
“No,” she answered exaggeratedly, “But I do have a few healing Skills that come in handy around the house.”
“She tried and failed. Too much reading for her, she said.” Silas was already cleaning up his plate with the last of his bread.
“The less you rely on healing Skills to make you feel better, the faster your body will get used to the work,” Boni said.
“A touch here and there isn’t bad. But too much is,” Silas added to his son’s comment.
“So, do you want me to heal you a little?” the wife asked.
I nodded my head when I realized I still had food to swallow. And when I was done, I added, “After food.”
Silas nodded at that. “That is a good rule. Food first, everything else second.”
After I was done with breakfast, the healing session lasted for several seconds before the wife called it done. I felt freer than before, with less pain and soreness to work through. Then I remembered my staff, and my new clothes. I should have already gotten rid of the bandit clothes. But that would involve showering which I hadn’t done or had any idea where I could do it. I decided to focus on the more important things first, my staff. We would be heading out to the farm soon, taking a shower would be counterproductive.
“My things?” I asked the table.
“You carried them with you when you went to sleep. You didn’t see them?” Boni said.
“No. Too dark,” I said. I hadn’t even tried to see whether I could touch anything in that darkness other than the stairs.
“What about the lights?” Boni asked, then thought better of it. “Right, you don’t know how they work. Come on, I’ll show you.”
I followed him to the door I had exited from. We left it open as we descend the stairs, using the little light from the dining room that spilled over as our only illumination.
“You take a little Mana from within with the intention to light the globe and direct it into the globe,” he said as he touched the globe and it came to life. “To switch off is just the same process, with the intention to switch off the globe.”
I touched the globe, inspecting it. It was cold to the touch, the way I would expect an unlit bulb to feel. I guessed there was no infrared emitted in magic light globes. I created the intent to switch off the light globe and directed it at the globe. It took a bit of effort before the intent went through and the globe went dark. I repeated the process with the lighting of the globe and it did.
“I see you have already grasped everything there is about light globes.”
“Doesn’t need Skill?” I asked after I realized Clare hadn’t notified me of gaining a new Skill.
“No. [Mana Manipulation] is usually enough. Anyway, we are leaving in half an hour, make sure to be ready by then.” He went up the stairs and disappeared.
My staff and bag were laid haphazardly on the wooden floor. I picked up the bag and spend the next few minutes studying it for any tears. When I found it still intact, I laid it on the bed and picked up my staff. I switched off the light globe and carefully ascended the stairs with the little light from outside.
I decided being early was better than being late. I would wait them at the front of the building for the remaining minutes. I would get to do all the other things I wanted to do when the day was done. I just hoped I wouldn’t be as tired as the day before.
The day progressed as it had before when we arrived at the farm. Two lines each, from end to end and back. A water break, and repeat. Talk was as prevalent as it had been before, but to me, it felt like unneeded torture on top of everything. But there was nothing that could make Boni shut up. He had a lot of things, or questions to ask, and he always expected responses. Especially from me.
What exactly do you remember? How much of that is from before you can remember? Where did you find yourself when you woke up the first time? Did you kill anything? How was the fight? Why didn’t you try and find out what was stalking you? How did the fish taste like? And that was before he went on an hour length lecture about how hunting and fishing was illegal unless you had a permit.
It introduced me to the governing structure of the planet. As far as they knew, there were empires and we were in one such Empire. The Saoce. Beneath that, we were in the Kingdom of Thyatol, the Duchy of Makndre, Choska County and finally, Sjuma Barony. Our town, Yange, was one of four that made up the local barony.
“How long soybean mature?” I asked just to shift the focus from me and stop the lecture. It felt like Boni could go on for the whole day. I wasn’t averse to learning about the land I was in, but I needed that information at a time when my brain would be capable of retaining it.
“Two to three months, depending on how you take care of them,” Silas replied. It was the first time he had answered any of my questions constructively.
The soybean from old earth took six months to mature, if I remembered correctly. This must be an early maturing variety. Very early maturing.
“That feels fast,” I summarized all my comments to that.
“It’s all magic. Someone, I don’t remember who,” Boni took over again. And I heard Silas murmur something. “figured out how to make crops grow and mature faster a few hundred years ago. You imbue the seeds before you plant them, and then occasionally do the same to the plant as it grows. Three to four times is usually enough.”
“Like with the globes?” I asked, still trying to maintain my weeding pace and technique. I was just beyond tired, past the period where you felt the muscles complaining. I was like jelly, blobbing with the flow.
“No, this requires finesse. A more delicate hand,” Silas said. “A healer’s hand. But most people who have the talent for it usually go with the healing route. Even Masi tried to go that way too.”
That must be the name of his wife. “You all can do it?”
“Not to the same degree that Masi can. But yes.”
“The time it takes me to imbue a single crop, Mother usually does over a hundred. It takes her around a week to do the whole farm,” Boni said.
“How many soybeans are here?”
“Over five hundred thousand,” Silas said.
I paused and stood up to stare at the farm. Over five hundred thousand plants. I could hardly picture how someone would go about imbuing all of them with Mana. With how long and how much Mana it had taken me to light and turn off the bulb, I imagined that Masi’s Mana pool was either massive or refilled fast. And she had to be efficient too.
“How does it work?” I was getting better at choosing the right words to make a proper a sentence. I must have leveled up in [Language Proficiency].
Boni looked at his father first before he answered, “It’s hard to explain. I’ll take you to the library tomorrow, then you can read for yourself. Don’t worry, I will pay the toll for you.”
That wasn’t what had surprised me. I had suspected that there were books with how Silas had claimed that the reason Masi didn’t become a healer was because of the reading involved. But a full-fledged library? That was a true surprise, especially in a town that had only the one stone building. And also,
“There’s no work tomorrow?”
“We usually work for five days before taking a rest day,” Silas answered.
“A week is six days?”
“No,” and the you-are-asking-stupid-questions tone had returned. “Five days is the fine balance between overworking and underworking.”
After that, I let the conversation drift to more Boni themes.