In the shadows of the woods many figures were dashing under the trees. The girl was breathing, kind of uneasy. She had needed money and had made a major leap of faith with this move, she was hoping that man was telling the truth.

She thought back to the rumor she heard and looked back to the one who followed her. It was a warrior above her level. She might have ended up dead.

She suddenly gritted her teeth she felt that she had entered his domain. There was a thick atmosphere in the air that seemed to make it hard to breathe and made her shiver involuntarily.

It was cold, but this coldness was not due to the setting sun or the forest air at all. This cold felt like it came from a source far more sinister.

It wasn't known why but someone here would kill prey for you, so long as he could manage. He even promised her 70/30 of the loot.

Of course no one believed it, deal seemed too good to be true. That was exactly why it was considered extremely shady and no one would actually do this.

But she needed money and what he was offering that he would kill all she needed to do was to take them to him. He might have lied and then again he might not have lied.

If she failed this leap of faith he she would barely escape with her life, but if she succeeded then she would earn a reward for doing nothing at all.

She then remembered the shadow he had met. Voice was deep and shadow's figure was tall, it did not have any delicate curves woman had so shadow was most likely male.

This man had never showed himself, he always hid in the shadows, only his eyes and an outline of his body could be seen.

"If you lure someone, be it beast or man, to this area, I shall kill it or him and will give you 30%. Note that however, if I deem myself unlikely to win against him then you will be on your own. " had said the shadow in a matter of fact tone.

"Also if you cross me I will have no reason to keep you safe, so for your own interest I recommend that you do not get smart and make an ambush for me. If you do that I do not think I can protect you." said the shadow now his eyes narrowed sill with a matter of fact tone, but filled with viciousness.

The shadow's voice was not cold at all, but rather likable or charming, pleasant to ears right to the end. It was exactly that and the fact that he refused to be seen that made this so shady.

But this whole thing was spoken as if it was not a shady deal at all. When it was presented by him this whole thing just seemed like a casual business deal.

He spoke like a merchant who was telling her if anything is bought she could not return it. It was more like he told her the rules of business.

"...I do not think I can protect you." came to her mind. That part of his speech just made shivers run down her spine. The way he told it was very serious all of a sudden. In fact his whole soft and elegant voice turning vicious made her scared to death.

When she stated she had no idea what to do and the man guided her to a band of mercenaries - or common thugs - which were following her now because she was weak and apparently she had a very thick bag.

Also, because she was a woman. They were casing her without actually doubting about her being a bait to draw them to a spider's nest, not that they had the ability to consider that far.

Actually she just could feel stares on her, these man was completely focused on her ignoring anything else. Which was an advantage for her if the man killed them.

If not however, she just had to run faster to save herself. She could just go into some beast territory and they would have to stop because of their numbers.

There was no law here, here only law of the jungle existed. When she thought back to the lands she had ever known since birth, she knew now how little she had valued civilization.

She sighed, if she did not need any money she would not do something this dangerous and if she had enough power she would not rely on that person.

She ran praying to whoever came to her mind. She felt like she had done a deal with the devil. She had done everything like the man said, now was his turn.

*****

The man smiled, he had a blowgun in his hand and clearly knew just how to use it. Blowgun was not that hard to use anyway, though he lamented his rather savage looking weapon they were the best that he had.

He felt all of these people were idiots. The nature is rich with poison after all, it is the most basic thing to know that everything is poison and poison is in everything, even water.

Drink water more than enough and you will wind up dead from water poisoning, not to mention waterborne viruses and parasites. He also kept some mollusks and leeches he often replaced.

Leeches may be disgusting but they actually provide a lot of health benefits. A leech can cleanse the blood by sucking it and make blood travel faster through your body, it's excretions are also useful.

Therefore in all actuality leeches, starting in fertile crescent, were used as medicine over two thousand years. They may be disgusting to touch let alone to let them suck your blood, but they are useful when you need them.

Everything in nature, even poison - provided if one knows how to use it - is beneficial, if one does not know how to use even beneficial herbs will be come poison.

If ingested too little no effect, if ingested too much than consequences could be death, not even counting the side effects. Just the right dose. That was what a doctor had to know.

Even in the wild with nothing on hand he could perform a surgery with tools from bones, anesthesia from herbs, antiseptic from mollusks, boiled water which is easier to acquire than anything.

All of these were easy to find if one knew where to look. After surgery to speed up the healing process he could use leeches or herbs that allow blood to flow faster, thus allowing wound to close faster as well as fruits that help cleanse blood and help your body regenerate it.

Of course these are provided if you cannot just use mana to heal. Healing is actually quite a lot more complex than simply enhancing restorative speed of the body.

So those who can use mana to heal body in a way alter it "just right" not one wrong. It needs great mastery to do that and maybe an emperor might have access to such an individual.

Everything he had learned he had learned it in the long years he had been an assassin. To learn how to kill one learns all the parts of a body, to learn how to heal one learns them too.

Assassins could become surgeons if needed, it also allows one to learn the move from the damage by reverse engineering it, as well as who made that wound. When a certain level of mastery is achieved in any style it becomes like a fingerprint.

Also when you need to assassinate someone one can use their medical condition to his advantage, such as making a man eat the food he was allergic to, have a severe reaction followed by death.

Also most of the drugs prescribed when taken too much can cause death. Here as seen both study death, bot have power over it, one brings it other makes it go away. It is always the intent which matters.

He had two extract made from Hakoqi Snow Flower, rather uncommon herb that grew here with it's root he made poison and with the flower he made anesthetic medicine, which also enhanced regeneration.

Hakoqi Snow Flower was a plant that was had poison in its root. Its effects were quite similar to strychnine, except for the fact it paralyzed first then caused muscles to convulse and acted in an instant.

When of course with darts this poison did not have to go through oral way where the amount of poison would be significant to kill.

With the dart's help it could breach defense systems of body and be delivered directly to the blood stream. now even one drop of it would be deadly enough to kill humans.

He also liked this poison because of the effects it was quite funny and dramatic how muscles convulsed even face muscles, thus making them all ridiculous. He broke into a grin when he imagined how they would look.

It's antidote was also a commonly found herb that grew right here in this very forest. It was quite interesting how land reacted to poison, pests and diseases.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The cure most often would be found on the infected land, as if earth itself was fighting back against whatever that was causing death.

He picked those who followed the girl one by one beginning with those at the very end. It's paralyzing effect quickly took hold of them they could not even utter a word and fell.

Until the last two of them he had no problem with dispatching them all. But then the last person was quite large and could bring out a little voice of pain, as well as a large falling sound which alerted the two.

They turned back and saw a way filled with their friends all of them lying in the ground as if dead but they were not. They realized now that they were tricked.

Suddenly then people who lied around began to shake, with all of their faces looking more and more ridiculous and drool spilling out from their mouth.

Mercenaries opened their eyes, poison! Quick acting effective poison to boot! They had never heard of this poison. They were most likely facing a poison master.

Their faces turned very gloomy and solemn, they did not expect a poison master or rather an expert poison master. If they had realized earlier there would be time to administer antidote but there were two of them now.

"We realize we overstep our position poison master! But we will give you all that we own, please spare our lives!" said both falling to their knees in a begging pose.

"Well said, you recognize your place! If you can satisfy me I might consider not killing you!" said a deep voice from the shadows. Two mercenaries were filled with hope as they looked away and tried to remove their bag.

Quickly both of them felt a prick on their neck. They looked up to their assailant whose silver grey eyes could be seen in the darkness.

"Hmph, you think you would be spared so long as you gave me everything you owned? What a ridiculous thought! The moment I caught you, your life and everything you owned belonged to me in the first place!" said the shadow with a condescending voice.

"You think you can make a merchant buy his own wares? Think again in your next life!" said the voice mocking them as their muscles began to convulse.

"Kihihihihihi!" came a mischievous laughter from the trees. It sounded eerily like a naughty child laughing at the prank he pulled.

Then a long man fell from the trees. He looked like a man who had long forgotten what civilization even was. He wore baggy fur clothes roughly sewn together with some thing greenish in color and robust, probably some sort of vine.

His unkempt hair that made it difficult to see his face - which was covered by a half mask to boot. Only thing that was visible was his eyes that were silver grey.

In his belt there was two little clay bottles as well as a bone dagger and a blowgun and some darts. He looked like a barbarian, someone from the ages long gone. Of course he was Aeron.

He looked at the corpses who were all now dead, either because of being unable to breathe when they were paralyzed, because of a cardiac arrest or maybe both.

"As agreed thirty yours sister!" said Aeron and threw a full bag to the girl who certainly was not expecting to get her pay and was contemplating on running.

"Wha-why?" said girl looking at the bag, she did not understand why this man would give him this at that moment, it was so unexpected.

"Fair is fair sister! Now however, you want to get out here." said Aeron getting his dagger out - cutting the leg and wrist of the corpse, as well as the throat.

Then he began a movement that looked like kneading on the corpse's chest, which made a cracking sound as the blood began to flow out.

Girl's eyes bulged out. There was a reason why most people would not dare kill someone near territory of magic beasts.

They would be drawn to the blood like shark in the water. The girl just grabbed the bag that was given to her and ran away from the man who seemed insane.

"Well, all that is left is to wait for fishes to bite!" said Aeron jumping up and holding a branch, then using it to jump even higher. then he held he began to watch the area with an uncanny focus.

*****

"I miss home..." said Aeron and deeply sighed looking at the moon. He was sitting atop a tree, and had made something to bind to tree, in case he rolled around during sleep.

He really did not do much these days, besides searching for poison, which was all too easy to find thanks to Sophia and the books he read back home.

He did not have to remember them as Sophia could, so he could just sit back and relax. In all actuality doctors would have to spend years as herb collectors to learn all herbs.

He did not need to remember anything about plants, it was grafted into his mind anyway. If he had no data on something he would first make multiple extracts and would try it on something to learn its properties.

It was best to understand their properties since he did not need anything, but it was better to have somethings rather than not. Who knows, maybe all of this knowledge one day would be required.

If not then no harm in learning new stuff when one does not really waste time. besides poisons make tedious business short and medicines can be used for assassination!

He remembered dead people and his mood got up, though when he remembered his family he began brooding again.

I sit up in the moonlight,

I look at the surface of water,

which flows forever

reflecting the wide seas of night.

I lift my head and look at the moon

Then close my eyes and think of home.

He smiled and caressed the piece of fur. Words were sewn by him when he felt lonely one night. Since he had no paper and ink, thus no way to write this feeling to get it out.

It was like a constant ache in the heart, he felt like running back even if the sea did not allow him to. But the current around here was too dangerous and strong.

Xander left him here with only his fur underwear,telling him to try not to come back for six months because strong current would not allow him to.

By tomorrow he found that he was right, the branch he threw away rapidly travelled around the island to the open ocean.

If he tried to swim he would end up with an express ticket to ocean and would become fish feed. So he had no choice but to make do here.

But there were about seven days to the next time the currents were good enough to reach the mainland, so he just had to endure a bit more.

Aeron decided to stop brooding. He would endure for now and to head to beach, to swim back to Granite Bay and kick Xander's ass to the end of the universe!

*****

Aeron looked at the gates of the mansion, he had ditched Xander while he was complaining and came here faster than even he thought he could run.

Aeron felt like skipping right now. They were at the Ebonguard. Finally the whole thing was over! Although he had gained much from this training, he really would not like to do it again.

It really was boring to spend months in some island in the ass-end of nowhere with nobody but Sophia as a companion. If he did not hunt all day and night he might have became crazy by boredom.

He even had made some souvenirs for his family that he stashed among his fur clothes in the beach while waiting for the currents.

Aeron began walking, skipping, running and finally reached - no, leapt - for the gates of the mansion when he heard a voice:"HALT! WHO ARE YOU? STATE YOUR BUSINE - E-EH, IS IT YOU LITTLE LORD?!"

___________________________

I do not know how poems are viewed, but I wanted to write a short poem instead of something else as poems are better way to display emotions. I hope you like it. :D

Glossary coming out next. I wanted to release the glossary after 10 chapters!

Sorry everyone I was busy, taking care of RL situation. I got a VERY soft spot for my nephew!

Especially his red cheek that look like apples which awakens my inner vampire! (*,..,*)