"Lemme go!" The voice was extremely loud for such a small creature.

"We need to get through this forest to where the potion maker lives. If you tell us how to get there, I'll let you go." Lucifer's tone was more calm.

"Shaddup ya bastard! I ain't goin' ta help no stinkin' human."

An evil glint appeared in Lucifer's eye.

"So I guess you don't mind if we eat these kids then."

The young faerie children suddenly looked scared.

"W-we don't wanna get eaten!" one wailed.

The soldiers quickly caught on to Lucifer's ploy, and Neville began getting his cooking utensils out.

"Fresh faerie meat. Yum!" he cried.

The small creature in Lucifer's hand glared at the boy.

"If you touch so much as a hair on one of those kids, I'll beat you 'till your black and blue."

"Well, you could do that, and try to fight us one-on-five, or you could lead us to the potions hermit."

"No way! I hate that crazy old hag even more than I do normal humans."

Neville started a fire, as Brayden and Richard grabbed the kids and stuck in the cooking pot. They began crying for help. The small creature's resolve was obviously weakening rapidly. Once the soldiers put water in the pot and placed it over the fire, the creature broke down.

"Fine! I'll help you! However, I'll report this to the master. This pixie won't stand for humans bargin' into faerie territory and makin' demands."

"You can report us for whatever you like, but that will come after you lead us to the hermit."

The group began to make it's way through the forest, but now, they were no longer going around in circles. To keep the pixie on task, Lucifer kept the faerie children in the cooking pot, which was being carried by Felix and Richard. They continued through the forest for nearly four days. Finally, on the last day of the quest, the party arrived at a small clearing, in which there was a small cottage. There was smoke coming from the chimney of the cottage.

"A'ight, I've lead ya here now. Let the kids go!"

"No."

"Good, c'mon gu- Wait, what did ya say? Ya tol' me ya would let the kids go!"

"When did I say that?" Lucifer questioned innocently.

"We still need you to guide us out of the forest."

"Eh? Bu- I thou- wha-" the pixie spluttered. Obviously he had been planning on taking revenge on the party once they tried to leave. Lucifer continued to smile as he advanced towards the cottage. He knocked on the door.

"Who's there?" yelled a voice from inside. The speaker seemed old, and sounded like she didn't want to be bothered.

"Sorry to bother you, but this is the delivery of your money from the capital. Sorry it's so late, we got lost on the way here."

"Finally! You people are so slow! If you take this long next time, I'm going to stop making potions for you!"

Finn could hear movement inside the cottage, and a few second later, the door creaked open. The hermit was a decrepit old lady, and, without any pleasantries, she asked rudely,

"So where's my money?"

Lucifer quickly handed her the money he had been given.

Quest Complete

Lucifer suddenly gained 10 levels in one go! A Level C Quest really gave a huge amount of experience.

"Why are you still standing there? Scram!" The hermit was about to slam the door closed when Lucifer quickly blocker her from doing so with his foot.

"What are you doing? Move! Now!" Lucifer was yelled at, but he was determined to have an answer to a question he had been forming since he accepted the quest.

"If you're a hermit," Lucifer said, "then why do you need money?" The hermit looked at him incredulously.

"Of course I need money! Why do you think those damn faeries let me stay here? That bastard Oberon requires rent to paid to him! All he uses the money on is weapons for his soldiers! As if any human would be dumb enough to attack the faeries in this forest. Oberon is a monster, even when Bar Khan himself came to attack this forest, Oberon was able to hold off his entire forces by himself." She was rambling to herself.

Bar Khan? Suddenly the hermit mentioned a name Lucifer had learned in Darwyn's explanations. Oberon had been able to hold of Bar Khan's forces, which took an alliance of all the greatest human nations to defeat? Just how powerful was he? Lucifer now wanted to meet this Oberon.

"Now scram! I don't want to see your ugly faces anymore!"

Lucifer removed his foot, but before the hermit could close the door, he asked

"Would you take me on as your apprentice? I'll do all of the hard work, like gathering ingredients, delivering the potions to the city, and cooking."

"No way! I don't need an apprentice!"

Lucifer was disappointed. Although being in the forest would delay his research, he wouldn't be able to return to Serabourg for a while anyways. And even if he went to another city in Rosenheim, there were many users who might recognize him. The hermit had refused his request for now, but he was still determined to stay until she accepted him as her apprentice. He didn't want to pass up the opportunity to learn new skills. Especially a skill that would allow him to create health potions. Health potions could become another factor in his study. Lucifer told the soldiers to leave enough food for him to survive for a while, then to go back without him. With the children as incentive for the pixie to guide the soldiers out of the forest, they set off. Lucifer set up a small camp outside of the hermit's house, and logged off.

In real life, Finn was bombarded with questions by his siblings. They wanted to know if he had heard about the food salesman, and if he knew where he was. The two had decided on their classes, Finn's sister had become a warrior, and his brother a mage. The three agreed to meet up once the kids had reached a level at which they could get to the Forest of Faeries. The two thought Finn was weird, because he still hadn't chosen a class.

Finn didn't log back on to Royal Road until the next morning. He was busy responding to messages from his professors, his parents, and other people he knew from America. After he was done with that, he went to sleep.

When he logged back on, he noticed that the hermit was in a bit of a pickle.

"This money isn't enough for you rent." A faerie that was dressed in armor was waving a spear in the hermit's face.

"What are you saying? This is the same amount as last month! You can't tell me now that the rent has gone up again! I dont have the money!" The hermit was infuriated.

"Well, if you can't pay, then you can't stay." The soldier chuckled at his own joke.

Lucifer, instantly comprehending the situation, saw an opportunity. He walked over to the two.

"Excuse me."

"What do you want?" snarled the hermit.

"No need to be so grouchy. I noticed your dilemma. I have money, and can probably pay what you can't."

"Well hurry up! As you can see, I'm about to be evicted!"

"Don't be so hasty. I have a condition. I'll pay the extra, but only if you take me on as an apprentice."

The hermit hesitated. She was unwilling to take Lucifer on, but she wanted to stay in the forest which was abundant with strange herbs that were impossible to be found elsewhere. After a few moments, she accepted. Lucifer paid the money she didn't have.

"So what should I do, master." The hermit gave Lucifer a look.

"Go forage for ingredients."

Before Lucifer obeyed her orders, he quietly used a skill.

"Absorb Knowledge"

A list of skills appeared in front of Lucifer. He selected 8 skills that he thought would be useful to him, and tried to learn them.

Skill: You learned Foraging

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Skill: You learned Basic Ingredient Identification

Skill: You learned Magic Ingredient Identification

Skill: You learned Basic Potion Brewing

Skill: You learned Magic Potion Brewing

You failed to learn Elemental Ingredient Identification

You failed to learn Elemental Brewing

You failed to learn Alchemy

Lucifer was able to get the basic skills he needed, but was unable to get the more interesting skills the old lady had. He was not disappointed however, he had gained 5 skills for free. He was beginning to realize that his Absorb Knowledge skill was overpowered. He grabbed a small pot and left the cottage to go looking for ingredients. His low level Foraging skill meant he was unable to gather many of the higher level ingredients, but the skill level increased rapidly due to his Quick Study skill. While he foraged, he used many of the low level ingredients to make basic potions. Along the way he met quite a few faeries, and became good friends with many of them. Each day, he would spend the entire day foraging and come back to the cottage at night. He would hand the unused ingredients to the hermit, who would always seem unsatisfied with their poor quality. Then he would show her the potions he had made, and she would inspect them for a few seconds before throwing them directly out the window.

"These are terrible! With this kind of quality, you should be ashamed to show them to anyone, let alone me, the greatest potion brewing master in the world!" Lucifer was yet to do anything that could satisfy the hermit, and he was starting to grow annoyed. However, he could do nothing but continue to forage and wait. His Quick Study skill had grown to Beginner Level 5, and not gave a 10% boost to the speed at which he gained skill proficiency. Therefore, his Foraging, Ingredient Identification, and Potion Brewing skills were nearing the intermediate level. Meanwhile, he had become great friends with many of the faeries he had met, and had even been invited to their houses. There were many different races of faeries, and they greatly varied in size and color. Their houses were full of precious ingredients, and they often let Lucifer take some of them. Their generosity allowed Lucifer's skills to grow abnormally quickly, as many of the ingredients required Intermediate Foraging to collect, and some would have required Advanced Foraging. Although Lucifer's Brewing skills were also beginner level and he couldn't pull out the full potential of the advanced ingredients, he still made potions that the hermit didn't throw out.

Finally, after a month, 6 of Lucifer's skills became intermediate level at almost the same time. Those six skills were the five skills he had gotten from the hermit, and his handicraft skill. After this improvement in his skills, the beginner level Quick Study skill could no longer affected them. However, the hermit began to grunt in appreciation each time Lucifer returned, and kept most of his potions. He was finally being accepted. He tried to learn the three skills he had been unable to learn before, but the only one he was now able to learn was Alchemy. He began testing the skill, and learned that it could transform ingredients into others. However, he was unable to transform beginner level ingredients into intermediate level ones, and if he tried the skill on intermediate level herbs, they turned into mush and became unusable. He could also only transform ingredients into ones that he had already identified. Despite the drawbacks, this new skill greatly helped him, as he wouldn't have to spend huge amounts of time searching for a single rare herb, he could gather a lot of one common herb and turn it into a rarer herb. His ordeals in the forest continued.

After a month passed in real life, the school year in Korea was about to begin. Finn had to go to classes every once in a while and read the books he was assigned. In the last two days before the school began, Finn read and memorized his textbooks. He played a minimal amount of Royal Road in those two days to allow the information to stick in his brain. Once school started, Lucifer would probably have to return to a place with users to continue his research. Before he left, he still wanted to get a skill directly from the hermit. She was very good at creating potions, if her brewing skills weren't at master level, Lucifer would have been surprised. She definitely had some unique skills that Lucifer wouldn't be able to learn through his Absorb Knowledge skill unless it were a higher level.

When he logged back on the night before school started, the knights were at the hermit's house. They were with the shopkeeper this time. Lucifer greeted him, asking how his wife was. The shopkeeper replied that she was doing fine. He gave Lucifer a small reward for completing his request.

"By the way," mentioned Richard, "we took that pixie along with us so that she wouldn't report you. You haven't run into any trouble, have you?"

"No. What did you do with it?"

"We sold it to a slave trader. He gave us quite a bit of money for it."

Lucifer started. They had sold the pixie to slave trader? Lucifer was surprised to hear that Serabourg allowed for slave trade, seeing as it had a large branch of the Church of Freya in it. He resolved to buy the pixie and set it free if he could.

"Where is that slave trader. I wouldn't mind having a slave myself," he replied.

"He's in Serabourg. When you come back, we'll show you where his stand is."

Once they left, Lucifer was called into the cottage by the hermit.

"They gave me to little money again this time. Make yourself useful and give me the extra money necessary." Of course, the only thing the hermit needed Lucifer for was his money. Once Lucifer gave her the extra, she shooed him out of her cottage.

Lucifer went to the house of some of his faerie friends, but they were not home. Suddenly, he saw on of his friends frantically flying around, looking extremely worried.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Lucifer! You need to help us! Some faeries have gotten a disease that our healers can't fix! Please come and try to heal them! I know that you make potions, maybe one of them can help us."

[p=left]Help the sick Faeries

Some faeries have contracted a terrible disease that cannot be cured with magic. Restore them to health with potions

Difficulty level: D

Quest Reward: Unknown

Quest Limit: Before the faeries die

Upon refusal of the quest, faeries will be hostile towards you.

Upon failure of the quest, your relationship with the faeries will become neutral

Upon refusal or failure of the quest, Fame -100[/p]

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