Back at his house he had two pleasant surprises, both farming related. His orange trees were finally producing fruit. There were two beautiful orange orbs hanging from one branch, with several more that still needed to ripen. He collected both and put them in his storage. He would have eaten one right then, but his new medicinal plants had gone to seed.
His herbology skill helped him with the harvesting process. Most of the plants were easy to remove the seeds from and dig up, but one needed special care. The seeds on that plant came in what looked like a small bunch, but the whole cluster was actually one seed and if you tried to pull it apart you would render it useless. The plants were stuffed into his necklace and the seeds went back into the ground. If they all grew, he would have enough to regrow a leg.
Using some torn up grass he swept out the ashes from his stove. He seemed to remember that they could be used in a garden to add nutrients, but there was also something about it changing the pH levels. He could mess with that another time. He then placed a layer of quartz stones on the bottom and set the alchemical cauldron on top. This was a trick he and Cassidy had come up with after she told him about burning her hands.
Each of the stones was engraved with a fire rune, and by channeling mana into them it would cause the rock to erupt in small but intense flames for a brief while. By delivering a short burst of energy and then repeating the process with all of the other stones, he could provide as much heat as a wood fire without the roaring flames.
Alan used a cutting board he had acquired from the dwarves to prepare most of the ingredients. As he added each one he was careful to make sure the stones stayed hot. He was also experimenting with splitting his focus and applying mana to multiple stones at once, but so far his only reward was a light headache.
Adding the final touches he stirred the pot with the special rod. Cassidy struggled with this step, but infusing mana into things had long become old-hat for Alan. After about twenty minutes the potion had turned a nice brown color and he placed his hand and stump next to the gems embedded in the cauldron.
After channeling his energy again, he was left with enough potion for two vials. Not as good as Cassidy had done, but he was still an amateur. He also hadn’t burned his flesh as she had. Taking one of the potions, and putting the other into his necklace, he made his way into his house and closed the door.
He slurped the potion out of the tube and even licked the remnants. He wanted every last drop of regeneration. He then closed his eyes and watched the transformation take place. Previously he had been unconscious, or distracted by a lovely pair of green eyes. This time he studied the effect on his body and aura.
As the potion made its way down his throat he could feel a small amount of energy getting absorbed. It then slowly made its way towards his stump, but there was a gradual decline in the energy's strength. Perhaps it was being used along the way, or it naturally burned over time. The vast majority of the orange semi-liquid made its way into his stomach and was quickly turned into energy.
Alan could tell a difference between his normal healing energy and what the potion was generating. They were definitely related, but also distinct. Now that the thick potion had been turned into regrowth energy, or whatever it was called, it started to make its way through his body, towards his stump. It was a slow process, and he could detect a slight reduction in potency as it moved.
Using the same technique as he had used instinctively that first time, he cast his healing spell and directed his healing toward the blob of regrowth. The two joined together into some kind of swirl and then suddenly vanished from his body. Since he was watching closely he could see how it had been sucked up by the tendrils of his pathways closest to the energy. Instead of sliding through his tissue, it was now rushing throughout his aura. Every time it passed his stump he could feel as some of it was drawn off, and almost like a 3D printer, it was released from his pathways and turned into actual flesh.
That final process of energy becoming tissue was too hard for him to grasp, but he could understand the idea of what was happening. Alan also could tell that not only had his healing spell allowed the potions energy to be absorbed into his pathways, but it also had shielded it from the slow degradation he had noticed earlier. And as a bonus it seemed to be helping with the actual conversion into tissue.
Cassidy had remarked that the potion was not restoring as much flesh as she thought it should. With the addition of his minor healing spell he thought that the opposite should be the case. The only explanation he could come up with was that somewhere in the process of converting the energy to flesh he was using more than expected. The next time he used the potion he would have to pay more attention to that part.
Alan had been wondering if he would slowly grow out a full sized hand or if the potion would instead give him a small hand and gradually swell it up until it was normal. It now seemed like it would be closer to the first. Where previously the stump-hand ended right at the wrist, where the ulna ends, it now had a few centimeters more extending out from there. It was weird to see, but it was almost as if the point of amputation had simply been moved closer to the end of his arm.
He now had twelve hours to kill until he could repeat the treatment. He made another round checking on his plants. They looked good still, those he had harvested fruit from were already starting to make more. Those plants that were in the magical circles looked fully grown, they just hadn’t started to produce yet.
While he made his circuit he also started to weed. He hadn’t done much of that previously, but he had time to kill at the moment. Most of what he removed was grass, but other types of plants were starting to crop up as well. After about two hours he had done all he could, and decided to work on making dinner.
Tonight, he tried grilling up some of the lizard meat he had. He first had to cut up one of the carcasses he had collected. The hide was covered in scales and he did his best to keep that whole. It meant sacrificing a little meat, but he wasn’t sure how to do it otherwise. He then cut the meat into smaller strips and laid them across the grill.
Somehow, Two Socks must have known that food would soon be available, because he came padding up out of the darkness. He truly was a stalker, even with Alan’s high perception he hadn’t seen him until he exited the long grass surrounding his farm. He had already been infusing one the steaks, just in case, and he pulled it off and let the wolf gobble it up. This time he made sure to place it a little ways off so that he didn’t have to watch.
After what seemed a reasonable amount of time, plus another couple of minutes just in case, he pulled one of the strips off. The meat was incredibly tender and had a nice smokey flavor. This was absolutely going on the menu for the future.
He didn’t feel like he had exerted himself that much recently, but it would still be nice to lay down for a while. First, he sat on the ground with his spewn on his lap. Until he could see its aura, he would be unable to engrave it. Half an hour later he was no closer to detecting its aura, but his skill had gone up a little more.
Stepping back inside his house he laid down on his pile of furs. Two Socks, laid down in the other corner on the pile Alan had left him. They both were soon asleep, both blissfully unaware of the others’ soft snoring.
When Alan woke in the morning he was surprised to find that Two Socks had already left, presumably for his sweep of the area. He started his day with some Tai Chi. Yoga was too difficult without his other hand. He still found himself having to make some adjustments to some of the moves, but it was far easier than downward-facing dog would have been.
As he stretched out his body, he also worked on stretching his aura. He had not been as diligent recently with his cultivation as he should have been. Luckily, he had gotten a large increase from overloading his aura during the escape, so hopefully that meant he wasn’t behind. Now that he thought about it, Tamee had never really quantified how much he needed to accomplish with his cultivation before upgrading to opal. That day was coming soon, he only needed a little more in his Scholar and Seeker classes to be maxed out. Hopefully his aura was ready.
With no real plans for the morning, he took extra time in his workout. By the end he was covered in sweat. The combination of controlling his physical power and stretching his pathways took it out of him. Luckily, he had a bathtub nearby.
The drow he had looted the necklace from, at one time had a large wardrobe. It had been dramatically reduced when he gave out fresh clothes to the prisoners. However, there was still a small collection and it even included a shirt and shorts that were good for working out in. The dark elf had been a bit bigger than Alan so the shorts almost looked like capris, but his bulkier frame filled out the shirt well.
Both the clothes and Alan went right into the stream. He didn’t have a thermometer with him, but if he had to guess he would have put the normal temperature around here in the mid-seventies. It made for a very comfortable environment. The stream, however, was probably in the mid to high sixties. That didn’t sound too bad, but it was cold for water. Without his improved constitution it would probably have been difficult to soak for more than a few minutes at a time.
He hadn’t had a real bath in quite some time. The mining village had used camp showers, bags of water that you slowly trickled over yourself to rinse, but they were expensive because their water supply was some distance away. Alan could have supplied the water himself, but somehow, he had never got around to it.
You would think that in a universe where many people had improved perception, that personal hygiene would have been more important. However, in his experience so far it seemed to depend on the people. The tree elves had valued showers enough to set up special means of getting running water. The dwarves on the other hand lived with a low-grade BO all the time. As he thought back, he felt that low-grade might have been overly generous.
It felt good to scrub off both the physical and mental dirt he had been accumulating. Alan even broke out the fragrant soap he had taken from Anna’s home. He had felt a little guilty at the time, but now he felt nothing but clean. The workout clothes also got a scrubbing, but without the soap.
The rest of the morning was his. He didn’t really want to do anything too strenuous, especially after just getting clean. Instead, he decided to examine his plan for evolving his classes to opal. The first stone he had gotten was for his Rogue class. It was a rare stone and he liked the description, however, it had requirements. He had long passed level fifty in his dagger skill, but he still wasn’t at twenty-five in sneaking.
There was also the Sorcerer stone he had been given by his mentor, which was also rare. That one only required three mage talents, and he had all six. He had gotten another stone to upgrade his fighter class to a dual wielding specialist, which was at uncommon rarity. The Medicine Man stone he found in the necklace was another rare, and he easily met those requirements as well.
As soon as he was ready he could upgrade three of his classes, but he still needed stones for four of them. His mentor, Dracon, had suggested that when he started to upgrade classes, that he not do them all at once. Something about the process put a lot of strain on his body, more than the quartz classes. It was especially bad for the first one. After upgrading initially, Dracon suggested waiting at least a day before using the second stone. After that a few hours in between should be enough time.
Deciding which one to do first was hard. He didn’t know if it would have much of an impact on his supposed Path, but it would also be the only upgrade for a day while he worked on dungeons. Upgrading his mage class was tempting, it would hopefully help him work with more than just the six basic types of mana. It should also improve his mana pool and recovery.
If Alan was being honest, though, he felt he was a fighter first, and a magic-user second. His spells were very handy and had saved his life on numerous occasions, but his first instinct was always to cut or bash through his problems. In regard to saving his life, without his healer class he would most likely be dead, or seriously behind in his growth. That made Medicine Man an attractive option.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Who was Alan kidding? If he could, he would most likely upgrade his rogue class to Phantom. It was his first quartz class, and dexterity was still his most important stat in combat. Unfortunately, he still needed to work on his sneaking skill. Maybe he could creep up on Two Socks for practice.
Alan didn’t think that would work, though, for two reasons. First, he was pretty sure the wolf would be able to detect him long before Alan did. Second, with their almost bonded behavior, he didn’t think the Network would award him any skill points since there would be no danger.
Thinking of his prowling friend gave him the solution. That dungeon obelisk had been spewing monsters for at least a couple of days. If he searched hard enough he could probably find some monsters wandering around in the area. It might also help with his tracking skill.
In an effort to be stealthier, Alan took off his bone chain mail, he shouldn’t need it against the low-level monsters the dungeon released, and put on a dark green shirt he found in the necklace. He would have called it a wife beater, but considering what that hateful drow had done, he chose to use tank top instead. The color didn’t exactly match the grass in the valley, but it was close enough, and certainly better than the tarnished white of the bone rings.
It took Alan the better part of an hour to find something to stalk. The wolf had apparently been a menace on anything within several hundred meters of the house. There were occasional tracks inside of that perimeter, but they all ended swiftly and in signs of battle. Outside of that, there was more evidence of visitors, but this also often ended in a scrambled set of tracks that indicated Two Socks had found them too.
He ended up locating, not a dungeon creature, but a wild deer. He assumed it was not from the obelisk because its level was too high, level six. It also didn’t seem to fit what he had seen from the other monsters. They had all been a type of reptile or amphibian, at least judging from their prints. It was actually a lucky break to spot a deer, because while they were skittish, they were also tall enough to spot in the thigh high grass. This meant he spotted it before it could detect him.
The one Alan found was a good-sized buck with a large rack, it looked like an eight pointer. As a prey animal, it would be constantly on the lookout, so he would need to use every trick he could think of to follow it without it noticing. The first thing he did was cast his gust spell to get the wind blowing away from the deer. He wasn’t upwind of it at the moment, but he didn’t want a change to send his flowery scent past its nose. He almost regretted using that soap now. Almost.
Crouching low in the grass still left his head exposed, so he got down on all fours. It would have felt slightly awkward before the Network boosted his dexterity. Especially since one of his ‘fours’ was a stump. Now he found it relatively simple to keep pace with the ambling buck. The gust spell was serving double duty because it also caused the grasses to sway which helped disguise the effect his body had as he moved through the slender plants. He was even more impressed with how well Two Socks managed to move, almost undetected, in these conditions.
After traveling for over two hundred meters without the deer noticing him, he was feeling more confident. Rather than simply keeping pace, Alan started to close the distance. The drain from his gust spell was starting to have an effect on his mana pool, so he couldn’t keep it up forever anyway.
When he had first started creeping after the deer, they had been separated by about sixty meters. He was now eliminating that distance at a rapid pace. Once he was down to twenty meters, he decided to match pace again. A quick check of his status showed that his sneak skill hadn’t improved any. Would it not kick in until the encounter was over, or was this not good enough for the Network to count.
It was time to end this experiment either way and see what the results were. Alan paused for a moment and removed his small crossbow from his ring. He loaded a bolt and resumed his crawling. The deer had extended its lead to thirty meters in the short time he stopped. Trying to regain ground while still remaining stealthed was difficult, especially since his only hand was filled with a crossbow and that only left his stump as a third point of contact.
Alan was soon forced to give up the chase as the deer continued to get farther away. They were now about forty meters apart, which would be a challenging shot. He took a long breath in as he sighted on his target. Every moment he took to steady himself was more distance between them. Slowly releasing the air in his lungs, he locked in and pulled the trigger.
While the hand-crossbow lacked power, it was also very quiet. The first sign the buck noticed of his impending doom, was the metal tip punching through its hide. If he was a better shot he might have gone for something fancy like shooting it in the eye, instead he had aimed for the heart and lungs.
He must have hit something important because it stumbled, took a couple of steps, and then collapsed. Running up he switched out for his seax. A few hunting trips with his dad when he was a teenager, had taught him to approach carefully. An incautious hunter could find themselves gored in a last act of defiance. Stopping a couple of meters away he realized it was a moot point. Only the nock of the bolt was sticking out of the deer. The rest was buried deep, and his bonuses to critical hits must have caused enough damage to kill it almost instantly.
Settling down to harvest the different parts, he found that his body was shaking slightly. It was kind of nice to see that even after everything he had done and gone through, that buck fever was still a thing for him. Something about the process of stalking your prey, and then bringing it down yourself, really got the adrenaline flowing.
Doing this one handed gave him a chance to trade adrenaline for frustration. It wasn’t until he had finished collecting everything that he checked his status. His sneak had increased by three points. It was proof of concept, but not enough for the Phantom class requirement yet. Rather than looking for a new target, he decided to make his way back to his house. It was a couple of hours until both midday and his next treatment.
Once back at the house he checked on the new plants. The seeds had already sprouted and begun leafing. They were still another day or so away from counting as full grown, but it was good to see progress. He could almost feel his hand now.
In other exciting news, there were a couple of apples that were ripe on one of the trees, with many more starting to develop. They got shoved into his ring along with a watermelon from one of the vines. It truly made him happy to see all of these lovely fruits. Oh, and the carrot tops seemed to be doing well too.
It was a little early, but Alan decided to have lunch while he waited. He now had venison steaks to try. He was alone at the moment, but he still put two on the grill and started infusing the second with mana. Sure enough, not three minutes later, Two Socks came slithering out of the grass. He had some blood on his muzzle, and he’d gained another level.
They both enjoyed the deer meat, but Alan still would have preferred a regular cow steak. He had eaten more varieties of meat in the last month than he had in his entire life. Maybe he could add some livestock pens to his farm, he thought with a smile.
His animal companion had apparently picked up on Alan’s love of cleanliness, and splashed around in the creek after he finished eating. Alan also went over and scrubbed the grease off of his hand.
Without anything else to do until the timer for his potion finished counting down, Alan sat and placed his spewn on his lap. He stared in every way possible at the powerful weapon. By the time he was ready to take a break, he almost thought he could see something. He had also gone up two more points in aura reading.
Finally, it was time for his next treatment. Once again, he focused all of his senses on what was happening. The initial process of absorption, and then surging through his pathways, repeated itself almost exactly as it had the last time.
Then it was time for the conflux of energy to start rebuilding the flesh. He got a sense of the energy splitting up into pieces before joining back together as tiny bits of his hand. There wasn’t any definitive evidence, but he got the sense that it was this splitting and joining that was causing the reduced efficiency. Alan was disappointed that he couldn’t tell more, but it was good for another point in aura reading, and possibly something else.
His mentor had helped him discover how to upgrade, or even create new, spells, but Alan had never tried to upgrade his only healing spell. At first he had simply never had time. It might be a first world problem, but having all of these classes to grow, and dungeons to explore, meant there was never enough time to accomplish everything. Later on, when he actually had some down time, he had given it a go.
It turned out that his healer spells were totally different from his mage spells. The first issue is that the mana, which still came from his mana pool, didn’t collect near his hand. Instead it seemed to flow back into his soul. He had never realized this difference before, because usually when he was healing he was focused on an injury, his or someone else’s. The doctor in him got tunnel vision, and he wasn’t really paying attention to the spells mechanics.
When he had finally had time to study it, he had also found a second issue. When the mana came back from the soul, it was no longer mana, it was more like the energy flowing through his pathways. It wasn’t exactly the same, but there were similarities. Because everything happened behind the scenes, in his soul, he had no real understanding of how the spell actually worked. This was probably how Simon had felt when Alan was trying to help him upgrade his spells.
What had given him some confidence that he could accomplish something now, was seeing how another healing energy behaved. He had been worried before about experimenting since he would have nothing to compare the changes to. He could have ended up poisoning himself instead of healing, not knowing if the changes were positive or not.
The rest of the afternoon saw Alan sitting with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees. After only half an hour, the wolf got bored and once more wandered off. Most of the dungeon monsters that had spawned were probably eliminated by now, so hopefully he wouldn’t get bored without creatures to stalk.
While Two Socks was bored, Alan was not. He began by slicing his stump, now looking like a hand with no fingers, with his seax. Then he would cast his healing spell and watch the mana flow into and out of his soul. After doing this three times, he tried altering the flow for the fourth. The only result was a decrease in the healing energy that came out.
While waiting for his mana to refill, he sliced himself again, and then drank one of the healing potions he had created. The energy followed a similar process to how the regrowth potion was absorbed. That bundle of healing was quickly created from the liquid potion, but then it slowly made its way to his wound, losing strength as it went. The only difference was that the energy itself matched that of his healing spell.
His mana had replenished enough to cast again. Without understanding the specifics of what was happening in his soul, he tried to affect the transition again. This time he ended up with the appropriate amount of energy, but it felt different, and not in the way of the regrowth potion. It didn’t seem particularly useful either, it just kind of sat there, slowly diminishing in volume until it was gone. His arm was still bleeding.
Hours later, he finally sat up with a smile. Looking down at his left hand, and he could call it that now, he saw small stubby fingers sticking out. It wasn’t fully regrown, but it was better than it had been. It was a frustrating endeavor to try and luck into results. Time after time he had caused no change or changed it in a way he couldn’t understand. However, just because you fail once, doesn’t mean you will always fail.
Spell: Minor Regeneration (Rare). This spell will endow the target with 20 temporary health points. These will automatically be used to heal any injury endured. It lasts half an hour or until the points are used up. Mana cost: 75
This new spell only restored the same amount of health as his original spell, and it cost more to cast. However, there were two important differences. The first was that he could cast it ahead of time, and it would kick in when needed. The second, and much better difference, was that it also worked to restore missing limbs, just like his regrowth potion. Unfortunately, it also had a cool down. He could only use it on a target every couple of hours. This was still a major improvement over the twelve hours for the potion, and it also meant no waiting for ingredients to grow.
Tamee was impressed with his new spell. Apparently, most healers, at least at the lower levels, couldn’t modify or create spells like mages could. The only way to get new ones was to find scrolls or be taught. Another advantage for Alan.
The best part was that with another casting before nightfall his hand was almost back to full size. He spent the early evening sitting with Two Sock’s head in his lap as the dog snored. He was content to run his good hand through his fur and feel the beating of another heart while he waited.
Finally, the cooldown ran out and he cast the spell again. This time, a little of the energy was left over, but he didn’t care, his hand looked just like he remembered. He drew both of his knives just to enjoy the sensation of holding something in both hands again. He felt a dark cloud lift from his aura, one he hadn’t even realized was there, with the restoration of his body.
Now it was time to get back to the dungeons. He was torn on which to choose. There were three he was interested in. The ruined church he had found earlier, The house with the high time dilation, or the one-way dungeon with a hard difficulty. He didn’t really know what each would entail, so he couldn’t decide. Finally, he decided to punt the decision.
“Tamee, pick a number from one to three.”
“What am I picking for?” she asked back.
“Can’t tell you, just pick.”
“Ok, let’s go with two.”
The house it was. Alan set off at close to his top speed, eager to get to it. Two Socks followed for a while, but once again broke off to patrol around the house. It was nice to feel the wind in his face, even if it was just from how fast he was running. He couldn’t maintain this pace all the way there, his stamina was dropping fast, but it was a pleasant strain while he could keep it up.
Eventually he slowed, but he was most of the way there anyway. Once he arrived, he paused, taking in the dungeon. It looked like someone’s vacation home, large, with lots of windows and porches. The windows were dark so there was no way to see inside, if there even was an inside. With nothing holding him back, he stepped up to the front door. There wasn’t actually a door, it was just the shadowy plane of a dungeon entrance. He took a deep breath before stepping inside.
New Quest: The Coven’s Den (100)
[A family of witches guards a secret. Infiltrate the family and seduce the Matriarch to discover what they’re hiding.]
“Do what now?”
