《My insomnia is killing you》 1 Waking up is never easy Morning is for most people a time to welcome a new day in their beds with a casual yawn while opening their eyes and realizing there is another routine day in front of them. Unless it was a weekend or a holiday that is the truth for most adults. They are happy to wake up until reality kicks in. The gloomines of reality is usually offset by the hectic workday which leaves little time to contemplate about the meaning of life or how you got at this point of your life. Those that are unhappy and still manage to contemplate on such topics usually also end their life sooner than those who don''t. For the protagonist of this story his morning began in an idyllic forest with lush tall trees over 50 meters tall. Birds chirping, bunnies hopping, deers prancing forest of fairy tales. With the nearby brook''s gentle sound of flowing water you could almost hear Edvard Grieg''s Morning mood. As our main character opened his eyes though he was not welcomed by the sound of a flute instead the buzzing of flies and screeching of two crows that were fighting for the rights of devouring the eyes of the corpse that was on top of him. As he pushed himself from under the corpse the metallic scent of blood became more apparent mixed with the smell of broken intestines that left their home. The crows hastily retreated to a safe distance as their breakfast suddenly came back from the dead and wearily observed from tree branches a few meters away. The corpse was quite heavy and our hero needed a lot of time to pull himself away from under it. His movements made the smells more prominent and he was retching even before he could crawl out. He finally managed to grab a tree root and pulled his legs from under the bloody corpse. While breathing heavily he stood up and looked around. He saw then that this was not the only corpse. There were corpses all around him circling a depression in the ground which looked like a bomb exploded in it. As he came to his senses a pain shot trough his jaw. He gritted his teeth but that only made the pain worse. Touching the right side of his face he noticed the swelling. He could not open his jaw for more than a few millimeters before pain assaulted him and shooting towards his brain like the worst headache imaginable. He gently used his tongue to check his teeth and they were the same number on both sides. ''Where am I? Who am I?'' He yelled in his mind as he grabbed the sides of his head pulled on his hair with both hands. He looked towards the nearest corpse and even with the face being in somewhat decent condition it looked completely unfamiliar to him. The man looked to be around forty years old with a crooked nose, wild long dirty brown shoulder length hair and thick lips. He looked at this man''s attire next and it was some kind of leather armour, with leather pants and shoes. He looked down on himself and other than the rusty dark red bloodstains his clothes were grey. He had a grey short sleeved top with grey pants both of which didn''t even have hems on the openings and were crudely made. A string ran trough some holes in his pants that was tied in front was responsible for holding his pants up. He didn''t even have shoes and by the amount of callouses on his feet he was probably always barefooted. He touched his crutch and noticed he was going commando. He didn''t have any underwear on him. On the right side of the body he suddenly noticed a sword. ''The man must have dropped it when the bomb exploded.'', he thought as he noticed an empty scabbard on the man''s hip. As he reached for the sword and was about to take it into his arms it suddenly flashed with a green overlay. He didn''t get startled by the green overlay but by the fact that after that happening the sword disappeared. He looked around but there was no one to be found anywhere. While doing so he found some more weapons around the corpses. As he was trying to pick up another sword he moved slowly and when it flashed green again he saw a line of text on top of his vision. It read: "Place in inventory. (Y/N)." This time the sword stayed in place as he contemplated. As soon as he reached the conclusion of yes in his mind the sword disappeared. He was taken aback with what happened and looked around as if looking for someone who was pranking him. As there was no one he soon calmed down. He thought about what this inventory might be and a transparent grid menu surrounded him all of a sudden. All but two spaces that occupied the two swords were empty squares. As he focused on the first slot occupying a sword the sword popped out. From a small image it enlarged itself to occupy half of his whole viewpoint. The other half had the sword''s description. --------------------------------- Item name: Common iron one-handed sword Quality: Low Durability: 9/10 Damage: 1-4 Special effects: none Description: An iron sword product of a novice blacksmith. --------------------------------- He looked through the description and somehow managed to close it although unsure how. Checking the other one he saw. --------------------------------- Item name: Common iron one-handed sword Quality: Low Durability: 7/10 Damage: 1-3 Special effects: none Description: An iron sword product of a novice blacksmith. ---------------------------------- It was almost the same only a bit more worn out and had a duller edge. As he was looking at it he noticed an equip option popping up after a few seconds of his gaze being in one place. He thought equip and suddenly he could feel the sword in his right hand and it plopped on the ground tip down while he still held the handle. He thought about how to close the inventory and it went away. The sword in his hand felt heavy. Although it was specified as one handed he needed to use both hands to lift and swing it. He gave it a couple of random swings out of desperation and anger of not understanding anything about his situation, which looked more like someone swinging a stick, before he felt out of breath and fell down on his behind gasping for air. He let go of the sword and returned it to his inventory. As he looked at the scene around him he pressed his hands on his forehead and supported them on his knees. ''What is happening to me'', he yelled in his head while suddenly hearing music. If he could recognise it he would know ''Where is my mind by Pixies'' was playing in his head. After a couple of minutes of pointless self reflection he finally accepted his circumstances and turned toward one of the corpses. He planned to search them for clues to his identity and get some much needed supplies like food, water or even medicine from them. As he was about to look trough the nearest corps'' armour it flashed green again and he stored it in his inventory. The teleportation of the armour into his virtual space was instantaneous and the corpse was left with an undershirt on which all the grime, dried up blood and hidden objects fell as they lost support of it. He checked his inventory and noticed the armour in slot number three which was now clean albeit with noticeable tearing from the damage it sustained from the blast. --------------------------------- Item name: Common leather armour Quality: Low Durability: 4/10 Defense: 4 Special effects: none Description: A leather armour made by a novice armourer. --------------------------------- As he looked it over in the inventory he noticed he could freely rotate it and zoom-in on any detail he wished with just a thought. The breastplate was made from many horizontal layers of leather and fur with squared edges with large openings for arms. The arms were left unprotected. It covered only the front and a part of the back. The back was also where the attachment straps were in the middle and they offered no real protection to the man''s spine. There was a hole in the breastplate where the blast damaged it and was the obvious cause of death of the unlucky fellow. He equipped it and it conformed to his body size like if it was made for him which would make anyone amazed in any circumstances but with the appearance of the inventory it was an almost expected feature. The armour was not too heavy for him and he could still move normally while wearing it. He started picking up everything else he could get his hands on. Pants, shoes undergarment even underwear. Although it seemed kind of disgusting he figured since he didn''t have to touch them and only the fabric part will go into the inventory they will be clean and ready to use. He also picked up every personal item the dead bodies had on them and soon he was almost at maximum capacity of his 100-slot inventory. As he looked at it the items were randomly strewn all over the slots in order in which he picked them up. He wished to order them by type and they flashed and rearranged themselves by categories. First were weapons , armours, clothes, potions, food, water containers, books and miscellaneous stuff. He equipped the underwear and the breeze he was feelling on his crutch area was gone. Afterwards he put the best preserved items of each category on himself. Now he was in full brown leather armour. With a dagger in one hand and a bow with a quiver full of arrows on his back. He took out a waterskin and some dried cured meat he found and started eating a couple of meters away from now a bunch of naked dead bodies. He had to cut the meat into tiny pieces an swallow them whole since he could not open his jaw. Even washing them down with the water from the waterskin presented a challenge since most water ran down his neck instead of into his throat. ''I should move from here now before some predators arrive'' He reminded himself. He looked around an walked towards the sound of water coming nearby. It was a clear brook running trough the woods a meter lower than the land as the chanel it made eroded the soil. He decided to follow it upstream so he will have access to flowing water. Other than the occasional growl from wild beasts and chirping of birds the forest was quiet. It was going to be midday soon and the sun was shinning through the leaves and bouncing on the water illuminating the forest with reflections. The natural beauty was lost on him though as he contemplated his next move. As he was moving upstream he came upon a small lake which was flowing into the stream. He used the pond as a mirror and what he could see was a young teenager looking back at him. His short unruly dirty brown hair and the dirty face made quite the contrast compared to his clean clothing he got from scavenging the dead. The clothing soon found its way back into the inventory and he went into the pond. He was trying to rub himself of the grime and dried blood but he was getting nowhere. The dirt on him was layered not just from the blast but probably weeks or months of not carring about hygiene. As he rubbed the grime kept forming small balls of sticky substance which he just kept smearing across his body. He looked trough the inventory and luckily found some soap. --------------------------------- Item name: Carbolic soap Quality: Low Special effects: none Description: Soap. It gets the job done. --------------------------------- He took it out and smelled it. He found the smell awful since it smelled like tar. ''Beggars can''t be choosers'' He sighed and scrubbed his skin and kept rinsing in the cold water. Eventually he managed to scrub off the sticky substances from his body and even his hair went from dark brown to light brown. When he came out of the water he got and undershirt from the inventory and wiped himself off. then he put it back in an watched as the water fell from middair where the undershirt was just a moment before. He repeated the process until he was dry and then got himself back fully clothed. He was tired and low on energy so he tried eating and drinking again while sitting down on a log beside the pond. After a while he went to the other side of the pond and found the stream again and followed upstream some more. Eventually he came to another pond and small waterfall of about 10 meters in height. He went around the cliff where there was a less vertical slope and climbed it. After going trough the dense forest he came out to a couple of hundred meters cliff. ''A dead end.'' He thought and was about to turn around when he noticed a the stream coming from a cave in the cliff. The cave was V shaped with a circular dome of collapsed rock on top. It was the shape of a giant mushroom with a small stream running on the bottom of it and was the height of about 5 meters. He could easily climb the walls since they were just like 5 cm steps so he climbed them and came to a plateau which was a piece of flat rock about 4 by 5 meters wide and about a meter to two meters in height. He stuck every piece of soft clothing he was not wearing in the corner of the cave and used some of them to cover himself up. It didn''t take long before he felt nice and cozy and the sound of the spring rolling through the cave to overwhelm him and he fell asleep. When he woke up he tried to open his eyes and they would not move. His eyelids were shut and he could not move them no matter how hard he tried. 2 Open sesame The softness of the bed felt quite different from the makeshift bed in the cave so it was easy to discern he was not in the same place where he went to sleep. He could hear distant footsteps on a hard surface and the noise of something spinning and rhythmically squeezing and wheezing air. Soft moans could also be heard intermittently from nearby with some low beeping noises here and there in between. The air smelled of antiseptics and bodily fluids so he got a clue from that. ''I am in a hospital.'' He thought. He tried moving his mouth then his hands and it was the same experience as with his eyes. He could feel them but they were locked in place by an invisible force and now matter how he tried just stayed still. He could feel what seemed something like a plastic tube pressing on his tongue which was going into his throat. He still didn''t have the vaguest idea who he is and how got here. ''What the he''ll happened to me!?'' He yelled on the inside angrily and try to move every muscle in his body with no success. The only muscle that showed any reaction was his heart which sped up which the machines he was hooked up to monitored and sent an alarm to the nurses station. A minute later the clonking footsteps came close a with a whooshing sound a door was opened. As they got nearer another set of footsteps was coming closer with another whooshing sound following. "Doctor." A female voice was heard. "What is going on? I saw you rushing here. Nurse Finkle was it?" A male voice replied. "The cardiac monitoring machine sent of an alarm as it detected a sudden rise of blood pressure and heart rate so I came to check on him if there was any needing trough the gauzes.", the nurse replied. The nurse replied and there was a rustling of the blanket being uncovered and soft touches on his body were felt. "Everything seems fine. Good work, although we have to do something about the blood pressure. Push him with 1 mg of lorazepam in the IV and we will see how it goes." The male voice said. As the nurse was preparing the medicine she suddenly asked nervously, "What happened to him? Is he a criminal?" "As far as I know he was swatted and I don''t think he is a criminal." Doctor replied. "Swatted?" Nurse Finkle asked in bewilderment as she was not familiar with the term used on anything but insects. "Oh. Sorry. Someone called the SWAT team on him. It happened a few times in the past but not in our state and the media made a new name for it swatting." Doctor replied. "SWAT team? You mean someone reported him to the special police force unit? Did they shoot him?", nurse asked in amazement. "Yeah. I heard he is quite famous in the e-sports scene. He must have rubbed someone the wrong way and they took out their competition this way. The SWAT team rushed his place on a report he was building bombs and held hostages in his basement. They turned of the power grid to his house and busted inside his house only to find him holding a fake machine gun in the living room with a VR set on his head and pointing it at them. They didn''t figure he would have his equipment hooked up on backup power source and was still playing in a first person shooter tournament. They opened fire and shot him full of holes. It''s a wonder he is still alive. The worst part is the bullet that hit him in his head trough the VR headset. Even if he survives he may never be anything more than a vegetable. We usually would not even bother saving him if not the preassure from the police department since it''s a PR disaster.", the doctor explained in detail stunning the nurse. "How do you know all this?", nurse Finkle asked. "I have a friend on the SWAT team. We go to the gym together sometimes. He came to see me after the incident since he was one of the guys who shot him he begged me to take extra care of him. Honestly though we should just let him go. He is just like the guy in Metallica''s One video. I don''t even want to imagine myself being in his shoes.", the doctor said with a sigh. "The preassure is not going down. Do you think he heard us?, nurse Finkle asked. "Give him an extra milligram to be sure. I highly doubt even if he can hear us that he can understands us.", doctor replied. But he did hear them and he would have cursed and yelled at them if he could at that moment. The drugs not working was him hearing what they said. "Lorazepam seems to start having an effect. What now?", the nurse said. "Let''s wait a minute or two until it goes down to normal and grab a coffee after?", the doctor replied. "Ok.", the nurse nervously replied. "How did they mistake the fake gun with a real one?, she suddenly said switching the topic back to the incident. "I guess it looks like a real on except the weight and functionality.I once saw these VR harnesses at an exhibit and they had all sorts of weapon accessories. I guess the more accurate the model is in real life the better effect in virtual reality it shows when using it as a prop. I would have bought it if not for the damn 30.000 dollars price tag.", doctor replied. "30.000? That is half my annual!", the nurse said in shock. "Yeah. E-sports came a long way and this stuff is only used by pros. You need to have it if you want to play in the Diamond League but before that you need to climb through, bronze, silver, gold and platinum. To the ones who make it that far 30k is chump change. To them this is lile buying the Play Station 7 for 300 bucks.", doctor said. "Thank you for explaining doctor Nash.", the nurse said. "I hope the media don''t focus on this for too long and we can let him go as soon as possible. It seems like the preassure is back to normal. Let''s go grab that coffee.", doctor said and started walking towards the door which made a whooshing sound. The nurse started walking away too but stopped midway and turned around. "I hope he is wrong.", she said and left. As he was hearing all this all sorts of emotions overwhelmed him. Anger, unwillingness, fear, anxiety but soon lorazepam washed them away. They faded like snow on a hot day and soon the sound of his breathing and his heartbeat was all he heard. The rhythm reminded him of a song called Teardrop from Massive attack and he imagined it before he drifted into oblivion. 3 The light that blinked again Someone else besides our hero was having a bad day too and was currently on the 50th floor of a 99 story pagoda in a bustling city standing in front of a huge wall with blinking lights. His name was Long Jiahao and he was a controller from the Soul tracking division. His bad day started when one of the twenty lights he was in charge off case number 173518 blinked again in the plane of origin and turned off at the place of migration. At first he thought there was some kind of glitch but then he opened the case file and he saw it was handled by a newbie soul migration agent by the name of Peng Delan. It was this soul migration agent''s first case so he was required to check if any problems arose immediately. ''What a pain in the ass! Why do I always have to get the incompetent ones?'', he thought. "Contact Peng Delan and let his come to the 30th floor conference room.", he ordered one of his assistants who was in charge of coordinating with the agents. ------------------------------------- After a few hours in the 30th floor conference room Peng Delan was walking in circles nervously. He went over his recent migrations in his head and he perceived no problems wit them. He really could not figure out what happened that would require him meeting a controler. Long Jiahao walked in and saw Peng Delan walking around the room. They were both of asian heritage and that was done purposely to avoid problems. They did not handle only asians who migrated but they were the majority so it made sense. "Peng Delan?, he asked. "Yes, sir. Yes. ", Peng Delan replied anxiously. "Tell me about case number 173518. That was your first case if I am correct?", Long Jiahao asked. "Oh... He was a professional gamer named Harrison Roberts, age 24 plane years. We employed the whisper tactic on his rivals and someone found a method to kill him. He was shot and killed by uniformed guys using some kind of battle wands and I transmigrated his soul to the world number 7514 of the lower known planes which is rich in spiritual energy into a body of a 12 plane years old peasant, Sir.", Peng Delan quickly reported. "Are you sure he was killed?", Long Jiahao asked. "Yes, Sir. I was present in a medical facility at the time of his death. The medicine man in charge there said he will be brain dead soon if his heart is not restarted. Ohh...", Peng Delan replied and quickly realised what he just confessed. Long Jiahao put his left hand to his eyebrows in a faceslap fashion a yelled angrily. "So you did actually not see him die? You moron actually transmigrated his soul before confirming he is dead. That is the first rule they teach you!" ''Why?Why do I always have to get the incompetent ones?'', he thought as he looked at Peng Delan in annoyance. "No, Sir. But... But he was as good as dead. His blood was running out. He was pale and stopped breathing and I needed to rush to my second case since she died at the moment and we can only transfer the soul within 5 small hourglass turns of their death. I... I really could not wait there to confirm his death without losing her soul, Sir.", Peng Delan said. "You should have called for backup!", Long Jiahao yelled angrily. "I did Sir, but there was no response and the 5 small hourglass turns were approaching fast.", Peng Delan sheepishly replied. "Damn it. I told them this would happen. I told those guys from the war central that they should stop poaching guys from the transmigration bureau. The guy obviously didn''t die and he can now somehow bounce back and forth between the planes.", Long Jiahao sighed. "Did you give him our system?", he asked after a pause. "No. I was too busy with other cases but I am still in the big hourglass time limit of our protocol so I will do it as soon as possible.", Peng Delan replied with enthusiasm since Long Jiahao no longer seemed to blame him. "No. Don''t. We will leave him be. Let him go and use the system that was left over on some other soul you migrate or use it as a reserve. We can pretend that case number 173518 never happened. It''s not like anyone from the higher ups will ever check on it. They only care about the numbers not the individuals.", Long Jiahao replied. "So we just leave him be? Can I ask what is this all for?", Peng Delan asked. "The war of course. We need more fighters and we can''t pull them up directly. The ones from the planes suitable to break the limits have mostly been pulled up. And the ones with special souls that can break the limits in non spiritual planes have to be transmigrated to those spiritual planes if they are to have any chance of their souls to grow to the extent of breaking trough. We give them our system with the condition to fight for our side when they get here. Don''t you remember your first death?", Long Jiahao asked. "Ohh. I was ran over by a carriage. Then I got transmigrated into a sect as the grandson of the sect master. I broke through with the help of my sects resources, although system sped up the process a lot and went through the void. On this side they tested my fighting skills and decided I am better suited to management. So here I am now...", Peng Delan replied. ''It really is true what they say about idiots having all the luck. I was his by a burning boulder from a catapult. Transmigrated into a barren wasteland filled with savages and spent I can''t even tell how long to reach the point of breakthrough only to be told my soul is too damaged for further growth and I shall be delegated to management. Damn this a**hole. With his luck I would be upper management at the least or even a demigod level.'' "I see.", was all that Long Jiahao replied outwardly. "What do we do now?", Peng Delan asked. "You do your stuff. Destroy any scrolls you have regarding case number 173518. I will also remove any information we have on him. Nobody will ever know. The spiritual planes are dangerous and he is a 12 year old peasant without support so without a system his survival is almost impossible.", Long Jiahao replied. "Yes, Sir.", Peng Delan replied and bowed. Long Jiahao just sighed and left the conference room to begin the data removal as soon as possible. 4 Dragons roar from behind When our protagonist woke up in the cave he was angry and confused. Angry about how his life almost ended in the reality he was just in and confused on how this new reality came to be. ''If this just a dream, how come it feels so real?'', he thought to himself. His jaw still hurt and he still could not open it. He pried it open with the waterskin just enough to quench his thirst and then called out his inventory. Looking through the ineventory for any medicine the dead men might have carried with them he found there were several different kind of bottles on them. Checking them one by one he found most of them contained some alcohol. ---------------------------------\t Item name: Alcoholic beverage Quality: Low Alcohol volume: 55% Special effects: Gets you drunk. Description: Alcohol made from distilling an unknown fruit. ---------------------------------\t This was basically the template for all of them. The only difference between them was the alcohol percentage. There in his findings were also two different kind of poisons. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tUnknown poison potion Quality: \tLow Special effects: \tGets you dead. Description: \tPoison made from unknown creature. ---------------------------------\t One was made from an animal and one was made from a plant with a minor difference being the potency which he was not going to try out on himself. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tUnknown poison potion Quality: \tLow Special effects: \tGets you dead fast. Description: \tPoison made from unknown plant. ---------------------------------\t Finally he found something he could use and it was stacked. He has 12 pieces of the same potion the system determined to me some kind of medicine. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tUnknown medicine potion Quality: \tLow Special effects: \tUnknown healing properties and side effects. Description: \tLow quality medicine potion with high amount of residue. ---------------------------------\t The unknown part worried him but his jaw was killing him so he took one out of the inventory and drank it. The pain lessened in a few minutes and the swelling seemed to subside a bit. Opening up the inventory again to take out another one was when he noticed a change. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tLow quality healing potion Quality: \tLow Special effects: \tReduces pain and swelling. Side effects from the residual components include flatulance and diarhea. Description: \tLow quality medicine potion with high amount of residue. ---------------------------------\t Even as he was taking it out from the inventory he started to feel his stomach bloat up. He rushed down to the bottom of the cave and into the woods before he could not hold it anymore. He was about to pull down his pants but he did not succeed in doing so when his an*s made a roar of an enraged dragon and he could feel wettnes on the back of his leggs dripping down. As the foul smell spread he walked down the hill to the waterfall. Luckily he could clean his pants and armour by just putting them into his inventory and the waterfall would take care of the rest. ''If I find a town I can open an express laundry service.'', he thought to himself as he scrubbed down the backside of his leggs. Just when he was about to finish his gut started rumbling again. Running into the woods from the waterfall he held himself on a tree as his insides spewed out from him like he was a spray can. Taking another bottle of the potion and downing it he awaited round three. The stench was unbearable and the situation was comical. A boy holding on to a tree with his backside exposed waiting to spray his feces into the woods. The swelling went down a bit more and pain was almost gone by the time he farted a couple more times. Still having 10 more of these potions he took another one since he wanted to get this ordeal over and done with. After an hour he could open his mouth normally and his guts have been still for quite a while. He walked back to the waterfall and cleaned himself off. As he took out the underclothing to dry himself off and returned them to his inventory he let out a sigh of relief. Suddenly his stomach grumbled from the emptiness. Sitting down he took out the dry meat and some hard bread which he was having trouble bitting into so he decided it was too hard to eat. Then he went back and moistened it under the waterfall and ate with relish. It was not delicious by any means but he would have to make due for now. "I can finally eat and talk!", a voice was heard in the woods and on his face it showed a smile of satisfaction. "I guess I should upgrade my shelter while there is still light outside!", he said before he stood up and went back uphill to the cave. On his way he opened up his inventory and took out a battleaxe. It was meant of hacking down people but it was suitable for chopping down trees as well, he thought . It soon turned out it might be suitable for someone else not for this 12 year old malnourished body of his. He could hardly lift it, not to mention swing it hard enough to make even a dent into the tree he wanted to chop. He sighed and put it back into his inventory before he took out a dagger and used it on some smaller young trees the thickness of his two to three fingers. Suddenly a message popped up. Lumberjack skill unlocked. Lumberjack skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 He continued felling small trees and he could notice a big difference in the speed he cut them. After about 10 trees he again got a pop-up message. Lumberjack skill LVL. 2 acquired. There was no bonus this time which left him a bit disappointed. He continued for about twenty more but he noticed that for some reason it was getting harder and harder to cut them. He put the dagger back into his inventory and noticed the durability of the dagger has fallen drastically and the description had a dull prefix. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tDull common iron dagger Quality: \tLow Durability: \t2/10 Damage: \t0-1 Special effects: \tnone Description: \tAn dull iron dagger product of a novice blacksmith in need of sharpening. ---------------------------------\t He took out another dagger and it cut trough trees like he was cutting butter. He checked it''s description and there were an obvious difference. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tCommon iron dagger Quality: \tLow Durability: \t9/10 Damage: \t2-2 Special effects: \tnone Description: \tAn iron dagger product of a novice blacksmith in need of sharpening. ---------------------------------\t After five more trees a pop-up appeared again. Lumberjack skill LVL. 3 acquired. There was no bonus though which made our protagonist sigh in resignation. He had enough trees for what he had in mind and only continued for the bonus strength possibility until now. He was also getting tired so he stopped with chopping and continued with removing the branches. After a while he saw a pop-up again. Carpentry skill unlocked. Carpentry skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Intelligence +1 Bonus Wisdom +1 He wanted to insert the the trees that now became poles into his inventory but the 5-6 meter long sticks would not budge. ''There must be a size limit'', he thought. Left with no other choice he dragged the cleaned trees towards the cave and then pulled them up with a rope in batches. Then he tied them together with ropes and put them over the crevice. The poles acted like a makeshift floor on which he put stones to make it heavier. He only leaft enough of an opening for himself to come up which he also tied down when he was up. Now no wild animal could come and threaten him unless it could jump five meters or break through his flimsy floor made out off poles. He was satisfied with his work so he ate some more dried meat and bread and made himself comfortable in the innermost corner of the cave on a pile of clothing. He was soon dozing off and woke up to the sound of the ventilators. He was still in physical lockdown and couldn''t move a muscle even if his life depended on it. The smell of death and decay seemed stronger today. He had nothing to do and there were not any other sounds than medical machines operating and an occasional moan to keep him occupied so he started singing a tube in his mind that fit the mood. His go to choice his mind picked was Death in Vegas''s Dirge. The repeating chorus played in his head as he thought about everything that has happened so far. He did not have much to go on anyway so it didn''t take him long to come to no conclusion at all. Suddenly inspired he yelled inventory in his mind and the rows and columns of neatly stacked items in boxes showed in the darkness that occupied his vision blocked by his eyelids. He had a fleeting thougt of taking some items out but soon dismissed it since he had a nagging thought in his mind this was not something a normal person was capable of and he would become a guinea pig for a lab probably if someone found out he was the culprit. His situation also would not let him defend himself in any way so he just browsed the contents of his inventory. He soon went trough all the weapons which were all of low quality and made from iron except the handles which were made from would wrapped in leather. He had four one handed swords, one battleaxe, two bows with two quivers and 87 arrows. He also had 7 daggers and a mace from the eight dead people. All the armours the wore were leather with hardly any metal on them. He had eight full sets of leather which were had various degrees of damage. Some were almost completely undamaged albeit a bit worn out and some had gapping holes. Soon he came uppon jewellery but he skipped it since it looked crude and unrefined. Next in line were books. There were four of them. He selected the first one and he was disappointed. He expected some kind of guide or skill at least something useful. All that the description said was. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tBook Quality: \tLow Special effects: \tUnknown Description: \tLow quality book. ---------------------------------\t It had an interesting cover though. Some kind of devilish head with its tongue outstretched and some special symbols scribbled bellow the head. He noticed an analyze and read buttons below the description so he willed analyze. There was a loading bar kind of thingy moving at a snail''s pace until it came to the end. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tBook - Satire''s depraved life Quality: \tLow Special effects: \tMakes reader horny. Description: \tLow quality porn book with illustrations. ---------------------------------\t Naturally he clicked the read button. As he was watching the illustrations and read the text bellow he suddenly heard footsteps. He was half watching the man with goats leggs and a big appendage having his way with curvaceous women and paying attention on the footsteps which suddenly stopped really close. ''Don''t tell me I have a boner!'' There was a rustling sound of something being opened, a tapping sound and suddenly he felt himself falling into oblivion. ''Ohhh damn it ...'' He opened his eyes and he was back in the cave. Of course he went back to reading the goatman''s adventures first. It''s important to have your priorities straight. 5 Dodging an invisible bulle After some stress relief he was greeted by another pop-up message. Masturbation skill unlocked. Masturbation skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Dexterity +1 He blushed and looked around the cave as if checking if someone saw him doing something shameful. ''So this counts as a skill as well? What happens at a higher level? Do I finish faster? Do I get more intense orgasms?'', he thought on the inside while giggling like a girl in kindergarten being tickled on the outside. ''I wish there was some kind of skill list.'' he rhought and suddenly it appeared in front of him. Skills: Lumberjack\t:\tLevel\t3 Carpentry\t:\tLevel \t1 Masturbation\t:\tLevel \t1 "Wow!!!", he exclaimed and focused on the lumberjack skill. A new pop-up appeared. Lumberjack: The art of felling trees. Knowledge of wood types and physics combine to make you more proficient in felling trees Bonus attribute: Strength Next bonus at level: 5 "Hmmm. Show me the attributes list!", he exclaimed. ATTRIBUTES LIST Strength\t:\t8 Wisdom\t:\t23 Inteligence\t:\t32 Dexterity\t:\t21 He looked trough them an noticed there were only those he acquired listed. ''There must be more of them to unlock. Hmm. Show me the attributes if the baseline for the average human is 10.'', he thought. ATTRIBUTES LIST Strength\t:\t4 Wisdom\t:\t11,5 Inteligence\t:\t16 Dexterity\t:\t10,5 His strength was low but that was to be expected as he was in a body of a malnurished 12 year old kid. His wisdom and intelligence were above average and his dexterity was normal. He thought about what other skills he could learn in the woods with the equipment he had available and started making plans. ------------------------------------------- Meanwhile in Las Vegas in a fancy presidential suite of a 5 star hotel a man was sitting with his laptop on a leather sofa and frowning. "It has been two days. I can''t feel the connection anymore. Why has he not logged in?! He is a game addict. This makes no sense. Something must have happened to him.", he mumbled while checking the logs of the console server remotely. ''What bad timing...", he mumbled. He was required to attend CES as the CEO of his company Immortal which produced high end virtual reality consoles. CES is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, the event typically hosts presentations of new products and technologies in the consumer electronics industry. He could not leave the venue to check up in person since there was too much at stake with Immortal VR console 2.0. His name was Ambroise Ananta which was a fake name he chose by sticking the Sanskrit word for infinite and French name meaning immortal together. He looked like a regular 40 something year old businessman in his Armani suit with black rimmed glasses which were just for show. Only he knew the truth that he was nearing 2400 years of age and that he has been stuck in this spirituality devoid plane for the better part of the last 2000 years. The higherups have decided this was one of the perfect places to seek out new talent exactly because of the low spirituality. people who show signs of cultivation in such places would be like shinning stars anywhere else. At first he was optimistic about his job as a soul transmigration agent but over the years he noticed his cultivation was stuck in the same place and even started to decline after the first 400 years. He was denied repeatedly appeals for transfer from his post on Earth and the only reason he was still doing his reports was the nearer amount of resources they transferred to him every couple of years. He was almost no different from mortals now. With no chance of rising higher in cultivation he dabbled in human affairs trough the years and with the advent of internet he finally found a quick way to screen a lot of candidates at once without the hassle of seeing them in person. He designed and made the best VR console on Earth for the sole purpose of finding talented individuals capable of cultivation. To find the lights in the darkness. He got his his first hit with Harrison Roberts on the first generation console. He reported him to the higher authorities but failed to disclose there were many others although not quite as talented as Harrison but well above the requirements. If the 2nd generation console had only one major difference from the first one that would be the price tag. The first generations price tag was 10.000 USD for the head set and 30.000 USD for the whole shebang. It sold only 900 pieces and he already found 17 suitable candidates. The 2nd generation will cost 400 USD and 1200 USD for the whole setup so the proliferation of it will be much higher. What he also failed to mention to the higher ups was that he fiddled with the terms of service or TOS agreement Every suitable candidate would get a special one in the background of the original in the form of a runic text that no one on Earth was capable of reading but was capable of forming a soul contract with him. He would bind his soul with the users making them his slaves who would have to obey him unconditionally or suffer the effects on their souls which was far worse than any physical torture could achieve. The only bonus the users would receive is a game like system that would make their ascension to the higher realms of cultivation even easier for them. His plan was perfect and it all started due to an acquaintance joking about Facebook''s terms of service at lunch. With the advent of smartphones his friend was installing Facebook and when he came to Terms of Service agreement he just clicked ok. He joked with him that if the devil ran Facebook he could rope in the souls of every Facebook user since no one bothers to read the terms of service anyway. He was not the devil but that lit a spark of inspiration in him since he had the actual means to make it happen. He started learning like a madman for the next 15 years about programming, hardware, game design, etc.. Anything that could help make his plan come to fruition he gobbled up like a sponge. Due to technology limitations it took him 15 years otherwise with his superior intellect he would be done in less than 5 years. At the launch he was a nervous wreck and even after a month things didn''t progress. Then suddenly Harrison turned up and he was extatic. Soon he was followed by the others. He reported Harrison to the higherups and waited for them to take action. He didn''t want to raise the suspicion of his superiors so he only reported him otherwise the frequency of one to two people in a decade jumping to 17 in a month it would probably spell a calamity for him. He would be replaced by someone more trusted in a flash. He decided he would filter out just the very best of the best and send his reports about them. What is 50 more years for an immortal if it would mean an absolutely loyal army would be created for his use? What he could not comprehend was how Harrison managed to escape his soul contract. In all honesty there was probably no one who would use a bullet to the head as a means of destroying it. In some comedic way Harrison dodged a bullet by hitting it with his head. 6 Stupid is what stupid does Harrison was still conteplating in his makeshift new home not knowing he was a guinea pig for an epic conspiracy of multidimenssional proportions. This was as far as he was concerned no concern of his. His main concern was raising his stats as fast as he can and staying alive. He was in this world for less than a day and he has already seen 8 dead corpses which gave him a feeling was more than he ever saw in person. After deliberating his options he decided on archery as the next skill. He had a bow and plenty of arrows and since if he had to stay here for a long time he would run out of food he better learn how to hunt. Archery was the only reasonably safe way to hunt besides trapping the prey. He left his cave and went into the woods where he found a tree the width of his torso. Using trusty dagger he carved tree circles on it which looked more like rectangles with a center point. The circles were at different heights so he could practice on targets at differnet angles. One was above his head, one where his torso was located and the last one was at the base of the tree. As he walked aproximately 20 meters away from the targets he checked the two bows in his inventory and they were the same. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tCommon wooden short bow Quality: \tLow Durability: \t9/10 Damage: \tundetermined (depends on speed, shape and mass of the projectile) Special effects: \tnone Description: \tA wooden bow product of a novice bowyer. ---------------------------------\t ''How come all the gear I pickud up was made by novices and of low quality. Either the system is really strict with its assesment or this world is full of quack craftsmen.'', he mumbled as he transfered it out of his inventory. He checked the arrows next. ---------------------------------\t Item name: \tCommon wooden arrow with iron head Quality: \tLow Durability: \t9/10 Damage: \t0-4 Special effects: \tnone Description: \tA wooden arrow with an iron head product of a novice fletcher. ---------------------------------\t In his left hand he held the bow and while he took a quiver and 20 arrows out his inventory and before he fastened it on his back it was already sinking under the weight of the bow. He could not hold it straight for more than 5 seconds before his arm started shaking and gravity pulled it down. He gritted his teeth and somehow managed to pull the string back and let loose an arrow which unceremeoniusly fell down at half the distance to the target. Sighing he walked and picked it up and repeated the action missing the tree by half a meter 10 meters away from it. ''If I was hunting barns this would be acceptable. Those I could probably hit.'', he mused in his thoughts. He repeated shooting a couple of more times and his arms were getting sore. Finally after the third time he hit the tree he recieved a pop-up message. Archery skill unlocked. Archery skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Perception +1 "Wow. I received a new stat and bonus strength.", he exclaimed with joy. The bow string was a bit easier to draw and he could hold it steady a bit longer but his accuracy was still abysmal as he shot 7 more arrows. Archery skill LVL. 2 acquired. He picked up the arrows which were everyhwere around the tree just not embeded in it. The speed they were moving with was too slow to penetrate the bark. Some even bounced back 2 meters from the tree. He decided to stand 3 meters away from the tree next and just shoot and shoot until his muscles give in. He shot ten arrows had a pause then shot another ten. He kept repeating this cycle and soon Archery skill LVL. 3 acquired. and Archery skill LVL. 4 acquired. Popped up. Out of nowhere even a an extra pop-up came. Bonus strength +1 He repeated his routine for two more times as darkness started to surround him. The sun was going down. He looked at the arrows and decided this will be the last round. He picked them up and put them in his quiver and started to fire away. After half of his third repetition he finally got the pop-up he was waiting for, Archery skill LVL. 5 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Perception +1 He smiled and took another arrow and pulled it with all his might. He let it go and it madea whoosh sound as it hit the dead center of the middle circle and bounced from the wood and hit him in the knee. It hurt like hell but the arrow did not manage to penetrate the leather pants he luckily wore. ''Damn I was lucky I am so weak. I almost got an arrow to my knee due to my stupidity. The would stop my adventuring days.'', somehow this sentence popped up in his mind as he experienced the tingling of his knee and after he made sure he was ok. He decided to call it quits for tonight and picked up the arrows and put them in the quiver. He returned to the cave and ate some bread with dried beefy meat lied down. His arms hurt so much he was not even remotely contemplating raising his masturbation level that evening. As he covered himself up with the clothes the wind picked up bringing icy cold into the cave. Luckily the effect was not so pronounced as deep as his sleeping corner was. It was still chilly though and he decided he would make a wall tomorrow to cover part of the opening. As he contemplated the task his eyelids slowly dropped and he returned to the land of death. ''Ah crap I am here again,'' he thought as he heard the by now familiar and sounds and smells of the ICU. ''Inventory'', he decided to read the BOOK again immediately. It''s not like he had any better things to do. The inventory opened. ''Show books only.'' The number of boxes went from one hundred to four and in them were four books. He looked at the second one amd it had a sword and some rune text on it. The third one had a flower and the fourth one had just text. He opened up the second one. He figured he might as well save the fun stuff for later. There were some illustrations of sword moves and exercizes with accompanying text. He clicked analyze and waited until it finished. He wanted to click on the read button but noticed there was a learn button below it. He clicked it. There was suddenly a simulation in his head of a manequin doing the moves with the sword. It repeated a few moves a couple of times. He could hear pop-up notifications in the background while it was still performing the moves. Once it was done it closed by itself and he got a flood of information that caused a slight pain in his head. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Followed by: Swordmanship skill unlocked. Swordmanship skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Agility +1 Swordmanship skill LVL. 2 acquired. Swordmanship skill LVL. 3 acquired. Swordmanship skill LVL. 4 acquired. He tried reading the book and saw that some of it had an overlay of translation over where the runic text was but most of it was still untranslated. As he opened the other two and analyzed them both there was no learn button. As he pressed read he saw rows and rows of untranslated text with some words popping up here and there. He went to the sword manual and noticed the analyze button was present again. He waited for another couple of minutes before the indicator finished. The learn button was back again. The manequin was dancing with the sword again and pop-ups were heard. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Insufficient data. Swordmanship skill LVL. 5 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Agility +1 He checked the contents of the book and noticed some more words were translated. ''I guess it''s learning the language by analyzing and comparing different books. I should get picture books for children with text somewhere since they seem to work best. Luckily I had the porn book and the sword manual to get me started.'' He analyzed and started reading the goat man''s adventures again and soon the nurse came again and sent him into the oblivion. 7 Nightowl Back in the cave under some ragged but clean clothes Harrison opened his eyes and looked around. It was dark and there were scary noises coming from the woods with the gentle noise of running water. The air around him was fresh and humid. As he took in a big breath he did not feel tired at all and his thoughts went back to the books. ''Inventory'', he thought. He came back to the four books. ''So I guess it remembers the last filter applied. Cool.'', he thought in satisfaction. He looked at the books and remembered he never read their descriptions. Opening the porn book first he noticed the title and everything fit perfectly even the damn description of special effects was correct.. ---------------------------------\t Item name: Book - Satire''s depraved life Quality: \tLow Special effects: Makes reader horny. Description: \tLow quality porn book with illustrations. ---------------------------------\t ''The system must have deduced the title from the illustrations and used lore from my original place to fill in the gaps.'', he deduced logically. Opening the sword book he looked at the now not empty description. ---------------------------------\t Item name: Book - Basic swordmanship for beginners Quality:\tLow Special effects: Teaches swordmanship up to level 10. Description:\tLow quality sword training book. ---------------------------------\t ''Hmmm. I only reached level 5 though. Probably because the system could not deduce all the words. I need more picture books.'', he thought. He looked at the one with the flower on the cover. ---------------------------------\t Item name:\tBook - Book about flowers Quality:\tLow Special effects:\tUnknown Description:\tLow quality book about flowers. ---------------------------------\t ''No shit Sherlock.'', he sighed in disappointment. Last but not least was the book with only some text on the cover. ---------------------------------\t Item name:\tBook - Book with a lot of text Quality:\tLow Special effects:\tUnknown Description:\tLow quality book with a lot of text. ---------------------------------\t He just facepalmed. ''I don''t know what I expected but it was certainly not this.'', he thought. Harrison thought about what he could do in bed since it was dark outside and probably dangerous. He was not in the mood for masturbation so he thought about what other things he could do in bed. First thing he got in his mind was math so he started making multiplications in his mind. Mathematics skill unlocked. Mathematics skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Intelligence +1 (not applied since over 10) He frowned at the message but since he had nothing to else to do he continued multiplying dividing and hoping his mind would get tired eventually and he would fall asleep. Mathematics skill LVL. 2 acquired. Mathematics skill LVL. 3 acquired. Mathematics skill LVL. 4 acquired. After a long while when he was almost asleep and he was multiplying two four digit numbers in his mind he finally reached level 5. Mathematics skill LVL. 5 acquired. Bonus Intelligence +1 The message that it was not applied was not present this time. ''I guess skills below level 5 can only add attributes up to 10, hmmm interesting. What do I do next?'', he thought while yawning. He forced himself put from his warm cozy heap of clothes and started doing pushups. After a few up and downs he received a pop-up again. Fitness skill unlocked. Fitness skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Agility +1 Harrison continued but after reaching level three his arms felt heavy as if he had lead in them and he collapsed. He dragged himslef back to the heap of clothing and dozed off. The smell of medicine was floating to his nostrils even through the ventilator which pumped oxygen into his lungs. ''I am back to the land of undead.'' he mocked the hospital''s ICU room. With nothing else he could do he started multiplying again. After a really long time he heard the familiar ding of a pop-up. Mathematics skill LVL. 6 acquired. He still was not sleepy so he continued but raised the difficulty since he figured out the more complex the calculations the faster he finished levelling up the skill but also needed more time for calculations. It was a matter of balancing the time used with the experience gained so he raised the difficulty gradually. The difficulty of the same calculations also fell when his level of math increased. He was currently doing multiplication of two five digit numbers and it took him less time than doing two three digit numbers at the start. Mathematics skill LVL. 7 acquired. Mathematics skill LVL. 8 acquired. Mathematics skill LVL. 9 acquired. It felt to him like eons have passed when he finally reached level 9. By now he was multiplying two seven digit numbers. Nurse Finkle came in a couple of times to check on the patients. He knew it was her due to the scent of her shampoo and the sound of her shoes. She did not say even a word and left as soon as possible probably visiting other patients in different rooms. ''One more level then I don''t want to multiply numbers ever again.'' he mused as he started doing eight digit numbers. After what seemed like forever he finally reached his goal. Mathematics skill LVL. 10 acquired. Bonus Intelligence +1 ''I knew it. There is a bonus attribute every five levels.'' he mused as he figured out the logic behind it. ''But when I started doing math there was no bonus attribute added since it''s over 10 although I got one for carpentry. I guess unlocking an attribute gives a freebie.'' he was guessing in his mind. ''Ugh. I can''t take it anymore. I should invite nurse Finkle to give me some medicine.'' he sighed in his mind and opened up the porn book and started looking trough the lustful illustrations. Soon he heard the familiar noises of steps and the whoosh sound from the doors opening followed by mumbling. "Are you having a nightmare again?", nurse Finkle said before she stuck a needle into his IV butterfly valve and sent him into oblivion. He opened his eyes feeling refreshed. Looking around it was still dark. ''How long are the nights here? I must have been calculating for hours and it''s still dark outside.'' he wondered. Meanwhile in the upper planes there were troubles of epic proportions. More than fifty agents died in a single timespan duration of a night on Earth and no one knew the reason why. The only things they had incommon was the two cosmic planes they visited. One was the the one in which Earth was located and the other one was the plane in which Harrison was. The only two people that had any clue on what could cause this were sweating bullets or in their case spirituality. They met up in the same conference room and were looking at eachother for more than a minute in fear. "Do we report him?", Peng Delan finally opened his mouth. Long Jiahao looked at him in disbelief and scorn. "Report what? Report you screwed up and I covered up for you? We don''t even know if he is causing this or how. Although it''s too coincidental this happened just now and in those two planes. The whole planes are going into temporal stasis at random intervals. He should not have anywhere near as much power to cause that.", Long Jiahao yelled. "So what so we do?", Peng Delan asked in fear. "We? We do nothing if you hold your life dear. Destroy anything you still have concerning him and I will transfer your jurisdiction to a different plane.", Long Jiahao said with a sigh. He knew if this came back to them they would both have the¨¬r souls dissipated within a day. Some of those more than fifty cultivators that died were family members of important people on missions on those planes which ran into the temporary stasis while transfering between the different planes. Their bodies dissipated along with their souls so nothing was left of them. The higherups only figured out what was happening from the time difference between different planes. It didn''t matter what your cultivation was you would misy your appointment in another plane if your plane was stuck in stasis for a couple of hours. "After I transfer you forget we ever met." Long Jiahao said with a sigh and left the conference room. In the meantime Harrison was doing push-ups, squats and situps until he reached level five. Fitness skill LVL. 5 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Agility +1 He was famished. He needed around four hours to level up and dawn was finally breaking. The first sunrays came streaking trough the dense woods like emerald and golden strings. A new day was starting but Harrison did not care he ate the dry meat with dry bread and drank sone water before wiping himself of with the clothes. Taking them in and out of his inventory made them clean again anyway. His sweat fell from the edge of the cliff like rain after the clothes were removed. As he covered himself into the clothes he closed his eyes and awaited by now familiar scent of medicine. 8 At least I am not that guy Harrison reflexively tried to sniff when he came again to the room with the sound of ventilator noises but sadly he discovered his body still did not belong to him. He heard noises comming from the room. There was an alarm kind of beeping comming near him and the whooshing sound of a door opening with frantic footsteps. The cacophony of sounds comming from the bed near him and the frantic footsteps didn''t promise anything good but reminded Harrison of a tune Baba O''Reily by The Who... "He is in v-fib.", some nurse whose last name was not Finkle said. "Begin CPR and someone get the d-fib.", nurse Finkles voice was heard. The sounds of chest compressions and counting to thirty was heard along with two wheezing sounds after every count. "Paddles are on. Charging. Stop CPR. Clear." someone yelled a male voice this time. There was a weird discharge sound and they continued with the manual compressions. "He is still in V-fib. Clear.", the yelling did not stop. After repeating the cycle for what seemed like ages a male voice just said in resignation. "Call it." "Time of death 6:43 a.m.", another male voice said. "Don''t be sad. We did all we could.", he said next as if consoling himself more than the other peple who helped him perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. "Who will take him to the morgue?", the other male voice said. ''I guess they very are used to this working in the ICU.'' Harrison thought. No one responded but there was a noise of a gurney being pushed out a few moments later. ''At least I am not that guy.'' he sighed in his head as he contemplated his next move. Suddenly the tune of Paint it black by The Rolling Stones jumped in his head and as he heard the beat and lyrics in his head someone came trough the door. "Could you give me some rest. I need to tell the doctor to give you something stronger." nurse Finkle said as she pumped him full of drugs again. The song faded out into the oblivion and he found himself again in the cave. The lights were partially on as the sun was still having trouble of reaching into the depths of the forest from the angle it was shinning from. He got up form the bed and sniffed at his clothes. They smelled fresh still even though he went to bed in them. He still did not figure it out that he was away from the cave for less than a nanosecond he thought he at least slept for a couple of hours since he ws fully refreshed from fatigue and mental stress. As he climbed down the cave rocks he saw movement. There were rabbit like brown creatures drinking from the stream. Rabbit like since they had all the features of a rabbit minus the ears. They were not as cute and looked more like fat rats on his second look. He gently lowered himself and took out his bow and the quiver from the inventory. ''I will call you ratbits. I hope you are delicious. '' he mused to himself. The distance between him and the closest ratbit was around 15 meters which was quite the distance further away than his practice shots. He drew and arrow and took a long breath before releasing it. It made a twang and whoosh sound before it flew in the direction of the oblivious ratbits but fell just short of the first one. By the time he knocked the second arrow they were long gone obviously spooked by the sound the first shot made and he could just drop his bow in defeat and put it back into his inventory. ''I guess I need to practice some more and raise my level before I can skin you.'' he sighed in resignation. He went back to the target practice range and took out his bow and arrows again. This time he was 10 m away. The strength bonus was doing it''s thing and he didn''t get tired as easily since the bow string was easier to pull and the bow kept straight longer. His accuracy was still less than desirable but at least he was hitting the target and some arrows evem managed to stick out from the tree. He soon raised his Archery level to 6 but he decided to continue after putting 5 more meters between him and the target. As his arms started to hurt as he achieved level 7. He checked his skill llist and attributes. ----------------------------------- Lumberjack\t:\tLevel\t3 Carpentry\t:\tLevel \t1 Masturbation\t:\tLevel \t1 Archery\t : Level\t7 Swordmanship :\tLevel\t5 Mathemathics\t:\tLevel\t10 Fitness\t :\tLevel\t5 ----------------------------------- Strength\t :\t7,5 Wisdom\t :\t11,5 Inteligence :\t17 Dexterity\t : 10,5 Perception\t:\t11,5 Agility \t:\t9,5 ----------------------------------- ''I should go cut some more trees and level up the Lumberjack. I am 3/4 as strong as an average male human at age 12 which is not bad I supppose but I need to get stronger.'' he thought. Taking out a waterskin and dryed meat he sighed. ''This food is killing my tastebuds.'' The importance of diverse food is often underappreciated. Everyone would get bored eating the same kind of food for breakfast, lunch and diner. Harrison was no different but he needed to replenish his energy so he had to eat what he had. The meat tasted like salty sawdust and the water tasted flavorless like water should taste like. He had no specific memories of food but he had strong hints from watching the ratbit that things could only get better and hardly worse. After he ate he went to the pond beneath the waterfall and took returned all his clothing to the inventory space. He was sweaty from exercising and archery so he decided to take a swim. Jumping right in he didn''t expect the water to be so ice cold. "Aaaaaa. Moth**f****r!!!", he yelled as he came up. After a while he got used to the chilling water but he knew he could not stay long so he did a quick lap in the pool. Swimming skill unlocked. Swimming skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Water element affinity +1 Bonus Agility +1 He didn''t stay longer than 5 minutes in the pool and he was already shivering as he came out. He quickly dried himself with some clothing taking them in and out of his inventory. After drying he put on all his clothes including his leather armour and walked back towards his cave. He wanted to swim more to gain more stats but his affinity towards swimming in cold water was -100. As he reached the part above the waterfall he noticed the some ratbits were back drinking from the stream. He crouched down and slowly moved forward until he was around 12 meters away from them. A strong wind blowing in his face came from their direction and the rustling of leaves masked his approach. He slowly lifted his bow and knocked one arrow. He took a big breath and held it while pulling back the arrow. He knew he only had one chance at a shot before the ratbits will run and scatter so he took his time aiming. As he took a long time to aim he almost ran out of breath when he finally released the arrow and with a whooshing sound it pinned one ratbit on the ground. It made a squeeking sound which scared the others away. Harrison ran towards it in joy. It was hit in the shoulder of the fron paw with the arrow passing trough and pinning it to the ground. As he grabbed the arrow with one hand to pull it out from the ground and tried to grab the throat of the ratbit with the other it suddenly turned its head and bit him in the space between the thumb and the index finger. "Aaaaaa. Moth**f****r!!!", he yelled as he jumped backwards holding the ratbit by the arrown and the ratbit holding him with its incisers. He let go of the arrow and the ratbit was dangling from his hand and would not let go. Finally after a while he had enough of it and grabbed it by its neck with the other hand and he squeezed its windpipe. It loosened its grip after a minute or two and he got his bleeding hand out of its mouth by prying it open with a dagger. "F***. I hope you are not a plague carrier. Damn it. " he yelled as he stuck his hand into the flowing water washing off the blood and cleaning the wound. After that he took out the strongest alcohol he had in his inventory and generously poured it over. "Aaaaaa. Moth**f****r!!!", he yelled again. Masochism skill unlocked. Masochism skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Pain tolerance +1 "Aaaaaa. Moth**f****r!!! F*** you system. I don''t get any sexual pleasure from pain you moronic piece of shit system.", he yelled again. He wrapped his hand into a clean cloth then he looked at the dead ratbit and said, "Moth**f****r!!! You better be delicious!!!" before taking off his clothes drinking a potion and running into the woods. 9 Run boy run... Harrison walked out from the ice cold pond again and wiped himself off while shivering. Being forced to drink another diarhea potion as a preventative measure against infection was a pain in the ... "At this rate I am going to get hemerhoids or at least a cold.", he mumbled as he walked towards the ratbit corpse. As he came up the slope wiping his hair and body with the clothes he saw an orange dog sized animal looking at him. "Ohhh no you won''t. Don''t even think about stealing my ratbit!!!." he yelled as he rushed towards the corpse. He took out his bow and an arrow but was otherwise still in his birthday suit his member flapping in the wind. The first reaction of the creature was crouching down to make itself small. The ratbit was in the middle between them. As Harrison got closer it started going in reverse but suddenly like deciding he was not enough of a threat it raised its head. It looked like an overgrown orange fox with rabbit ears. In a way it was very cute until it opened up it''s mouth filled with sharp teeth and showed its two inch canines. Harrison came at a stop looking at those teeth which was a potentially fatal mistake. The fox like creature noticed in immediately that its intimidation worked and started running towards Harrison. He tried knocking an arrow as it was running towards him but he never really practiced on a moving target especially one that was threatening his life. As it came within 5 meters he threw the bow in its direction and started running towards the waterfall. The fox like creature noticed the bow flying in its direction and dodged it losing a bit of its momentum but not for long. As Harrison came to the edge of the waterfall which was 5 meters high he hesitated in jumping and turned around only to find the animal flying towards his neck. He somehow managed to dodge it and push it''s head side ways but still got hit by it''s torso and they both fell of the cliff. The hunter had more momentum so it flew a bit further but with two loud splashes they both landed in the pond. "Aaaaaa. Moth**f****r!!!", he yelled as he came up and noticed the animal was paddling with it''s paws in his direction. It has obviously decided he was it''s next meal and was not taking a no for an answer. It was much slower in the water compared to him so he swam away from it. It followed him which pissed him off knowing he was no match for it''s speed on land. "You want to eat me? Eat this!!!" he yelled as the animal came within one meter from him. It had it''s mouth open and teeth shown on full display with it''s rabbit ears sticking like antennae from the water. Having the soundtrack from the Jaws movie at that moment in the background would be most appropriate. Just when it came within half a meter Harrison stuck his hand in it''s direction and materialized a sword from his inventory directly poking it into it''s open jaw with the same momentum his empty hand made. "Eat this, bitch." he yelled. The animal stopped swimming in his direction and made a squealing sound. He yanked it back and blood came rushing from it''s mouth. Returning it to his inventory he tried the same action again sticking his hand in front of it but this time it dodged. "Ohhh yeah. Try this!!!" he yelled as he let go of the sword and pretended to do a downward slash on it''s head with an imaginary weapon which materialized as the heavy battleaxe right on top of the animal''s head with a terrifying momentum that split it''s head apart. The axe and the sword both sank with the animal as Harrison finally got a breather and his adrenalin levels slowly dropped. He dived after it and managed to stick the corpse and both weapons into his inventory on the first try. The pond being crystal clear made a big contribution. He left the pond gesping for air and made his way back to the cave picking up the ratbit''s corpse on the way. Drying himself off and putting his clothes back on he thought about how he found another way to use his inventory, He swung his hand and materialized his sword when his hand speed reached the apex and it made swishing sound but soon the sword was swinging him since it was much heavier than he was able to control and the momentum swung him around before he let it go and it flew from his hands. It madea few clanking noises as it hit the earth and rocks and eventually stopped. ''It will be ok if I hit something but otherwise this will left me open for a counterattack but I can use this with some rocks or other heavy objects to dump on the other party or to block attacks.'' he mused as he played different scenarios in his head. As he picked up the sword he came uppon a small tree an swung his hand imagined the battleaxes orientation in his hand he materialized from his inventory and it hit the tree with a terrifying speed chopping it trought with a single swing. The only bad thing was the recoil shock on the handle which made his hand hurt a bit but it was a price he was more than willing to pay for this effect. "Now who should I cook first? The ratbit or the foxbit. The ratbit did bite me so I should take a bite of it first.", he mused in boredom as he collected dry wood into his inventory as he needed a fire for cooking. He noticed theat anything above two meters in size could not fit inside. When he thought he had enough he went a bit further away from the cave to the stream and took out a dagger and the ratbit corpse. As he looked it over he made a small incission on it''s back and pulled on it with his hands in different directions. The fur was torn in half by this action and he kept pulling. The skin on the bottom peeled away nicely and got stuck on it''s hind paws while the front got stuck on the fron paws and its head. He cutt off the front paws and pulled some more and the head part was removed like that. The hind paws were chopped off next. He put both bloody skins into his inventory after washing them in the water from the stream then removed the innards and chopped off the head part. He tossed them into the woods as far as he could. He put the washed carcass into his inventory and climbed up his cave home. He went to the other side of the crevace and stacked the firewood and kindling then looked over his inventory for some kind of firestarting tool. He was sure it must be in there since it was an essential tool. After looking at almost every miscellanous item he had he finally found an item designated as flint. ---------------------------------\t Item name: Flint Quality: Low Special effects: none Description: Used to create sparks when rubbed with iron objects. ---------------------------------\t He used the almost destroyed dagger on it which he first used for wood cutting and it did what it was supposed to. He first gathered togthter something that looked like dried moss and let sparks fly on it. After a couple of tries and a lot of blowing the fire finally took. He putt a few smaller branches on it and when they caught on fire he put bigger ones on top. Fire started to burn more fiercly and the cave was glowing with red and orange colors dancing on the ceiling and walls. A pop-up appaered. Firebug skill unlocked. Firebug skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Fire element affinity +1 ''System are you telling me I am some kind of pyromaniac arsonist for starting one fire meant for cooking.'' he thought in his mind and chuckled. As he looked at the fire slowly burning and his cave filling up with warmth he had not experienced on this side of reality for a very long time he slowly contemplated how he was going to cook the ratbit. Climbing down the cave he looked around for any Y shaped branches on nearby trees thick enough to support his idea. He soon found two and chopped them off with his one handed sword using the inventory for boosting it''s speed. While inside the cave he sooon found out his idea was not applicable as he imagined it and he had to modify it. He wanted to stick the two Y shaped sticks into the ground but since the cave floor was a rock he could not. He pilled up some loose rocks on both sides of the fire as stick holders and shortened the Y shaped sticks so they neatly stuck out from the rock piles. then he took out a one hander and the ratbit carcass. He pushed the short sword trough the carcass and tied an L shaped stick on the sword''s pointy end with a rope. The sword''s handle was on one end of the Y shaped stick and the L shaped stick went over the other Y shaped stick and above the fire the ratbit was slowly roasting. By the time he was done fire was mostly gone and only the heat rose from the campfire. He slowly turned the L shaped stick as the ratbit was making cracking noises from the boiling fat and getting a nice yellow brown color which replaced the pink meat colour of the dead carcass. Harrison was salivating at the thought of his first meal when a ding interrupted his thoughts. Cooking skill unlocked. Cooking skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Vitality +1 ''Well that is a nice surprise but it had to be expected by now.'' he chuckled as he removed the yellow brown ratbit from the fire and put it on some clean clothes since he did not have any plates. He cut off a front leg and nibbled. The juices flowed into his mouth. The meat was chevy since it was a wild animal and it''s muscles were well developed compared to cage bread animals we are used to eating. If he could remember eating a roasted rabbit he would think it''s the same kind of fine-textured and almost all white, with a flavor and appearance similar to chicken meat. "Thank you system for telling me it''s done otherwise I would have surely have overcooked it.", he said and continued eating. The taste was way better than the dried meat he was eating before but it was bland. It was all texture mixed with some oily juices. "It could use a bit of salt. What kind of people don''t bring any salt with them." he exclaimed while gorging himself on the soft meat from the front leg. Soon he finished it and stuck the bones in his inventory and cut off the hind leg. He ate the whole thing since it ws not really big to begin with. He drank some water and let out a satisfied burp. Putting the bones into his inventory he tried it with the whole rest of the roasted ratbit minus the one-handed sword and the L stick and it went in aswell. He put some more wood on the fire since he enjoyed the warmth it brought to his cave. He checked it in his inventory. ---------------------------------\t Item name: Roasted "ratbit" Quality: Low Special effects: none Description: Warm. Missing some pieces and tasting bland. ---------------------------------\t ''Hmmm. Looks like the system is some sort of mix between an AI and my subconscius thoughts.'' he thought. He went to his cozy corner and rested a bit before dozing off. 10 Work sets you free ''Ugh, I am back again'', he thought as the familiar smell asaulted him. Laying in bed with a ventilator attached and hearing the by now all too familiar noises of moaning and beeping with the occasional footsteps in the distance he tried to find something to do. ''This is the worst kind of punishment!!! Aaaaargh, give me drugs'', he yelled but for everyone around him there were still earily quiet. ''I am going to go mad here if I don''t find anything else to do but multiply numbers!!!'', he thought. ''Let''s look at the book of porn.'', he told himslef and opened it in the inventory. As novel and excited he was when he first saw it now it was just an ugly goat man getting on with badly drawn females of different species. At least he thought they were different species than human from the way their bodies looked. There was one with a tail that ended in a spike and she had cat ears but a humanoid face. It looked familiar but he could not remember where to place such females. There was a "woman" with snakes growing out of her head and was crawling on the floor the goatman seemed to jump from behind pulling her head back by the snakes. Most normal things in it were some humanoid with slender bodies and sharp pointy ears. ''Well the only things missing from this book that goat man has not jumped are goats.'', he mused. Getting tired of the book he started to concentrate on his body and breathing rhythm. Trying to slow it down was an uphill battle since the ventilator did not respect his wishes and neither did his muscles. He kept trying though for hours since being stuborn was in his nature. He pushed his will towards his diaphragm trying to sense it and keep it from expanding and taking in the oxygen. As he kept pushing he noticed a sudden flow of energy from his head down to his belly button it was miniscule like a cold wet dropled sliding down your skin only on the inside. As it got there he got another pop-up message. Meditation skill unlocked.Meditation skill LVL. 1 acquired.Bonus Energy +1 ''That is not what I wanted.'', he grumbled. ''F*** this s**t I am out of here!!!'', he said in his mind and started imagining it doing the thinkable with the scantily dressed ladies in the porn book replacing the goat man with his own persona. The beeps were getting more frequent as the footsteps were getting closer and a whooshing sound was heard. "It''s been quite a while Mr. Roberts have you missed me?", said nurse Finkle as she prepared the medicine. Harrison did not know it but he had been trying to obstruct his breathing for more than 15 hours. ''Thank you nurse Finkle. I did miss y...'', he said in his mind just before he felt weightless and fell into the oblivion. "Woooo hooo! I am back!!!" Harrison jumped from his bed and ran out of the cave as if his bed was on fire. With almost no external stimuli except sound the world he was in before was torture for him. Maybe for someone borne blind it''s not as much torture to not be able to see, than for those who had sight and went blind later. Can you miss things you only know from hearsay the same way as something you experienced yourself? "Today I am going a bit further into the forest!", he declared as he came to the waterfall. Equipping his armour he went to the righ side of the forest from the waterfall and slowly walked for arund 200 meters. when he was sure there was no danger he rushed back at full speed swinging his arm and materializing his battle axe from his inventory like a berserk maniac. The swings looked bizzare until the axe came to be in front of 5-10 cm thick trees that were cut trough with one blow and Harison grabbed the axe again and returned it into his inventory. Repeating the same action again and again there was a constant rustling of 4-6 meter trees falling down behind him and an occasional pop-up that he ignored. He just willed them to the side and the system willingly obeyed. Gasping for air he finally stopped and checked them out. Lumberjack skill LVL. 4 acquired. Running skill unlocked.Running skill LVL. 1 acquired.Bonus Agility +1 Running skill LVL. 2 acquired. Running skill LVL. 3 acquired. Lumberjack skill LVL. 5 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Running skill LVL. 4 acquired. Running skill LVL. 5 acquired.Bonus Agility +1 Lumberjack skill LVL. 6 acquired. He looked around himself and all the young trees all around him were now lying on the forest floor. Feeling guilty at his insane behavior he remembered a quote. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." ''Ahh. whatever there are plenty of woods here.'', he downplayed his reckless behavior. Sitting down he could feel the breeze evaporating his sweat and the smell his body was giving off was rather unpleasant. ''Must be from all those shitty potions. Those were the shittiest potions I ever had and ever will literally. If I never ever drink that shitty potion I will die a happy man.'', he defended his body''s scent in his mind. On the way to the pond he put all his clothes in the inventory then went into the water scrubbed himself with the nasty soap and rinsed himself under the waterfall. Since the water was thumping on his head he did not hear an intruder approaching. Luckily he dove down to get soap gently from his eyes or he would have been found. As he dove back up he saw the intruder walking his horse looking creature towards the pond. He quickly dove back under and moved behind the waterfall just sticking his head above the water. The horse drank some water as Harrison was peeping behind the waterfall which was obstructing his vision except on rare occasions the stream would cease for a fraction of a second. The unknown person wore a long coat with a high collar that covered most of his face, with pants underneath and a big triangular hat. He was holding the reins of his horse as he brought it towards the pond. ''Should I let myself be known or not. Hmmm. It''s too risky, I need to get stronger first and it should not be near my home.'', he mumbled to himself and quickly reached a conclusion. ''Also I am naked and if I put my clothes on from my inventory it will be weird and if I don''t it will be even weirder.'', he added some more reasons to his previous conclusion. After the horse drank his fill the intruder took off his hat and also strated to drink water. As the hat went off his head bloomed with red hair which fell to his shoulders. Raising his head the intruder exposed to Harrison what he could only say was a beautiful female face. ''Maybe I should let myself be known? Ehhh forget it. who says this woman can not kill me and it will be even weirder if I jump naked in front of a woman.'', he came back to the same conclussion. ''I hope I didn''t pee too much into the pond just now. Well it is a big pond I am sure it got plentilly dilluted before she drank it. '', were his next thoughts. The woman stuck her hair back behind her hat and took her horse back the way she came from. She mounted it a small distance away from the pond and slowly rode off. ''She must have been attracted by the sound of the waterfall!'', Harrison concluded. ''Hmmm I guess she worried for her horse on this muddy terain that is why she dismounted it first.'' ''Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I am cold.'' He quickly got out from the water and dried himslef off and climbed back into his cave. There were still some embers glowing surprisingly for him. He quickly made the fire grow and warmed himself back up. Taking out the roasted ratbit he which was still warm he quickly snapped of his back leg and stuck it back into the inventory. "Hmmm I guess what is warm on the outside stays warm on forever in the inventory.", he said to himself his deduction as if waiting for someone to confirm it. "I will follow her tracks tomorrow to see where they lead to!", he told himslef before going to rest a bit. He didn''t doze off immediately. Soon weird puffing noises and load exhales and inhales started filling the cave as he started to immitate what happened in the hospital. No matter how he tried even after completely emtying his lungs and feeling like he was going to die not a thing happened. He could only doze off in resignation and try in the hospital. 11 Its all about the Benjamins Waking up again the familiar sounds like many times before hit his ears. He ignored them and immedietly set off trying to find the feelings he had before when he managed to unlock meditation. After what felt like a few hours he still had zero gains for all his effort. Suddenly he heard footsteps. By the amount of footsteps there was more than one person and they became louder as the automatic door made the whooshing sound he knew they came into his room. "Are you sure we need to move him?", a female voice asked in resignation who Harrison recognized as nurse Finkle said. "We need the ICU space for people who actually have a chance at recovery. He is not our top priority anymore. The media fallout was much lesser than they expected so the higher ups I guess are not bothered with him making it or not anymore. Well, its not like he has a chance of recovery with such injuries anyway. He will be fine in the normal room as long as the ventilators are attached anyway. It won''t make any difference it will just cost less to keep him breathing until he dies.", a male voice explained the decision without a shred of sympathy. "Check the emergency battery level and switch to internal oxygen supply and unplugg the ventilator from the wall sockets.", he continued. There were rustling noises of equipment being unplugged and squeeching of wheels followed. ''So they see no hope of me recovering and are just waiting for me to die!!! It''s all about the money as always...,'' Harrison thought with boiling anger as he was being pushed out from the ICU in the normal ward room. Soon he heard the equipment being plugged back into the wall sockets as the screeching of the bed wheels and other equipment being moved stopped. ''It does not matter to me anyway since I never had much hope in you anyway. I need to find a way to heal myself. Maybe get some better potions or maybe magic if it exists in the other world and heal myself with it in this one... '', he consoled himself. ''Aaaaargh. I swear I am going to find the guy who had me swatted and make some additional holes in him without even a remote chance of recovery...'' the thoughts of revenge fueled his will to live as the room became quiet. He continued trying to meditate but he was either too agitated by the recent events but his focus was all over the place and could not make any progress. Since he could not make himself go to sleep he started doing multiplications again but even before he reached the next level his mind finally succumbed to boredom and made him sleep. Waking up in the cave he quickly got dressed and went out towards the pond. It was daytime so he had no trouble finding the tracks left by the horse and he started folowing them. Every couple of meters he marked a tree with his dagger so he could find his way back. After crossing a couple of small hills and valeys he finally came out from the forest onto a road paved with stones. Taking out a grey piece of underwear he wiped it on the brown dirt on the backside and put it the underbrush by the road to mark his exit point. His reasoning being that no one would touch a piece of underwear that looked like someone had soiled himself in it. Also he would have no problems cleaning it afterwards using his inventory quick cleaning method. "Left or right? Which way did she go? Which way did the stupid horse go?, he asked himself since the hoof tracks stopped on the hard stones and the horse went out of the woods at a ninety degree angle leaving him no clues. Luckily for him he could spot a pile of fresh horse shit in the distance and he figured that must be the way. Walking slowly and stopping every few one hundred meters in the underbrush listening to noises he made headway with a very slow speed. He removed all his gear he made his clothing and body dirty so he would not look too suspicious as a twelve year old kid wearing clean leather armour. After a while he saw smoke coming out from the distance and after the road went down on the incline he could see fields cultivating unknown crops with some people on them. After a long stretch of fields he could see a small town from which the smoke was comming out from the houses and workshops. Harrison stood there for quite a while considering if it was really wise to go into the town but he decided that sooner or later he would be forced to make contact. As he walked he soon met a first passerby going his way. It was an old man pulling an oxlike beast with a cart attached behind him. Harrison was getting more anxious with every step he took towards him but seeing the man ignoring him he walked his way. Before they passed eachother the old man nodded and said: "Aka sha!" Harrison had no clue what was said and he nodded in reply and returned the same words to him. "Aka sha!" Just liek that the oxlike beast passed him and went into the distance and Harrison went closer to the town. He met some more townsfolk and they all just nodded and said the same thing but this time the system subtitled their words as good day. Finally he reached the town and the first houses on the outskirts which looked runned down with some kids that were even dirtier than he was running in yelling in front of them. An old lady grey haired lady wearing a dirty apron came out and started yelling at them and they ran away. He nodded his head at her and said aka sha and she replied in turn. "Aka sha! Besham kengu duri?", she said with a questioning gaze. Harrison just looked at her and started nodding and shaking his head and ignored her while walking forward. ''Mind your own business lady. I have no clue what you want.'', he thought in his head. She gave him a disapproving look but then waved her hand in resignation and went back inside the run down house. The houses on the outskirts were all made out of mud and less than two meters in height with straw covering them. They had windows but had no glass with horizontal and sometimes vertical sticks serving as a barrier from any animals that wanted to intrude on the inside. They had simple shutters made from a single piece of wood. The floor in them was mud as far as he could tell from the outside. ''Even my cave is better than this.'' Harrison thought in contempt. After going trough a few a row of such mud houses and yelling aka sha at every passerby came what he saw next were houses made from timber that looked like his former worlds hunting cabins with propper roofs and chimneys made from bricks. They were three to four meters tall with windows made of glass which looked of low quality and not of uniformed thickness and was obviusly distorting the view outside. After those came a few brick houses with only two being two stories tall in the middle of the small town. These looked like propper houses like people on Earth may have used in the 18th or even 19th century. With propper windows, big doors and flowers blooming in front of them. He could not see inside since the windows were higher than his head and also most curtains were closed on the lower stories. In between the brick houses and the wooden houses were workshops. theclanking of an anvil was prominent from a blacksmith''s shop so it was easily recognisable. There was a also a sign of a potion on one which Harrison figured was an apothecary. There were also various stalls in front of them but he ignored them as he had no knowledge of the local language or prices. Walking down the main avenue he met people from what seemed from all walks of life. Beggars, workers, farmers, servants, soldiers and hunters. He noticed a peculiar thing. Harrison greeted everyone he met but with getting closer to the center of the town the people he met had better clothing and looked much cleaner and neater on the outside but showed obvious looks of contempt at his greetings. He could read on their faces disgust, disapproval and amazement and the frequency of such looks was rising proportionally to the quality of their clothing. ''Who do you think you are greeting boy?'', could be read on the faces of those who did not reply. ''I guess everywhere is the same. It''s all about the Benjamins.'', he thought in resignation. 12 Greed is universal After observing for a while Harrison did not want to leave the town empty handed so he made his way towards a stall filled with fruit in front what looked like a general store. He had mixed feelings when he stepped inside. One one hand he didn''t have any means of cummunication with the natives but on the other hand if he completely avoided the interaction he would never have means of communicating with them. ''It''s good that my appearance is of a teenage kid so I pose no threat to them and I am easily ignored.'', he thought to himself. After the fruits and vegetable filles stalls he came trough a wide door which had big windows on both sides letting in the sunshine, On the windows there was an iron cage made of squares to prevent burglars probably. As he came in he could see a variety of cheeses on the shelfs and dried meats hanging on the corner. The next shelf had different ropes and farming tools. After that there were some weapon and armour racks. He saw something like numbers written on each item but he didn''t know which numbers they represented. Finally he spotted what he was looking for the most. A shelf filled with books. As he came forward toward the bookshelf he suddenly noticed he was being watched. A tall plump middle-aged man wearing an appron was looking at him with hostility with half his face being covered by a shelf. ''Old man I could rob you blind if I wanted to and you would have no way of proving it.'', he thought to himself as he smiled back at the shopkeeper. Harrison of course did not dare to try putting stuff into his inventory as he did not know what would happen to him even if they had no way of proving he stole the items. He looked at a few books that looked like they were made for children. Rich parent''s children to be exact since no children that lived in mud houses would ever get to see one up close probably. They were filled with illustrations on the covers and he wanted to open them up when he was suddenly grabbed by his shoulder and was shoved towards the door. It was not gentle but it was by no means hard. As he turned his head he was greeted by the shopkeepers angry stare and he could only smile back. At the door the shopkeeper wiped his hands on the apron like he just touched something disgusting and waited between the door until Harrison went away. Harrison did go away but he didn''t give up hope on getting at least one of those books. He found a quiet place between two houses and took out a dagger from his inventory. Returning back to the shop he held the dagger in his hand and went back to the bookshelf. The shopkeeper''s footsteps were soon heard and when he came around the corner he was greeted with him holding his dagger. The shopkeeper started yelling as Harrison smiled turned the dagger around holding it by the blade and pointed at the bookshelf. The shopkeeper''s expression changed from anger to bewilderment but he soon figured out that the boy wanted an exchange of goods. ''He is probably a mute and wants to look at the pretty drawings,'' he thought. He raised one finger and said: "Olk." Harrison raised four fingers. Shopkeeper shook his head raised one finger again and repeated: "Olk." Harrison raised four fingers again and lowered one as he saw the shopkeeper loking at him angrily. Shopkeeper shook his head again and raised two fingers and said: "Bolk." Bartering skill unlocked.Bartering skill LVL. 1 acquired.Bonus Wisdom +1 ''Ohhh. An unexpected bonus. Thank you system.'' Harrison nodded with a smile and pushed the dagger towards him. The shopkeeper took it and weighed it in his hands and tried it''s sharpness be running his fingers across it. A smile of satisfaction appeared on his face. ''I probably got shafted but I don''t care.'', Harrison thought as he saw his demenor. Even though he got a good deal out of it he was watching Harrison like a hawk and was walking near him and breathing down his neck until he picked up two books and was leaving the shop. He followed him to the door as if he was a security guard watching his every move. Harrison walked to the same spot between the houses and took out another dagger and put the two fresh new books in his inventory. He still had five almost intact daggers from his corpse looting and a ruined one. Just as he was about to leave a window opened on the second story and someone poured something from it which splattered in the middle of the small dark alley. ''Well that explains the prevailing stench of urine.'', he thought as he shook his head. As he returned to the shop the shopkeeper gave him a look that basically spelled out why are you back but did not make any aggressive actions towards him. Showing him the dagger he held by the blade and pointing towards the bookshelf with two fingers raised the bussines was quickly concluded and he left the shop immeditly after while the shopkeeper watched him for a long time trying to determine the direction where he was going from the stalls in the front of the shop''s entrance. Harrison felt this was enough excitement for today and was leaving the small town the same way he came from. After a couple of aka shas he almost left the slum area of the town when three of kids surrounded him. The two taller kids stood in front of him and one circled around him from the back. "Aka sha!", he said to the two in front and tried to move past them. They were wearing ragged dirty clothes which smelled of sweat and urine and even with him purposly dirtying his clothes there was a stark difference between them. They were barefoot and he was wearing leather boots which was probably also the main reason they decided to ambush him. One of the tall boys said something and tried to grab him by his shoulder. Harrison twisted away and looked at him viciously which gave him a bit of pause. The other one jumped on him insted trying to grab him by the waist to tackle him but was greeted by a knee instead and was knocked out cold. The one who came from behind picked up fistful of sand from the ground and threw it towards Harrison''s face and it flew towards his eyes but he closed them fast enough. Still the other tall boy used this opening to try and tackle him but instead of succeding he found himself being raised from the ground and body slammed like a raggdoll. The smaller one wanted to rush into the fray but when he saw the taller ones laying in front of Harrison one knoecked out and the other moaning and out of breath crawling on the ground with his head in the sand he hesitated. He just stood there and could not decided if he wanted to run away or attack Harrison. Harrison just shook his head and pretended to step on the tall boys head and pointed at the small one showing a vicious smile. He repeatedly wiggled his finger as if to ask him to come closer to get a pummeling also. The small boy finally lost all semblance of bravery and ran as fast as his dirty feet could take him. ''Heh. I guess greed is universal.'', Harrison thought as he walked away leaving the other two laying in the middle of the road. After a good while of walking he finally came to the dirty underwear which was still prominently displayed on the bushes by the road. He stopped and looked around to check if someone folowed him and then rushed into the woods as he saw the coast was clear. Following the markings ws easy and he soon found himself in front of the pond. Some inventory cleaning and washing time later he was in his cave looking at his spoils of the day. They were four books for children with vivid covers and a lot of illustrations on the inside. They were not printed but made by hand and he didn''t feel he overpayed as he looked at the level of craftmanship and time that went into making them. ''I guess weapons are more appreciated than art in this world.'', he thought. He analyzed all four while eating diner of roasted ratbit with some water. All he needed to do was open the books in inventory and click on the analyze button and wait so he could multitask easily. As he was munching on the ratbit it he suddenly had an intense feeling of regret. "Damn it. I forgot to buy SAAAALT.", he yelled in frustration. 13 Ignorance is bliss Meanwhile while Harrison was lamenting the bland taste of his food on a higher plane of existance there was a meeting happening. In this meeting that he was oblivious to his existance was the main and only topic. The meeting was held on the tallest mountain of that world, as if the organizers wanted to tell everyone they were the highest authority around. With clouds rolling beneath them, the tall mountain that lost it''s peak because someone had cut it off so neatly that the now floor of the meeting place was glossy there was a big circular table with twenty four seats of which nineteen were occupied. Of the nineteen eighteen were seated and one person was standing as he started the meeting. "Most of you already know what this meeting is about but for the rest let me explain what we know so far.", a man with four arms and scales instead of skin said in a gutural voice. "Two of the lower planes controlled by our alliance have been experiencing temporal freezing." "Lord Kuruk. Do we know what is causing it?", said a female with voluptuous figure and horns dressed scantilly. "We do have some preiliminary findings, Lady Sindel.", replied Kuruk and waved his hand materializing an image of the Milky way galaxy. "From the testing of communications the temporal freeze originates from here before it spreads through the whole plane in a matter of moments. It has been pinpointed to this planet on this plane that the natives call Earth.", Kuruk explained. "This plane has been used for us primarily for getting talent into our ranks and as such this does not affect us much. The bigger problem lies here.", waving his hand again a new galaxy was shown in the middle of the table. "This plane is one of our prime sources of spiritual energy and it has pinpointed that the freezing starts from planet called Atreus by the natives.", Kuruk continued. The ones who knew about the situation beforehand remained quiet but the ones for whom the situation was new started to whisper among themselves. "I suggest we destroy planets Earth and Atreus and take out whoever is responsible along with the two planets.", suddenly a horny man stood up and exclaimed. Horny as in full of horns sprouting all over his head and arms. Not the other more usual kind of horny. Kuruk almost did a facepalm at that suggestion. ''I knew one day I will regret letting you into our alliance.'', he thought inwardly. He was just about to reprimand the horny guy when someone else stood up. "Bardash, are you an idiot or just ignorant?, a normal looking man stood up. ''Probably both.'', Kuruk thought. "If you have something to say say it Balerion!", Bardash replied. "How old are you? Did you ever hear about Pangu?", asked Balerion. "I am 175.000 cycles old but what does that to have with Pangu?", asked Bardash. "So 75.000 cycles ago you were around when Pangu destroyed the whole Orbash alliance?", Balerion asked. "Yes I was around but what does this have to do with this?", Bardash asked. "Do you not remember the reason?", Balerion asked. "How could I forget? The dumbasses actually wanted to refine his home planet to make a weapon out of it.", Bardash smiled and proudly replied. After people looking at him like he was the biggest idiot in the galaxy and stayed quiet for about a minute it finally dawned on him. "You mean to say Earth is Pangu''s home planet?", he exclaimed with fear. "That is enough", Kuruk said looking around the room and Bardash especially, "Earth is Pangu''s home planet and some other void deities too. Atreus has void deities protecting it also. So even if we wanted to destroy them we would fail and the consequences would be disproportionately greater than the minor annoyance we have now." Balerion chuckled and sat down. Bardash sat down dejectedly also. "I called you here today to explain the deaths of 57 of our agents and how to avoid future deaths," Kuruk said while looking at their reactions. "The planes are only dangerous when travelling to them while they are frozen so here is a list of agents that will be permanently stationed on these two planes before the situation is resolved. Before any travelling there you just have to contact one of them and if he replies it''s safe. If not try later," Kuruk continued. The other eighteen nodded their heads in confirmation. "Do we have any idea how the whole plane''s time is being frozen?", lady Sindel asked. "There are two theories. First one is that some void deity is doing experiments in the lower planes since it would not be the first time it''s the most plausible. They don''t give a damn about us so they never bother to explain themselves or justify their actions anyway. The second theory is that somone got himself a void item or managed to find a working void array which he used as power conduit but it''s highly unlikely since with the knowledge required to read and activate it these two planes would no longer be of any concern to him.", Keruk replied. "Could it not be a HER?", lady Sindel exclaimed. ''Here we go again,'' Keruk wanted to facepalm again. "Him, her, it I don''t give a damn!!! Something!!!", he yelled back. "Any more questions?", he forgot to add stupid as he glared at his audience. Finally, someone managed to raise his hand and waited to be acknowledged. As Kuruk nodded he said in a low voice: "The list that you mentioned?" "Ahh. Here you go,", Kuruk swiped his hand and twenty three scrolls fell in front of the seats. "Anything else?", he looked around and everyone avoided his gaze. After that Kuruk disappeared followed by all the others. The only things left were the table, the twentyfour seats, five scrolls and the clouds. --------------------------------- Harison let out a semi satisfied burp and tossed the bones into his inventory. It was finally time to check on the children''s books. He read them one by one but other than getting his vocabulary expanded in the language of this region nothing happened. The learn option was not available as if the system did not think anything in the books was worth learning. He reanalyzed the book titled "Basic swordmanship for beginners" next which could be titled Swords for dummies on Earth. After what seemed to take forever he clicked on the learn button and after a few moments there were continuous pop-ups. Swordmanship skill LVL. 6 acquired. Swordmanship skill LVL. 7 acquired. Swordmanship skill LVL. 8 acquired. Swordmanship skill LVL. 9 acquired. ''Ohh. come on,'' he lamented the loss of attribute gains which would happen if he managed to reach level 10. He opened the book manually and noticed more than 90 % of the book was translated. The main parts that were missing seemed to deal with correct breathing while doing the moves as the word like breathe through followed by unknown words was where the translation mostly stopped. ''I guess I need a medical atlas next,'' he thought. He got the other two books reanalyzed also. The book about flowers actually gave him the option to learn it but the other one remained stuborn. Clicking the learn button he experienced wast knowledge flowing into his brain and two dings soon followed. Herbology skill unlocked. Herbology skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Wisdom +1 Herbology skill LVL. 2 acquired. He opened up the book manually and saw that he could understand around 40 % of the text of which most were the names of shapes and colors describing the various plants. The other descriptions like what they can be used for were a mystery for him. Even a lot of names of the plants were usually something like "White #$"$#". ''Well, at least if I pick one up I will know if it''s usefull for something just not what so it''s not if it is a total waste,'' he thought as he closed the book. He checked his skills to decide on further action. Lumberjack : Level 10Carpentry : Level 1Masturbation : Level 1Archery : Level 7Swordmanship : Level 9Mathemathics : Level 10Fitness : Level 5Bartering : Level 1Herbology : Level 2 He thought about hitting a tree with a sword but dismissed the idea as it would only dull it so he turned to the next best thing archery. He had plenty of arrows. Even those that were in bad shape could still be used for practice. So he went over to the tree with the painted targets and started shooting arrow from 20 meters distance. He hit a lot more than he missed and soon he heard a familiar pop-up. Archery skill LVL. 8 acquired. He used the same 20 arrows over and over again. Picking them up either from the ground or plucking them from the tree after every round. After level 8 he went a bit furter and shot from aproximately 25 meters and he soon reached level 9. At the 30 meters mark a tree was in his way but he moved a bit sideways and the target was still well in sight. As he finally reached level 10 his arms and fingers felt like they would fall off at any moment and to hear the familiar ding was like a blessing from heaven. Archery skill LVL. 10 acquired.Bonus Strength +1Bonus Perception +1 Sticking the bow into his inventory he went one last time to pickup the arrows and left for the cave. In the cave he crawled into his bed and checked his attributes which he had diligently acquired trough the day. Strength : 8,5 Wisdom : 12,5 Inteligence : 17 Dexterity : 10,5 Perception : 12 Agility : 11 Water element affinity : 10,5 Vitality : 10,5 Fire element affinity : 10,5 Energy : 10,5 With satisfaction he closed his eyes and dozed off. 14 Everyone has their own problems Time restarted back on the Earth''s plane and no one except the external observers was any wiser. Harrison got moved into a normal ward where by the lack of moaning and the sound that was made by only his equipment he judged he was alone in. Laying on the hospital bed he tried to keep himself occupied by multiplying large numbers while on the other side of the USA, in Las Vegas to be specific a man was occupying himself with his situation. As soon as Ambroise Ananta noticed the lack of connection to his guinea pig he hired a private detective agency to gather information for him. The report he was eagerly awaiting came by email within a day which was even surprising for him. ''They were surprisingly efficient as they should be for how much I am paying them,'' he said in his mind as he browsed the report. There was the crime scene report from the internal investigation which showed the diagram of Harrison''s house. It included the transcript from the emergency call and also listed all the participants in the raid and how many rounds they fired. They were especially including the photos of his gun replicas which would supposedly lessen their fault in the incident. It was very detailed. It was so detailed that Ambroise was sure they had a man inside the police force as it looked like an official report. The destroyed head gear was laying on the scene by the side of a pool of blood and Ambroise put special attention on any report document where it might be mentioned. He finally found it in the list of evidence collected. Harrison knew his headgear was somewhat special since he received it after winning an event but only Ambroise knew the real reason. For anyone else it was just a better air conditioned model upgraded from the first batch. Since sweaty hair and sweat coming into the eyes was a common complaint from their players they decided to add ventilation on version 2.0 and this was like a preview version or one might even call it a prototype. Only Ambroise knew that it was not the only thing he added. Why he was so eagerly looking for it were the control and energy arrays engraved in it. The control array was already destroyed but the energy array was something Ambroise could reuse. He didn''t really even care about the control array since it was easy to make but it was useless without the energy one. The main problem designing his conspiratorial helmet was linking a part of his soul over distance to the subject. It was easy to engrave a soul with a contract with physical contact but doing it remotely took tremendous energy no human made battery pack could supply. Things were made especially troublesome by the lack of spiritual energy in this plane so he could not use an energy gathering array on it. For this purpose he used an array he got from the black market which used quite exotic materials even for his immortal means. They were not especially hard to find but they were expensive. He collected only twelve sets of them to start his little side project. It was a design he didn''t fully comprehend since he was no array expert but he didn''t need to be. Together with the control array the energy array and the twelwe sets of ingredients to make them cost him almost all of his wealth he collected in his over two milleniums long life. It pained him greatly but the potential profits far outweighed the initial investment so he jumped at the opportunity with open arms. His subjects or with another word slaves, could earn him back the initial cost in the next century multiple times and he would reinvest and make more subjects and experience exponential growth. ''I have to retrieve the headset,'' was a thought that kept repeating in his head as he read. ''If I throw money at them someone is sure to return it to me so that is not a big concern,'' he mused in his head as he contemplated the greed of mortals. It was somewhat ironic since the greed of an immortal led him to this junction. As he browsed Harrison''s medical files he noticed the lack of optimism of his attending physicians and he concluded his first guinea pig was useless to him and after he retrieved the headset he would idstance himself from him completely. What he and the physicans failed to understand was that the energy array he used has implanted itself directly onto Harrison''s soul as the side effect of not having to feed the controlling array. What he also did not know was it was an array made by a void deity used to fuel his clones over different planes as a means to enjoy his harem and would automatically modify the temporal laws of that plane once it left it and put them on pause. The physicians were not to blame since it was something incomprehensible by Earth''s standards and Ambroise was also not to blame since any information about void deities was above his pay grade. It was strictly guarded by the leaders of alliance as they liked to represent themselves as the highest authorities. That was the result of them being used to being on top of the food chain and once they found out there was a mountain looming in front they were reluctant to admit they were the proverbial frogs in a well. Although such knowledge spurred on further cultivation it was mainly kept by the highest levels as top secret to make themselves seem untouchable. The main reason they could succeed doing so was also that the beings who could reach and live in the void usually did not concern themselves with the lower plains since the lower planes had nothing much besides maybe some entertainment or sentimental value for them. They found a new battleground when breaking through the void of the higher planes. A battleground that was infinitely bigger than the higher planes that were just stable offshoots of the void and the lower planes were just stable offshoots ot the higher ones. It called the void for a reason it was mostly empty. You could travel for a billion years with the speed of light and not meet any other living thing in it. Luckily for the bengs occupying the void they have found a way around it. The main thing that differentiated them from the lower and upper planes was that they no longer needed a phsyical body for their souls to survive. At the lower level of existance the souls would start to dissipate as soon as the container was lost but they could make a new container with a thought as long as the materials were or even just energy was available. All that they need was their soul and energy so they were no longer constrained with things like distance and time in the void. As long as they had a clear idea of where they wanted to go they could just teleport there directly. It was a dream and also their greatest fear for all the apex beings in the lower realms of the void to get there. The dream was to reach a higher place and the apex of power and the fear was to start once again from the bottom. Any random existance from the void could destroy an apex existance from the higher planes with but a thought and they were aware of that threat since it would not be the first time it happened. They were at their mercy and at the same time they also wanted to join them and any idea of provoking them was ludicrous. For Harrison the void was of no concern as he was trying to multiply a long string of numbers with fervour and since he found he had nothing else to do. After reaching level 11 in mathematics he tried longer digits but hit a bottleneck as the difficulty was raised more than his intelligence that would alove him to calculate effectively. All he got from trying is a headache but if he tried calculating at a lower difficulty he got nowhere in terms of leveling mathematics. He was starring into the void but he had no wish to go there. Harrison just wantd to fall asleep and restart his day on Atreus where he at least had some semblance of life. Being stuck in a hospital room with no ability to do anything was psychological torture for him. Humming the first few line lyrics from Queen''s Bohemian Rhapsody he finally got his wish and woke up on the other side. He stood up and looked out the cave. The sun was slowly setting and the shadows were filling the forest. He did not want to waste anymore time so he went down the cave wall anyway and collected some firewood for later and filled the waterskins from the spring. As he stood there in the twilligt of the evening he thought what to do going ahead. The obvious thing was to get stronger in this world and find a way to get out a hospital on that one. He took out a onehanded sword and start practicing every move he learned from the book and repeating it over and over again. After two hours he wiped himself off and recycled the clothes in the inventory. He was not going to go swim in the pond in the darkness. He quickly built a fire sat down and ate the rest of his roasted ratbit as he contemplated on how he could faster switch to this world since the other one was now completely useless to him. ''I need to find a way to fall asleep faster!!!'', he thought as he lied down next to the cozy fire which colored the cave in orange hue. 15 Whats that stench... Comming to his senses in the familiar hospital envirnonment that filled his nasal cavity with the sharp smell of antiseptic polluted air and hearing the all too familiar sound of the ventilators Harrison just bitterly sighed in his head. ''Back to the land of boredom,'' he thought. ''There is no point in do anymore math. I read all the books. Meditation is not working either. Aaaaaaargh.'' ''There must be something I can do here...'' he tryed to cheer himself up while the medical machines whirred around him. ''Inventory!'' As the boxes showed up in front of him he looked through them. Weapons and armours were the first category. ''Should I materialize a sword on the hospital bed? That would give them a shock of surprise.'' He dismissed the idea as it would raise too many questions. Finally, his gaze fell on the medicine potions. He still had quite some left after the shitstorm incidents. Looking at them he started contemplating on how he could move the contents from the bottles into his body without using his hands and he came to a possible scenario. There was nothing left for him but to try it out. ''System.'' He waited but there was no answer. ''System can you separate the container from the fluid?'' Still no answer. ''System separate one "Low quality healing potion" into bottle and fluid''!!!, he yelled in his head in frustration. Suddnely two additional spaces were filled. In one was now an empty bottle and in the other one was a greenish orb floating suspended in mid-air. He checked them. Item name: Low quality healing potion bottleQuality: LowSpecial effects: none Description: Can contain fluids.''Well that was nothing unexpected.'' Item name: Low quality healing potion fluidQuality: LowSpecial effects: Reduces pain and swelling. Side effects from the residual components include flatulance and diarhea. Description: Low quality medicine potion with high amount of residue. ''OK. It''s still the same stuff.'' ''System can you show me my body?'' After waiting for a bit with no result he tried again with an order instead of a question. ''Show me my body!!!'' In front of him suddenly appeared a virtual pale human with everything that was around ten centimeters of his vicinity. He looked at himself and he saw a ventilator tube going down his throat but only saw the parts that were close enough. The pillow and blanket were also on him. He could see his head wrapped up in bandages which covered almost his whole head but were mostly on his left side. ''So you only respond to orders not questions.'', was his initial reaction after he recovered from the initial astonishment that it was possible. ''Remove the bed and blankets from the view!'' He could now see the bedsheet beneath him, a diaper underneath him and bandages on his body with bloody drainage tobes going from them and an IV channel running into his left arm. He also had a catheter inserted into his urethra which made him shuddder. Harrison was reluctant at first but he wanted to know how bad it was. ''Remove the bandages from the view.'' As they were removed he could see a bloody wound on his head with bloody drainage tubes and also that about 5 cm of his skull was missing and was just covered with a bald flap of skin. His hair was cleanly shaven off. His face was swollen so to that degree that he would not be able to recongnise himself even if he remembered how he looked like. His body looked like patchwork of sutures on several parts of his torso which were concentrated on the left side of his body. He imagined he was strafed by the bullets on the left side going from his stomach up to his head. Harrison counted four bullet wounds on his torso. ''Remove the bedsheet and turn my body around'', he ordered. He could see there were three exit wounds in the back. The whole out of body experience made him deeply perturbed but also filled with curiosity. He wanted what else the system coud do. ''Remove my skin from the view.'' A flesh covered humanoid appeared with white tendons showing and obvious deformities where the bullets hit him. By now he looked more like an alien than a human even though he was aware that he was looking at himself he felt detached. ''Remove the muscles and tendons from the view!'' He saw his rib cage and skull without the muscles attached now. ''Remove my bones from the view'' Now he could see his heart beating in his chest and his lungs expanding and contracting as the ventilator went trough a cycle. His lungs were damaged on the left side and part of it was cut off and sutured together. He could not tell what happened to his intestines but some parts showed signs of sutures. ''Show me just the skeleton.'' The pinkish skeleton except for the skull, left side of his ribs and clavicle was mostly intact. ''Return to the previous view.'' He was back looking at his organs which were like colors of the rainbow covered with a red overlay. ''The big brown thing on the right must be the liver and redish one on the left is the spleen. I was lucky the bullet perforated just my stomach and lungs and not these two organs or I would be a goner.'' He thought as he observed where the sutures were. Contemplating if he should really try doing what he had in mind he paused a bit. ''It could kill me. But if I don''t try doing it I might as well be dead.'', he came to a conclusion after a few minutes. ''I am sincerely sorry nurse Finkle, or whoever is on duty, for what I am about to do next but I have no choice.'' ''Transfer the liquid from my inventory directly to my stomach.'' As the liquid disappeared from his inventory he saw his stomach bloating and soon his heart started to pound at a faster frequency. After a minute the frequency was still increasing and the monitoring station turned on the alarm which started blarring. Soon he could hear rushed footsteps and the whooshing of the door. "What is going on with you?" He heard a male voice say before the the footsteps stopped near him. The other footsteps soon followed. "Status.", another male voice said. "His heart rate and BP are both unusually high.", the same voice from the person who came in first replied. "Shall I prepare a sedative?", nurse Finkle said. "Yes. But no more lorazepame give him diazepam 5mg.", a male voice ordered. Harrison was observing his body in the meantime and as he heard them he got ready for action. ''Transfer fluid coming from the IV into the inventory!'', he ordered to the system. Soon a small orb of liquid was floating in an inventory box. "There is no response. BP rising steadily.", a male voice said. "Up the dosage! And check his sutures and drainage tubes.", a male voice who by now Harrison presumed was a doctor ordered. ''Transfer fluid coming from the IV into the inventory!'', he once again ordered to the system. "There is still no response BP rising. The sutures look ok. Drainage normal.", a male voice said after a while. "Hmm. Let me see. Up the dosage again!", the doctor was not willing to give up but neither was Harrison as he once again stole the diazepam from the IV. "We could calm him down with lorazepam easily before.", nurse Finkle interjected as they rebandaged him as there was still no response and his blood pressure was still rising. "Give him one more dose of diazepam and if there is still no reaction give him lorazepam.", the doctor said dejectedly. Harrison stole the diazepam and two more doses of lorazepam before he decided to give them a rest as he was worried next time they might start with a high dosage and possibly kill him with an overdose if he overdoes it. ''Now I have six get out of jail free cards!!!'', he thought in joy as his mind slowly went blank. Before his mond wnet into oblivion he heard some noises he would rather not hear again. "Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtft. Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrft. Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr plyup blup." "Ah god damn it. What is that stench?", a male voice said although he knew the answer. "He soiled himself obviously. BP is falling thank god.", nurse Finkle said while trying to hold her laughter. "OK. Good work people. Call me if there is anything else!.", the doctor said as he rushed out of there while holding his breath. "Look at him run.", the male voice said after the whooshing sound of the door closing was heard. "It''s not like that is something you see for the first time.", nurse Finkle said while laughing and removing a diaper underneath Harrison who was still making farting noises while slowly losing consciousness. "How can you be in a good mood cleaning shit of a patient.", asked the male voice. "I prefer this to cleaning a dead body and I like to see you miserable.", she replied. 16 Because the night belongs to me Waking up by crackling fire Harrison looked at it in wonder. In his mind at least a couple of hours passed on the other side of his reality but the fire was still burning as strong as it had when he left this one. ''There can only be two pissibilities. Either time came to a standstill or time flow is different between these two realities. Either way I will find out eventually.'', he concluded. Picking himself up from he resting place he looked outside and as he expected it was still night outside. As he was not feeling tired at all he did not want to waste time by trying to go to sleep only to find himself in the prison cell which was his body so he climbed down the clif and walked onto the plato. There were two moons shinning in the sky dimming the stars. One was blue and one was red. The red one being significantly bigger by almost three times. The night was brigt enough he could see the shapes of trees and and even his hands in front of him after his eyesight adjusted to the darkness. Having nothing better to do at the moment he took out a sword and started practicing again the basic moves and trying out different things to connect them where he felt there were parts missing from his knowledge. Every once in a while he checked the Basic swordmanship for beginners or Swordmanship for dummies as he nicknamed it and tryed to figure out what the words that were not translated could mean. Repeating the moves in order as shown in the books he made slight adjustments to his posture and breathing until they flowed more smoothly. After three hours of doing the same repeated moves he still was not feeling tired but his stomach started to protest. Taking out what little of the roasted ratbit wa left he ate it while looking at the moves again. He noticed the analyze button was back. After a few seconds it stopped it''s thing and he saw the learn button available. He selected it with his intention and it quickly gave him a confirmation. Swordmanship skill LVL. 10 acquired.Bonus Strength +1Bonus Agility +1 He looked trough the book and noticed the system had successfully translated all the text that was missing such as concentrate, exhale, etc.. Those were all things that were not able to be drawn and had to be described. He looked at his stats and he was pleased that he was over the average in almost all of them. Strength ... 9.0Wisdom ..... 12.5Inteligence ... 17.0Dexterity .... 10.5Perception .... 12.0Agility .... 11.5Water element affinity .. 10.5Vitality ... 10.5Fire element affinity .... 10.5Energy .... 10.5 Finishing his meal he tossed the bones into the woods on the same pile where he put all the others. It was some distance away from the cave but since the double moons gave plenty of light he was not too worried by a sudden ambush of a predator. As he looked around if there indeed were some he saw a green flash as he looked at a plant. As he focused on it again it was covered by a green overlay and a text was hovering above it. The text was only half legible. It said White something. Harrison looked at the plant and it did have some small blossoms that looked grey in the moonlight. He wondered what it was good for but he did not dare to pluck it. Some plants can look normal but can be highly toxic when touched. He decided he would dig it out some other day and made sure to remember it''s location. Since he was running out of roasted meat he took out the dead foxbit and skinned it by the pond. He washed of the meat and pelt in the pobd and stuck them in the inventory before he buried the insides in the nearby woods. The foxbit was a lot bigger than the ratbit do he cut it into smaller pieces. It took him a long time since the daggers he had were not really sharp or of good quality. By the end he was annoyed by the knives quality so much he wanted to take out the battleaxe and just chop it up like a log. The poor battleaxe was also at the end of it''s life after the abuse of chopping up a small forest of young trees. In the end he just followed the joints and dismembered it by slowly cutting off the connecting tissue and the cartilage. The foxbit meat seemed a lot tougher but he decided to use it anyway since it was the only food he had besides the meager amount of dried meat and a small leftover of roasted ratbit. ''I need to get some salt from the town.'' he thought. Placing everything in his inventory he walked back to the cave. Once there he stacked some more firewood on the now dying fire and began to do push ups, sit ups and squats. He stopped when he reached level 6 in fitness and lied down in the corner making plans and trying to not fall asleep. He wanted to avoid jail time for as long as possible. ''I wish I had a lot and some coffee but there are probably no coffee beans here.'' he thougt while yawning. Harrison got up and climbed down the cliff as the day was breaking and washed his face with the cool water to try and alleviate his sleepiness. It helped somewhat and he decided to go to the town. He put on the common clothing but left the leather boots and got on the way. It was easy for him to follow the markings he made last time and he was much faster reaching the road with the dirty underwear in less than half an hour. Half an hour after that he was standing in front of the shop which was still closed to his dismay. Holding the four books he bartered for the last time he was here, Harrison was about to leave and look around when he heard a noise of the door being unlocked followed by yawning as a plump man came out. "Aka sha!" Harrison said as the shopkeeper noticed him. "Aka sha...!" the shopkeeper said in bewilderment with a passive voice awkward voice bordering on stuttering. ''I thought you were a mute.'' he thought as he looked at Harrison. Right now Harrison looked much cleaner than before. Although he still wore the same clothes the dirt from last time was gone and other than some marks left by the shrubs he passed on the way his clothing was clean. Shopkeeper muttered something as he made way and gestured for Harrison to come in. Harrison walked in front and stopped at some sacks and looked at an opened one filled with coarse white crystals. He dipped his finger in it and tasted it. It was salt as he had hoped. Shopkeeper furrowed his eyebrows but did not sat a thing since the amount Harrison took was miniscule. Comming back to the bookshelf Harrison pointed at it and the books he held in his hands. The shopkeeper understood his intention and took the books from him and looked them over for damage and seeing they were in the same condition as if they never left his shop he raised two fingers. "Bolk!", he said still holding the two fingers. Harrison shook his head and shamelessly raised four knowing it would not get accepted. The shopkeeper looked at him and the books raised three fingers next. Although he was not a library it was still a good deal for him getting paid a book everytime this kid visits for free. "Tolk!" Harrison nodded and selected three books and left the shop for the small urine smelling alley. They were still children''s books since he expected those to be easiest for the system to interpret the vocabulary from. He put them in his inventory and took out the ratbit skin and went back. Finding the shopkeeper he pointed at the salt and then at the fur. The shopkeeper took the fur and looked it over and weighed a small amount of salt in a linen like bag. Honestly the fur was small and in two parts and he was probably suffering a loss but the deal with the books softened his heart. Taking the salt Harrison bowed his head a bit and left the shop eagerly. With quick footsteps he approached where he was ambushed the previous time he was in town but no one bothered him. He quickly reached the underwear marking and went into the woods. The embers in the cave were smouldering as he restarted the fire . Soon he took out the meat and salted it and put it on the rack to roast it. He planned to roast the whole foxbit now and stick it into his inventory when done since it would stay nice and warm there forever according to previous experience. The pieces were too big for doing them all at once so he had to separate them in four parts. As he was finishing up and getting cooking up to level 3 he suddenly heard a splashing sound coming from the waterfalls direction. ''Oooo. Something has come to offer itself for my next meal.'', he thought as he put the last piece of roasted foxbit into his inventory. 17 Stupid horse Slowly climbing down the cliff making sure he made as little noise as possible Harrison imagined what that sound could be. ''I hope there are ratbits. Hmm but why and how would they make a splash sound. This makes no sense.'', he thought. He took out the bow and a good arrow from his inventory and crawled to the waterfalls overhang to look down. Harrison decided if there was something in the pond he can''t handle he will rush back to the cave immediately. Looking over he saw a horse like creature tied up to a tree but no one in the water. The thing that looked like a horse was tall, black and was just standing there tied by the reins on a branch. It had some stuff on his back what Harrison determined after looking carefully were clothes. Soon Harrison heard another splash sound bellow him and as he looked over the overhang he saw a white figure swimming to the opposite shore. It looked looked like a gorgeous female body, with slender legs and long black hair that stopped above her buttocks which emphasized her curvy body. Suddenly Radiohead''s song Creep started playing in his head as he could not divert his eyes from her. As she neared the shore she stood up and pulled her hair in front of her giving the horse a full frontal view Harrison was extremely envious off. ''Stupid horse that view is wasted on you!'' Maybe it is better you don''t turn around. Don''t spoil my fantasy of a perfect face on that flawless body. Please don''t!'', he thought but still kept watching. As she started to come out of the pond the horse suddenly turned it''s head towards the woods and neighed tossing it''s head from side to side. ''Was I discovered?'', Harrison thought looking at the horse. Soon he saw a bit further away a shadow creeping closer and after it three more that looked the same. They were still some distance away from the horse. Harrison figured it was about fifty meters from them and twenty meters from the girl which with hurried footsteps came from the pond making a splooshing sound and ran towards her horse. The noise alerted the shadows which for a second halted their advance and lowered themselves but then pounced like the wind towards the horse that was growing more restless by the second. As the girl reached her horse she tried to untie it from a branch but the shadows were almost half way to her. The horse was panicking raising it''s head and swaying it about. It even tried to get on his back hoofs but the reins held it down. She tried to calm it down and strughled to untie it. She finally did manage to untie her horse but it hit her with it''s head and rammed her into the tree head first where she collapsed as the horse ran away. The shadows halted as if deciding who to go after and now Harrison could see them clearly. They looked like the foxbit he met before but were black and double it''s size. They had long rabbit like ears and their long red tongues were sticking out between their sharp teeth. It didn''t take them long to decide to go for the helpless prey first which was collapsed by a tree near the pond. They started crawling towards her displaying caution. ''F%^\u0026 what should I do?'' ''I don''t even know her ...'''' ''F$%k'' Harrison thought before he ran a few meters towards his cave then turned around and jumped of the waterfalls overhang holding his bow. As he made a big splash the sudden noise startled the black foxbits and they scattered a few meters away before turning and inspecting what made that sound. By the time they stopped panicking Harrison already crawled out from the pond and ran towards the girl. She was laying by the tree naked in full view but he had no time to enjoy it as the black foxbits decided he was not a big enough threat and started to move towards them. As he reached her he grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the pond without care for any bruising or scrappes she might incur by his action. He reached the water before the black foxbits could stop him and waded into the pond backwards holding the girl beneath her armpits looking at the reluctant black foxbits. Their hunger must have been stronger than their distaste for water as they jumped inside the pond after him and dog-paddled in his direction. "You have just made a terrible mistake!", exclaimed Harrison as he saw them. They were slower than he was in the water even when dragging the unconscious girl as they could not reach the floor of the pond after a few meters. This was also what he hoped for when he dragged her into the pond. He put the bow in his inventory and turned around as he pulled the arms of the girl over his shoulders until he faced the paddling foxbits head on. With his left hand holding the girls hands preventing her from slipping from his back he raised his right one in the air and swung it downwards. As his hand was in front of the paddling black foxbit a battleaxe appeared and hit the unsuspecting predator like a guillotine but instead of cutting it''s head off it split it in the middle. Needless to say it was dead. The other three were oblivious to the fate of the first one and as Harrison recycled his battleaxe in the inventory and as he executed three more chopping moves they suffered the same fate. The whole water assault didn''t last more than a minute from the time when the black foxbits entered the pond which now changed it''s color to pink from translucent emerald green. The battleaxe was back in the inventory and Harrison added four fresh corpses of the black foxbits to give it some company. He waded out from the pond carrying the girl on his back like a sack of flour and went around the waterfall towards his cave. Gently putting her down by the cliff he took out some clothes from his inventory. Looking at her he sighed. She did not disappoint him from the front either. He could see she was young and not fully developed due to her age. On her small breasts nipples stuck out like radio buttons from the cold water. Her forehead was still bleeding a bit but it soon stopped as Harrison wiped and dryed it off. Looking at her beautiful face Harrison contemplated his next move. "Damn you are pretty. But what should I do with you. Aaaaargh...", he said after a while. He pulled some under pants and a shirt on her then tied her up with a rope under her arms and climbed up the cliff. Pulling her up was a lot harder than carrying her but he somehow managed. The girl was young but his body right now was even younger. ''The previous owner of the body probably would not be able to carry you.'', Harrison thought as he finally pulled her up. Restarting the fire he laid out a bed for her besides it and dragged her on it and covered her with some additional clothes. Looking at her peacefully breathing he felt satisfaction. He did something meaningful today. He saved a life. Those were the thoughts in his head but also he was admiring how beautiful she was just laying there while the light of flames danced on her face. She had a cut on above her left eye and a bit of swelling but otherwise her facial features were stunning. Her prominent cheek bones with big eyes which he still could not see because she kept them closed. In his opinion she had perfect lips which were not full but still inviting you to be kiss them with their delicatenes and above them was a small gentle nose. ''Aaaaaargh. I should stop looking at her like a pervert. Otherwise what''s the point of putting clothes on her.'', he thought as he turned around. He started analysing the books he bought today and eating the foxbit he roasted. The taste was a lot better than the ratbit but the texture was stringy. Every now and then he turned around and admired her as she kept on sleeping. ''This is taking forever. Maybe I should kiss you sleeping beauty. Nah. Who am I kidding I am no Prince.'', he mussed in his head as he observed her. He was tired so he also laid down in his corner and dozed off but not before checking if he could get anything from the books he had. Sadly the learn button has not appeared on either of them. He closed his eyes and anticipated eagerly the sound of the ventilator and the smell of antiseptics. It didn''t take long and he was back at the hospital. ''Hello. Goooood-bye.'' he said before selecting a drop of diazepam from his inventory and selecting a blood vessel into which he transported it. Soon he felt like he was floating and reopened his eyes in the cave. 18 Left with no choice Waking up again in the cave, Harrison had no clue how his impromptu jump back from Earth''s plane dissipated the lives of several cultivators. They were trying to communicate with the Earth''s plane when it was in temporal lockdown and when the communication finally went through; they started their journeys. Some were lucky and were fast enough. The unlucky ones arrived as the Earth''s was back in the temporal lockdown and dissipated. Luckily the number of dead this time was small since the alliance was monitoring the plane continuously. What angered the alliance leaders the most was that the travel became unpredictable and the window of opportunity jumped from the usual several hours to mere minutes. Harrison was of course oblivious to the trouble he caused. Looking at the sleeping girl and the burning fire, he stretched his arms and let out a yawn. His yawn must have startled the girl as she suddenly raised her upper body and breathed in heavily, gasping for air. Her back was facing Harrison, and he was looking at her quietly as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Looking at the fire and uncovering herself from the clothes he piled on her and remembering what happened before she blacked out, she slowly turned around as if she was expecting to see a monster behind her. To her surprise, behind her was a boy looking even younger than she was. He was likewise covering himself with a pile of clothes. She swallowed her saliva and looked at him with anxiety. Harrison was looking back at her and was awaiting her reaction before he did anything. The silence continued for a few minutes before he decided to break it. "Aka sha!", Harrison said in an indistinct voice. The girl''s body twitched when she heard him greeting her, but she soon responded with a gentle voice that showed just how frightened she was. Harrison liked the tone of her voice and he could finally see the colour of her eyes. They were blue like sapphires, but they gained a violet hue from the fire. He did not want to startle her, and he just waited for her to come to grips with what happened before and her current situation. Harrison hoped she would not overreact and understand he had no choice but see her naked body if he wanted to help her. She soon figured out she was not wearing her clothes or even any of her underwear. The clothes he put on her were obviously oversized for her body. One of her shoulders was poking out from the collar as it turned sideways and if Harrison was a Japanese male anime character, he would surely get a nosebleed from the sexy vibe she exuded even now. She touched the wound on her head and bitterly smiled while blushing. She knew she would be dead without his help but still having a stranger looking at your naked unconscious body was uncomfortable to say the least. She took a deep breath and then asked a few questions of which Harrison only understood horse and even that only because the system subtitled her. "Aka sha!", Harrison said with a smile and she looked at him like as if she was looking at an idiot. He pointed outside the cave and gestured in the direction the horse ran off since that was probably what she was asking about. He turned around and pretended to take something from the corner as he materialized a pair of leather boots from his inventory. He stood up, holding them while the girl crawled back while sitting wearily. Showing the boots in front of himself and pointing at her bare feet, she understood his intention. Tossing them towards her she grabbed them and put them on. He opened the hatch and gestured to her to follow him. She could hear the waterfall and she knew it was not far. She blushed, thinking he must have been peeping at her while she bathed. They climbed down the rope and walked to where the horse was being tied to a branch before the attack. There was nothing there except her shoes and socks, which were neatly tucked in them. She sat down and took off the ones Harrison gave her, which were obviously too big for her. He looked at her toes as she put on her socks and turned away, blushing. ''I am not a pedo. I don''t have a foot fetish.'' he muttered in his head. The girl was oblivious of his thoughts and quickly wore her shoes. She gave back his shoes, which he tossed by the tree and gestured towards the woods. He didn''t want to expose the existence of his inventory to her and carrying the shoes would inconvenience him. They followed the markings towards the road. They found some of her clothes on the ground that fell off the horse and she went behind a tree and changed into them. She was wearing a green shirt and brown pants which obviously fit her figure a lot better than what she had on before and looked lovely making Harrison blush again. She noticed him blushing and smiled at him which made him blush even more. ''I am not a pedo. Definitely not a pedo. Don''t look at me that way!'' he muttered in his head. As they reached the road Harrison turned around and wanted to go back. The girl suddenly grabbed his hand and tugged at him, unwilling to let him go. He looked at her beautiful face and she blushed and pointed towards the town. He nodded and let her lead the way. After a while she noticed she was still holding his hand, and she blushed again before letting go of his hand. Walking through the town''s main-street, people greeted the girl politely, and some even bowed. As she passed them they gave dirty looks to Harrison as if he didn''t deserve to walk with her. ''She must be a daughter of someone influential,'' Harrison thought as he looked at the unpleasant faces of people passing by. They soon came in front of a tall wall with a guard posted in front of it. A huge closed double wooden door that could accommodate even carriages was in front of them. They made a small door within the one in the right wing of the big one so they didn''t have to open the whole door for individual people. The guard noticing them walking closer straightened up and bowed to the girl. The girl just nodded her head as he opened up the small door and let them pass. He gave Harrison a look of bewilderment but had not uttered a word. Harrison wanted to flee several times, but the girl always grabbed him and pulled him along until he eventually gave up. They entered an enormous courtyard surrounded by a wall and a two-story mansion was in the middle of it with a few stone steps leading to the entrance. It had a lush green garden in front and a driveway for carriages. They walked on the stone-paved driveway and up the stairs into the reception room. There was a rope there, and she pulled it before gesturing for Harrison to sit down on a sofa. A ringing sound came from somewhere and soon hurried footsteps followed. An old servant soon came in and bowed. He was wearing a black suit with black pants. She told him something that Harrison could not comprehend and left him alone in the reception room with the servant. The servant was just standing and observing him and Harrison was feeling uncomfortable after a while being scrutinized like a criminal. He stood up and tried to walk out, but the servant gestured to him he should sit back down with a stern look. He sat back down and sighed, waiting for the girl to come back. She came back after a few minutes with her hair now combed and her attire changed from pants to a dress. She was holding two spheres in her hands and she gave one to Harrison. As he held it in his hands, it felt warm and buzzed a little and just when he wanted to look at it closer he heard the girl say, "Thank you for saving me." He raised his head abruptly and looked at her. "Do you understand me?", the girl asked. Harrison nodded. "You can talk to me normally or just imagine what you want to say. This is a magic tool which will translate it to me," the girl said while smiling at Harrison. ''Oh, my God, you are so beautiful to think I almost let those wolves eat you,'' Harrison thought. The girl blushed and Harrisons eyes became bigger as he noticed it. ''Did I just say this out loud? Aaargh, kill me now, this is so embarrassing. Ohhhh, shit not again,'' Harrison thought and then tried to give the sphere back to the girl. ''Don''t worry, only I heard it. It will be our little secret. Please keep you seeing me naked our little secret too,'' the girl''s voice appeared in Harrison''s head without her opening his mouth and she was visibly blushing. ''How do I control this thing?'' Harrison asked. ''Don''t focus on it while thinking and it won''t transmit your thoughts,'' she said. ''You have a beautiful body.'' Harrison thought as he looked into her eyes but there was no change in her expression so she probably didn''t get that message. "Let me introduce myself first. My name is Sheina Donaron, daughter of Baron Donaron, granddaughter of Viscount Donaron," she told him with a smile on her face with pride exuding from her posture. Harrison sighed but then decided to come clean. "I don''t know my name. I woke up in the middle of the woods underneath a corpse with seven other corpses around me with no memory of who I am or where I am from. All I know for now is I am not from here since I don''t speak your language. I only know a few words I learned from books I bought and people I met when I came to the town twice.", he explained while spreading his arms. She looked at him in shock with her mouth open as he said those words. "You can stay here for as long as you like. We have plenty of room. I will talk to my father about it when he comes home and I am sure he will agree if I explain to him you saved my life," she said while smiling. Harrison looked around the reception room, looked at her smiling face, the stern look of the servant and swallowed his saliva before nodding. Seeing him nod, the Sheina''s smile looked even more beautiful as she pulled his hand and took him deeper inside the mansion. 19 Pedo or not pedo that is the question As they walked toward the double-door that led to the inner part of the mansion the servant opened it while bowing his head. What greeted Harrison was a hall with a staircase on the right side. Art and tapestry were lusciously hanging on the walls with big flower pots decorating the corners. The staircase had an intricate red colored railing which continued on the second floor as a balcony. Further up ahead was the dinning room with a long table with open double-doors leading to it. The rest of the doors were closed. "Are you hungry?", Sheina asked. Before Harrison could respond, a middle-aged man burst through the door. He said some incomprehensible words for Harrison, of which only Sheina was understandable. As he came towards Sheina, he hugged her and shook her a bit, then lifted her up in the air and hugged her again. As he put her down, she gestured towards Harrison and introduced him and also explained what he told her. She also told him how he rescued her from the wolves, keeping the part that she was naked at the time to herself. The man looked at Harrison and measured him with his eyes before bowing and hugging him. The hug surprised Harrison, and he just stood there like a mannequin looking at Sheina and begging for help with his eyes. "Let me introduce my father baron Shalmoon Donaron magistrate of this town." Sheina said as she smiled. "He is just happy I am safe. My horse came back on his own, still carrying my hat and jacket. He thought I was in an accident and was sick with worry. My father was already organizing a search party when the guards informed him I am home. So he rushed home to make sure I am all right." Sheina explained. Sheina passed the other sphere to her father. "Sorry to startle you. I was just so worried about her. She always runs off who knows where. Ahhhh. Where are my manners? You can call me baron Donaron, or just uncle Shalmoon will do.", Shalmoon said with a smile with one hand stroking the back of his head. Harrison looked at him and smiled. The image of a stuffy nobility he expected went up in smoke and replacing him was a handsome middle-aged man of warm demeanour who clearly loved his daughter more than his image. Harrison bowed like he saw the guards do it for Sheina and responded. "No worries. I hope Sheina explained I can''t offer you my name since I don''t know it.", he explained his lack of introduction. "For a man who saved my daughter from certain death no introduction is needed even if you never want to give me one. She told me there were four wolves running towards her when she got knocked out by that bloody horse. I can''t imagine how the both of you escaped almost unscathed.", Shalmoon said. "I pulled Sheina into the pond nearby but they followed us which was a mistake since they lost their strongest weapon their speed. Then I finished them off one at a time while keeping Sheina on my back." Harrison explained, omitting the naked part from the story. Shalmoon nodded and grabbed Harrison by the shoulders. "Boy, this must be fate bringing you two together. My clan''s ancestor was saved a long time ago by a man who he later followed, and that man later became the first emperor of the Nilium empire. My ancestor saved the emperor''s life in return while following him and he got rewarded with a fief and a title from the emperor himself. Since that time we have a rule in my clan. A life saved must be returned with a life." Shalmoon explained. "Hmmm. What do you want to say?" Harrison asked as he looked at Sheila who was looking at her father who she understood nervously. "Ohhh. You like Sheila. I can''t give you her. Well, at least not yet." Shalmoon joked and looked at both concerned parties blushing, then laughed at their expense. "I mean to say that instead of her following you into the woods you should stay here with us and she will take care of you here. In a few years if you can convince her you can have her." Shalmoon shamelessly joked around some more. ''You should have been named Moon Moon not Shalmoon. How can you joke with your daughter''s life like that?'' Harrison thought. ''What is Moon Moon?'' Harrison asked himself. "I....I can''t accept this." Harrison tried to get out of it even though he liked Sheina. "Don''t worry. We have plenty of room and servants. I won''t even notice another person around." Shalmoon would not take no for an answer. "Go get our guest some decent clothes and get him cleaned up and let''s have dinner together later. I still have some things to handle." Shalmoon said and tossed the sphere to Sheina before storming off. ''Did you accept?'' Sheina blurted. "I....I..." Harrison mumbled. ''You should have accepted. I can''t marry anyone else now according to tradition anyway since you have seen me naked.'' she said with a smile and winked at him seductively. ''Weren''t you blushing in shame in the cave like it was the end of the world when you noticed that? What changed your mind?'' Harrison said angrily as he did not enjoy her teasing him. ''I kind of like you now. Look at you. A twelve something year old with a mature attitude and brave enough to face four wolves for a girl he didn''t know. You have great potential even though you don''t look like much now.'' She said while smiling. ''Are you a pedo?'' Harrison asked. "A what?" "A pedo. Ehhh. Nevermind.", Looking at her all flustered, he replied while smirking. "How old are you, anyway?" he asked. "I have 14 harvests. Follow me." she replied as she went up the stairs. ''That does not help me a bit. How many days is a bloody harvest. How many hours is a bloody day here. Maybe 15 is like 18 here. Maybe I am not a pedo. Well, with how she is looking at me she is definitely a pedo. '' he mumbled in his head while following her. She led him to a room and opened the door. As she walked inside Harrison stayed on the outside. "Come in silly. I won''t eat you. This will be your room." He entered the room and looked at the enormous bed, and neat red wood closets, then at Sheina who was smirking at him. "Thank you." he said. "This is the least we can do." she replied while smiling then took his hand and pulled him out of the room. "Now let''s get you to our butler Englin so he can find you some decent clothes. I am sorry but if we have some stupid guests again tonight, my father can''t have you sit at the table in peasant clothes. He would not care, but they sure would." she said while rushing down the stairs. "Englin. Ennnnglin..." she yelled with her clear voice before a raspy voice replied. "Englin find him some decent clothes as my father wants him to join us for dinner. Also clean him up a bit. Take this so you can communicate with him." she ordered and gave Englin the sphere. "Thank you for saving our little miss." Englin said while bowing as by now he heard the entire story and was genuinely thankful and no longer suspicious of Harrison as when he first saw him. "Ahhh. Please don''t bow to me. And you are welcome, I guess." Harrison said, feeling awkward that a man five times his current age was bowing to him. "I have known miss Sheina her entire life, so she is practically like a daughter to me. So allow me to express my thanks. If you have any needs, let me know, but first let''s get you cleaned up a bit and then look at some clothes." he emphasized before gesturing Harrison to follow him. He led him to a storage room. "We have some old clothes here from Sheina''s cousins who left them here when they visited. Don''t worry as we have washed them before being stored away and are in excellent condition. It was a pity to throw them away." Englin explained. Englin chose some that were approximately Harrison''s size and gave it to him along with some boots. "If you would follow me to the bathing room." Englin gestured. Harrison nodded as Englin led the way to the second floor room that contained three large bathing tubs separated with screens. "We have two communal bathing rooms for guests here. One for the ladies and one for gentlemen. An attendant will bring warm water and towels shortly. You can put the clothes over there. " He explained while pointing on the sofa and left Harrison there while he organized clean water for the bathtub. The bathtubs were enormous, made from wood which was polished clean and shiny. Soon two attendants came with buckets of warm water and filled the bathtub after bowing, then left for more water. After the second trip, the bathtub was half-full and Harrison was left alone in the room. Soon he got undressed and got in the bathtub while the sound of Bobby Darin''s Splish splash was playing in his head while he enjoyed a warm bath after who knows how long. 20 A handshake Sitting in the lukewarm water that reached his chest, Harrison thought about Sheina how she suddenly changed from constantly blushing to even teasing him. He did not expect that from her at all. ''It must be the change of the environment. At home she feels safer, and she is not worrying about what might happen if I were to actually take a bite on her bait. Whatever. It''s not like I am not on some weird level enjoying the attention I am getting from her. She could have just returned home from the road but she made sure I come with her so she could talk to me and thank me properly. Both she, her father and the servant seem like honourable people.''Harrison thought while scrubbing himself with some soap he found which smelled like heaven compared to the carbolic soap he had before. After drying himself off with a towel, he looked at his new body in the mirror. He looked young with wild unruly brown hair and a skinny body, probably a result of malnutrition. He combed his hair with a brush he found near the mirror and he felt somewhat satisfied with the result. He needed a haircut, but that could wait. Getting dressed into his new clothes, he noticed they didn''t fit him. The pants were too long, and shirt was too big. After and in and out from the inventory they fit him as if they were tailormade for him. Getting out of the bathroom, he saw Englin waiting for him in the hallway. "I knew these clothes would fit you well." he said proudly, "You can drop your clothing in your room before following me to the dinning room for dinner." Englin explained with a smile. Harrison just inwardly laughed. As they went down the stairs, they heard footsteps behind them, and Sheina joined them. She wore a different dress again from the afternoon. She mumbled something and then turned around in her new pink dress and violet earrings with her hair braided. As Harrison looked at her with a dumbfounded expression she suddenly remembered and got the sphere back from Englin. "How do you like it? I forgot you don''t understand me without this." She said while smiling at Harrison. "You look all right."Harrison said as he didn''t want to encourage her new antics even more. "Hmmph. Just all right." She was obviously unsatisfied with his answer. Englin just smiled and led the way. There was dinner ware set up for seven people on the table. At the top of the table and they set three places on each side up for dinner. "You will sit next to me.", Sheina said and went to the top left seat which was also the first one on the right looking from the hosts perspective. Harrison could only comply. As they sat down Shalmoon came into the dinning room with the rest of the guests. Harrison instinctively got up, but Sheina ignored them. As they got closer Shalmoon gestured to Sheina to do the introductions and told her he explained the situation to them. The recent arrivals were a middle-aged couple with a boy looking the same age as Sheina and a girl of about Harrison''s age. ''Just nod at them as I tell you their names.'' Sheina told him before she started the introductions. "This is Captain of the guards Ruk Dali and his wife Iyri with their son Tuk and daughter Lyri." She told Harrison and gestured towards the arrivals and he nodded as they were mentioned. Ruk was a tall, bald-headed, brown bearded, muscular man, and Iyri was a petite woman with blonde hair, so they made for an odd couple. They both acknowledged Harrison with a nod back. The children were like clones of them from their younger days. Tuk was tall and muscular with pimples instead of a beard and with a full set of hair. Lyri was a spitting image of her mother with brown hair, which was a shame because her mother was not much to look at. Ruk was quite the jovial type, and he came over to Harrison''s seat and embraced him. He was happy he did not have to go look for Sheina''s corpse after the horse came back, and Shalmoon explained this kid was the reason for that. He doubted Shalmoon could handle another shock after his wife went missing. The baron would probably have to be replaced as the magistrate if that happened and he would get a new employer who would probably not be anywhere near as pleasant as the current one. So he was truly thankful for Harrison''s aid. As Ruk embraced him Harrison felt awkward and scanned the room. Shalmoon, Iyri and Lyri were smiling at him while Tuk looked like he just ate a pile of dung and was clenching his fist. ''I guess someone does not like me. Whatever.'' Soon they got seated. Lyri was sat down beside him on his right with Sheina on his left side. Across from him sat Iyri with Ruk on her right and Tuk on her left side. At the head of the table was Shalmoon, of course. The dinner got served soon after and it was roasted wild game with roasted vegetables. It was edible but would not win any Michelin stars in Harrison''s opinion. Harrison was pretty sure he could do better if given a full kitchen of utensils. Even his blade roasted foxbit and unsalted ratbit tasted much better. There were some fruits he never saw before for dessert, and after that the dinner concluded. Harrison only talked with Sheina during dinner using the telepathic option of the magic tool where she mostly complained about Tuk looking at her as if she was his bride to be. How bad Tuk''s table manners were. How his face was full of pimples. She repeatedly bashed poor Tuk to Harrison. He even felt sorry for the poor guy until after dinner as Tuk went and offered his hand to Harrison for a handshake. It was a normal gesture on Earth, and something ingrained into Harrison to return it. ''No. Don''t!!! It''s a challenge of strength. Ahhhh,'' Sheina yelled by telepathy, but she was too late. Harrison looked at her and then felt Tuk squeezing his hand with all his might. "What do I do?" he asked Sheila. ''Fall on the floor to avoid pain or squeeze the bastard until he crawls on the floor!!!'', she replied. He looked up at Tuk who by now was red in the face and was putting all his power into his hand''s muscles but Harrison only used his just to resist. Suddenly the situation changed as Harrison put more strength in his hands and squeezed. Tears started rolling down Tuk''s cheeks before he started rolling on the floor. ''That is enough.'' Sheina said with a satisfied smile as she noticed Harrison looking at her for instructions. By now the parents also came closer as they noticed the commotion. Ruk hit the back of Tuk''s head with his palm and yelled at him with a voice that conveyed disappointment. Tuk blushed and ran off. ''He told him he was a little prick for picking on people smaller than he is by a head and that he deserved to being used to wipe the floor with.'' Sheila explained with a smile. After the intermezzo Tuk was sent home and the rest of them went to the library while Ruk apologized for his son''s behaviour on the way there. The library was a huge two story room with books covering the walls and Harrison already imagined this will be the room he would spend a lot of time in. Shalmoon and the couple had a glass of some liquor and there was also pastry for the kids. Harrison was looking around the library and trying to figure out how many books were in it. "Can you read?", Sheina asked. "Some words I understand." he replied. "How did you learn those words?" Sheina asked in amazement. "From children''s books with illustrations." he replied and smiled. "Can I borrow some books from here?" "Sure. Just return them when you are done. This library is not really ours and neither is the mansion. It''s the town magistrate''s so if my father gets promoted or has to leave his position these books will stay here. Every former magistrate also added some books on his stay here. You could call it a tradition. This house is over 400 years old and the Emperor has passed the position on to my clan members for over 150 years." she explained. "It doesn''t look that old." he said. "Well, it is. They have renovated it a lot. Every magistrate did it. That is why it''s in good condition. The library even has some books older than the mansion itself. Even my father doesn''t understand those as they are in foreign languages and scripts we have no way of reading. Maybe you can try reading those." She smiled as she said the last sentence. Harrison ate a pastry and admired the quantity of the books he had available now and smiled back at her. 21 Low battery The gathering soon ended with Captain of the guards Ruk once again apologizing for his son''s behaviour. He blamed it on the youthful impulses to stand out and that he inherited his genes... Harrison could only gracefully accept it and nodded at Sheina, who translated and then Ruk. As the guests left Sheina excused herself to Harrison for being tired. It was understandable considering the ordeal she went through and the long walk home. Shalmoon smiled at Harrison, and then said some things to Sheina before leaving. Harrison was not really tired from the day''s ordeals since for him the day only began when he woke up from crossing over. "Father told me you can use any facilities on the first floor as you please. He saw you looking at the books with passion. Even I was a little jealous of the look you gave them. Just return them when you are done. On the second floor, keep to your room and of course the bathroom. Hmm, what else. Ahhh. The toilet is at the end of the hallway. There are also toilets on the first floor. Good night." Sheina quickly explained and left him at the library''s entrance. "Good night Sheina, sweet dreams." he yelled after her as she already started walking on the stairs. She looked back and smiled. Harrison could not believe how his luck had turned for the better just by saving this gorgeous girl. Suddenly she ran back down the stairs towards him. Harrison thought she wants to kiss him good night but then she stretched her hand and gave him the other sphere. "Keep this if you need to communicate with the servants," she said before going back up the stairs. "Ahhh. Ok. Thank you!" Harrison said with a tinge of disappointment in his voice. ''What the hell am I thinking?'' He berated himself as he turned around trying to hide his shameful thoughts. He went back inside the library and looked at the book spines, which had nothing written on them, so he had to pull them from the bookshelf and look at the covers. As he was currently alone, he just stuck first four books he touched in his inventory without trying to figure out what they were about. He took another one in his hands and sat on the sofa. He pretended to read it while he was looking at the other four in his inventory. As he was pretending to read Sheina was nervously looking at the door in her nightgown. She had mixed emotions of fear and anticipation which after a while turned into disappointment. She finally let go of the notion that Harrison will visit her tonight and got in her bed sighing. If Harrison knew what was going through her head, he would definitively brand her a pedo. Actually Shaina didn''t want to have intercourse, but she felt insecure while alone in her room and wanted some company and if she had to pay for it with a kiss or two she was more than willing if it was Harrison who would be the recipient. After all, although she was well physically developed, her mental age was far from Harrison''s. As Harrison inspected the books all of them showed up as not useful to him at the moment. --------------------------------- Item name:Book - Book with a lot of textQuality:LowSpecial effects:UnknownDescription:Low quality book with a lot of text.--------------------------------- He opened one and read manually and there was some translated text displayed but he could not make any sense from it. The translated words were just random bits and pieces. ''I guess the children''s books didn''t have enough information for the system to learn enough from them to display serious books.'' He clicked on analyze anyway. There was nothing from the first book. The second one was the same. With the third one he got lucky and the learn button showed up. He checked the title since the system now updated it. --------------------------------- Item name:Book - Book about geographyQuality:LowSpecial effects:Unknown Description:Low quality book about geography.--------------------------------- He pressed on the learn button and after a while he got the message he was waiting for. Geography skill unlocked.Geography skill LVL. 1 acquired.Bonus Wisdom +1 There was nothing else as some for now useless knowledge appeared in his head. The fourth book was also a dud. He put all books where he found them and then moved from that cursed section of the library to another one. He opened a few books and looked for the ones with illustrations. He finally found one that looked like a bestiary. He took it into his inventory and clicked on analyze as he browsed for more in the same section. There was a book with a green spine with detailed drawings of plants and a blue book with drawings of human organs that looked like a medical atlas. He took another three just in case he could get anything out from that section and analyzed all of them. He learned the bestiary first as soon as it became available. Zoology skill unlocked.Zoology skill LVL. 1 acquired.Bonus Wisdom +1 Zoology skill LVL. 2 acquired. Zoology skill LVL. 3 acquired. Zoology skill LVL. 4 acquired. Blue boxes continuously displayed in front of him until a red box showed up. Not enough energy. Looking at the red box, which soon faded away, Harrison looked like it stunned him. ''System what do you mean not enough energy?'' There was no answer. ''System where do I get energy?'' There was no answer. ''Stupid system answer me.'' Harrison was getting frustrated by the unresponsiveness. ''System show me my energy status!'' Harrison finally remembered it responded only to orders and not to questions. A blue box appeared. Energy..... [2/101] Harrison was in thought as he looked at the numbers. ''So my total capacity is 101 units of energy and I have 2 units left. How much do I need? Ahhh, damn, it''s useless to ask you. You retarded piece of shit.'' He put his hands under his chin and thought for a while. ''System show me a box every time you gain or spend with quantities marked by plus and minus.'' Harrison finally tried to do at least something. He picked up another book and tried to analyze it. A blue box appeared. [Energy -1] "Well, at least it''s better than nothing." he mumbled before putting the books back into their placings. He left the library soon after and went to his room as he was walking another blue box showed up. [Energy +1] He stopped and looked at it. ''How did I gain energy now? Does it accumulate after a while? Well, at least now I will find out, eventually.'' He closed the door of his room and got into his pajamas, which were laid on the bed. Since he didn''t brush his teeth in this world, he felt he forgot to do something every time he went to sleep. He was again checking the teeth with his tongue. Just as he decided on sleep he got the urge to pee so he had to go out from his warm bed in his pajamas and went out of his room again. At the end of the corridor was the bathroom Shaina told him so he went there. As he opened the door to it he was greeted by another one a bit further in. He opened the next one as he closed the first one. After the second one was the third door. ''What kind of stupid setup is this?'' Harrison thought. As he opened the third door an overwhelming stench assaulted his nose. He quickly closed it and went back to the corridor. ''I take my words back. That is not a stupid setup. Mother of god does that toilet stink. I guess this world never heard of indoor plumbing and sewers.'' Harrison thought as he took deep breaths. Then he rushed back inside the gas room while holding his breath and quickly emptied his bladder and ran out again. ''I don''t care how it looks I am shitting in the woods.'' He thought as he came out. Walking back to his room, his thoughts were all over the place. He was thinking how to handle his energy crisis and toilet crisis. Both were equally important to him. No one wants to do his business in a smelly toilet. Laying in his bed, he waited for a while to see the +1 energy box appear, but it didn''t come back even after a long wait. He finally dozed off from boredom when it was almost morning in the mansion. As he woke up hearing the ventilator whirring and seeing darkness surrounding him he sighed. There was a blue box floating with energy +25 which greeted him also which lifted his mood somewhat. ''Hello land of the dead. Goodbye land of the dead.'' He quickly drugged himself again and floated off into the oblivion soon after. 22 Breakfast at Shalmoons It was in the early morning when he came back, so everyone was still asleep. Even the guard at the front of the mansion was probably still dozing off. A blue box holding a plus 25 energy message was in front of his eyes as he opened them. ''So every trip I gain 25 energy. Every time I use the system for a task I lose energy.'' He deduced from things he managed to observe so far. He checked the energy status, and it was 52/100. Getting out of his pajamas, he looked at his clothes and put the shirt into his inventory. As he by now expected, even putting stuff in and getting them out took energy. Either action cost him 1 energy. ''My original energy storage capacity was probably 100, and I gained one with learning meditation. If I get better with meditation, I can probably expand the capacity.'' Harrison contemplated. ''It''s more troublesome but considering I can gain half back just by going back to the other world, it''s not a world ending change. But how did I get the energy just by walking on the stairs? '' He quickly got dressed and went to the bathroom to wash up. ''Ahhh, damn I forgot there is no running water here.'' Harrison grumbled as he looked at the by now empty and clean bathtubs. All he could do was leave it. As he came out, he met Englin. He wanted to ask him how he should wash up and gave him the second sphere. "A basin of warm water and a towel will be delivered to your room shortly. We didn''t expect you to be such an early bird." As if he expected this situation Englin responded even without being asked. Harrison thanked him and went to his room and waited. After he cleaned himself up, he came downstairs. "They will serve breakfast in two hours when his lordship and miss Sheina usually come downstairs. Feel free to look around until then." Englin informed him before returning the sphere. Harrison went back to the library and took the bestiary book again. He looked around to see if no one was watching him and put it into his inventory. ''Even though it will cost me energy, it''s worth it for the attributes upgrade that happens after level five.'' he justified his actions to himself. He clicked on the learn button and the usual boxes appeared. Zoology skill LVL. 5 acquired.Bonus Wisdom +1 Zoology skill LVL. 6 acquired. It stopped after that. Additional boxes informing him of energy expenditure also appeared. Inserting the book into his inventory cost him one unit. Learning the skill cost him five and six energy units, respectively. After he took out the book and placed it in place, he lost another energy unit. ''So to summarize this the higher the skill, the bigger the expenditure of energy while learning it. It''s a good thing I can continue where it stops.'' Harrison deduced. As he was thinking the door to the library opened, and Sheina walked in. "Did you sleep well?" she asked, but Harrison could not understand her. All he could get from her words was the word sleep which was subtitled by the system. Harrison turned around and looked at the girl in a turquoise green dress, looking pretty as a flower who overdressed for a simple breakfast. He offered her one of the spheres. She took it and smiled. "I keep forgetting you don''t understand me without it. Did you sleep well?" She said and smiled. "I did. I... slept well." he replied stuttering a bit while looking at her smiling face. "Maybe you should teach me your language so I don''t need those spheres anymore," Harrison came out with an idea. "Hmmm. I will try my best in the coming week to teach you the basics, but then I have to go back to school," she apologetically replied. "Is your school far away? Do you have some old textbooks? Those would help a lot." Harrison showered her with questions. "The school is a four-hour carriage drive from here in the provincial capital so I need to stay there with my aunt when I have classes. It''s too far to come home every day or even every week since it''s dangerous because of the bandits. I can only go there and back with a larger group of carriages once in a while. I do have some old primary school textbooks in my room if you think those will help you." Sheina explained. "I understand. A week will at least give me some basic knowledge. We can start with your alphabet at least and continue from there. Please get them for me." Harrison urged her. She went back to upstairs, and after a while came back with a stack of books. When they started with the alphabet Sheina expected to be long and tedious process and was amazed that only after two repetitions of writing and saying the sounds corresponding the characters Harrison was fluent in it. After he recited and wrote it for the third time Englin came and informed them it''s time for breakfast. As they came to the table, Shalmoon was already sitting at it and was reading a scroll. He greeted them both, but since he didn''t have a sphere on hand, he continued to read the scroll. "Aka sha!" Harrison greeted back. "You taught him how to day good day?" he asked Sheina. "No. He must have picked it up himself. I taught him writing and saying our alphabet this morning. He is a genius. He learned it fluently after two repetitions." Sheina enthusiastically explained. Shalmoon gave a weird look towards Harrison and smiled at Sheina. "Are you sure he didn''t know it before?" he asked. "I am quite sure. He made a lot of mistakes after the first pass. He was perfect on his third try." she replied proudly. Their alphabet had 46 sounds, and it was no easy feat remembering all of them and corresponding written characters. "You know you have to go to school next week but until then teach him as much as you can. He can''t rely on the spheres as I might need them if any guests from foreign should lands arrive. If he really is a genius, he might even get a chance to join you in your school when you are sure he can handle it." Shalmoon told her. "He should also be good with weapons so find him a weapons instructor when I am gone." Shaina implored. "I will see what I can do. Are you sure he is worthy of your trust in him?" Shalmoon asked suddenly after thinking for a while. She had the urge to tell him she was helpless in front of Harrison while she was naked and she still found her virginity intact after he saved her from those beasts. She doubted she would ever again find a male more worthy of trust than him and have the proof at the same time. Her trust in Harrison after the incident was on the level of her trust in her father. "I am sure." She said after thinking about it. "All right, then. I will make sure he gets everything a boy his age needs in terms of education." Shalmoon said with a smile. He knew his daughter was not one who would easily trust people, especially after what happened to her mother. His wife disappeared after visiting their relatives on the way home. They had no word from her for a year. Their parents blamed Shalmoon for not ensuring her protection and not being with her when the attack happened. They found all the guards and the drivers dead and all the cargo still in the carriages. Only the baroness was missing, and it has been a mystery for a year what happened to her. "You should eat. Your food is getting cold." Shalmoon said. Sheina nodded, and Harrison was already munching away after being ignored. He could string together a few words from their conversation but not enough to know what they were talking about. He could guess by the occasional looks they both gave him it was about him. Today''s breakfast was some kind of sweet porridge. They sweetened it with something resembling honey, and there were bits of fresh fruits floating in it. It was not bad by any means. "Father says he will find you a weapons instructor and I will teach you until I have to leave. We discussed this now." Sheina said with embarrassment for ignoring him. "Thank you and tell him I said thank you as well." Harrison said. "We should thank you! This is the least we can do for what you have done for me." Sheina said with her cheeks blushing once again remembering her state after the incident. ''Your can thank your butt cheeks. They were too pretty to for those wolves to munch on.'' Harrison teased her without opening his mouth and she blushed even more. 23 Whats cookin Harrison was being a bit shameless towards Sheina as he got to know her better. She was after all the one at fault with constant innuendos flowing his way. He liked her a lot even though they spent only two entire days together. She was his first friend in this world and it did not hurt she was stunning in appearance and so far he could find nothing negative about her character either. After breakfast they continued with their lessons and Harrison was writing words as Sheina told them out loud. Paper and scrolls were quite expensive in this world so they used a part of the courtyard with fine sand and a short stick for a medium. Harrison''s vocabulary was increasing at an astonishing rate and he seldom made mistakes since the words Sheina spoke were very distinct not like some languages like English where some words needed to be learned by heart to for you to write them correctly. His high intellect and systems learning ability made the language lessons feel like a piece of cake to him. The lunch hour quickly came and Sheina was more fatigued from the lessons than he was. Lunch was an unknown stew with something resembling bread. Shalmoon was not home, so it was only Sheina and himself. They passed the time while eating by Sheina asking him words trough the sphere and Harrison translated them into the local language. He did not make any mistakes except a few curveballs Sheina threw at him. She asked him words he had not yet learned so all he could do was stare at the mischievous girl. With everything that happened yesterday and the morning Harrison didn''t pay much attention to the cutlery but he looked at the somewhat heavy spoon in his hand now. They made the crude spoons of some silvery metal. They didn''t look nice, but they did their job. He had a feeling he never ate with such ugly cutlery in his entire life. After lunch Sheina excused herself and returned the sphere to Harrison. As he had nothing better to do, he went to bother the cooks. Harrison slowly went through the door he saw the waiter using to deliver the food to the dinning room and found two cooks scrubbing pots and pans. As he looked around they haven''t noticed him as they were too concentrated on their work and also made a lot of noise. The cooking tools were a crude like you might find in the European households before electrification ad use of gas. There was an enormous fireplace that looked like a pizza oven and a wood stove with a big metallic surface for pots. The two cooks were at a sink filled with water scrubbing the pots with brooms without a detergent. As he came closer, they finally noticed him. "Aka sha!" Harrison greeted. Both cooks looked at him with fear as the only time such well-dressed people came into the kitchen was to yell at them or had unreasonable demands. The shorter and fatter one had grey hair and red cheeks and had put on a friendly smile. The tall one had black hair, thick black eyebrows, and he looked concerned at him. "Aka sha!" They both said in unison bowed and looked at eachother then back at Harrison. Harrison gave the one with a friendly smile the sphere and the cook nervously accepted and looked at it. ''Is this some kind of egg he wants us to cook? What is this? Who is he?'' All sorts of thoughts were running through the cook''s head. "Hello, I am a guest of Shalmoon and Sheina and this is a translation sphere. It translates what I am saying into your language. The other cook probably can''t understand me, so could you please translate it for him?" Harrison explained. The cook with the sphere was frightened, and the other one looked at Harrison with a dumbfounded expression. He soon got an explanation from the cook with the sphere. "Sir, my name is Gordo, and this is Fergun. What can we do for you?" The cook nervously said. "I was wondering if I could cook dinner here?" Harrison said. "You want to cook dinner? Did you find our meals unsatisfactory?" Gordo asked with concern. "No. No. The food was quite good. I just want to surprise the baron and Sheina with something I cook myself as a way to say thank you." Harrison replied even though his first meal was far from good. "Sure. Sure I am sure his lordship will appreciate your gesture." Gordo said with reluctance. He was unsure of the cooking skills of this twelve-year-old boy but since he was a guest of the baron, he could only concede to his demands if they were not totally over the top. "I will bring the main ingredient shortly. Can you prepare some knives to butcher it?" Harrison asked with a smile. "Sure. You can bring the carcass here and we will butcher it according to your requests." Gordo said. "Do you have a sack I could borrow?" Harrison remembered the animal he was thinking of was still probably dripping blood. Gordo found a somewhat clean sack, and Harrison left them. Gordo hurriedly explained to Fergun what the intruder wanted and got strange looks in return. Harrison left the kitchen then went outside and found a secluded space where no one could see him and put one of the wolfbit, as he named them, carcasses directly into the sack and went back. The animal must have weighed 40 kilograms, and he was holding it in front of him so he would not dirty his clothes with the blood that was still coming out of his skull. Even though he could clean his clothes fast, he didn''t want to waste energy which has now become a limited resource. He gasped by the time he came back into the kitchen. The feat might be easy if he carried the sack on his back but was inconvenient to carry in front of him. Gordo pointed at a worktable they used for butchering and Harrison swung the sack on it. "It is a marakash. A fresh one too." Gordo exclaimed as his eyes seemed to twinkle. Fergun''s reaction was similar but he stayed quiet. "A marakash?" Harrison asked. "Yes. They are vile beasts that hunt and move in packs but their meat is delicious. They are hard to hunt. We don''t get to cook them almost ever since the hunters sell them to traders from the bigger towns at a much higher price than Engil is willing to pay. Even our guards will sell them to the traders before to our lord. The only way we can get them is if the lord goes hunting but he has no time for it." Gordo explained. "Can you skin it and clean it up? I will go look for more stuff I need in the meantime. Leave it one piece though. We are going to spit-roast it." Harrison explained feeling relieved the meat was so highly praised. Gordo looked at him with a weird expression. He could not understand what spit-roast means. He nodded and explained to Fergun what to do, anyway. Harrison went outside again this time he took the rope and salt out of his inventory. He also found a long stick in the backyard. As he came back in the entrails were already in a bucket and the marakash was already skinned by Fergun. "What should we do with the entrails?" Gordo asked. "If you want them, you can take them." Harrison said, and he could see Gordo''s eyes light up. As Fergun got the translation from Gordo, his reaction was similar to Gordo''s although on his stoic face it looked less prominent. "Make a fire in the oven." Harrison said and pointed at the enormous pizza oven. Gordo got to work and made soon started a big fire as Harrison salted the marakash and tied it on a stick. He inspected the kitchen for any spices but other than something that tasted a bit like cumin he could not find any. He went back outside from the back entrance where Gordo and Fergun were fetching wood from and found two logs with were higher than the marakash''s carcass and a short stick. He made some indentations on the logs using an axe that was in the woodshed and brought them back in. The fire was burning fiercely, and the oven was getting hot. Both Gordo and Fergun were sweating near the oven as Harrison tied the short stick on the end of the spit. After a while the fire was dying down, and there were only hot embers remaining. Harrison moved the embers to the sides of the oven and rolled in one log. Gordo and Fergun looked at him with amazed expressions. "Do you have any vegetables that are good baked?" Harrison suddenly remembered he forgot about that. Gordo quickly went to the pantry and brought back a basket full of something that looked like potatoes. They already cleaned them and all that was needed to be done was to cut them into smaller pieces. As they did so Harison put the salt and cumin-like spice over them and put them on a metal platter which he showed in the oven. After that he lifted the spit with marakash tied on it into the oven. One end was on the log, and as Gordo was holding it Harrison slid in the other log. Then he showed them to turn it by the short stick he attached. They looked at him in amazement and nodded. The charcoals that still had heat were still giving it off and the bricks of the oven were still hot from the big fire that burned before. The meat on the marakash was changing color rapidly, and as they turned it, the color was uniformly changing all over it. After a while the fat on it started to sizzle, and it dripped down on the potato-like vegetables which gave them extra flavor. Harrison left the kitchen when he saw the two cooks were doing a good job and checked if Sheina was anywhere to be seen. She was still absent from the lower floor so he went back. "Excuse me. Could you tell me where you got the marakash?" Gordo asked with embarrassment. "Oh. I know a hunter." Harrison lied. "Can you get more?" Gordo asked with anticipation. "If he has them sure. But you know yourself how hard they are to hunt so I can''t guarantee anything." Harrison said. "Please try then if you can. We sometimes have guests that complain about our cooking. The lordship doesn''t say anything but we know we are an embarrassment to him. We are partly at fault for not being learned cooks but also the ingredients we can get are mostly subpar so even if we were better cooks there would not be much difference." Gordo anxiously explained and even Fergun looked with sad eyes at Harrison. It must have been something they both decided on to ask him. Harrison suddenly thought that his benefactor was not really that well off as it seemed on the outside. He didn''t want to put them in a tight spot and make them gossip so he just nodded and ensured them he will try. 24 Apology The taste of money Gordo and Fergun were diligently spinning the marakash which was getting golden yellow on the outside. They could not stop whispering among them about the mysterious youth that invaded their kitchen. "Did you catch his name?" Fergun suddenly asked. "Hmmm. Now that I think about it. I don''t think he introduced himself. He must think us lowly cooks are below him." Gordo said with dissatisfaction in his voice. "Did you ever see someone cook this way?" Fergun asked after he nodded. "It must be a method from where he is from. He could not speak our language, so he must not be from around here. I wonder which hunter sold him this beast." Gordo replied. "What will you do with the entrails?" Fergun asked. "I will give them to my wife. Why, do you want some?" Gordo asked with a glee. Fergun looked at him but didn''t reply even after a long time. "Huh. How about we split them in half? Except the heart. You can have the liver instead of the heart. And we split the other stuff." Gordo said after he saw the hesitation on Fergun''s face. "All right. Thank you Gordo." Fergun exclaimed happily. "You should thank that nameless snob. It''s not like I paid for it." Gordo laughed. Then they both laughed. They both knew that if their lord had money, they would not be his cooks. And since he didn''t have money, he did not pay them much. They lived no better than farmers except their work was in a warm kitchen instead in the sweltering heat, rain or even cold. They felt satisfied with their job. Their meager skills were enough for their lord, and they could also bring home the leftovers. Harrison was not aware of the first impression he left on the two cooks as he met up with Sheina again and spent the next two hours studying the local language. He trusted the cooks to be following his instructions and estimated the marakash would be done by dinner time. Sheina was yawning by the time they finished today''s lessons and even Harrison had to admit that learning the language although it brought a sense of novelty was anything but exciting. The only excitement he felt was when he got a new skill. Polyglot skill unlocked. Polyglot skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Wisdom +1 (not applied since over 10) Bonus Intelligence +1 (not applied since over 10) "Shall we continue tomorrow," Sheina asked, feeling mentally exhausted asking questions and explaining Harrison''s doubts. "Yeah, let''s continue tomorrow," Harrison answered, feeling anxious about the spit-roast dinner he let the two cooks finish. As Sheina excused herself, he made his way back to the kitchen where Fergun was spinning the spit-roast and Gordo was watching him with drool coming out of his mouth. After giving the translating sphere to Gordo he asked. "How are things going?" "It looks good Sir," replied Gordo, as he was startled by Harrison coming suddenly from behind. "Ok, let''s get it out. It looks done and I see you took out the vegetables already." Harrison said. "Yes. They were done a while ago, and we were afraid they would burn by the time Sir would get here, so we took them out." Gordo explained. Harrison nodded and Gordo explained to Fergun that they would be taking the spit-roast from the enormous pizza-oven. It was hot, so they needed to use a couple of wet rags before they could lift out the stake with the marakash on it. They put the whole thing on a big platter and poured the roasted vegetables around it. Harrison was satisfied with the color and the smell the roasted marakash exuded. As he came to the dining room Salmoon was already there sipping on some wine and greeted him. "How was your day?" Salmoon inquired. Salmoon was just about to shake his head and gesture for the translation sphere as Harrison looked at him and smiled before he replied. "It was great. Sheina taught me your language and I learned a lot of interesting new stuff. I also have a surprise for you but let''s wait for Sheina to join us." Salmoon looked at him wearily before nodding. ''I can''t believe he just started learning, and he is able to speak so fluently. The boy is a genius.'' Salmoon thought to himself. "I talked with a friend of mine about teaching you how to handle weapons. He should be coming by tomorrow." Salmoon said before taking another sip of wine. "That''s great. Thank you." Harrison said. He did not get the whole sentence, but he got the gist of it and knew how to reply. Sheina soon walked into the dinning room in a red dress. The red color suited her a lot more than the green tones she was wearing before. It made her look a lot more lively and passionate. "Good evening father. Evening ˇ­ " She wanted to say Harrison''s name, but she still didn''t know what to call him. It made her feel awkward. Harrison just smiled, returned the greeting and nodded. Her smile said the awkwardness was gone. Soon both cooks came out of the kitchen carrying the big platter and set it down in the middle of the table. Shalmoon and Sheina were looking at the spit-roast and at the cooks with amazement. "What is this?" Shalmoon asked. "It''s roasted marakash done according to your guests wishes." Gordo explained. Sheina looked at Harrison and asked. "Did you cook this for us? Where did you get a marakash?" Giving her the translation sphere to make things easier told the same lie to her as the one he told the cooks, about a hunter he knew due to him not wanting to expose his inventory. The cooks brought a carving knife and Salmoon carved some meat for Sheina and Harrison before he placed some on his platter. The meat was delicious by itself and paired with the wine it was even better. They all enjoyed seconds as the cooks drooled in the kitchen. Gordo kept coming out of the kitchen asking if they needed anything and Shalmoon waved him away after thanking him for the meal. Shalmoon gestured to Sheina for the sphere. "How did you come up with this method of cooking marakash? Did you remember your past?" Salmoon asked. "Unfortunately I have no idea. It just seemed natural." Harrison answered. Shalmoon nodded in understanding before he said, "Thank you. It''s been awhile since I had marakash. It must not have been cheap." "You are welcome. I can get more if you want." Harrison replied and Shalmoon gave him a weird look. Hunters would rarely sell marakash meat to someone cheaply so he found it weird Harrison was so confident in his exclamation. Anyway, it was a good thing the boy had some connections other than himself and Sheina so he let it go. After they finished eating their fill Shalmoon excused himself saying he had an evening business meeting to attend to. Being left alone with Shena she used the sphere to ask him about the name of the hunter which Harrison avoided telling her by saying he doesn''t know. "How could YOU forget his name? Are you lying to me?" Sheina asked in doubt. Harrison looked around and used the sphere to transmit his voice into her head. ''It''s one of those who attacked you. I went and got it from the spring. I didn''t know they were worth a lot of money until Gordo told me. I will get the other three too. The water there is freezing so they should be good for one day.'' ''Ahhhh. I am sorry for doubting you but why did you lie to my father?'' Sheina asked. ''I wanted to avoid the nude topic as much as possible.'' He told her, as he knew this would end the topic and he was right. Sheina blushed and excused herself running away like a frightened rabbit. Shaking his head he went to the kitchen. ''How come she is teasing me one moment and in the next one she is like a frightened bunny. Ahh women.'' He gave the sphere to Gordo before telling him that he and Fergun can have the rest of the marakash for their families and also the guards. Gordo and _fergun thanked him profusely as they hurried to clean up the dining room and split up what was left of the marakash. They hurriedly went back to their families and delivered some of the packages to the guards on duty on the way. Most of the marakash that was left was for their wifes and children but even with the lesser quality meat the guards were more than satisfied. Their wifes and children were especially happy getting such a rare treat and both of them were showered with emotions of happiness from them. Even the stoic Fergun was grinning as his children wore satisfied smiles. As Gordo was enjoying the marakash only one thought came to mind. ''This is the taste of money.'' Harrison would disagree. In his opinion money tasted really bad. 24 The taste of money The taste of money Gordo and Fergun were diligently spinning the marakash which was getting golden yellow on the outside. They could not stop whispering among them about the mysterious youth that invaded their kitchen. "Did you catch his name?" Fergun suddenly asked. "Hmmm. Now that I think about it. I don''t think he introduced himself. He must think us lowly cooks are below him." Gordo said with dissatisfaction in his voice. "Did you ever see someone cook this way?" Fergun asked after he nodded. "It must be a method from where he is from. He could not speak our language, so he must not be from around here. I wonder which hunter sold him this beast." Gordo replied. "What will you do with the entrails?" Fergun asked. "I will give them to my wife. Why, do you want some?" Gordo asked with a glee. Fergun looked at him but didn''t reply even after a long time. "Huh. How about we split them in half? Except the heart. You can have the liver instead of the heart. And we split the other stuff." Gordo said after he saw the hesitation on Fergun''s face. "All right. Thank you Gordo." Fergun exclaimed happily. "You should thank that nameless snob. It''s not like I paid for it." Gordo laughed. Then they both laughed. They both knew that if their lord had money, they would not be his cooks. And since he didn''t have money, he did not pay them much. They lived no better than farmers except their work was in a warm kitchen instead in the sweltering heat, rain or even cold. They felt satisfied with their job. Their meager skills were enough for their lord, and they could also bring home the leftovers. Harrison was not aware of the first impression he left on the two cooks as he met up with Sheina again and spent the next two hours studying the local language. He trusted the cooks to be following his instructions and estimated the marakash would be done by dinner time. Sheina was yawning by the time they finished today''s lessons and even Harrison had to admit that learning the language although it brought a sense of novelty was anything but exciting. The only excitement he felt was when he got a new skill. Polyglot skill unlocked. Polyglot skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Wisdom +1 (not applied since over 10) Bonus Intelligence +1 (not applied since over 10) "Shall we continue tomorrow," Sheina asked, feeling mentally exhausted asking questions and explaining Harrison''s doubts. "Yeah, let''s continue tomorrow," Harrison answered, feeling anxious about the spit-roast dinner he let the two cooks finish. As Sheina excused herself, he made his way back to the kitchen where Fergun was spinning the spit-roast and Gordo was watching him with drool coming out of his mouth. After giving the translating sphere to Gordo he asked. "How are things going?" "It looks good Sir," replied Gordo, as he was startled by Harrison coming suddenly from behind. "Ok, let''s get it out. It looks done and I see you took out the vegetables already." Harrison said. "Yes. They were done a while ago, and we were afraid they would burn by the time Sir would get here, so we took them out." Gordo explained. Harrison nodded and Gordo explained to Fergun that they would be taking the spit-roast from the enormous pizza-oven. It was hot, so they needed to use a couple of wet rags before they could lift out the stake with the marakash on it. They put the whole thing on a big platter and poured the roasted vegetables around it. Harrison was satisfied with the color and the smell the roasted marakash exuded. As he came to the dining room Salmoon was already there sipping on some wine and greeted him. "How was your day?" Salmoon inquired. Salmoon was just about to shake his head and gesture for the translation sphere as Harrison looked at him and smiled before he replied. "It was great. Sheina taught me your language and I learned a lot of interesting new stuff. I also have a surprise for you but let''s wait for Sheina to join us." Salmoon looked at him wearily before nodding. ''I can''t believe he just started learning, and he is able to speak so fluently. The boy is a genius.'' Salmoon thought to himself. "I talked with a friend of mine about teaching you how to handle weapons. He should be coming by tomorrow." Salmoon said before taking another sip of wine. "That''s great. Thank you." Harrison said. He did not get the whole sentence, but he got the gist of it and knew how to reply. Sheina soon walked into the dinning room in a red dress. The red color suited her a lot more than the green tones she was wearing before. It made her look a lot more lively and passionate. "Good evening father. Evening ˇ­ " She wanted to say Harrison''s name, but she still didn''t know what to call him. It made her feel awkward. Harrison just smiled, returned the greeting and nodded. Her smile said the awkwardness was gone. Soon both cooks came out of the kitchen carrying the big platter and set it down in the middle of the table. Shalmoon and Sheina were looking at the spit-roast and at the cooks with amazement. "What is this?" Shalmoon asked. "It''s roasted marakash done according to your guests wishes." Gordo explained. Sheina looked at Harrison and asked. "Did you cook this for us? Where did you get a marakash?" Giving her the translation sphere to make things easier told the same lie to her as the one he told the cooks, about a hunter he knew due to him not wanting to expose his inventory. The cooks brought a carving knife and Salmoon carved some meat for Sheina and Harrison before he placed some on his platter. The meat was delicious by itself and paired with the wine it was even better. They all enjoyed seconds as the cooks drooled in the kitchen. Gordo kept coming out of the kitchen asking if they needed anything and Shalmoon waved him away after thanking him for the meal. Shalmoon gestured to Sheina for the sphere. "How did you come up with this method of cooking marakash? Did you remember your past?" Salmoon asked. "Unfortunately I have no idea. It just seemed natural." Harrison answered. Shalmoon nodded in understanding before he said, "Thank you. It''s been awhile since I had marakash. It must not have been cheap." "You are welcome. I can get more if you want." Harrison replied and Shalmoon gave him a weird look. Hunters would rarely sell marakash meat to someone cheaply so he found it weird Harrison was so confident in his exclamation. Anyway, it was a good thing the boy had some connections other than himself and Sheina so he let it go. After they finished eating their fill Shalmoon excused himself saying he had an evening business meeting to attend to. Being left alone with Shena she used the sphere to ask him about the name of the hunter which Harrison avoided telling her by saying he doesn''t know. "How could YOU forget his name? Are you lying to me?" Sheina asked in doubt. Harrison looked around and used the sphere to transmit his voice into her head. ''It''s one of those who attacked you. I went and got it from the spring. I didn''t know they were worth a lot of money until Gordo told me. I will get the other three too. The water there is freezing so they should be good for one day.'' ''Ahhhh. I am sorry for doubting you but why did you lie to my father?'' Sheina asked. ''I wanted to avoid the nude topic as much as possible.'' He told her, as he knew this would end the topic and he was right. Sheina blushed and excused herself running away like a frightened rabbit. Shaking his head he went to the kitchen. ''How come she is teasing me one moment and in the next one she is like a frightened bunny. Ahh women.'' He gave the sphere to Gordo before telling him that he and Fergun can have the rest of the marakash for their families and also the guards. Gordo and _fergun thanked him profusely as they hurried to clean up the dining room and split up what was left of the marakash. They hurriedly went back to their families and delivered some of the packages to the guards on duty on the way. Most of the marakash that was left was for their wifes and children but even with the lesser quality meat the guards were more than satisfied. Their wifes and children were especially happy getting such a rare treat and both of them were showered with emotions of happiness from them. Even the stoic Fergun was grinning as his children wore satisfied smiles. As Gordo was enjoying the marakash only one thought came to mind. ''This is the taste of money.'' Harrison would disagree. In his opinion money tasted really bad. 25 Escape from LA Leaving the dining room Harrison felt conflicted. He didn''t like to lie to Sheina but considering he knew her a little more than a day it was the right thing to do. Checking his energy he found he still had plenty left so he went to the library. By now he could at least mostly discern the book topics from the covers since the lessons from Sheina gave him a lot of new words he could translate. He found the book on geography from last time and he re-analyzed it again. A new learn button appeared and he immediately used it. Geography skill LVL. 2 acquired. Geography skill LVL. 3 acquired. Geography skill LVL. 4 acquired. Geography skill LVL. 5 acquired. Bonus Wisdom +1 In between were constant messages of energy depletion. He noticed the level of skill he got was the same as the energy needed. Geography level five cost him 5 energy. So the geography new levels cost him 14 energy all together. It was not something useful at the moment but he was perfectionist so since he started to read that book he wanted to get everything out of it. He opened to read it manually and noticed most things were translated by the system but some words were still unknown. He remembered where he put the bestiary and he got it again to see if he could get more out of it. Upon reanalysis and learning he got Zoology up to level 8. So he was down 15 energy again going from level six to level eight. Opening it up he searched for the marakash. Luckily for him the book was illustrated and he could recognize the beast. In the Illustration was a wolf like beast with big bunny ears that except the big canines didn''t look too intimidating. The description was another story. ------- "Marakash" A vile beast that is extremely cautious when hunting. Its long ears enable it to hear the other predators and its prey coming from a far distance. It hunts in packs of three or more of its kind. They coordinate together to encircle their prey. They hunt significantly bigger prey than they are using this strategy. Once the prey has been designated they are very hard to dissuade. Easily recognized by its dark color and big ears. Main strengths: Speed, stamina, excellent hearing, strong bite force, sharp claws Main weakness: Small size resulting in low strength, slow movement in water Usable parts: delicious meat, fur, claws, teeth ------- He also found the ratbit and foxbit in the bestiary. Ratbits were called Foofni and foxbits were called Feruns . ------- "Foofni" A small creature that feeds on everything from plants to small animals even minerals using their strong teeth. Spooked easily. They move in herds. Will bite when cornered. Main strengths: Speed, excellent hearing, strong teeth Main weakness: Small size Usable parts: tender meat, fur, teeth ------- ------- "Ferun" A small marakash like creature that lives by itself. When provoked attacks a lot bigger prey than it can handle. Easily distinguished from marakash by color and size. Their color varies from yellow to orange with black paws. Main strengths: Speed, excellent hearing, strong teeth Main weakness: Small size Usable parts: usable meat, high quality fur, teeth ------- As Harrison remembered the experiences he had with these animals he could only nod at the descriptions. The weakest of them had bitten him when he tried to capture it. The other two he only managed to kill due to them being slow when they fell or chased into the pond with him. ''I need to take care of marakash when I go into the wild again. Maybe climbing trees is an option.'' Harrison thought as he browsed the bestiary some more. There were all sorts of beasts he still has not encountered in it. They all looked somewhat familiar to him as they had respective counterparts on Earth. There were animals similar to deer, boars, bears and even tigers. Different kinds of birds were also described. There were around 50 animals all together in the book and on the last page he saw a notice. Derun beasts and higher will be described in books two and three. He had no concept of what a derun beast was so he decided he will ask Sheina tomorrow. Harrison checked his energy supply and noticed he only had three energy units left so he decided to call it quits for today. Walking back to his room he eyed the bathroom but decided he will not inconvenience the servants by asking for a bath and just went to his room. It would probably take an hour for them to get the water and heat it up anyway. Getting into his bed he thought about all the things he learned today. As he contemplated on the new knowledge he soon dozed off. The sound of the ventilating machine was soothing by now to his ears but the darkness that surrounded him left much to be desired. The +26 energy was the only positive thing that made him come back to this plane. Harrison still had some medicine that would take him out cold if he used it but he decided to wait as he didn''t want to accidentally overdose himself. The boredom was killing him with nothing but the ventilating machine making some white noise and the muffled sounds of footsteps coming from the corridor. After a while he remembered he still had some books in his inventory and he decided to manually read them since it didn''t cost him energy to do so. It only cost him energy when he took them out of the inventory space or put them in, also when he used the analysis and learning buttons. He chose the meditation book since it was the most obscure one out of all of them. By now his vocabulary was big enough to understand more than fifty percent of the text and he noted the words that were foreign to him. He would ask Sheina about them tomorrow. As Harrison was learning how to meditate on the other side of the United States in Las Vegas Ambroise Ananta was fuming. He was about to book a flight and retrieve his VR helmet from the evidence locker as he received a message from the higher plane. In the message was an order for return from the Earth''s plane since the higher-ups have decided the manpower they had was wasted here with the temporal instabilities that are plaguing this plane. All the staff members located here are to immediately return while the plane was stable and await further orders for reassignment. The departure deadline was in four hours. Ambroise was fuming since there was nothing he could do to oppose the order. The orders he got were always absolute and any failure to comply would be usually met with only one punishment - death by soul ignition. Soul ignition was a method that could kill a cultivator from anywhere across all the planes so it didn''t matter if he hid somewhere. It was used on all new cultivators who were sponsored by an alliance as a means of ensuring absolute loyalty. Along with the order he got a surprising news that this plane was experiencing temporal anomaly which made the time flow approximately forty times slower in the last four days on average. With this news he sighed in relief. ''Even if I have to stay 40 years somewhere else only a year will pass here and they probably will not lose the helmet by then.'' Ambroise thought and packed up everything he had of value. He hurriedly made arrangements for his company and left for the local portal. His closest portal was in Los Angeles which was a four hour drive by car so he would make it in time if he stepped on it. AS a CEO of a multimillion company naturally he chose a helicopter to fly him there. As he got to the warehouse in the industrial zone he took one last look and then went through the portal that was still awaiting other agents. Earth was quite a popular place for finding new recruits especially in Asia since the disciplines of eastern monks were very similar to the methods of cultivation on the higher planes and even though they didn''t get the same benefits because of Earth''s lack of spiritual energy the willpower needed to undergo the strenuous cultivation methods shone a light on the eligible candidates. The North and South Americas had all together less than twenty agents deployed which was five times less than the Eurasian region with over one hundred. Nobody cared about Africa and Australia even though the probability of finding possible cultivators was not lesser the density of population and ease of finding them was a lot lower. At the time all the cultivators have left the Earth''s plane Harrison was still tumbling about the meditation book trying to surmise what some of the untranslated words could mean. The hospital room was quiet most of the time except one time a nurse came to check his catheter and measure his temperature. After what he figured was long enough he transferred a drop of diazepam into his body from the inventory space and drifted off. 26 A night of boredom Harrison got off his bed the moment he opened his eyes and acknowledged the +26 energy window so it closed. Checking his energy it was at 55 units. As he got dressed he thought about what he could do while everyone else was asleep. The downstairs library seemed like the only option of spending time usefully. ''I haven''t really slept for four days. I wonder how long I can take this and how am I even lucid at this point.'' He sighed as he moved downstairs. He met some servants running about that he greeted but otherwise the house seemed empty. Shalmoon probably still has not returned from the meeting and Sheina has excused herself to her quarters after dinner. As he contemplated which book to pick to learn from he opened up his skill list to check which ones were near the threshold where he could get attributes. Lumberjack : Level 6 | Carpentry : Level 1 | Masturbation : Level 1 | Archery : Level 10 | Swordsmanship : Level 10 | Mathematics : Level 10 | Fitness : Level 5 | Swimming : Level 1 | Masochism : Level 1 | Firebug : Level 1 | Cooking : Level 1 | Meditation : Level 1 | Running : Level 5 | Herbology : Level 2 | Geography : Level 5 | Zoology : Level 8 | Polyglot : Level 1 | As he looked through them he noticed his cooking skill stayed at level one. ''Is it because I didn''t cook it myself? No pain no gain? Is it because I didn''t cook myself I get no benefits. Damn you System.'' There was a smirk on his face as he thought how stingy his system was. Trying to decide what to do next was making his head hurt because all his skills were far away from the threshold except zoology which only gave wisdom as a bonus and he had enough of it for now. In the end he found another bestiary and gave it an analysis and clicked the learn button. Soon the knowledge was inserted into his brain and it was of far greater volume than before. Zoology skill LVL. 9 acquired. Zoology skill LVL. 10 acquired. Bonus Wisdom +1 Zoology skill LVL. 11 acquired. Zoology skill LVL. 12 acquired. Not enough energy. Looking at the book with an amazed expression on his face he deciphered the symbols for derun beasts on its cover. Opening it up he saw monsters of all shapes and sizes illustrated with some not even having illustrations only rough mentions of people seeing them. What he found weird was that there were more of them than the first group and by looking at their appearance they were more fearsome. From fire breathing lizards to birds that can lift a cow. ''I need to ask Sheina and Shalmoon about derun beasts.'' He thought to himself. He checked his energy and there were only 11 units left. Not feeling sleepy at all and since it made no sense to try learning anything more in the library he went outside. The two moons were bright in the sky as he came into the backyard. The cool breeze was blowing as he started doing pushups on the lawn. Fitness skill LVL. 6 acquired. Not enough energy. Not enough energy. Not enough energy. Not enough energy. After he was completely exhausted from the exercises he closed his eyes and dozed off. Hearing the ventilators he knew he was back and in the darkness what greeted him was a +26 energy notice followed by a few others. Fitness skill LVL. 7 acquired. Fitness skill LVL. 8 acquired. Fitness skill LVL. 9 acquired. Not enough energy. He went from 31 out of 105 units of energy back to 7 units but he made an important discovery. Even if he didn''t have enough energy to produce the effect it would accumulate and deploy as soon as it can. As he closed all the message windows he went into the familiar darkness and the only sound being the ventilator. By now Harrison was sure time doesn''t flow when he is not mentally here except for the time that passes before he crosses over. Using the drugs again could be fatal so he opened up the books. His language skill was good enough now to understand the illustrated books for children perfectly so he quickly skimmed them after confirming that fact. Next up was the swordsmanship for beginners book which also left nothing new for him to explore, so after reading it for a while all he got was being bored. He looked at the two remaining books in the inventory. One was about herbology and the other one was for meditating. He decided on meditation since the herbology one only gave him wisdom, however nonsensical this may sound. As he started reading the overlaid translation by the system it was somewhat understandable. There were still pieces missing here and there but he could make sense of it now. It talked about gathering spiritual energy towards your root cell. Your root cell is something like your dantian which is located on humans close to the navel. It also explained why. When a human egg is fertilized on a woman the root cell is formed which connects to the uterus of the woman through the umbilical cord so the dantian is always close to the navel. The energy stored in the root cell is depleted as the normal sustenance is not enough in the planes without spiritual energy and the cell division is halted as the cells lose that ability eventually. If you manage to find spiritual energy you can store it in your dantian for future use. You can slow down the consumption process of this energy or even surpass it if you reach a level where the accumulation is faster than consumption and effectively reach immortality of your body . Harrison could not understand some parts of the text so he imagined what it could be referring to was the dantian and immortality. Those two terms came from his subconscious from too many webnovels he read as a teenager. He tried feeling for spiritual energy as described in the book and his meditation reached level 3 but before the system told him he was out of energy otherwise there was no effect. He checked his energy and it was 2 out of 105 units. ''I will try it again on the other side.'' He decided after closing the book. Looking at his inventory he only had two units of sedatives left. Calculating the time he figured he spent enough of it to metabolize the drugs so he would not overdose and willed one of the doses into his circulatory system. Soon he found himself waking up on the grass in the backyard of the Donaron mansion with a message saying +30 energy. Followed by meditation reaching level 5 which increased his energy and willpower attributes. He looked at his remaining energy and it was now at 23 out of 110. ''I wonder how much energy I will get the next time I cross over?'' He thought to himself before standing up from the grass and walking inside the mansion. It was still early and all the servants were still sleeping and the mansion was eerily quiet. Harrison noticed his clothes were dirty from sweat and grass.Looking around he quickly made his way into his room meeting nobody on the way there. Once in his room he quickly used his inventory to first store the clothes then store his sweat from his body. He lost five energy doing so but in his opinion it was worth it. As there was no one around and nothing to do he was bored enough so he started meditating again as described in the book. This time after approximately an hour there was a reaction and he got a notice of plus one energy unit and after a while he got another one. Harrison remembered that he used more time on Earth doing the same thing and there was no result. ''I guess this place has a lot bigger concentration of spiritual energy than the other one. Whatever, it''s a good thing I can replenish my energy doing this.'' As he continued sitting on the bed and meditating he reached level 6 and replenished his energy to 24 units before Englin the steward knocked on his door informing him that breakfast will be served soon and that a servant will bring up a washbasin and towels for him. "Thank you, Englin." Harrison replied fluently leaving Englin flabbergasted. Englin just remembered he didn''t have the translation sphere as he told Harrison about breakfast and the washbasin. "You are a fast learner." Englin remarked. Harrison smirked and replied, "Sheina is a good teacher." Harrison got out of his room soon after and met with Sheina who was making her way downstairs. "Good morning Sheina!" Harrison exclaimed with a smile which she promptly returned and wished him the same. Sheina looked at him with embarrassment before saying in a low voice, "Thank you for dinner yesterday. My father and I didn''t have such a delicious dinner for a very long time." Harrison looked at her with amazement before relying. "It was not really anything special. How come? Aren''t you two rich?" Sheina now felt even more embarrassed but she gathered her emotion before explaining. "My father is not the owner of this mansion. We just get to live in it as he is the magistrate of this town. All the money he gets is spent forˇ­" She trailed off in the middle of a sentence as if hiding something. She finally decided to trust Harrison and started to speak again soon after that. "My mother was abducted almost two years ago. All the money we can afford goes into paying people to find any leads on who abducted her. She was visiting my grandparents when she was ambushed on the road and the whole caravan was murdered. The only body which was not found was my mother''s and my father is sure she is still alive." Harrison looked at the girl who was on the verge of crying. He knew she didn''t really like to talk about it but felt gratitude for the trust and care she has shown him so far. "I hope you don''t mind me asking this but how can your father be sure she is still alive?" Harrison asked looking at Sheina wiping off her tears. "It''s because of his ring." She replied. "Ring?" Harrison asked with an expression of bewilderment. "When they got married a soul magician used parts of their souls to meld them into their wedding rings and until they are not dead the rings will glow if an incantation is used. It is a common method used by noble couples." Sheina explained or at least she tried. Harrison took out the second sphere and made her repeat the words he could not understand. "So, such a thing exists here." He nodded after getting some understanding of the matter. "I hope I am not costing you too much money." Harrison said guiltily. Sheina smiled at him before replying, "The servants are paid by the kingdom and you even brought more food than you ate by yourself. Don''t worry this is the least we can do for my saviour." After that they walked to the dinning room where Shalmoon was sitting with a man that Harrison has never met before. 27 Grey wolf at the table Looking at the man sitting with Shalmoon at the breakfast table Harrison had a feeling he was looking at a wild beast. An old cunning predator judging by his long grey hair and beard. He was a head taller than Shalmoon when sitting down. His broad shoulders exuded strength. The two scars going over his right eye to his temple and wrinkles on his face told of hardships of life he faced. The moment Sheina and Harrison walked into the dinning room the two sitting at the table stopped the joyful banter and the man seemed to be measuring Harrison with his eyes. Contrary to Harrison''s feeling of discomfort the man evoked a smile on Sheina''s face who greeted him with joy. "Aka sha! Uncle Rogun it has been a while. How are things at the border?" She greeted him with obvious familiarity. "Aka sha!" Harrison likewise greeted both of the men and walked towards his chair. Shalmoon smiled at Harrison easing his tension while Rogun gave an uninterested greeting to him while keeping his eyes locked onto him. Finally, the man gave a smile to Sheina before replying. "You have grown taller since I last saw you. You are looking more like your mother every time I meet you. Thankfully you got your looks from her and not your father. Don''t concern yourself with the border as long as my men and I am there you have nothing to worry about. I hear you have been going into the woods by yourself and that this boy saved you from a couple of marakash?" Rogun replied while once again focusing on Harrison. Sheina noticed Rogun staring daggers at Harrison as she replied, "It''s good to know you are protecting us. I will be more careful in the future." "Any experience you can walk from unharmed is a good experience but let it not become a habit. I am just afraid that sooner or later your luck will run out." Rogun lectured some more. "Yes. You were lucky. You may not be so lucky the next time so don''t go into the woods alone anymore. If it weren''t forˇ­" Shalmoon said before trailing off feeling awkward still not having a name to call Harrison. "Robertson. I remembered my last name." Harrison told them the name he got from nurse Finkle on the other side. "Oh.It''s good your memory is coming back. This is Rogun Blackwater. He will be your instructor for a while in handling weapons." Shalmoon said with a joyful and proud voice. "Didn''t you say the boy can''t speak our language?" Rogun asked. "He is a very fast learner." Sheina said proudly looking at Harrison. Harrison replied with embarrassment, "I have a good teacher." "A bit too fast, if you ask meˇ­ " Rogun grumbled. "Are you worried about me uncle Rogun?" Sheina said with a smile. "Of course I am worried. You are like a daughter to me." Rogun replied, looking at her. "Don''t worry about him. When he found me I was unconscious and there were four marakash running towards me before I passed out. If he had any ill intentions he had the time and opportunity to do it before I woke up not to mention he scared off the beasts and saved my life." She said while pouting at Rogun for doubting Harrison''s intentions. "I guess you are right but one should never be too careful. I will give him the benefit of doubt for saving your life for now. We paid dearly once for trusting people we should not have and I swore I won''t let something similar happen again." Rogun replied, still staring at Harrison and looking for any reactions from him. "Well you don''t have to trust him. Just teach him." Shalmoon said with a frown recollecting the past, which soon turned into a smile. "Boy. After breakfast follow me to the backyard. What do you want to learn? Sword, spear, bow?" Rogun sighed before he raised his voice in resignation. Harrison thought a bit and asked, "Can we do them all." "A man should not bite off more than he can chew. I will be in the town for two weeks. How much of my knowledge I spent a lifetime to polish do you think you can learn in two weeks? Pick one. Don''t be greedy." Rogun replied with dissatisfaction. As Harrison was thinking about it Shalmoon eased the tension, "Rogun. Don''t be such a hardass on the boy we all know you are a teddy bear on the inside." "I eat bears for breakfast usually. If I had not known you for all your life I would take this as an insult and show you what kind of bear I am." Rogun grumbled and Shalmoon was smiling at him seemingly enjoying poking the bear. "Let us eat or the porridge will get cold." Shalmoon said and scooped some for Rogun. Rogun was obviously annoyed as he said, "Porridge. I can''t believe a man like you is reduced to eating porridge for breakfast. You should enjoy your life more even with everything." Shalmoon paid him no mind and scooped some for Harrison and Sheina and then at last for himself. "You know where my priorities and loyalty lie. That is why we are able to remain friends for such a long time." He said before picking up a spoon. "I know but stillˇ­ " Rogun started before sighing. "I guess you are right. Before we settle this I don''t can''t find any joy in such things either but you should not treat sheina like this." Rogun grumbled. "She is aware of everything that I am doing and the reason why. We have no secrets." Shalmoon replied while looking Rogun in the eyes as he started eating his porridge. "Uncle. Don''t worry about me. I understand and support my father." Sheina said while smiling. They soon finished their breakfast. Shalmoon and Rogun went to Shalmoons study and Harrison was told to come to the backyard in half an hour. "So your last name is Roberts? That is an unusual name." Sheina broke the silence that followed the breakfast. "Is it?" Harrison replied while looking at her. "Well, at least I never heard it before." Sheina said before gesturing to him to follow her to the backyard. "Don''t worry about uncle Rogun. He is hard on the outside soft on the inside. When my mother was abducted his grandson was with her travelling. His body was found at the scene of the attack and my father and he have been trying to find the culprits ever since. Jorgun was his only grandson and the last in his lineage so Rogun has always been blaming himself for his death. He believes he left his son and daughter in law down but honestly Jorgun begged him to let him go to Gormund with my mother." Sheina explained. "Gormund?" "It''s a big town east from Torm." "Torm?" "Don''t tell me you don''t even know this town is called Torm?" Sheina laughed. "In the west is a big town called Linmund. In the middle between Gormund and Linmund is Torm. In the north is the border with the wilderness with the great Lambersen mountain range as a natural divide. There are fortresses there and Rogun is stationed there." Sheina explained. Suddenly Harrison was glad he learned geography from the books in the library or these terms would be completely unfamiliar to him. "Rogun was my father''s weapons teacher in Linmund and he was punished because of my father with service on the border." She added. "Punished?" "Yes. My mother was supposed to marry my father''s oldest brother Armoon. But she took a liking to my father and they eloped. Rogun was blamed for helping them and his punishment was decided to be twenty harvests of service in the Lambersen mountain range and my father and mother were banished to this small town. My father''s side of the family has completely cut him off. My mother''s side was only a bit better until my mother went missing. I have been the main reason they made any effort at all. My mother was only going to Gormund to discuss my future husband which my mother''s side of the family took upon themselves to decide without their knowledge." She was visibly angry by the time she said the last sentence. All Harrison could reply after a sigh was, "I see." Sheina took him to a fence with a shack in front. The fence divided a circular space about 20 meters in diameter. Opening the shack door Harrison could see a lot of different kinds of swords, spears, bows, halberds and other weapons. What they had in common were dull blades and rounded edges. They were training weapons. "The archery range is over there." Sheina said while pointing at a few targets around 100 meters away. "I will let you and uncle Rogun by yourself so you won''t be embarrassed now. I will come check on your progress later. I am counting on you that you won''t disappoint me and make me look like a liar for saying you learn fast." She said while mischievously pouting before taking her leave. "I will try my best not to disappoint." Harrison yelled after her as she was leaving. 28 Bulls on parade Harrison went back to the shack and looked at the weapons. He took a one-handed sword that he was most familiar with and went back outside. Looking at the well flattened arena he walked inside through the opening in the fence and tried to familiarize himself with the weight of it. As he was doing so he heard footsteps approaching him. He turned his head and saw Rogun walking towards the arena. He ignored him and made the standard movements described in the book he had in his inventory. Rogun stopped at the fence and didn''t say a thing in the next ten minutes. Harrison ignored him and pretended he didn''t exist being stubborn. ''If you won''t acknowledge I exist neither will I.'' He thought to himself as his movements became more fluid. ''These are not movements of a 12-year-old kid. The technique is for beginners but even then the time it takes to reach such fluidity between moves can only be found in people who had swordsmanship classes since they were toddlers. This guy must be up to something with Sheina.'' Rogun thought as he observed Harrison. "Give me your sphere of translation." Rogun finally spoke with irritation saying he would be rather anywhere else but here. Harrison took the second sphere and handed it to him. "How long have you been practicing the way of the sword and who is your teacher?" Rogun asked with authority. "Four days. And I don''t have a teacher. I learned it from a book." Harrison replied truthfully. "Do you think I am a moron? You! Took! Four days! To get such fluidity between movements?" Rogun yelled. "Yes. Is there a problem?" Harrison asked. "You!" Rogun got a hold of himself only because he was speaking to someone who saved Sheina''s life and was Shalmoon''s guest. "Where do you have that book you learned from?" Rogun asked him to try to expose the lie. "It''s in my room. Shall I go get it?" Harrison looked at him with an annoyed expression. "Yes. Go get it." Rogun was annoyed by the kid''s arrogance also. Harrison went to his room and got the book out of his inventory and came back to the backyard while Rogun was inspecting the training swords in the shack. As he walked back he showed the book in Rogun''s hands before walking into the arena again. "You! I swear I will spank you silly if you don''t show me some respect." Rogun said. Harrison looked him dead in the eyes and replied while gritting his teeth, "Respect is something you earn. It is not something that is given freely." "Well said." Rogun said before in a flash he had Harrison over his knee and spanked him hard ten times on the behind. "Do you respect me yet kid?" He yelled as he finished. Harrison feeling embarrassed got even angrier. "Go *uck a gorilla you silver monkey." "Do you respect me yet kid?" Rogun yelled as he finished another round of ten. In the meantime virtual messages of masochist skill leveling up and energy consumption were flying at Harrison''s face. ''You better kill me now because if I survive this I will pay it back for sure.'' Harrison almost yelled this before he changed his mind fearing Rogun would actually do it. "You look like a gray monkey and stink like one. So you must be one." Harrison yelled instead. "In all my years. Never." Rogun yelled before another twenty smacks followed. "Do you respect me yet. Do ya?" He yelled before throwing Harrison on the ground just as Sheina ran to them. "What are you two doing?" She yelled gasping for air. Rogun looked at her and replied, "The kid needed to learn how to respect his elders!" "And you need to learn how to respect other people''s guests. I am sure he didn''t deserve to be punished and embarrassed like this. Why was he disrespectful? You were antagonizing him from the moment you met him. I am not the same girl I was when my mother was abducted. I saw the way you looked at him like a lamb waiting for slaughter the moment we walked into the dining room. You were disrespectful to him and myself considering your judgment is way above mine. Trying to protect me from the world when you are almost never here. I was going to let it go because I respect you for what you did for my parents and not mention it. But now you do this? You were asked if you can teach him to use weapons and not to beat him into submission." Sheina went on a tirade as Harrison got up from the ground and dusted himself off. Rogun tried to intervene with some, "Butˇ­ Butˇ­, but he never stood a chance. He was like a giant bear being scolded by a schoolgirl. Harrison was smirking at him as he dejectedly stood there. As Sheina noticed him smirking, she changed her attention to him. "And YOU. I explained who Rogun is and what he means to my father. Even if he has a bad temper and is a little crass, sometimes he would have never raised a hand on you as our guest if you had not provoked him. Maybe my father left you with an idea that it is all right to provoke a bear. Even then you could respect him as an elder." "I am disappointed in the both of you." She yelled at them before she left. By now both of them were looking down at their feet like two schoolboys being caught by their teacher doing something wrong. Rogun sighed and sat down on the ground. Harrison did the same, but he soon jumped up as his buttocks felt like they had nails in them. He glared at Rogun after that but stayed his tongue. Turning his back towards Rogun he leaned on the fence and sighed. Checking his skills he saw that Masochist reached level 6 and his energy was at 3 units. ''Damn it. I am sure this episode will cost me energy when I cross over. The amount of not enough energy I got will probably push me above level 10 in Masochist.'' As he was thinking that Rogun came from behind and showed a book in front of him. "If you can learn this in four days you will earn respect and my trust and I will apologize to you in front of Shalmoon and Sheina. If not, don''t bother looking for me." He left after saying that. Harrison checked out the book and it was a book about a spear technique. He left soon after that back to his room where he read the book. He considered reading it without the help of the system, but he decided not to. Right now he had the right tool to not worry about energy expenditure too much while he was somewhere safe. He started meditating which left him with a bit of a dilemma. The first time he meditated was sitting in a Buddhist pose. Right now his butt cheeks were red as a cooked crab, and he could not sit on them even on the soft bed. He tried meditating while standing up and after a while he succeeded. +1 Energy +1 Energy +1 Energy After a couple of hours he managed to regain four energy. He didn''t want more or the masochism skill would gobble it up. He analyzed the book and learned it. Spearmanship skill unlocked. Spearmanship skill LVL. 1 acquired. Bonus Strength +1 Bonus Dexterity +1 (not applied since over 10) Spearmanship skill LVL. 2 acquired. Englin came by his room after that and invited him for lunch, but he politely declined his invitation saying he was not feeling well. In all honesty Harrison just didn''t want to stand by the table and eat since he was still unable to sit without wincing. He took out the roasted ferun and nibbled on it. "I bet my food is better than theirs." Harrison consoled himself as he satiated his hunger. As he put away the ferun back into the inventory he was left with 0 energy units. He started meditating by standing. He was bored so then he started meditating while walking. The energy was starting to rise when he got the hang of it. Once he reached 3 units the spearmanship automatically leveled up. After a while it once again leveled up at 4. The day passed by Harrison walking in his room or standing while meditating and learning spearmanship all the way to level 6. The images of the spear movements were floating in front of his eyes as he closed them. The feeling he had to practice with a real spear was growing in him with every passing minute. After a while he could no longer hold it in, and he went out from his room and down the stairway into the backyard to get a spear. As he got into the arena he started adjusting to the weight of the spear. He tried twirling it, swinging it and did all possible movements with it. His main idea was to get familiar with it. Suddenly he executed the movements from the book slowly. As he made the first whole set of movements he did it again. They were still slow but faster than before and lacked cohesiveness. Next round was even faster as he accelerated with every move. ''I am missing something since some moves I can''t connect fluently. I come to a stop once I get there instead of being able to continue with the next moveˇ­ I better meditate some more and finish this book.'' Harrison felt dejected. Harrison didn''t notice someone was watching him from the time he came to the backyard. Rogun saw him rushing out of the house as he came back to the mansion for dinner and followed him hiding himself in between some green bushes like a giant gray moth. First he was laughing on the inside at Harrison''s attempts to wield the spear but when Harrison started doing movements from the book his laughter stopped. Only he knew this spear technique was a special one he got from a friend who died in the fortress and was the last of his lineage. It was a part of that friend''s family heirloom technique. Albeit the lowest level part for beginners but it was still specific enough he could recognize his friends movements in it. As Harrison left Rongun also quickly left for dinner and wanted to apologize there to him. As he got there he only found Sheina and Shalmoon sitting by the table waiting for him. "Where is Roberts?" Rogun asked with agitation in his voice. "He excused himself. He said he is not feeling well. What''s the matter?" Inquired Shalmoon who felt flustered by his teacher''s agitation. "I think I made a big mistake." Replied Rogun shaking his head. 29 Priorities differ In the dining hall there was an eerie silence with Rogun standing in front of the table and deeply sighing while Sheina and Shalmoon looked at him with confusion. After some time, Shalmoon addressed his teacher. "Explain yourselfˇ­ What is the matter? What happened?" Rogun started waving his hands not knowing where to start and looking guiltily at Sheina he pushed his left hand over his beard, then his forehead and finally it went over his hair to behind his head. "The boy is a genius." He finally let out. Shalmoon smiled but was still confused. Sheina had a look that said, ''I told you so.'' "Actually Jorgun was a genius. The boy is a monstrous genius." Rogun continued. "Jorgun''s talent pales in comparison and his was one in a thousand. I don''t even know how to describe him." Rogun continued while breathing heavily. "What gave you that conclusion?" Shalmoon asked with disbelief. "I gave him a book from the inheritance a friend left me. He was a very well-known spear master. You might have heard of him by his moniker Shadow spear. This late friend asked me to find a successor for his family''s spear art after all of his lineage died. I gave the same book to all the new recruits in the fortress over the last five harvests. The best of them only made the same progress as the kid after three months. The kid did it in one afternoon. His learning ability is monstrous. I have not seen anything like it ever." Rogun explained. Shalmoon was all smiles and Sheina was turning her head away from Rogun waiting for her father to realize the other part. "So where exactly is the problem?" Shalmoon finally came to the crux of the matter. As Rogun was hesitating Sheina turned to Shalmoon and said, "He beat the living daylights out of him while he should have thought him." Shalmoon was flabbergasted. "You what? Why?" "The kid was even cockier than you were. But at least he has a reason to be cocky. Damn it had I known." Rogun said while waving his hands in helplessness. "How bad was it?" Shalmoon turned to Sheina and asked. Sheina thought about and replied, "The physical harm Roberts sustained was not bad. He had him over his knee and spanked him so hard I could hear it from the front yard while yelling do you respect me now. Roberts told him to do unspeakable things to a monkey and that he is a gray monkey, so he continued to beat him. I think psychological harm is the biggest problem. Rogun destroyed any feeling of safety and loyalty he might have gotten from us in the last few days. I already owed him for saving my life and I even introduced him to such an unreliable teacher." "Was it as she says?" Shalmoon asked. Rogun, feeling ashamed, replied, "Yes. But you have to understand the kid told me he learned to fluently do the basic swordsmanship moves people don''t get proficient in after years of practice in four days. Four freaking days. Could you believe that? Could anyone? And he said he learned it from a book. I was sure he was lying to my face then, so I confronted him to show me that book. He went and got it and showed it in my face and then I lost it when he told me I have to earn his respect." Shalmoon shaking his head only said, "What?" "He said respect is something you earn. It is not something that is given freely." Rogun said while gnashing his teeth. "So you spanked him to earn his respect." Shalmoon facepalmed as he was saying this. "And now you don''t know what to do because the kid turned out to be telling you the truth and you basically went with the preconception of him being a liar and based all your actions on the preconception. No wonder he was getting annoyed with you. I could already see the start of this fiasco at the breakfast table but I thought you had enough experience to handle a 12-year-old." Shalmoon let out a sigh after raising his voice at Rogun. "I have enough experience to handle one hundred 12-year-olds but zero experience in handling a monstrous genius like him." Rogun yelled back. "You were warned. I told you he learns really fast and you ignored me." Sheina interjected. "You were talking about language. That is something else entirely. But this. He learned to combine the early movements almost seamlessly. If he continues at this pace tomorrow, he will master the first book. It''s too scary to think that such geniuses exist." Rogun shook his head. "Anyway, how do you plan to resolve this issue?" Shalmoon asked, looking at Rogun. "I was planning to apologize to him in front of you two, but he is not here and hopefully he accepts it. I also plan on giving him all I can in the next two weeks that I am allowed to stay here." Rogun said dejectedly. "He skipped lunch and dinner probably because he doesn''t want to sit with a sore behind after the thrashing you gave him." Sheina said pouting. "Can you talk to him?" Shalmoon said, while Rogun looked at Sheina with expectation. "I will try. I was not really gentle with him either after the incident, so I don''t know how he will feel about me asking him to trust you..." She said and let out a sigh. Meanwhile, Harrison walked out of the mansion and meditated on the way. Nobody stopped him, and he went out of the town and reached the underwear marker before disappearing into the woods. Walking along the markers he found the way to the little waterfall without any problems and was finally able to relieve his biggest concern of the day. If Shalmoon and Rogun knew what the most pressing matter for him was they would facepalm themselves and Sheina would die from embarrassment. . Harrison was well aware why he got smacked on his behind, but he was not really psychologically hurt from it. He was angry first but upon introspection he knew he had partly himself to blame and took it in stride. He took one shitty healing potion and quickly disappeared into the thickets. As he left the woods after defecating he jumped into the small creak leading from the pool. ''Ah, finally. I would die doing this in the mansion. Even the memory of the smell makes me feel like retching.'' Harrison shuddered as he thought about it. Cleaning himself off he went back to the little cave and started a fire. He checked his energy and it was at four units. Luckily with all the meditation he was doing he progressed to level 7 which in the short run felt like a curse but in the long run would be a blessing. To get spearmanship to level six from level one he spent twenty units of energy. To get meditation from level five to level seven he spent another 13. In between this massive energy consumption was the masochist skill which went from level one to level seven and took 27 energy points automatically. Luckily he was getting energy a lot faster now than in the beginning. The process was a lot slower when he was not sitting down, or he was multitasking but it was still a lot faster than in the beginning. As soon as he had enough energy, a skill he already memorized would automatically use it up. The masochist and spearmanship skills were still waiting for enough energy. According to the not enough energy messages he got every time they upgraded he believed they were still not finished upgrading. He took out some more roasted ferun and the batch of clothes he used for sleeping as he decided to spend the night in the cave. The darkness already crept upon the woods, and he didn''t feel comfortable walking to the town alone. Especially now that he knew what kind of fauna he could meet in these woods. The trauma he suffered from the beating had disappeared along with his bloated stomach after drinking the healing potion, so he could once again lie down on his back. He started meditating again before he dozed off. In the meantime there was panic at the Donaron mansion. Sheina made her way to Harrison''s room after dinner and after receiving no reply after knocking on his door she entered his room only to find him gone. After looking for him around the estate she asked the guards, and she was informed by them that he left hours ago. Her heart was racing as she frantically ran looking for her father and Rogun asking herself if Harrison left for good. By the time she found them she was already crying with an unfamiliar anxious feeling stabbing her insides. She ran into her father''s arms while sobbing. "He is gone." She uttered before fainting. Shalmoon could only hold her up and stared at Rogun while doing so. Rogun knew what it meant even without hearing it and promptly left. ''You screwed it up, you fix it,'' was the meaning he understood from the angry stare. 30 Back to life, back to reality ''Hmmm. I am back to the land of death.'' Harrison thought as he closed a plus 36 energy units notice which was followed by spearmanship leveling up to level seven, followed by masochist level eight, spearmanship level eight and finally masochist level nine. He was left with eight units of energy which was not enough to level up spearmanship any further. With nothing better to do and not really in any hurry he started to meditate. Even though he was seemingly doing everything right even after a long while nothing happened. As he was doing, so he heard the door open and two pairs of footsteps came in. Harrison could judge by the noise they made, one was a female and the other one was a male. "So nurse Finkle, how is our vegetable?" A male voice said. "I know he is unconscious but still you could show a bit of respect," nurse Finkle replied. "In my book he is just wasting valuable resources. If it were up to me he would be downstairs already and you could be spending the time you spend with him with me in the on call room Eliza." The male voice salaciously replied followed by his giggling, ''What a stupid lecherous retard.'' Harrison thought as he was listening in on their conversation. "Doctor Hall, I have told you before your advances on me are highly inappropriate. Never mind the fact that this is sexual harassment in the workplace, you are a married man." Nurse Finkle reminded him. "Oh Eliza, nobody has to know and I''ll be good to you. I know you have been struggling to make ends meet since your husband died. I could get you more overtime." Doctor Hall said before moving himself towards nurse Finkle. ''Lecherous sleazeball if I ever get out of this bed I will make you bleed.'' Harrison was already cursing his ancestors in his head. Nurse Finkle suddenly exclaimed, "Please, let go of me. Let me do my work." Harrison quickly opened up his inventory as he had quite a good impression of nurse Finkle and hastily tried to find something that would help him resolve this. He saw he had two bottles of the shitty potion left. He made two blobs of liquid float in his inventory space and sent one into his stomach. Doctor Hall was still doing his act. "Eliza don''t be like this. You know I could have any other nurse on the floor but I want you." "Please, let go of me or I will scream." Eliza said with a trembling voice. Soon there was the sound of loud fart coming out from his behind followed by a stench. "Patients'' blood pressure and heart rate is rising." Nurse Finkle almost joyfully exclaimed. "Hmmm. Let me check him." Doctor Hall replied. Harrison could feel him being uncovered. ''Come to daddy!!!'' Harrison thought in excitement. ''System, show me everything I can see!'' Harrison ordered. There was him and the bed cover on his legs and female hand uncovering his hospital gown. Finally, he saw a male hand holding a stethoscope from doctor Hall who wanted to listen to his heartbeat. ''Got ya.'' Harrison exclaimed before he ordered the system to transport the other shitty potion directly into the hand holding the stethoscope. "Aaaaaaaah." A male voice was heard before the stethoscope first let go and then was retracted. "What happened?" Nurse Finkle asked. Harrison could only hear a sound of hurried breathing before doctor Hall could reply. "Nothing. Motherˇ­ It must have been a static electricity discharge. I felt it in my hand as if something bit me. Look, it''s still red. Motherˇ­ He explained himself. "I need to change the patient''s sheets. You go take care of yourself." She replied trying to get him to leave. "No, no I will help you. Aaaaaah." Harrison heard him say before there was a loud fart. "Give him lorazepam. As before. I have to go." Doctor Hall said before running out of the room with hurried steps. ''Hope you don''t make it to the toilet.'' Harrison who would be laughing his head off now if he could and was thinking this in his mind before preparing to intercept the drugs for future use. "Bastard." Nurse Finkle exclaimed angrily once she was left alone. Harrison noticed his range of perception was a bit bigger than before, but he didn''t have a clue if it was because of his rise in willpower or energy. Anyway, it was a good thing, so he was hopeful that it would continue to grow. He stored away four droplets of lorazepam into different slots before using one. ''Goodbye nurse Finkle.'' Were his last thoughts before he faded away. Closing the energy recovery notice, he was greeted by the masochist and spearmanship leveling up. Masochist reached level 11 and spearmanship stopped at level 10. He checked his energy, and he only had one single unit left. "Ahhh damn you Rogun." He yelled when he figured out the masochism skill took most of the energy he got by crossing over. He checked his skills. Lumberjack : Level 6 | Carpentry : Level 1 | Masturbation : Level 1 | Archery : Level 10 | Swordsmanship : Level 10 | Mathematics : Level 10 | Fitness : Level 9 | Swimming : Level 1 | Masochism : Level 11 | Firebug : Level 1 | Cooking : Level 1 | Meditation : Level 7 | Running : Level 5 | Herbology : Level 2 | Geography : Level 5 | Zoology : Level 12 | Polyglot : Level 1 | Spearmanship : Level 10 | He did the same for his attributes. Strength: 11 | Wisdom: 13 | Intelligence: 17 | Dexterity: 11.5 | Perception: 12 | Agility: 11.5 | Water element affinity: 10.5 | Pain tolerance: 12 | Vitality: 10.5 | Fire element affinity: 10.5 | Energy: 11.5 | Willpower: 15 | With one unit of energy he was finding it even more risky to return and with no sleepiness whatsoever he started to meditate. As the morning broke he recovered 23 out of 115 units of energy and reached level 9 in meditation. After sitting the whole night in a Buddhist posture when he stood up his joints made cracking, but he was feeling refreshed instead of fatigued. Harrison quickly put his things into the inventory, although it cost him some energy he would recover it again by the time he got to the town. He climbed down the cliff and started running. The rustling of leaves being broken under his feet and the wind rushing to his face with an occasional branch hitting made the running in the woods even more exciting. As he ran he noticed his body was moving a lot faster than before. The added stats in agility and strength boosted his speed by a lot. He totally forgot he was not in a safe environment when he suddenly ran into a large deer-like animal drinking from the creek. The animal was at first surprised and wanted to bolt but seeing his small size it decided to defend his drinking spot and pointed his antlers at him and decided to rush him. Harrison barely avoided its charge and ran behind a tree as he stopped. Looking at the deer-like animal he remembered it was a herbivore that was extremely aggressive and dangerous when you encroach into his territory. The locals called it ormash which basically translated to "thorns of death". "Looks like I found lunch." Harrison exclaimed as he watched the ormash turn around after missing him, giving a loud bellow and running towards the large tree he was hiding behind. It rammed its antlers towards Harrison but Harrison was circling the tree and the stupid animal could not reach him and only hit the bark. As he was out of its sight most of the time the ormash made loud intimidating bellows trying to assert its strength over the intruder every time he hit the bark. After once again hitting the bark it was greeted by Harrison''s hand swinging downwards towards its head as it bellowed for the last time. Harrison''s battle axe hit the middle of its head right between the horns and blood with brain matter splattered out like a small waterfall before the animal even figured out it was in danger. With a loud thud it crashed on the ground. Energy -1 Energy +3 ''I guess I get energy back by killing. And it''s a passive process too.'' That is quite convenient. Harrison looked at the notification of energy gain with a flabbergasted expression before trying to store the carcass into his inventory. Sadly the system informed him it was too big. The carcass was around 2.5 meters long and 2 meters high and 0.4 meters thick with half a meter long antlers on its head. Harrison tried lifting it, but he could only lift its head. Thinking about cutting it up he came to an idea. ''System, join four inventory spaces together.'' He said in his mind and imagined the space he needed. Looking at the grid he saw four inventory spaces merged into one long one. Energy -8 notification also popped up. "So even this is possible." He exclaimed with joy before he put the ormash in. Energy -4 notification. "Ahh damn. Now it costs more. Well at least it costs only when I need it." He exclaimed before also storing the axe. Harrison noticed he made the space too big as the image displaying the ormash in the grid only occupied a bit more than three quarters of length. "So one grid space is approximately 1 meter." He quickly calculated. He continued to walk towards the town but this time he was being careful not to encounter any more surprises. As he reached the road he breathed out with relief since from now on it was almost a guaranteed smooth journey. 31 Horse before a car Harrison could hardly see anyone when he came into the town of Torm. The ones he could see were half asleep and some were yawning as they came out of their houses going to work. The kids were still sleeping and only adults were starting to run about to do their daily chores. He was facing a dilemma. Wanting to present the ormash to the cooks he needed a way to justify how he brought such a big animal to town by himself. Looking around he soon found an inn with a stable besides it. There was already a man tending to something equivalent to horses diligently feeding them. It was the same kind of animal Sheina was riding only smaller and scruffier. The man was fully engrossed in his work and didn''t notice Harrison. From what Harrison could see from the back of his messy hair and shabby clothes he was not well off. As he came near, he greeted the man. "Aka sha!" Harrison said and the man turned around and greeted him in return which soon followed by a small bow as he noticed Harrison''s clothes. He figured that their social standing was not on par by the way Harrison was dressed. "Do you have a horse and cart I could borrow until midday?" Harrison asked. The man frowned a bit thinking and then replied, "We don''t usually borrow out our carts, but I am sure we can come to an arrangement." "How much is it?" Harrison asked. "For people we are familiar with it''s 1 silver gorn per day. The thing is, you are unfamiliar, so I would need you to leave something as collateral." The man replied. Harrison thought it was reasonable, "How much will the collateral be?" Thinking about it for a minute the man replied, "If it''s a simple cart 20 silver gorn or something of equivalent value." Harrison didn''t want to lose any more time, so he agreed and said he will be right back. He checked his inventory at the side of the inn and noticed he had 14 silver gorn, a lot of bronze gorn and two gold ones. He got the money from the corpses he looted when he woke up in this world. Harrison learned about the local currency from Sheina but this was the first time he actually needed to use one. The exchange rate between them was 100 units. The bronze ones were obviously the lowest and the gold ones of the highest value. He took out a one handed sword which was valued at 30 silver gorn at the shop he visited before and went back to the front of the stable. The man saw him coming back and smiled before he noticed the sword in his hand. His expression changed immediately from a smile to fright. "I wonder if I can use this as collateral?" Harrison said at once from afar when he saw his intentions were misunderstood. "Ah, yes Sir this will be more than enough. You can just give me the silver coin when you come back to collect it." The man replied after he let out an obvious sigh of relief as he heard him say that. The man was fast in selecting a docile horse and put on a harness and attached it to a simple cart. It was not anything fancy but it would do the job. "Thank you. See you later." Harrison said before he took the reins and walked off with the cart. "No, no, I should be thanking you. Come back anytime." The man yelled after him. After he came to a secluded spot and was sure no one was watching him he transferred the ormash carcass on the cart and walked it to the Donaron manor. The horse didn''t make much of a fuss and was happily trotting along pulling the screeching cart. The cart was almost entirely made from wood excluding the two wooden wheels which were encased in an iron sheet. There was no suspension so it made a lot of noise when one bumped on a stone in the sandy road and once one got to a stone paved one it made a lot of noise bouncing on the uneven surface. He soon reached the Donaron manor and was greeted by the guard. It was the same guard on duty as when he first came here with Sheina so there was no fuss involved except that he had to open up the whole gate so the cart could pass. Harrison directly went around the manor and parked the cart by the entrance to the kitchen where usually deliveries were made. He went into the kitchen and greeted the two cooks that were already in the middle of preparing breakfast. It was porridge again. ''Don''t they eat anything else for breakfast other than porridge?'' Harrison thought as he looked at Gordo tasting it from a big wooden spatula. The two cooks greeted him with fervor as they were impressed with his generosity from last time. "Aka sha master Roberts!" They both said and made a bow. Harrison waved his hand and said, "There is no need for this." The cooks looked at each other, probably surprised at him speaking their language so fluently now before Gordo asked if there was anything he needed. "Yes. I got something from my hunter friend and I need your help with moving it into the kitchen. You can make lunch or dinner from it or whatever you want." Harrison replied before gesturing to the outside with his hand. As they came out Gordo and Fergun were amazed at the huge carcass on the cart. "It''s an ormash. We can have a feast." Gordo exclaimed with twinkling eyes and Fergun just nodded smiling from ear to ear. "You have a nice friend Sir Roberts," Gordo said with a pause before he continued, "but his hunting methods are a bit weird." "What do you mean?" Harrison asked. "The marakash and this ormash were both hit on the head with an axe obviously. What kind of hunter hunts this way? It''s too dangerous. They usually use bows and arrows and shoot their prey from afar. Your friend must be really brave." Gordo said out loud, but he added or stupid in his mind. "Ohh that. He said both of these animals ambushed him, so he had no choice to hit them over their heads with an axe. That is also why I got them cheap." Harrison lied. "Ahh. I see." Gordo was still talking as Fergun already came back with the knives. "We will butcher it on the cart since it???s too heavy for us to carry it inside." Gordo said. Harrison nodded before saying, "Ok but please clean the cart since I have to return it in the afternoon. By the way, how much time do I have until breakfast?" Gordo explained it''s about half an hour until breakfast and joined Fergun after agreeing that they will clean off the cart after butchering the ormash. Harrison was eager to once again try the spear since he leveled up so much, so he rushed to the practice arena. He took the same practice spear from the shack and went to execute the moves in the middle of the fenced off circle. Meanwhile, the guard on duty has informed Englin of Harrison''s arrival who immediately reported it to Shalmoon and Rogun. They frantically made their way to the backyard only to see Fergun butchering an ormash. Fergun informed them that Harrison left towards the practice arena, and so they walked towards there slowly. Halfway to there from the kitchen''s back entrance they could already hear the whooshing sounds of the spear. As they saw Harrison, they stopped. Shalmoon looked at Rogun after a while as Harrison started to repeat his movements, and he was amazed his teacher had his mouth open and was still fully concentrated on the arena. "What''s wrong?" Shalmoon asked. "He is a bigger monster than I thought..." Rogun replied without even looking at Shalmoon. Shalmoon looked at Harrison but didn''t find anything odd and frowned before asking, "What do you mean?" "He learned the whole book. And he learned to perfection. And he has gotten faster in his footwork. And faster with his hands since yesterday. We should leave..." Rogun said. "Why should we leave?" Shalmoon asked. "We should not be seen spying on him. Let me apologize first. I should apologize first. The kid has every right to be cocky." Rogun replied before turning around. Shalmoon just raised his hands in resignation at his old teacher and followed him. "So, what''s the plan??? He asked as he caught up. "I will apologize at breakfast in front of you and Sheina. We need Sheina for this. You should have seen his face as your daughter berated him for not being more respectful towards me. I think he likes your daughter." Rogun said. "What is there not to like?" Shalmoon said with joy before reality hit him, and he frowned. ''It''s too soon. Too soon.'' He suddenly thought as he imagined his daughter with a man. 32 Breakfast of champions Harrison was gasping for air when he finished practicing with the spear. He gave it his all doing the seamless movements with the spear that were mentioned in the manual. Some parts of movements he didn''t understand since they required a specific angle to hit from. He could do it just fine but didn''t understand the logic behind it. He sat a bit on the grass before he went back to the shack and stored the practice spear. Harrison thought about how easy it was for him to learn new skills with the system. All he needed was access to books and energy to convert those books to a skill. What took some people their whole lifetime he could do in a day if he had enough energy. ''I need to put upgrading my energy at the top of my priorities list.'' Harrison thought as he started walking towards the kitchen. He came to the cart just as Fergun was washing it off with a bucket of water. The horse was standing there lazily munching on something and didn''t pay any attention to the humans. "Already done?" Harrison asked. "Yeah. The rough part at least. We wanted to free the cart as soon as possible, so we just cut it up, so we could move it inside. The fur is being dried with the marakash fur from last time. It should be ready for you in three days." Fergun joyfully replied as he still remembered Harrison''s generosity from last time. "All right then. I will go and wash up and go get breakfast. You and Gordo can take some meat for your families. I will be sure to get more in the future so don''t worry." Harrison said and buttered up Fergun some more. By now if there was an election Gordo and Fergun would vote for him for sure. "There is no need," Fergun replied a bit embarrassed but his eyes told a different story. "Don''t worry about it." Harrison waved his hand and started leaving. "Thank you." Fergun yelled after him just as Gordo came out. Looking at Fergun he said, "What are you thanking him for?" "He said we can take some meat for our families again." Fergun replied with joy in his voice. Gordo smacked his hands and did a little jump into the air which made him look like a hippo doing a ballet move. "He did. Ahhhh. He is such a nice kid. I knew it the first time I laid my eyes on him he was nice." Gordo left back for the kitchen as Fergun nodded at him. Leaving his room after cleaning himself up Harrison thought about if he should shamelessly join the breakfast in the dining room or if he should leave the mansion and eat somewhere in town. In the end he decided to face the music. As he came into the dining room he saw Shalmoonm Sheina and Rogun already seated. He greeted Shalmoon and Sheina with a bow but left out Rogun as he was unsure if he should. Then an unexpected thing to Harrison happened as Rogun stood up and bowed after greeting him. "I would like to apologize for my behavior yesterday. In my line of work I see a lot of youngsters whose only ability is to wag their tongues, and I am sorry to misjudge you to be one of them. I have seen you practice with the spear and what I thought was your cockiness speaking was proven to be your real ability. I hope you can forgive this old man for getting too heated in the spur of the moment. If you don''t want me to teach you about using weapons anymore I will understand but please don''t your resentment towards me flow towards Shalmoon and Sheina. They both have only the best intentions towards you." As Rogun let out his prepared speech he waited until Harrison smiled and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. Harrison looked at the expecting Rogun as he finally said, "It''s partly my fault too as I haven''t considered the things I can do from your perspective. What you deemed as boastful was normal to me and your questioning attitude made me angry, so we both came to a misunderstanding. How about we give it a fresh start?" The last sentence brought a smile on Rogun''s face and his beard jumped from joy as he said, ???Yes. Let''s drink to a fresh start. Shalmoon, get us something to drink." Shalmoon looked at him with a sharp gaze and shook his head. The gaze meant, ''am I your servant'' and the shaking was at how quickly his teacher changed his humble tune. "Englin get them some drinks." Shalmoon commanded. Englin quickly brought a big bottle which must have contained several liters onto the table and two small cups. "Shalmoon won''t you join us?" Rogun said with joy. "You will have to excuse me. I have things to do after breakfast." Shalmoon said as he emphasized breakfast. "Sheina?" Rogun asked. "I will just watch you two. It''s too early for me." Sheina said. Englin poured two cups of the liquor and put them on the table in front of the two standing men. Well, a man and a boy. Harrison looked at the cup wearily and next thing he did was check up on his energy storage. He had 11 units left after he got some through meditating when idle. A wicked plan went through his head as he looked at Rogun. ''This is for spanking me.'' He thought as he smiled. He picked up the cup. "To a fresh start." Harrison said as he reached for the cup. It was made out of a silver metal so you could not see inside and by the time the cup was at his mouth it was already almost completely empty. He just left some liquid inside, so he could taste it. It tasted like swallowing fire which went down his esophagus and exploded in his stomach. Rogun as if reminded of his former drinking glory days raised his cup too and emptied it. Harrison gestured to Englin and said, "Pour us another one." Rogun joyfully accepted the idea. This time Harrison no longer wanted to taste the strong alcohol and just let it all disappear into the inventory. Just as Harrison wanted to gesture to Englin, Rogun took the initiative. Englin complied and they downed the third cup. Then the fourth and fifth. By the time they downed the fifth Shalmoon was already asking Harrison if he was feeling well. After the seventh cup there was a moment of silence before Rogun stumbled and fell on his behind giggling like a little girl. ''Now we are even. You old bastard. I hope your hangover hurts as much as my behind did.'' The porridge the cooks brought in almost right at the start of the drinking games was on the table getting cold so Harrison gestured that they should start eating. "Are you sure you are all right?" Sheina asked the seemingly normal Harrison and then looked at Rogun who was already snoring beside the table. Shalmoon could only facepalm hearing the snores that sounded like a bear hibernating. "I am perfectly all right." Harrison said and took the ladle. He ate the porridge and talked to Shalmoon who by the breath Harrison intermittently emitted was now sure he actually drank the alcohol. ''Ai. Old man you finally met your match even in this.'' Shalmoon thought as he smiled at Harrison. ''And to imagine it was a 12-year-old kid who did you in. I can''t wait for you to wake up, so I can make fun of you.'' He didn''t have to look at Rogun as he was snoring so loud even the cooks could hear him in the kitchen through a closed door. "I am sorry Sheina for not being more respectful towards Rogun." Harrison said after a while. "No. Don''t be. He admitted that he had wronged you. And I ˇ­ I wronged you too." Sheina said while looking at her plate of porridge. "When did you wrong me? I know nothing about it." Harrison pretended like he had no clue what she was talking about. Sheina wanted to respond but looking at his smiling expression she knew he was teasing her, so she chose to remain quiet. Looking at the two behaving like two love birds Shalmoon was conflicted. His fatherly instincts on one side told him to chase away Harrison with everything he has and the other instinct told him Harrison could become the best ally Sheina could ever wish for. ''It''s too soon. Too soon. Aroana what should I do?'' Shalmoon lamented in his head as he observed their antics. ''At least Sheina needs to leave next week.'' At last, he managed to console himself with his factˇ­ A loud snore woke him up from his thinking, and he shook before saying, "Get up you old bastard." 33 The reason for rage After breakfast, Shalmoon stepped over the sleeping Rogun. He excused himself saying he had a few morning meetings to attend to and left. This left Sheina and Harrison alone in the dining room if you don''t count the snoring Rogun. She relaxed and started asking him questions. "Where did you go last night?" "I went to the cave where we met to get some stuff I left behind." He was embarrassed to say he went to the woods to get some relief, so he made up a lie. "We were worried about you. Please tell us next time you leave." Sheina said as she looked at him, expecting any signs of remorse. Harrison didn''t know how much the girl cried after he left, so he just nodded. "Anyway, are we doing language lessons today?" Harrison asked. "Sure. Meet me in the library in a while. I will go get my books." Sheina replied before leaving. Harrison went to the kitchen ignoring the snoring Rogun and talked to Gordo about lunch. He wanted to cook, to raise it to at least level five, but had no time. Gordo told him they will make ormash stew for lunch today, and they will barbecue a leg for dinner. After that talk, Harrison went to the library, where Sheina was already sitting at a desk. Harrison spent the whole morning asking her words he still didn''t have in his vocabulary, using the translation sphere when needed. Harrison tried multitasking learning the language together with meditation. He was somewhat successful, but it was far from the speed of energy recovery when he was doing it as a sole task or when walking. The interruptions were too frequent, as he needed to divide his attention to Sheina''s lesson. When it was almost lunchtime a stumbling figure of Rogun who just woke up after his nap in the dining room interrupted them. "Boy, are you even human?" Rogun said as he saw Sheina and Harrison sitting at a desk in the library. Sheina laughed while saying, "Are you alright uncle Rogun?" "I have a headache and my pride is hurt, that''s all. I still can''t believe he drank me under the table. Look at him. He is scrawnier than you are." Rogun said while pointing at Harrison. "When do we start our lessons?" Harrison said as he tried to divert the topic. "After lunch? What do you want to learn next?" Rogun asked. "Do you have any more advanced spear manuals? The one you gave me feels like a basic introduction?" Harrison asked after he thought about it. "You are right. That one is just an introduction and preparation for the main course. There are four books for this spear art. You can learn two of them now. For the third one you would need to have internal energy and learn how to imbue it into the spear. And for the last one." Rogun thought for a while before saying, "Even my friend who left those books to me could not get this to work. Since the key requirement is to manifest your internal force on the outside of your body, you need high spiritual energy control." "What is internal force?" Harrison asked, although by now he had some idea what it could be. Rogun held his head as he had a throbbing headache before replying. "It''s just a way to implement spiritual energy into your body strengthening it. Someone who can use internal force can strengthen their body to unimaginable heights." He grumbled while waving his hands like it was something too far off into the future for Harrison. "What about manifesting the internal force outside?" Harrison asked. "When you reach such levels of control that you can push the spiritual energy to the outside of your body you can form it there as an external object. You would become unbeatable by those who can''t. Only mages can fight you then, and people with the same amount of control." The pale Rogun replied. "Mages?" Harrison asked. Sheina was also intently listening to their conversation. This topic was hardly ever mentioned in her school, so she was particularly interested. Rogun sighed as he opened this can of worms. "Mages use their internal force in a different way than warriors. They use it to attract and gather elemental particles for their spells. I don''t know how they do it so don''t ask. All I know you need to have a good elemental affinity with the particles you want to use." "You don''t seem to like mages?" Sheina asked. "I never met one that was likeable. They are all a bunch of cocky bastards that don''t care about normals. That is how they call people without an elemental affinity. They are selfish pricks with no regard to people''s lives." Rogun got really upset talking about mages. "Why do you hate them so much?" Harrison asked and immediately regretted it. He saw Rogun''s eyes shimmer for a second and then his expression became filled with rage. "Those bastards killed my son, daughter-in-law and countless others. Fighting in the middle of Gormund for a piece of rock. My grandson at the time only survived because his mother shielded him with her back. A fireball hit her that went through my son first before hitting her. Tell me, do I have the right to hate them?" Rogun yelled at Harrison by the time he finished. Then, like nothing happened, he came to his senses. "I am sorry. I became emotional thinking of that time. This has nothing to do with you two. I should not have yelled at you." He said in an indistinct voice before leaving the library. "Did you know about that?" Harrison asked Sheina, who was still looking at the leaving Rogun. "I knew his son- and daughter-in-law died but they always mentioned it like it was an accident. To think Jorgun''s parents met such an end." She sighed as she reminisced. "You knew Jorgun?" Harrison by now knew he was Rogun''s grandson. "He was just four years older than I was, and we spent a lot of time together as Rogun could not take him to the fortress. He was like a big brother to me. He died protecting my mother. You would have liked him." Sheina said with tears in her eyes. "Let''s eat lunch!" She said as she tried to wipe off her tears in secret and packed up her books. "Sure. I will meet you in the dining room." Harrison replied before she rushed off. Looking at the books that surrounded him, he was tempted to select one, but as he checked his energy, he made a sad face. He only had 5 energy out of 115, and he decided to save it in case of emergency. ''I will go hunt after lunch. I can meditate as I walk and regain energy after I kill the beasts. Also, after I cross over, I will regain plenty.'' Harrison made a plan in his head before going to the dining room. Lunch came and went. Shalmoon and Rogun didn''t show up for lunch. After crying over remembering Jorgun''s death, Sheina was not in the mood for small talk. Harrison also ate quietly. They just mechanically ate the stew and something comparable to bread. Before the lunch finished, she mentioned she has to meet a friend in the afternoon. She had asked Harrison to join her, which he politely declined. The major reason being her mood at the table before. So he decided to give her some space. They left the dining room together. She went back to her room as Harrison made his way through the kitchen into the backyard. He unfastened the reins of the horse from the pole and made his way back to the stable. Once he was sure he was alone Harrison got a silver coin from the inventory. He materialized it in a pocket and left through the enormous door in front. The guard at this time was a lot more friendly and opened up the door for him with a smile. "Thank you for sharing the marakash with us." He yelled after Harrison as he was leaving. "You''re welcome. There will be more if I can get them." Harrison yelled back as he made his way towards the stable. ''Hm. The cooks seem to be honest, hard-working people. They didn''t keep it all to themselves as I thought they would.'' Harrison thought as he smiled in satisfaction. He didn''t know why, but this small thing filled his heart with warmth. It was as if a ray of sunshine shined upon a frozen desert. Since he didn''t remember his past, he didn''t know what experiences he had to make him feel that way. At the stable he exchanged the one handed sword for a silver coin. He also made arrangements to pick up the cart again if his hunt was successful. If he could ensure the safety of the cart, he would not have returned it so fast. The forest was too thick for the cart and leaving it on the road seemed too reckless. Going out of the town, he didn''t notice a man was following him from the stable. He was like a shadow creeping behind him. Looking at his prey from the corners of the buildings he passed. What attracted the man was Harrison''s attire, which were the clothes Sheina''s cousins left in the manor. He was sure the young man had a fat coin purse on him from the clothes he wore. With the lack of guards surrounding the youth, he looked like an easy target. He was already counting the money he would steal from him. 34 Fair game Harrison was walking along the major road of the town. He was observing the people he met and greeted the ones who greeted him. The town was not crowded as most inhabitants were out in the fields or doing work in their workshops. As he was meditating while walking he didn''t pay much attention to the man who was following him. The man was just a little bit taller than Harrison at 12-years-old. He was wearing a brown cap and a brown jacket with gray pants. The clothes he wore were rather worn out and dirty. His shoulder-length brown hair was greying out and was so greasy that didn''t defy the effects of gravity one bit. The man was invisible for most of the people he met. As he was passing them they usually turned their head and sped up their steps. They knew he was not of the friendly sort and most of them also knew his background. He called himself Silverclaw, and he was the younger brother of a local thug. His real name though was nowhere close to impressive, as his father named him what could be translated to a little dog. Kershun was the little runt in the family and he hated his father and mother with vigor. His father beat him and his mother let his father beat him or even joined him. His and his brother''s life was a living nightmare from the start. He hated his mother for being with his father most of all. His nightmare finally ended as his brother killed their father, left the town and became a bandit. After that he and his brother became nightmares for countless people. On one of his raids his big brother got a nice dagger which he gifted to the little dog. It was his prized possession; a silver dagger. Luckily for him his brother was a lot more protective of him than his father and mother were. The big brother named Darshun got him out of countless troubles by bribing the local officials. Darshun was also a victim of his father''s awful naming sense as he was called Evil dog. Since they were both by now well known and since he has been warned by the same corrupt officials, they didn''t bother the locals and the locals didn''t bother them. It was a win-win situation for the people in power and the criminals. The criminals paid them for being able to operate in their territory. As long as they were not doing it too close to home the officials protected them from punishment fitting their crimes. With time the little brother was getting cocky, and he harassed the locals. Nothing major. A couple of thefts here and there whenever he came back to town. This time his eyes caught sight of a fat prey which filled him with excitement. What was even more exciting was that the prey was intent on leaving the town. He was still racking his brains on how he could rob Harrison without being seen in the middle of the day when he noticed him walking towards the exit of the town. Thanking his lucky stars he followed him like a shadow. In the town he had plenty of cover hiding behind the houses but as they left it he became a lot more conspicuous. He was skulking in and out of bushes by the road as Harrison made his way towards the underwear marker. Harrison had a nagging feeling even in the town that he was being watched but was not able to confirm it with so many people around. Leaving the town this task became much easier and when he turned around unexpectedly a few times he saw a figure dash into the bushes. He could not see who it was but by their stature he figured it was one of the kids who ambushed him a few days ago. As he came close to the marker he pretended to have stomach problems by holding his belly and entered the forest. He hid behind a big tree crouching behind it, waiting for what his shadow would do. Harrison checked his energy and contemplated if he should arm himself with a sword. He decided against it just because the element of surprise was more useful than his swordsmanship skills. The shadow did not disappoint, and he came quickly rushing inside the forest afraid he would lose him with the decreased visibility. The forest in his mind was also the perfect place for his intentions. As Kershun rushed following Harrison''s tracks he came upon an enormous tree and as he almost passed it he heard a voice. "What do you want? Why are you following me?" Kershun''s first reaction was to flee as if he forgot why he came here in the first place but after a few paces he remembered.He stopped and on his face there was a sinister smile. He was showing his yellow teeth of which more than half were missing and the rest were half rotten. "Be a good boy and give me all your money!" Kershun said as he turned around. "Are you sure you want to rob me. I am a guest of the city magistrate." Harrison said trying with reason to get the man to back off. "I said give me all your money! I don''t care whose guest you are!" Kershun responded and spat on the ground. Harrison by then already had an inkling that only one of the two people here will leave this forest alive. If he was not swayed at the mention of the magistrate and he is not hiding his face, he will probably try to shut him up for good after he gets the money. He contemplated trying to run away but he could somehow tell the man child was faster than him in running. Kershun was creeping closer to Harrison as if afraid he would spook him. "So will you leave if I give you money?" Harrison asked, pretending he still believed in fairy tales. "Take off your clothes too! Then I will leave." Kershan was already grinning at the cowardly young master completely letting his guard down. He noticed the boy didn''t even have a dagger. ''It would be a waste to ruin those nice clothes with your blood.'' Kershun thought. Harrison took off his jacket and held it in front of him in his left hand and said, "The money is in the pockets." As Kerhun got almost near enough to take it from him he let it go and the jacket fell towards the dirty ground. Kershun who by now dropped his guard instinctively tried to catch it as it was falling crouched and leaned forward. He almost had it as Harrison''s right arm moved from below and a sword materialized in it which impaled Kershun through the neck. The whole fight was over just like that. Kershun couldn''t even let out a groan as he fell sideways. Harrison returned the sword to his inventory, and the blood started flowing out of the wound even faster. The lifeless eyes and the wicked grin still on his mouth were imprinted in Harrison''s mind forever. He sat down and contemplated what had just happened. "I killed a man." Harrison whispered. "Should I feel guilty?" "Why don''t I feel anything?" He closed the +47 energy message and put his back on the enormous tree. ''I don''t feel a thing. Am I a psychopath? Maybe because he would do the same thing to me?'' Harrison tried to rationalize his numbness. "Whatever." He picked himself up from the ground and walked to the corpse. He took all of his clothes minus the dirt and also stuffed the corpse in his inventory. It cost him a lot of energy but the owner of the corpse paid the bill anyway. The owner didn''t have much money. Just a few bronze coins.This was also probably the reason he was so desperate to find a target in town. The only thing of value on him was his weapon. Looking at the shiny silverish dagger he found in the inventory he clicked analyze. --------------------------------- Item name: Sharp dagger Quality: Medium Durability: 95/100 Damage: 5-10 Special effects: none Description: A sharp dagger product of a master blacksmith''s inferior work. Made from an unknown alloy. --------------------------------- "Medium quality?" Harrison exclaimed as he checked the description. With that Harrison went back towards the road and found the underwear marker. He went to the opposite side of it and went deep into the woods before dumping the body into an abandoned lair of a big animal and returning. He checked his energy while walking and he had 42 left. Harrison still had plenty of time before dinner so he decided to visit the waterfall. Walking by the now familiar path he once again thought about him killing another human being. He was afraid that this episode today was a sign of things to come. "Whatever. As long as it''s not me or people I care about." He said out loud gritting his teeth and making a fist. It was his declaration to this world. He will not back down. He will survive it and make sure to help people he cares about survive it too. 35 Who are you? Crossing into the woods his thoughts ran wild and like lightning from a clear sky he heard the sound of music ringing in his head that emphasized the question he ignored. ''Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who are you?" as he said this to himself he imagined wild things from his past which was inaccessible to him. ''Who were you Mr. Roberts that you can kill another human being and stay so cool about it?'' he thought as the leaves of the forest were rustling under his feet. ''Was I a murderer, an assassin, perhaps, a doctor?'' his neurons sparked looking for answers in his damaged database. He would be sorely disappointed if he ever found out in the future that the only reason he became so used to killing was the virtual reality environment which blurred the difference between fiction and reality. The technology has progressed so much that there was full visual immersion but there was still a way to go for all the senses to be influenced. The amount of gore in the most popular genres he played was more than most warriors in this plane of existence see in a lifetime. Being desensitized to the blood and gore was after all a prerequisite to be successful in those games. If you started to retch there after seeing gore of someone being splattered by a grenade would surely mean you are next to die. Quick reaction and a cool head was a prerequisite of being successful in virtual reality combat sport games and he was very successful. He would have reached the apex of success if given enough time. ''So now I am a murderer? Well it was in self-defence, somewhat...'' he tried to rationalize his decision to strike preventively at the robber. ''Ah damn it. This is so confusing. I need to get some better potions and heal my body in the other world as soon as possible. Find out who I am. Find the person who did me in. Survive this place. Get stronger.'' The thoughts ran wildly through his head as he continued further into the forest finding himself by the creek and following it to the waterfall. He looked at the beautiful scenery and sighed. The birds were chirping, the water making a rumbling sound. The breeze caressed his face as he was looking for a guiding light towards his way forward. ''Whatever I did in the past doesn''t matterˇ­ ''Cos I have become conmforatbly numbˇ­'' he shook his head and wondered where this came from. He wondered how much of his memories were permanently gone. The music he heard every now and then, the vocabulary of his former language and recognition of objects told him they were not completely gone. They were just scrambled like a giant jigsaw puzzle someone broke up and threw all over the place. Some pieces will surely be gone forever but he should be able to find a lot of them or fit the missing pieces with new similar ones by deduction. ''I need to get out of that hospital first. If there is a herbology skill there must be a potioniering skill. I can probably learn that. Or I can at least buy some potions. As low as the level of technology is here the effects of that shitty potion already seem remarkable.'' Looking at the water falling over the cliff he made and revised his plans. He sat by the pond and stared at the water and started to meditate. His thoughts from chaos turned to unity, breathing in and out the essence of this world. ''The past is a teacher. The lessons are gone. The echoes remain.'' He completely lost track of time and by the time he finished meditating the sun was already starting to set. "I better go back or Sheina will be worried again. At least I am not alone here." he said out loud before setting out towards the exit of the forest. ------------------------------------------------------------ In the woods a couple of kilometers away from Harrison a tall man dressed in leather armor wearing a cloak was waiting by a particularly big tree. He was already waiting for a couple of hours anticipating to see a figure emerge from the direction of Torm. His expression was a mix of anger and expectation as he kept looking in that direction. As the sun was already beginning to set he silently turned around and left. ------------------------------------------------------------ Harrison came back to the manor and went around the main building to the backyard entrance to the kitchen and took out a marrakech from the three he had left in his inventory. Using his hands he carried the beast inside startling the two cooks who were already cleaning up after dinner. "Sorry I am late and if I startled you..." he said with a smile. They both smiled back when they saw what he was carrying. "Another one? Your friend is a great hunter." Gordo replied while helping carry the thing to a cold place. Gordo frowned as he touched the body. ''It is still tender and warm. It''s a fresh kill. Only a few minutes must have passed.'' he looked at Harrison with bewilderment but didn''t say anything. "Fergun. Go clean and butcher this beast. Are you hungry? Let me find something for you to eat. There is some leftover barbecued ormash and potatoes." Gordo quickly said. "Thank you. Just serve it here, no need to mess up the dining room." Harrison responded with a smile. As he began eating Gordo started pumping him for information as he still had not gotten the state of the carcass out of his head. "Does your hunter friend catch the marakash and ormash alive?" Gordo asked. Harrison looked at Gordo and thought about why he would ask that. ''Damn. I forgot the things in the inventory don''t cool off or degrade.'' Luckily he stuffed a big piece of meat in his mouth so the change in his facial expression and the long pause was not obvious. "Yes. He trapps them. He kills them when he needs them. He says it''s easier to preserve the meat that way." Harrison lied and Gordo was eating it up with amazement. "Wah. That is too dangerous. I never heard of someone doing that. It does make sense though. The meat would be fresher that way." Gordo nodded in understanding. "I hope your friend stays safe and gets us more of these fine beasts." He said after a while. "Mhm," nodded Harrison, while stuffing himself. Sheina barged in the kitchen at that moment, startling Gordo and Harrison who almost choked on the food. "You are back. Rogun has been looking for you. The guards have just informed him you came." She said with a smile, explaining her intrusion. "What does he want?" Harrison asked, after getting some water to calm his throat. "He wants to give you the rest of the books on spearmanship? I think." Sheina replied. "He is quite eager now to make you his student." "Where did you run off to today?" She asked looking with expectation at Harrison, totally ignoring Gordo. "The young master got us some good ingredients again." Gordo said, before Harrison could answer. "Oh. what did you get?" "Another marakash." Harrison replied before he continued to stuff himself. His food consumption apparently rose with the amount of energy he expended so he was particularly hungry today. "That is great since we will be having guests tomorrow. Maybe you can help the cooks do it like last time?" Sheina asked with anticipation. "Yeah. Sure." He finally had a good look at her. She was wearing a red dress in the afternoon which made her look like a red rose ripe for plucking. Gordo left at that moment as he saw he was not needed and even ignored like a piece of furniture. He didn''t mind it as this was part of life for a servant. Harrison was an exception to the rule. "So how was your meeting?" He asked. "It was great. My friend and family will be joining us for lunch tomorrow. I told them we would be having an ormash but marakash is even better. " She replied in joy. It was obvious the quality of food improving played a significant impact on that. ''I guess she never dared to invite her friends over as lunch guests before as it would be embarrassing to serve them what I ate here the first time.'' "So who is your friend?" Harrison asked. "Her name is Rabena. She is the daughter of the apothecary shop owner. Her father is a rank three official alchemist. I will introduce you tomorrow so don''t run off again." Sheian said while looking at him with expectation for a positive answer. ''An alchemist. That sure is convenient. If I can get him to teach me or sell me some good potions cheaplyˇ­ " "How much do potions cost?" Harison asked. "It depends on the potion. If you are asking about the healing potionsˇ­ Hmm I think the cheapest ones are 10 silver but those have some nasty side effects. The better ones are from one gold upwards. Why? Do you need potions?" Sheina explained. "They might come in handy. Would it be possible to learn from your friend''s father how to make them?" Harrison asked. "You want to learn how to make potions?" Seeing Harrison nodding she continued, "I will ask my friend to convince her father to give it a try. I know he takes in some apprentices every now and then." "Thank you in advance." Harrison said as he finished his dinner. "Just be sure to be there at lunch to make a good impression on him. I am off to bed now. It has been a long day. Let Englin know if you need anything. Good night" She said before rushing off. "Good night!" Harrison yelled after her shaking his head.