Chapter 11: Chapter 8: Seeds of Adventure

Chapter 8: Seeds of Adventure

 

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Skill: 1) Boundless Potential – Touch of the Celestial (Level 1) (Passive) [You possess immense potential. Grants the power of limitless growth. Experience gained through proper training, combat, or practice is manifestable as skills, increased proficiency in an already developed skill, and / or progression of stats. Growth occurs in a use-dependent manner. You may surpass the limits of your race and vessel. You possess the potential to evolve your race and skills.] Sub Skill – Rapid Growth (Passive) [You excel in learning and retaining new skills, information, and techniques. Improvement speed through study, training, meditation, and experience is increased.]

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Logan arrived at the cabin at mid-day to find Ryan sitting in front of the fireplace affixing arrowheads to fletched shafts.

 

He watched the boy as he worked, focused, diligent, and undistracted. He wondered if he’d ever been as serious about anything when he was the boy’s age. Not likely.

 

The arrows lay in two piles, those without arrow heads and those he’d already completed. The latter pile was the larger; he’d made at least twenty so far, and judging by the speed he was going, he must’ve started soon after Logan had left. The arrows were simple but looked sturdy and effective. Long and straight, each was fletched with three feathers of black or brown, culminating in a broadhead point of two blades that formed a V tip at the end of the arrow.

 

“Pa is at the mines,” he said, not looking up.

 

“I see… those are impressive. I couldn’t do anything half as cool as that at your age,” Logan said.

 

Was the boy upset?

 

“They’re for hunting. Poppy taught Pa how to make them, and then he taught me. I want to go into the forest, but Pa won’t let me go alone, and he’s always working,” Ryan said.

 

Poppy must be his grandfather, he thought.

 

Ryan had made a rather forceful stroke with his knife as he said the last bit, cutting off more wood from the taper than he’d meant to.

 

“You came through the forest when you met me, didn’t you?”

 

He wanted to cheer the boy up. He also wanted the stew in the pot hanging over the fire, which was now just embers, but didn’t want to ask the angry boy with a knife to move so that he could get to it.

 

“That’s not the same. I want to hunt! Pa only takes me on the safe routes where no monsters go. He taught me how to shoot but won’t actually let me do it.”

 

Ryan had stopped working on the arrows and was visibly distraught.

 

“Poppy was brave. He helped the village, he protected everyone while they built the wall. He’s a hero! But Pa doesn’t care, he just says it’s too dangerous and to wait till I’m older.”

 

Logan contemplated this. His grandfather had probably died while defending the villagers, and his father had stopped hunting shortly thereafter, not wanting to follow Poppy to an early grave, especially with a child to take care of. He wondered what had happened to the boy’s mother.

 

Huck's reasoning made sense, but he could sympathize with Ryan who clearly idolized his noble “Poppy."

 

“It is dangerous, Ryan. Look,” Logan said as he moved closer to the boy and turned his arm towards him.

 

He’d cut the sleeve of his shirt and wrapped bandages around the wounds, but they were bloody, and the shoulder disfigured.

 

“Remember those rabbits your pa mentioned? This was from one of those.”

 

Ryan’s eyes lit up, looking from Logan’s shoulder to his face.

 

“You killed one? In the forest?” Ryan said, the anger gone from the boy’s voice, immediately replaced by pure adoration.

 

This was not going as planned.

 

“Um… Yeah. But it almost killed me, I only got out alive because of a healing potion I took from it,” Logan said, trying to temper the boy's excitement.

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Ryan’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull as he stared at Logan, mouth agape, as if he’d just watched a corpse rise from the dead and start doing cartwheels.

 

“You got a healing potion from a rabid rabbit?!” he asked.

 

Logan cringed from the volume of the question.

 

“Yes, is that really such a big deal?” he had a bad feeling about the answer.

 

“Nobody on this side of the Suko’s knows how to make real healing potions, even in Tarik. Pa told me that old man Kiens would pay ten silvers for even a lesser potion. Ten silvers!”

 

Ryan practically glowed with excitement.

 

He recognized the names as the mountain range and the larger town East of Woolam and guessed that “old man Kiens” must be the closest thing they had to a doctor or apothecary. If ten silver coins was a fabulously steep price for a one-of-a-kind item, then how much had the one hundred silvers been worth that he’d given Huck?

 

Logan’s suspicions about his looting ability, or whatever mechanism controlled the loot he received, grew.

 

“Well, I’m sure it wasn’t the real deal then…” he said, chuckling nervously.

 

His Analyze ability had told him it most certainly had been.

 

“By the way, do you know how much your dad makes working at the mines?” he asked.

 

Ryan looked puzzled by the question.

 

“I think forty or so bronze a day, why?”

 

Logan blanched. “No reason, just curious,” he said as he walked over to the fire and placed his hand against the wall, looking at the embers while he regained his bearing.

 

He’d given Huck more than eight months of pay. Either the people here were incredibly poor, or the steam fish and rabid rabbit had given him entirely too much coin. Or possibly both. Luckily, he’d learned not to flaunt his wallet early in the safety of the cabin, and not where his naivety could’ve gotten him robbed or worse.

 

“I’m going to take some stew and rest in the other room. I’ll talk to your pa when he gets back. I have a feeling he might let you join me the next time I go to the woods.”

 

Ryan ran over to Logan and wrapped his arms around him.

 

“Really? Thank you, Mr. Logan!”

 

Logan smiled and tousled Ryan's hair before retiring to his room.

 

The stew, though it was far closer to soup, was amazing. Huck had said it was a basic recipe, but to Logan it tasted incredible. Savory, the delicious umami expanded in his mouth, a complex yet simple flavor that, combined with its aroma and the chunks of perfectly tender steam fish, sent him into a heavenly bliss. In addition to sating his gnawing hunger, the meal also gave him an additional healing buff which, though minor, stacked on top of the one from the potion.

 

He’d been worried that Ryan’s death-grip embrace would’ve cancelled its effect, but luckily it had only crushed his organs just shy of the potion’s damage threshold. The pain in his shoulder had receded further and he felt that it’d be healed by the next morning. An injury like this would’ve taken months to heal on Earth, even with the advantage of modern technology. He was starting to see why this Kiens was so keen to get his hands on a potion; if he could learn to make these himself, that would be a huge step towards self-sufficiency.

 

He viewed the catalogue page in his menu and read the description of the second entry in the list, the Rabid Rabbit.

 

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