Chapter 40: You Want to Follow Me?

Spring passed and with it came the summer. The day of the wedding was about a month away from today's date. I already had both poisons and I learned new things in all the arts I trained. In the art of stealth, I managed to uncover some of the secrets of the "avoid the light" skill that I observed from some of the fishes. I wasn't able to find the exact method but watching the fishes everyday gave me some ideas.

The best guess I had was the way fish moved and absorbed the light. Because the fish made many changes in a second, it was able to adjust to the light in such a way that it became less visible or at least it's scales were not illuminated. The fishes couldn't disappear like Nick did. He could meld into the shadows and I could not feel his presence at all.

The fishes in the pond I created only knew how to avoid the light to make themself not stand out. But that was already improvement. I learned that if I make loads of changes in my movement, I could then become less visible or rather more plain to others. That in itself is a type of stealth. The less you stand out the better it is for you, if you want to be stealthy.

Putting on black clothes or whatever will make people suspicious but if you can actually become like a pebble on the road people will not notice you naturally. I decided that this was a path worth exploring and trying out. Of course it was not the answer to the problem I had. I need to find other inspirations and maybe animals or phenomenons that would allow me to accomplish the "avoid the light" part of the art.

I released all the fishes in the pond as I could learn nothing else by studying them. The weird thing was, the turtle went out of the water when it saw me releasing the fishes and walked over. I wasn't scared of a turtle. With my strength, I could destroy it with one punch and I had daggers on me as well.

On the contrary to what I thought, the turtle came over and stared at me. Of course I knew turtles can't talk and therefore I looked at it and wondered 'What does it want?'. The answer came unexpected really, it laid down and yawned. I got confused even more and wondered 'What the hell is this turtle on about?'. I decided to just leave. My study with the fishes were done and the turtle could now do whatever it wanted.

When I walked couple of steps, I could hear the turtle moving and then walking behind me. 'What the hell is going on?' I thought to myself. I looked at the turtle and said out loud as if it could understand me "Are you following me?" to my surprise the turtle nodded.

Just this action alone blew my mind. 'This turtle understood me!' I screamed in my mind. I tried again "Why do you want to follow me?" to which the turtle made some sound, then opened and closed its mouth couple of times. I was shocked again. 'This turtle can really understand, it tred to answer! I think he is trying to say that he wants to go with me'. I said to the turtle "If you want to go with me, then come" and I left the river.

I sometimes looked back and saw that the turtle was always behind me. When I entered the village, many people wanted to get the turtle for its meat. The turtle would stand next to me in that situation and I explained that it belongs to me. The villagers were not really happy and some tried force but after knocking out couple of them, they stopped interfering.

All the villagers knew I was no longer a slave and I could fight back. I was quite strong in their eyes because I did all these jobs and also became a blacksmith. While I was walking in the village, I thought to myself 'The food should not be a problem, it eats one or two fishes a day. It can hunt by itself, I would just have to be there to make sure no people harm it. It can sleep in my house so again no problem with that… I should get some hay for it to sleep on, the fields outside the village should have plenty of that'.

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I went to the fields and gathered some hay. Then I went back to my house and laid the hay in one corner. I said to the turtle "This is where I live, so if you want to follow me you will stay here". To my surprise the turtle nodded its head and went towards the hay to lay down. It seemed to be comfortable on the hay and so I left it there and went back to my training with stealth.

I tried to apply the movements that the fish was making into my own movements. I tried to be ordinary. I noticed that it was impossible for me to do the same thing as a fish. I had to figure out a different way.

I experimented with that thought for couple of hours before I came up with an idea. I needed to move in such a way that resembled the person or people I tried to avoid. For example if some villages that were farmers were walking around, I would have to become a farmer and blend with them. This didn't mean that I needed to look like farmer or work as one. It meant that if someone looked at me, they would assume I was a farmer because of the character and behaviour. I called it "Aura Copy" skill. If I could copy the aura or the person I wanted to become, I would be able to avoid being suspicious because people would just assume I was a simple worker or something like that.

I would need to learn gestures, the way certain people walk, how they behave, how they talk and so on. All of that would create something I called aura. All groups of people had different auras for example farmers had specific aura and guards had a specific aura as well. If I learned to copy them, I could become anyone. That way no one would suspect me.

It wasn't the "avoid the light" type of skill but it would be useful nevertheless because it would allow me to blend in without any cover or shadows. I went out to the fields to examine the behaviour and what not of the farmers. Farmer was a popular profession and if I could learn how to imitate the aura of farmers, I would be able to fool loads of people.

This would take awhile to learn all the habits and such, therefore I was in no rush. Late in the afternoon, I returned to my house and awaited Nick for the training in art of hidden weapons. After about an hour of waiting, Nick finally showed up. He was confused as to why there is a turtle sleeping on hay in my room and so he asked "What's up with this turtle?" to which I said "I used it to figure some things out in the art of stealth. I already have an idea how to proceed with a new skill". Nick was still confused and asked again "Yes, but what is it doing here?" to which I said "When I finished with my stuff at the river, it went out of the water and followed me. It can actually understand human language! I asked it if it wanted to follow me and the turtle nodded". Nick was a bewildered as much as I was when I found out that the turtle could understand me. Nick then said "So it understands human speech? That is not unheard of when it comes to smart animals but to find such here… Anyway, now you have a pet. Take care of it well. Usually these pets are rare and can help their masters a lot".

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I said to Nick "It's just a turtle, what can it do besides eating and sleeping? Even if it can understand what I say, there is no advantages to that". Nick retorted "That is not true. If you train it well, it can be much more useful than you think. Just find the best uses for this turtle. In other words, find its strengths and weaknesses, then train it accordingly".

I nodded my head. Nick was more knowledgeable than me so he was probably saying this for my own benefit. We then started the training in the art of hidden weapons. I could now hit the puppet sometimes with one dagger but I was not using one. I had to aim at 3 puppets at the same time and throw my daggers at 3 targets simultaneously.

It was very hard to do so but thanks to the constant training and Nick's nagging, I had some improvements.

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