Almanac wasnt the only Skill that Edwin was working on improving. Firestarting had been a consistent problem for him since he first realized the Skills limitations. It affected sothing like a thirty-foot radius around him whenever it was enabled, which was great for keeping all his fires going at full blaze, less so when he wanted to make sothing specific burn, and nothing else.
Like, for instance, if he was trying to make incendiary grenades.
Hed figured out how to make what mostly amounted to firebombs through use of Firevine extract- two rocks inside a clay ball, along with a small asure of the ivys oil and a number of the sa plants leaves would break apart into puffs of fire. He didnt have enough extract to make anything like a Molotov cocktail, unfortunately, but if he could find so lamp oil or sothing he could redy that.
It didnt hold quite the sa punch that he would have wanted, though. Sure, fire was great and all, but he was skeptical that setting soone on fire would really cause lasting harm. Actually, he had evidence that it would, given how often he did set people ablaze as a finishing move with Firestarting, but he still wanted sothing with more force.
So, he turned to pinecones. If he soaked them in a mixture of sap and firevine extract, covered up the stickiness with firevine leaves- leaving a stem poking out to function as a fuse- then covered that with a thin layer of clay, he could set the fuse on fire with normal Firestarting, and it would reach the main body quickly enough that the entire pinecone would be on fire mid-flight. Testing in non-flammable areas showed that if he managed to apply Infused Firestarting to it, the grenade would detonate violently, resulting in an explosion of burning smoke and shrapnel.
He had two major obstacles to that goal. Firstly, that trying it anywhere other than on barren ground would probably set everything on fire. Secondly, he could only apply Mana Infusion to things he was touching, or nearly touching.
The forr he was slowly making progress on. Hed managed to bring the area of effect for Firestarting down from a sphere to a hemisphere through a colossal effort of will and Visualization, and he was confident he might be able to shrink that into a narrow cone in ti. It was just a matter of accomplishing it. In the anti, he could offset the problem by just pulsing Firestarting, kind of like how it was originally intended to be used, but it wasnt perfect as he still ran the risk of starting unrelated fires. At least he was able to shrink the radius it applied in, so he didnt have to worry about a stray ember sending his garden up in flas.
The second was a much bigger problem. Infusing the grenade beforehand actually proved detrintal, the mana from his Infusion presumably washing out so of the natural fire mana in the Firevine. Infusing the sap just made it stickier, and Infusing the pinecone had no apparent effect. No, he needed to Infuse it through Firestarting, the Skill apparently making his mana fire-attuned.
Eventually, he ca across a mostly workable solution.
As it turned out, he could Infuse Bomb Throwing. It had been an utter nightmare to figure out, and was the result of many, many days of doing nothing but trying to make the two Skills work together, but the results were mostly worth the effort and complexity, and when the explosion actually worked, the result was always super satisfying.
However, even just doing the Infusion itself was tricky. He needed to Infuse whatever his bomb was first, then feed it through Bomb Throwing- specifically instead of Throwing Weapons, the two felt very similar- then back into the Bomb. In that last bit of feedback, he could slip Firestarting in as an effect. What that ant was that after a semi-random amount of ti, Firestarting took effect and ignited whatever his bomb was. Even then, it usually wasnt Infused Firestarting, just the basic Skill, aning that after all that work, a good 3/4th of the ti it wasnt a proper explosion so much as it was just a tiny fireball with a bit of clay shrapnel.
He had more work to do. He always had more work to do.
It took even more work to figure out how to sustain two Infusions at the sa ti, and even once he did it still took intense concentration to actually pull off- and thus not terribly useful under pressure- but when he did manage it, he was treated to the wonderful sight of his makeshift grenade exploding midair. Or on the ground. Or right after it left his hand.
.So he still had so work to do. Well, as the end of sumr rolled around and the biting chill of autumn set in, he was happy to be playing with fire.
While Edwin had originally expected that he would need another trip or two into Vinstead to get supplies, he hadnt accounted for two- well, really three- variables.
The first was Survival. He could go a week without feeling so much as a pang of hunger so long as he wasnt too active. The second was his activity level. Once he finished building up Obairlann, he just wasnt as physically active as before. Sure, he still went for runs- and always took his stick with him, just in case- but those were rapidly becoming almost trivially easy as Athletics and Walking boosted his physical efficiency to incredible levels. The third was how much food he and Inion managed to grow in their tiny little garden.
All in all, it ant that with the addition of a few deers worth of jerky slow-roasted over his fire, Edwin had plenty of food as fall slowly drew to a close. There were a few minor things, like yeast, that he could benefit from, but nothing was critical enough for him to take the multi-day trip it would take to get there and back. Plus, he didnt want to put Inion through that ordeal again. Shed steadfastly said that it wasnt so bad that she wouldnt go with him again for whatever reason, but Edwin couldnt believe that literally losing color was good for her.
Inion wouldnt tell him what her plan was when he finally left for good, whether she was staying back at Obairlann or tagging along with him sohow, and he didnt press the issue. Odds were decent she hadnt made up her mind yet.
Yeah. On one hand, she stays here and is bored, the other way she has to put up with .
Another part of Edwin said that it wasnt that bad, and that she did like him well enough that traveling with him wouldnt be putting up with him. Edwin hoped it was more the latter. Hed been in this position before, where a friend was just trying to humor him because they were nice and he wasnt sure that Inion wasnt in a similar position. He was willing to try, though.
He had many flaws, but a lack of social persistence wasnt quite one of them. Or so he liked to think, anyway.
Inion would most likely abandon him as soon as she had a viable alternative, but he didnt want to think about that. He was probably just worrying over nothing, anyway.
Where was I? Oh, right. Trips to Vinstead.
There was no real rush to return to civilization, not with all he already had, and enough reasons to avoid it that Edwin figured he could just buckle down and try to survive the winter. It had actually rained a few tis over the sumr and fall, wispy clouds forming and sprinkling water across the land, but he could still count the number of tis on one hand.
So, probably not going to be a harsh winter. At least, no snow. It might get chilly, but nothing like Edwin hadnt dealt with many tis before. Honestly, if he wasnt trying to be productive, he could most likely legitimately hibernate, just sleep the winter away with a use of Sleeping, Survival, and Nutrition.
He had sothing much better to spend his ti on, though.
He wanted to fly.
Now, while the ideal case would be to unlock a Skill for it once he succeeded, letting him improve magically, he couldnt accept it before he finished his tier-up. So, hed have to figure out how to unlock the Skill now, then dismiss it and re-earn it once the year was up, then train it up until it hit level 60 or more, evolve it, and then level its evolution up to whatever level the rest of his Skills were at by that point.
Yeah, he wasnt looking forward to that. There was a reason he needed to be so selective about his Skill choices, now more than ever. He wanted higher-tier Skills, darn it, no matter how much every Skill ever might give him sothing amazing once it evolved. Sothing that was amazing from the start would just keep getting amazing. Thats what everyone told him. Even Lefi, for that matter.
But he was getting ahead of himself. First, he needed to learn how to fly. And to do that, he would need to level Packing.
So far as he was able to tell, Packing currently reduced the weight of whatever he carried by about 95%, so he had to actually carry 1/20th of whatever he lifted. Air was about 1.2 kilos per cubic ter, and humans were slightly more dense than water, putting him at a thousand kilos per cubic ter.
That ant he still had so ways to go before he could properly lift himself with Packing and potentially fly (or rather, swim through the air), but if he was able to assemble a backpack that was about 80 cubic ters in volu, so long as the average density of the backpack and him combined was less than 7 kilos per cubic ter, he would be neutrally buoyant in the air.
Hed tried assembling a really big backpack by making a canvas-covered cube and strapping it to his back, then jumping off the cliff above Obairlann and trying to see if it slowed his fall at all. It wouldnt be enough for buoyancy, sure, but if he could lighten the air he should at least feel the effects as he fell.
It seed like it couldnt be cheated like that, sadly. Hed plumted to the ground about as fast as he should normally, once you adjusted for a massive wooden-frad backpack/parachute on his back anyway.
Inion had enjoyed the resulting splash into her pond, and Edwin enjoyed the fact he had spare clothes to change into while his other outfit was drying.
Dreams of flight notwithstanding, Inion had managed to co up with a number of creative training regis for him. She could be so nice at tis he almost forgot he needed to not trust her, but that was a serious mistake. Now that his Skills had passed level 60, it, according to her, took serious effort and required him to push the Skills in new directions to actually level them at any kind of half-decent rate. Which was how he ended up with so utterly brutal weeks.
With no warning, Inion started waking him up partway through the night, held him under her waterfall with a cloth over his face, and made him breathe through her literal waterboarding and fall asleep while doing it. She blindfolded him and threw magical ice at him, making him try and puzzle out where it was coming from solely with Basic Mana Sense and dodge it. Once he had that figured out, she stuck his feet in place by burying him up to his shins in mud and freezing it, making him exercise Flexibility to try and keep avoiding being hit.
She once joked that she had a more enjoyable way to train Flexibility, and while he nearly gave in and accepted, he had first joked that shed need to twist his arm more than that to get him to agree.
Sadly, she took it literally, and didnt ask again afterwards. Pity. He could have used so fun after he de-dislocated his shoulder.
Identify she trained in a similar manner. Apparently, using it didnt actually require sight so long as he could, well, identify what the target was. So, as part of her last level of training, he was forced to yell out to her which chunk of ice she threw at him, while he was blindfolded with his feet frozen in mud, then have to actually dodge the annoyingly accurate projectiles. Visualization helped there, actually, as he was able to slowly build up a ntal picture of the space, and helped him process the input from his sixth sense. Supposedly Perception would help with that, but he didnt have that attribute yet, but it was quickly moving up his list for what he wanted.
He was starting to regret not taking her up on her offer without sarcasm, but ah well. He wasnt about to ask. Much too awkward, no matter the prize, which by itself was still probably not the best idea.
Once he had graduated from thatpermutation, she changed it up so her final version of the training started mixing nonmagical projectiles in, which he had to listen for and Identify, then use that information to dodge the attack. She tried not giving him any warning at one point, just throwing her training tools at him without shouting she had thrown sothing, but, well he had at least gotten First Aid levels out of that debacle.
It was hard enough figuring out where to dodge from, never mind if.
Inions Walking training wasnt as bad, but running across slick rocks up and down the cliff was not pleasant. Then Packing training got added in, and hed have to do it while also carrying a full-sized tree.
Edwin dreaded what dedicated First Aid training would look like, but at least he didnt have to worry about that yet. Even his largest bruises faded overnight, and a broken ankle took a day to heal once he whipped up a basic healing potion from talsanenris berries and a miniscule amount of molai mixed with sinbalyne.
The forr provided the basis for the magical healing by unleashing a massive wave of energy and speeding up his tabolism, molai absorbed and slowly released magical energy, preventing him from being hit by all the effects of the healing berries, and the last, when properly prepared and applied helped encourage blood flow to his feet, concentrating the effect there. It had been an experintal potion, but certainly a rousing success.
It did leave his foot swollen for three days after the break was healed, purely from the increased activity and blood flow, so it still required so work. Still, he got a whole Alchemy level for that discovery, and those were getting harder and harder to co by.
There was a large part of him that wondered just how much his Alchemy skill was covering for him, if it was filling in for poor technique, imprecise asurents, or even totally missing ingredients. Inion could rarely replicate his results, but she also, ironically, didnt have the sa level of patience for brewing that he did. She also claid that her own personal magic would ss with things, and that just part of magic- including alchemy- was literally finding what did or didnt work for soone.
He put his rant notes on that subject in his Almanac. Not that he expected the mods to sohow patch it or anything, but it didnt hurt to give them the option to.
It was also about that ti that he discovered his Alchemy skill hadnt been applying to his sinbalyne knockout potion, resulting in the weaker product. That was redied by adding a tiny drop of talsanenris juice and gently heating the mixture while he stirred for about a minute. Afterwards, if he got so much as a drop of the stuff on him, hed pretty much instantly black out. It didnt last long- a few minutes at most- but firmly knocked him unconscious nonetheless. If he actually swallowed any, hed be out cold for a day or more.
Edwin wasnt sure why it changed from being an inhaled poison to a contact or ingested one beyond alchemy stuff, but he made sure to prepare vials of both versions. Maybe he could turn the normal liquid into a smoke bomb or sothing.
That discovery only served to further muddle what exactly the Alchemy skill did. Did it just directly enhance the potency of his creations? It would fit with his observations, if potentially insignificant effects were magnified into appearing.
Inion made him train Survival with a combination of cutting down trees (She tried to get him to rip them out of the ground to help with Packing, but it didnt work. So she just made him carry them one-handed while she rode on the branches instead.) and going without food for extended periods of ti, then Nutrition by force-feeding him truly awful foods, utterly subli food, literal dirt, and food that just looked like dirt. He wasnt sure what the point of that last one was, though.
Actually, he wasnt sure what the point of any of those had been, but Inion swore she was helping him train Nutrition. She refused to clarify when or how that was the case, though, so he was skeptical.
In comparison, Mathematics was a dream to level. He just kept running more and more complicated nurical functions into his ntal calculator, plugging it all into Visualization.
Well, it was a dream to level at first. Then Inion had caught on and, as her final addition to her stone throwing training, made him plot the trajectories of her projectiles on top of telling her which ones were which and still dodging them all. He eventually got very, very good at dodging projectiles, and as an interesting side effect, calculating where a given throw of his attacks would land beca almost second nature.
It was because of that that Edwin realized there was so kind of force being applied to his throws, which just smoothed out their arcs regardless of wind or air turbulence, if he slipped while throwing sothing, or more. He so desperately wished that he could still be leveling Throwing Weapons, but he also didnt regret his decision to evolve it when he did. Odds were good that whatever bonus it granted explosives was what helped him get out from the Blackstones as well as he did.
To level Purify, Edwin had to co up with new purification thods, whose required equipnt conveniently tended to help with Construction. In particular, he vaguely rembered a spinning-wheel toy centrifuge that was being used to test for malaria or sothing.
He didnt know how to do that, but his version was at least able to reliably separate oil from water without his Skill applying, and separate the different forms of blood with his Skills. It was kind of satisfying, explaining the components of blood to Inion who had no clue about any of it. He got a First Aid level for it as well, which was even nicer.
The final level so far for Inions ice-throwing training now included Harvesting, and she would include so small trinket in each ice crystal, and he would (still blindfolded) have to Identify which projectile was flying at him, figure out where it was and where it would be, dodge out of the way, and now use his knife to cut out the prize.
He had no chance, at least not until Inion allowed him to catch the crystals and started throwing at a much slower rate than before.
I take back every nice thing Ive ever said about you. Edwin panted after one particularly grueling training session, wincing as he dabbed healing salve on the hole in his hand.
Inion frowned, Have you ever said anything nice about ?
Its the thought that counts, so Im counting nice thoughts Ive had about you. He decided.
Inion just laughed. Edwin wasnt sure whether he loved or hated that laugh.
Probably both.
It was, blessedly, a day off for Edwin. Well, as much of a day off as he ever gave himself. He was fully healed from his latest bout of training, Inion was off wandering the woods doing sothing, and the sun was shining. He sat by his kiln fire, reveling in the sounds of nature as he tended to the flas. Day off or no, he still had work to do. It was just a question of how painful that work was.
He actually had an idea for how he might be able to improve both Construction and Harvesting at the sa ti. Wood carving, and possibly rock chiseling, seed like it might be in the conceptual overlap between the two Skills, and he was eager to give it a try.
Edwin reached down and grabbed a log to work on, tugging it free- hang on, it was caught on sothing. Ah, it was embedded in the ground, and Packing never helped with anything even partially buried for whatever reason. Most likely, trying to lift the entire planet was beyond the scope of its weight-reduction capabilities.
Edwin freed up his other hand and wrapped it around the wood, yanking on it. Oh co on, was it stuck on sothing as well as being buried? He gave it one last giant pull to try and clear it, and as he wasnt expecting it to actually work, he was knocked off-balance as the tree trunk switched from being not carried to being firmly affected by Packing, shedding several hundred pounds all at once.
He most definitely wasnt expecting the action to save his life, as a crossbow bolt whizzed right towards his throat, only intercepted by the massive chunk of wood, striking and embedding itself up to the fletching in the bark.
Edwin reacted in the blink of an eye, mass-Identifying everything in the direction the bolt had co from, suddenly thankful for Inions tutelage in that matter. Amidst the flood of aningless Almanac popups, a single notification caught his eye.
Darkshadow Contract Hunter
Level Up!
Skill Points 10651279
Progress to Tier 2: 1362/1770 (Avg level: 66/77)
Alchemy 69 78
Athletics 64 69
Basic Mana Sense 57 68
Bomb Throwing 17 31
Breathing 61 66
Construction 61 68
Firestarting 68 77
First Aid 52 71
Flexibility 47 63
Harvesting 59 66
Identify 53 62
Mana Infusion 7173
Mathematics 53 65
mory 4349
Nutrition 4959
Outsiders Almanac 102 111
Packing 58 73
Polyglot 52 55
Purify 58 63
Seeing 44 58
Sleeping 51 61
Survival 61 65
Visualization 61 67
Walking 55 62
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