Taji looked puzzled. "Solar Bloom? That is a farming skill. Farmers use it to accelerate the growth of their crops."

"Yes, but is it just crops, or also their livestock?" This was critical to me.

"I am not sure. It is definitely crops, but the farmer who sells the skill to me did say the whole farm was healthier. The word Bloom definitely means to flourish and to grow healthy. Solar obviously refers to the sun. It is an area skill. Are you going to settle down here with a piece of land? It is an effect-over-time skill as well."

That was a risk. I don't want to grow crops, but everything else is right. Connected to the Sun, and a growth skill instead of a destructive skill. Even if it only did crops, I was sure I could learn something from it.

"That is what I want," I said, "Soothe Burn, Extract Impurity, Revitalise and Solar Bloom for two levels of Tremor."

"Oh, that is a bit much," Taji said. "Three levels, and that's a yes."

"Come on. There are not many farmers here. How long have you been holding on to Solar Bloom? Two levels, and I will throw in some gold."

I am starting to get the hang of this bargaining thing. We came to an agreement, and I am sure I still paid too much. As a Skill Trainer, I am sure he gave himself some merchant skills, but I was happy.

I learned Extract Impurities and Soothe Burn first, then Taji extracted Tremor. I use the term extract as that is what it felt like. Taji used the term Transcribe. From his perspective, that is what he was doing: transcribing the spiritual energy from the skill into a book. Or maybe that was just the name of his skill.

From my perspective, I had to let him in and lower my spiritual defences. The first time was the worst, and I felt like my brain and my whole being were vibrating as the energy left piece by piece.

After the first five minutes, he commented, "This is harder than normal. " I was not really paying much attention, but was my Spiritual Toughness making this harder, too?

It took him an hour of struggle to transcribe a skill that should have taken half the time. The second version only took half an hour, but that was still double the time it should have.

Taji ended up with a Tremor Skill book that could be used twice, and I was a wreck for the day. Taji left me to rest in the small room with some food and drink as he went out to teach a class on Monster Lore.

I just lay there listening with my Hearing Aid, and I learned a couple of things, but not enough to level anything. I drifted to sleep at one point. When I woke up, he was tutoring someone in Mathematics.

I made my way home after that, glad I had Felix with me.

I returned the next day. Taji ran me through Revitalise first. This was a short burst of energy skill. It took the longest time yet. It seemed like shots of energy shooting through me.

I took a long break as Taji had a class. I listened in on his introduction to Metallurgy, but the subject was not of huge interest to me.

He thought the Solar Bloom was going to be the hardest for me, as it was so different from everything else. It was the easiest of them all. It wasn't the shortest, but it was the easiest. It just matched, it just slotted into place as if it were part of me. There was basically no adjustment needed.

Now, I have a new direction for my search in the Lore Society. I will search for all the skills related to astral objects, get clues from them, and hopefully learn them.

Solar Bloom was a farming skill. In the novice levels, its main effect was on plants, but not completely. It also slightly promotes the health of other living things. From the Apprentice levels, I can focus more on a direction. It is not a health aura, so it won't heal anything quickly, but it is something that will boost plants and creatures to be healthy over time. It is slow acting.

However, Solar Bloom slots right in with my Cosmic Aura and the cost is greatly reduced, and by Journeyman level, it will basically be free. The greatest effect will always be on plants, but there will be positive benefits to those in my aura.

Solar Bloom was also going to be easy to level, as I could just have it on in my Aura without depleting my energy much.

"Hello, my friend. Are you interested in earning some coin?" The speaker was a well-dressed dwarf. He seemed a bit … slimy, is the word.

"That depends on what I have to do," I responded.

"Well, I heard you beat up some thugs the other day. Want to do that again, and I will pay you to do it."

"If you have some thugs annoying you, put a protection contract out through the Mercenary Guild," I said, purposely misunderstanding.

"Ah, no. We have some fights where you will get paid to fight in front of an audience. You can show off your skills and get paid for it."

I frowned. "Injuries happen. What healing is available?"

"We have discounted healing potions for fighters. You will be fine, after all, I hear you are good at dishing out the hurt."

"Some more coins would be good. Say I am interested. What happens then?"

"I will sign you up this weekend. Gold for your first fight. Obviously, there is more if you win."

I pretended to think about it, but I was not a good actor. "I could try it and see how it goes." Then it was only a matter of sorting the details.

He was a little disappointed to know my Small Blades was only apprentice-level, so he must be paid more for Journeyman skills. They do Unarmed, Small Blades, and Anything Goes categories at Apprentice and Journeyman. They also have something called a Melee, which is a free-for-all fight. I passed on that for now.

I could see many ways people could exploit their category system, from an Unarmed expert dominating small blades to people with multiple classes dominating with attributes. Arranging fair fights was probably not a big priority for them.

Anyway, I was in. After my first fight, I would ditch 'Jack' as my sponsor and second and pick up Jinx. I am reasonably sure Jack will arrange a reasonably fair fight for my first one if they want me to keep coming back. My job will be to put on a show for them.

That night, Kiri and I were invited to Yoboc and Goldie's new house for dinner. Kevin and Kahz were also there, but Makara declined. They had bought the house in a nice area of town, near one of the city gates. It had two floors above ground and two floors below. It wasn't a mansion, but it was made from solid stone. The ground floor was for living. There were two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs. The second basement was a storage area.

There was a large garden area where Goldie could plant some herbs. When she found out about my Solar Bloom, she had me try it. She was planning a trip to Taji to see if he had a second copy.

It was nice, and they seemed happy with their decision to retire here. They had started a small business escorting hunters and would take the odd job through the Mercenary Guild.

It reminded me of the time. We only had about a month, maybe six weeks, before the Chelonians arrive. After that, Yoboc and Goldie were going for an extended hike to explore around the area.

Yoboc was also starting to think about another bond. "Maybe a dog like Felix," he said. I saw Goldie grimace.

They were settling in and were very happy, or as happy as Goldie would ever be.

The next few days were busy for me. I increased my sparring with Kiri and Kevin. Kevin was getting fast and had several speed skills to counter the attribute imbalance. He will only get faster.

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I searched the Lore Society Skill section and found a few moon-based skills. Lunar Veil is a veil that would hide you and complement the Camouflage skills, but it can only be used at night. When I read that, I thought it was possibly mistaken, and it could only be used when one of the moons was up. Moons are up during the day, and my Astral map has them well pinpointed. There were no hints about how to learn it.

Lunar Blessing was an empowering area of effect that boosted speed and evasion skills. Reflective Moon will create a copy of something out of moonlight.

Then I found Tideshaper. That was interesting as the author used it to sync with the moon's pull and shape water into whirlpools and water shields. The author noted that it was similar to a water affinity. I felt they were grossly limiting their effect. The moon's pull was gravity, countering the Earth's gravity. This was a gravity-shaping skill, and could be so much more than just moving water around.

Again, there were no hints about how to learn it, but with my Cosmic Aura sensing gravity, I had a number of leads. I could now sense when the moons were high from the weakened gravity. Starting with water was a big clue.

There was a skill called Whispering Void, but I don't think it was a true void skill. It was a mental skill that sows confusion with voices whispering in the mind. The void was empty, not whispers.

There were no further void skills listed. Then, I took a page from Solar Bloom and looked at different crafting skills. Blacksmithing had a high-attribute skill called Solar Flame, which can be used to work with highly resistant Spiritual Metals. I didn't have the attributes yet to control the flame, particularly in Spiritual Agility. I figured I would get there, and it would be relatively easy to learn when I did.

This was probably a reason I had so little control over Solar Flare.

Time to take stock of where I was.

Ivan Medved Level Physical Mental Spiritual Totals Free Str Agi Per Str Agi Per Str Agi Per Base Attributes 15 12 13 13 8 10 14 9 10 104 Earned Attributes 5 5 7 8 12 5 6 3 6 57 Hunter Scavenger B 11 11 11 14 5 3 44 0 Kill Thief S 3 3 4 5 12 0 Explorer S 2 2 1 2 2 3 10 0 Mass Executioner S 1 1 2 1 1 5 0 Guard B 8 8 8 8 10 4 2 40 0 Field Medic B 1 1 1 1 3 0 Totals 39 37 47 23 23 17 36 23 30 275 0 Constitution 123 63 89

Resistances: Cold +37, Pain +9, Heat +30, Fire +18, Poison +1

Skills:

Novice:

General

Cooking 4, Trapping 2, Spiritual Manipulation 4, Mask Status 4, Ocean Camouflage 4, Endurance Running 4, Butchering 4, Navigator 3, Alpine Camouflage 3, Forest Camouflage 2, Blood Clot 2, Close Wound 2, Extract Impurities 1, Soothe Burn 1, Revitalise 1, Solar Bloom 1,

Fighting

Senses

Lore

Troglobite Lore 3, Sapient Lore 4, Alpine Lore 4,

Astral

Astral Map 4, Astral Navigator 4,

Apprentice:

General

Fishing 7, Identify 8, Drawing 9, Subterranean Camouflage 5, Breath Control 9, Weapon Repair 5, Skinning 7, Dread 7, Swift Hands 5, Tremor 8,

Fighting

Quick Claws 9, Spear 8, Throw Weapons 8, Axe 9, Small Blades 8, Spiritually Tough 6, Seismic Smash 8, Death Strike 6, Crushing Bite 6, Damage Mitigation 6, Knife Throw 5

Senses

Clearsight 9, Hearing Aid 7

Lore

Arctic Lore 9, Herb Lore 7, Mineral Lore 7, Organ Lore 9, Bone Lore 7, Physics Lore 5,

Astral

Frigid Void 9, Void Sensing 9, Solar Flare 6,

Journeyman:

General

Common 13, Sprint 10, Arctic Camouflage 10, Transform 11, Carving 11, Stealth 10, Dwarvish 12, Mining 10, Animal Bond 11, Map 13, Tracking 10, Literacy 11, First Aid 10,

Fighting

Shield 10, Unarmed Combat 11, Tough Hide 10,

Senses

Olfactory 11, Spiritual Sensing 11,

Lore

Animal Lore 11, Plant Lore 10, Anatomy 11, Monster Lore 10, Physiology 10, Mathematics 11,

Astral

Cosmic Aura 11,

Master:

Senses

Nightsight 15,

Affinity: Astral

Monster Kills: 20

Bond

Felix. Huskie Dog.

Resistances: Cold, Pain, Heat, Fire,

Skills:

Novice:

Tracking, Crushing Bite,

Apprentice:

Power Running, Nightsight, Stalk, Sprint, Frigid Void,

Journeyman:

Endurance Running, Team Leader, Bond, Olfactory,

Affinity:

Astral

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