My recovery from the Hobgoblin fight was progressing smoothly but in the meantime, I had to wait and stay cooped up in my room. I passed the time by catching up on my journal and getting to know my new friend.
He was the son of the village guard captain and the grandson of the village doctor. He liked to practice his swordsmanship and potion craft and read a book in his free time.
Now, when he said potion craft, I imagined a witch's caldron boiling and him having to add an eye of newt with the toes of a frog, but it was much less mystical than that.
Potion craft, or alchemy, depending on who you ask, is essentially just chemistry. Well, chemistry is the closest approximation that I can make to it.
Ouka brought some of his supplies to my room when I asked him about it, and what he showed me was interesting. He would take some herbs and grind them into a paste. Then he would take the paste, spread it out, and put it out into the sun to dry.
In the meantime, he would bring some water to a boil along with some more herbs before pouring it over the dried paste and mixing it in a cask. He would let it sit for a few days in the dark and then bottle the mixture.
After the multistep process, he would have a nice potion which he would then make me drink. The funny thing is that it worked.
The potion that he gave sped up my recovery process by a ton. That combined with the fact that I couldn't do anything but my breathing exercises, and I was almost completely healed after just a few days.
I tried to have Ouka teach me how to make the potions myself, but after a full day of banging my head against the concepts he was trying to teach me, I gave up.
I was never great at chemistry, or school in general, if I'm honest, so I'm not too surprised that everything he tried to explain went over my head, but I was still disappointed.
"I'm sorry, Leon. I… I just don't know how else to explain it," Ouka apologized to me after a particularly disastrous attempt at trying to grind the herb. Grind too hard and it was unusable, not hard enough and it ended up turning the potion into a gel.
"Don't worry about it. It's not your fault, I promise. I'm sorry I used up the last of your herbs trying to do this right. Do you think we can go get more?" I asked.
"Sure, I'll have to ask my dad before we leave, though. He's been pretty scared of letting me outside the walls," Ouka responded in a low voice.
"Alrighty then, what are we waiting for? Onward we go!" I said before picking a direction.
"Wrong way," Ouka corrected me, and we were on our way.
We found Papa Ouka, I got to ask his name at some point, in the guard house and he was predictably and understandably less than pleased with our suggestion.
"Absolutely not! Not even a week ago, you almost died on one of those trips, and now you want to go again?! NO, NO, NO! We have more than enough herbs. If you need more, ask your grandfather for some of his stash, but you are not going out again!" His yell shook the whole shack before he pushed us out and slammed the door closed.
Okua and I stood there in stunned silence before turning to look at each other. A few moments passed before Ouka woodenly turned around and began walking away.
"L-let's go a-ask my grandfather," His voice was trembling and his footsteps were unsteady as I followed along. My ears hurt now.
Ouka's grandfather was in his clinic, the only clinic in town. It was a rather large two-story building made of wood and brick. Walking in, we saw that Ouka's grandfather was currently treating a sick man who looked to be middle-aged.
Ouka's grandfather listened to the man tell him his symptoms, nodding along before handing the man a pouch of what I am assuming was medicine. The man nodded before bowing and leaving on shaky legs and a mild cough.
"Ouka, what can I do for you, my boy?" Ouka's grandfather smiled when he noticed us standing in the doorway, which caused Ouka to flinch.
"Um… Y-you see w-we were wondering if maybe… maybe we could-" Ouka began stuttering and shuffling his feet.
I cut in, "We needed to go get some more herbs. Can we go?"
"Hm, yes, I suppose you can. Here's the pass, be back before dark," Ouka's grandfather handed us a piece of paper. I wanted to grab it, but my hand only grasped the air.
"Oh, and one more thing," Ouka's grandfather paused just as he was about to hand me the paper. He stared into my eyes and gave me a serious look. "Promise me you'll keep my grandson safe."
"Don't worry, Grandpa! I promise I'll beat up anything that gets close," I smiled as I took the piece of paper from the old man, before turning back towards Ouka. He did seem to be paying attention again, so I waved the piece of paper in front of him.
"Let's go! I want to get back in time to take a bath," I grabbed Ouka's arm and started dragging him away. You don't know how enjoyable hot baths are until you can't take one.
After literal months of bathing in a river, a hot bath was the best thing I could have asked for, and I would not miss it.
So, off we went. We passed through the town gate with no trouble from the guards; their faces were weird when we handed them the piece of paper, but otherwise, they hardly reacted to us.
I followed Ouka through the forest path, keeping an eye out for anything that sounded suspicious, but I only heard the singing of birds off in the distance.
After maybe a thirty-minute walk, we came across our first herb. It was growing next to a tall tree in a small clearing.
Ouka went over and gently picked it with a small twist. When I asked why he picked it like that instead of just ripping it he said, "The herb is very delicate. If you rip you could make the whole thing lose its medical properties".
"This is a good one, it should be able to make at least five potions," Ouka said with a smile after studying the herb for a moment.
I mentally flipped open the manual to the page where it showed the herb and found that it was identical to what I was looking for. Jackpot.
"Come on, let's see if we can find any more. I want to try something with them when we get back," I let out a cheer which Ouka copied and led the way deeper into the forest.
Hours passed and we had gathered about ten herbs total when the sun got low in the sky. Ouka looked at it and let out a hum before turning to me.
"We should probably go back now. We have a good chunk of herbs, and it's getting late enough that we might run into monsters." He gave the surroundings a look and shifted a bit where he stood.
"Hm, let's go then. We don't want to be late then, do we? Though, would it kill you to relax a little? Nothing gonna happen while I'm here, trust me," I patted his shoulder which just made him jump again.
"H-ha ha yeah you're right. I have a friend to watch my back now, it would be hard for the goblins to sneak up on us." Ouka let out a weak laugh as he still kept looking around.
The walk back was a silent one, the sounds of our footsteps breaking through the peaceful sounds of the forest. Unfortunately, this world couldn't let us go back without something going wrong.
The howls of wolves broke the peace of the forest causing me and Ouka to freeze. The howls sounded close and judging by the shuffling of leaves and footsteps I could hear approaching us, the wolves would be right on top of us any moment.
"We need to run, now!" Ouka shouted before he pushed me and led me through the foliage. As much as I wanted to stay and see if I could fight against the beats, I wasn't going to put Ouka at risk by being an idiot.
So, there we were rushing through the thick foliage trying to outrun a pack of wolves. Both of us looking around for danger.
Unfortunately, when Ouka looked back to check our surroundings, his foot caught a tree stump and he fell hard.
I jumped back to him to help him up, hoping we wouldn't lose our lead and let the wolves catch up.
My hopes were quickly dashed when a massive wolf hopped out of the forest and stood right in front of us with its teeth bared, blocking our path.
The delay was enough time for the pack to appear and block the rest of our escape routes. The five wolves circled us slowly, waiting for their chance.
The wolves were massive, with dark purple hair and red eyes that glowed with intelligence and hunger. As I observed them I realized these were probably not the ordinary wolves I was familiar with.
"Damn it! Direwolves, this is ridiculous. Why the hell are they this close to town, and why did we have to run into them?!" Ouka lamented as he drew a shortsword from his side.
"Direwolves? How are they different from normal wolves?" I asked as I circled and put my back to Ouka, making sure to lock eyes with the wolves so they didn't think I wasn't paying attention.
"They are stronger and tougher than normal wolves. They have a magic stone in the center of their chest about three inches deep. If you break it, they will disappear," Ouka quickly filled me in.
"Got it! Ouka, I'm going to grapple with one of them. After that, you come over and stab your sword into their stone." I quickly gave Ouka the plan, though his response was less than comforting.
"What! That's a terrible plan! We need to run, not fight–ah!" Ouka's was interrupted when one of the wolves circling us jumped at him.
I grabbed Ouka and pulled him away, causing me to be face to face with the wolf that was currently leaping at our throats.
I took a deep breath before I struck my arm out to grab the wolf mid-air. One hand it around a paw while my other grabbed its mouth and clamped it shut.
I flipped around, letting the momentum of the wolf carry me as I guided it to land on its back and pinned it down to expose its underside before screaming at Ouka, " NOW!"
In all fairness to Ouka, he did recover from my shove and quickly stabbed down into the wolf.
Unfortunately, his aim was a bit off, and the wolf thrashed out of my grasp and nicked Ouka before I grabbed it again.
Ouka withdrew his sword and stabbed it again, this time killing the wolf after aiming at its heart. It didn't 'disappear' like how Ouka said it would, so I am assuming he missed the stone.
There was no time to catch our breath as the rest of the wolves got brave and chose that time to attack. Ouka was able to duck out of the way while I rolled and gave a kick to one of the wolves' necks.
I felt a satisfying crunch as the wolf's neck twisted and it died.
Its pack mate came at me as I barely dodged out of the way as I regained my footing.
I was now dealing with one wolf while Ouka was dealing with the other two. I just need to–
The wolf shot forward, its mouth wide open and claws fully extended.
I let my fist lash out to grip around the paw and mouth again, but failed to grab anything as the wolf twisted and slashed me.
Pain and heat bloomed in my arm as I bit back a scream before kicking it away.
I glanced at my boolied arm and wiggled my fingers. Good, it didn't cut the muscle.
The wolf lunged forward again, low to the ground, as it aimed at my legs. I got into a stance, and when the timing was right, I jumped.
I sailed through the air, watching as the wolf's eyes tracked me but it couldn't do anything as I landed right on its back.
I pushed down hard as gravity brought my full weight on the wolf's back.
I heard a crack and felt the wolf buckle. I twisted around and brought my elbow down on the back of its head.
It hit the ground hard, a whimper escaped it before I reached around and gripped its head before twisting it. The neck bone snapped, and the beast went limp underneath me.
I tried to catch my breath as I got up off it and turned to see how Ouka was doing. It turns out he was just wrapping up as well.
He hardly had a scratch on him as he drove his shortsword into the neck of the last wolf before twisting it and pulling it out. The last of the wolves dropped dead, letting the forest return to its peaceful nature again.
The peace was broken by Ouka sighing and collapsing onto the ground. I felt panic run through me as I rushed over to where he was.
"Ouka, are you okay? You didn't get hurt too bad, right?" I asked as I looked him over. He was dirty from rolling around on the forest floor and had some scraps on his hands and arms.
He had a few small cuts on his arm from when the first wolf got out of my grasp, but that was the worst of his injuries from what I can tell.
"I'm fine, Leon. Well… fine physically anyway. Mentally, I'm not all there yet," Oula responded to my worry as he lay on the ground and put his arm over his eyes. He stayed there for a moment, taking deep breaths to calm down, while I just stood there awkwardly.
I thought about what to do before taking a breath and making up my mind. I knelt and touched his shoulder.
"Look, I can understand how you feel. But we need to get out of here before the sun fully sets or more of them show up."
He took a shuddering breath before nodding and lifting his arm. I saw him lock eyes with me and gave him a nod before offering my hand to him.
He reached for it before recoiling and gasping as he saw the claw marks on my arm.
"What about you?! How can you ask me if I'm okay when you look like this?" Ouka pulled my arm closer to his face to examine the cuts but I took it back from him.
"Don't worry about it, I'm fine. Both mentally and physically, it just looks worse than it is. It'll heal soon," I smiled at him as I extended my arm again to help him up.
"Ugh, if you say so. I'll believe you, considering how fast you healed after the hobgoblin, but we still need to get you treatment when we go back," He sighed before reaching up and grasping my hand. I hoisted him to his feet before gesturing to the wolves he had killed.
"Don't worry about it. I have something planned with the herbs we gathered to fix it. Still, I didn't know you had it in you since you got caught by the goblins, but it looks like you have some skill with a sword." I changed the topic and kicked the last wolf he killed as I inspected the sword wounds on it.
"The goblins only got me because they ambushed me. If they had come straight at me like the wolves did, I would have beaten them," Ouka grumbled as he took out a small knife and began carving into the wolf's chest.
"What are you doing? Harvesting its heart for a potion?" I still couldn't get the eye of the newt and frog legs stereotype of potion making out of my head. Maybe I need to meet a witch before I get the full experience.
"What? No way… Why would a potion need a Direwolf heart? I'm collecting its magic stone. If we're lucky and it's big enough then we can sell it to the guild and make some money," Ouka was bewildered for a moment after recovering and explaining what he was doing to me.
"Oh, really? What guild are you talking about? And how much would the stone be worth?" I asked as I felt curiosity burn in me.
"The guild is the adventurer's guild. They are based in Orario since that's where most of the monsters are but they have branch offices all over the world as far as I know," Ouka didn't give my questions much though as he put his hand in the wolf's chest cavity and dug around for a bit before pulling out a small purple pebble.
As he presented it to me, the wolf burst in a puff of smoke and ash, leaving nothing behind. Oh, so that's what he meant by 'disappear'.
"This is worth about two hundred valis. Not a lot considering what we just went through, but it's just enough for a loaf of bread, so it keeps food on the table," Ouka explained before going about gathering the rest of the pebbles from the remaining wolves.
The silence that followed was peaceful, with me watching Ouka's back as I thought about what he just told me. I am assuming valis is the local currency, though how it compares to the dollar back home I don't know.
The main thing I was interested in was the fact that this 'Orario' where the guild was located had a lot of monsters. Monsters who I am assuming were stronger than the ones I was currently facing here.
I was going to hit a bottleneck in my cultivation. It wasn't a matter of if but a matter of when, and when it did happen, I needed a solution. Considering that my current rate of growth, doing breathing exercises was already hitting a drop in efficiency, I'm going to have to go with the only other viable method of increasing my cultivation that I know of at the moment, fighting monsters.
Still, I had a bit of time before I reached that bottleneck, and there didn't seem to be any other value in Orario besides that, so I'm not in a hurry. Or at least, that was what I was thinking until Ouka handed me two magic stones and I got to examine them closely.
They were beast cores. Small gatherings of Qi that beasts have after they transform from regular animals. It was all the Qi the beast had in them, given a solid form.
According to the Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual, they were the perfect reagents to progress cultivation for body cultivators. They were essentially naturally made pills that gave a massive boost in cultivation, with practically no downsides.
"Hey Ouka, weird question, but do all monsters have a magic stone in them?" I asked, and while I got a weird look from Ouka he did give me an answer.
"Of course they do. That's what makes them monsters," Ouka then went back to harvesting the last of the stones, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I need beast cores to cultivate. All monsters have beast cores. If I want to progress faster I need to go where there are a lot of beast cores to collect, i.e. a place where there are a lot of monsters.
"Hmm. Say, Ouka, how many monsters are in Orario?" I asked as we walked back to town while playing with the beast cores in my hand.
"A lot. There's no end to them as far as I know. The dungeon in Orario has kept spawning them since before the gods descended. I don't think it will stop anytime soon," Ouka turned to me and just gave me a look I couldn't decipher.
"What? You'll run into a tree if you don't look where you are going," I tilted my head and broke the silence after a few moments had passed.
"Hm, it's nothing," Ouka said before turning around and continuing down the path. I was a bit confused but shrugged it off and continued walking in silence.
However, the silence was broken when we got to the village by a shout from Ouka's dad when he saw us walk through the gate. The yell shook the windows. Ouka seemed to turn to stone when he heard it.
I looked at the sun and saw it was just about bath time, so I bid Ouka farewell, took my share of the herbs we collected, and headed off to the bathhouse. I'm sure Ouka will join me after he is done talking to his father.
Once at the bathhouse, I greeted the attendant before asking for a private bath, when he asked why I simply showed him the cuts on my arm.
His eyes widened, and he insisted on calling Ouka's grandpa, but I convinced him I was fine. He still made me promise to go see Ouka's grandpa afterward, though. I agreed and he showed me to one of the private rooms.
The room had a large wooden barrel for a bathtub, stone floors, and a small wooden bucket for scooping water. There was also a small stool and a shelf with new soap on it.
I quickly stripped off my dirty clothes before putting them in the ring and taking out the herbs that we recently acquired. I put them into the hot water to let them soak before scooping some of the water into the bucket and started washing.
Once I was happy that all the gunk on my skin had been washed off, I stepped into the bath and submerged myself into the water. I let out a groan as the hot water relaxed my muscles.
I sat there for a moment, just enjoying the hot water and letting my body relax. This was heaven, a hot bath after a long day's work was the ultimate pleasure and I now fully appreciate the wonders of modern plumbing back in my world.
I should never have taken a warm shower for granted. I wish I could introduce this world to modern plumbing. If only I understood how any of that crap worked, I'd be living in luxury.
I let out a sigh at the thought before pushing it away. I need to focus now, the herbs have had enough time to soak in the water now, and it's time to get this cultivation session started.
I sit cross-legged in the tub and recall the manual's instructions. The bath I'm attempting is not the one where you try to cultivate your bones, so there is no need to cut myself. I don't have enough herbs for that.
No, the bath that I am trying is something far more civil but less useful. The manual explains it a bit weird but it's basically playing dominoes but with Qi.
I push the Qi from the bathwater into my skin which then pushes the Qi that's in my skin into my muscles. One push from the beginning results in all the Qi getting pushed down like a chain reaction.
Where this differs from normal cultivating is that since the Qi is far denser in the water than in the air, it pushes harder against the Qi that's already there. This results in faster cultivation as there is more 'force' to push the Qi deeper into my body.
Another difference is that with the bath I can control more of the Qi outside of my body than if it was in the air due to it being so much denser than usual.
Before, when I was in the skin refinement stage, I couldn't hardly control the Qi at all due to it being too thin and me not being familiar with it. Now that I had broken through the muscle refinement stage, I could control it slightly more.
I took a deep breath before falling into a familiar rhythm as my awareness of the outside world faded. Now that I was focused on my body, I could safely say that the wolves kicked my ass.
I had more bite marks and claw marks on me than I previously thought. They were all light scratches, but it was still concerning to see how many times those bastards have nicked me.
I'll need to think of countermeasures for groups of enemies, as I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to be outnumbered a lot. Still, that was something for me to worry about in the future. My cultivation would naturally progress to the point where I would have those options.
I hope so.
I continued absorbing the Qi in the bath and pushing it into my skin. Or, I tried to do that at any rate as I quickly learned exactly how little control of the Qi I had at the moment.
I could pull the Qi in a bit faster if I focused on my skin but once it was in my skin? That was where it became free to go and do what it desired. To say that I was frustrated with the results would be an understatement.
It was like stuffing more and more water into a pipe that had a very small opening at the bottom that allowed water to flow into the next layer. Sure, I was making it flow faster by increasing the pressure in the pipe, but I could only increase the pressure so much due to how little control I had over the Qi.
Fortunately, despite it not being as much as I would have liked, progress was steady and faster than if I had breathed normally outside of the bath. I could feel my muscles begin to harden and expand under the effects of the Qi.
I stayed there and just lost myself in the feeling of Qi pushing up against my skin, focused on pulling as much of the Qi into my skin as possible and then stopping to give it time to flow down into my muscles.
It was a relaxing process but it was quickly over with as I ran out of Qi in the bath. Or, I guess a more accurate statement would be saying that the bathwater lost the Qi density it had when I started. There was still Qi in the bathwater, it was just too thin for me to feel and control now.
I had made it to the peak of the muscle refinement stage. Most of the progress came from the herb bath as the herbs we had gathered were high quality, but the last bit of progress came from the fight with the wolves.
I think it is safe to say that fighting improves cultivation by a noticeable amount. I was pretty sure before, but now I am one hundred percent sure. The only question left now was did fighting things other than monsters help as well.
The herbs floated lazily around my body, their previously bright colors now faded and dull.
I watch the herbs float for a moment as that thought circled in my mind, the yellow ones reminding me of a sad rubber ducky, before shaking my head and getting out of the bath.
I dried off the best I could before putting my clothes on and stepping out of the private room, not forgetting to take the herbs I had drained from the bath just in case Ouka could use them for something.
I said goodbye to the bathhouse attendant, asking if Ouka had come while I was in there but apparently, he was dragged back to his house by his father.
I shrugged my shoulders and began walking back to Ouka's house, a spring in my step as I felt refreshed and eager to try the next step in my cultivation.
It's time to eat some rocks.