Chapter: Healing Harvest

As it reached the end of the day Erik could only heal those that were the worst affected in line and give the others pieces of wood with numbers on them, telling them that if they came back with the piece of wood he would serve them in order the next day.

This allayed some of the grumbling as Erik made his exit from the market.

With just a half day's worth of healing, Erik had earned two and a half silvers. His inner greed demon was rubbing his hands together at so much silver. He checked on the notifications in the corner of his vision.

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Skill: Healer

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Level: 38 (Apprentice)

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You have become familiar with the body and the arts of repairing it. Healing spells now cost 5% less Mana.

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33,320/34,000 EXP till you reach level 8

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Money in the bank, exp in mah body and a skill on the rise, damn I love it when a plan works out! 

While the money was nice, every time he used his healing skills he was able to test out new ideas and gain a different understanding of the human body in the ten realms. As a combat medic he had to deal with a lot of knowledge of what was happening inside the body without being able to actually see it. It was more of a guesswork, now he could directly see what was happening inside a person’s body with the simple organic scan, and then affect and change it with healing spells and techniques and methods that he had learned in his training.

He had made a list of notes while he worked on people, jotting down thoughts and ideas that he had come up with.

His skill level was skyrocketing upwards and he would have healed people for free if it wasn’t his need for resources, just the experience and knowledge was worth more than money after all most people needed to use technique books or have a teacher to teach this point, Erik only needed to rely on his past training and experiences and adapt to the new use of spells.

Erik pressed his lips into a line, he was so close to becoming level eight. He'd found that healing the same kinds of wounds led to less experience each time. Like killing creatures, it was slightly level dependent, but the big modifier was based on the severity of the affliction. The closer someone was to death, the greater the experience he would get from healing them.

The higher the level the harder it was to heal them.

He also found that as people leveled up, their bodies had a distinctive change, dealing with tens of people from all kinds of level ranges Erik had gained a sense for this, he could guesstimate someone’s level based on the fluctuations in their aura, as someone increased in level then they would absorb a tremendous amount of ten realms energy, the golden looking energy of experience, it gathered in a person’s body, then when someone went to sleep and changed their stats, that energy would refine and increase the ability of that system, so strength it was muscle density, agility, twitch muscle formation, increased neuron firing in one’s brain and reinforced tendons and ligaments.

Increase in mana pool? One’s dantian and their mana channels would be tempered, increasing the purity of one’s mana, removing impurities contained within.

Leveling up surpasses human boundaries, according to the guidebook one doesn’t always need to level up to gain these benefits, through special techniques, or resources one can increase the level of their mana purity, they can temper their bodies and more.

This, like magical spells surpassed the boundaries of fact on Earth, here it was common knowledge.

Erik walked up to an apothecary stall where there was an older looking woman working with mortar and pestle to create her remedies.

"Hello, I was wondering if you have anymore wraith's touch cream?" Erik asked, this cream was what the man with the mangled leg had brought back, with the cream he didn't feel a thing even as Erik rebroke his leg.

Seeing it's effectiveness Erik wanted to make sure he had some on hand if he needed it personally.

"Certainly, five coppers," The lady said.

"I'll take ten of them," Erik said.

The woman looked surprised but quickly got the ten pots gathered together.

Erik passed her the coppers and the pots disappeared into his storage ring. He grabbed some food from stalls he passed and continued on his way.

It wasn't long until he was at the wandering Stallion inn. Rugrat wasn't there yet so Erik settled in a corner, getting a beer and opening the guidebook.

He went through it, checking a few of his questions against the book's information before putting it down.

One of the barmaids came over seeing that Erik's drink was low.

"Another?" She asked.

"Please, also, do you know where one might find out more information about alchemy?" Erik asked.

The women's eyebrow raised, looking over Erik before resting her hand on her hip.

“The apothecaries are all novice alchemist in some fashion, but most of them don't have any kind of books to learn from and have to find the path of alchemy themselves. If you've got the coin for it then the blue lotus can find you anything. Though down here there's not much left after the other realms have picked through their wares."

"Thanks," Erik said, giving her a copper coin.

Her tired look turned into a smile as she put the copper away.

"No problem, one beer coming right up!"

Erik smiled at her as she walked away.

She was just coming back when Rugrat entered the room, he was covered in soot, his shirt was stuck to him, he was wearing the local clothes that they had both bought. Rugrat was a large man and fighting for most of his life meant that he was always heavily muscled, combined with his workout regime and the changes that they had gone through since entering the ten realms he drew more than a few eyes.

He scanned the room as he walked up to the bar.

People looked away, he was just another worker, nothing more.

Erik waved him over and he put in an order moving to join Erik.

"How'd the smithy go, and you did heal yourself up right?" Erik said, that soot didn't look good for one's health.

"No worse than gas mask training," Rugrat said with a smile.

Even though he seemed tired, there was a determination in his eyes.

Erik rolled his eyes as Rugrat stole his beer and finished off the remainder.

"Good thing I didn't take any longer," the barmaid laughed as she put down two new glasses.

"Angels are real," Rugrat laughed, winking at the bar maid and started gulping from the beer.

Erik passed her a copper for the two drinks. She moved away as Rugrat surfaced for air.

"We need more money,” He said in a rush.

“Nice to see you too,” Erik said, drinking from his beer, with his silver coins he was feeling pretty secure about their financial future as long as he could keep on healing.

“I got taken on as an apprentice smith, but these guys are making mostly simple tools and the like, most of the weapons and armor related tasks are done by the big shops and most of it is maintenace as weapons are so costly. If I was to rent out a work area it would cost ten coppers for the day, though I would need to supply all of the materials and tools, another thirty for the tools, then each iron ore is some fifteen coppers, refined iron ingots are thirty three coppers. Say I make five weapons a day, that’s five to ten ingots,” Rugrat explained.

Erik’s previous confidence dimmed, it didn’t seem to be cheap at all to raise a crafter in the ten realms. Just the resources needed were incredibly expensive.

“To accelerate growth and learn the basics I’d need to get a smithy training manual, those books can cost two or three silvers by themselves and then the good technique manuals are even more expensive.”

“So we’d need what, ten silvers to have you set up comfortably and able to focus on just smithing?” Erik asked, turning his beer glass.

“Yeah,” Rugrat said, slugging back more beer.

"If you had ten silver what would you do?" Erik asked. 

Rugrat leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling to collect his thoughts. 

“First, get a general smithing manual, I have a lot of theories and ideas from back on Earth, though I don’t know how to translate that over to the ten realms. Then I’d get a forging blueprint, or a few of them, then a bunch of iron ore and time at the Smithy.”

“Wouldn’t getting the iron ore slow you down?” Erik asked.

“Yes, but the more I know about the basics the stronger I can be moving forwards. If I don’t know how to even make iron ingots then I’m going to be going forward half blind,” Rugrat said.

Erik nodded in agreement, it made sense to him.

“Then with the iron ingots I would make and destroy items as much as possible to keep down needing to get more iron ore, unless i could make something for coin.”

"Alright, how much is a Blueprint?" Erik asked, tapping his beer glass in thought. 

"There are only Five different Blueprints that are up for sale in Chonglu one for a dagger, another for horse shoes, another for a breastplate and two other tool types," Rugrat said. "I'd go for the dagger, there's a lot more work needed, but with the one Blueprint I would be able to learn a lot of different forging techniques. It would cost forty silvers, based on iron it would sell for fifteen coppers, if I was able to get a usable grade they would sell for twenty coppers. Maybe thirty if I got it up to excellent grade."

“Forty silvers?” Erik asked, alarmed as he leaned forward, his eyes almost coming out of his skull.

“The dagger blueprint isn’t limited in materials, so if one has mortal grade steel or even divine grade iron they could use the blueprint to make a dagger. Divine iron isn’t even sold in the first four realms,” Rugrat said.

Erik calmed down, it made sense, this blueprint could be used across realms with all kinds of materials, making it very versatile and usable anywhere in the ten realms.

Just raising that kind of money you'd take Erik twenty days healing people if he was to continue at his current rate. 

"Who is selling the Blueprint, can we barter with them?" Erik asked. 

"The Blue Lotus Auction house are the one's selling it," Rugrat sighed. 

"Are there any forging technique books in Chonglu?" Erik asked, clearly Rugrat wasn't looking to make these daggers for the money, but to increase his skill level, if they could get him technique books for cheaper then it would help them greatly.

"Yeah, Blue lotus again," Rugrat said sourly. "Sixty Five silver for a basic forging technique book, five gold for the refining technique book that will allow someone to raise mortal grade steel to Earth grade." 

Erik sighed as well a heavy atmosphere surrounding them as they played with their glasses. 

"How did the medical stuff go in the market?" Rugrat asked, changing the subject. 

Erik told Rugrat everything that had happened. 

" You reached Apprentice grade?" Rugrat asked with a laugh, a few people glanced over before talking to their fellows in a low whisper. 

" I don't think that it's so normal here," Erik said in a low voice. 

Rugrat nodded, grimacing at his slip up. 

"I got a spell as well, maybe when you upgrade to Apprentice then you'll get something to help you," Erik said. 

"Going to take a long time hammering things out," Rugrat complained. 

Erik who'd been picking up his drinking glass paused, setting it down. 

"What if we don't need technique books?" He asked. 

"Hmm?" Rugrat asked, his attention fully on Erik. 

"Look we know quite a bit just in random knowledge from Earth. Technique books download information into our brain and they're a great help. What's to stop us from just reading normal books?" Reading was something that only the upper class did as they knew how to read and write, but while normal books were cheaper than technique books, their information might not be any less powerful if one was to come and understand what was contained within. 

"To learn Smithing I'll need to read?" Rugrat looked dejected before drinking from his beer. 

"Shit, alright, I've done worse."

"I know your love for comic books," Erik said. 

"They're pictures though!" Rugrat complained. "Only had room for fifteen of them," Rugrat sounded like someone had kicked his dog. 

"Though the money problem is a real one, clearly the first realm doesn't have the resources that we need to increase in overall level, we need to level up and get more money so that we can go to the second realm and increase our skills and strength," Erik's words were met with a nod. 

"Amen to that brother," Rugrat held up his glass.

They cheered one another Rugrat had already taken a big drink when a puzzled expression appeared on his face. 

"So, how are we going to increase our level? And get money" Rugrat asked. 

"Healing," Erik said.