A few days passed, Kael’s body was no longer in pain. In fact, he felt awesome, it was like the air was cleaner than before, colors were brighter, and his body felt lighter. After one of his morning learning sessions with his mother he asked, “Mom, we have gone over everything a million times. How about you teach me about talismans, or better yet, alchemy!”

“Honey, I don’t know alchemy, the best I can do is make some knife wound salve. I can’t teach you about arrays yet as you can’t externalize your Qi. You need to be able to infuse Qi into everything you do while making arrays. So when you get to the spirit warrior level I can show you some basic level stuff.”

“Mom, I thought you said that you and dad were at the peak of body refinement if that is so, how can you make talismans?”

“Silly, just because we have lost the majority of our strength, that doesn’t mean we have lost the abilities gained as we advanced through the cultivation levels. For example, you don’t think your mom would let you run around and play without supervision all day, do you? Just because my meridians are damaged doesn’t mean my spirit is, my divine sense can cover 2 miles in radius. All those times you thought you were being sneaky, your mother was watching!”

Laughing at her son’s horrified face she continued, “For the wound healing powder, its simple. 4 parts sage to 1 part hoelen. Grind them up together and bake them over a low heat. The juice from the sage will be absorbed by the hoelen, when that happens it turns into a darker grey. Stir it for about 5 minutes until the smell of the sage is reduced and then let it cool. Normally all herbs are calculated in a half pound when making powders it will only reduce by about 15% in weight. Therefore, you will end up with a ton of powder. You can get about 20 uses out of one set of herbs, so split the powder into 20 parts and you're done. Simple isn’t it.”

“Ok, I will get herbs, can we start tomorrow, and mom, do you have a book on arrays I can read?”

“Sure honey go play, when the hunters get back I’ll give you some hog meat to trade for herbs.”

“Awesome, thanks, mom!”

Kael immediately rushed out into the forest. Heading into the areas he had seen sage before, he began to pick it in preparation for tomorrow.

Congratulations, you have taken your first step as an alchemist.

Error, soul failed in picking sage, material damaged by 50%. 5 exp granted to the alchemy profession.

Soul has unlocked true control over talents, all talents have been merged into one.

Soul has not allocated a percentage to be split into talent points, all points given to the artisan skill, Alchemist.

Congratulations on stepping onto the path of an alchemist, make persistent efforts. Soul’s current standing is Mortal Rank 1, (05/100).

Pausing, Kael pondered if this meant he needed training or if he should start using his talent points. Willing his character sheet out, he reviewed the section on talents and noticed the subcomponent section again. I wonder if the increase in speed or the reduction in wastage would help. Putting a point into subcomponents under quality, he watched the 0/1 change into a 1/1 before resetting into a 0/2.

Reaching down to pick another large section of sage off the bush he got another notification.

Error, soul failed in picking sage, material damaged by 50%. 5 exp granted to the Alchemy profession. Waste reduced by 20% due to talents, 10% material saved.

Excited by this, Kael quickly put another point into subcomponents, watching the 0/2 change into 2/2 before popping back into 0/3, Kael had a sudden realization. Shouting “Shit, shit, shit!” out loud he began to internally berate himself. Fuuuuuck, karma talent points increase skills by one. So buying the 5th point is the same as 5 talent points. Normal talent points definitely do not act like that or it would not say 0/5 and such. I am TOTALLY wasting them.

With his experience to talent conversion now set at 100%, Keal reached down to pick the other 3 sections of the plant.

Error, soul failed in picking sage, material damaged by 50%. 5 exp granted to the Alchemy talent tree. Waste reduced by 40% due to talents, 20% material saved.

As he went to pick the second and third sections he decided to be more careful, to see if it would help.

Error, soul failed in picking sage, material damaged by 50%. 5 exp granted to the Alchemy profession. Waste reduced by 40% due to talents, 20% material saved.

Error, soul failed in picking sage, material damaged by 40%. 5 exp granted to the Alchemy profession. Waste reduced by 40% due to talents, 16% material saved.

Happy that he could teach himself how to correctly pick herbs he bundled up his sage. Thinking he would need to pick a lot to get talents points he ran back home to get backpack before heading out again.

Kael ran around the forest, his heads was constantly filled with the droning words of, “Error, soul failed…” but he had reduced the wastage to a low level. After picking a lot more pieces of sage he confirmed his suspicion about talent points. Spending his newly earned talent point in subcomponents the numbers change to 01/03 and nothing else happened.

Another thing he had learned after picking so many herbs was his experience dropped to 4 per each one. This happened after the 10th piece of sage. It further dropped to 3 per after the 20th piece and 2 per piece after the 30th. Swearing about needing too much experience, he ran off to a large hoelen patch he found growing around a few pine trees.

After he picked the first piece, he danced around happily as his experience raised back to 5. However, he had to learn to pick them again as mushrooms were different than sage. After picking all of the mushrooms he earned another talent point, but he also remembered the formula was 4 to 1. Looking at the 18 pieces of hoelen and the 36 pieces of sage he swore again. I need so much sage. Using his talent point in subcomponents to raise it to 2 of 3 he decided to even up the shroom to a good 20. Finding two more pieces of hoelen, he then spent the rest of the day hunting for sage.

Spending 6 hours picking a total of 80 sage, he cried to himself about the experience. From the 50th piece on I only got 1 exp. 80 sage and 20 hoelen, is only 270 experience. 10 of that went to alchemy. After all of that, I got 2 talent points and 60 experience. I need to start working on the growth talent asap.

After returning home with his backpack stuffed full he earned a scolding from his father. “You always talk about wasting nature's treasures, but herbs can only stay in the open air for a few days before losing potency!”

“Really? No one ever told me, what about your bag?” asked Kael.

“Nothing really ages in an interspatial area. Over hundreds or thousands of years yeah, but not over a short period of time. How can your all-knowing dream guy not tell you the most basic parts?”

“Uhhm, I’m sure he overlooked it.”

“Your mom saying your making powders, so you won’t need any jade bottles, although they are preferred. Go trade some meat to old man Wallus. Ask him for 20 ceramic boxes for herbs.” After the lecture, Iradin took out 20 slabs of 10 lb wild hog meat from his pouch. Wrapping them carefully in canvas, he loaded his son's arms up like they were stacking firewood.

Covering her mouth with her small hands, Alavarah laughed at her ridiculous looking son. Seeing a 60-pound child carrying 200 lbs of anything is pretty astonishing, but to load it up like firewood bundles to the point he could not see was the icing on the cake. “Oh, honey that is way too much, at least lead him over so he doesn’t fall.”

After a lot of stumbling and laughs from the villagers, they made their trade. Kael was impressed with the handiwork that went into the sealable boxes as they were quite fine. After returning home he went to bed early in preparation for tomorrow’s experience explosion.