“You got anything to eat in that pack of yours? The meat won’t be great by now.” Crosse said, interrupting Mike's contemplation.

Mike nodded and reached to his pack, he opened it up and dug through it to find the oiled leather sack that had contained the rations, “There isn’t much, so I hope that town of yours is close.” Mike said before putting the rations bag down and opening it up to check inside.

Crosse nodded as he shimmied around the camp to sit near the bag for some food, “then after we are done here we’ll go and meet up with another of the village hunters before making our way back to the Inasholme, we should be there before dark though.” He explained.

“You said that this Lady Ina, the High Elf, could heal my wound for me?” He asked as he too grabbed something from the bag, he looked down to see what it was but wasn’t sure even after inspection, he bit into it as he saw Crosse do, and it tasted vaguely meat-like, but mostly just chewy.

Crosse nodded with a small smile after swallowing, “grow the hair you lost back too if you’re lucky. If not though you’ll just have a line of bare scalp, which won’t last too long, and you look like you could use a shear up there anyway.”

Mike nodded agreement as he swallowed, “what else can she do? You said she protects the village from bigger threats, I don’t see her doing that with healing.” Mike inquired, curious about the actual capabilities of this elder Elf.

Crosse nodded his smile gaining some excitement, “she does indeed, though I couldn’t tell you how. From what I have seen she tends to cook the fuckers to death in beams of sunlight most often. Though I have heard that in the past she has shined light on the trees to make them grow stakes and skewer them too. She tends to use that for building things more than killing things though, as you will see in the town.”

Well, that certainly sounded impressive. “You said before that she was old, and you said that the village was founded around her more than a hundred years ago. How old is she, exactly?” Mike asked, not having bitten the tough meat again.

One of Crosse's brows rose, amusement clear on his face, “How in the realms would I know, you don’t ask a lady her age no matter her race. She was old enough to break away from that empire of theirs generations ago, and is old enough now that they leave her alone about it.”

Mike frowned slightly. “It's more that I want to know what the Elves consider to be old, I’m working on faulty memories, remember?” he reluctantly bit into the piece of ‘food’ and started chewing again, he wished he had some of that peryton meat still, it was better than this by a mile.

“Ahh, I see, sorry. It’s not something we talk about, as a rule, it makes most of us feel small and some of us feel jealous. Neither are good things to dwell on. The Elves, at least the ones in this forest, I couldn’t tell you about the ones in the mountains and elsewhere, live until they die, or so I have heard them say.”

Mike blinked in surprise. “So they are immortal?” Mike asked, Elves were usually long-lived, but rarely just flat out immortal.

“No. This here is the Mortal realm, everything here dies. For the elves you just have to put something pointy in them for it to happen, they don’t just keel over after a set amount of time alive. As reasonable creatures do.”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation as Crosse said, “I want to be out of here before the sun is over the mountains. Especially with the state you’re in, we aren’t going to be moving fast.” Mike blinked at the measurement of time, could there be no standard measurement for the time in this world? That might be why the Magic hadn’t had a concept of it either. Did the way people thought about things here affect Magic?

It was a wild guess and he would need to keep paying attention. After they had finished Crosse pulled over his pack and grabbed a cloth satchel out of hit, “alright let's see that wound,” he said.

Mike sat very still as Crosse came over to him and pulled a pair of scissors out of the satchel, he began to cut through the bandages that had been wrapped around Mike's head all night and most of yesterday.

After he pulled the bandages away, giving Mike a glimpse of red and green on the inside of the bandages that made his stomach turn, he wadded up the bandages and threw them into the empty fire pit. “Good, the stitches are still intact,” Crosse said pulling some new items out of the satchel, one appeared to be a small metal flask, the other just looked like a clean cloth.

Mike blinked in surprise, not wanting to move any and disturb Crosse’s work. “You gave me stitches,” Mike asked, he hadn’t known exactly what the Hunter had done, but it had certainly helped. Had the hunter performed minor surgery on him?

“Of course I gave you stitches, you were bleeding all over the place, what did you think I would do, let you bleed out? That’d be a waste, anyone who kills a beast, however, you managed it, deserves better than that.” he pulled the cork from the bottle and put the cloth to it tipping it over and wetting the spot on the cloth with the contents.

“What was the green stuff on the bandages?” Mike asked, hoping the older man didn’t reply pus, Mike hated pus.

“A salve for numbing your pain, you didn’t think that the huge gash on your head just felt a lot better all on its own did you?” Crosse asked sardonically.

Mike made an embarrassed face, he hadn’t even thought about it.

“You’re as bad as the younger hunters. They get cut up and healed only to get scraped up again the next day. A piece of advice from an elder, don’t count on healing. Don’t even count on medicine, try not to get bloody injured in the first place, you’ll live longer, not as long as an Elf, but longer. Now, this is going to hurt, stay still.” Crosse grabbed the back of Mike’s head using the hand with the flask still held between some fingers and dabbed the wet patch against what mike assumed was his wound.

Mike felt an immediate burning pain from the area and that he had touched, making an involuntary groan of pain in his throat. Of course, the flask had alcohol in it! How else was he going would he disinfect it? Antibiotics?

As Mike had that thought he felt a twinge and then another more pronounced one from his right arm, oh so this didn’t count as a conversation? Was it because Crosse wasn’t looking him in the face?

Another dab and more pain and Mike was distracted again, he just sat and tried to remain still as Crosse cleaned the rest of the cut, it was stinging pretty bad by the end. “There you go, now I can put the salve on and wrap you back up. You can probably take that sling off too, the bruise on your chest was bad but nothing seemed broken.”

Mike nodded, sighing in relief. He sat still as Crosse rubbed in the salve and wrapped his head in a new layer of bandages, he then untied the sling from behind Mike’s neck and Mike hesitantly stretched out his arm, it was stiff and his shoulder and chest were still sore, but it wasn’t debilitating, he needed to find a time to check the notification.

Crosse stood up, “Well now that that's done, excuse me for a bit and we’ll be off.” Crosse went to his bag and grabbed out a few of those leaves that he had given Mike last night then walked towards one of the big trees.

Well, that was convenient. As soon as Crosse was behind the tree trunk Mike willed his notifications to appear.

You have learned the Skill:

Governing Stats

Requirements

Mastery

Max Mastery

Description

Medicine

INT

WIS

15 INT

Amateur

Novice

Medicine is the Skill for recognising sickness and injury in humanoids and giving able care to those who need it. It will help you memorize medical facts and remember those you have forgotten.

With this skill equipped you will be able to tell a person's vital signs accurately whenever you try. At amateur levels, this Skill will teach you first aid and proper procedure for emergency care.

You have completed the Quest: Survive.

You were stranded in the wilderness with no aid and attacked by a deadly Spirit beast, but after defeating it you were left helpless.

To your luck, you encountered a hunter with good intentions and an inclination to like anyone who kills a Spirit beast, especially one threatening his home. Through your understandings from Earth and some aid from this stranger, you have gained three Skills relating to wilderness survival.

This reward doesn’t mean you shouldn’t gain more but will aid you in your journey from here on.

Reward:

The Navigation system

This system provides you with a compass that you can view as either an illusion projected by the AI or as a part of the tattoo on your arm. It will show you the 4 cardinal directions at all times, but can also be used to track locations, objects and people.

To track an object simply touch it once with the hand marked by the tattoo, the AI will mark it and keep track of it in relation to you. To track a person is a little harder, they will need to either be willing and aware of your intentions, or unconscious. If either of these is the case then the method to implement it is the same, touch their skin with the hand marked by the tattoo.

The number of items and people you can mark this way is limited and shares a pool. You can track up to 3 people and items in total, this will grow with your Class level. Marks will vanish if the Item marked is destroyed or the person marked dies.

Locations are Different. You can track the position of as many locations as you like, so long as you have an accurate understanding of their position in relation to yourself. This means finding an adequately detailed and accurate map or actually going to that location.

Random teleportation such as that utilised by way of the Shard of Desire will make all saved Locations inaccurate until you can reestablish accurate knowledge of your current location.

Yes! So he had learned the Medicine Skill while Crosse had been treating him, likely when he remembered that Alcohol was a disinfectant.

Mike closed the window as he thought about the new Navigation system. It was incredibly useful but wasn't game-breaking just yet. Mike pulled back the sleeve of on his right arm where the AI had been concealing the tattoo with a spell. Which he still hadn’t worked out how to do.

He looked at the back of his hand and the AI retracted its spell to show him the intricate dark lines of the tattoo that ran over the back of his hand, crisscrossing and moving in a way that still seemed too three dimensional. As he looked, the lines shifted. They seemed to part and a circular object seemed to rise from the depths of the lines growing larger as it grew closer.

Mike had to blink to refocus his eyes, the tattoo was weird and he felt like he would get a headache if he looked at it too long. When he was done he looked back down at his had and saw that there was now a compass tattooed there. He inspected it, seeing the cardinal directions marked with their traditional N, E, S, W. With the sub directions in between like always, and even marks for degrees like around the edge of the clock.

Mike had never actually used a compass to navigate. Why would he in the age of satellite maps and navigation apps? But this seemed like it would definitely come in handy. He reached down and grabbed his jacket from the ground and slid it on. Then reached in and willed the AI to put a marker on the pouch of gems full of Dark mana that he could still sense.

He then packed up the rations and put them in his pack, marking the pack with the ability as well.

If he had a chance he would Mark Crosse’s bow, he felt like it was likely never far from the man and he wouldn’t be getting his permission for marking any time soon.

As he thought so he heard Crosse coming around the tree that he had vanished behind in a similar way that Mike had last night.

“You ready?” he called out. Mike slung the pack over his shoulder, wincing as its weight landed on his bruise.

He then nodded. “Ready for the journey.”