Grabbing the small knife, I continued adding to the pile of wood carvings that lay around me. A few hours later, I laid down the knife and looked at the butterfly-shaped blade with a happy nod. It wasn't any kind of masterwork, but it would suffice. In a single fluid motion, I shoved the ax handle through the hole in the blade. I blocked it from falling out with a couple of small wedges and then cast Harden Wood multiple times. I stopped when I felt a slight, continuous drain and cast one Soften Wood. The drain stopped, and I scratched the blade with my knife.

A sound like metal on metal came, and I grinned. Harder than I had thought!

Getting up and swinging the ax around a bit, I noticed it weighed less than it had before, despite the fact that I made it bigger to account for that. I stopped, sighed, and put it down. I'd practice on that soon, but first, I had something else to try.

Sitting back down and grabbing some smaller blocks of wood, I resumed carving.

"What a ridiculous Prime…spends all his time on woodcarving. Perhaps Rathica is the goddess of woodcarving?"

A sneering raspy voice came from the camp closest to us, but I didn't look. It had started right after the followers of Lischen arrived. I wasn't sure if it was because they knew I had something to do with one of their Primes dying, or that they just didn't like me, but every couple of hours, one would start trying to goad me into stepping outside the barrier for some 'sparring.'

"Your poor goddess must be as pathetic as you!"

It took all of my efforts not to get up, and I continued chipping at the block from which a shape began to emerge. I must not have schooled my features well enough because loud laughter came from Lischen's camp.

"Awwww, did we hurt your feelings, little lonely Prime?"

This time there were two voices. Taking a deep breath, I focused on my wood carving, trying to ignore the voices by focusing fully on what I was doing. I had planned a quick, simple item so I could make a bunch, but at one point, I became so absorbed in the work that I stopped hearing the taunting.

Mechanically and with extreme precision, I continued working until a soft ping came from my status. I stared at the small hand-ax I was holding. It twinkled for a moment before the wood settled, and I felt its weight increase slightly.

Holding the small ax up, I inspected the beautifully intricate handle and blade. It had a curved handle only slightly longer than the single massive ax-blade on one side. The other side was smaller, though not quite a spike, and weighing it on my hand, I knew the balance was good.

How do I know that? I wondered. Besides some pebbles, I had never thrown anything but a basketball or crumpled paper.

I called up my status, and my eyes widened.

> Listening to a foreign tongue has granted you a small insight into its meaning

> Knowledge of the Goblin language increased

> Due to your knowledge of another subset of the crafted weapon, the weapon's grade increased by 1

> You have created a high-grade piece of weaponry!

> High-grade weapon crafting bonus

> As the crafter of the weapon, you can tell at a glance how well it will perform at its designated task

Besides the messages, I saw something had cost me another few points of knowledge, but I still had sixty-five left, so I wasn't too worried. Skimming the rest of the status window, I saw no other changes and closed the status info.

Glancing at the small throwing ax, I grinned and started working on the next one. I planned to make as many as I could today and practice with them the remaining days.

"And there he goes again! Off on another crafting adventure to please his pathetic goddess!"

The high piercing that followed the taunt grated at my nerves, and before I could stop myself, I glanced up. I almost thought the fat hag had returned from the dead when I saw one that looked like her twin sister stare at me. Beside her stood a human with horrific lesions on his face and a mouth that was sewn shut.

"Hah, finally made you look, pathetic little ant! I know what you did, yes I do!"

The hag grinned at me, no teeth, all sickly yellow gums. My anger evaporated as I heard her words. She knows? How? I was sure none of the hags had survived.

"Confused? Hah, you know as little as your pathetic goddess," the hag cried before she began cackling with laughter. Behind her, a dozen other hags joined her, and I quickly turned back to my crafting. They weren't going to tell me anything more, even if I asked.

As I worked, I began assessing what was going on, reminding myself that this wasn't the first time someone had demonstrated they knew what should have been secret. Those Cinderage followers had also known I killed their Prime. That meant either those Deities told their followers or there was some other method I didn’t understand.

Slowly my attention was distracted by the crafting I was doing.

--

"Est?"

A soft voice drew me awake, and I looked up, my hand wielding the knife freezing mid-cut. Valaria stood beside me, looking at me in wonder. No, not at me, but beside me. Following her gaze, I saw the massive amount of wood chips that surrounded me and the stack of hand axes.

I counted them and blinked. Seven? I didn't remember making them all.

Looking around, the red light from dozens of camp-fires lit up the barrier like a crystal bowl. My eyes snapped to the symbols, but Flowheart's wasn't there.

"Are you making axes for everyone?" Valaria asked, pointing at the stack of axes.

With a grin, I shook my head and looked at the one I had in my hand. It was only half-finished, but I didn't feel like finishing it. I grabbed my bag and stuffed the ax and knife beside the rapidly dwindling provisions, remaining Hog leather scraps, and small wood carvings.

"No, I needed some more weapons," I said, grabbing one of the throwing axes. It was the first I had made, and I saw at a glance it was better than the others. Summoning my status, I saw seven similar sets of messages.

> Due to your knowledge of another subset of the crafted weapon, the weapon's grade increased by 1

> You have created a medium-grade piece of weaponry

Did I go too fast? I thought as I wondered why only the first was high-grade.

"You do realize those won't harm anybody? The wood in this part of the Howling Forest is hard, but not this hard. Unless you find some Winding Weed or Dryad Wood, these aren't any better than training weapons," Valaria said, seeming slightly confused.

I wondered what Dryad Wood was supposed to be because it sounded positively ominous.

Valaria was still staring at me, and I grinned, about to cast Harden Wood when it hit me. She doesn't know this spell!

Lowering my hand, I knew it was the only thing that made sense. Looking around, I saw the two Cinderage followers still observing me. They must have seen what I did with the ax.

I cursed softly, realizing I had lost one advantage, at least to them. Still, if they didn't know this spell, did they also not know the other ones? I had assumed that every Deity sent their primes into the library to study, but even if they did... The scope of the library floated through my mind, and with it, the massive amounts of spellbooks in the center pillar.

"Est?" Valaria asked, frowning at me.

"Sorry, lost in thought," I said before smiling at her. I'll show her this one but keep the rest to myself, I decided.

Raising one of the wooden axes and a small piece of left-over wood, I tried cutting the wood, but the ax barely nicked it. Although the side was cut to be as sharp as possible, it was still wood against wood.

Valaria looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I could see the wonder in her eyes.

Wondering how she would react, I quickly cast Harden Wood with my remaining two hands. As my hands moved like a blur, Valaria sucked in her breath. She moved closer, kneeling beside me, her gaze glued to my hands.

When I finished, I pulled the now slightly gleaming ax blade across the wooden block. A wood curl scraped off with the sound of metal on wood.

"Incredible…did Rathica teach you that spell?" Valaria said breathlessly, her eyes widened.

I looked at her, wondering if she was playing with me, but her wonder seemed genuine. Something odd is going on here, I thought. She didn't ask if I learned it in the library or from somewhere else but immediately proposed a deity taught me. Why?

Seeing her still looking at me, I faked a grin and nodded.

"She helped me learn it, yes."

Valaria shook her head, reaching out her hand for the ax. I gave it, wondering what she was up to, but she just tested the edge with her thumb. She hissed when a small cut appeared, and she examined the ax, tapping it with her finger before taking out one of her knives. Before I could stop her, she struck the ax blade with the gleaming grey blade. A loud clang and a shudder followed, but the ax-blade held, and she whistled.

"You could provide a whole keep with weaponry within a few days!" she said, staring at me with large eyes.

I could see the interest and desire in them, but to my surprise, she just smiled ruefully instead of asking me to teach her the hand gestures.

"I'm curious to see what will happen when Rathica gets more Prime's. I get the feeling the current balance will change…" she glanced at the Lischen camp quickly, "... for the better."

She smiled sadly before standing up straight. "I am going to rest. If you want, you can come with us hunting tomorrow. That Erchin Bird is proving elusive!"

"Perhaps," I said, guessing that was the Terror Bird's name.

Turning back to my axes, I heard Valaria move away as I began hardening the other throwing axes. My desire to try them the following day was only dampened by my worry about Eliandra.

--

The ax slammed into the wooden target, slightly off-center but the blade dug deep in the wood. A soft ping came from my status, and I grinned at the towering man beside me.

"Better!" Bastian said a similar grin on his face as he turned and hurled one of his daggers, small swords really, at the target. It flew in a near-perfect trajectory and thudded in the carved middle.

Bastian let out a loud laugh and clenched one of his massive calloused fists. "I unlocked it!" He thumped me on my shoulder, almost toppling me over. "Don't worry. You should get it any moment now!"

"Let's retrieve them and try again," I said, not having the heart to tell him I unlocked ax-throwing an hour ago. With half the evil Primes in this part of the continent looking at us, I had decided to keep any little advantage to myself.

We retrieved our throwing weapons, and I started throwing. I made sure the first two flew awkwardly, just hitting the target, but I held nothing back with the third, using my newfound skill to strike the target dead center.

I turned to Bastian, who was looking at me with glittering eyes and nodded. "That did it!"

"Good, then let's see how far we can take it! We have over a day left, so perhaps we can raise it to three." The mountainous man stepped back a few paces, drew a new line in the sand, and hurled his knives in quick succession at the target.

As he continued, his competitiveness obvious, I summoned my status and grinned at the section below ax-mastery.

Skills (Learned)

> 1/4

> Ax master 5/10

Auxiliary skills of Ax mastery

> Ax throwing 3/10

Let's see if I can get it to five, I thought. Grinning, I closed my status window and stepped forward.