Nothing of great interest happened during the next day. The weird thing was, no matter how much I ate, I never seem get full. 'Now that I get food from both Village and Nick, why would I feel hungry anyway?' I asked myself. I practiced much more than in the past, which might've been the reason. I thought Nick would come over in the evening, but he didn't. I decided to just practice what he showed me. This meant, more falling on my part. I couldn't even balance myself on the first pole, Stepping onto the second pole was beyond my reach. 'I need to focus on small goals. First, I need to stay on that pole, then I can think about next goal' I thought. The mistake I made, was that I thought how to advance all the time, now how to balance myself properly. With that new mindset, I continued my training. My body ached all over, when I stopped my training. I fell down countless times. So many in fact, I stopped counting them. I looked around the room, and noticed some food waiting for me. 'I guess that Nick came by after all. Maybe he didn't want to disturb me?' I thought to myself, and grabbed the food. 'This is not enough' I thought. I wasn't referring to food, but to my training. If this continued, I would never learn anything. 'Training for one or two hours is not enough. Fortunately, the tasks I'm carrying out now, are no longer an issue. I should be able to train longer, even though my body aches' I thought. I had to push myself, after all who knows what might happen in the future. A week went by, before Nick visited me "officially". Nick visited everyday, but didn't really reveal himself to me. That time was different. He said "Today, I have something new to teach you". I asked "What would that be?". He grinned while replying, "Art of Medicine! You will begin by reading this". He passed me two books. One very thick, while the other was quite thin comparably. I looked at the books and only one had a title. "Thousand and One Herbs... And the other one?" I said. He replied "You can just refer to it as Medical Journal. Memorize both of them as much as you can. I will test your knowledge every week". I stood there staring at him for a while. 'Is he an idiot? Memorize them? As in the whole book?' I asked myself. He must've seen my expression, and added "What, you think that's impossible too? Didn't I prove to you what you think as impossible, is very possible. The Thousand and One Herbs is a thick book, a 1001 pages thick to be precise. But there are loads of drawings, and much less text. Medical Journal, is mostly text though". 'I swear that one day, I will kick his ass so hard, my leg will break on it' I thought. I gave up at that stage. 'It's just two books. That's much less impossible, than walking atop those wooden poles' I thought. Nick then said, "You didn't make much progress with the wooden poles though. Try harder". 'That bastard...' I thought. As if I wasn't trying hard enough. But then he added something, "You are trying to grind it out, instead of using your head... For what its worth. Think about it". He left me with those words. 'Think about it... What does my balance have to do with thinking?' I asked myself. But without realising it, I was actually thinking about it. 'Hmmm... Balance. What is required for balance?' I asked myself. The only thing that cam to my mind, was precision and the ability to adjust my balance as I wished. 'In other words, if my leg or hand is to far away from my body, the balance will be affected. I have to watch out for my movements' I thought. I tried that out, and there seemed to be a pattern. If my hands, legs or even head were not in the right place, I would lose balance. 'My balance is centred around my waist. In that case, everything has to revolve around that' I thought, and returned to the wooden poles practice. Before I went to sleep, I read the Thousand and One Herbs book. Each page had a herb, whether it was a flower, grass, mushroom or whatever. Those plants with specific properties, were called herbs, that is how the book referred to them. Fortunately, each page had a picture of the described herb. Therefore the amount of reading I had to do, was not that huge. 'I just have to remember the herbs by their pictures, and learn their properties. This should be alright' I thought. Besides, this was useful knowledge. If I had such knowledge before I became a slave, I could heal my wounds with the use of those herbs. My eyes got heavy from all that reading, and I fell asleep. The next day, besides doing my tasks, I would read the Thousand and One Herbs book. I found it interesting. There were loads of miraculous herbs that could either cure people or even make them stronger. Besides, reading allowed me to forget about the whole village business. My life went on like this for another week. Besides training with the wooden poles, I read the Thousand and One Herbs book. After that week, Nick showed up to test my knowledge. Before anything else, I said "I didn't touch Medical Journal yet, so there is no need for you to ask anything. As for the Thousand and One Herbs, I read quite a bit, but how much I remember... I don't know". Nick didn't seem surprised. He said "In that case, we will test you knowledge from the Thousand and One Herbs book". I nodded, and he asked the first question. "Can you describe, how does a herb called Mountain Trot look like?". I thought about it for a while, then replied "It always has two or three green leaves. Those leaves are oval in shape, and you shouldn't be able to see the veins on them. The darker green it gets, the older it is. The flower is also green, and looks like it's about to bloom, but it will never do that. The flower will stay in that shape for the whole lifetime of the herb". Nick was surprised. After all, I told him how that particular herb looked like exactly. "Yes, that is correct" he said, then continued. "Next question. What can Harvest Grass be used for?". I thought about that a bit more, and recalled something. "It can be used to deal with diarrhoea. It can also be burned. The smoke will scare off some insects" I answered. Nick nodded his head while saying, "That is right. Next question. If I wanted to cure an illness called Green Pox, what herb or herbs would I need to use?", I thought about it, but couldn't find an answer. I could faintly remember something about pox, but I didn't know what can be used to cure it. I replied, "I don't know". Nick was nice enough to give me an answer. "There are three herbs that can cure this illness. Hungry Jade is one of them. It has to be combined with Green Lavender in order to work though. The others are Lingering Petal and Ferenal Flower. Both of these can cure the Green Pox. Ferenal Flower is better at it in overal, but it is also the rarest of them all". Nick then continued, "This will be the last question. Which is the rarest herb in that book?". I didn't have to think about this one, and answered straight away. "It's called Ethereal Flower". Nick smiled while saying, "You remembered this one pretty well. Yes, this is the rarest herb in this book". He asked a follow up question, "Do you know what this herb can do?". I replied, "Yes, the book states it will make you immortal... But I don't believe it". He nodded while saying, "Yes. Supposedly, there was someone in history, who actually found this flower. The story goes further. The person who found this flower, consumed it raw and became immortal. If we believe the story, then he was the one who started this book. Which would of course explain, why that herb is inside the book in first place". I wasn't sure about that, but it seemed I wasn't alone. 'From what Nick said, he doubts it as well' I thought. Who would reveal the information about that flower, and spread that around. People would search for it high and low. Wars would break out. I just treated it as a legend, a fairy tale.