Congratulations! You have unlocked the Herbalist profession!

Would you like to become an Herbalist?

[Yes] [No]

What's an Herbalist? Don asked.

"Herbalists are specialists in all kinds of alchemical ingredients that grow. There are plenty of mineral and etherial ingredients they don't have anything to do with but Herbalists can get the vast majority of lower-level alchemy ingredients."

How is that supposed to help me gather food?

"A lot of food grows and the skill I get from the profession should help us locate all sorts of nutritious goodies."

Don's suspicious statement radar pinged.

You get skills from my professions? Don knew the fairy must have been getting something out of their partnership. What other secrets was she keeping?

"Yeah! Fairies get pretty great skills too! Your Alchemy profession gave me [Fairy Dust]. It's an ability I can only use once per day but it lets me produce a Magical alchemy ingredient that Doubles the effect of any potion you add it to!" She waited for a reaction in vain. "Magical ingredients... You know, oh wait you don't, sorry. Magical ingredients are the second rarest category of ingredients! On top of that, they provide the energy that a potion requires so any side effects are negated!"

You keep talking about side effects, but I didn't notice any when the ColoColo healed me. I felt fine afterward.

"Are you sure? Weren't you a little hungry after the healing?"

Don paused. He did have an unreasonably hard time controlling himself around food.

A little bit I suppose Don admitted, not wanting to share the details

"Well that's because potions below Magical rarity don't heal you directly, they just accelerate your natural regeneration. That means you are still drawing on your own resources to fuel the potion's effects. Healing effects make you hungry, Stamina regeneration will build up fatigue and Mana regeneration will tire you out mentally."

Now Don was getting somewhere. Not only did it explain why he was so ravenous. 31 units sounded like a lot of food no matter how Don looked at it.

You keep talking about rarity. What's that all about?

That seemed to be all the chatting Cel was ready for however because she changed the subject on him again.

"You can only harvest the most basic ingredients at the start so that doesn't really matter yet. What are you waiting for? The night is young but we have a lot of work to do. Select the profession already."

Don wasn't quite ready yet.

I already have a profession, I'm an Alchemist.

"That doesn't matter, You can have more than one profession."

Doesn't that just muddle things? How many professions can I have?

"You can have 3 in total now. Professions are the best way to get useful skills and people usually have multiple professions that support each other. You will get to chose more later on but that's still a long way off."

If I lose a profession somehow, can I get it back?

"You can't lose professions, once you take them on, you're stuck with them."

Don wasn't quite ready to take Cel's word but he had nothing else to go on. If he did lose the Alchemist profession it would just prove that the fairy was lying and Don could cut off all ties with her. He took a deep breath and accepted the new profession.

-CONGRATULATIONS-

You are now an Initiate Herbalist!

From skipping through fields of daisies to climbing the world's tallest mountain in search of rare flora. What wonders will your pursuit of Herbalism bring, and what calamities?

Herbalist: Initiate 1

+2% herb potency

+1 herb stacking in inventory

Skills:

Harvest: Initiate 1

You can now harvest plants while preserving a measurable level of potency

Max Potency: 1

"Okay, just give me a second" Cel said and squeezed her eyes shut.

Don scanned the information. It was similar to the information he got when he accepted the Alchemist profession. He had to admit they seemed like a matched set. The skills both worked together to improve the potency of final products, assuming that a more potent ingredient made for a more potent potion. Don opened his 'Character Sheet' briefly to check on another thing Cel said. He focused in on the section with Cel's information and was rewarded with a new window.

Pet Information

Name: Celeste

Type: Fairy (Legendary)

Skills: Costs: Restrictions: Innate: Glow

Your pet's wings produce light N/A N/A Alchemist: Fairy Dust

Your pet produces a magical substance known as Fairy Dust N/A Cooldown: 24 hours

Charges: 1/1 Herbalist: Natural Resonance

Your pet's high affinity with nature allows her to resonate with nearby sources of life energy 1MP / 10 seconds Range: 5 meters

Don was almost disappointed that he didn't get to catch Cel in a lie. He was wondering how to check his professions when a new window popped up. It confirmed that Don had filled 2/3 profession slots and he was still an Alchemist. Don dismissed the windows in a sour mood. Then he noticed that the vine still clutched in his fist had developed a slight glow. It was faint, but in the dark woods, the short coil stood out like a tube of excited neon.

"Yes! First try!" Cel shouted excitedly. She was glowing just as faintly as the vine and she glided down to get a better look at the shining plant. Don noticed another few hanging vines by their glow. Don even spotted an orchid sprouting out of a tree a few meters above him. Its string of flowers lit with a vibrant, purple inner light. After a few seconds, the glow faded.

That was your [Natural Resonance] skill? Don asked

"Yup! it lets me sense plants with specific levels of life energy in the area of effect! Pretty cool huh?"

I'm still not convinced it will be useful. Don didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that he thought the glowing plants were actually quite pretty.

"I know a good way to change that!" Cel said, cheerfully undeterred. "But before we can start running around picking flowers, you need to take care of your body first."

Don looked down at himself. He was coated in smoke, grime, leftover salve, and dead leaves. There were even tufts of fur and feathers stuck under one arm for some reason.

I guess I could use a bath Don looked back at the frigid water and shivered.

"You're not wrong but I was talking about your hunger and thirst. When was the last time you drank anything? Nevermind, just open you 'Status' screen."

Don did as he was asked once again. More information was always useful after all.

Status:

HP: 83/90 SP: 60/60 MP: 49/50

Active Effects:

Partial Amnesia: You cannot recall specifics about your life or certain recent events.

Hunger (Rank 3/5): -60% SP regen

Thirst (Rank 4/5): -80% MP regen

So some information isn't all that useful. Don could already tell that he was hungry and thirsty. He was also painfully aware that he couldn't remember his past. The table did open up an opportunity for a new line of questioning though.

What do these HP, SP, and MP symbols represent?

"Those are your pools, or points depending on who you ask. You have three basic pools of vital resources. One for health, If that drops to 0 you will die, another for stamina, which lets you perform physical actions, and the last is for Mana. Mana is a kind of mental energy, you use it up when casting spells or performing other mentally taxing activities."

So this number here Don pointed at his HP determines whether I live or die? This was one of the fairies worst lies yet.

"No, that number is a measure of how close you are to death. When it is full, you are perfectly healthy. It decreases as you get injured, and increases as you heal, but its a measurement, a diagnostic tool, it doesn't control anything." That made it a little more believable. This screen seemed like some sort of biometric readout."

Why do the pools- Don began but Cel stopped him, holding up a tiny hand.

"That's enough questions for now. we don't have time to sit around and talk all night. We need to get to work. I just showed you this screen so you would drink your fill before we left. We're going to need your mana to fuel my new skill. Besides, you won't like what happens if you get to the 5th rank of the thirst debuff."

Don shrugged. He got a good amount of information from the Fairy and he wasn't about to remain thirsty just because she told him to drink. Don slid carefully down the small bank to the creek. Loose soil and rocks tumbled down past him to splash into the running water. Don dunked himself entirely underwater and started rubbing the accumulated grime off of himself. He wished he had cleanser but it was better than nothing. Once he was cleanish and the oily patch of stank and grime was flowing away downstream, he dunked his head under and gulped. He drank and drank. He drank until he was bloated. He drank until he was shivering uncontrollably from the chilly water. When he finally climbed back out of the water his thirst debuff had changed to '(Rank 1/5)' and only slowed his Mana regeneration by 20%. he would have drunk more if he could but Don felt like he was about to burst.

His stomach seemed irritated to be so full of something that wasn't food and it growled at him. Despite its promptings, Don could hardly move. he lay there, letting his body process some of the water as he looked closely at his surroundings for the first time. Sweet air, unlike anything he had smelled in the crypt, under the hay, or in the refuge wafted across his face. Goosebumps rose to new heights as the water clinging to Don's skin began to evaporate. All around him, irregularly placed, shadowy pillars reached into the air, branching out, sprouting leaves which obscured Don's view of the ceiling. They rustled in the breeze which rolled playfully across the tops of the trees but couldn't penetrate to the ground. Don watched as swaying pillars and shifting leaves allowed light to pass for only a moment. Shafts of light appeared and disappeared, taking their opportunities to paint the ground, trees, and Don with their ghostly light. As he watched the silvery flocks of light specks appear, swarm over the forest floor and then blink back out of existence, Don built up an image of his surroundings. There was a high, wall-like bloom of plants along the sides of the creek. He could only get a vague impression of overcrowded tangles of vegetation competing for space near the life-giving water. Further away, the plants spread out more but it was rare to see an unoccupied patch of the jungle floor. A couple of boulders coated in thick moss sat on the far side of the creek. causing it to bend around them, burbling happily as it went.

Don inspected the vine he had picked earlier. He winced when he saw it. Some goopy substance had leaked out of the torn end and the vine itself looked shriveled. It also felt more squishy than when he was pulling it down originally. Don decided to try again with another of the vines he spotted during Cel's [Natural Resonance]. He struggled with this one too, pulling this way and that, trying to find some way to pull the ropelike plant free without destroying it. Eventually, Don tried lifting it up rather than pulling it down. He almost fell over when the vine unexpectedly tore. He cursed and went to inspect the vine. He was surprised to see that instead of the jagged explosion at the end of the first vine, this one pulled away cleanly, leaving a flat plane where it used to attach to a larger section of vines. Just a little bit still connected them and Don carefully lifted the vine again. It peeled cleanly away and Don was left with a vine in his hands. It didn't matter that he had no idea what to do with it. He somehow knew on an instinctual level that he had managed to preserve whatever effects this plant had.

Don's stomach was much more settled by this point so he went back to the brook. He tried to stand outside of the water and scoop handfuls into his mouth but the plant he was using as an anchor uprooted and he tumbled into the shallow water, banging his elbow on a rock in the process of protecting his head. When he was fully hydrated and very cold, he turned back to Cel.

I assume you have a plan for where to find food. He prompted. Cel jerked awake, lost her balance and fluttered her wings in a brief flare of light to regain it. Apparently, she got bored waiting for Don to drink his fill. Cel rubbed her eyes and yawned through most of her reply before shaking off the vestiges of sleep.

"Well, it hardly qualifies as a plan. We don't really have any choice but to wander in a random direction. My ability will help but It's going to come down to luck. That reminds me, Do you remember anything about the ingredients you used to make all that salve?"

Don was taken aback at the random question from Cel. She seemed to only have answers so far. Still, he tried his best to remember the plant.

It was long, brown, hard but brittle, and it had a sort of mostly hallow bulb on one side.

"It sounds like you're describing a dried flower. The color and texture won't help us much in that case. Did it smell like anything?"

Don remembered the sweet floral scent that filled the Alchemy round as he ground up the ingredients. He didn't have the words to describe the smell to Cel though.

There was a pretty nice smell, I'll know it when I smell it again. Why are you interested in that ingredient all of a sudden?

"Well, if you actually read the details of your socialization quest you would have realized that you can pay back all of the materials you have used so far. How many of the flowers do you think you used last night?"

Don slapped himself on the forehead. That was why Sik was so upset with him. Don must have used dozens of the flowers when making his salve. If Don was ever going to use Sik's equipment again, he was going to have to make it up to him, just like how he was going to have to make amends for eating so much of the tribe's food.

"We need to get started!"