On my way towards the house I made a quick stop by the alchemist’s place, after all the amount of increase the poison resistance skill would gain would be too specialized if it all came from a single type of poison so it was best that I would get some recipes before I left on the 2 week journey to Lessis.

“Evening” I greeted as I entered the shop/lab.

“Ajax, what are you doing here, I thought we agreed alchemy wasn’t your calling.” He didn’t seem that surprised to see me despite his words, “was it the encounter with the kobolds that made you rethink past paths?”

“It isn’t so much that I am rethinking past paths but Hatchet told me that kobolds are known for using poisons on their weapons, so I was wondering if perhaps you would know some mild poisons I could make with local herbs or the ones you know I grow in my little backyard garden” I decided to go with the straight approach, after all this man could from the sound if a potion was bubbling wrong I wasn’t about to see if he could tell when a person lies.

“Poisons, hmmm, nasty business, but for a hunter I suppose that it would fit. Sure, I can show you a hemorrhagic one as well as a mild nerve toxin, you can even get a more powerful strain of the nerve toxin with some of those plants you grow.” He stumbled over to a cupboard and started taking out beakers as well as a few dried plants.

A few hours of carefully learning how to make the poisons with step by step instructions and notes I was stepping outside, happy to escape the moist warm air that permeated the shop following my lesson.

“Just remember, these are weak poisons if you want them to have any effect on something like that wolf Hatchet carried back to the village it will take a lot more than what you can lace on a blade or arrow, maybe if you made it with some of those plants of yours the wolf would start feeling numb after 10 seconds in the area around a cut but the downside is if you hurt yourself you’ll they’ll work on you.” The alchemist sent me off with a final warning just as the last rays of sunlight were drawing to a close.

With everything ready for my trip tomorrow I headed home ready to see what wisdom dad had for me prior to my stat points unlocking. The pale light of the candles flickered from the wind tunnel when I opened the door, for once it was only mom dad and Judy. It wasn’t so much that Alana spent all her time at our house as it was that she and Judy were inseparable with them spending time together both here and at her house, something the headman and dad both disapproved of but they both quickly changed their tune when they doubled their starting coin pouch in 1 cycle after they started joining the merchants for round trips to Lessis.

“Getting in late there Ajax, are you still feeling weak, you shouldn’t push yourself so hard after a fight” mom was already out of her chair and dragging me over to sit and have dinner.

“No, no, I just spent the last few hours learning how to make some poisons, my most recent encounter with them showed me they aren’t to be underestimated.” I assured her while holding up my arm to make a point.

“Is that why you sell so bad?” Judy wouldn’t let something like this get past her, despite the annoyed look I flashed her. “What I’m not saying is that it's a problem, I'm saying you better wash before we leave tomorrow.”

“What did he tell you about poisons?” Dad questioned clearly, a bit surprised I was leaning back towards alchemy.

The rest of dinner revolved around me explaining to them the lesson I just received, even Judy seemed interested though that was more because now she had a good excuse, in her mind, to overcharge alchemists buying these ingredients for making dangerous substances.

After dinner dad pulled me off to have the talk with me. We sat down alone around the table.

“Now usually this is something we would discuss the night before you experience your child trait ending so that it is fresh in your mind, but since that is a luxury we do not have doing it now will have to do.” Was all he said before he opened his status up to me.

Name : Sam

Level :38

Experience : 10000/75800

Traits:

Health: 2700/2700

Mana: 250/250

Stamina : 600/1400

Vitality : 270

Strength : 260

Endurance : 140

Dexterity : 190

Intellect : 25

Wisdom : 25

Mind : 25

Perception : 45

Stat Points : 0

Skills :[Hammers Lvl 65][Blacksmithing Lvl 57][Precise Blow Lvl 39][Axes Lvl 30] [Mining Lvl 25][Running Lvl 20][Reading Lvl 10][Heat Resistance Lvl 11][Writing Lvl 5]

“Now I will advise you as my father advised me, despite the fact that you have no mana and that you will most likely never have mana regardless of how much above 11 you Intellect Wisdom and Mind stats are you should probably push them up to 25, as that is where it is believed that the bonus to things like memory enhancement and quick thinking and other such limits are. It probably seems like a big investment now and I am not saying that these are your first points to put in, just that these are something you are looking to have by the end of your Apprentice or a year after.”

It was the same speech he had given my brother, but that was not something I should be pointing out seeing as I should have been too young to remember it the first time around. His status had remained much the same after all these years having gained only 3 levels and his blacksmithing skill having increased by a few levels

“Next I will tell you something about stat point, you see while they may only be affecting you in term of full points there is such a thing as partial points, when investing a free point into one of your stats all you do is bring it to the next highest number” he started with something I had already guessed but it was still good information nonetheless.

“Now the Apprentice trait will give you a 10% increase to all points spent, but this means that if you spend the points one by one you will lose all of this bonus, you want to spend points while under the Apprentice trait in multiples of 10 as such you will gain that extra point” Now this was crucial, spending the points incorrectly would have meant that not only do I waste the partial points I had worked so hard for but also the bonus from the trait.

“Next you should try to plan out what you plan to increase to how much over a longer period of time, usually a few levels ahead. You see the Apprentice trait will make it easy to increase your stats without spending points but to do this you will need to not increase them with free points for a while so you don’t just round up the attributes you worked hard for. As such you should spend your initial points favoring one stat that you will focus on and then not spend points to increase it for the next few levels, as such you might be able to push it 1 or 2 points up for free.”

“Do you understand what I told you?” he asks, a bit uncertain, clearly this is as far as he prepared his speech.

“Yeah, I understand” I answer leaving aside one of the questions I had about all this that had been bugging me ever since Judy showed me what the Apprentice trait did.

He looked visibly relieved, maybe Tom had asked some questions he wasn’t ready for and he had expected the same of me, but I didn’t want to put anything more on him and any other questions I would have I could bother Judy with so I headed off to wash myself before turning in for the night.

Since tonight I wasn’t as tired as yesterday I just stayed in bed spending a lot of my mana repeatedly casting Alzinoth to heal the burn on my forearm. Most of the discomfort was gone and the wound looked nearly healed when I reapplied my bandage after the wash. I would of course keep it in place for another few weeks but had to make sure to take it off before we reached Kate as I was quite sure that she would be able to figure out why my large burn had healed so well in only 2 weeks time.

As sleep claimed me I was thinking about all the opportunities I would have in the city as I will most likely already be done with the Child trait before we reached it unless we made very good time heading there.