It was not just any book, it was a diary, a notebook and had descriptions of various things with small painted illustrations. The author had unique penmanship, not cursive nor simple, a sort of mix of the two and something unlike both. It was a miracle that he could understand the words at all, though formed as they were into sentences, the writing itself did not make clear sense.
He had picked up the book randomly, but it seemed to him that the author had not begun to write in this book first. He wondered if that particular book was part of the collection in the chest and if it was, did that mean that the author was the previous owner of his body?
Scanning through the pages, he noticed that most of the notes and illustrations were of various plants, none of which he had ever heard of. This, perhaps, was not too unusual considering his knowledge of plants did not stem much beyond trees and the types of wood they produced. But he was definitely certain that he had never heard of five-petalled ghostwort or silvertongue nightshade.
The first produced tiny flowers that had an intoxicating scent. It's leaves, when crushed, could nullify that same scent, should it get on a person's skin and the large root had nutritional value, but were tough and tasted as floral as the flowers scent if over boiled.
The latter was poisonous if handled unwisely. It's stems and roots were deadly upon consumption. It's silver leaves also, if eaten in too high a dose, otherwise they could produce a slight immunity over time. However the side effect and the reason that they were valued despite their nature was that eating silver leaves would make the consumer talk nonstop for a while and without falsehood.
Leon put the book down and concentrated on moving the comb through his damp hair. He wondered why the author had such an interest in plants. It was clearly not all he wrote about, after all there was a rather poetic passage before those descriptions about a particular morning, when the low mists swirled about the tree trunks and seemed to hang loose like oversized cloaks draped over saplings and bushes. The sun had seemed like a bright moon held in the hazy sky rather than its usually fiery self.
Taking himself and the blanket still wrapped about him into the small hut, he opened up the other books, a couple of which were empty of all words and found the one he believed was the first of the books to have been written.
The words used seemed simple and youthful and the brushwork inexperienced, but the author spoke with much joy about how he had been chosen to attend the learning academy and how his grandfather had gifted him with a number of blank pages books, that the old man had crafted by hand. It was his craft, to make these books to be filled with the words of scholars, but he wished more for his only grandchild. The man had come late in life to the skills of reading and writing, but had diligently taught the author what he knew and the child had been receptive and eager to learn. The grandfather had sent him to the nearby town where recruiting had begun for the academy with a small purse of coins to apply and the boy had been successful.
He later wrote about his journey to the school which was located upon a mountainous hill coated in a thick forest. How he shared a large hut with many other boys, most aged 16 or 17, though a few were a little older, but they were all new to the school and would study together. Then the boys were tested, things like fighting skills, aptitude for calligraphy, standard of knowledge for things like wildlife and magic..
Leon put the book down. Magic?
*****
The academy was known by one name; The Ascending Mountain Institute, but it was divided into five schools. The first was the school of martial arts, specialising in all forms of fighting, armed and unarmed. The second was the school of beast-taming, those who attended there had great knowledge about the beasts of this world, their fighting capabilities, how to kill them, how to tame them, how to train them. The third school was the school of magic, naturally specialising in the using the elements and bending them to their will. The fourth school was the scholars school, for students with a insatiable thirst for knowledge, divination, cultivation methods. The fifth school was the school of alchemy, who focused on flora, creating pills and potions.
As the writer was not physically strong, lacked strong spiritual roots and whose knowledge and writing skills were still very lacking, he ended up in the school of alchemy almost by default. In fact, he was fortunate that he was accepted at all, but rumour had it that those willing to focus on alchemy were few these days, people were more obsessed with learning to cultivate and fight.
The boy had not minded, he was just pleased to have a place at the academy. He had moved into a single room hut on the forested mountain where the school was located and given a cauldron to use to produce pills and potions. He was also given herb seeds to practice growing common herbs. Despite his lack of talent, he had strong ethics towards learning; he placed every word told to him by his seniors in his diaries, filling them up with the most detailed knowledge of herbs and the best methods to produce basic pills and potions as he was taught them. Slowly, his hard work began to pay off and he became reliable in reproducing pills and potions and identifying herbs. His pills and potions were of average quality, he never produced poor products, but when asked to create something specific, he always came through.
Naturally, he became noticed by his seniors. Unfortunately, he also became noticed by a handful of classmates, who envied him this attention. When rumours began to develop that he might be moved to the inner school(for higher learning and better teachers), a person known as Caprian came to find him.
Caprian was different to the other students, he was from a wealthy background. Not only that, he was from an alchemy family. The trouble was, the boy lacked talent and was lazy. The family purchased his place into the academy, hoping for him to learn and work. But Caprian saw no reason to change, he was spoiled, used to having everything he wanted. He was disgusted by the poor conditions of the outer school, but didn't like the conditions required to move into the inner school (aka work). So he bullied other students into giving him their pills.
The writer didn't want to give him his pills, he had worked hard producing them and had begun to experiment secretly with the recipes, so he needed his pills to fill school quotas. There was no real fixed amount for the quotas, he needed to prove his value by exchanging created pills for more herbs, but the seniors kept records of how successful students were in making their pills. His success was just over 70% for the most basic pills and potions and 50% for slightly stronger ones. Half of what he produced was given to the school and half he could keep. It was this half that he had hoarded so he could waste herbs when experimenting.
One of Caprian's lackeys caught wind of the boy's stock, for it wasn't exactly hidden from site and his hoard was raided when he was busy in the library. Such actions were frowned on and of course the seniors promised to search for the culprit, but the boy was unaware until later that they had been paid off. The seniors also recommended that the writer move to a new room as the lock on his door had been damaged and who knew when it might be fixed. They had move him to a hut that was far away from the central compound and isolated from the other accommodation, as instructed by Caprian. But the boy did not argue, thinking it was better to experiment here, however he was more cautious to hide his books, cauldron and successful experiments and other pills and potions.
The diary ended there, leaving Leon to fill in the gaps. Caprian must have come looking for more pills and clearly found them in this hut, but beat the boy to death in order to get what he wanted. Leon, for whatever reason, had taken over the boy's body not long after!
Leon placed the diary back into the chest and looked thoughtful as he finished combing his yin yang hair. Though he was not clear on the age of the lad, clearly he had not been old enough to silver if he was a student for the time that seemed to be no more than two years, so perhaps it was the shock that caused the pale locks that striped his black hair. Leon sighed. He was in a different world and in a school with seniors paid to forget about him, but without knowledge to survive, he was little more that waiting for a second death.
Therefore he ought to just begin where the boy had left off. The problem was, how was he to get the herbs needed to make the pills and potions?
Carving a rod for fishing turned out fairly simple and using plaited thread from the discarded, bloodstained robes for string meant he had the bones of a fishing rod. Creating a hook proved more difficult, but in the end he found a simple hair pin hidden in the corner of the chest and bent it to an acceptable shape. It was a bit light, but he added a couple of charms for good fortune to add a small amount of weight. He tried not to hurl as he pierced a small beetle onto the hook and made an attempt at fishing.
The first two fish got away and the third was so small he felt guilty for capturing it and let it go, hoping it survived. The fourth and fifth fish were not particularly well sized, but enough to provide something different for his stomach. He felt this whole thing had taken far too long so gave up trying anymore, instead taking his booty home to cook.
As he walked home, he noticed a large patch of small flowering plants that seemed familiar, but he couldn't think why, so didn't dwell on it. Instead, he gathered an amount of wood that he knew would burn on route. He swept away an area of dead leaves and dug a small hole, which he lined with stones and pottery shards, creating a fire pit that hopefully would contain the fire he needed. There was no kitchen in the hut or fireplace. It seemed students usually ate in a large hall at the central compound and used furs and blankets to keep warm in cooler months.
Leon didn't feel like returning to a place that had turned on the original student, so had been seeking edible plants and things in the forest. It seemed the original student had made notes of things he had found that could be eaten when he moved out here, in case he need food to hand when he was creating large batches of pills. The fruit in the barrel was from a harvest made just two days before he died. Leon had found some tubers and large roots both edible and poisonous and a patch of delicious wild berries. He also had seen some wild fowl, but he had nothing to hunt with. He did notice that the season was beginning to change, so he needed to increase his supplies soon, even if it meant returning to the compound sooner than he wished.
Using a flint and tinder, he carefully watched the fire spark, feeding it dry grasses and wood shavings until the firewood caught nicely. Then he slowly added some more wood, before skewering his catch and slowly roasting it over the fire. When he was sure it was done, he let the fire die down and tossed a tuber into its embers to slowly roast.
While he ate his well deserved meal, he slowly reread one of the diaries; there wasn't exactly much entertainment out here after all.
He had lived here now for a week, or rather seven days, he wasn't entirely sure how time was divided here, except that people still aged in years. His injuries had healed quickly, too quickly making him realise he had been fed a basic level two blood pill. This pill aided the healing of internal injuries and helped strengthen the flow of blood. Normally, it would only do this for an hour or two, but it was enough for this body to jumpstart it's own processes. The writer had made a lot of these and had even begun speculations of how to improve the recipe.
Leon turned the page and took a close look at the herb drawn on it. It looked the same as the wild plants he saw earlier! According to the description, it was sweet sunclover, a very common plant that grew fairly fast and quickly spread. It was used in many basic recipes as it had detoxifying qualities in the leaves meaning that impurities in the pills that could build within the body due to the overuse, were lessened. It was also the main ingredient, when flowering, for the basic purifying potion. This potion could break down those some of the impurities in the body, but drinking more than one of these potions a week could be harmful. Still, it was a very common potion of choice amongst the martial artists, who often relied on various pills.
Seeing as there was still some time until dusk, Leon picked up an old pot, a basket and a shovel and wandered back over to where he had seen the herbs. If he was fortunate to find these growing wild, what else could he find here? He would have to investigate both the surrounding woods and the diaries again, sure that the writer would not have left out details such as where the plants grew.
Leon had never harvested anything before, he had never had a garden, so he could only hope that he didn't kill the whole patch. Fortunately for him, sweet sunclover was a known weed, hardy and self seeding. It would take a lot more than an ignorant gardener to kill it off! He dug up one batch of clover, dirt, roots and all and 'plonked' it into the pot. He then harvested half of the flowering plant, leaving the roots in the ground. Upon the wild patch, he felt compelled to leave behind a talisman of good health behind, before scooping up the basket, tool and pot and returning home.
Leon spent the following day creating an area beside his home to become a garden. He tilled the soil until loose then used scrap pieces of wood, from the small open shed beside the hut, to border several patches. In one of these patches, he transplanted the wild herb and in another he planted seeds he had obtained from wild berries. He could not do much beyond this at that point for he lacked what he needed to create a garden of substance. He decided that he should probably visit the library soon. One of the early diaries contained a map and he had already identified a route that he could take and not be spotted by others.
Sadly, even if he wished to avoid other students, it seemed other students did not wish to avoid him.
"I don't remember it being so difficult to find," a boy with a substantial girth complained, as he approached. Leon found his body beginning to shake and could only assume that it had memory of this fellow, even if Leon himself did not.
"We have not been here in awhile," a tall, blond haired boy reminded him. There was a third boy, short and sly following the pair.
Was eight days really so short a time, Leon wondered, his body still paralysed, even though his mind had quickly identified the trio. They were those who had left this body near to death. He assumed the fat boy, who wore robes not much different from his own, but cut from better cloth and pristine not a speck of dirt upon them, was Caprian. He also had an elegant hair pin and crown securing his dark hair into a topknot upon his round head. That would make the tall one Tor, he may have saved Leon by feeding him the pill, but his demeanor seemed as if he was cut from ice. Though he had not caught the name of the third, the diary had mentioned the short lackey as being called Virgal. He was a bootlicker and underhanded. He had probably acted as lookout that day, so he could claim his hands were clean.
"Ah, Leo, you still live then,"Virgal snickered as he saw Leon watering the transplanted herb. Leon felt his muscles unfurl and placed the bucket and ladle down, less he drown the plant before it could grow. He stored the fact that this body held a name similar to his own to the back of his mind.
"Why are y-you h-here," he found himself stuttering. He could not tell whether this was from fear or a physical quirk. He had not spoken a word since arriving in this body.
Caprian frowned. "Did the last beating ruin your brains?" He sneered. "You know why we are here!" Leon shook his head though he could guess. They were after more pills and potions. His fingers nervously grasped and pulled at each other, his bones cracking. "Don't just stand there, hand over the pills you've made this week!"
"C-c-can't," Leon said, honestly. Caprian took great strides over to him and grabbed his collar. Leon squealed and instantly felt ashamed by his reaction. He was a grown man, surely he should not be so fearful of this brat! But his body did not agree and began to tremble. "D-don't have any! I have n-no m-m-more herbs!"
"Pfft, what a joke," Virgal laughed. "Poor excuse, you would have restocked from the seniors by now!"
Leon shook his head. "N-needed to heal!" He said, not pointing out that such was their fault. "B-besides, I h-have no more p-pills to swap for h-herbs."
Tor placed his hand on Caprian's shoulder. "We did take all of his pills, so that is probably not a lie."
The fat boy tossed Leon backwards, causing him to trip over his bucket and spill its contents over the skirt of his robes. He then turned to look at Virgal. "Go get him some herbs!" He demanded of the boy.
"Hey, why mine?" The sly boy argued, but scampered off when he saw the angered look upon Caprian's face.
"I will be back in three days!" The bully said, before he and Tor walked back towards the compound.
A large bundle of herbs were thrust into Leon's arms later that day. But Leon did not attempt to create pills, for one thing, he did not know how. Instead he spent the whole night making talismans and charms in order to calm his frazzled nerves.
Paragraph comment
Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.
Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.
GOT IT