Limits

I woke up in the morning as usual and went to do my tasks. Nothing of great interest happened and doing these tasks with my strength now was trivial. At 12pm I had my break and I practiced with the wooden poles back at my house. I wanted to practice as much as I could because other than in the evening, I had almost no free time in the day.

The village provided my meals as usual but in addition to that, Nick would bring me more food once in a while. I never got full to the point I didn't want to eat anymore. I could always eat more, of course if I had something to eat. After my break I went to Nick's house to do my last task of the day. Nick didn't say anything as usual and I didn't speak to him about anything out of ordinary.

Late in the afternoon, after I ate my dinner. I waited for Nick to come. After about 30 minutes, he was nowhere to be found. I decided to just practice what he showed me. I fell down from the wooden pole all the time. I couldn't even balance myself on the first one and moving to the 2nd one? This was something I could only imagine but not accomplish. At least not currently.

I trained like this for couple of hours and was very tired. I stopped to rest and noticed some food waiting for me. I guessed that Nick came by and left it here. 'He probably wants me to continue practicing this before he teaches me anything else' I thought to myself while eating. After my meal and a short rest, I went back to my training with the poles.

Time went like this and a week passed by since I started training in the art of stealth. After a week, Nick came over. This time he showed himself and said he will teach me something new. I stopped my practice with the wooden poles and turned my attention to Nick. He said "Your training is not going that badly. I needed 3 weeks just to be able to balance myself properly on that one pole. You almost did it after a week". He then continued "Now, don't get complacent. Just because you could achieve this faster, it doesn't mean you will be able to do so in the future. Today, I shall teach you something about the art of medicine". I was a bit disappointed 'Art of medicine? I thought the next thing would be the art of hidden weapons'. When Nick saw the disappointment on my face, he snorted and said "I knew you would belittle the art of medicine but you wouldn't be a slave if you knew that art in the first place!" He then continued "You are a slave because you couldn't take care of your own injuries. If you actually looked around the area you were found, you would find that there were many herbs and flowers which could be used to heal your injuries". I was a bit stunned and thought 'He is right, If I knew how to treat myself back then, I would not become a slave'. Nick then continued "But that is also a fortune for you", I asked "Why so? Being a slave is a fortune?" to which Nick smiled and answered "Actually, yes. Besides that, we would've never met. You would never be able to learn all those skills, and your character would not develop"

I had to give it to him. Fate plays tricks on people. From one point of view, my situation was quite dire but looking from different points of view, it had its merits. For example I met Nick. I also learned more about human nature and myself. 'I could be dead now if I didn't suffer this. Who knows what could have happened to me in that forest' I thought.

In the past, I was too naive and carefree. Thanks to that bear incident, I learned my lesson and paid for it almost with my life. 'Now I still pay for it as a slave but I will get back all the time I wasted on those supposed tasks. I will take back what belonged to me'. I said to Nick "You are right. It is a fortune in itself". Nick smiled and continued speaking about the art of medicine.

"You will read this and this" he said while throwing two books at me. When I caught them I noticed the title of the first one was "Thousand and One Herbs" while the other was called "Medical Journal". Nick continued "You will not only read these books. You will memorize them". I looked at him as if I was looking at an idiot again and said "These books are quite thick". It was true, the Thousand and One Herbs had... yep thousand and one pages. 'How the hell am I supposed to remember over 1000 pages!!'. Nick smiled and said "I will give you a week of time. Then I will come back and test your knowledge"

He then disappeared and left me standing there. I could faintly hear some wind outside the house but other than that it was all quiet. 'I swear that one day I will kick his ass so hard, my leg will break on it!' I screamed in my mind. I thought 'Well, I already did the training with the poles so why not read some books before I go to sleep'. I laid down in my bed and started reading the Thousand and One Herbs. Each page had a herb, flower, grass or whatever it was, with a picture of the said herb as well as description and its uses. It was quite an useful book and if I really managed to remember all of that, then I could find these herbs in the wild to use for my treatment and other things.

I found out that the book didn't contain anything about how to use these herbs to make medicine. It only contained herb information. It was like a encyclopedia of herbs, I would still need to know how to process these herbs to make medicine. I wasn't discouraged. This book would be helpful in the forest so I read it seriously, trying to remember as much as I could.

I read it for a long time and my eyes were getting heavy. I decided to stop and continue tomorrow. It was probably time for bed anyway, and I didn't have days off from those tasks. Well, maybe only if I couldn't move my finger due to injuries.

The next day, I did my tasks as usual and on any break I had besides eating I would read the Thousand and One Herbs book. I found it interesting in the first place, so reading it gave my mind some break from other stuff. It was a nice method to forget about my worries and just read. Late in the afternoon, I started the wooden poles training and I did that for couple of hours. I was very close to staying balanced on the pole. I estimated that in couple of days I would be able to stay on that pole no problem. The hard part would be moving from it towards the next pole but I could only worry about that when I succeeded with my current goal.

After training with the wooden poles, I enjoyed the food Nick brought me and laid down on my bed to read the book. I didn't even read half of the book yet but I still enjoyed reading it. This went on like that for seven days. On the promised date, Nick showed up to test my knowledge of the books. I told him "I only managed to read the Thousand and One Herbs for these couple of days. I do remember quite a bit from it but I didn't touch the other book yet".

Nick didn't seem surprised and said "Then I will test you from the Thousand and One Herbs book only". He then continued "Don't worry, this will not take long. I will just ask you couple of questions and we'll see how much you remember".

Nick then asked the first question "Can you describe to me how does the herb called Mountain Trot look like?". I thought for a while and said "It has 2 or 3 green leaves that are round and elongated. The flower is also green and looks like it is about to bloom showing the petals and everything but it will never do so and will stay like this for its whole life". Nick seemed surprised by my answer and said "Yes that is correct". He then continued "Next question. What can a herb called Harvest Grass be used for?" I thought about that a bit more and remembered something "It can be used to deal with diarrhoea. It can also be burned as incense to scare off some insects".

Nick nodded his head and said "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 a bit about it and could find nothing. I could faintly remember something about pox but I didn't know what can be used to cure it. I answered "I don't know". Nick didn't laugh or mock me to the contrary of what I expected, instead he gave me the answer "There are 3 herbs that can cure this illness. Hungry Jade is one of them but it has to be combined with Green Lavender. The other is Lingering Petal and Ferenal Flower. Both of these can cure the green pox but Ferenal Flower is better at it".

I nodded my head and he 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 is called Ethereal Flower". Nick smiled and said "You remembered this one pretty well. Yes this is the rarest herb in this book". He then continued "Do you know what this herb can do?" I answered "I read that and I don't believe it. It is supposedly able to make you immortal". Nick then said "Yes. Supposedly there was someone in the history that actually found this flower and he consumed it raw. History suggests that the book Thousand and One Herbs was started by him and that is why that flower is in there".

I didn't know about that but I also didn't believe that. Who would put the flower in or spread that around. People would search for it high and low. Wars would break out. I only thought of it as a legend.