Limits

The next day, I woke up very excited and went straight to the blacksmith's workshop. Grond was already there working on his ingot. I needed to wait for him to leave. He had the same pattern of behaviour everyday. He would create one ingot, then take a break and leave for a while. In the time he was absent, I would create couple of moulds for my daggers. I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing, so I would store the moulds in my house instead of the workshop.

At about 9.30am, Grond left the workshop and I went straight to the table with soft clay to create my moulds. It would be possible to create a weapon with a mould that has an imprint on one side only but that was not what I wanted. I wanted the dagger to be perfect and therefore I had to create a closed mould. It wasn't difficult to do so, I just had to create two halves of the mould separately and then connect it together before baking it.

I made a thick square from the soft clay and pressed the dagger inside. I then took the measures of that square and created another one with the same dimensions and pressed that on top of the other mould with the dagger inside.

I now had a closed mould that would perfectly define curves and edges of my dagger. Of course I had to get the wooden dagger out before sealing the mould and baking it. It was not really a problem as long as the mould was not sealed. I opened it and carefully retrieved the dagger. I also made a small hole in the mould through which I would pour molten purified steel.

With all of that done, I sealed the mould and baked it. It would have to slowly bake for about 10 minutes and therefore I had time to start another one. It took me about 3 minutes to create a mould and each mould would bake for 10 minutes so I only could make 3 moulds in the time that Grond was absent.

After a bit more than 20 minutes I had my 3 moulds. I took them back to my house and stored them in a corner where no one would notice them easily. When I returned to the workshop, Grond was already there doing his ingot. He was a bit surprised that I was not in when he returned but didn't ask about anything. He probably thought I took a break as well.

I finished my 2nd ingot and then had some lunch. After that I dd my 3rd ingot and again finished around 12.30pm. Grond was no longer surprised that I finished earlier and although he might be slow he wasn't that stupid to not notice that I took shorter breaks than him.

I went out to train my skills as usual and catch some fishes. This time I wanted to study them, not eat them. I had to create a net to be able to catch more of them at once. It would also save me some time compared to using a rod. At the river, I could see schools of fishes swimming around. It was spring, a season of new life so fishes went out and were more energetic. I set my net in a place where the fishes with the ability to absorb light were and waited for some to get close.

I didn't have to wait long and that was due to my behaviour analysis. I applied that training to anything that moved now, whenever it was a fish or a human. I caught 3 fishes and looked at each in great details. I saw nothing out of ordinary, so I decided to cut them open. Maybe there is something different inside and it is not the scales.

When I opened the fishes one by one, I compared what was inside between the fishes I caught. I could see no obvious differences, even though I check very thoroughly. Maybe I caught ones that didn't possess this ability. I wasn't discouraged though and decided to roast the fishes and eat them. I didn't want to waste food for no apparent reason.

I set up my net again before I ate so that I would be able to catch them sooner. I ate the fishes which were not big and went to check on my net. The were again couple of fishes swimming around. After a while I pulled the net and got out 4 fishes this time.

I checked them and could find nothing out of ordinary. I didn't cut them open because I didn't want to waste fishes and I couldn't just eat all the fishes in the river. I released the fishes back into the water and had a sudden idea. I already learned how to throw weapons and therefore fishing with the old style dagger I had on me would not be that difficult, if I use skills from the art of stealth.

I tried to spot the fish with the ability to absorb or avoid the light. I waited for about an hour before I found such fish. They were quite rare but now that I found one, I started calculating its behaviour. I retrieved my dagger and got ready to throw. When the fish swam opposite to my direction, I threw the dagger with one swift movement. I threw it quite hard as I didn't want the water to displace the energy or change its direction.

*Plum*

The dagger went into the water and it was fast enough to stab the fish through. I retrieved the fish and took out the dagger. I looked at it's scales and it seemed to be ordinary. I took off some of the scales and again examined them in greater details. I also tried to place them in front of the sun and see if this had any affect. To my surprise they were just normal scales.

That was a good thing and a bit bad. Good because I didn't want to wear clothes made out of fish scales. Bad because it was not scales, so it had to be an ability that the fish knew. Otherwise, how else would that work? I opened the fish up and check the insides. Again it was the same as the other fishes I caught. Now I was sure that it was an ability that some fishes would be born with.

I didn't give up, I had another idea. I would watch these fishes and their behaviour. Maybe this way I would learn how they can achieve that effect. But watching the whole school of fishes swimming around would be to tiring and to taxing on my mind. I needed to separate couple of such fishes and introduce a predator.

I went back to the village. I wanted to visit Nick and ask if he could get me a shovel. When I arrived at Nick's place, I asked him "Can you give me a shovel?". He looked at me and said in a confused manner "Did you kill someone again?" to which I replied in anger "Just because I need a shovel, it means I killed someone?" to which Nick said "No, then why do you need it?". I said "I need it to dig out a trench. I want to try something out and if I'm successful, it will help me a lot in my training". He was even more confused and said "Digging out a trench will help in your training?" to which I said "Yes, can you get me that shovel or not?".

Nick said "Sure, I can get you a shovel. Wait here I will be back in a while". He then melded into shadows and disappeared. I wondered how can he just meld into the shadows. It was similar in effect to that of the fishes with this weird ability but it seemed that the method was completely different. After a while Nick returned with a shovel and handed it to me while saying "Here you go". I thanked him and went out.

Back at the river, I dug a hole that was about a metre deep and couple of metres long. With my strength, digging that kind of hole was not a problem. After I dug the hole, I created two gates from thick branches. I wanted the water to flow through this pond and keep it fresh all the time but at the same time not let the fishes trapped inside run away.

My plan was simple. I would catch couple of fishes and put them inside this pond. Out of these couple I would have 2 or 3 that had the ability to absorb or hide away from the light. This way I would have only a few targets and it would be much easier to keep track of them.

Next, I had to dig channels to and from this pond and let the water flow in. I would have to wait at least a day before the hole I dug was clean and the natural current took away all the debris and lose earth.

After I did the chanels, the water rushed through and filled the pond. I installed the gates at both the entrance and exit and watched as the water flows. After a while of watching, I decided it was time to go back to my house and rest for tomorrow. I still had to read Great Scriptures of Evil Medic before I went to sleep, so I had not time to just watch the water flow.

When I returned, I went straight to the bed and read the book. I had many things planned for the next day. Things like creating my daggers from the moulds that I created today or trying to catch some fishes with the "avoidthe light" ability and putting them in my pond. Not long after, I fell asleep.