Limits

Together with Shelly, we traveled towards north. In the bag that Nick left for me, I had couple of inheritance items that I never saw. Besides the usual stuff such as puppet strings and weighting containers, I found black clothing. More precisely, it was a black robe with a hood, black pants that were not lose nor tight, pair of black gloves without fingers and pair of black boots.

When I wore the set, I noticed that it fitted me perfectly, as if it was made especially for me. Also my presence almost disappeared and I became less eye catching. I figured out that this was the set of inheritance clothes for The Art of Stealth. I would be better able to blend in the shadows and at night. I took off the clothes and hid them back into the bag. I didn't want to destroy them and besides I was in the forest and I didn't really need to hide from anything.

The other item of inheritance I got was a pair of green gloves. I remember Nick saying something about handling dangerous poisons and that he had tools for such things. This must've been such tool. I guessed that this must've been the inheritance item for The Art of Medicine. It would come in handy when picking up poisonous herbs as well as handling them and cleaning my tools after I've concocted the poison.

After putting back the gloves into the bag, I took out another item of inheritance. It was a mask. The same mask I used, to train in The Art of Stealth. Or at least it looked the same because when I placed it on my face, I got a bit surprised. It didn't block my vision but instead enhanced it. I could see very well in shadows and dark areas of the forest.

I was a bit confused and looked into the bag again, there I found another mask. When I placed the other mask on my face, the effect was the same as to the time when I was training in The Art of Stealth. 'So there were two masks but how come they look identical and Nick even said that he made it look like this because I reminded him of a skeleton' I thought to myself.

I got an idea and said to Shelly "Shelly, I will put on you a mask, let's see how you feel". Shelly nodded it's head but was slightly confused. I placed the vision sealing mask on Shelly and was stunned at what I saw. The mask changed its shape and became a different mask. It looked like a demonic turtle with two horns sticking out of its head.

Shelly was also startled as it tried to remove the mask. It's vision got taken away and it looked quite afraid. I took the mask back and the mask changed back in my hand to the one I used to train in. I thought 'This is very weird, so the mask will change its shape depending on the user but then why didn't it change when Nick was holding it?'. I didn't know the answer to this question, instead I wanted to try the other mask out as well. I said to Shelly "I will try another mask but don't worry, this one will not make you blind, it will improve your vision". Shelly was sceptical about my claims but nodded its head obediently.

I placed the second mask on Shelly's head and waited. The mask also changed to that of a demonic turtle with two horns. This time, Shelly was not scared but excited. It looked around in excitement. I took the mask back and the mask again changed in my hands. 'So both masks will take shape of the person or animal that possesses it'.

I was a bit annoyed as well and thought 'But why do I get some kind of skeleton!'. I didn't know on what basis the mask will choose the design but it didn't matter. The mask that improved my vision would become useful, I was sure. The mask would also complement the set of black clothes I had in the bag. I put away both masks and reached into the bag again.

The item or rather a book, I took out next was the manual Rand and his granddaughter used in order to train their bodies. I opened the manual and noticed weird diagrams of humans and some vague descriptions underneath them. This manual apparently worked because Rand and Senty were much stronger than usual villagers. Yet it seems they didn't fully understand these diagrams.

Dina did not tell me any secrets concerning this manual. She probably thought I would never get it or I wouldn't need it. I looked at the first diagram and it displayed a human figure that was creating a specific pose. The pose in the diagram was quite weird as one would need to hold both hands on top of their heads while standing on one leg crouched. The description said "Rising warrior stretching before great war". The description didn't provide any other clues just this one sentence.

The problem Rand had was lack of knowledge in medicine and human body. I on the other hand already noticed that this would create great stresses on hidden muscles and therefore train them. But overtraining was also an issue. I estimated that the maximum someone could stay in that pose was only 15 minutes. Any more and you start to hurt yourself.

Of course that was for a beginner practitioner of this manual but nevertheless a very fit and healthy one. Under my estimates, I could easily do this pose for 30 minutes but any more than that and I could also damage my muscles. I turned the page and saw another diagram. This time both legs were on the ground but the human figure was still crouching. Both of the figure's hands were straightened out in front of it and the head was tilted backwards.

I thought about this pose and got some ideas as to what it could possibly train. The first thing it trained was legs. The other thing it trained was arms as well as back. Human's back was also a weak point and training it was not an easy task but with this exercise you could train the muscles and exercise all the joints. There was a short description saying "Great warrior pressuring the army".

I flipped the pages like that and found another 3 diagrams. When I checked all of them, I felt like something was wrong. The exercises would help out and although there were no training durations or other descriptions, other than what I assumed names of those poses. It was usable nevertheless. Yet I still felt that something's not right. It wasn't that these poses were fake or harmful to the user. It was as if those poses were not appropriate for me.

I thought 'If I want to use those poses for my future training, then I would need to modify them'. I check the 1st pose again and started thinking on how to modify it, in order to suit me. With my knowledge of The Art of Medicine, it wouldn't be that hard to change some things and so I said to Shelly "Let's stop here as I want to focus on something. We can stay in this area for the night. Go hunt something and I will make a shelter". Shelly nodded its head and went off to look for some food.

I on the other hand constructed a shelter, which I must say was much better than in the past. There was a simple reason for that. I now had proper tools with me and some experience as well. If I wanted to, I could build a wooden shack in couple of days time.

After building the shelter, I waited for Shelly to bring food. I didn't have to wait long as Shelly was very quick and brought a whole boar for me to roast. After the meal, I went straight to the first pose and started drawing it on the ground. I would need to spend some time to optimise this pose for my needs and therefore visualizing it on the ground would be better.