In the meantime, Gerald was on his way to the forest. It has been a few minutes already since he started to feel some discomfort in his throat. It felt like someone was scratching him from inside. It was not painful but was instead extremely itchy.
"Damn, what's going on?" he tried scratching his chest and neck, but to no avail. The itchiness came from deep inside his throat and it was only getting worse.
He tried to use the healing spell, but it didn't seem like it did anything to alleviate the symptoms. "Cough, cough, what the hell is going on?" He started to cough from discomfort.
Soon he was thrown into an intense coughing fit, that forced him to bend down. As he was coughing so intensely for a good thirty seconds, something flew out of his mouth.
As soon as it did, his coughing calmed down and the discomfort also slowly faded away. Gerald had to catch his breath first and he also drank a few mouthfuls of water from his waterskin, to moisturize his dried-out throat.
Only after calming down did he observe what came out of him. On the ground, there was a purplish-black goo. It almost looked like tar. It was repulsive just to look at.
"What the fuck is this shit? Did I cough this out? Gross." He bent down to take a closer look and wondered, "This black goo that almost choked me from inside… Is it some kind of poison?" He took out an empty vial and scooped up the black goo.
"Hmm…" he observed the vial, "I'll have to investigate when I get back to the city. There might be someone trying to kill me…"
Gerald stored the vial back in one of his pouches on his belt and continued on his way.
Since he was still waiting for his new armor, he was only dressed in casual clothes. He had no intention of fighting on this trip, and besides, his defensive magic was just as good as a simple low-grade armor.
This time he was alone, and because of that, he had to focus on his surroundings much more. He was walking around in the forest, collecting every single herb he came across. All plants that could be used in potions were carefully collected and stored in his sack.
He left the road long ago and was now just walking from plant to plant, completely unconcerned about getting lost. He had a good sense of direction, and even if he somehow got lost, he could still orient himself by the position of the sun at a given time of day.
He already crossed the river on the north-western side of Geldern and walked through the forest on the other side.
Since the people around these parts usually relied on crystals to power their magic spells, the ingredients for Mana and Greater Mana Potion were considered worthless. They were like a weed for normal people so Gerald had an extremely easy time gathering a whole bunch of them.
After a few millennia of being left alone by humans, the number of magical plants increased significantly. Their worth was literally that of grass.
"Man, this is great. I won't ever have a problem with Mana anymore if I can collect this many herbs every time I go out." Gerald happily looked at the now full sack. It was almost the size of his torso and had a decent weight to it.
He decided to walk around for a while, in the hope he might find a rarer plant from the Blood Codex. Although he already knew that plants around here were considered of a lower quality, you never know. He just might get lucky.
The wind slowly turned, blowing straight into Gerald's face. Soon, he smelled something unpleasant. It was a mixture of rotten meat and feces, which reminded him of the time when he fought Giant Rats.
"Oh my god, where is this stench coming from?" he covered his nose with a wet cloth so he could breathe. It did not block all of the smell, but now it was at least manageable.
He just wanted to turn around and go back when he heard sounds coming from not far ahead.
"There! Maybe I should check it out?" He considered his options, but in the end, the curiosity prevailed and he went towards the sounds.
Soon he came to the edge of the forest. In front were a clearing and a high cliff with a cave that was half-hidden by giant boulders. Outside, Gerald saw a few broken carriages that looked like they were exposed to the elements for a good while already.
The paint was chipped, wood broken and rotten, one of them even had a side missing. What made Gerald's blood boil, however, was the great number of filthy beasts he saw walking around.
Goblins. A whole bunch of them. At a single glance, he estimated that there were at least fifty of them. They were loudly screaming and growling at each other.
Every once in a while Gerald caught a word that he could understand, but most of the time they were just letting out random noises. He thought back to the time when he first met Goblins. They were also just letting out random noises until they detected Sera.
Since they then started screaming some understandable words, Gerald figured that they had a way to communicate with words, although it was severely limited.
He did not forget what Sera told him about these creatures, especially what they do with women. He slowly took off his herb sack and quietly placed it on the ground.
"Just you wait, you bastards. I'll take care of you soon," he whispered through gritted teeth and took a fistful of Earth Crystals from his pocket.
"Let's see… All Earth Crystals combined contain 45 LIS, and one Stone Shower consumes 5 LIS so I should…" Gerald muttered to himself when he frowned. "Why the fuck are they calling it LIS? I know it stands for Low-Intensity Spell, but come on!"
He sighed and rubbed his forehead, "It's so annoying… It is too similar to the name Liz, my ex-girlfriend. Every time I think about a quantity of Mana I get distracted because of it."
He poked his head out of the leaves and observed the Goblins and murmured to himself, "Well, if there are Goblins like in videogames and I'm using even magic from videogames as inspiration, maybe I should adopt a few more things?"
He squeezed the Earth Crystals and smiled, "From now on there will only be MP, as in Mana Points, and no more Liz… I mean LIS. Now, it's time to start testing my new magic."
Gerald moved further back into the forest to hide his spell-casting. He whispered, "Stone Shower," a few times, and the Stone Bolts flew out of the ground, hovering just above the treetops, perfectly hidden. Gerald put away the exhausted Earth Crystals and took out the Fire Sword he got from Adelard.
With around 150 Stone Bolts above him, he took a few steps forward without fear. Before long he came out of the undergrowth and stepped on the grassy lawn where Goblins lay.
"Now, let the testing…begin!" He extended his left hand and a flame ignited on it as, at the same time, the Stone Bolts in the sky moved at his command.