Chereads / Re: Rune Factory ~A Fantasy Harvest Moon~ / Chapter 6 - Day 6: Learning to cultivate (II)

Chapter 6 - Day 6: Learning to cultivate (II)

"Good job, Blake!... If you water them every day, the flowers will grow healthy and strong... But we don't have time to waste, so I made the toyherb ready!" In one of the distant plots, you could see three beautiful white flowers and around them several withered herbs.

'I understand that she would like to show me what they look like when grown up, but why three?'

"You see? In the plot, there are three toyherbs and six withered herbs... What? Did you expect nine toyherbs? Hehe" As if reading Blake's mind, Shara started to laugh as she looked at Blake's surprised face. "If you want more, you'll have to grow them on your own, Blake! I can't do it all for you!... Anyway, believe it or not, withered grass has its uses. Do you see that table there? In it, you will be able to see details about it and you will know that it is not so useless."

After Blake made a face that they were trying to sell him a miracle product, he followed Shara's finger toward some kind of wooden owl sculpture with a board drawn on it and made a mental note that maybe he should read it later.

"Well, let's harvest the toyherb, okay?" And again, she could be seen as Blake followed the instructions, and collected the three toyherbs that were in the plot.

[Acquired: Toyherb.]

"Well done, Blake! I think that's all you need to be a master at cultivating whatever you want." Not paying attention to what Shara was saying, Blake was processing everything he had learned so as not to forget it. "Since we are done with this, now we have to collect some wood. Take this."

Blake thought she would give him a tool to collect the wood, but the only thing that came to his hands was a small piece of wood.

"Normally, you would have to use an ax on branches and logs to get pieces of wood, but I don't have one with me right now. It would be a bit strange to go everywhere with an ax in your pocket, I already stopped that habit, hehe." Blake wondered if she was just joking or was, she talks seriously. "Well, take the piece of wood and put it in the woodshed."

His gaze drifted to some kind of area with a small roof to one side of the strange owl statue, where it was designed to store the pieces of wood. Blake took the piece and went to that area.

[Acquired: Piece of Wood.]

'Will I have to listen to everything I pick up in my head?' Once he left it, he returned to Shara waiting for further instructions.

"I hope you have understood everything perfectly... As a reward, you can keep all the toyherb, they are good gifts! And if you need money, you can also sell them... And that's all you need to know about this field. Good job, Blake! hehe. Here, another reward for your hard work." Shara took Blake's hands and put several bags of toyherb seeds and some money in them.

[Acquired: 500G.]

'Hmm, this time I didn't hear that I got more toyherb seeds, I guess the notification only appears the first time.' "Thank you very much, Shara!"

"Ah, I forgot."

"What's the matter?"

"I forgot to explain what magic is, you said you don't remember what it is, right?"

"That's right, I don't know what it is exactly."

"Hmm, how do I start to explain it?" The silence was present, Shara was sunk in her ideas while Blake thought about how to ask if magic was responsible for what was happening to him.

"Okay! Pay close attention, Blake... In our world there is an energy called "Runes", this is present around us and in all living beings, and what we know as magic is simply the manifestation of the runes in the shape of the different elements that exist around us." While Shara was concentrating on her explanation, Blake made sure not to miss even the smallest detail. "Currently these elements are divided into eight, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark, Space, and Life. Every living being is capable of using all these elements, but they will always have a greater affinity towards one or more of these, for example, I am especially good at using life and water magic, but I have a hard time using the magic of darkness and fire."

She said it while one of her hands began to generate a small sphere of water and then stop and make the other appear the strange green light that Blake had seen previously.

"So that you can use magic correctly it is necessary that you first learn a spell corresponding to the element you want to use or if not, the most you could do is fail when trying to use it or simply generate a small portion of the element, observe." Then Shara positioned herself in front of what looked like a small growing log, and once she got ready, she raised her hand and began to generate the small sphere of water again. "Water laser!"

And just when she said that the small sphere transformed into a powerful beam of water that shot out in the direction of the trunk, splitting it in half. Blake's face was in complete shock, he would never have imagined that Shara would be capable of something like that, and he reminded himself never to make her angry with fear that instead of the trunk he is in its place.

"Surprised?"

"Yes. I'm quite surprised... Couldn't you have used that against the orcs to defeat them?"

"I've never actually used magic to fight, so I was afraid that if I failed, I would end up hurting you instead." With her comment, Blake understood what she meant and was grateful that she hadn't used it or maybe he had finished like a half piece of bread.

"So... As you realized before, after you finished fighting against those orcs you felt too tired, didn't you?"

"Yes, my body felt heavy and I was about to pass out."

"That's because you used too much runic energy, as I have already told you, runes are linked to your energy, and the more you spend, the more tired you feel."

"But I wasn't using magic, how did I spend runic energy?"

"Because runic energy is also expended through all actions you perform, the difference is that when using magic or special moves with weapons and tools, enormous amounts of runic energy are expended. All those movements you made with the sword made that energy wasted quickly and you were too tired." All this information that entered Blake's head surprised him more and more.

"Now I get it." 'Besides, I understand why I felt so tired when the blue bar was almost empty... "RP" will it be rune points? and "HP", health points? It is too strange.'

"And you must be careful, because if you spend all the runic energy of your body, you will start to spend your life energy instead, so you always have to measure your limits, since, if you also spend your life energy, well... I suppose you can guess what will happen." In Blake's mind, that information was being highlighted several times with fear that for some reason he would not remember it. "But do not worry, runic energy is easy to recover, do you remember what Raven gave you?"

"Yes. It was a glass of apple juice, it was delicious and the fatigue in my body left after drinking it, I should thank her later. At first, thought that I had done something to annoy her and that she was distant because of it, but it seems that Raven is very nice."

"Oh, was it love at first sight?" After Shara's comment that she was joking, Blake panicked a little looking away with shame as the quiet redhead appeared in his mind as she gave him an imaginary smile making his shame increase even more without knowing the reason for it.