-" Are you sure that you want to spend the night there? Why don't you sleep at my house?" Isabella was hesitant, she didn't want to let her friend alone, even more, spend the night in the same house where her brother died.
-" Don't worry... This house is in my family for years now, I can't just get rid of it."
Makayla's anguished voice made Isabella even more worried. " I will sleep with you then!" She was afraid of sleeping there as they still didn't find the culprit, but, she never would let her friend alone at such a time.
They soon arrived at Makayla's house and stopped at the door, her hand trembled as she held the door handle. Makayla was still in disbelief, deep down she still thought that this was all a nightmare and soon it would end.
-" Makayla Flint?" Makayla woke up from her stupor as someone called her.
She turned around and saw a young boy, his clothes were dirty and tattered, but, not to the point of looking like a homeless person. " Yes? Who are you?" Makayla was sure that she never meet the kid before, and wondered how he knew her name,
-" A man asked me to bring something to you." The kid took out a small bag and a piece of paper and passed them to Makayla.
Makayla's eyes wavered, her gaze was full of suspicion. " A man? Who is he? What is your name?"
-" I don't know his name, I meet him in the market earlier." The boy was nervous as he tried his best to do what Henry told him. " You can call me Thomas."
-" Thomas?" After some hesitation, Makayla took the items and opened the bag. only to find out that it was stuffed with gold coins.
She was shocked as she saw the enormous amount of money, she wanted to get the kid and force him to spit out everything he knew, but, she was sure that the young kid didn't have any valuable information.
She took a deep breath in preparation to read the note. " Hang on and stay safe, beware of those around you?" Makayla's body shook as she recognized the handwriting on the piece of paper. " Where is the man who gave you this?! Where is he?"
Thomas's face twitched in fear as Makayla grabbed him, he didn't want to disappoint the man who helped him, so he bit his lips and spoke exactly what he told him. " I don't know... He just told me that you shouldn't look for him."
Makayla freed the kid as she saw his terrified face, and gave him a gold coin from the purse she had just received. " Thank you, you can go now." Her eyes returned to the paper once again.
Her mind spun as she tried to understand what Henry was talking about. -" I'm sorry Isabella, I need some time alone..." She quickly opened the door.
-" Are you okay? Who is that kid?" Isabella was confused, everything had happened so fast that she didn't even have time to understand what they were talking about.
-" I'm fine, I just need some time to think." Makayla finished speaking and closed the door in the face of her friend.
-" Makayla? What is happening? Let me in!"
-" Sorry! I will explain it all later, just trust me!" Makayla rushed upstairs and threw herself on the couch, a smile beaming on her face. " Henry is alive! He is alive!" She felt as if color had returned to her world. " Beware of those around you? Who is Henry talking about? It looked like Isabella's sister knew that man that Henry made a bet with, but, the Whitelock family is still the most suspect one." Makayla remembered the talk she had with the manager of the store the day that Henry went missing. " Who was the one behind the robbery?"
Henry watched everything with a smile on his face. " With this, I don't need to worry much about Makayla."
He turned around and left for the place he had set to meet Thomas again, he liked the boy and felt that he could still be useful, so he wanted to create a relationship with him.
Thomas was already waiting in the lobby of the Inn that Henry had picked, and the two of them went straight to a private room.
-" This is the last part of your payment." Henry threw a gold coin to the kid and smiled. " I may need more help in the future, where do you live?"
-" The girl gave me a coin too, you don't need to pay me." Thomas gulped as he passed the gold coin back to the mysterious man.
-" Think about the money she gave you as a tip."
-" But... I still need to pay back your herbs." Thomas kept trying to refuse the payment.
-" You should use this to cure your father, a person in need shouldn't refuse a helping hand." Henry closed his eyes as he thought about his days of poverty. " Write down the location of your house and you can leave." The boy finally accepted the coin as Henry mentioned his father.
Henry didn't stay in the Inn after finishing the deal with Thomas, he had already planned good parts of his next steps and he needed to finish all preparations.
Henry spent the rest of the day looking around the shops for a good cultivation technique, now that he had no problem with money, he could buy the best cultivation materials available in the market.
-" 600 gold just for a Mage Apprentice technique?" Henry was hesitant, he knew that he could make plenty of money with the system's help, but, paying so much for this technique left a strange taste in his mouth.
-" This is the best technique we have in the store, it is sure worth the 600 gold." The attendant looked at the man with suspicion, he didn't seem to be the type of person who had so much money to spend.
Henry threw his doubt away and purchased the book, he knew that a good technique was the best friend of a cultivator.
Henry was excited to try his new technique, but, he still needed to go buy another round of herbs, this time he wanted to focus on second level and third level herbs.
-" I can't believe that 1500 gold coins are going away this fast." Henry grinned as he noticed that his purse was surprisingly empty. " I gave two hundred to Makayla sooner, and now spent another eight hundred." Henry lay down on the Inn's bed as he thought about his next moves.
He quickly opened his inventory and put all the new herbs there. " System, analyze all the second-level herbs." Henry wanted to level up as soon as possible, and he now needed two hundred second-level treasures. " Are Second and Third herbs that easy to find?" He had bought more than 200 herbs, and around 120 of them were of the second level.
He quickly checked his features upgrades and noticed that he was able to upgrade the inventory and just needed to analyze a few more treasures of the second level to unlock the Analysys mechanism upgrade.
-" System, upgrade the inventory feature!" Henry was pumped, due to the attack and the time he spent unconscious he lost valuable time that he could have used to level the system up, but, now he was finally able to completely focus on it. " I should wait for the furnace cooldown to finish before leveling the system again."
-'Inventory: Hoard 200 treasures, current progress: 200/200 treasures hoarded - Inventory feature upgrade is commencing - 1% 35% 78% 96% 100% - Inventory successfully upgraded.'
Henry checked his inventory and was pleased to see that he now had three hundred spaces on it. Many of the herbs he had brought were still in one of his spatial rings, and he finally could store them all in the system's inventory.
-" Now what's left is to start cultivating." Henry grabbed the book and began to read it. " Mysterious Blossom of the Summer Flowers is a technique that excels in the gathering of quality mana, this training set is best used for meditation in open and green spaces..." Henry was engrossed by the book and tried his best to pay attention to the smallest details.
-" The first step in the Mysterious Blossom of the Summer Flowers, just like in all other mana cultivation techniques is to sense the mana in your surrounding." Henry closed his eyes as he finished the first part of the book and began to meditate.
It didn't take long for Henry to feel the mana in the sparse mana in the room, as he already was quite experienced with this step. " Now it's where it gets hard." Henry grinned as he continued to read the book. " After the cultivator can sense the mana in his surrounding, he should absorb it, but, unlike the normal technique where the cultivator gathers the mana directly in the mana core, the user of Mysterious Blossom of the Summer Flowers was to first complete a full rotation through his body." Henry took a deep breath as it was time to finally test if he could really cultivate.
Henry entered his meditation stance once again and began to gather mana, the mana in the room entered his body with each breath he took, and when he finally gathered a good amount he tried to complete the rotation.
Henry had the sensation that his body was on fire as the mana coursed through it, he was used to it, as this was the feeling he always felt every time he tried to cultivate, but, he tried his best to endure the uncomfortable feeling as this time he could feel small amounts of mana rushing through his veins.
Henry let out a deep breath as he finished the circulation, he was exhausted and drenched in sweat, but, a satisfied smile was still present on his face. " I almost failed... System, didn't you say that I wasn't afflicted by mana deficiency anymore? Why I'm still feeling the burning sensation?"
-' The answer was that Host was able to cultivate, not that he was cured of his mana deficiency.' The system's answer confused Henry.
-" So? What's the difference?" Henry felt a bit dumb as every time that the system spoke something about cultivation he had to ask for an explanation.
-' Mana deficiency isn't a body condition that affects the mana core of an individual, but, his mana veins. The mana veins of an individual are thin and frail difficulting the passage and absorption of mana.' Henry's eyes widened as he finally realized what he suffered from.
-" All this time I thought that my mana core was too small! Wait, so why I'm able to cultivate now? Does increasing the mana inside my core help with the quality of my mana veins?"
-' Mana slowly leaks out of the core, and this leakage helps the Host's mana veins in expanding, the bigger the size of the core, the bigger the energy leaked, so if the Host keeps increasing his overall mana, soon enough your mana veins will be of normal size.' Henry's eyes were full of resolution as he heard the system.
-" So if I want to increase my cultivation speed, I will need to put a few more points in mana." Henry felt that he had way too few points to spend on everything he wanted. " How Attributes Points do I need to spend if I want to expand my mana veins to a normal size?"
-' If Host had a Mana value of 100 Attributes Points, the mana veins would take 2 months to fully expand to a common size.'
-" So I can keep expanding them after reaching the common size?" Henry felt that he need to study a bit more cultivation as he was ashamed of depending so much on the system.
-' Host's mana veins will keep increasing after reaching the common size, but, the effect would be negligible'
-" Looks like I need to keep investing in mana, but, I can't stop cultivating just because of the inefficiency." Henry closed his eyes again and continued to cultivate.