Sleep was like a sanctuary to Arino all his life, a foothold in reality. No matter what occurred, he could let it fade with the ebbing tide of his consciousness. In the morning, his mind would be clear for at least a blissful moment.
Today however, that moment was filled with an aching as deeply set in his arms as their bones. The muscle fibers felt like they were tearing apart all over again with every little movement. The bellows had been the most physically intensive exercise he had ever done, and the pain was almost as bad as what he had endured in the Nightmare. Alas, Master Gird was unlikely to relent in his persistence to break Arino.
That didn't mean Arino would break. He felt that the old man was just testing him, and if not, he would just have to get used to the intensive training. Arino's meals and supplies were being taken care of by the village whilst he trains due to the lack of time for working.
'I am just working for Master Gird at this point, but I'm sure the Elder wouldn't have arranged this if she didn't have faith in this method.'
Arino was yet to realize the massive landmine he had dodged should his training have been supervised by the Elders, but he would likely never know. Only Elders have been borne of this training, and all else have died along the way.
Despite not looking forward to the training today, or the pain that would surely accumulate to be worse by tomorrow, he felt his mind was clear. All he had to do was whatever the Old Man told him to, and in a forge ran by an experienced Master, what could go wrong?
Upon entering and making his presence known, Arino asked Master Gird what he would be doing. His hopes had been sufficiently raised at the fact that the old Master wasn't by the forge at his entrance, but they were shattered when he started throwing tools that Arino barely caught.
"I'm glad you would ask young Arino, because today you don't have to work the bellows," he said as he continued throwing strange trinkets and primitive looking tools, "You will be collecting Awakened materials." Arino couldn't even pick his jaw from the ground before the Old Bastard pushed it further into the ground, "Not those pesky Nightmare creatures either, bonafide Noble Creatures. Beware, they're not quite sentient until they reach the level of a Demon, but after that, they're not like the beasts you're used to. They're like us, without the pull or battle against Corruption. Strike first, see if you can shake their feathers a bit without pissing them off too bad."
Arino chose not to ask any questions which might drop him into deeper shit, familiarizing himself with the items the Old Man had tossed. A pair of shiny metal pliers, a short but stocky knife with a lightly hooked tip, three little pouches, and a thin booklet of bound paper, likely to be a list of materials.
He could feel a hint of essence flowing through the knife and the bags, leading him to believe they were enchanted for some purpose. Arino thought it may have been something as mundane as to keep track of them, but upon focusing on them they imparted a little bit of knowledge about their enchantments to him via a rune sequence that glimmered across the surface of the blade for a moment;
[Needlehide Dagger]: The edges of this blade are unusually sharp.
It offered even less than the Spell did in terms of information, as it felt more powerful than just that, but he couldn't complain. With the Old Man's back turned, there was no need to either. If he thought Arino needed more instruction, he would have been yelling it at the moment.
He looked through the booklet at what he needed to gather, how, and roughly where. Upon feeling satisfied at his knowledge of the materials, he set out.
Up first on his list was a type of toxic mushroom at the Dormant level. No notes were listed on it being aggressive, or even capable of fighting back, but he figured the enchanted tongs were to put the materials he shouldn't handle by hand in the little bags.
Arino had cracked their enchantment immediately, finding that they got bigger upon reaching maximum capacity. One could continue stuffing quite a few items in them, but the conflicting essence in having various raw materials in one bag could be dangerous.
His hands almost shook in excitement at finally encountering powerful being outside of the village that weren't horribly corrupted, even getting to harvest the ones that were relatively safe! He had been a bit worried at first word of the day's activities, but reading the booklet had soothed his worries.
Dealing with the materials in the order listed in the book was considered the safest and most foolproof method, so Arino figured he would just follow it as closely as possible. No need to stick to it if problems arose, and by following it none should arise.
Not only that, but his blades had finished regenerating in his Soul Sea after the damage sustained in the mad dash to the safety of the village, so he felt confident in handling whatever came his way.
The guards at the gate of the village greeted him excitedly, asking him all about his journey to the Soul Tree, but with the exception of the strange tablet he had seen and of course his Nightmare, both of which he felt the need to keep secret, the latter at the order of Elder Iranea, there was not much he could share.
"It sounds like you've had a rough go Arino, but I'm glad you made it. We'd been waiting for you to hurry up and ask the Elders to let you Awaken for so long we almost didn't believe the news. Had Iranea not sent Elder Orik it sounds like that tide of Lucent would have made you into one of their kind."
"It wasn't fun, to say the least. I'm just glad I got these from the Elders as a reward!" Arino wasn't the type to gloat about his rewards much, but Elder Iranea had suggested this as a reason for the sudden appearance of the blades.
Awakened Wain and Awakened Plares leaned in close to inspect the blades, Plares even brought his finger close to the tip of one.
"Careful, they're poisoned and I haven't seen in what way yet," Arino said as he pulled the dagger away before bringing it back.
To his dismay, Awakened Wain stuck his tongue out and licked the dagger in front of him! Seeing the shock in Arino's face, he quickly explained, "It's my dormant ability, I can resist and learn about toxins."
The glimmer in his eyes fell a bit as he continued, "Elder Orik keeps throwing me into spiky plants…"
Arino blinked witlessly at Awakened Wain, still lost for words. He didn't bother to search for the right words for very long, asking the question which was burning at his tongue.
"Well? What kind of poison is it?"