After finishing my dinner, I moved towards the stable to sleep. It was already half past nine when I reached back at the stable.
After I entered the stable, I noticed that a few of the slaves were already inside. They were chatting quietly amongst themselves.
Without minding them, I found a corner for myself and sat down while supporting my back at the wall. When the slaves noticed that someone has entered the room, they instinctively looked at me.
However, instead of continuing their talk from before, they quieted down. An eerie silence crept into the room, only to be broken by the echoing footsteps of the next guy who entered the stable.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
As he moved across the room, he first noticed the group of men sitting together at one side of the room. He noticed that they were strangely quiet and were staring in a particular direction. He turned his head and noticed me sitting on the ground and our eyes met.
As soon as James saw me, I noticed that his eyes widened a bit before quickly going back to normal. He then turned away his face and without making another sound, James moved to the corner opposite to me.
Following the event, many slaves returned back inside the stable. They would act normally until they noticed me and then would try to move farthest from me.
'They're avoiding me like plague!'
Phus! Phus! Phus!
Gradually, the room got filled with the murmuring and whispering of the slaves who would occasionally glance in my direction. Usually the room would be packed with the slaves occupying the ground as they slept but right now, one corner of the room held only one young slave while the other parts were tightly packed with them.
'I wonder what would happen if I suddenly jumped into their direction! Will they quickly move away climbing over each other or will they scream the hell out? Whatever is to happen it surely will be exciting to watch!'
Calming my intrusive thoughts, I looked at everyone. I noticed from their expressions that some were making fun of me, including James. Some were just curiously discussing the news and the rumors circulating. Meanwhile, many of them had fear in their eyes whenever they looked at me. They probably thought that I would drag them into the river along with me.
Not minding their antics, I went on to sleep among the silent whispers. Although I was afraid that one of them might actually try to hurt me just for the fun of it, I had no other choice. Those were the least bit of my worries.
***
I woke up the next morning really early. I couldn't tell the actual time but I noticed that everyone was deep asleep. Without disturbing anyone, I climbed onto the roof of the stable through a small tree.
The roof was made up of straws and was not very sturdy. This was the reason why nobody actually climbed the roof. This made it the perfect place to do something secretly.
When I reached at the top, I looked around and noticed that nobody was actually roaming around the village. Although I noticed a guard quite far from where I was, he was sleeping while sitting on the ground with his back supported on a wall.
'Today is the third day of week thirty one. It has already been a week since I came into this world. It has only been a week and so much has already happened! Exactly two weeks from now, I will be executing my escape plans.'
Putting my thought aside, I found a shaded area under the tree through which I just climbed the roof. I found an area which was well lit with the starlight falling from the sky and yet it was perfectly secured from the sides. If I were to place something here, it could only be seen by a person standing on the roof or by something flying through the sky.
I bent and placed a bucket in that area. It was the same bucket James used to store Lakéqus milk. I stole it quite a few days earlier without anyone realizing. James just brought another one the next day, whether he was punished or not, I didn't know.
After placing the wooden bucket, I poured sufficient soil on it from the inventory which I took from the river bank during the vermilion hue. I stopped when the bucket got eighty percent filled with the soil and then I mixed the porous soil with my hand to properly aerate it.
I then took out the bag of the eight seeds of the starlight fruit and opened it. Then, I took out one of the crowns of the fruit from the bag and noticed its dim yet mesmerizing purple hue.
From one crown of the fruit, five new fruits could be grown. However, one would obtain five fruits only when they were precise and planted the crown right after harvesting the fruit.
I knew that I wouldn't be able to get five but if I could just get one, the 'seed' would not be wasted.
After admiring the beauty of the crown, I poked into the center of the top layer of the soil with my index finger. Then, I carefully placed the stalk of the inverted crown into the gap and covered it back with the surrounding soil.
From my inventory, I poured some water around the crown making sure that not a single drop landed on it. I then cupped my hands and shaded the crown with them and started to observe the plant.
I was just following the memories of Alex inside my head to make sure that I was doing everything right.
I moved my head downwards and looked at the crown. Just after a few seconds of watering it, a very small spine emanated from each corner of the star shaped crown. The spines gradually grew lengthwise as I observed the magical plant grow.
'It feels like I'm seeing those time skip videos where they would record a growing plant and fast forward it so it looked like the plant just grew in a few minutes when it actually took months!'
I noticed that only three of the stalks actually grew up to the required length of 3 inches and the other two stopped growing mid-way. Gradually, the tips of two of the stalks started to swell until they grew and became a closed bud.
After the two cleistogamous flowers were borne, the plant stopped growing. There was a small star like swelling at the junction of the stalk and the flower. After noticing the aberration, I removed my hands and let the starlight fall on it.
I then watered the base of the plant, enough to waterlog it. I also had to make sure that the flowers didn't get wet. After this, my task was done. Now I just needed to wait patiently and hope that the flowers successfully pollinate and grow into a fruit.
After finishing my work, I moved back down with the help of the tree. If my sense of time was right, all this ordeal only took around thirty minutes. That's how rapid the growth of the plant was!
After I got down from the roof, I noticed that everyone was still asleep. Even the guard from earlier was still asleep.
Using this opportunity, I took out the bag of the seeds again from the inventory and opened it. I noticed that there were now 7 crowns remaining inside the bag. There also was the knife which was meant to be used to extract the seeds from the fruit. I took out the knife and placed the bag back into the inventory.
The knife was an ordinary kitchen knife. It had a metallic blade and a wooden handle. The blade was fixed inside the handle with the help of screws. It was clear that this knife was not the work of a blacksmith, rather it was a homemade knife made by scratching metal on a wet rock continuously.
The good part about the knife was that it was very sharp and pointy. It could easily cut through someone's finger. Although, I didn't know if it would be able to defend me if the need be.
'Here I'm contemplating whether a knife could kill when there were people on earth who could kill with screwdrivers and even pencils!'
I then held the knife in my right hand and turned my hand in multiple directions to get a feel of the knife. I wanted to get used to it so that if things went south, I atleast had a weapon on myself!
Swoosh! Whoosh!
For about an hour I practiced with the knife under the dark sky. I mainly focused on thrusting the knife, wanting to increase the power and the speed in my thrusts. My right hand was sore yet I still persevered and practiced while constantly imagining that an enemy was infront of me.
After I was done with practicing the knife, I directly stored it in a new slot in my inventory instead of the bag I previously kept it in. Thereafter, I moved on to train my physique.