By the time the sun reached its peak, I had managed to find hanal flowers. They stood in a patch in the middle of a thick patch of grass. I set about harvesting ten of the flowers and ten of the roots, as well as taking a few seeds from them.
I had a few spaces left in my inventory, but instead of heading back to town, I found a spot to stop for lunch. I did have my backpack with me, so I could gather more, though I ran the risk of damaging them during transit. However, I decided that I was being greedy and decided that for the time being, I'll scout the area and note down any locations of gathering nodes I found, which should make things faster for another time.
In the afternoon hours, I used the time to practice my magic and hunting, if I were to stumble across any monsters. But apart from animals like deer and wild horses, I didn't find any monsters or anything I could fight against.
As for magic, I started to feel an affinity for water and air elements. Using them felt comfortable and I didn't think it was because of them being higher level than the other elements. It wasn't too strange to think about, even though an arcanist can use all types of magic, it doesn't mean that a person wouldn't have favourite spells or some such.
Placing a piece of dried fruit into my mouth, I levitated another with air magic and slowly spun it in small circles. I decided that each element would have a concept, which it'll help me to develop them. For example, air would be control, water would be flow, fire would be destruction, earth would be creation and energy would be power.
Through this concept, I could feel the amount of energy I needed to use to levitate this piece of fruit. Though it was such a low cost, due to its weight, it was a good experience to begin with.
Although I created these concepts, I decided to only use them as a guideline because I didn't want to unwittingly hold back my progress. Though, that might mean I just wasted my time in creating these concepts, but I suppose time will tell.
Catching the piece of fruit in my mouth and standing up from my picnic spot, it was about time that I continued with my scouting, hoping that I'd find something of use, or at least, interesting.
As I walked, I surrounded myself and the area around me with my air mana. Earlier, when I was using earth magic, I could roughly sense the distance it was from me, so, I had the idea to create an area around me to sense everything in the vicinity, a similar idea to a sonar that the military uses in the real world.
However, no sooner did I spread my mana out, did I realised how much strain it put on my brain from creating and controlling air around me in a way that didn't disrupt the area too much. But it did give me an idea.
'Instead of controlling air to use as a sonar. Why don't I just manipulate the mana itself?' Although it was a question, I asked myself and didn't have an answer for it. So, I decided to find the answer and slowly extend my mana from out of my body.
I closed my eyes as I thought it would help me focus, and I was glad I did. The amount of information that entered my mind was immense and felt like my brain would explode.
At first, I just felt a slight tingling on my skin as I built up the mana to stretch out. But as soon as it left my body, it became overwhelming. I could literally feel everything about the wind. The speed, the direction, the pressure and even the aromas on the wind.
It was almost too much for my brain to handle the unfiltered information. But after a minute of focusing, I was able to tune out most of the information that wasn't needed. However, that soon changed as my focus was taken by controlling the amount of information flowing into my brain and I forgot to control the range of mana reaching out of me.
My mana rapidly expanded due to my lack of focus. As it reached the grass and foliage around me, my brain screamed out in shock and felt like it would explode. In a panic, I released the connection to my mana, but the damage was already done. My body felt weak and shaky, and my head was pounding, and my vision was blurry.
'That was a bad idea.' It was an obvious response, but I didn't feel well enough to come up with a smart and sassy comment. But I guess that marks the end of today's exploration. And with that, I started to make my way back to town, hoping to get some rest.
By the time I got back to town, I guessed it was around one or two in the afternoon. Luckily for me, my headache had subsided in the travel time. Seeing as I felt better, I headed to the adventurer's guild to collect my ID tag. Plus, I'll get to check the price of horned rabbits, though, I plan on using most of it, so I doubted that I could earn anything from it.
It didn't take long to reach the familiar, ale-soaked building. Thankfully, there weren't any fights that had broken out as I entered. If anything, it was surprisingly empty. With a clear view of the counter, I walked over and spoke to the staff member sitting behind me. And it didn't take long for them to receive my ID tag, which was just a piece of metal, similar to a dog tag. Also checking the prices of monsters, I saw that horned rabbits go for twelve coppers each. It wasn't surprising that it went for so little, most adventurers can handle those rabbits with their eyes closed.
'At that price, I can make more money using the corpse for myself.' With that thought, I left the guild and returned home.
There was something comforting about returning to your own house and space. Taking my armour off, I headed to the kitchen pulled the horned rabbit out of my inventory and placed it onto the kitchen table, ready to be butchered.
Having butchered many animals in my past life, I felt comfortable holding the knife in my hand. So, with a practised ease, I began to prepare my catch. I took care to remove the hide, without nicking any of the organs and spoiling the meat. I then gutted it and stripped the meat from the bones, setting them both to one side.
Once I was finished, I was left with a relatively clean pelt, a horn, meat for two to three meals and bones for making a broth. Which I set about making, as it would be perfect to have ready as soon as possible.
Pulling down a cooking pot from the shelf over the cooking range, I then filled it with water, a few herbs and then all the rabbit bones. Then, put it on the fire to boil. Meanwhile, I wrapped up the meat for later and put the pelt away in my inventory.
After cleaning up the remaining blood and gore, I took the horn and went upstairs to the spare room that I had converted into an alchemy lab.
'Today, I think I'll make five each of healing tonics and antidotes. And something tells me that I'll be able to sell them well.' Placing the herbs onto the table and arranging everything neatly. I then processed the hanal flowers and spiky grass, I was planning on using the hanal root for something else, well, most of them. I did need something to use with the rabbit's horn, after all.
The first step was to grind the hanal flowers, just enough to activate the ingredient and not to pulverise it. As for the spiky grass, it had a gel-like consistency, so all I needed to do was extract that gel mix it with the crushed flowers and water, then put it into the alchemical furnace to brew.
By the time the sun had fully set, and the streets had become completely silent, I had completed making my potions. It was the first time that I had brewed potions on my own, and seeing the result, I was pretty proud of myself.
*Ping*
[Novice alchemy: level 5]
[Potion of healing (Minor) x 5]
A potion that can instantly heal minor wounds. However, doesn't replace lost blood and can build up toxins in the body if multiple is consumed.
[Antidote x5]
[Tonic of stamina x 1]
Using a hanal root and a part of the rabbit's horn, I made a single tonic of stamina. I had enough horn to make around ten more tonics, but I'll need more potent ingredients to make that amount as the root wasn't strong enough and I would struggle to concoct ten tonics without failing to brew them successfully.
It was too late to prepare something for dinner, so I just cleaned up and went to bed. I was tired and I craved the softness of my bed. Tomorrow, I think I'll try to sell these potions and pick up some supplies for an experiment I wanted to try with ritual casting.