AN: Yo, your lazy author present you chapter 24 ('_') , enjoy!

PR by Zenla, the royal proofreader

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I went back on the tree to take the rest of my belongings. Once down, I hit the serran in the head again, and while it was dazed I tied my rope firmly around its jaws to keep its mouth shut. I enhanced my body with magic, lifted it up and went straight for Argot. The bastard was very heavy, if not for him I would have reached the village by night fall, but I had to spend another night in the wilderness, and deal with a dozen of wolves. With my magic and my staff, I quickly took care of 8 of them, the rest retreated. That made 8 wolf pelts as a bonus for me.

I got back to Argot in the middle of the afternoon the next day. People were very surprised, and scared to see me back with a living monster on my shoulders. They brought Lucas to me, they didn't want to have a monster in the village. I explained to him that with its legs broken it couldn't move by itself, and that I needed it for practices and experiments. I told him that the fact I brought it back alone, safe and sound is proof enough I can keep it contained and sleep peacefully at night.

After convincing him I could keep it from harming anyone I went to the adventurer guild to register my kills and my trophy. The receptionist and the few people that were there were just as surprised as the village guards. Since I captured a serran, it would count as if I killed one. I left and went home. There was only my father at that time. I was a day late so he was happy to see me, and the next second he was stunned, and I had to explain to him what I intended to do with the serran. I used earth magic to make small den and left my guinea pig there.

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I went back to the village with soap and a towel and stopped at Old Johrgard's smithy to tell him what happened, then I went to see Ellis. It was time for me to learn healing magic. Unlike what it looked like in movies, novels, games and the like, you can't heal any kind of wounds with the same spell. There is a spell for holes, cuts and tears, and variations for whether it's for the skin, muscles or organs. There are spells for fractured bones, for burns, frostbytes and others types of physical damages.

There are no spells to cure illnesses and poisonning. One has to use the right spells to deal with the symptoms and use the proper antidote or remedy to get rid of the illness or the poison. If the illness or the poison are weak enough, a constant use of the right healing spells will give the body the necessary time to fight them on its own. If not, the spells would be just good enough to buy time. Whatever healing spell is used it drains a part of the victim's vitality. A strong healing on a weak person can kill.

Healing magic requires combining both holy mana and body mana together and weaving them in the right patern to cast the spell. Too much or not enough of one mana will cause the spell to fail or be exagerated, if not causing altered effects. Combining 2 elements requires dexterity and a lot of practice. However, I did have a little bit of time to practice combining 2 different elements together, around 1 hour each week, and more during winter. But doing so for more than a year bore fruits. I wouldn't have much trouble learning different spells.

With learning healing spells comes learning about anatomy. And for me who lived in a world in which much was known about the body, not only human body but others animals as well, the lessons would be easy. That gave me an idea about illnesses. There is no concept of micro organisms, so I thought of a way to cure illness with magic: by combining body and darkness mana to attack the foreign living entity inside the ill person, severly weakening it if not destroying it. But our bodies are naturally full of intruders, and some are helpful. Whatever, I'll have time to study it later.

Once I was done talking about my future lessons with Ellis, I went to the river. It was already dusk, but I had to take a bath. I spent 4 days with my smelly product all over my body, including 2 days with the serran. I was stinky and I seriously needed to wash myself. I spent a little more than 40 min there to get rid of all the dirt and the smell. When I got back I was greeted by hug from Muriem and the stern gaze of my mother, but didn't get scolded. It was a good thing because I was dead tired, and went to sleep as soon as I finished eating.

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The next day, in the morning, I left a big pan of water near its and a piece of meat near its mouth then untied it and left. After a day of smithing I came back before dusk with Ellis to heal its broken legs. Of course I knocked the serran out before hand, I called it Komodo, for obvious reasons. I got my first lesson about healing magic that day. Kerrina and Muriem arrived at dusk and stayed near while I was learning. When Ellis left, I told the 2 girls they will fight my pet for training in the near future.

I would work at the smithy for 7 days and search the wilderness for 3 days. When I was in the village, at times I would beat some sense in Komodo with either physical or magical means, at other times I would watch the girls fight it with either my mother, Arren or Erik present. Either way I would always be using my healing spells after. I would even poison Komodo sometimes. After a while, it learned who was the boss and its allies, and also learned the commands 'attack', 'stop', 'standby' and 'follow'.

There was also something I would do every night. While getting familiar with the weird monster mana, I would also send some of my mana toward Komodo's mana core. Yes, I was trying to make it evolve. I would send either body earth or water mana mixed with nature mana. I wanted Komodo to get better affinity with body mana and gain earth and water affinity. I mixed them with nature mana with the hope that it would better accept the external mana, that it would stimulate natural growth with those manas, because animals, plants and monsters have a high ratio of nature mana in them, more than humans, elves etc.

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As for my Frontier exploration, I would sometimes find a small and low quality vein of ore. I would just take note of their positions for those who mattered, so I could come later with Kerrina and Muriem to harvest them. I also hunted several monsters, serrans, small groups of razorbaks and wolverines, who are ranked D monsters, on the lower end of the rank. Wolverines are just monster wolves, bigger, stronger and faster than regular wolves, but moving in smaller groups, no more than 5 or 6 at the same time. Unlike the razorbaks, wolverines don't have incredibly sharps fangs and claws, nor impressive leg power, but they are more cunning and have great teamwork.

My first battle with the razorbaks was a little frightening. I was in open field so I couldn't hide from the 9 of them and I couldn't use trees to escape or for cover. I had to run around with enhanced strenght and speed, tripping the closest one with air blast while burning the next one with a fireball, and knocking away the one coming after with my staff, defending against the fourth and being pushed back.

When 3 others came at me I made 2 wide tilted earth walls in front of me and behind in such a way that it looked like I made a big earth tent, then I used fire wave on both sides, taking out 4 of them and keeping the others away. I ran to one side and forced my way using air blast while firing a fireball to the one coming behind, neutralizing him. For the last 3 I used a generous amount of fire wave. I finished off the ones still breathing and collected their claws and fangs. My heart was beating like crazy. They aren't opponents I should face by myself, not yet.

It was easier to deal with the wolverines since at that time I was in the forest and I sensed them coming. Their surprise attack wasn't a surprise as I killed one of them the moment he came out and jumped on a tree to shout magic and arrows at the others from above. Out of 5, only 2 got away with their lives. Their magic crystals were of low quality, so I'll use them later in various experiments instead of selling them.

This went on for about 3 months. While I was doing all of that, the girls were training as well. During our sparring sessions I no longer went easy on them. Since I could use healing magic I didn't hesitate to hurt them, or to get hurt myself, it was hard, but still better than losing them later. My mother and Erik approved, that helped a lot. Now they got good enough to come with me on my explorations, so they're going to join the adventurer guild as well. Maybe I'll take Komodo with us. Still 12 months to go before leaving, I have to use them well.

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AN: Nothing really big happening in this chapter... I'm kinda eager to finish with this part of the story and leave Argot. In 3-5 chapters maybe...

Then make preparations for Tristam City and Lana Academy, the teachers and the students...

I also need to make more dialogs between the mc and the girls from now on... It'll be annoying but it's for the greater good *clench his fist and look toward the setting sun with a serious expression*... I hate dialogs, damn it D: !!!

*Sigh* (-_-) ... See you later...