53: Up the Mountain

As I entered the structure, about to get back to eating my rabbit, it seemed my words had struck a chord—Milo burst through the entrance right after me.

“Did you say… Ancient?”

I just nodded. Milo collapsed onto the ground near his dinner.

“I really hope the dragon doesn’t know we have any connection to its kin’s killing. If it finds out we have the corpse, this trip up the mountain is going to be… interesting.” Milo shook his head, still in disbelief.

“We’ll be fine. Just stay near Trev, then the cat will just kill it to save him!” Liane said, not letting a little thing like death get in the way of her dinner.

“Plus… I also kind of want to try dragon,” she added, gazing off into the distance. I could only imagine she was dreaming of roast dragon or something equally ridiculous.

“It’s not dragon—it’s drake,” Milo corrected. “And there’s a reason people don’t eat dragon-kin, well, outside of the sheer danger of trying to hunt one.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Liane waved him off.

I, however, didn’t know, and apparently my confusion showed.

“The mana density in their blood makes them nearly impossible to eat. People treat it as if it’s toxic—but it’s not that simple,” he explained.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Purify would work on it. And who would test that? Well… I already knew the answer. It would be Liane.

The rest of the evening passed without incident. I went to brush down Sable and was joined by Milo. I was surprised—her coat looked fantastic, so the stables must have taken good care of her over the past few days.

Once chores were done, Milo returned, book in hand.

“You’re not getting out of learning your runes just because your cat is picking fights with gods!” he joked, waving the book at me.

I sighed. “It’s not MY cat…” I muttered, though I knew my words would fall on deaf ears. Milo sat down beside me, pulling out the notebook I’d been practising in the day before.

The rest of the night was spent learning basic shapes and practising drawing them. Each shape represented a different aspect of a spell: whether it affected yourself or someone else, whether it was offensive or defensive. The example we were working on was a simple shield rune—you had to define the target, determine its size, shape, duration, power, and then the ability itself.

Looking at it all now, it seemed overwhelming—and this was just the basics! How complex could it really get?

Milo reassured me it was all just practice—learning the foundations so that experiments later would be easier, with minimal disastrous events. His wording still made me a little nervous.

I checked my notifications just before going to sleep. I didn’t expect to see much, but a few skills were close to level:

Notifications:

You have reached Level 4 in Butchery!

You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal

…

With so many skills now at Level 4, I couldn’t help but wonder if they would all evolve—and if they did, what they might become. With Knifework having transformed so drastically into Carving Touch, would the others follow a similar path?

To be honest, even when I lost the Knifework skill in favour of its evolution, I hardly noticed a loss in ability while using the knife.

I fell asleep quickly that night, but my dreams were haunted by the destruction I had witnessed in the city, replaying over and over like a relentless, flickering memory.

It had been a restless sleep, but waking the next morning, I felt inspired by the breakfasts at the inn and pulled out my brand-new pan. I was excited to finally use it, but first, I had some prep to do. I remembered Geo’s instructions: when getting a new pot; you had to season it first, or everything would stick.

I grabbed some Buvul fat from my storage—a big chunk of suet, not ideal, but it would work—and heated it in the pan as hot as possible. The goal was to create a protective layer of oil for future cooking.

While the pan heated, I turned to the smoked boar belly I’d picked up back in Greenstone. Only a couple of weeks had passed, but it already felt like ages ago. Slicing strips of belly like the inn did, I set them aside. Then I pulled out five rolls—noticing, I only had about twenty of them left, as well as just twelve eggs. No way was I breaking into my pancake stock today, so pulling out six eggs just enough to have one egg each.

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Once the pan had heated, I poured off the oil used for seasoning and wiped it clean with a rag, then set the belly strips in. Something struck me: thanks to the minor fire-resistance ring, I could pass my hand through the cooking fire and even touch the pan without much discomfort. I couldn’t help wondering just how hot a fire would need to be before it demanded major fire resistance.

The smell of cooking boar belly woke everyone, even Liane, who wandered over, ready for breakfast while I was still preparing. On the plates, I laid out the belly, the roll, and placed the egg on top. On a whim, I tried to infuse the meal—but of course; it failed. I felt a little silly.

Of course it wouldn’t work—I hadn’t smoked the belly myself, hadn’t baked the bread, and I was trying to infuse the whole plate at once. I could’ve tried the eggs separately, but it didn’t seem worth the hassle. Still, the meal tasted fantastic. The belly wasn’t quite as crispy as at the inn, but Milo suggested I slice it thinner next time.

Once breakfast was done, Crisplet floated over onto my shoulder. Milo stored the fire basket while I finished tidying up. Today, we’d reach the mountain pass village Rockhampton, and after a brief check-in, the plan was to head straight up.

When we hit the road, I noticed that Mount Divinus still had dark storm clouds swirling around its peak. Clearly, the dragon wasn’t over yesterday’s incident. The clouds gave the mountain an almost tangible sense of foreboding—it was hard to put my finger on why, but the atmosphere felt heavy and ominous.

One thing I did notice, though, was that today we were passing far more travellers than I had on the way to Boltron. I wasn’t sure if that was because the Galvonson threat had been eliminated or simply because we were now heading away from Boltron.