Sharp

“Come on, Theo, get up!” Dad yelled through the door. “Your Mother and I want to talk to you before we go to work.”

Uh oh. That didn’t sound good. I got up and washed quickly and went down for breakfast. Olivia was just finishing up and rushing out the door. She was spending the morning with Evelyn and her lessons on basic magic. Evelyn might be fat, but she was one of two local Magic Society officials. Mum was not a Magic Society Official. She just looked after the office. The Magic Society ran these lessons free two mornings a week for anyone who wanted to go. I used to go, and we learned the basic summoning rituals and how to identify magic materials etc.

I know Olivia wants to be able to summon familiars and really wants a bond summons. You can summon three types of familiar, the short-term familiar like golems that only last an hour or so. That is the easiest ritual to learn and the cheapest to perform. Then there are the familiars that are always with you and only need resummoning when they are killed. That ritual is more complex and needs expensive materials, but you don’t need to do it often. What Olivia wants is a bond with a living magic creature. This is a very complex ritual but doesn't need a lot of expensive material. If the bond familiar dies, they can’t be resummoned again, though. I might have been able to perform that last ritual, but it was not really my thing, so I was not really paying attention. The other two rituals should be easy enough if you can afford the materials. Magic is not just knowledge; you also need to be rich.

When I did not want a hairball from the Hair awakening stone, I was referring to a hair elemental summons that was possible to get. Thank the gods, it didn’t happen.

Olivia left, and Mum started, “Theo, we know you want to go adventuring despite our wishes. We are not blind to the two skills you have and their advantages to adventuring.”

I nodded. Mum and Dad are not fools.

Mum continued, “You can’t become a member of the Adventure Society until you have all your essences and pass the test. Do you have a plan to get more essences?”

“I was thinking I could become an auxiliary to an adventuring team, sharpen their equipment, and earn the coin that way.”

Dad nodded, “That would give you an adventuring experience as well.”

“However,” Mum said, “only the richest teams can afford auxiliaries. We don’t get those sorts of teams here. The magic here is only in the low bronze levels. Most adventurers get their gear serviced in towns. Almost any craftsman would hire your skill, from tailors, leatherworkers, and blacksmithing to your father’s hairdressing. However, there is more to maintaining equipment than just keeping it sharp.”

“You think I should apprentice to a blacksmith or something.”

Mum nodded, “The pay should be better in town, and you will learn about the different materials. Common Essences like Iron or Wood are relatively cheap, especially around here.”

I wasn’t a fool either. Mum suggested this as it was safer than an adventuring team. She wasn’t wrong about what she said, but she also ignored the chances of finding rare material to sell out in the field. I was not unaware that the materials were rare.

“Do you have a suggestion,” I asked, as she obviously did.

“Evelyn's family is from Ironwood, and they can help you find an apprenticeship. Lumber is the main industry, but they have the Astral Space the adventurers go, so they are a full-service town.”

I was aware that Ironwood was also only a day’s fast travel away, so I would be close. I was not opposed to being close. I would miss my family.

“Ok, I am willing to give it a go.”

“She said you can catch the next logging wagons to Ironwood at the end of the month,”

I nodded.

Dad slapped me on the shoulder, “Until then, you can help me in the shop,” he said with a grin.

I smiled back. They were trying to be helpful, and they have done me a great service with the essence and, surprisingly, the awakening stone. “No problem, Dad, as long as we can put up a sign for sharpening services outside.”

“Just watch your mana levels,” Dad said. “If you pass out, who knows what colour your mane will be when you wake up?”

That was a great incentive to manage the skill carefully.

I walked with Dad to the village square where his shop was. On the edge of the square was the Adventure notice board, where you could post a notice if you saw a monster. The sign above announced the name of the village, Logging Village #3. We were a satellite village for Ironwood and not the only one. There was a notice posted on the board, and I glanced at it. A bronze-level Lightning Boar was seen out past old Mcdonald's farm. They wanted as much detail as possible on the notice and the level of the creature if you could determine it. Lightning Boars were not uncommon here.

The notice board was enchanted; a duplicate board was in the Adventure Society building in Ironwood, and they would be issuing a contract for Adventurers to come and kill it. Even as I watched, the notice dissolved and disappeared, meaning the contract had been completed already. They were quite efficient and they saved a lot of damage and livestock deaths, not to mention injuries to people.

Dad greeted people as we walked. Everybody knew everybody. It was a good place to grow up—mostly. Ironwood was a day’s ride away, so we went there every month or so, especially when the nobles had their balls, and Dad was contracted to make them look good in whatever the new style was. I wasn’t particularly interested in hairdressing as a profession, and that was news to nobody.

I much preferred to be out in the forest. I was not built to be a logger, taking after Mum’s small stature. I was barely the height of an average human and almost as skinny. I just liked getting away from everybody, and I liked monster spotting. I am pretty sure I have posted more notices on the adventure board than anyone else. It is a shame you don’t get paid for that. I made sure I was familiar with all the common local monsters and some that were not so common. The Magic Society had a book that Mum would let me read about monsters and their typical skills.

What I did for coin growing up was work in Dad’s shop. When I finished at Dad’s, Avi the local herbalist, would pay me to bring herbs and fungi from the forest. Mum and Dad were never keen on my going out alone, but I guess they knew they couldn’t really stop me. I got sick of being around people and needed a break, especially from Lisa.

Lisa is a year younger than me and seemed fixated on me. She is a pretty enough Leonid and spends a lot of time in Dad’s shop getting her hair done. She always wanted me to do it, and I always found an excuse to escape. It is not that I am not interested in girls, it is just… too clingy, too sickly sweet. No thanks. That is part of the problem. She would not take no for an answer.

She tried to befriend Olivia to get close to me, but even my idiot sister could see through her. I swear she thinned the leather chest pieces she wore and let her butt cheek show from under her skirt when she swished her tail that way. She had a lot of the boys fawning for her, but she only had eyes for me. She was very much part of my motivation to get out of the village.

I worked for Dad and sharpened the tools, getting a handle on my skills. After work, I would head out to the forest and test the changes an essence makes. The Sharpen essence bonded to my Speed Attribute, and I was definitely faster than before. The speed attribute would only level when all five skills were awakened. Then it would be the level of the lowest one. This meant I would get faster if I could fill all my skill slots and level them. Even now, I am faster than before.

I dampened down the excitement as I knew even iron-rank monsters were still faster than I was. I was on my way though. I would get there.

I brought a hand axe, chopped some branches, and then sharpened the ends. I used them like javelins and threw them against a tree as hard as I could. Instead of chipping the bark and bouncing, they penetrated into the tree. That was exciting. I would make a hand axe part of my toolkit, and a weapon was always going to be close. I cut a long one with the always sharp axe and used it like a spear to attack the tree. It kept its sharpness for three to four strikes before I had to use the skill again. I need to learn the spear. I will need some lessons, but it is quite a common weapon. The Spear Essence was also common and I could look into that. Or maybe the Axe essence. A lot of lumberjacks have that as they will be guaranteed better wages and jobs without fighting monsters.

I tried my sharpened axe on an Iron-level tree, cut a pole, and sharpened the end. The axe needed re-sharpening a lot quicker on the higher wood. It was only a normal axe, not an iron-level axe. The Iron wood was much more rugged than the normal wood. This was good, very good.

I earned a reasonable amount of coins by sharpening tools around the village. I experimented, and the more a tool needed sharpening, the more mana was required. I couldn’t sharpen a stick, but if I trimmed the end to a rough point, I could sharpen it just fine with much less mana. It was a very versatile skill.

The skill worked on my claws as well. I was glad of the resistance to cutting my fur, as otherwise, I would have had worse damage. When I tried it on my teeth, I had to see a healer as there was no fur to protect my gums. I am not doing that again. It wasted some of my precious coins. My teeth are taking a lot to wear the sharpness off, even though I am knawing on bones like an idiot dog.