《The Dead Hold The Best Secrets [TDHTBS] - Spirit And Ghost Memory Observing Technique User》 E001 - Spirit And Ghost Memory Observing Technique [SAGMOT] "6 years of hard work, and I almost didn''t make it. My current affinity with soul energies is barely enough to learn the Spirit And Ghost Memory Observing Technique. Now I can finally start learning the secrets of profession guilds and cultivation sects and magic towers without joining any of them." "Time to finally leave this inheritance area, so it can be locked away from the rest of the world for a few centuries or millennia, to recharge it''s power." And after a few days of packing things up, I was finally ready to leave. Packing things up took a lot of time, using the few spatial storage artifacts I had, most of them with only a small space, and most of them gotten as a reward for learning skills and techniques and using them in this inheritance area. Taking a deep and long look at the inheritance area I was leaving behind, I bowed in respect and said a few word, before taking another look at the inheritance area and leaving through the teleportation area. "Thank you for everything! I will try to make good use of it." = = = Just like when I got into the inheritance realm alone, when I got out of it I also somehow ended asleep. Thankfully for me, the inheritance realm placed a few protection spells on me, and they will thankfully last for a few more hours, allowing me to get back to a village only a few hundred kilometers away from the inheritance area which is now hidden from the world for a very long time, thankfully again. "The journey would have been much longer, if not for there being a lake roughly 5 kilometers away from my current position, and that lake extending to as close as 40 kilometers from a village, from which I could join a caravan in exchange for using my energy to power up the caravan''s defenses." "With my current level, I should no longer need to spend a long time charging the caravan before being allowed to join it. When I was getting here to look for herbs to sell to the alchemy guild, I had to spend two days charging a battery, and slept like a log after each of those days, and still had to keep charging it during the one-day journey, and slept like a log after arriving, too. I barely had enough money to rent a tiny room with a single bed and a tiny window, both in the city and in the village, to be able to sleep without having my things taken away in my sleep." "If I wasn''t so poor, I could have simply used money to travel directly, but many transport companies allow people to tag along in exchange for charging the batteries of one of their vehicles for each person transported, to avoid having money exchange hands, and thus avoiding taxation. In short, they can save the cost of charging one vehicle, in exchange for having to pay someone to recharge it, and then receiving that payment from the same person, and then having to pay taxes for that money. They still need to pay taxes for that exchange, but a very small sum compared to the other way." = = = After a few hours of trekking, MC finally found the lake, and after a few more hours of making a raft and paddle, using vines underwater and waxed rope above water, and two paddles of different lengths, he was finally able to start heading to to the village. Before heading for the village entrance, he decided to bring a large backpack from his storage items, to make himself less obviously holding storage items, and to make it less likely that people would target his goods. Carrying a backpack would make it more plausible to assume that he had no storage items, if he manage to hide them well. A pair of summer clothes, a pair of autumn and spring clothes, and a pair of winter clothes, when paired together could stand even some of the worst winter days in the area, so they were obviously used, and the backpack itself was the quilt used as the mattress of the bed during summers, and used to cover both sides of the body during winters. A thin cooking pot and cooking pan, a few wooden tools, a short knife, a short axe, and a foldable saw, was all that was needed to make others believe he was a traveler who braved the wilderness, and he used the rope he had, in order to tie it all together into a backpack. And with the logs he left behind, his cover story of having used the lake to get here after leaving another village in which he worked as a coal mover for a coal mine, spending the whole day moving coal by dragging around a small coal cart he could carry, and spending the whole night sleeping, leaving him no time to do anything else in the last few years. And to make the story more believable, he left because the mine got a new manager, so after getting his payment, he used most of it to get the things he needed to travel on foot, and having saved just barely enough money to get a few nights of sleep in the city, at least if the prices remained the same as he knew them to be the last time he visited, time which he hoped to spend finding a new job. = = = The journey was uneventful, and he finally landed a few meters away from the village entrance, beaching his raft, taking his rope, and leaving the logs to dry, so they can be taken by poor villagers, to use for heating their home, or for cooking. With everything ready, he headed for the village''s entrance. = = = It was another day of watching the empty village entrance, for the city guard with an injured leg, when a figure started approaching. After a few minutes of walking, the figure turned out to appear as a roughly 25 years old boy, though magic and cultivation makes appearances almost irrelevant, but the figure was leaking energy from his body in quantities indicating he is a mere level 6. Not a threat, so far, but the guard was still prepared for the worst, as he was trained to be, and as he was reminded to be after his leg was injured by a running person trying to enter the village to hide from an angry group of sect members. Thankfully, he managed to stop the person, otherwise the sect might think he is siding with the runner and punish him, too. And remembering those things helped pass the time until the figure approached him. [Boy] "Hello! I would like to enter the village." [Guard] "That would cost 10 copper coins or 10 units of energy. If you agree, state your name and purpose, otherwise leave." [Boy] "I am Mirru Cartrack, I want to get something to eat and find a merchant leaving for a nearby city, and I will pay with energy." [Guard] "Go to the wall and push your energy into the yellow metal plate, until the glass tube above it lights up." [Guard] "Another one passing through. If not for the wild herbs in that forest being useful for alchemy, most people would have no business in this village, which would leave the village much poorer and worse defended. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of villages not as lucky as this one." After paying with energy, the boy was allowed inside the village, no longer being the guard''s problem. = = = Finding food was no problem for Mirru, and they, too, received payment in energy. A big sandwich with mostly bread and carrots, and a very thin slice of salted meat, should be enough for a day. The inheritance zone used energy to constantly heal everyone inside it, and there were a few plants growing inside, and there was even a kitchen for cooking the plants, and a water fountain through which water was flowing all the time. But outside the inheritance area, Mirru eventually grew hungry, especially after using a few fallen trees and vines to make a raft and some paddles. And after eating the big sandwich, for which he only paid 4 units of energy, he started looking for the notice board where businesses passing through often left notices with their group size and destination, hoping to leave in a bigger group for better safety, and many also included how much free space they would have when leaving, and how much more weight they can carry, in case someone else wanted to pay them for joining the caravan until they reached the next settlement or even their destination. = = = Although the village only had 20 houses, the notice board was a bit more difficult to find than he expected, especially since it''s location changed since the last time he visited, which was a few years ago, before Mirru entered the inheritance area, and at that time the village only had 7 houses ready, 2 more were in the process of being built, and a third was planned to be built but it''s location was not yet decided at the time. After finding the notice board, it only took a few minutes to find the caravans going in the direction of the closest city. And he even had 3 choices, two of them leaving at the same time, the first one only accepting money and only the weight of the person, meant to only be used by people who could accord storage rings, the second only accepting payment in energy and having about twice as much space and weight limit as what Mirru and his backpack had, but both of those options were planning to leave in 2 days, and the third choice was leaving in a few minutes, accepted either money or energy, and had just a little more weight than what he and his backpack had. So he hurried to find the merchant in charge, in hope it was not too late to join the group. = = = [MC] "Hello! Where could I find the caravan going to the Creak Woods city? I saw on the notice board that they should be leaving around now." [Merchant] "Hello! There''s no caravan, only my cart. I have to deliver fresh fish, and carrying more fish will end up with the fish going bad, so I''m only carrying a bit more than what is usually consumed there, and if there is anything left, it will be donated to the church as soon as it looks like it will start going bad, and the orphans in the city are always happy to eat something other than the cheapest foods they can find, and what little they grow in the orphanage''s garden." [MC] "I see. I would like to join you on your journey to the village. Do you receive payment in energy?" [Merchant] "Of course, young man. 37 energy units, or 25 copper coins. I assume that backpack is all of your luggage." [MC] "Yes, this is all I am bringing with me. I''ll pay with energy. Do I recharge the cart''s battery, or some other battery you have?" [Merchant] "The cart''s battery. The energy transfer plate and signal light is on the left side of the cart as it moves away from you. You''re lucky you got here before I recharged it myself, or I would have charged you 40 energy units for it, to account for the losses of transferring from one battery to another. The costs of making the battery replaceable are too high to be worth it, for this cart. While it''s efficiency is rather high, it doesn''t have a lot of power, and I''m using it as a fifth of the power it is rated for, in order to not have it explode on me. If you get a powered cart, heed my advice and modify it as soon as possible, to use no more than 8 out of 10 parts, compared to how much power it is rated for. Do that and the cart''s engine will last a few times longer, and with cheaper maintenance, too. Though it might have lower efficiency, it more than makes up in savings by not having to replace it, and especially by not having it explode near you." [MC] "Thank you! Where should I sit and place my backpack, after I''m done?" [Merchant] "You see the plank on the back of the cart? Below it should be enough free space for your backpack, and you will sit on the plank with your feet either hanging on the side of the cart, or behind the cart''s back door. You can place your backpack now, then after charging and after I''m done hooking the donkey to the cart, you can hop on, I''ll get the donkey some water, and we will be good to go as soon as you''re done." [MC] "Thank you! By the way, I''m Mirru Cartrack. Nice to meet you!" [Merchant] "I''m Andreres Wallweave. Nice to meet you, too, kid!" = = = Around an hour after leaving, Mirru finally decided how to ask the merchant about information for the time he was in the inheritance realm. [Mirru] "Sir Andrares, I-" [Andrares] "Drop the sir. I''m only 34 years old. I dress to look older in order to get better deals, but I''m not an old man." [Mirru] "Yes, I''ve been meaning to ask, what happened around in the last 5 or 6 years? I''ve been working in as a coal cart mover in a mining village somewhere around this nearby lake, and was fired after it got a few manager a month or so ago, and that mining village was quite small and very remote from civilization."If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. [Andrares] "Oh, One of those unnamed mining villages, I guess. Those are on the other side of the lake. How did you get here? I thought they were bought last year. Didn''t they replace most of the people in charge?" [Mirru] "The one I was in didn''t get any change I knew of until a few months ago, when I lost my job. After that, I bought some camping supplies to last me a few weeks, then I used a fishing trap to catch fish near the shore, and I was able to find quite a lot of edible foods in the forest, which made my food supplies last until now." [Mirru]"I would have probably gotten here sooner, but I sprained my ankle, which led to using up most of my camping food supplies, and after it no longer hurt to hike for an hour, I decided to eat well and make a raft to move faster, and I kept moving along the shore, only stopping at night in order to sleep safely away from the water, tying the raft and the fish trap to a tree, to make my rations last a little bit longer." [Mirru] "Yesterday morning I finished the rations, and yesterday afternoon I finally saw smoke coming from the village, so I decided to stop sooner, then I spent a bit of time in the forest to get some food to go with the fish I caught, and in the morning I finished the last of my camping food." [Andrares] "You''ve got quite the story. We''re not going to stop until we get to the city, but you should be able to find some cheap food after we get there. Did you eat anything in the village?" [Mirru] "Yes, I ate a sandwich, mostly bread and vegetables, and a thin slice of salted meat." [Andrares] "Then you should be good, until we get there. And you were really lucky to leave that mining village when you did. Things got really ugly. Some miners found out that they were supposed to receive double their pay in one village, in another village the manager reduced their salary, and in both villages there were fights, in a third village one of the guards of the manager has beat up a miner, so the next day the manager and his guards met their untimely end, which caused the new owner of the mines to send more guards to each village, and those other two villages got into a big fight with the guards, and in the end most miners ended up fighting the new owner''s guards and attacking the new owner''s villa, which caused all of the miners to meet their end together with half of the people in the villa, including the son of the new owner and the new owner''s grandparents, and one of the miners who ran away before the fight ended up going to the local guilds telling them about what happened, and before the guilds decided to investigate, the new owner of the mines ended all the other surviving miners and quite a few of their families, in revenge, including someone form the family of the miner who notified them of what happened, which caused the local guilds to decide to make an example of that new owner and end everyone related to them and confiscate their properties." [Mirru] "Damn, a lot of things happened since I left." [Andrares] "Yeah. If you did not get your ankle sprained, you might have been found by that new owner, too, so that sprained ankle was a disguised blessing." = = = As they kept talking, the sun was moving through sky, and they received right before the sun was starting to set. They split up after getting to the market, with Mirru getting another big sandwich to eat, this time for 7 units of energy, making a total of 38 units of energy he spent paying, and 11 units of energy used to make the raft, totaling 49 out of the 52 units of energy he has when he left in the morning, but he was able to replenish 7 units of energy while traveling, leaving him with a total of 10 units of energy left to use. And before starting to search for an inn to spend the night, while there was still sunlight outside, Mirru decided to take a quick look with his soul sense, to see if there are any spirits or ghosts around. And lucky for him, he found a ghost around the house of an alchemist shop in the city, which previously was owned by an old man who ended tragically at the hands of some criminals, who illegally took over the shop until the the guild recovered it and ended all the criminals related to the deadly hostile takeover. 8 energy units left, and it takes 5 of them to store capture the wandering spirit, and another one unit of energy to pull the spirit outside the house before capturing it, and another 3 to store it inside one of his storage artifacts, in order to observe it''s memories during the next week. Which means he will be left with only 1 unit of energy, which means he would have to finally start using actual money to pay for his first night of sleeping into the city. So he decides to do just that. So after capturing the wandering spirit of the old alchemist who passed on a few months ago, he heads straight to the inn recommended by Andrares, where he pays 25 copper coins, instead of 30 units of energy, to sleep in a room with barely enough place to walk next to the 1-person bed, and a tiny window covered with greased paper, to let sunlight in in the morning, in order to wake up the tenant. And before sleeping on the bed, he decides to put his backpack into his storage artifacts, and bring out a sleeping bag artifact he got in the inheritance area. It was actually the second artifact he got in that inheritance area, the first being a storage ring so he can store his things, especially the heavier things, and the sleeping bag being the second because it makes sleeping so much easier, even in places infested with trouble he would rather avoid. And as a bonus, the sleeping bag is completely sealed from the outside, having only a transparent visor around the face, and using multiple small filters to filter the air from both inside and outside the sleeping bag, choosing to use only the cleanest air inside the sleeping bag, even if that cleanest air is the one already inside the sleeping bag, and since Mirru keeps it fully charged, he does not need to worry about fresh air for at least 24 hours, meaning that he can sleep safely even if someone uses toxic gases around. Oh, and it has an alarm for that, which can only be heard inside the sleeping bag, so he can wake up if the inn is on fire, and he also has a gas mask with similar functions, in case he needs to leave a building on fire. And so, he falls asleep, tired, but excited to finally put to good use the technique of observing the memories of ghosts and spirits. = = = Once he woke up Mirru noticed that one of the benefits of the inheritance area was gone, so now his energy was recharging much slower passively, so his energy went from 1 out of 52 to 19 out of 52, so he started meditating a bit before leaving the room, and he noticed that he needed 1 hour to recharge 2 units of energy, and if he used one of the artifacts he got as a prize from the inheritance realm, that would go up to 1 hour to recharge 4 units of energy. So he started making plans for the near future. 4 energy units per meal, meaning at least 8 units of energy every day, ideally 12 units of energy every day. 30 units of energy for a room to sleep in. That means 45 units of energy he would need to spend every day, in order to keep living in the city. And he recovered 18 units of energy after sleeping for 9 hours. So that meant 27 units of energy left to recharge. And he would recharge 28 units of energy in 7 hours of meditating. And he would need around 1 to 2 hours every day to eat. And 9 hours every day to sleep, to be completely rested. So that would use up 18 of the 24 hours in a day. So he would have 6 hours and 1 unit of energy left every day, in order to both recharge more energy units, and use them to read the memory of that wandering spirit he obtained. And it would cost 6 units of energy for every hour spent going through that spirit''s memories. So for 3 hours of energy, he would get 12 energy units, which would be enough for 2 hours of spirit memories. Which would leave him with one hour every day for other purposes, like taking a stroll, or looking for a job, or even just simply going to the toilet. So he set himself into a daily routine, for the next 3 months and a half, before he was forced by the circumstances to stop his daily routine. And his cover story for doing that would be needing to sleep and meditate for most of the day, in order to have enough energy to pay for his food and inn room. And so, he started observing the spirit''s memories, in search of secrets many would kill to get or keep secret, as they almost certainly did to cause the old alchemist to meet his end and leave his spirit behind. = = = "Blood! Blood is the secret ingredient! Each animal and human has different energies in their blood, so mixing blood with alchemic ingredients would allow the alchemist whose blood was used, to better control the energies, even if the price is contamination." "But blood can only contaminate things if they are not stable. So we can use existing pills instead. Let''s see how much of a pill''s energy can be extracted this way." = = = "Great! So far, I can extract half of the energy from most pills, and I can push that energy into another pill, which causes the source pill to crack and dry out, even if placed in liquid, and the destination pill to swell, and if not done slowly enough, the destination pill will crack and release a significant part of the energies, and a competent alchemist can keep most of those energies around, and push them back into the pill slowly, to reduce the losses from rushing the process." "And now the question is, could we use any pill for it, or does it have to be a useful pill. For example, could I use a pill with healing energy together with a pill of speed energy, both of them useless by themselves, to make or improve a pill of quick healing? And could I use a pill of speed energy to turn a healing pill into a quick healing pill? If I can, this will revolutionize alchemy!" = = = "Great! It works! It really works! Now I can finally work towards making a youthfulness pill! I can finally get younger, to continue developing my alchemy skills and knowledge! And right in time, since with my current skills, I am barely keeping up with my age! The youthfulness pills I could make until now had so much toxicity that I was losing a year of lifetime every 2 years of my life, but with this, I could even begin to gain lifetime, in a few years!" "Now I only need more alchemical ingredients, for those pills." = = = [Younger old man] "Say, old man, have you finally found a way to improve your youthfulness pills?" [Spirit''s old man] "I wish! I''m slowly running out of life, so I want to make sure I have enough pills saved up for when I will inevitably become unable of making any more. And I feel that unfortunate time is almost upon me." = = = [Younger old man] "You say you didn''t improve your youthfulness pill recipe, but you keep getting healthier!" [Spirit''s old man] "Since I''m making so many of those pills, I''m choosing to take the best ones I make, so I can keep making pills for a longer time. Maybe if I spent all of my money on making those pills, I might get lucky enough to get some better pills by pure luck, and those might actually get me to turn younger." Said the old man, before laughing with a sad face. [Spirit''s old man] "Who am I kidding? As if that would actually happen. [Younger old man] "Still not willing to join a guild?" [Spirit''s old man] "As if I would give them all of my secrets for free, so they can discard me immediately after. I''ve seen that happen to too many of my disciples." [Younger old man] "Well, you could always trade your secrets for some pills to turn you a few decades younger, at the very least." [Spirit''s old man] "if I turn six and a quarter decades younger, I would still be 203. Or was it 204? I would still be an old man, but I would no longer have a source of income, so I would end up dying even sooner." = = = [Young man] "Teacher, when are you going to sell those new pills you have been making?" [Spirit''s old man] "You might be my assistant, but you don''t know how difficult it is to earn money if you sell your secrets to others. Why do you think I haven''t taken a new disciple in four decades, and I only take a new disciple a few years after another one of my disciples meets their end?" [Young man] "Because you don''t want more competition from them?" [Spirit''s old man] "No, because it takes that long to find people who would even consider not selling their secrets to one of the guilds, especially since after they start learning, their secrets would also include my secrets." [Young man] "So you would rather let people learn your secrets and then run away from this city, to one of the cultivation sects or magic towers, like your last 5 disciples did?" [Spirit''s old man] "At least the sects and towers know how to keep their secrets. The guilds would immediately sell that knowledge to wealthy people and other guilds, who would do the same, and eventually those secrets would cost less and less, until they became known by everyone with a bit of coin to pay." = = = [Angry man] "Efbie Aye, open up!" The insistent knocking got louder and louder, until the old alchemist opened the door. [Spirit''s old man] "What do you want?" [Angry man] "We''re here to buy your new pills! You student keeps bragging about you making pills he hasn''t seen you making before." [Spirit''s old man] "He hasn''t seen me making most of the pills I know how to make, that doesn''t mean the pills are useful." [Angry man] "So you kept using old pill recipes so you don''t forget them? Do you take me for a fool?" [Spirit''s old man] "I was planning to teach that young fool of a disciple of mine how to make those pills, even if they cost a few times more than the pills I already taught him how to make to get the same effects, but it seems that fool doesn''t deserve that kindness." [Angry man] "Stop lying! You think I''d get here if he didn''t bring some of those pills for us to see? Those are a rank higher than your alchemy rank! And they''re not training pills, that''s for sure! I almost couldn''t believe how quickly a bird''s wing grew back after consuming your pill." [Spirit''s old man] "Now that fool is stealing the pills I paid good money to buy from the guild? And he thinks I made those pills? My disciple is a lot dumber than I thought." Said the man, getting angry. [Spirit''s old man] "And I''m not selling those pills! You lot are not going to want to pay the kind of money those pills cost." The angry man kept getting angrier, and with an angry grid, he said: [Angry man] "Oh, I''m not here to buy the pills! I''m here to take them for free!" And them the old alchemist fell to the ground, clutching his stomach and gasping for air. = = = Mirru was just done observing the spirit''s memories for the day, when his stomach started rumbling. "Damn! That man really got sold by his disciple. And knowing how greedy people are, the disciple also didn''t escape that easily. Especially if they found those higher level pills. Now I just have to make sure that the pills I make will not be discovered by others. Especially since I should not know how to do alchemy, since I didn''t go to an alchemy high school. But the old man did, so now it''s like I went there, too." "Good thing the old man forgot most of the people''s faces and names, otherwise I might end up knowing the names and faces and maybe even other private information of people I have not personally met, which would make more difficult to keep the secret of the Spirit And Ghost Memory Observation Technique. And it''s great that it lets me learn things from those memories faster, too. Otherwise, I might need to spend close to the full 4 years of high school, in order to learn what was taught there, and even more time learning the old alchemist''s alchemy progress after leaving the high school. Now I finished combing through all the spirit''s memories in a mere 3 months and a half." "And I really should start switching to a meat based diet for a while. All this plant-based diet is making my stomach not happy at all. Always having gas, and having to eat lots of fibers in order to not get constipated." And so, Mirru decided to take a break from going through the spirit''s memories, deciding to go back through those memories once more, after he starts practicing alchemy. So he would have 6 hours and 1 unit of energy left every day, and he could get 4 more energy units for every 1 hour spent meditating. And he would need to spend most of that time meditating, in order to be able to switch to a meat based diet, for a while. And then he would need to find a job in the city, so he can have more free time. "Maybe I should buy pills and then use the old alchemist spirit''s techniques in order to improve them and sell them through the auction house owned and directly operated by one of the magic towers or cultivation sects. The guilds are obviously not to be trusted, considering how dead the old man ended up." "Oh, now that I think about it, the old alchemist only used alchemical ingredients. But I might be able to make pills using random ingredients with some useful energy, in order to improve existing pills, even if I cannot use them to actually make new pills." And so, Mirru falls asleep, preparing for new opportunities and new dangers. E002 - More Memory Reading Sessions "Well, I really should think ahead what kind of things I want to try getting energy from. I can''t leave the city, since it would cost too much, and grabbing grass would make people want to know what I''m using it for. I should try improving my energy senses other than my soul sense, in order to better sense the energies in things away from me." "Now I guess I should take a stroll through the market, and look at things with useful energies which I would have a reasonable excuse for buying. For example, maybe some herbs useful in a stew, and maybe some spices, too, and probably also some camping tools. The inn has an outdoors grill I could use to cook, and a few benches and tables for those who choose to cook for themselves, so I would have to actually use some of what I buy, in order to cook, and I can throw in the trash can the supposedly-rotten food which I would actually use for alchemy." = = = "Oh, this ended up being better than I expected. After no longer needing to spend 5 hours on reading the soul''s memories, I can use those 5 hours to get 20 energy units when I''m not planning to try alchemy, though maybe it would be better to spend 4 hours to get 16 energy units and cook some food, in order to avoid suspicions. Especially since most foods shouldn''t take a full hour to cook. But the inn''s grill is too expensive to use, costing 10 energy units for every hour. Thankfully, I haven''t thrown away my camping stove from before entering the inheritance area, and that camping stove should only need 4 or 5 units of energy to use for an hour. That means that I would be left with between 11 and 14 energy units to use on alchemy, or to stockpile to have my energy filled to the maximum of 52 when I wake up." = = = "A thin but not see-through slice of salted meat, some potatoes, and some plants resembling... corn with peas instead of corn kernels, their colors varying from blue to purple and in some rare cases pink, and with the peas growing on a softer meaty part resembling asparagus or bamboo shoots or maybe a tougher cucumber or zucchini, but apparently it tastes sour, so after removing the peas from the kernel it has to be sliced and soaked in water overnight, to remove the sourness, and if I''m right after seeing how it should look before and after soaking it, then said sour water should have some useful energy in it, though I did not get to see such water myself. Pink corn-peas are quite popular in romantic dishes, so the sellers manually remove those from all the products they sell, in order to sell the pink corn-peas at a much higher price." "Oh, and some blue powder which turns purple after being roasted, the powder being the result of grinding some local nuts. The nuts are inedible until roasted, but once roasted they will go bad in mere hours, while the powder lasts for a few weeks in a dry place, and a few days in this city downwind from the lake next to that village I visited on my way from the inheritance area. After roasting the powder, it is safe to use in foods, and boiling it makes it softer, so I could add most of it to the food I''m making, while keeping some to supposedly eat as a snack later in my room, while actually using that for alchemy." = = = After a few days, Mirru started a new routine of cooking a diverse meal once every week, using the rest of the time to save up on energy, which could then be used to buy more diverse food, or more meat. And after a month, this approach has finally calmed down his digestive track, which probably meant that his previous problems were caused by lacking nutrition or wrong ratios of nutrients causing both excess for some nutrients and a lack for other nutrients. And not dealing with an upset tummy meant that he could spend more time looking for a job which would still allow him to progress. Most of the jobs he could find, were unfortunately not appealing for his particular case, because they would leave him both without free time and without energy at the end of the work days, and they would still not pay well enough for him to be willing to do those jobs. But there was one job that did catch his interest. It was that of a farmer. Apparently, the previous employee''s life ended around the time the old alchemist''s life ended, which probably meant the previous employee was either somehow related to what happened, or was used as a scapegoat for what happened. But the death happened in a corner of the farm, with a dead wild animal planted there as fake evidence that the previous employee''s life ended by fighting that wild animal. A sloppy job, but it worked nonetheless, due to the lack of any other evidence at or near the crime scene. And that meant that Mirru could simply use his free time to look through that previous employee''s memories, to learn more about farming and about what that guy learned in high school, and maybe also to learn something about the local mafia, ideally to learn some of their secret techniques. = = = During a particularly sunny summer day, which meant the farm would have a bigger break time when the sun was scorching the lands, Mirru ended up visiting the farm, which led to talking with the family of farmers who were looking for an employee, and discussing about the job and payment. They were not willing to pay money, instead offering him housing and food, much better food than what he could afford, as well as a small patch of land to grow things, or to try growing things, which was recently harvested by the family, and for which they would spare a few seeds from the less important seeds they had saved up. Not only that, but the work wasn''t particularly energy demanding, but instead it was a lot of work. Not enough to leave him without free time, but enough to have him only have a few days of free time every day, which he already knew he would be using to read memories of spirits and ghosts. And the first month would be easier, since at the current time during summer, they didn''t have much work to do, and since he would need to learn things during that month, which would meant he would have more free time during the first month. Si Mirru accepted the job, followed by taking his backpack from the inn and moving into the farm employee''s shack, where he would sleep and have his free time, going to the owners'' house to eat every day, and sometimes being allowed to eat in his shack, for example if either he is ill, in which case he would be given cooked food, or if someone in the family is ill, in which case he would be given raw food, a stove, and some fire wood, to cook for himself. = = = A few days after he started working, he finally found with his soul sight the ghost of the previous employee, so he planned a late-evening stroll every day for the next week, under the guise of getting familiar with the lands, and using it to hide his real purpose of catching and storing that ghost for the purpose of reading it''s memories. = = = 4 days later, he successfully caught the ghost, but he did not start reading it''s memories until he finished strolling through the whole farm area, followed by Mirru taking a stroll through the market and buying a cheap technique useful for farming, because the farmer family explicitly stated that they would not provide him with any such techniques. Sure, he would get more information about such techniques from the ghost of the previous employee, but he would need a cover story for that knowledge, or at least for a significant part of knowledge, since the rest could be attributed to talent or luck stumbling upon bits and pieces of techniques and putting them together into a workable form. = = = Two weeks later, and a total of 4 weeks after he started working, Mirru finally started reading the ghost''s memories, this time going through them chronologically instead of learning about what interested him most, simply because he didn''t want to start learning about farming from the ghost yet, since it would make Mirru too suspicious, and because he couldn''t make sense of the rest of the useful knowledge because he didn''t have the knowledge needed to make sense of it. So he skimmed through the earlier education, but started paying attention as soon as the ghost started high school, the ghost having studied runes and runic formations during high school, followed by a piracy internship in which he worked on a pirate ship to maintain the existing formations and towards the end of his time there also to make new formations, before an internal conflict led to the pirate group splitting, almost a quarter of the group leaving the piracy world behind, the rest continuing in their ways after leaving the previously-pirates on a shore near a mining city, from where they raided clothes and supplies and sailed near the shore for a few days, before lading and making their way to this city and most of them choosing to join the local mafia, the rest of them laying low and occasionally visiting the local mafia to keep contact with the other previous pirates and in order to make sure they do not end on the bad side of the local mafia, at least not without a chance to mend their relations. And it was surprising for Mirru to find out that this ghost was the one who convinced that hooligan to attack the old alchemist. And when the alchemist met his end and no useful secret technique was found on the old alchemist or in the whole building, the former pirate turned farm worker was made into an example why mafia members and their associates should not get the mafia to be noticed by the local authorities, or worse, the sects and guilds. = = = [Farmer-pirate] "Come on, dude! You heard the kid, the old alchemist surely has a secret technique he recently understood. There is no other reason he would buy that many alchemy resources, especially not that many different alchemy resources in low quantities and high qualities, as well as in low qualities and high quantities." [Hooligan] "Not sure, man, maybe he''s really getting desperate to find a way to extend his life, trying different resources to see if he can improve his life extension pills to get younger." [Farmer-pirate] "I doubt that. His disciple stole a few of his new pills. The fool didn''t even notice they were missing. Or he thought his disciple used them. The alchemist from my pirating time says they''re much better than what the old food used before. Too good to still get older. And if the old fool actually turned younger, he could sell his fortune and move to a bigger city, where he could practice alchemy for a few more years under the protection of an auction house which would hide that he''s the one who made those pills, especially if he ends up buying some of his own pills, especially at a very high price, in order to not make it too obvious he''s the one who made them. And after a few years of doing that, he could definitely join a sect, and a few years later he might come back for his disciple. And if that happens, he would find out about our group, and since we would likely take over his home and shop in order to look for those secrets after he left, he would have a reason to kill us all." [Hooligan] "Ugh, you drive a hard bargain. But if you''re right, if we visit him, we have to end him." [Farmer-pirate] "To make sure he doesn''t bark about us at the wrong tree. But there is no way we wouldn''t find anything good if we visit him. At the very least, he should have a few thousands of coins worth of materials and pills, probably a few tens of thousands, maybe even more than a hundred thousand, even if he doesn''t have a technique. And a useful technique alone could cost a few hundred thousand, let alone what else we would find."This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. [Hooligan] "I''m not sure, man. Might be safer to cut our losses with him, and let him go." [Farmer-pirate] "Come on! There''s no way he doesn''t have at least a technique book to give his disciple or his tea friend if he nears his end." [Hooligan] "He might not have it." [Farmer-pirate] "If he doesn''t, then he would have pills and materials, and plenty of them. Expensive ones, too. The longevity pills he can make from the ingredients he sold would be worth at least a few hundred coins alone, let alone everything else he would find. At most, you would need to keep him alive, to get him to tell you his secrets, and if we find something useful, there''s always the option to pay for someone to read his mind and share the mind-reading with one of our group. [Hooligan] "Fine. But if I can''t find at least a few hundred coins worth of things, and if he somehow doesn''t make it far enough to read his mind, then it''s your life that''s on the line." [Farmer-pirate] "It won''t get to that! I assure you!" Then the hooligan left to tell his superior about that, and after a few weeks of farming, the hooligan angrily attacked him out of nowhere, ending him with a single attack before the former pirate turned farmer could even start talking, and everything faded to black. = = = In the months of rummaging through the pirate-farmer ghost''s memories, Mirru started reading the farming book, and learned more about farming from the ghost, but his main focus was on learning about runes and runic formations. Those memories seemed somehow more difficult to access, for some reason. Mirru felt like those memories were somehow locked or hidden in the pirate-farmer ghost''s memories. So he tried to use what he learned from formations, to see if he could somehow more easily access those memories. At first, nothing happened, then small changes could be seen, and after a few more months of trial and error, something popped, and Mirru Cartrack could finally access a few more years worth of memories. = = = "Remember, this is your last chance of leaving the runic guild without having your memories of this place locked, making you forget everything you learned inside the guild." The old and powerful man''s words resonated through everyone''s minds. They were 14 kids in a room. Started as 17, but 1 gave up early, one gave up right before this day, and the other was caught to be a spy from a local mafia, caught trying to send some secret information to the outside world. Nobody left the guild that day. A few left the guild in the following years, some caught as spies, and some simply finding it more likely to progress by joining some other guild instead, and one case of someone dying by trying to modify a rune. = = = Seven long years of learning runic secrets from a guild focused on secrecy. All guilds were focused on secrecy, but this particular one seemed to be more paranoid than what Mirru heard was the norm, and even more paranoid that even some of the most paranoid guilds he heard of, which almost certainly meant they had a big and important secret to hide. And in those seven long years, he did not find more that mere hints of such a secret even existing. That is, until the day he decided to leave the guild. But he couldn''t leave the guild until he mastered the secret, at least not alive. Only those who learned the last secret would be allowed to leave alive, from those who found out about the last secret of that guild. What was the secret? A runic technique formed from a few normal techniques working together to complement eachother, with the goal of improving runic inscribing. The first technique was a microscope technique, shortly followed by a telescope technique for scouting runes from a distance, since it was fairly similar to the microscope technique, and thus much easier to learn, giving the learners a sense of accomplishment, to increase their morale. The third technique was a method of training fine control over one''s energy. The fourth technique was for making and controlling hundreds of tiny tentacles of energy at the same time, in order to write tiny runes at an incredible speed. The fifth technique was for making a few large energy tentacles for making huge techniques, for controlling runes from a distance, and even for attacking enemies. The sixth and final technique was perhaps the most useful one. A technique for taking over runes, after they are finished. Especially useful for taking over the runes made by other people. First, the technique required converting a part of one''s energy into a form of energy as similar as possible to the energy of the targeted rune, then slowly letting that energy get closer to the rune, then dissipating that energy closer to the rune for the rune to hopefully absorb it, then guiding or even helping the rune to absorb some of that energy, then pushing more of that energy into the rune, and with that energy under your control, you would then start changing the rune from the inside. And after mastering all of those six techniques, in order to merge them together, the final test was recreating a runic formation used to safely test new runes and runic formations, said formation being huge but made from lots of small runes, effectively needing a large energy tentacle covered by with lots of tiny energy tentacles, and those tiny tentacles writing the runes while the large energy tentacle focuses of the form of the runic formation array. And as he promised himself, the secretly-rune-weaver turned pirate turned farmer, so secretly a powerful rune weaver that even he forgot all about it, ended up having his memories locked up and leaving the paranoid guild, then joining a pirate group after not finding any well-paying work in the slums of a bigger city, where he would start learning rune weaving all over again, having his rune weaving memories locked up, then eventually leaving the pirates to move to a city where he thought his life would be safer, and where his life was safer, until he decided to convince a hooligan to attack that old alchemist. = = = Two years after getting to the city, and after he was done learning everything useful from that ghost, he was notified by the family employing him that he would no longer work for them after a few years, because a married daughter of the family would return home with her kids and her husband, after they had to sell their house and leave the village they lived in, because a local mafia wanted to start farming for a guild. Thankfully for the family who had to leave their home, the husband was known as a no-nonsense kind of guy and even respected by some of the mafia members, so he was able to negotiate with the guild on behalf of the rest of the people, for the guild to pay them a better-than-fair price for their homes and land, to guard the sellers on their journey to their destination city of choice from one of the nearest cities and if they made a big-enough group to be worth guarding them all, and even to help the sellers to buy at least a home if not also land in or around the city of their choice. Most people gladly sold, with only three exception. One family who decided to simply sell the rights to use that land for three decades, by which time the land might be worth more money or might be worth less money but it would still be their land. An elder couple who wanted to keep living there for the few years they had left, even if the local mafia started farming around them, saying that they do not want to leave their home until they leave the world, and that the ones who would be farming the lands would still need a few houses around, for the workers, so an extra house for a few years would not make that big of a difference. And the third and last family did not want money, and instead wanted one of the mafia members dead, for what that mafia member did to his late daughter. And in the end, the last family reluctantly ended up selling the house in exchange for the death of that mafia member, as well as enough money for a small house on the outskirts of one of the nearby cities used as a destination by half of the villagers, the other half going to a city in the opposite direction, and from where would come the family who would leave Mirru without a job. = = = With that in mind, Mirru started using up the scraps he had access to, in order to make a few pills, a few rune weaving tools, and even to rune-weave a knife with a sharpness rune on one side of the knife and a durability knife on the other side of that knife. And when the fated time came, a week after the new farm members arrived, Mirru was let go with a modest parting gift consisting of seeds for most of the crops grown on the farm, or at least the not-expensive seeds, as well as enough long-lasting vegetables to last Mirru two months of only eating that, enough salt for three months, and fresh vegetables and fruits which would last a week at most, but more than enough for Mirru to start saving enough energy to get back into his inn life. = = = But it was not meant to be. The inn was getting emptier every day, Andrares the merchant was not available to meet, and the local government seemed to consider conscripting people into the city guards, because apparently the local mafia who caused Mirru''s job loss ended up growing their business and their people''s power so fast that they were planning to open their own guild, which would put them in conflict with other guilds, which would likely cause a worsening economic situation in the area, as that guild fought with the nearby guilds, and maybe even outright war between those guilds. So Mirru Cartrack found himself packing up his things after buying as much camping food as he could afford with his remaining energy, then decided to use some of his few remaining coins to pay for transport to a distant but more peaceful city in a coastal mountain region with deep waters right form the shore, and a few inland lakes for the people to use for leisure. = = = The journey was rough on his body, but it was also a very good practice environment for the techniques he learned from the secretly-rune-weaver turned pirate turned farmer. He would need to be able to accurately and carefully control his energy to make runes or even in combat, even when in motion and when his movements weren''t easily predictable. The energy tentacles were... unsettling. Especially since he could use them to secretly write runes on the things around him. And most importantly, because he could use them to prank people, by touching them from unexpected angles, by moving objects, by pulling and pushing them in a direction of his choice, or all of those at the same time. = = = Half way through the journey, Mirru figured that he could turn the tentacles into sails, and use them to gather energy quickly in a small place, then he could merge a few of those sails into a sphere, then he could compress the sphere to compress the energies, which would make it easier for him to place a few drops of blood on said small sphere, in order to more easily gain control over the energies inside, which meant he could use those energies together with alchemy ingredients and even alchemic pills, powders, and elixirs, to make new and improved pills or powders or elixirs, which might be able to help him grow his energy absorption rate, or his energy capacity, or both. Definitely both, given enough time, but probably only one and only slightly, until the trip is over. = = = By the time he got to the destination, he not only managed to master all of the skills of the paranoid guild, but only when using each of them individually and not using more than one at a time, but he also managed to raise his energy absorption, from 2 energy points per hour of active energy absorption, to 2.5 energy points per hour of active energy absorption, and from 18 energy units after 9 hours of sleep, to 22.5 energy units after 9 hours of sleep. And double the active energy absorption if he used that artifact of his again. = = = Due to the long journey, Mirru Cartrack managed to get the members of the caravan group to get comfortable-enough around him, which allowed MC to ask them a few questions about his destination, namely what are the news he should be aware of, what are the things he should know about the city, and what are the cheapest inns he could stay at. This process took multiple days, with different discussion topic for different days, and only talking during the time they had to wait for the food to cook but without leaving the food unattended. But they asked him what he was doing in the city he left, and what he is planning to do in the city he''s reaching, so he told them what he did, and that he is planning to look for a job in carpentry or hopefully a job working with mechanical contraption, since that is what high school he went through. He could not afford even the possibility of leaking his secrets, so he decided he would look for a job like that and after a few weeks of looking for work or a few months of work, he would buy a few books about rune weaving and refining, under the guise of improving his mechanical engineering, supposedly hoping to find a guild or a sect which would let him join. = = = And right after reaching the city, a loud sound shook the whole city, and Mirru saw lots of soul fragments scatter around the city, them Mirru quickly caught a dozen or so of the nearby soul fragments and put them inside his treasure, then hid all traces of having done so, hoping those soul fragments held useful knowledge and hoping that he would not be caught having captured those soul fragments. = = = Unbeknown to Mirru, those soul fragments he captured would later turn out to be his ticket into a sect, after thoroughly reading their memories, those soul fragments being the soul fragments of the grandson of one of the male sect elders, said sect elder deciding to ask a female sect elder to take Mirru Cartrack under her wing, in a move which made a lot of male disciples angry and jealous. And all of this was predicted by said female sect elder, but MC was unknown and untraceable for said elder, at least until his arrival at the sect. And, for fortunately for MC, she did not know of MC''s ability of reading the memories of ghosts and spirits. So she started planning to take on a new disciple, especially sine she only had female disciples and she predicted that her future disciple will join the sect as a male disciple. In particular, she needed to have a new building created, to separate him from the facilities used by her female disciples, especially the baths, toilets, clothes washing rooms, and the rooms of the female disciples. The last time male and female disciples had shared facilities, the results were so bad that the sect was almost split in half, and a quarter of the disciples were lost in only a few months, and had to be culled to prevent the numbers from reaching dangerously high amounts.