[Chapter 27: Crazy and Crazier]
On my workstation lies a crude small bowl made of stone, a pestle of similar make and quality lies beside it. I walk up to the workstation then proceed to dump a pile of leaves similar to the ones that I left to burn in that fire a while ago.
They are of course the very same medical herbs I had once gathered and then immediately forsook when needed because books are more important than they could ever hope to be.
Anyways, I’m going to use these to see if I can do some alchemy stuff with these, according to the book I should be able to make healing potions from just what I have here. Not sure how useful they’re going to be since "aids the fixing of small wounds" doesn’t actually tell me how much hp it makes go up.
And hp is kind of weird in the first place, when I got here I had 10 hp and any sort of scratch or bump would drop that down to 9. But if I got another scratch or bruise before the first one healed my hp would stay at 9, baring that one time I fell really hard which dropped it to an 8. Now I have six times my original health and end, but I don’t feel supernaturally healthy, I just feel like what I imagine actually healthy people feel like instead of the do-nothing couch potato I was before I came here.
But even being literally several times better than my old self in not just hp, but ever other stat as well, despite all that, I’m still well within human capabilities. Despite my skin getting tougher with ever increase of the end stat, I still lose that part of one hp when I get a scratch, but now it’s less than a fiftieth of my max when before one hp was a tenth of everything thing I had. Was I one-fifth of my way to death that one time? Was i really that weak back home?
Back on track, potions, these little leaves have all the healing stuff built right in, just eating them as is will apparently give a bit of healing. But grinding it up makes it easier to store and use.
I have a lot a lot of herbs so I’m going to be here a while. I made a little mat and bag for them out of a thin hide so I’d be prepared and not realize I have no way to store the powder once I finished grinding the first batch.
It wasn’t easy at first but I started to get the hang of using a mortar and pestle, getting the motions down as I go along. Eventually the herbs are reduced to tiny pieces which I closely inspect to try and discern the quality of.
But fittingly for my first time, they aren’t anywhere close to the fineness they are supposed to be, the book says they are supposed to be ground to dust, this looks closer to what you find in those preprepared bottles of parsley or cilantro. I check a bit further to make see if any did get ground to the proper fineness but fell through, though none was found.
[Skill level increased]
[Inspect| lv.2]
[Visual focus increased by 20%]
Lightly acknowledging the skill up that has become such an integral part of my life I continue grinding down the herbs once again. It takes significantly longer to reach desired fineness than I’d like, but as with most everything I’ve done since getting here, it’s a learning experience.
After finally completing the first batch I unceremoniously dump it on the mat and start again with more herbs. It’s somewhere a few batches in that I finally get a new skill.
[Skill obtained]
[Grinding| lv.1]
[Grinding speed increased by 20%]
The skill is rather narrow in its use, only aiding in things like using a pestle, but highly welcome anyways. And with epistemology any sort of new knowledge can potentially benefit other skills. Even then I can’t help but think that if life ran on crappy power fantasy logic this skill would be seen as useless but really be some almighty cheat skill that increases the rate at which everything improves.
My mind drifts off to more fanciful thoughts as I get used to process enough so that it no longer requires my full mental attention. Even still trying just a bit to improve the skill via the class methodology I spent so long to integrate into myself.
After some time I finish grinding all the herbs into a fine powder that now lies in a mound atop the mat. I feel a beam of pride in my self for the work I have completed, not nearly as much as I felt when I finished the refurbishment of my home, but pride nonetheless.
Guess I probably should put in in some container or at least cover it or something. I don’t have any bottles so doing the next step of mixing with water would be a complete waste, its fully functional even like this after all.
Heck, with how rare containers for liquids will probably be for quite some time I might as well just take it in dust for, sure the book says it’s really bitter but I can take it, taking my medicine has never been a problem for me. But I don’t know exactly how much I should take, the book said a health potion is made of on average three leaves or some measurement I’ve never heard of, so making sure I don’t take to much should be important.
But is it actually important? The book gives no warnings of overdosing at all. So unless this place is so behind on medical tech that they don’t put warnings not to overdose, it should be the equivalent of taking too much vitamin C, will it mess with your digestive system, definitely, kill you, no.
But these aren’t just normal things, they’re magic healing plants, that would overheal me a ridiculous amount, wouldn’t that help increase my end?
I’m gonna do it.
In a moment powered by some form of mania, I walked over to the large pile of powdered healing herbs knowing full well what I’m planning to do.
I feel almost possessed as I yell some phrase of confidence meant to drown out the parts of my mind that realize how terrible of an idea this is.
I don’t actually taste anything while I’m shoveling the dark green dust in, as if some other part of my brain wants me to drown in my hubris.
Only once the last of the pile has been put in my mouth does the taste hit.
"Oh, gah, I, why would I do that, that was a terrible idea!" Yells I as the taste literally causes me to roll on the ground. Now normally despite nothing ever really coming to bother me here, I try to keep the noise down, don’t want to tempt fate any more than I have to.
[Hp: +5]
Of course now this notion was completely ignored as I scream top of my lungs while being attacked by a flavor so bitter that in the old world you would have to search a long time to find something comparable. "Why do I listen to myself? You’ve betrayed me, me! whyyyyyyyyy" more wails about my completely deserved situation fly out as I stay in a bitterness induced delirium so great that it caused me to completely miss a notification.
By the time I managed to get myself back on my feet the sun had gone much farther down in the sky.
Note to self: don't do that again, I think to myself as bitter as what i put in my mouth. Did that even do anything good for me, I recall the only reason I did that insane idea was to try and increase my end.
[Hp: 65/65]
Did I get a permanent 5 point boost to hp? That is really good actually.
Appendum: Don't do that again any time soon.
Wait, I just ate my entire stash of emergency healing, that was supposed to help me later. It will take days to build my stocks up again and I really would rather not repeat the same task I did for the past week.
Maybe it's time to try learning healing magic? I put it off because that would require a target to try and heal, aka me.
I was the idiot that ate the herbs, so I'll need to suck it up in order to learn an alternative. But really, going from od'ing on medical herbs to self harm in the same day, what has my life come to?
Quickly grabing my carving knife, attempting to sharpen it to try and ease my burden as well as heating it with fire magic, I ready myself for something even more insane than eating all the herbs.
However unlike the herbs, I'm completely lucid as I hold the knife over my arm, not the hand as I remeber a story saying that it would be extra painful due to all the nerves in the hand. "Do it, grow ever stronger" I try to reassure myself
Gritting my teeth I try to make as quick and clean a cut as possible. I'm not sure how well I did as my knife tears a gash open on my arm, crimson blood spilling out of the greatest wound I've taken since I came here.
[Hp: 62/65]
I take note of the damage as I try not to squeal in the pain of what I've done. Now I need to quickly figure out healing magic in order to stop the bleeding.
All magic I've used so far is imagination, this should be no different. Normally I use some science from my old world for my mental images, but I just felt a ton of healing, even if it was mostly missed because of the bitterness, so why not use it?
I Imagine the bitter, the symbol of my experience with the herbs, on my arm over the bleeding wound.
It doesn't work, despite my efforts no healing occurs. My arm is still bleeding with the blood forming a small puddle on the stone floor but I refuse to check my status out if fear.
Okay, If the bitter didn't work lets try using science, imagine cells dividing.
This also fails as the puddle of blood reaches the diameter of my fist.
By now the panic has fully set in as I try to think of a way to get the healing to work. I am too scared to check my status because while it could confirm that I'm only down 2 hp it could also say that I'm down 10 which would do nothing but terrifiy me further as I risk bleeding out.
Okay, okay, if the bitter didn't work and the science didn't work then... what about using both toghether? Use the methodology of the science with the sheer potency of the bitter.
So I focus all of my mana on the bleeding wound while trying to flavor it with the image of cells dividing tinted by the dark green of the bitter. I push with all my will as I feel the most fear I ever have outside of a time that caused flee to level up.
[Obtained skill]
[Healing magic| lv: 1]
[Control Healing magic with 10% efficiency]
Suddenly it starts working, mana begins enetgizing my cells greatly accelerating my natural healing. The wound closes up as my mana pool runs dry. Finally no longer running the risk of bleeding out I check my status.
[Hp: 64/65]
My hp has returned to 2 points higher than right after I cut myself. But I seem to be down 1 point from lack of blood, scary thought. I really hope it doesn't scar, though I probably deserve it.
By now the tension has drained out of my body and with a sigh I lay down next to the puddle of blood I will have to clean later. Looking at the ceiling with a thousand-yard stare I contemplate the events that had just transpired.
I should stop doing stuff like that, an obvious thought flies through my head. Even still it is quickly dismissed. I'd do it again, I realize with a macabre certainty. Will do it again.
I should get something to eat. I choose to deal with the last thought as I get up in surch of something to replace the nutrients lost in the healing.
