High Priestess Nenneke stood waiting, displeasure written into every line of her weathered face.
As Will approached, her patience snapped.
“Will! Have you been off ‘treating’ that brazen Lady Marie again?”
The words treating her slipped out through tightly gritted teeth.
Will mustered an apologetic grin and slipped the purse into her hands without missing a beat.
“Now, Mother Nenneke, don’t be cross. You know how tight coin has been.”
“Hmph! The goddess blessed you herself. Who am I to tell you what to do?” Her voice dripped with dry sarcasm.
Will knew her temper well enough.
She had looked after his comatose body like her own kin, watching over him for ten long years.
When he first slipped under, he had been a child of five; how she had endured that decade of vigilance was beyond him.
Had he never crossed over to awaken the boy, he likely would have remained enshrined in the temple halls like some holy relic.
For that, he owed her a debt he could never fully repay.
Every day, he channeled vitality into her veins to soothe her joints and guard her lifespan, a quiet benefit born of his innate essence.
The priestess stepped closer, nostrils flaring as she caught his scent.
Finding nothing scandalous on his collar, she let out an irritated sigh.
Her gaze drifted over his smooth, placid smile and those round, pale-gold eyes so reminiscent of the temple’s patron.
“You speak like a grown man, Will, not a boy who woke up at five. But I don’t want you drawing greedy eyes, especially with that gift of yours.”
“Rest easy. Out in the streets, they just take me for a novice druid.”
The power in his blood did resemble natural magic, only far purer and more potent.
Nenneke fell silent.
During her evening baths of late, she had noticed the slackness leaving her skin, her limbs moving with the suppleness of twenty years prior.
“I know full well what you do every evening. You think the other sisters haven’t noticed the lines disappearing from my forehead?”
“Could it be… that the goddess decided to shine her grace on you as well?”
Will wore an expression of wide-eyed innocence until the old priestess gave a defeated wave of her hand.
“Hah! Inside, both of you. You will sit for meditation today and search for the magic source again. Enough nonsense.”
Mages drew their strength from Chaos, but both Will and his internal status window knew there was not a scrap of Chaos to be found in his soul.
Seeing the reluctance written on his face, Nenneke’s lips curled with rare satisfaction.
“Cheer up, little Will. Today will be different. An old contact from the druid circles sent along the heart of an ancient tree. Even if you cannot grasp Chaos, you can learn how the circle draws upon nature. Your gift runs far deeper than theirs.”
“Wait, Mother, I don’t know the first thing about druidic rites…”
Before he could pull away, she gripped his arm with surprising strength and guided him down onto the woven mat in the center of the chamber.
Knowing better than to argue, he crossed his legs in the familiar posture.
He shut his eyes, turning his awareness inward toward the deep well of vitality resting in his core, as he had tried dozens of times before.
At first, nothing shifted.
The four elements of the world remained distant and indifferent, refusing to settle in his blood.
Nenneke stepped behind him, resting the petrified tree heart against the crown of his head.
After a long, quiet breath, the outer husk began to flake away, peeling layer by layer until the relic crumbled into a fine, glowing dust that sank directly through his scalp.
A sharp clarity struck Will between the temples.
It felt as if an invisible band around his skull had snapped clean open.
Points of emerald light materialized around him, floating in the dark like curious spirits, drifting close with eager warmth.
Will reached out with a tentative thought, calling to them.
The luminous motes paused as if startled, then swarmed forward in delight.
They dove straight into his chest, dissolving into his dormant life essence.
A deluge of sensory information broke over his mind.
Across his awareness bloomed dozens of vital sparks, each one sharp, distinct, and tangible.
He mapped them instantly: the potted plants lining the sill, the stray crickets nestled in the stonework, and, brightest of all, the deep, steady blaze that was Nenneke.
[Life Meditation]
Description: Through deep contemplation, comprehend the essence of life.
Gradually enhances constitution, natural recovery, and affinity with living beings.
Will checked his ledger.
Perception had jumped by nearly a full point, settling at 5.0, while Constitution rose to 6.5.
[Life Drain]
Description: Your grasp of vital energy deepens.
You may now forcibly extract vitality from targets with a Constitution score below 3.0.
Understanding washed over him.
Until now, his vitality could only flow out from within; this gave him the means to take it back from the world around him.
Curiosity drove his instinct.
He locked onto the small insects creeping along the floorboards and willed the siphon to open.
Within two breaths, the scuttling dots stiffened and collapsed, leaving behind dull, desiccated husks.
Fascinated, Will shifted his focus to the vibrant green shoots blooming across the shelves.
Prompts blinked across his vision:
[Experience +1]
[Experience +1]
Will felt a sudden urge to laugh.
Two months of frustration, and the solution had been this simple all along.
He had spent weeks assuming his status sheet operated like a common game interface, trying his hand at slaughtering chickens, stomping bugs, and even slipping coin to a headsman to watch an execution, yet the progress bar had never budged a hair.
Now, alongside his wooden blade, he finally possessed an offensive tool and a clear path to grow.
He let out a silent breath of relief.
In an era governed by feudal lords and volatile monarchs, his deepest fear had been some petty baron catching wind of his gift, dragging him off by royal decree to serve as a portable fountain of blood for the frontline troops.
Melitele held vast spiritual sway, but she commanded no standing army.
Any other priesthood would have cast him onto the streets long ago.
When he first woke from his ten-year slumber, every one of his baseline attributes sat below 3.0, weaker than an ailing runt.
Only Nenneke had looked the other way, letting him strip the herb store bare so he could chew bitter roots to build his strength.
So now, along with swallowing medicine, I have to gather experience and figure out how to mint real coin.
The sheer volume of tasks made his head ache.
Draining formidable foes, predatory beasts, or rogue monsters would surely yield greater experience, but he was far from a veteran witcher, and the skill carried strict attribute limits.
As he stood, his martial ability barely rivaled an unblooded recruit.
Stumbling blindly into the marshlands or backwoods looking for sport was nothing short of carrying a lantern into a privy pit, asking to be blown apart.
What if he targeted someone on their deathbed?
Would their attributes drop enough to meet the threshold?
Did a forced extraction leave behind a debilitating curse?
And if he laid waste to an entire grove, would the local bailiffs or temple hierarchy hunt him down?
Most worrying of all: would the goddess withdraw her favor if she caught him despoiling the natural order?
The Blessing of the Goddess.
The words weighed on him, tossing up dozens of doubts.
Then his thoughts circled back to the dried crickets on the floor.
Pests.
Nobody shed a tear over pests.
Farmers cursed the locusts that stripped their grain, and the temple sisters shrieked whenever a fat sewer rat skittered across the flagstones.
Vermin carried the plague, and no living soul looked upon them with pity.
Will, the Grand Exterminator?
The thought made him cringe.
If that moniker ever slipped into the market stalls, he would be known through all of Ellander as Melitele’s Ratcatcher.
Still, a faint grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He opened his eyes, eager to share the breakthrough with Nenneke.
The grin died on his face.
The high priestess loomed over him, gripping an oak quarterstaff in both hands, her frame radiating silent fury.
Will looked down.
The potted flora across the meditation room, rare specimens hand-picked across years to aid spiritual contemplation, had collapsed into brittle, gray stalks.
Debt accumulated.
The words seemed to hang in bold letters above his head.
“Mother, wait. I… remember, I’ve only been awake for five years. Hear me out…”
Crack!