As I dismissed the prompt, I turned to Bradwin, the butcher guiding me through the process, and handed him back his knife. The halo of light surrounding me remained for a few more seconds and then began to fade. “I’ll leave the rest to you.”
Bradwin shook his head, taking back his knife as I grabbed my cane and left the abattoir, headed for the Third Street house of scholars.
My leg ached after standing for so long without support, but it wasn’t unbearable. I’d changed out my crutch for a cane a couple of weeks ago and I was now at the point where I barely needed it. Five weeks of healing and drinking the herbal tea Yaceb gave me meant most of my injuries were only memories.
I’d spent the last few days laying the foundation for acquiring new skills like butchering and blacksmithing. I’d been going in and out of workshops and making simple items like nails and wire. I hadn’t gained anywhere near enough experience to unlock the skills, but now I had enough basic understanding to at least practice and eventually gain the first level in each.
At 28 nobles, butchering was the most expensive to learn. The price covered the butcher’s time and the animal I cut up. Butchers, like farmers, had all sorts of promotions and tricks to increase the quantity and quality of the meat they received from a carcass. In their minds, I’d ruined a perfectly good animal just to understand what I was doing.
I didn’t care.
Butchering was important. In the past, when I’d looted a corpse, only the magical components appeared. The wolves only left behind fertilizer when I looted them. That hadn’t been because that was all they were able to drop; it was because I didn’t have the right skills to loot them effectively. Once I had the butcher skill, irrelevant of level, I’d receive meat and hide when I looted monsters, but only up to half the maximum of what they possessed. If I wanted it all, I’d have to carry the corpse to a real butcher.
Not that I could.
Blackwood wasn’t the sort of place where I could casually appear with a monster corpse and not have half the village asking me what had happened. If I wanted to get anything extra out of my method, I was going to have to do so myself. Now that I knew how to butcher an animal larger than a rabbit properly, I’d be able to butcher the next wolves that showed up on my farm which would drastically speed up my timeframe for gaining the first level of the butcher skill. And it would reduce the cost of leveling up the skill too.
Working with Ranic had certainly opened my eyes. There was so much about being a farmer I didn’t know. There were numerous skills and abilities that I’d never even heard of. There were so many laws that intersected, causing secondary effects that it made my head spin if I studied too long. I had barely scratched the surface. Understanding all the intricacies of being a farmer would take a lifetime.
It was a good thing the old man wasn’t as kooky as he appeared to be. The whole betting situation was just his way of talking to interesting people. When he won the bet, sure he made money, but when he lost, the person who won would usually spend all their winnings on more lessons like I had.
Ranic didn’t mind losing money. He wasn’t scraping around for pennies—no matter how he dressed. He’d used his scholarly skills to invest in different farms around the city, guiding multiple generations of farmers through their growth so that they turned significant profits. He’d even used several of those farms for experiments, hoping to make a discovery and break through his third threshold, but none of those experiments had panned out. So he’d spent decades learning the different processes firsthand and boasted a farmer skill level in the high seventies. The man had worked himself to the bone until he’d been able to produce a perfect crop of every feasible variety and he still wasn’t through his third threshold.
There was nothing he didn’t know.
Which was why I was going to steal him. The excitement building in me threatened to bubble over and leave me cackling like a madman as I climbed into a hired carriage to cross the city.
Ten minutes later, I waved to Beth as I made my way through the house of scholars to Ranic’s door and knocked.
“Come in, Arnold.”
I opened the door and walked through the now-familiar room to my usual seat. Ranic offered a sheet of parchment as I passed him.
“You smell like blood,” Ranic mumbled as I took the sheet.
“I was learning how to butcher a sheep.”
“And you didn’t stop to bathe?”
“It took longer than I expected and I’ve organised for someone to meet me here for my lesson,” I said.
Ranic finally looked up and frowned. “Why are you smiling like that?”
My grin widened as I lost control of my excitement. “Because you love me.”
Ranic snorted, his fine white hair sticking out in all directions. “You overestimate our relationship.”
“And you constantly underestimate it, but that’s about to change.” I sat down and looked him in the eye, unable to hold back my excitement any longer. “Ranic, I want you to be my Gandalf, my Yoda, my Obi-Wan, my Dumbledore. I’m a hero and I need my wise old wizard to take me on an adventure.”
Ranic blushed, turning bright red, and then cleared his throat, shuffling his papers nervously. “I’m flattered, Arnold. And you are handsome, but you are also a century too young for me. It just doesn’t feel right. I mean I’m not technically your teacher, but we have that sort of relationship. I wouldn’t want to cheapen it.”
I blinked, replaying exactly what I had said to him in my mind, thinking about what I had said from his perspective…oops. “Um, I might have phrased that wrong. I’m not propositioning you…well, I’m not propositioning you romantically. Ah, do you understand the literary concept of the hero’s journey?”
Ranic’s brow furrowed, still blushing. “Huh, why are you talking about books now? Are you trying to seduce me or not?”
“Not.” I waited a few more seconds to let that sink in. “Anyway, there is this thing in my world called a fantasy novel. They are usually adventure tales for the most part. Many of them start with a boy on a farm whose world is turned upside-down when a wise old wizard comes into his life. The wizard usually needs the farm boy to go off and fight some dark lord somewhere, so the wizard teaches the boy all the skills he needs to survive in the dangerous world, before he dies for plot reasons.”
Ranic raised an eyebrow. “And you want me to be this wizard who dies?”
This wasn’t going how I had planned. “No. I mean yes. Ah…I mean yes I want you to be the wise old wizard without the dying part.” The words gushed out in a rush, disjointed and unorganised.
“I’m confused. How does a Yoda come into this?”
I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Okay, I did this badly. Let me start from the beginning. Ranic, I would like your help. I would really appreciate it if you could help guide me through this new world so that I can grow in skill and overcome the obstacles before me.”
Ranic turned his head to the side, clearly confused. “You sound like a pansy—and you still haven’t told me what you want.”
“I want to hire you to be my bloody scholar and come back with me to my village where you can tell me how I’m fucking up and what I can do to improve my farming skills.”
“Oh, is that what you want?” He paused in thought for a few seconds, shook his head, and then scowled. “No. Actually, hell no. I’m not going to some shitty border village without a decent whorehouse or somewhere I can purchase my stimulants. Do you have any idea how old I am? How much work it takes to keep me comfortable without having to put up with the pain of aching joints? And you want me to go to some village that you’ve described as half burnt down.”
“Ranic, be reasonable. You’ve managed to teach me so much in such a short amount of time. Try to imagine what we could do with more.”
Ranic shook his head, clearly not swayed by my words. “I like you, Arnold. I enjoy our conversations about your world and how they farmed there…enough to teach you for free if you had asked, b
ut I’m not going to leave Weldon and go to some level three village.”
“How about I sweeten the deal?”
“I don’t need money and even if I did you can’t afford me.”
“I don’t have money, but I promise you I can get you through your threshold.”
Ranic froze.
I tapped my fingers against the table as I looked him in the eye. “This isn’t like the special promotions. I didn’t even realise I had this knowledge until a week ago. I’ve even discreetly questioned the other farming scholars to be sure.”
Ranic took a slow breath. “Why should I believe you and what do you want from me?”
“I want you to come with me to my village and use your skills to help me understand the capabilities of my class. And I want you to keep my secrets.”
The whole “understand the capabilities of my class” thing wasn’t entirely true. I didn’t actually want to learn how to farm, but if anyone could optimise my experience returns from trapping monsters, it would be Ranic.
The old man sighed tiredly, showing his age. “For how long?”
“Until I have a new class.”
He shook his head. “That’s too long. Without a fortune, it could take decades.”
“How much time are you willing to give me?”
Ranic’s hands shook as he scratched his jaw. “Five years with no pay, and I will do everything within my knowledge and power to help you grow yourself, your class, and your farm while keeping your secrets. I will also give you every farming ability you request for free. That is a fair price for passing my threshold.”
“I’ll need your oath,” I said.
“Is that who is supposed to meet you here?”
I nodded.
Ranic took a shaky breath, face pale. “If you are wrong about this, I will never speak to you again.”
“I know.”
And I did know. I’d noticed Ranic’s pain when he spoke of his class. He was brilliant, but because of the way thresholds in his class worked, brilliance didn’t matter. There was no way for him to get through his threshold without adding to the field he’d specialized in. The man sat on the shoulders of giants. Thousands of scholars had gone before him. There was very little left to learn in the field of farming.
Ranic had sat at the gates of his threshold for almost eighty years, knowing what lies beyond without ever being able to step through and touch it.
It took another fifteen minutes for the oath binder to arrive. She walked into the room, pulled out her equipment, sat down at the table, and began writing out a contract. She was entirely impartial throughout the process, pointing out where there were flaws on either side that could be exploited. There wasn’t much in our verbal agreement that had to be changed. Ranic had to offer up his skills as a scholar not just when it came to farming, but with all subjects. I had to stipulate a date when the five years began and the date that it ended. Clauses with rules were added to allow Ranic time off if it became necessary or if he became sick. He couldn’t go without pay for tax reasons, so instead, he was required to pay me his wages as a cost of receiving the information to pass his threshold which I would then return to him as wages. What I thought would take thirty minutes took four hours, but by the end, neither of us had any wiggle room.
I looked at the finished contract with its golden lettering, holding my bleeding thumb above it. Ranic stood beside me, his own thumb bleeding.
The oath binder placed a hand on each of our shoulders. “You come to this oath of your own volition with full knowledge of what you stand to gain and lose. Make your oaths.”
I place my thumb on the paper with Ranic. “I swear to give Scholar Ranic the knowledge that I believe will see him through his current threshold in return for him keeping my secrets and his service for five years if he successfully passes through.”
The oath I gave was a simplified version of the contract. The oath binder had an ability that allowed it; otherwise, the two of us would have had to read the entire document aloud to make our oaths.
Ranic pressed his thumb against the paper and spoke at the same time. “I swear to give Farmer Arnold a payment of gold, abilities, and five years of service while keeping his secrets in return for the knowledge to pass through my current threshold.”
“Heard and witnessed,” the oath binder said.
There was a burst of light as the contract ignited like it was made from flash paper. A feeling like metal shackles being locked around my heart passed through me, changing me, binding me up with magic.
A prompt appeared.
You can now access your oath menu.
I dismissed the prompt.
Ranic looked at me and nodded, overcome by a similar feeling. Oaths were not made lightly. Now that I had made one, I understood why. It grated at my soul. There wasn’t any other way to describe it.
The oath binder handed me a small bottle. “Drink this. It will help.”
I put the bottle to my lips and started chugging. Smooth, sweet liquor washed over my tongue as I saw her hand another bottle to Ranic.
“Well, thank you for your patronage,” she said. The oath binder finished collecting her things, said goodbye, and left, closing the door behind her.
Neither of us spoke as we finished chugging the bottles and slumped into our chairs, letting ourselves adjust to the new feeling. Making an oath reminded me of having my teeth cleaned at the dentist, that uncomfortable feeling you got afterwards where your teeth didn’t feel like your own—only this feeling sat inside my body.
My body didn’t feel like my own.
After five minutes, Ranic recovered enough to remove a wooden box from the bookcase behind him. He put it on the table and lifted the lid, exposing a bottle of spirits and four glasses. He filled two glasses and slid one to me.
Then he sat down and drank.
I’d never been a fan of drinking spirits straight, but then I’d never magically bound myself before. The burn down my throat was barely noticeable. I couldn’t tell if it was because of my current state or because of the quality of the drink.
The two of us sat in silence for another fifteen minutes, only moving to refill our glasses.
I finally recovered enough to speak. “That sucks.”
Ranic snorted. “It doesn’t get easier either, which is why people don’t take oaths lightly. It’s a damn blessing that drinking helps.” He raised his glass to me.
“Cheers,” I said, reaching out to touch my glass to his.
“Glory,” Ranic said. When I looked at him confused, he added, “It’s what we say here in Weldon. It’s short for ‘glory to your health.’”
I nodded and drank, feeling a little buzzed.
Ranic drained his glass and then slammed it down on the table. “Let’s get this over with. What do you think you’ve found?”
I could see Ranic wasn’t in a mood to play around. This wasn’t the time to tease him. He was far too serious. “trapsmith is a skill farmers can acquire.”
Ranic’s eyes went wide as he sucked in a breath.
I opened my skill page and sent it to him so he could see that I had it. I also showed him my logs from when I received it.
The moment I sent my logs, light flooded him brighter than I had ever received for my own levels. After a second, the room began to give off the same level of light.
Ranic began to giggle manically. Then everything disappeared in a field of white, and all that remained was his insane giggling.
“Fuck, I’m blind,” I said, shielding my face to keep out the light.
My eyes were closed, and I had my hands over them, but there was too much light. I could see the bones in my fingers through my eyelids.
Voices began to cheer through the walls, getting louder and louder until they drowned out Ranic’s giggling.
“The old bastard did it!” someone shouted.
“Threshold party! Threshold party! Threshold party!” The chant started with a single voice, but soon it could be heard th
rough the floors and ceiling as others took it up.
After a minute, the chanting began to die down enough for me to hear someone shouting, “When the hell is this light going to stop?”
“No idea! The building is regaining one of the levels it lost when the last head scholar died! It might be another twenty minutes!”
“Oh, bloody hell! I can’t put up with another twenty minutes of this! Where’s the damn door?”
“Don’t leave, you moron! The light gives you an experience bonus which lasts months if you stay through the whole thing!”
“He’s not a scholar, he’s my client,” another voice yelled.
“Oh! You can go! Try not to fall down the stairs! Threshold party!”
The chanting started up again.
Chapter Sixteen
NEW ABILITIES AND UNEXPECTED CIRCUMSTANCES
“Ain’t no party like a threshold party…the scholars are going to show you how.” I sang a mishmash of lyrics to the tune of an old pop song as I walked down the street, swinging the bottle of whatever had been shoved into my hand as I left the inn we had taken over for Ranic’s threshold party.
I’d been partying with scholars from all over the city for three straight days. I hadn’t slept or stopped drinking the entire time. I’d reached a level of intoxication that was physically impossible to achieve without magic. The scholars had handed out vials of a potion they called Socialite an hour into the party and we’d all downed them together, toasting Ranic and his achievements. The potion turned the alcohol poisoning that should have killed me by now into a warm happy feeling that felt like a full-body hug.
It was great.
“Ain’t no party like a threshold party!” I shouted cheerfully as I passed the Third Street house of scholars.
Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer Page 18