After jogging about a third of the way there the sun had already set, and so I decided to step off the road and sleep. It's almost the middle of Spring, so all I had to do was clear a swath of grass and lay a couple yards from the road. After I had moved my bow and quiver to my side, I laid with my arms behind my head and began to look upon the stars. My favorite constellation looks like a huge tree, and one of the greatest schools of magic on the mainland is actually built in a way similar to its appearance. Its funny because the school focuses on divination and almost all the constellations look like very detailed images of many different things.
I wonder if maybe I'll ever attend a school like that? There are techniques to learn non-elemental schools of magic like Destruction, Curses, Illusions, Petrification, Summoning, and Divination among many others. I wonder what kind of teacher grandpa will find for me? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't incredibly excited. The world is huge as mother says, anything is possible. Grandpa says a Magus only needs to strengthen their souls with mana and refine their bodies with Qi, which is naturally made from refining mana in the Soul. If your extremely talented strengthening the body you could even form a unique organ within your belly but it's something the easterners are better at than us. Come to think of it, beasts do something similar with their cores refining nutrients, mana, and qi into an orb that eventually fuses with their soul, and when they are truly strong their body is reformed into something similar to Human Saints. They have their own advantages, but I wonder if a persons ever tried to copy something like that? It'd be insane to do but, with the techniques that humans use to refine everything at once couldn't you do both? And when both reach the peak, what if instead of merging the bead with the soul, what if you merged the soul with the bead? The bead could then devour the perfect body you've built and wouldn't your new form be even more perfect?
I tend to think I'm crazy sometimes but, never stupid. I finshed rambling within the safety of my own head and closing my eyes, sleep found me.
Now I won't bore you, the next two days of travel were much the same. After reaching the woods I found a couple tracks, and picked the freshest to follow. Unfortunately it was the tracks of a deer, and one with a hint of magical ability. It's the only explanation for why I followed it for another two days, traversing almost 60 miles! Of dense forest no less. The deer is fast too fast. Barely getting any sleep I finally tracked it to a gorge. I took an alternate path and have set myself up to be above the beast, and I'm watching it drink and socialize with a couple other deer. These guys are huge, really pretty too. I silently knocked an arrow, and began to line up my shot. I decided on the smallest one, as I will have to drag it's body somewhere and set up camp, making sure to be wary of predators. And so with a dull thud I let the arrow fly and my aim wasn't too shabby. I didn't quite hit it in the eye, but through the nose into it's skull, and then the brain obviously. The other deer quickly looked at my prize and fled. One second they were here, another gone.
I made my way down, through some very thick branches with plenty of space between branching limbs with leaves. These trees are huge I can literally just walk on the branches and hop down one at a time.
After hitting the ground and sprinting over to the deer I glanced around and saw a cave on the side of the gorge. So, being lazy I simply dragged the deer into the cave and set it there. The deer didn't leave a lot of blood. The blood it did leave I had to use a rag with a couple of spores mixed with water from a bottle I had brought and after dabbing it in all the blood that was on the ground, it was gone within minutes. Before even tending to the deer I grabbed some wood laying around, cut down some smaller limbs and built a little wall around the entrance of the cave, and underneath an overhang set up what I would use for a bonfire. I ended up tending to the carcass for a couple hours, and cooked a little meat to have for supper. After sleeping I spent the whole day smoking and cooking the rest. And then the next entire next day as well.