Learning To Live As A Cultivator

Chapter One Hundred And Sixty - The Five School Market Festival begins

The location that the Scholars school had selected for the Five School Market Festival was named 'Silent Mountain's Hidden Vale.' The name was actually meaningful if one cared to look into it, for the Silent Mountain was actually a long dormant volcano and the Hidden Vale was the sheltered eco-System that had developed within the ash and ancient volcanic rock within the volcano.  To access it, one would need to traverse through the mountain, the tunnel was lit only by mage-globes and was only as wide as two people walking.

The vale itself was not vast and was surrounded on all sides by a tall wall of thick rock.  Leon likened it to being inside a Olympic Stadium, just much more circular and without stands or seats.  The land itself was a tropic of green with pool of clear warm waters close to its heart.  The trees here were scattered and not too tall in height, though they were thick of circumference and the foliage in places was dense.  However, much of the land had clearly been tamed in order that the students could use it for the purpose of the festival.

Those same trees became stands for holding jars of Winter Fire Flies and the remaining foliage found itself backdrops for pots containing glowing mushrooms and sparkling flowers.  There were also mage-globes, but in the desire to make the Festival more mysterious and magical, these were mostly scattered about the mountain's thick wall and with only one or two amongst the various stalls set up in designated spaces.  These spaces were spread out in order that students had to pass from one area to another through the decorations and natural plant and animal life.  The latter were mostly curious, herbivores; protected by their vale, they seldom encountered predators or anything that could be considered a threat.  Also the tiny, odd little hummingbirds that drank the nectre of the sparkling flowers would produce sparks of light in turn, making quite the visual interest.  It would all likely look beyond imagination as the sun set beyond the volcanic wall.

The space where the outer school students set up their stalls was close to the lake, where mage-globes had been placed upon small wooden floats and cast adrift.  There was also a mage-globe within a large cauldron at the centre of the area, which was magically spelled to spit out harmless sparks now and then.  Leon was quite taken by it, but his older brother, Stygar believed it looked tacky.

Stygar fussed over his precious potted herbs, placing them on the table in threes, but talking to them all of the while; "Cloud Dancing Bellflower, where should I put you?  You don't get along with the Frog Ferns so perhaps the Winter Thistle Vines... no too cold...  ah Hue, don't put your pills too close to the Thousand Skull Caps!  They don't like to be crowded by things, bah!"

Hue moved them away from the weird looking herb with its many thin shoots, tiny leaves and whitish flowers that looked a little like laughing skulls, without questioning his older brother.  The plain jade bottles each contained a single pill, but Leon could not recognise them.  His brother's ability was currently beyond him.

Leon began unpacking his own jade bottles, glad he had decided to make it easier to differentiate between his own pills and others.  Although there were five pills in each of his bottles, his pills were common pills meant for lower staged cultivators, nothing like what his big brother had made, thus less likely to attract attention.  He also added potion bottles containing Fire Water tonic, which helped heal chill effects such as frostbite and small jade pots containing Gentle Snowflower Balm, which healed burns.  These two he had thought would be useful for students of this institute where mages could shoot out fireballs and martial artists could add cold effects to their weapons. 

He'd found the recipes in Leo's diaries, but had only experimented making them in the past two weeks.  The Fire Tonic Water actually came out well first time, but the Gentle Snowflower Balm was another story.  Once he'd unsealed the keg at the required point, a freezing mist had poured out of it and coated his small hut in a layer of frost, which included himself.  He had had to drink a couple of cups ginger and herb tea in order to warm up, as well as place his blankets and mattress in the sun to warm and dry it.  Mopping up the melt had also taken time.

Hue glanced at Leon's bottle for a long moment, before reaching out with one finger and nudging the small, wooden plaque that dangled from the bottle's neck. "Cute," the large man mentioned. On one side of the plaque was carved the identity of the contents within, while hidden on the back was Leon's rune for himself; it resembled a stylised 'L' for his name with two scores added to the horizontal line, representing that this was his second life, but also in remembrance of Leo. He owed him much, repayment was impossible, but he wished not to dwell to heavily on it either or this second life of his would always be overshadowed by debt. This was a small, but silent gesture of thanks.

Leon smiled and thanked him. "Ah, such an effort, it's probably going to be wasted on this ungrateful lot," Stygar declared, sullenly. Leon had slowly grasped that his eldest brother's personality was a little dark and anti-social, preferring his herbs to people. While his words sounded ungracious and miserable, they were actually a compliment hidden in shadows.

"It's n-n-no b-bother," Leon replied.

"Yeah, well," Stygar huffed, crossing his arms as he glanced over the selection of bottles and pots before Leon. He was quite surprised over the sheer volume of pills; with five pills a bottle and more bottles than he could count with a quick glance, the boy must have been refining pills day and night for this past two weeks! Of course, he had no idea that Leon had made much, much more, though those special pills were hidden safely in his second spatial bag, ready to sell. "All healing pills, huh? That's for the best."

He pointed to a few close tables. "That Guy specialises in combat pills, wanted to be a martial artist, but is as weak as a newborn nibblet. Got knocked unconscious within three seconds of entering the ring on our trial into the Institute. And that girl over there prefers to make beauty pills and potions, waste of time, but she has a lot of loyal customers within the Institute, at least for now anyways. And if you go to where the inner school is, you'll only find really complex and hard to make pills. As if I care that they can make them, they are just showing off. They won't trade them for anything less than half of your soul, you'd be lucky to get away with not being indentured for life. Bah!"

Leon thought over his pills and those on the tables close by and wondered if he could trade for recipes...