Symon and Entisse were still seated at the table, the elf staring hungrily at his steak while he slowly chipped away at it. He needed the protein, but it wasn't his favourite, especially just by itself. He caught her gaze shifting to his pack, still resting to their side on the table, but he shook his head firmly.

"No, you can't have any more. You're going to get sick." As much as she was old enough to make her own decisions, he wasn't going to enable her when he knew it was bad for her health. "Hang on, how old even are you? You better not be 400 years old or something."

Her large eyes blinked in confusion, his words the first thing to break her out of the food trance. "What? How long is this year?"

It seemed the translation ring didn't do everything for him. Really, it was a wonder that made it this far without any issues. He hadn't gotten the impression that the one he'd seen Keelgrave use had been anywhere near as well made as this one.

"Oh, 360 days," he answered. He'd learned long ago that every month here was 30 days, and 12 of them made a year. "You know, the time it takes for the planet to orbit the Sun. Err, Suns."

She frowned at that, her confusion only deepening. "But it is the Suns that orbit Cathar, the Suns chasing the Moons endlessly. Even the Deep Elves know that, and we rarely see the surface."

<Can't believe I'm saying this, but the elf is right,> Keelgrave piped up for the first time in a while.

Now it was Symon's turn to frown in confusion. Sure, technology wasn't as advanced here as he was used to, but he was pretty sure even the ancient Greeks had known the Earth was a globe. "That can't be right," he said to the spirit. "Even with magic involved, the Suns have to be so much more massive than the planet. Hmm, how long does it take to sail all the way around the planet?"

<What kinda question is that? You'd fall off after a few months, depending on where you started and how fast your ship is.>

Symon coughed, choking on a piece of wolfsteak for a few moments before he managed to expel it and send it splattering across the table. Before he could react, Entisse struck out like a snake and threw the piece down her gullet without chewing.

"Thank you," she said casually.

Symon continued coughing a few more times before eventually getting his lungs under control. "I'd already chewed that!"

"You saved me the effort," she nodded sagely.

Symon closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. When he opened them, Entisse was back to staring at his food. "Have you actually seen this supposed edge of the world yourself?" he asked Keelgrave.

<Of course not! I'm not stupid enough to risk it,> the spirit vehemently denied.

It was a different world filled with magic, so he supposed it wasn't impossible that Cathar was actually flat. He just hoped it wasn't stacked on a turtle's back or something stupid. Either way, he wasn't planning on travelling to this supposed edge to find out. His draining was large enough that he didn't think he could even fit on a ship in the first place. A little over five metres in every direction was a lot, especially someplace so cramped, but that was a future problem. Maybe he'd have to get a small one he could sail himself? It sounded risky, but Keelgrave would be the perfect mentor for it.

Eventually, the two managed to work out a shared measurement of time. As it turned out, she was recently 20 Catharian years old, which put her close to 25 using the Gregorian calendar Symon was most used to.

"Why 400, then?" she asked.

It was a fair question, but Symon couldn't say, 'Well, the elves in Lord of the Rings live a long time.'

"Just a guess," he said, to which she shrugged and continued staring at the steak.

"You really shouldn't stuff yourself after being starved. I know it seems like the right thing to do, but you'll just get sick. The food isn't going anywhere."

She continued to stare at him, her large, watery eyes embodying a pitiful puppy.

"Seriously! I'll leave the food with you, but only if you promise not to have any for at least an hour. And I know you know how long an hour is now." Ideally, she should wait even longer, but he thought a full hour was already pushing it.

She let out a long, sighing hiss. "Fine, but the hour starts now."

Symon had left the meat he'd brought with him behind, as well as a spare water canteen. Entisse would be trapped inside the barrier until she gained Poison Resistance or they found some other method of egress, but she was safe and well fed. With the pollen as protection, she was probably safer than his friends outside.

He'd be bringing them through the barrier shortly, but first, he needed to have a discussion with Keelgrave.

"All these memory dreams need to stop," he whispered while leaning against the low stone wall that encircled the manor's grounds. "Maybe we can find a way to help me learn something useful from them, but you can't keep forcing them just to get your point across, especially when I'm awake."

<I…> the spirit started before trailing off. Symon gave him time to think. <Fine, you're right. It was a dick move.>

Symon hadn't been expecting him to just come out and say it. It was even almost an apology. "Wow, thanks. And I get that you have a history with elves, but she's not even the same type."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

<You're right, it's just…>

"She looks a lot like those sea elves? I get it, and I'm sorry about what happened to Meyo, but it's not fair to take it out on her." Meyo had been the young man ripped apart while pearl diving. By now, it had been at least a half century since then, but Keelgrave had a good memory.

<You remind me a lot of him, you know. That same naive innocence.>

"Hey, I feel like I'm adapting pretty well, especially considering this place is really different from Earth. Besides, being a good person isn't a character flaw."

<Maybe, maybe not. Just don't end up the same way.>

"So… I should just touch it?" Aslan asked as he gestured to the softly swirling mist.

Symon nodded. "Just do a little bit at first, so I can track how much vitality it takes. We can speed things up after."

Aslan gazed nervously at the barrier in front of him. He'd never shown a moments hesitation against all the monsters they'd faced, even the lethal razor stalker, but there was something different about knowingly harming yourself. To charge at a monster was logical, in a way. By killing it, you'd be out of danger.

But now, he was hurting himself for some ephemeral future benefits. They'd all agreed that being able to investigate the manor and it's link to the dungeon was worth a little pain, but it was still something the subconscious found difficult to accept.

Gathering himself, the other man suddenly karate chopped through the mist, his hand coming out speckled with a thin coating of the pollen. He hissed in pain, holding it out in front of him while everyone watched on in morbid fascination. The barest trail of mist followed the outstretched hand, but it died off after a second or two. As it did, Aslan's pained grimace morphed into an uncomfortable frown.

"Ouch," Safiya said, to which Atabek gave a nod of agreement. They were side by side, watching from a distance.

"Yes," Aslan said, and Symon could tell he was struggling not to roll his eyes. "I believe it has stopped. The burning feeling has subsided slightly."

"Yeah, each bit of pollen can only burn out so much mana before it stops working. I think," he amended. It looked like Aslan's hand had been splashed with boiling oil, the skin inflamed and already coated in blisters. "Okay, now we move back to the forest."

They did so, walking up to the treeline that ringed the barrier. Symon had been waiting out of range, his magic draining the grass and then, when it was all dead, returning inside him. The moment the trees were in range, it leaped back out.

Thankfully, trees had a lot more vitality than grass. He didn't have to worry too much about accidentally hurting his friend, the large plants giving him plenty of leeway. The tree would die in under half a minute, but, well, he did have access to a whole forest of them.

Symon was still figuring out how much vitality was needed to heal a specific wound, but he had a decent intuitive understanding of it by now. For one hand's worth of pollen exposure, he sent over two units of vitality. It ended up being pretty close to the perfect amount, as all the blisters rapidly shrunk to nothing, while the inflamation largely subsided. The swelling had all gone down, though his brown skin still looked slightly rosy.

"How does that feel?" Symon asked, stepping back into the cleared patch between the trees and the barrier. There might be a lot of them, but there was no point killing more than he had to.

Aslan flexed his fingers experimentally. "Slightly itchy, but no pain."

"Perfect, we can just repeat what we did here, and I'll give you an extra unit every so often to make sure you get fully healed."

Aslan gave a determined nod, and they marched back to the barrier. This time, there was much less hesitation in his actions as they repeated the process.

This went on.

And on.

And on.

"So, any ideas how long this'll take?" Symon asked Keelgrave. They'd been at this for more than an hour, and he'd known gaining resistances wasn't supposed to be easy, but his own speed might have given him a flawed perspective.

<Not really. No one knows much about the inner workings of the Ledger, although the different priesthoods will always try to claim they have the truth. You gain a resistance by surviving a lot of its associated damage, especially near death experiences, but details beyond that are just guesswork. Well, there was this one…>

"Nuh uh! No memory dreams!"

<I wasn't going to! I was just going to explain one resistance that I do have a lot of experience with. Everyone on the crew had Suffocation Resistance.>

Symon frowned. Why suffocation, of all things? "Oh, right, it includes drowning?"

<Exactly. It was fairly quick and safe to train, as long as you have someone trustworthy to back you up. Dip someone in the sea until they pass out, wake them back up, and it'll only take a few times.>

"Sounds dangerous."

<Of course it is. You can do it safely, or you can do it fast. Never both. Though, it wasn't that unsafe. Not one person died from it, and I performed it a lot. 137 times.>

Symon quirked an eyebrow slightly, his friends around him all back to their usual camp activities. By now, he and Aslan had repeated the process enough times that they barely had to concentrate. "Give or take?"

<No. 137. I remember them all. That's the thing with a high enough Intelligence, makes it hard to forget things. Not that I'd want to.>

"I see…" Symon said blankly. He wasn't sure what to say to that, not to Keelgrave. He'd take condolences as pity.

<My point is, the Ledger cares most about how close to death something brings you, and you can game the system, in some cases. You did it unintentionally to get Poison Resistance. How long do you think you were unconscious for, when that centipede got you good?>

"Well, both the healing and draining were slower back then, but it still couldn't have been more than a couple minutes. Ten at the max." His magic had drained the very centipede that had stung him in the first place, using his vitality to keep him going. His healing's consumption of vitality and his draining's ability to steal it where roughly tied, and he'd killed enough centipedes in the desert that he had a solid idea of how long it would take to kill one through just his magic. "Hmm, actually, it's gotta be less than five minutes."

<Exactly. And how long have you been dipping your mate into the poison fog for?>

Symon looked up at the Suns, trying to judge the passage of time. "Two hours?" he guessed. It had gotten to the point where he'd started making trips back into the mist to top his vessel up from the roses, instead of destroying large swathes of the forest. Even still, there were thousands of roses left.

<Closer to two and a half.>

Right, the perfect clock from his navigation skill. "Okay, I get what you're saying. But this will still work, right? It's just much slower?"

<Eventually, probably, but it's anyones guess how long that'll take. There's a reason I never got Bleeding Resistance, and I'd been cut plenty of times in my life.>

Symon frowned. Including Entisse, there were 4 people he needed to help get Poison Resistance. Level 0 might not be enough either, not unless they were willing to spend all their mana. Well, we could just use those mana draining manacles. Not sure how useful it would be with the mana weakness, but we could always use it to get Entisse out.

Either way, it would take a lot of time. He was beginning to feel that this could be the work of days, and that was just for one person. He wasn't really on a time crunch: the trade ship to the mainland arrived in a month, but he seriously doubted he'd be able to safely travel on it anyway. Considering the possibility of access to a dungeon, his friends didn't mind delaying their return home, either.

Still, he couldn't help but feel like he was wasting time. This was a dangerous world, and it was a matter of when, not if, something bad would happen.

"Aslan… how do you feel about speeding things up a bit?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.