The Infinite Bk. 01 Ch. 06

Upon arriving to town, they first stopped off at the local tannery to sell off the pelts. The owner of the shop, a skinny man who struggled to grow a decent beard, Luke, met them as they entered his store. As one might expect, tanneries weren't known for their pleasant aromas. It smelled like a wet dog that had just fed on roadkill. The air had moved beyond simple stench and now had its own taste, a very gamey flavor. Noah still hadn't gotten used to it, but he no longer grimaced in disgust when he entered.

"Mr. Noah, I haven't seen you lately. And the young master, I'm glad to see you are doing well. What have you come with today?"

"We have pelts to sell, including a special piece."

All of the wolf and other hides were stacked on the counter, with the last, belonging to the sledgepaw bear, having to be laid out on the floor like a rug.

"A sledgepaw? And in such good condition! This is definitely a rare find!"

"We fought it as soon as it finished spawning," said Oath. "That's as fresh as it gets."

Luke bent down and examined the hide, paying close attention to wounds created during the battle. "And there doesn't appear to be too much damage... I can give you two gold coins for everything."

"Two and half?" Noah asked.

"Two, that's my limit. This thing has some big cuts in it."

"Fine."

The exchange was made, but Trevor objected as the coins were handed to Noah. "Why do you get the money? You didn't fight it!"

"I'm not keeping the money, just holding onto it until we spend it."

Next, they sold off some goblin weapons to the blacksmith, and anything else that they had managed to collect, though their final stop was the apothecary, and rather than selling, Noah was buying. Oath and the others stood back and watched as he ordered armfuls of different plants for sale with the old woman watching him with an eye of interest.

"I'll also take every health and mana potion you're willing to sell."

"Why can't every customer be like you?" she asked, teasing him.

They returned to the street. "Ok, let's call it a day. Tomorrow morning, we'll meet back up at the baron's home and begin training. I'll use these plants to whip up lots of potions."

The group split up, with Oath and Trevor heading off their respective homes, Beth and Mira returning to the inn, and Noah running a few more errands. Night fell, and like the women, Noah made his way to the inn. It was bustling as usual, but the table that Noah sat at was quiet. He ate dinner quickly and went up to his room. By candlelight, he ground up the plants he had bought and mixed them together. An hour after he started, he heard a knock at the door. He answered with his knife in hand but out of sight, as was natural. He opened the door to see Beth standing there, a smile on her face that was coy, nervous, excited, and embarrassed, all mixed together.

"I wanted to tell you again how sorry I am to hear that about Tin. But just because she's gone, that doesn't mean your nights have to be lonely. I want to experience the legend that everyone in town has been talking about."

An honest smile, rare for Noah, crossed his face. However, it was more in amusement than lust. "That seems like something that would really bring us some bad luck later, considering the whole dungeon crab thing."

"What?"

"Nothing. As much as I would like to say yes, it would be best if we both went straight for bed, considering the training I have planned. Plus, I still have a lot of potions to make."

Her spirits were deflated, but she wasn't ready to give up. "Are you sure I can't change your mind?"

"I'm sure. But if you still have strength tomorrow after dinner, then I'll happily indulge you."

"I'll look forward to it." She then gave him a wink and went back to her room.

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"The training I have in mind will consist of long sessions of muscle training and then magic training in a physically exhausted state, replenishing strength with potions, and repeating the process." Noah addressed Oath and his friends in front of the baron's mansion. By his side were a large sack full of red and blue potions, as well as some other concoctions. "It's a combination of two workout routines I've created."

Mira looked away for a moment, pondering something. She then perked up in shock. "That's what was happening with you and Tin at the inn!"

Oath, Beth, and even Trevor looked at her, taking a moment to process what she had said, and then swerving their eyes back to Noah like a car drifting around a corner. Oath had forgotten that little fact, and Trevor, resigned to bearing a silent grudge, was remembering those rumors he had heard and finally feeling a bit of respect towards Noah.

Noah let a small laugh escape. "Yeah, that's right. My theory is that mana output is a combination of physical and spiritual energy. When your spiritual mana can't keep up with the demand, your physical mana picks up the slack, but it means your spirit gets only part of the benefits of training. Therefore, the best way to train your spirit's rate of production and reservoir size is to either do so after you have just depleted all of your stamina, or during battle, when you are using up both, though I believe the latter is less efficient. Tin was assisting me with the expenditure of physical energy."

"All morning?!"

"I have a lot of stamina, which is the result of the other exercise routine. Over a long period of time, I've mastered several different forms of exercise and refined them to target muscle growth in a specific way. People and other large animals have tree kinds of muscle: red muscle, which is muscle that is great for stamina and running; white muscle, which is muscle for physical power and explosive force; and pink muscle, which is a combination of both. My routine focusing on producing pink muscle. Unfortunately, sex isn't the exercise routine, God, though I wish it was.

Oath, I saw you struggling to lift your new sword, but making perfect slashes every time. Because of all the time you've spent swinging a hoe or an axe, neither of which is very heavy, you have a lot of red muscle, which lets you go for a long time up to a certain limit.

Trevor, I noticed your movements decline faster than Oath, despite expending a similar amount of energy. Your stabs and slashes, while initially quite powerful, made a steady decline. You have too much white muscle, which lets you carry more than Oath, but not as far."

To Oath, it made sense. He had yet to see Noah truly fatigued, not after clearing the goblin den or even when they returned to the village the previous day. At the same time, he was able to slice through monsters and carry their remains with great strength. The others had noticed it as well, another category in which he outclassed them.

"Wait a second, if that was your "special mana training" you were doing with Tin, then that means you can use magic," said Beth. "You told us you couldn't."

"I wasn't sure I could trust you when we first met. I was willing to tell you how to make yourselves stronger, but not how to make me weaker."

"You've been hiding magic this whole time? But we showed your ours!" Trevor yelled.

"And let that be a lesson to you in the future. The sooner your enemy knows about your strengths, the sooner they know about your weaknesses. When meeting new people, conceal your abilities until the last moment, because that moment might be a battle. However, since you followed me on that hunting trip and are willing to undergo my workout routine, I believe that it's only fair to lay my cards on the table."

He covered his eye and disappeared, drawing shouts of surprise from everyone.

"Noah?!" Oath exclaimed, looking around for him.

Noah released the illusion and they all yelped again. "I can make myself invisible. When I first unlocked this ability, I could only do it for a few seconds at a time. After a month of training, I could do it for more than five minutes." He'd keep his second spell secret, as well as the true duration he could hold the both of them for. His trust in them was still in its infancy.

"I've never seen or even heard of a magic like that before. Maybe some kind of holy spell?" Mira muttered.

Her words took away a lot of his nervousness. He still knew so little about the magic in this world, there was no telling how common powers like his might be. For all he knew, this lie might make him look pathetic. However, if Mira had never heard of it, there was a chance that it was rare enough to not be considered common knowledge.

Noah retrieved some bottles full of a green liquid and tossed one to Oath and each of his friends. "Drink that, it's a little something I whipped up from the plants I bought yesterday, along with some honey. It'll give you a little extra energy. These next few days are going to be exhausting."

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