Chapter 227: Insight

When Walker had said that she may need gloves to accompany her spiked knuckles Remey almost exploded with happiness. She had been trying to incorporate her palm strikes into her fighting style better and if she felt she could do more damage with it she would most certainly use it more. "If I am getting gloves to make them cover my whole arm, I hate when I get scratches and bruises all over my arms from fighting."

"Well in that case draw them out too, it is a great idea to mitigate small injuries like that. We have no idea if we will run in to an enemy with poison in the forest. At least the new species of purple slimes will have a rotting effect we need to avoid but we will need to learn how they do that." Walker was starting to think on what kind of weapons he wanted and how he would go about practicing them. "I need more time, if I am going to learn a bunch of weapons so I can better cover us I need the time to do it." One month just seemed so short. Training while in a new area was not the nest way to go about things. In the plains they had a large and easy view around themselves so they could more easily see an enemy coming, in the forest they would not have that at all. 

"Just start with the basics, you think too much." Remey brushed off Walker's worries without a single bit of thought. In her mind it was better to start with the most common weapons and just work his way through them. "You could just punch things too."

"No!..I mean I don't know any hand to hand skills. That's your expertise after all." Walker was afraid if he became a close combat type like Remey he would start to rush in like a mad person like Remey did." Instead of being insulted at the reaction Remey took the second part as a compliment. 

"Well, I think we should get some rest, I want to be up to train a bit more in the morning. I even plan to hunt a bit with my dad." Gil was the one to make the move to go to sleep, he still needed to clean up after his own training from the day after all. 

"I will go and start drawing out my new shields. I will also think about improving my armor more as well."Su headed off towards the library, Walker was sure she would be looking in to some books for inspiration. 

"Well see ya, I will do my own thing tomorrow."Remey ran off too, all that was left was Midnight who had fallen asleep in front of the fireplace and Onyx who was in tattoo form asleep now too. Walker gave in and got up to go sleep too. The many thoughts and ideas on what to have made for him flooded his mind. There were just too many options. Part of him wanted to focus on some unique weapons so that he could take people by surprise with unique attacks. However he had a feeling that learning basic weapons like swords, bows, shields, and others would be easier to practice. This was definitely a tougher choice for him to make. 

Wandering his way to his own room he saw a familiar short figure sneaking through the hallway. "Maria? What are you doing out here now? I thought you had gone to bed a while ago?" Maria seemed a bit startled at first but realized it was Walker and relaxed after a moment.

She had become much more open to them since they had journeyed with her all the way to this new kingdom. Since she had been here no one had woken her in the middle of the night to beat her, or test new curses on her, or even just to travel when no one would see them. "I just want to be close to Su so if anything happens…" 

Walker had expected her to have trouble adjusting, it was clear that she had taken Su's promise of protection to heart and wanted to be nearby if anything did in fact happen. " Well she should be getting ready for bed too, I am sure if you knock and ask to sleep in the same room you will be good to go." Her face formed a small smile since she had expected Walker to tell her to go back to her room alone. 

"Mhm." She started to walk quickly down the hall towards Su's room, Walker saw her stop and knock on the door. The door opened and Maria was let inside without any trouble. Su was really taking the big sister roll seriously. With his own smile Walker headed to bed himself. Before he knew it he was already opening his eyes to the sun just breaking the horizon through his window. 

Walking through the mansion after getting all geared up like usual he did not see a single person around. It was just more to show how much space they really had. He couldn't help but think that maybe they should hire some staff just to make things a bit more lively. Remembering that his mother may just kill someone that messed with her kitchen he decided that it may not be the best idea to look for any chefs. Cleaning staff seemed most applicable since there was a lot of space that would need to be kept nice and neat. He did not expect everyone to constantly take on chores while the party was out on a journey or quest.

While thinking on this Walker made it all the way to the front door still not seeing anyone, having headed outside he finally found Gil's mother who was digging a trench to allow water to flow off of a marked out flower bed. "Good morning!" Walker greeted her since he thought taking some time to chat about the garden may help him plan out how he would help her plant the seedlings. 

"Ah, Walker, good morning. Do you feel that slight chill still around from the night? It means we have another few days until we can plant anything. If we plant too soon these seedlings can be stunted or die." This was the sixth sense of a farmer alright, Walker couldn't even make sense of what chill she was talking about other than the cool air in general.

"Since I have your ear, can I ask you how you would like to plant the seedlings? I want to make sure I can help since trying to learn some farming skills sounds very useful. It's also pretty rude to leave you to all the hard work." He wanted to be a bit more polite since he wanted her to know how much he appreciated her effort.

"Work? What work? This is great, I get up early and get my hands dirty sculpting this garden in the most beautiful place in all of the kingdom." Gil's mother laughed a bit thinking Walker had been joking with her to get the day started on a good note. "I will plan to plant them soon. Once this chill leaves the air I can use a few skills to sprout the seeds faster. Using my growth boost skill we should have that weeping willow tree taller than either of us in a month." 

"Really? In a month? That sounds great! I did not know that farmers had such great skills in their systems." Walker was very surprised to hear that Gil's mother could speed up growth to such an extent. 

"Eh it's not all that great, If things aren't all ready the plant will die instantly." She was frowning quite a bit remembering how long it took her to figure out how to properly use this skill. "If you do not have enough nutrients in the soil and water the plant will start to grow fast. It will eat up all the water and nutrients and burn itself out dying on the spot and making the small part of the earth infertile for a few years. I had a lot of hardship before I mastered the use of this skill." 

"Wow, I didn't know it would require that much practice. Are there more skills that can do similar things?" Walker was becoming more and more interested in how the farmer's system worked. He had mainly been learning skills revolving around battle, if he took a little time to learn some of these other skills he could be at a huge advantage. What if he found a rare herb while far away? With a skill that made it grow more he could harvest a ton of it all at once and still leave some to stay as part of nature.

"Hmm the over growth skill is pretty similar. Instead of making the plant grow faster it caused the plant to bear more fruit. If I used it on an apple tree it would grow almost double the amount of apples. The problem with this is that it uses up a lot of the stored nutrients within the plant. This leaves the plant much weaker for weeks afterwards. If it's done before winter it is basically saying the plant won't survive the cold."