14 Where you at?

Troy had taken out his little box of goodies to practice a bit, before tomorrow evening. His wounds, even with the help of his Chaos, weren't completely healed yet. His internal injuries, despite what his performance might have suggested, were actually quite severe. Based on his own rudimentary analysis, he suspected he would be in fighting shape by the next morning. 

     Nazad had only begun to introduce him to healing magic a little less than five months ago and, as with most of his other subjects, Troy had shown an impressive amount of potential in the practical exercises and had already learned a couple of basic spells, before heading off to the mountains.

     Once he had finished his practice for the night, he climbed up onto a makeshift platform nestled into a tall tree's middling branches. There he laid down and entered his calm, before finally drifting off to sleep.

     The following morning, he ate a quick breakfast of Chort meat and then resumed his magical training. Chort meat, like a lot of monster meat, was practically inedible for most normal people. They would probably break their teeth on the stuff, before they ever got a chance at digesting it. 

     Even as a witcher and after using all the available water in the vicinity to boil the shit out of it, it probably took as many calories to chew the stuff as he might hope to get from digesting it. That of course was assuming that the attempt at digesting it wouldn't cause him even more problems.

     During the past three days, he had already consumed most of the edible organs the beasts had to offer. This was one of the reasons that staying put, during this trial, was ill advised. There was very little game to be found in these mountains and so hunting monsters was almost required to harvest what few edible organs they had to offer.

     Luckily, he wasn't too far from a small creek and so he could retrieve more water, on his way towards the taller shear cliffed mountains. What little he had left over, from the Chort's organs, he would need, during his trip up and back down the mountain. This was why he had resorted to trying to cook a bit of its meat the night before.

     As noon came and went, Troy fought his way through the last of the Chort meat and then sat down to watch the specific peak he had chosen. It only had one flying monster that he had noticed regularly returning to that particular mountain. It was a large Royal Griffon and he only needed to wait for it to return, before starting his trek over to its territory.

     Finally, approximately three hours after noon, Troy saw the Royal Griffon returning to its lair and he immediately began making his way towards that peak.

     It took him nearly four hours of careful and deliberate travel to reach the base of that mountain without being noticed by any of the surrounding monsters.

     Once he was at a steep enough incline where he could begin his ascent, he inspected the cliff face for a path that would offer him the sturdiest of handholds. 

     After selecting what he felt was the most secure path, he grasped at the various naturally formed bumps and ridges on the cliff face and began swiftly dragging himself upwards. 

     For a witcher, especially one who had gone through an entire extra round of mutations, pulling his own weight up wasn't anything too difficult. He continued reaching for higher and higher handholds, while using his feet to support himself on the lower footholds.

     Four more hours later, he had finally reached a comfortable height, where he felt his treasures would be the safest. While using Zaeliel Aep to solidify his purchase on the cliff face, his sent his Chaos into the rocky mass in front of him. 

     Once it was about a meter and a half inside, he then began to manifest the natural frequency of water and shaped it into a sphere the size of a softball. Soon afterwards, a sphere of water suddenly appeared within the solid rock of the cliff face, causing the surrounding rock to be displaced and a large crack to appear in front of Troy.

     As Troy watched water come gushing out of the newly formed crack, he was aware that doing this could potentially jeopardize the hold he had on the surrounding rock but he wasn't concerned, since he already had several contingencies in place should that occur.

     Troy was currently just under six feet and the crack in front of him was about half his size. Troy tried to gauge, based on his first attempt, where and how much water would be needed to carve out the space he needed. 

     He sent his Chaos into the rock face again and conjured several more smaller spheres around the area where the crack had appeared. In this way, he worked for a couple of hours, before he was nearly out of Chaos.

     By this point, he had already carved out a space big enough for him to rest in and so he no longer needed to cling to the mountain for safety. The opening was barely big enough for him to fit through but the rest of the space he had dug out was roughly two meters cubed.

     Troy decided that this was plenty of space, for now, and then pulled out the lightly packed bag he had on his back. He had left most of his stuff in the top of a tree near his initial campsite and had only carried his box of goodies and a few other items.

     Those few other items, however, were critical to the success of his decision to place his weapons here. Opening his box of weapons he took out five of the iron razor blades and then set the box aside. He then removed these ingredients from his bag: Alchemy Paste, Powdered Calcium Equum, and Fifth Essence.

     Nazad had informed him that this was the easiest and most rudimentary way of creating a portal, at least in terms of magical ability. This method could only be employed with the correct ingredients and proper writing and drawing. There were more useful and immediate methods but this method was most common and basic when establishing portals for long term use.

     After preparing the materials, he added one part Powdered Calcium Equum and two parts Alchemy Paste into a small mortar. He then added a few drops of Fifth Essence and began using the skinny end of his pestle to mix the three into an evenly saturated concoction.

     Still using his pestle, he then selected a spot on the wall near the floor of his small base and began carefully drawing two concentric circles and then transcribing the appropriate elvish script in between the two.

     Once this was completed, he then utilized the spell he was most proficient in to grasp the last remaining bit of Fifth Essence. These last few drops were then stretched out into an almost imperceptibly thin membrane. It took the shape of a four inch wide circle and was ever so carefully placed into the smaller drawn circle on the wall.

     Troy watched as the Fifth Essence came into contact with the face of the rock wall that he had flattened and smoothed over, before beginning his work. As soon as the two touched, the essence seemed to disappear completely.

     This, however, was simply part of the process. Fifth Essence wasn't something so ephemeral as to simply dissipate upon contact with any other substance. Fifth Essence would normally remain in or on whatever surface it was placed on for nearly an eternity, unless it was forcibly removed.

     At this time, Troy cast a utility spell that Nazad had taught him to ease the process of permanent portal creation. His Chaos was spread throughout the entire drawing both the mixture and the Fifth Essence. The mixture that he used to create the circles and script was now glowing dimly as it dried out and became one with the rock.

     The mixture was no longer painted on top of the rock. It was permanently fused with the rock. Troy then spread his Chaos throughout the design once more, until it was completely saturated. This time there was no glowing or other noticeable changes. This time he had simply given the 'would be portal' the Chaos it would need to activate, once he learned how to properly wield portal magic.

     At this time, the inside of the formation, while not looking any different than the surrounding rock, appeared to have something similar to heatwaves undulating over its surface. It wasn't quite a portal but rather a sync point for a future portal. 

     Once he could reliably form his own portals, this formation would then be able to very easily sync up with another such formation that formed an actual portal. He would then have immediate access to his secret stash.

     For now though, he simply left his little box of goodies there, stashed the five extra razors inside the slits on his belt, gnawed through the remaining Chort organs, allowed his Chaos to recover, and then began working his way back down the mountain.

     It was a little after midnight, as he began working his way back down. He was sorely tempted to simply jump off the side, drop down at perilous speeds, and then cast Heliotrope to break his fall. However, he wasn't actually curious enough about whether his sign would hold to risk his life on it. Such a move would most likely rouse the Royal Griffon from its slumber and perhaps even other monsters from other peaks. At the very least, he knew it wouldn't be a silent event and so decided against it.

     Just as twilight began replacing the retreating darkness, Troy finally jumped from his place on the cliffside and landed firmly on solid ground. It had been a long night and he still wasn't even finished yet. As soon as he landed, he immediately dashed off at full speed back towards his previous encampment.

     Whenever he arrived a few hours later, Troy retrieved all of his stashed belongings and cleaned up his former campsite.

     'Even though I didn't get any sleep last night, I can't stay here. I could maybe eat Chort meat one more time but it simply won't do to stay here and rely on nearly inedible meat to survive. I need to hunt monsters so I can harvest their organs.

     'I don't know what other monsters I'll face out here but I'm not going to hold back from now on. I've already broken the rules I set for myself so there's no point turning back now.' Thought Troy, as he turned his back on the now rotting and scavenged corpses of the two Chorts he had killed and walked off into the forest.

[===== Thirty Days Later =====]

     The population density of monsters seemed to drastically decrease the closer he got to Kaer Morhen. The monsters seemed to have an instinctive awareness that messing with the creatures living in around Kaer Morhen just wasn't worth their time. Easy prey was always the most desirable to those whose lives were driven solely by an instinct to survive.

     Troy continued making his way closer to Kaer Morhen and more importantly his brothers in arms. The three of them had all agreed to meet up at the same point where their paths had diverged, as soon as their trial was over.

     The Trial of the Mountain had ended three days ago and he had been immensely overjoyed to know that he was now a full fledged witcher. He, Geralt, and Jorgen had absolutely no plans to return to Kaer Morhen for the time being.

      Assuming the others survived, they were all free agents now and would travel immediately to Ard Carraigh, where they would cook up some scheme or another to throw themselves a huge celebration.

     Although that scheme would most likely just be them saying, "Fuck! We don't have any money!" and then having to do a whole slew of contracts back to back, in order to raise said money. Troy was truly hoping they might get lucky and come across some exceptionally successful bandits to rob, otherwise their graduation celebration might yet be a ways off.

      Several hours later, Troy arrived at the location where the three of them had split up at the beginning of the trial. He, as he suspected he would be, was the first one to arrive and decided to set his things down and do some hunting.

      There were many more game animals to be found in these woods so close to Kaer Morhen and so he thought it only fitting that his brothers be met with a sumptuous meal whenever they returned. Thus, Troy crept stealthily into the surrounding forest to hunt something nice and docile, hopefully a moose or some type of deer.

     About two hours later, Troy had returned to the meet up point dragging a red deer behind him by the antlers. Taking a moment to start a small fire and set up a makeshift campsite, he then set to work on skinning and butchering the deer.

     An hour and a half later, Troy sat in front of the small fire he had lit and monitored the slow cooking venison in front of him. It seemed like forever since he had eaten something other than monster organs and so the intoxicating smell of the slow roasting flesh in front of him was nearly driving him mad. He was so ready to dig into some real food but he forced himself to calm down.

     He refused to give into those tantalizing aromas before his brothers arrived. Only when all three of them were here would he begin what might be the closest thing they would get to a celebratory feast, before having to get straight to work on contracts.

     Finally, just before the first piece of venison was finished cooking, Troy's sensitive hearing picked up the faint sound of bipedal footsteps in the distance.

     Troy stood up and looked to the northeast, where the sounds had come. He couldn't yet make anything out but he knew, if he could hear the footsteps he could certainly hear the voice. Troy called out, "Who goes there?"

      "Troy? Is that you? Dammit, woman! Whatever you're cooking over there better be for me!" Geralt's voice rang out.

     "Ha, if you want some of my hard earned game you can come fight me for it! Once I've kicked your teeth in, you'll be lucky, if I shove the scraps down your well worn throat."

     As soon as those words left Troy's mouth, the slowly encroaching footsteps quickened into a full sprint. A second later, he could see Geralt dashing towards him at full speed. 

     Geralt continued to rush forward until he was about ten meters away. He then began shifting his weight back to slow himself down. At just under five meters, Geralt came to a complete stop, while staring daggers at Troy.

     Troy, of course, stood there resolutely returning his hateful gaze. A second later, a stupid grin spread across Geralt's face that Troy quickly mimicked. The two approached each other, clasped the other's forearm, and embraced in a brotherly hug. 

     "It's good to see you passed, brother!" Said Troy.

     "Just the same, brother, just the same! Speaking of which, I don't suppose you've heard anything from Jorgen, have you?"

     "*sigh* Unfortunately, no. My plan is to wait until morning. If he hasn't showed himself by then, I think we should go look for him."

     "Mn…that seems like a good idea. Well, I suppose for now we can only chow down and hope for the best."

     "Ha, you wish! I've been resisting the temptation of these delectable morsels ever since they started cooking. None of this is getting eaten, until Jorgen arrives. This may be the closest thing we ever get to a celebratory meal and I'm not starting it without him. My game, my rules! If you don't like those rules, then go hunt your own!"

     "Alright, alright, calm down! You don't have to preach at me! We'll wait for Jorgen then…" Geralt said, as he took a seat by the fire. Then he looked at Troy and asked, "Do you think he made it?"

     "Jorgen? Of course! I'm sure he's fine! Probably just ran into some trouble along the way. Certainly not anything a witcher as capable of himself can't handle, though." Although Troy said this, he couldn't help but think about how he wouldn't even have survived the first five minutes of his trial, if not for his Chaos.

     The sun was just beginning to dip beneath the tree line of the forest, as Troy began bringing out another piece of venison. Geralt looked back at the crackling fire before him, as the flames reflected in his yellow viper like eyes. "I sure hope you're right.

*****Copy Paste of Update Information*****

     What's up everybody? I just wanted to let you guys know that I've started a Pat reon account and, if you'd like to support me and get early chapters, you can do so at https://www.pat reon.com/paraditties starting on Oct. 1st.

     Although, I'll say that I don't really expect a whole lot of people to join at the moment, due to the slow updates. The main reason I set it up was to get some experience using pat reon for whenever I get my original novel going and, of course, to get a few extra dollars if I can. So, be warned, if you do sign up now, both the tiers and rewards will probably change, whenever I start my original work. 

     I know I said I'd be focusing on my original novel a while back but, if you've followed some of my other works, then you'll know that the only reason I'm writing these fanfics is to practice for my original work. That being said, I obviously want my original work to be as good as it can be and, maybe it's just me, but I feel like my writing in my witcher fic has been a notch above my other works. As such, I want to keep writing it for a dozen or more chapters so that way I can get used to that flow.

     I've also recently written ten chapters of a Naruto fic, (Reincarnated into Naruto Universe) yes that's what I've been doing, and it'll be posted to my pat reon tomorrow and it'll be available here in a week from now. This is an attempt to see if I can carry over the same quality as my witcher fic into another story. No, I don't expect people to pay for a story they know nothing about. I'm just getting used to the functions that I haven't used before. Also, my pat reon gives access to any chapters I post, not just one fic. The next chapter of my witcher fic should be up on pat reon sometime in the next couple days.

     I should probably add that this is the last fanfic that I will start before I switch focus to Reincarnated as Mort Flesh, my original work. 

     So, if you want to support me, you can can get early access to chapters and possibly even a few spoilers in the form of my list of ideas for each fic. Assuming that you're into spoilers. Alright, that's about it. Thanks for reading and, if you are only on webnovel just give it a week and a day or two for the next chapters arrive.