5 Mom, it's not what you think it is!
The wrinkly old bag was both a stubborn and suspicious crone, but after yammering on for ten minutes straight, spewing a thousand lies, promising golden mountains and agreeing on less than ideal paychecks at the end of each day, Helmut finally secured himself the job as a butcher/fishmonger trainee.
"Son of a- Ugh. Don't let it get to you, it will all be worth it if my theory proves to be true. If not, I'll just lose a day, cut my losses, and leave forever without as much as giving a reason or saying 'goodbye'."
Forcefully suppressing his irritated grumbling Helmut decided to take a look at the wares being peddled at the market, shaking his head when his discerning eye spotted defective crops sold by shameless skinners at twice the market value.
"For real dude? Paint? Effin' PAINT? Just how much time do you have on your hands, throw that batch of rotten apples in the gutter and don't embarrass yourself any longer."
Regardless of how exasperated he was, the old habits die hard which led to the scene of Helmut blackmailing a sleazy old man into forking over a ripe watermelon and one catty of blueberries to keep his gob shut and not enact his promise to shout at the top of his lungs that the old fart is full of doo-doo and peddles moldy filth to unsuspecting aunties.
Truly, the young shall surpass the old; for Dao of Swindling is vast and infinite.
With his spirits raised considerably after successful "purchase" and a promise of finally allowing himself to eat something sweet, humming protagonist was ready to call it a day and retreat to his roach-infested den, but... You know the drill. There is *never* any rest for the wicked.
Helmut spied a man attending to a cart of what he at first thought to be either greenery or not yet dried spices, but which turned out to be neatly bundled chinese medicine herbs.
This made him cringe a bit. As someone who fervently studied at least the bare basics of every medical field he could find, he was no stranger to traditional chinese medicine. If he had to put it nicely, it was "slightly more effective than placebo". If he would be allowed to speak his mind out loud... Well, let's just say that little kiddies reading this will learn many new interesting words that will net them a good thrashing from their mother for repeating them in front of her.
Acupuncture is...harmless. Just harmless. You might even trick yourself into making your body start producing natural painkillers to ease the pain if you believe in acupuncture's effectiveness hard enough.
Tai Chi, despite being pretty trash as a martial art, is quite a good alternative to calisthenics to keep elderly people active, limber and reduce effects of arthritis. Overall okay practice, but one Helmut had no business with.
As for chinese herbology... Hoo boy. Not only was it - for the most part - barely useful while being grossly overpriced, but it wasn't even safe for consumption as even genuine products tended to be either accidentally mismatched with different types of herbs that looked the same, outright contaminated with undetected poisonous metals that were absorbed by the plants from the soil, or getting bathed with pesticides. This particular "medical" branch is equivalent to playing with your own life - a Chinese Roulette, if you will. Five herbs are harmless and will bring you no benefits, but the sixth one will absolutely kill you. That is something he learned the hard way ages ago. And as we all know - once burned, twice shy.
Barely keeping himself from outwardly scowling we made his way towards the stand. He long learned to fully trust his gut and follow wherever it dragged him, which saved his arse more times than he could remember. This firm belief solidified even further after gaining the ability to inspect his own status and seeing that Intuition was one of his highest advantages stat-wise.
Sharing a curt greeting with the merchant of death, Helmut barely pretended to listen to enthusiastic descriptions of the wares on sale, as he turned a deaf ear and inspected the goods.
"(There HAS to be a reason I gravitated here, right? Think, think... Wait, don't tell me there's ACTUALLY something useful among these weeds?!)"
He could swear there was a faint satisfied "moo-hoo-hoo" chuckle brought and carried away by the wind.
Nah, must be an overactive imagination.
Deeply frowning Barker burned holes in each and every bundle of grass with an intense glare, being genuinely surprised when he managed to get a sort of response from two of them that looked exactly like all the others.
"...and that is why the Cui Hu redcap mushrooms are totally safe for consump-"
"I want these two bundles of herbs. NOW."
"Sir, but these are..."
"Did I stutter?"
Although the difference between a 1-Star and 1-Star Elite creature wasn't that big, unlike the peddler Helmut was already marked by Dust World and took the first step on his path to evolution. He couldn't control or even perceive it existing, but the tiniest sliver of killing intent emanated from his body and prickled owner of the stall, sending chills down his spine.
After an extremely brief 'negotiation' a huge discount was given, but even then this amount of money was enough for Helmut to eat his fill for three days, which soured his mood even further and nourished the prejudice against the practice as a whole and chinese herbalists in particular.
Helmut sweared that he wouldn't visit this scamming bastard ever again.
Peddler prayed to gods he would never see this foreign thug again.
Both of them would've coughed blood right then and there if they knew that they would not only see each other tomorrow, but will also have dealings like these on an almost daily basis from here on out.
***
Way back home way uneventful and boring, handles of the cheap plastic bags dug deeply into his palms.
Lightly tossing everything on the couch Helmut went to freshen himself up.
Looking at his new face he chuckled lightly to himself.
"It's going to take some time to get used to it. Here's hoping I could replace the photo on my passport earlier than I get stopped by the cops and shaken down for ID."
Returning back to the room he took a glance at the electronic alarm clock.
23:47
"Sheesh, what a day. Oh well, time to sleep - gotta wake up early tomorrow."
Heaving a yawn he took out the brand new shiny lenses, tossed around his clothes and jumped into the bed.
23:48
23:49
23:50
23:51
"...motherfucker. What do you want from me?! Just let me sleep already!"
If anyone was there, they would be a bit puzzled at why a grown man was shouting at a bag filled with greenery.
Tired beyond description Helmut threw the blanket aside and turned the lights on.
He knew that there was an unfinished business he had to attend to and it wasn't allowing him to fall asleep. In his tired state he could feel the greens staring at him.
After a little while of searching the net, he found a matching illustration and description of the herbs - they were neither all that uncommon, nor did they have some earth shattering promise of being an all-cure like ginseng was.
Stomping back to the bag in his boxers, insomniac man kept losing his shit as he grabbed/strangled an innocent pack of herbs.
"What. What do you want from me. You are useless. I don't know how to- I don't? Or do I? Huh..."
Hit with a wave of intense confusion Helmut stroked the plant, feeling the texture that seemed to speak to him.
Then he took a bite out of one leaf. Chewing slowly, methodically, not even once wincing from the terrible bitter taste of the sap.
He wordlessly stood up in a trance and opened his suitcase, taking out various things.
***
00:36
"---HUH?!"
Rapidly standing up he managed to hit his knee on the table and sat back down, nursing his banged up leg.
After a bit of "hooo", "haaa" and "you dirty oak bit-ACK!" he got back his bearings and found a very messy table.
A knife, a colander, a glass whiskey cup and a toothbrush stained in green goo, a spoon, a lighter, suspicious lines of white powder...
"...why does it look like I'm about to do a line of coke and down it with meth?"
Despite being baffled because of his blackout and the resulting mess, he soon connected the dots due to the messy residue and scum left by the herbs.
Remembering that these particular herbs themselves are harmless and any poisons from outside sources would be destroyed after getting brutally ground up and burned like this, he set a portion of the powder aside and stared at it.
"So what, do I snort it for real? Nah, that just feels wrong."
With no idea how to proceed he takes a spoonful and gobbles it up.
For the first couple of seconds there was no response apart from unpleasantness of having powder stuck to your throat.
Then came the itching. Then came the burning.
Cursing his hubris, Helmut made an executive decision to wait it out instead of doing the smart thing and calling an ambulance.
A minute later unpleasant feeling subsided and he opened his shut eyes.
"Whoa."
Despite not having contacts on, everything seemed noticeably less blurry. His dead nerve endings seemed to be rejuvenated too. The darkness of an unlit alley beyond the window was now a tinge lighter.
Asking his partner to come out, Helmut flipped to the status page and scanned the contents.
Turns out, Hand-eye Coordination and Perception increased from 3 and 2 to 3.1 and 2.1.
While this was definitely a case of celebration, Helmut was more drawn to something else.
There was a big fat '+1' floating near both stats.
