7.

When Linael was an elf, even in his worst nightmares he could not dream that he would work for food for the elderly Humans. And that's how life turned out.

Money does not appear by itself, and you need a lot of it. It may be only paper in this world, but people attach great value to it, which gives painted paper its value. Linael immediately rejected the criminal ways of extracting finances. Not that he couldn't overstep the law. He could, very easily, but only if he felt power behind him. And he didn't have any. Common sense told him that in the local prison it wouldn't be that difficult to achieve his goals. Rather, it would be impossible. Only when he was free would he have a microscopic chance of regaining his native magic and longevity.

There were honest ways to make money, but there were a number of obstacles. First, almost no one wants to hire an invalid to work in the USPR. And the jobs that remain are low-paying. For example, one can get a job at a collective farm as a mechanic to repair and maintain machinery, or move to the metropolis and work as a janitor. But to neither of these, nor the soul of the elf lay. Secondly, an important role played by the fact that the man believed that working for himself, will not earn less than a low-paid position, rather more. This would leave him with more free time to regain his lost abilities. Thirdly, the proximity of the forest was vital to him. And how much closer if the taiga begins not far from the village? This place in the middle of nowhere was ideal for rehabilitation. In today's megalopolis there is no place to hide: surveillance cameras everywhere, almost everyone has a phone with a camera, cars have video recorders, nosy neighbors have video cameras with powerful lenses. No privacy. And the elf wasn't about to draw attention to his activities. Trouble with authority figures was the last thing he needed in his position.

After a hearty lunch, Linael found an old canvas bag at home, grabbed a knife and axe, and headed out into the woods.

Elves have evolved to be intelligent and long-lived, but they pay for it with low birth rates. If a family has one child in a hundred years, they are very lucky. At the same time their world is rather dangerous, it is full of predators with magic abilities.

Elves in one out of hundred cases a gifted child is born. In the distant past, when elves were savages, they, like people, showed high socialization. After all, only by rallying around a mage and the whole tribe protecting and teaching children, who take a very long time to grow up, could they survive. Over time, this race, like humans, bent the world to their liking, but took a different path.

Humans only destroy everything their hands can reach, creating comfortable living conditions. Elves, on the other hand, have learned to change forests through magic, growing giant groves. Everything in them is designed to provide comfort and protection for the intelligent inhabitants. Edible plants grow in these groves, and altered domesticated animals live there. Magically altered beasts and plants protect the groves from predators and other aggressors. If one is not an elf or one of the grove's inhabitants, it would be deadly for one to be there.

This forest was unfamiliar. Not an elven grove that looked more like a well-kept forest. Nor was it a human park. But it didn't smell like a wild forest, either. The proximity of humans had its effect. Rolling dirt roads, trampled paths, cut down trees in some places. There was an overall sense of diminished natural energy, something well felt during the meditative merging with their surroundings that rangers practiced.

Linael tried to cover as much area as possible with his mind, getting information from the plant infofield about what and where it grew, where and what animals lived.

On the way to his goal, he was wandering from birch to birch, collecting chaga (mushrooms that grow on birches) in his duffel bag. Soon he came to a huge century-old oak, dropped a full sack of chaga on the ground, and embraced the trunk.

Using a technique he had forgotten since childhood, Linael tried to feel the prana of the oak tree.

The life energy in plants is very different from that which flows in the bodies of animals. But with skill one can borrow prana from them. Usually elves, on the other hand, give their life force to trees to speed up the growth and ripening of fruits. But this time the purpose was different. Linael felt the sap flow slowly down the trunk of the giant sprawling oak. Along with them, the life force was moving just as leisurely. It was like sticky treacle. You seem to scoop it, but it does not want to take off, first from the trunk, then from the ephemeral spiritual fingers.

After an hour of trying to scoop up the prana, the elf managed to grab a drop. He immediately embraced it with his musty humane life force and began to transform, dissolve it into himself. It took at least another hour. During that time, the forest went dark.

If he had been an ordinary man, he would not have been able to make it home before dawn. But Linael still felt the forest, and even better than before. He felt himself awake and full of energy after the infusion of oak prana.

He took as much energy as he could not harm the tree and as much as he could assimilate. No more, no less.

Instead of going straight home, Dima lingered near the oak tree for a while longer. He began to cut off the branches and leaves with his knife. Only when a decent heap was formed, he tied it with a rope and, taking a bag of chaga, set off on his way back.

Karpov began the morning, as yesterday, with a small complex of forest rangers. Then he got busy processing and weighing the chaga with an old hook spring scale. Then he went through the branches with oak leaves, knitted brooms from them for the bath and spread them out to dry.

To Dmitry's disappointment, there was no way to get cash for the forest bounty right away. Chaga can still be sold raw, but in that case its purchase price is five times lower. In the district center there are state points of reception of forest vegetation: medicinal herbs, chaga, mushrooms. The prices there are fixed and everything is without fraud. Some of the villagers, those who have not drunk, sometimes give forest products there. Karpov knew the prices and the location of the reception point, but it was not his business to wander in the woods, if it was a good time to get drunk.

Linael, on the other hand, was at home in the woods. For him, collecting his gifts is better than any job. The income promises not bad, much higher than a tractor driver's salary, but you'll have to wait a little longer. For qualitatively prepared goods the payment is much higher. However, the same chaga after chopping into small cubes dries about a month. It is the same with herbs, but it is not the season for them yet, because it is only in the middle of spring.