008 Rinlin Village in Winter Wonderland

Another day of drinking.

Winter was very boring. There was nothing to do, and very few people were out in the streets. They could only sit by the fireplace, drink, gossip and drink.

Chamber braved the weather and walked toward the Cerbu Restaurant. He hiked through the snow layered alley, his short legs imprinting each step with holes almost half a meter high. Flurried snowflakes blew into Chamber's face sending a chill down his spine. He hated winter.

Chamber pushed open the handle and closed the door as he entered the restaurant. Chamber pulled over to his usually seat and ordered the house ale. There were two other people in the restaurant, the bartender and Rooster.

"Catch anything today?" Asked Chamber.

"Winter is my favorite time of year!" Rooster howled nonsensically.

"I guess that means yes."

Every few people enjoy ice fishing, but Rooster fished religiously as soon as the lake froze over.

"I'm surprised you're here," Rooster commented. "Don't you have prayer service tomorrow?"

"In this storm? Are you crazy, they are likely to cancel it tomorrow."

"And yet you're here."

"Sasha said I need to exercise more. That's why I'm here."

"That's a pathetic excuse to drink." Rooster chugged down the rest of his ale. "Oh, do you remember my top 4 students at Kisdell Military Camp?"

"Hmm… Wouldn't that be Yuer, Chance, Lord Caspur and Lady Eliana?" Chamber recalled.

"Do you remember what they excel at?"

Chamber shook his head, but he remembered two of them, vaguely. "Doesn't the Black Knight Yuer specialize in magic sword? Lady Eliana is said to be a master archer."

"Lord Caspur isn't well known, but he's a very good spearman of the Terull Brigade and Chance is a scout and weaponry expert in the capital," Rooster said.

"So, what about them?" Chamber wondered how many drinks Rooster had already, he was bragging about his students.

"I've asked them to provide Nico with recommendation letters. Just got them today."

"Do you think this will work? Windel Academy isn't going to accept students without a spiritual root, he's going to fail during the exam week."

"It's worth a try... To be honest, I'm not too sure myself. But then again, there isn't anything else I can teach him. The Academy might take him even without a spiritual root. If they don't take him, it's still good for him to see Launtel City."

Rooster turned a bit serious.

"Well, isn't that good news?"

"Yuer sent me another letter. He's concerned about Kimson Mountain Range. He didn't say anything specifically, but he might come to Rinlin."

****

Pinaton Shop stayed open no matter what condition it was outside.

The female shop clerks dusted the cabinets and swept the floor. There were barely anyone shopping in the storm, but if they didn't do something, they might go crazy from boredom.

The door swung open. A gust of wind and flurry assaulted the shop.

A customer! The girls were excited for a moment until they saw Shirley.

Shirley regularly stopped by to chat with Kanna. Shirley was always a joy to have because she brings with her all the juicy gossip, but winter gossips were stale, like the bread they had that morning.

Shirley slammed the door and noticed the girls returning to wipe the cabinets, probably for the nth times already. One person was noticeably absent.

"Where's Juo?" Shirley walked toward the counter and sat on a little footstool.

"Probably playing hooky somewhere," Kanna said as she restocked some of the medicine cabinet.

Kanna let out a sigh. Despite her saying that, she knew that he was likely cultivating somewhere. Out of everyone in the Pinaton Clan, Juo was one of the few that communicated regularly with common folks like her. He was also the one with the least amount of talent.

"I have wonderful news to share with everyone!" Shirley announced gallantly.

The girls continued working through Shirley enthusiasm.

"I've convinced Nico to open a shop!"

The shop girls grasped.

"No way! He has saved enough to open a shop?" Kanna had another thought. "He's not going to compete with the Pinaton and Lancet?"

"No, no, no," Shirley calmed the girls down. "It's not going to be a big shop like the Pinaton's. It's just going to be a little grocery shop that sells vegetables, herbs and simple commodities. It will also have space for small vendors to set up shops inside. I'm helping him search for a good location. I've also talked to Wundron about an exclusive contract to export some goods as well."

"And let me guess, you're going to manage the shop?"

"Of course, who else has the vending experience and connections?"

"Why does this sound like you scamming the poor boy into leasing you a shop?"

****

After the winter season and nearly 300 dead manabeasts later, Nico continued adding manastrings to the ball.

In the Avatar box, each node was indicated by a dot, but the dot indicated location, not the size of the node. Nico could zoom into the node, but he could not determine the size of the node. It was very similar to the symbols in that respect, that it didn't have a scale. However, because the manaball was part of him, the ball gave him the impression that it was very heavy. Too heavy.

Nico felt a sudden change and fell to his knees. The knotted ball collapsed. He shook his head to clear up the dizziness. Once he recovered from shock, he opened his status box.

Status:

Manaroot: Chaos 1

Mananode: 1

Manaspirit: Midnight Koi 29

Strength: 37

FP: 9/12

Defense: 25

Speed: 25

Magic: 29

MP: 58/61

Resistance: 26

Casting: 20

He did it!

Nico was offended by the name the system had given his manaroot. He had gambled many manacores to create a manaroot and the system had the nerve to call it chaos.

Well, at least it sounded cool and useful.

With his chaos manaroot formed, Nico didn't have to concentrate every day to keep it within his body. The root was naturally stable, ironically.

There was chaos whenever there were mana around. Whenever he ate a manacore, the manaroot would fight Minko to gobble up all the symbols. It was more accurate to say that Minko would fight with the manaroot. Nico was sure that the manaroot had no emotions like Minko and that its chaotic tendency was natural like mother nature. It absorbed all types of mana, it didn't discriminate.

Mananode had also increased by one. Maybe it was due to the manaroot being placed in the middle of a node. Nico wanted to see if he could create another one, maybe in the head node next.

Nico naturally told Rooster about the manaroot. Rooster was not a serious person, but when he was, Nico was always a bit wary.

"Nico, if anyone asks you about your spiritual root, you must tell them that you are born with it, do you understand?" Rooster advised.

Nico nodded. "Is there a reason why? I thought you said there were clans that have techniques to upgrade their roots."

"Let me tell you a quick story about the Hestin Clan of the Gertun City," Rooster explained. "Spiritual roots are mainly inherited, therefore many clans will create marriage relations with another clan. If one parent has a spiritual root, the child has a 50% chance to inherit the spiritual root from the ancestry gene and 50% with a mortal root. With two parents, there are 74% chance of inheriting a spiritual root, 25% chance of inheriting nothing and 1% chance of inheriting a hybrid spiritual root.

In the Hestin Clan, there is a requirement for every member over the age of 18 to have a spiritual root. Otherwise, they are kicked out of the family.

At a young age, the members without inherited spiritual root practice the Hestin Clan spiritual arts. It is an ancestral cultivation method from the original Hestin founder who had formed the original Creek Water Root. However, the price to pay for the Creek Water Root is his right eye. Everyone who has practiced the Hestin Clan spiritual arts must sacrifice their right eye to receive the spiritual root. The Hestin Clan is the most famous example because their sacrifice is physically visible.

Many other clan arts may have special requirements and sacrifices, but it's not immediately known. Most clans aren't willing to share their weaknesses to others.

So do you understand why you need to keep this a secret?"

"Unwanted attention?"

"Yes. Although your method is safer, I doubt there is anyone who can replicate your method. Even if a person has a mortal root and 2 meridians, they won't be able to replicate your method. First, the exact location to place the root needs to be precise. That is not something a person without a spiritual root could do, it's a paradox. Only through luck can this happen. I know there is something else you have to help you achieve this, but I won't ask you about it. This is what you need to keep secret. If I can draw that conclusion, other people will too. We don't know what sort of people will want to take you in for experimentation or take advantage of you."

Nico nodded in agreement. Nico was still naive in some aspects.

"Hey, now that you have a spiritual root, do you want to join an academy?" suggested Rooster.

"An academy?" Nico asked.

"I was able to cultivate to the 3rd stage of Condensation due to lucky encounters, so I am not well versed in cultivation," said Rooster admittedly. "You will be able to learn more about magic and cultivation at the academy. Are you interested?"

"Isn't the nearest Academy the Windel Academy in Launtel? That's 3 days of travel."

Rooster nodded and then laugh. "What? You're afraid of leaving this old man!?"

"No way! I just don't want to leave my farm unattended," said Nico. "The Ollie Shop still hasn't open yet."

"I can take care of your farm and help Shirley while you're away," said Rooster. "The Academy starts in Pahol and ends in Erahol. It's not like you're going away forever."

"Isn't Windel Academy really hard to get into?"

"There are many ways to get in," said Rooster. "One way is to get three recommendations from the military or government officials. I can give you one and two friends of mine can give you theirs."

Nico stared suspiciously at Rooster. "You planned this earlier, didn't you?"

Rooster grinned and nodded. "It was either the military camp or the academy, and I thought the Academy suits you better. You're league above the military camp."

Nico was still hesitate about the Academy. One of the worries, rather, two of the worries were Junior and Snowy.

Rooster arrived at the farm for the first time. He was genuinely surprised at how well made everything was. Chambers had told him about the different structures he had helped Nico to sketch out and design. Irrigation systems and waterwheels had existed for centuries, but for a single boy to pull everything together was unbelievable.

The farm fields were also well maintained with vegetables and strange herbs growing in neat rows. It was early spring where plants were just starting to bud, but the plants in the farm were lush and vibrant like it was in the middle of the summer season.

His biggest shock came from the two silver manabeasts playing around the farm. Taming manabeasts was extremely difficult, especially wolf-type beasts who were known to be proud creatures.

"The academy will allow tamed manabeasts," said Rooster. "It's not unusual for young clan masters to have young manabeasts. However, wolf-type manabeasts tend to revert back to their natural predatory instinct after they reach maturity. Once they break the bond of loyalty, the Darbi Blessing will repel them."

"It's okay, I'll release them when that happens," said Nico.

Rooster looked at the two managoats eating fodder by the cliff.

"You domesticated two managoats!?" asked Rooster.

"Four, the other two are roaming around somewhere," said Nico.

It took Nico the entire winter to tame them. First, he had to think of a way to use Pesticide to trap the managoats. The farmhouse was 100-m away from the village safe zone. Part of village safe zone touched the southern portion of the cliff. Nico wanted to move Pesticide so that its zone and the village zone create one wilderness zone in-between the cliff and the river to trap animals.

There were two other problems. First, he would have to bury Pesticide in the middle of the farm, which might not be a huge problem, and even has its advantages. Pesticide was originally hidden in the cave because it was one of the most important items he possessed, so he didn't want it stolen. Pesticide had the effective range of 10m radius, which meant only 7 meters radius of farm fields could be protected, 3 meters were the width of the farmhouse. If he buried it in the middle of the farm, he would have 17 meters diameter of farm fields.

The second problem was the more difficult one to solve. The lower end of the cliff and the river were 25 meters apart. Even if he moved pesticide, there would be gaps for manabeasts to escape, that doesn't even include the possibility of them swimming away.

There was one possible solution, expanding the river. If a weak boy could build a house in a month, a boy with a Chaos manaroot should be able to dig out 5 meters of land, remove several tons of dirt in the middle of winter with a partially frozen river; it should be a breeze.

A month later, the river was expanded and Pesticide was buried in the middle of the field, marked by a scarecrow.

The wilderness area in between was still a large space for manabeasts to roam around. Nico had a cliff shelter and fodder bin closer to the farm filled with managrasses.

Nico beat down a couple of managoats and carried them back to the pen. At first, there were a few varieties that swam away, but he was lucky to find four that were afraid of water. He could get more, but he didn't need too many. Once the four got used to him and the free food, they naturally felt a sense of loyalty. They could even go inside the farm area, but it was forbidden. They knew that breaking the rules may get them killed or maybe in Snowy and Junior's dinner plans.

Now, Rooster, fisherman turned farmer, was in charge of their daily needs.