The Witcher: Elder Blood

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***

Six months passed in a constant routine. The one thousand one hundred and ninety-fourth year was approaching. Training was replaced by help with potions, and those in turn were replaced by household chores and the slow study of the magical arts.

The morning training with Marzel had come to an end. Now I just keep myself in shape again and sometimes, when I get bored, I seek out locals and newcomers who can fight well with swords or other weapons, but with others only for a change - for a reasonable fee they agree to spar once or twice.

Common healing and immunity potions were being sold out, as well as new directions: potions for animals, diluted with water, and an analogue of energy - Jennyfer had managed to visit her former mentor in Arethusa, and get a new book with simple, but effective, recipes from her.

They were having a sorcerer-adjusted gathering, a mixture of a dinner party, a graduation party for the new sorcerers, and a gossip party for the older sorcerers, or at least that's what I thought after her explanation. Jennyfer had asked me to come along, but I'd managed to talk myself out of it by saying that I had more important things to do and that I'd ordered more monsters. But I'll have to go to the next 'meeting' if I don't plan to 'piss off a sorceress'.

Speaking of orders, not all monsters - meeting near settlements and just decided to scare the intelligent races of the Continent - are killed by witches. The orders for drow in Ban Arda and for Rotten Men from local farmers weren't the only ones I'd had the opportunity to fulfil. The people had done themselves a favour by deciding to exterminate the witches, not all of them, of course, but enough to keep the rest of them from having time to deal with the monsters popping up here and there. Once I had a chance to deal with Ghoul, an hour's walk from the city, past experience with them helped, and once I personally came to me with a request to deal with the drowning near the sewers of the city - is the reputation is growing? I didn't realise before that monsters were entering the territories of major cities.

Why would I do such an ungodly task when there are guards? Well, it should be understood that the guards for a standard salary will not go to fight monsters, and since there is a wizard who can easily deal with them, the clerks from the city hall will choose him, that is, me. Paid for killing such monsters little, probably more than the basic payment for witches - those like to underestimate the price of their work, but still not enough.

In general, monsters are tenacious bastards, even as common as Ghouls or Utopians, and most of them are stronger than humans. And to deal alone with at least three Ghoul at a time without the use of magic can only be a witch doctor, or an experienced warrior who took time to prepare before attacking them. So there was no desire to earn money from monsters, I was engaged in killing monsters with one purpose - to expand my combat experience, as a bonus to dispel my daily routine.

And the boredom only grew. It's hard to call me a homebody, in my world I was helped by sports and travelling. Here I've been able to travel, to see the local major cities, though not all of them, to see the major races of the Continent during trade activities, but is that enough? Perhaps not if I didn't have the Elder Blood gene.

And here it is worth to move on to the slow study of the magical art, or rather the next branch of magic - artefacting. It was the direction I should study at the proper level, if I wanted to wander around the worlds I had not explored, and there were, as you can understand, literally all of them, not counting this one, and that is debatable, and my native one.

Those worlds, where the rector and I had been during the testing of my magic-based spatial transitions, were not particularly shining with human-friendly flora and fauna. We explored them only thanks to Hela Gedimdeit's charms and his own artefacts, put on us before the transitions. The rector's words about my natural-magical resistance to diseases after the gene awakening did not calm me down at all. Diseases, but there's a lot of stuff out there, and on one of them we met different groups of monsters. Well, in my mind they were monsters, but there, probably, local animals.

So, I decided to spend more time on my main feature, but I plan to do it on a cool head, without trying to run headlong into a portal to some new world without the support of a powerful wizard.

And there was one more thing that came out of my decision: after thinking carefully about secrecy, I decided to tell the people closest to me in this world more about myself.

- So why do you need us at this late hour, Eren? - Jennyfer was interested.

It was less than an hour before our usual bedtime. I decided to tell her later, so that I wouldn't have a tired sorceress to brainwash me all day, hopefully by the next day the effect of the truth would have worn off.

Galanthea simply remained silent, sitting down on another chair at the dining table on the first floor.

- I have one important thing to tell you, only before I do you need to understand something,' I shift my gaze carefully between them. - Don't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you. I trust you and I hope that my trust is justified.

There was no food on the table now, just a mug of green tea. It's not going to be an easy conversation, and it's probably going to be a long one.

- What? That important? How come I still don't know something important about you!?!? - Jennyfer jumped up from her chair.

It turns out that I know everything about the sorceress, and she only knows about me and my adventures since I was trained as a witch. On the one hand, the resentment is understandable, but on the other hand, the knowledge is not equal.

- Sit down! - I couldn't hold back my irritation, I didn't want to listen to accusations against me from the secrets I was hiding. - Just give an answer, are you ready to keep silent about what you learn?

My friend was the first to answer. I could see from her face that she took my words quite seriously.

- I won't say anything without your permission, Eren,' Galantea said with a slight smile that made Jennyfer frown.

With a long exhale through her nose, Jennyfer didn't want to make a big deal out of it-I didn't believe she'd really resent me that much for hiding my past-so she followed the bard's example.

- Okay, you have my word that you won't tell. And if you try to make a joke out of it, I won't have my legs spread for a month,' she crossed her arms under her breasts and stared at me expectantly.

And now our conversation was back on track, which I couldn't help but be happy about, because I was beginning to doubt my decision to tell her about myself. In any case, I had to do it sooner or later, if only to preserve our relationship, the longer I keep people close to me in ignorance, the more they will be disappointed by my lack of trust in them.

- Finally, now tell me, what do you know about the Elder Blood? - They looked at each other uncertainly, and then the sorceress said:

- I heard it somewhere, I don't remember exactly... Is it related to the elves?

There was nothing strange about their ignorance of the Elder Blood, the knowledge was very specific and rarely popped up anywhere from the words of the same Hela Gedymdate.

- So, okay, what do you know about Itlina's Prophecy? - I decided to refresh her memory.

There is a lot more about the prophecy, somewhere people could have learnt from old records, someone could have told what they heard from their parents and other people, as was most likely the case with Galanthea and the sorceress could have learnt about the prophecy in Arethusa.

- The End of the World, we're all going to die and blah blah blah,' the bard grumbled at the warlock's response.

Apparently, my friend has more faith in such tales than most wizards. What can I say, I myself am sceptical about such outcomes, but I also understand Galanthea - the soothsayer predicts the destined path of the planet, why not believe?

- The world will die, plunged into darkness, and be reborn with a new sun. It will rise from the Elder Blood, from Hen Ichaer, from the grain sown..... - I decide to quote the part of the prophecy that mentions the gene.

- Exactly! That's where I heard it from,' Jennyfer nodded her head. - I have no idea what it's about. You've gathered us together to discuss a useless prophecy? Then I'd better get ready for bed....

I guess I'll have to answer straight away and clearly so she finally understands the importance of this conversation.

- Ian, I've awakened the Elder Blood gene in me. - I pause for a moment. - ...And I came to the Continent from another world.