Chương 65: Chapter 61

[Skill [Biological Hypertrophy] added!] [Skill [Redundant Biology] added!] Two of her new skills had the same time. Well, they had the same word in both their names, or rather, there were similar words in their names. And Sobelle was fairly unfamiliar with it, so she went and asked Chael.

"What does biology mean?" Was it weird for her to know this kind of word in the first place? Sobelle wasn't sure. Chael didn't seem to react to it so Sobelle assumed the merchant didn't find it weird.

"Biology? I'm not quite sure, all I know is that it is a commonly used word in the neighboring Kingdom because of a scholar." Chael turned to the sky in thought.

"I think it has something to do with the human body though, or maybe just bodies in general. I haven't asked about it during my travels. There are other terms related to it too, like physiology and ecology, that's why I get confused by them."

"That's good to know." Sobelle said just as the two boxes disappeared and got replaced by a heavy explanation of what her skills did.

"I think you're right, biology has something to do with the body." [Biological Hypertrophy - Your body grows, not only in strength, but in mass, height, and density. Your organs start to pack flesh, and even your mind begins to evolve. Your vessel becomes slightly more than human.] [Redundant Biology - You now have a body that can only be called "unnatural" as not only is it capable of using everything it has for anything it does, it also breaks any rule a body should have. Broken bones? You can now heal them. Your eyes are gone? You can recover them in a matter of weeks. You have high energy reserves? Then your body uses as much of it as it feasibly can.]'I can heal anything now?' Sobelle noticed that these new skills had reached the realm of the supernatural. Before this, all her skills felt like they were still something a normal human could do but her current skills looked like something that belonged to a dragon or even a troll instead of a normal human.

Dragons, and even trolls, were still stronger than her however. The latter even had better healing abilities than her. But the fact that she could heal her eyes—and possibly even lost limbs—was definitely something she was happy about. It meant that she no longer needed to be afraid of getting crippled. Last night, a snake had almost bitten her.

That would have caused her death, and she wouldn't have been scared of it if she had [Redundant Biology] back then, as her body would just process the poison and slowly let it out.

'What would the poison's effects be? Surely I wouldn't be immune to it right?'

"You look like you're in deep thought." Chael's voice cut through the haze and Sobelle turned and saw that the merchant had finished packing up their camp.

"Did something good happen? Why do you look so happy?"

"Oh uhm..." Sobelle realized she was smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. She calmed herself.

"I just thought of something interesting, that's why I'm smiling."

"Did it have anything to do with your question just now?" Chael tilted her head. Sobelle found the curious expression that she wore kind of cute.

"Why are you suddenly smiling when I tell you about biology?"

"No, uh, I just... Can we forget about this?" Sobelle scratched her forearm. Why was she feeling like a thousand ants were biting every inch of her body? The itch even went under her skin. Was she sick? She hoped not.

"I really don't wanna explain it to you."

"Okay, fine." Chael let the topic go. But before she truly moved on, she gave one last Sobelle skeptical look. Then she unfurled her map, "okay, so, the two of us are going to need to follow the road for another day, after that, we should get to the village." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"And we rest there?" Sobelle knew that villages were never places for rest. As not only did they not have the extra space for travelers to occupy, there was also a risk of villagers stealing their stuff.

"Or do we continue? Why do we need to stop by a village anyway?"

"Because it's important, of course." Chael said it like she expected Sobelle to understand the underlying meaning of her words. When Sobelle stayed silent, she sighed.

"Stopping by villages will allow us to trade some of our items and maybe even sell some stuff."

"Really?" At first, Sobelle assumed that they would sell everything they had in UnThilen but apparently, this village was also good enough for Chael.

"Yes really." Chael repeated with heavy emphasis.

"This is what being a merchant is like; we will make stuff, sell them in villages or exchange them for something that isn't valuable to the people there but is expensive someplace else, and then repeat."

"What do we sell to the villagers if that's the case?" When she thought about it, Sobelle couldn't figure out what item they had on them that was so useless that it needed to be sold.

"Everything we have seems so valuable."

"Hide. We don't need them while the villagers would be more than happy to buy them, especially if they have a cobbler. Which they do." The merchant glared at her map as she read the words written on it.

"In exchange, we can probably buy ale, as well as a few sacks. Burlap or hemp will be good enough." So Chael knows the person they will sell to? That means she'd be able to haggle things. Or that was how Sobelle understood things at least. She also noticed another strange thing, and that was Chael mentioning they needed to buy sacks.

"What do we need to buy sacks for? It isn't like we're storing more things?" For a second, Sobelle caught Chael's annoyed expression and knew then that the merchant must have found her questions tiring.

"While that's true, we can make pillows out of these sacks." To demonstrate, Chael ran to a nearby stalk and grabbed its oval bud. She crushed it with her hand and caused an explosion of this wool-like substance.

"This is a cottonhead, and it has grains that can explode into cotton when crushed. We will take these grains and stuff them into the sacks, tie them, and then crush the grains."

"Ah, I... See that now." Sobelle looked at Chael in a new light.

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Quite some time now." Chael ran back to her side and the two of them resumed walking. Sobelle didn't ask any other question after that, she simply let Chael be and did what she did best; which was pulling the wagon. Eventually, it was noon and so the two of them had to swap. Chael carried the wagon's handles and pulled on it. She huffed, "the wheels are a bit uneven aren't they?" She commented as the wagon did yet another jump.

"Or is it the road?"

"It's the road." Sobelle confirmed. She had worked hard on that wagon, so she wouldn't let anyone say that it was faulty. Not even Chael had that luxury.

"I made sure that those wheels are as smooth as they possibly could."

"Ugh, see this is why nobles need to hire actual guards for their roads. It keeps them safe and well maintained. Otherwise rocks like these would just pop up at some point." Chael kicked a pebble away out of frustration.

"Where do they come from, anyway?"

"Animals, maybe?" Sobelle shrugged. Rocks do appear in roads unmaintained by human hands, but where they come from is a mystery.

"It wouldn't surprise me if some of these were even carried by birds."

"Stupid avians." Chael muttered as she kicked another rock away.

"Ruining our roads!"

"I don't think they even know what they are doing." Sobelle rightfully pointed out. She stretched, "okay, I'm running ahead. Shout if you need help, or if something attacks you."

"I'll do that." Chael nodded yet her face looked conflicted. In the end, she let Sobelle go.

"Thank you." Sobelle didn't reply and ran ahead, she finished around half her daily sprint before finally stopping. She checked on Chael and saw a tiny dot in the distance. She was quite shocked to learn just how far she ran in such a short period of time but that quickly disappeared as she bent down and started doing push ups. When she finished, she did sit ups. And after that, she found a rock and lifted it up and down. It was much harder to do compared to the branches she usually carried but she made it work.

Lastly, she found a tree and pulled her own weight up 50 times. Sobelle dropped and let out a heavy breath, she wiped some sweat off her brow before finally starting her jog. She ran until the quota was done, and then finished it off by doing the rest of her sprint.

'I don't feel tired.' She couldn't help but notice this while she rested. She looked ahead and saw boxes that made her frown,'what is this? I've hit a limit?' [The system has detected that [Endurance] and [Strength] have reached their maximum cap! Changing quests...] [Prepare for War! - You now have the body to rival even the toughest monsters, now you need to learn how to wield magic. The following quests will be used to teach you about the various spirits and enchantments you can use as well as teach you how to make magical artifacts. The stats [Dexterity] and [Intelligence] will be the main priorities as of this time. Good luck!] Sobelle waited for the quests to come but they didn't. She let out a sigh,'[Dexterity] and [Intelligence] huh? That sounds nice. And useful.'