Two months had passed since Yinmo began his risky herb-for-essence-stones scheme, and the results were far below his expectations. Every day, he foraged in the forest and hustled in the market, haggling with the alchemy shops and discreet merchants. Yet after these two arduous months, he had only managed to gather a paltry 8 essence stones. Even his best weeks of foraging barely produced one essence stone' worth of herbs. For context, a second-level wood-element spell book—a necessity for his advancement—costs roughly 200 essence stones. The numbers made clear the gap between his needs and the resources he could amass while risking the clan's attention.
Worse still, murmurs among his peers and the suspicious glances from the clan's watchful eyes made it evident that his extra work was attracting dangerous attention. The risks were stacking up, and the rewards were dismal.
On his way back from another long day of fruitless negotiations at the market, Yinmo trudged along a familiar path on the edge of the forest. His mind was heavy with disappointment when he suddenly heard a faint groan from behind a cluster of trees. Curious and cautious, he approached to find an injured hunter slumped against a trunk. The man's face was pale, and dark streaks of blood marred his skin; it was clear he was on the verge of fainting.
Without hesitation, Yinmo knelt beside the injured man and quickly assessed his wounds. Drawing on his wood-element mastery, he softly chanted his incantation as gentle green energy pulsed from his palms. Carefully, he applied the energy to staunch the blood loss, encouraging the natural healing properties of the surrounding flora to mend the cuts and bruises. Within minutes, the hunter's breathing steadied, and his eyes began to clear.
Grateful, the hunter slowly explained that during a recent hunt he had been ambushed by a wild boar strangely aglow with eerie energy—a boar that had emanated dark magic. The creature's attack had been brutal, leaving him severely injured as its strange, malevolent power sapped his strength.
As Yinmo listened, a spark of realization took root. If such beasts could wield dark magic in battle, then perhaps by observing—and, over time, reverse-engineering such displays, he could develop a series of dark magic spell incantations. The idea of integrating a measured dose of darkness into his own repertoire stirred a cautious curiosity in him.
Before Yinmo could fully process the possibility, the hunter's voice cut through his thoughts. Offering a shaky smile, the hunter insisted, "For saving my life, I insist you take these 10 essence stones as payment. They aren't much, but they're worth more than a healing session with our local healer—a rank 6 Qi gatherer wood user who charges 30 essence stones per session. You, by your skill, do it twice as well."
At first, Yinmo hesitated to accept the money; his pride nearly forbade him from trading his assistance for funds. But the hunter's insistence and the pointed comparison to the village healer underscored a harsh reality: if he could harness better resources through such side deals, he'd be able to gather the funds required far more quickly.
Realizing that this unconventional exchange could be the breakthrough he desperately needed, Yinmo accepted the 10 essence stones. The encounter ignited a new plan inside him—a strategy not only to improve his resource income but also a means to gather observational data on the dark magic exhibited by the boar. If he could witness a few magical beasts wielding such forbidden power, he might be able to let those observations guide him in crafting his own incantations, blending the gentle soul of wood magic with the elusive edge of darkness.
Later that evening, back in his modest servant quarters, Yinmo added the unexpected profits to his dwindling ledger. The meager gains from herb gathering were now complemented by the hunter's payment—a signal that unconventional risks might occasionally pay off. Most importantly, the encounter had opened his eyes to the possibility of reverse-engineering dark magic spells by observing combat between magical beasts and dark magic. This notion, while dangerous and fraught with ethical ambiguities, offered a potentially faster route to the resources and breakthroughs he so desperately needed.
The long shadow of doubt and frustration still lingered over him, but amidst that hopeless arithmetic of 8 essence stones and a demand for 200, a new practical—and risky—idea began to form. Yinmo recognized that if he were to survive and truly evolve under the suffocating standards of his clan, he'd have to tread paths no one else dared explore.