Friedrick finally returned to the mansion for the day after having completed at least 8 daggers and having butchered one Rondel. After giving up on that for the day and decided to melt it down tomorrow and reattempting the creation of a Rondel. As he walked around the mansion Friedrick saw a strange look on John’s face. What is going on Friedrick thought to himself. Friedrick walked up to where John and Master were standing.Then asked the only thing he could, “Um, what is going on? I was just about to ask you, Master for assistance tomorrow with creating my first Rondel. I could not get the shaping to come out right. However, John has a weird look on his face now. So I guess I will have to ask for that afterward.” Friedrick failing to control his thoughts as per usual Friedrick never did have a brain to mouth filter so he would just usually do one-word answers or just silently physical moves.

Master could not help but laugh, “Wow, Friedrick okay well if you remember earlier I sent my friend Daniel a correspondence and just got a response a while ago. Now it is not the time for too much speaking other than to tell you both this; 1st how many daggers did you make Friedrick?”

“8,” Friedrick simply stated.

“Okay, now that means one month for daggers yes, yes. That will be perfect for in 8 months you both will have a match and then we will head to Dover. Now let’s skip afternoon training. Wait let me rephrase NO training, or practice today. NO sparing, or exchanging forms, sharing lessons, or some other name either just rest and relax okay.” Master stated. “Tomorrow Friedrick I will assist you with the Rondel on that and the other item I want you to create. Also, John gets three knives and do the morning trapping and hunt some extra game. We will be drying meats for the trip.” 

The next morning Master leads Friedrick back to the smithy and began forging. John waited to leave after Friedrick and Master left. Even though he could cheat he decided not to he went ahead and began the normal collecting. However he did get all the normal amounts since he could, after all, he was 9 and 5ft tall already and 108lbs already and not a bit of it was fat in the last 4 years. He went from ripped and firm to extremely toned and stronger than ever before he could only lift two Friedricks now he could easily lift 5 Friedricks with ease. So he went ahead and did the usual stuff after all John liked routine anyways it centered himself. Which he would use to strengthen himself as he would go through all the forms that Master showed him. An hour into the trapping and hunting he had already gathered all the sticks and branches. He even already filled half the bag with vegetables and fruits, however strangely he had not seen any herbs or mushrooms. 

As John got to the first trap John began to slow down drastically. As he heard the noises but did not like the sounds that were made as if it was bigger than normal. That was not a smaller hog no instead it was medium to large hog however for some reason it was not trying to break free, instead, it seemed to be busy digging at the ground. So John decided to set his bag down and began to create a tool as Master had said the only difference between a tool and a weapon was the intent. 

John kept thinking to himself, “A tournament I wonder what that was going to be like? I wonder how many people would be there?” as John kept this up he was creating a spear to deal with the hog and a sling to drag Ms. Piggy along back to the house. He kept this inner dialog going wondering what the tournament would require. “I hope I don’t have to ride a horse the poor animals barely liked him and they always brought him a smaller one that could barely hold him up since he was 4.5 ponies hated him and barely carry him after all, most 500lb ponies were only able to safely carry at most 100 lbs but those were mainly used for adult females to learn or use not needed for children. John would not want to hurt any animal just because someone else was too dumb to ask or listen. 

John could not stand the fact of abuse due to negligence. Just as he finished breaking off a rock blade for his spear he sharpened the stone for a second then split the branch for his spear. Then insert the stone head after which he wrapped the branch with vines to hold the head in place. After completing the spear and getting to a point in his inner dialog and thrust the spear directly into the hog’s arteries killing the animal in one quick motion. At the same time, his inner monolog hit the point of, “No matter how many or how good they are I will show them I can and will hold my own if not exceed them.” 

John got Ms. Piggy out of the trap and on the sling and headed to check out what the hog was scuffing the ground. As John got closer he smelled a very earthy, wood-like the scent at the exposed root. John began pulling out the exposed root however as he got the root exposed, he then got a large musk blast in his face it was slightly garlicky with a deep musky aroma. It's very earthy, pungent and deliciously funky. John could not help but be amazed he just found 2 new or unknown herbs. He could not help but be excited to show this to the Master. John keep up his normal collections taking up all morning he collected a total of 3 hogs and 1 deer and then no fruit and 6lbs of wild vegetables 2 of the earthy wood roots and found several more plants of which he checked the roots to make sure they were the same and yes it was the same as the hog had dug up he did not find any more of the clumps of the musky, garlic stuff. Though he found a very rare flower that John’s mother loved according to his father, John not knowing the name of it he went ahead and plucked the flower a beautiful yellow ball-shaped little blossoms. He picked two of the flower stems and brought it all back to the mansion.

Ginseng, truffles, Silphium all three unknown items were identified by Master. John of course impressed with Master’s knowledge but little did John know. Master was shocked by the items John had found that morning. Though he happily took the two root items from John when he asked about the flower and was denied. He did not try to take the Silphium so he just asked John where he found them. Master headed out after talking to John and went looking for the flowers and more Ginseng if he could get enough he would be able to make his elixir. The elixir would be perfect for John too.

MThe master goes into the woods in the direction that John had told him. Since over three years ago Master had stopped going with the boys in the mornings. To place traps so he was unaware of where either of the boys placed their traps anymore. So Master has no clue how far he had to go before he would come across anything that hinted at the traps. Master finally came across the first signs of the first trap and it was surrounded by ginseng at least 12 plants with a small one right in the middle of the trap. “Silly boy hogs don’t care too much for ginseng. However there might be truffles nearby too,” Master said to nobody. He smiled at the mass quantity of the plants then plants themselves had many little red berries, and bright green leaves in a set of 5 leaves wide and rounded. then began to look for the older one versus the quant younglings with only one stem of usually 3 leaves. So Master looked through the plants for mature plants with the said 5 leaf sets and once he did. He grabbed at the ground with both hands as he began digging at the oldest looking ginseng plants. Master kept digging until he exposed the roots once exposed he exclaimed happily; “Holy Jesus and Odin’s beard, a 100 year, a 70 year, and a 660-year-oldginseng. This alone would be enough, now with that ,I hope I can find some Ganoderma Coffee.” Master filled in the hole and began looking around for what basically were steps up the sides of trees. Not seeing any nearby so Master got up and began walking looking back and forth from tree to tree till finally thirty minutes later. Again Master exclaimed, “Odin’s Beard twenty.” Master not being greedy knocked off only the oldest (the largest) thankfully it was in the harvest time as short as it was only 30 days normally that wasn’t a problem but since he lost his blessing now he had to watch this too. 

After picking all these items Master still had Silphium to get and see if he could find one more item after that as he went along though he spread the berries except two from the ginseng and spores on the mossy (north) side of trees after  headed back toward where John told him he found the silphium flowers. He did find quite a few of the rare flowers after careful harvesting he then had to look for the final ingredient hops which are not very rare actually quite plentiful. As he continued looking for all the needed ingredients he would continue to spread the seed of anything he harvested or spores as he walked back toward the mansion too.

After gathering all the ingredients and getting back to the mansion, he began the drying process for all the plants that need to be dried be most ingredients required to be laid out carefully like silphium, ginseng and 8 of the Ganoderma Coffees to let them dry on the back of the large boulder. Then Master began building a wood-burning stove out of stones and clay with four openings and a large pot indentation in the middle for pot. This design was to focus most of the heat on the pot but allow cooking to go on around the pot without being out of reach of the pot at any time. Afterall a pot that’s watched never boils but a pot that is not boiling over.

After getting the stove setup Master thought to himself now I more drying room plus what other elixirs or oh well we are near that area maybe That serum is possible too. “Hmm, well let’s just go have a look.” Master smiling begins to hum himself a simple tune turns and strolling returns to the woods. 

After about an hour looking for birch trees, Master found quite an extensive amount of the trees than began watching for white-spotted red mushrooms that are known as fly agaric. After just a couple of moments moving dead leave Master found quite a few afterall birch trees and flying agaric help each other grow. Per usual Master grabs only the older ones and spreads the spores near the birch trees collecting several. “Hmm. Boy have I gotten lucky now just the last ingredient Henbane I know this grows almost as wild as hops so it shouldn’t be too hard just need to go a bit deeper,” Master said out loud to himself.

Master then begins looking for Henbane a known poisonous plant that stinks of rotting human flesh and just the smell alone if strong enough can make a person dizzy. The pale yellow, bell-shaped flowers with purple veins are a distinct feature of this species. The plants grow to around 3ft tall it’s hairy leaves are sticky to the touch. 

After a couple of months, Master had allowed everything to dry properly. Master the urge to go back into the woods and get three more sets of ingredients and let them dry too. However his ingredients required several different means for properly sun-drying Master almost lost his first set of Silphium since he did not hang it from a twine by its stem, the fly agaric actually was the weirdest wanting to be dried in a wooden box. The Henbane was fairly straight forward just wanting the same thing as the silphium but needing the oils meant flipping them to keep the oils in the flowers. The Ginseng and Ganoderma Coffees were exceptionally easy just lay them out and flip them once a week.

 Master began to brew his first Elixir since he was only wanting to just extend life he just used the youngest ginseng he found between the two trips into the woods. Keeping the oldest 125year old ginseng for a tool for later. As it didn’t matter for extending life or expelling impurities the age as long as you are still with a beating heart. It would extend it by a minimum of the ginseng age. At least that’s all Master knew from what Nicolas Flamel told him before he went into hiding. Back in March 1418, Master hoped to this day that he is still fine. His friend Daniel, along with Nicolas and himself were on the front lines during “The Hundred Year War” which was unintentionally also “The Hundred-Year suppression” of werebeast due to Parasite Vampires. All three of them went from territory to territory throughout France combatting both Vampire and werebeasts. During this time Master learned about the art of Alchemy and Nicolas’s Elixir of Life.

Master begins his inserting the firewood and fills the pot till there is about 2 inches from the rim and inserts his pot which is as tall has the torso and puts it in his indentured Master then lights the fire. Master then grabs the youngest ginseng slicing it open down the major section of the roots and pulls out some of the leaves from his bag and drops both fresh leaves and the rootstocks into the pot. Giving the plant a few seconds he then pulls out a very old looking wooden ladle. This ladle was something he had made from a branch he found on his travels into the Norse peninsulas once he could meet up with his favorite crafter Regin. Of course at first, Regin wanted to kill him for the gull to ask him to make a soup spoon. Till Master told him what the wood was possibly from, then the fucker wanted to kill him for wanting to make the branch of Yggdrasil into a soup spoon. After a spell of cursing and dodging deadly blows and attempting to return such blows, Regin finally agreed to make it if Master would leave the rest of the large branch with Regin.

Master began stirring the pot with the ladle till the ginseng completely sank to the bottom then stirred it counterclockwise until the ginseng came back up about an inch from the bottom and stopped stirring. Master made sure that the ginseng did not touch the bottom and was not in the middle of the pot. Master let it go till it was a boil when the leaves began to wilt he removed the leaves. Then he added the Silphium into the pot as soon the pot began to boil Master added the soup stone he got from Nicolas. As soon as the stone touches the liquid, the level of the pot began to drop dramatically. Then Master added Ganoderma Coffee fungus, as soon as the fungi dissolved he then added the last ingredient, the hops in a cheesecloth bag and began to stir it in the bag around the pot and immediately went the opposite direction as soon as it hit the point of where the bag was inserted. At this point Master pulled the pot out of the stove he then began cooking dinner for himself and the boys if they so choose to join him.