14. Gogo Belt Buckle Shop
Only people know people, and only you know yourself better.
The hunt ended the next afternoon and Kurtz visited me once in the morning and reassured me that he had left me a leg of lamb that had been dried and was waiting for me to get better to cook together. The little orc is well respected in the merchant guild these days for his ability to make delicious food out of all sorts of secret medicine powders, and Cuz enjoyed the friendly looks and gleefully told me all about it before Uncle Fred came over to visit me and said it was a good thing nothing had happened. Tia stayed just outside the tent and refused to come in, telling me that Gogo would have frozen him to a pile of ice if he knew he had been here. I asked him, "Can't you beat Sister Gogo? Tia immediately looked like a fried chicken and said to me, "I'm not afraid of him, I'm not afraid of that muscular guy Jonbach if he's not always behind her.
Anyway, I'm afraid!
The immediate benefit of having a wizard sister was that I could understand what magic really was more quickly. There are still many differences between the human and orc bodies, and the understanding of magic from its most basic source is different. The theories that old Kuru told me were heretical in Gogo's eyes, and she would always tell me that it was something that only savage orcs did, that they had been doing it brutally, and that the truth was this ....
She did, however, approve of that last idea of old Kulu's, that practicing anti-magic would counteract the damage caused by the fire magic element in my body, and given that I was gifted with magical perception, it made old Kulu's seemingly impossible proposal operational. She would always teach me magic secretly in the evenings, she told me that the first lesson in human magic schools for new magicians was to teach them how to meditate, and then a full half semester of meditation lessons with basic theoretical knowledge, for the first six months after enrollment new magical students are not exposed to any spell skills, and a wild child like me, who did not even know how to meditate without having awakened the magic pool, had to It was indeed a bit blind to learn to use magical skills.
Meditation is an academic discipline that comes from the Elves, but has been developed on the human side. It is the most basic academic discipline that allows a magician to feel the magical elements more carefully, train magical perception and mental power, and build up and strengthen the magical pool. I couldn't learn the art of meditation, but Sister Gogo told me what she had learned. She told me to try not to think about it, not to control it with my mind, but just to slowly feel the fire magic power accumulated in my body, to savor the movement of that magic power.
I originally thought that all this fire magic power in my body was contained in my flesh and blood and was stationary. Later I realised that these magical elements were more like star charts or nebulae in my body, their trajectory did not look very obvious, very slow, but all the magical power was moving around a specific trajectory. Sister Gogo once said she was curious about what I would achieve if I could become a magician, and I laughed and said I only had a one in a thousand chance, how could I be that lucky. I laughed and said I only had a one in a thousand chance, how could I be that lucky? But Gogo said that with magic perception, the chance of awakening would increase to one in a hundred.
The first time a steady magical energy appeared in my fingertips was when I was in a state of emptiness, and at that time I felt that I had forgotten about gathering magical energy itself, and just felt the magical energy burning away in my fingertips. But Gogo said that ordinary people could never see the light at the tip of my finger, unless they were also magicians.
Trying to draw a magic formation with a magic pen like this was like another big mountain pressing down on me. Because the magic power in my body is spread all over my body, I can only use the magic power that is close to me, but I can't control the magic power that is a little further away. Gogo said that the only way to draw magic formations is to practise and think about it more, and then you will be able to do it naturally.
During the day, I would follow behind Uncle Fred, and whenever he was approached to make hides, I would be like a little errand boy carrying his knife and wallet for him. I was able to do some rough work, but I was not paid for it.
There were only three kinds of coins in the Empire, thumbnail sized copper plates, a hundred of which could be exchanged for a silver coin, and silver coins, which were slightly larger than the plates, a hundred of which could be exchanged for a Greene gold coin. I had only seen a Greene gold coin once before, at Lord Payles' place, but the main coins in circulation were silver coins.
The caravan began to collect a large quantity of meat to cook and dry, it was said that after entering the Pai Plateau panhandle, one might not be able to eat a hot meal for days at a time, and there was hardly anything to be found on the hundreds of miles of mountain roads except ice and gravel. I was a bit worried about the thunder rhinos that were roaming around in the star lakes as I looked at the mountains of supplies throughout the camp, bringing enough fried rice, cooked dried meat, some fuel to burn, dry wood and dried cow dung all neatly packed into bags. Old Kulu started going out all day long to collect medicine, he wouldn't even take Kuzi with him, and when he came back before sunset he couldn't see what was in the basket, he was always saying panic, that's my way home.
After a long, low whine, a thunder rhinoceros leapt out of the water from the lake beside me, its thick, short, meaty tail curling up in a huge wave that pushed its nearly ten-metre-long body out of the water. The lake water flowed down the seams of its heavy leather armour like a waterfall in front of me, its thick limbs comically merging along its body; I had never thought that a thunder rhino was even a good swimmer.
"Flop!"
It sounded like thunder on a rainy day, and when Thunder Rhino dove headfirst into the water again, the waves were like pouring rain, soaking me to the bone as I sat on the lake ice. Fortunately, the ice floe I was on was much larger than I had imagined, and although only a few metres of it could be seen floating above the water, the whole piece weighed in at over 100 tonnes. The waves from the short tail of the thunder rhinoceros did not affect me in any way, but rather the waves pushed the ice floe outwards a few metres.
The next second, carrying a harpoon made of magic antelope horn polished into the head of the gun out of the water, the upper body lying on the ice floe at my feet, he only wears a leather reservoir, and is not afraid of the cold, shaking the harpoon more than two feet long mackerel said to me: "Jia, roast fish at night!"
After the Adventure Group hunt, the skinners were given a small sum of silver coins. I actually wanted a few silver coins, as the saying goes, but with money in my pocket, I didn't get what I wanted.
Cuz and I were each paid with a not-so-long antelope horn, which Cuz liked so much that he could almost pierce a shield of iron, so he made himself a harpoon, and the pole we traded to Uncle Ann for two secret smoked rabbits. When we heard about it, we decided to exchange it for a smoked rabbit. The horn was sharpened by Kurtz, and the end of the horn was cut into a hole, and the end of the pole was cut slightly thinner and smashed into the hole at the end of the horn. My antelope horn, which I had left only palm length, was sharpened into a sharp awl, which I usually kept close to me in a leather sheath. The short cone made from antelope horn was polished to such a sharp point that I could easily pierce the rawhide tent without even having to exert myself, well. In fact I just wanted to transform the leather jacket I had, I was very uncomfortable with the fact that it needed a rope like thing to tie it tightly, it made me look like a sheepherder, earthy as hell. I just wanted to make a few wolf bone buttons, I had all the materials, but I couldn't find the tools to cut the holes in them until I had my own crook, then I was able to finish the bone buttons and tie them to one side of the lapel with a tough bull bar, and the other side of the lapel with a row of holes cut with the crook, so a slightly exotic and rugged leather jacket took shape. I actually wanted to sew some pockets on the coat, but I couldn't find the right leather.
I took a pair of leather trousers that I had been wearing before and, using the two tools I had available, a leather knife and a crozier, I tried to make them into a more form-fitting and durable pair of trousers. I can say that the aesthetics of orcs are very different from mine, they think that comfort, convenience and durability are enough, but I was thinking of pairing the trousers with a calfskin leather belt, I had already prepared the belt buckle, I had asked the blacksmith of the caravan to make it last night, after watching him roast a bar of iron on the campfire, he took out a small hammer and clanked it for a few moments and then followed my instructions to create a beautiful belt buckle, blacksmith The uncle was amused to see my admiring gaze. I always found ways to make myself more comfortable in my spare time, like finding ways to break up a meal. Now that I had learned some rough leatherworking techniques under Uncle Fred, I immediately transformed the leather clothing on my body to my liking.
Kurtz was extremely dismissive of me burning my buns like that, and when he saw me wearing the leggings that were tight around my legs to make my legs look longer, he said that they were not very good for running and would cause some resistance during the run, but he liked my belt and saw me insert one end of it into the buckle and fasten it with a simple tug, and told me it was amazing. No one in the caravan uses belt buckles yet apart from me, they are more used to using straps or ropes. It was only two or three days after I made the belt buckle that Uncle Blacksmith suddenly received a flurry of requests for more buckles, starting with Uncle Fred, who, over my protests, made himself a beautiful belt out of the trimmings of a piece of magic antelope skin.
I immediately drew up a few other decorative belt buckles on parchment, which I took back to the camp as if they were treasures, and I was told not to divulge these belt buckle patterns, and was promised that when the caravan reached its destination, she could even open a small shop selling belts back in Biel, telling me cheerfully that the shop would be a hit. It would be a great success, and we would have to make it a joint venture.
The caravan had been stockpiling supplies for the last few days in preparation for the climb over the mountains in the northern foothills of the Pai plateau and along the Salt and Iron Trail into the Pai plateau.
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