Chapter 32: Picking up Pieces

"Is this about the mission?" Kai nervously looked to see if anyone else was listening. "I'm sorry that we lost hunters, but the situation was more complex than it-"

"I don't give the tiniest of shits about the mission." Gunjin's eyes never left him for a second. "There were conflicting reports, and it was transparently obvious that Yangil was lying about the details to undermine you. That is your own problem, we have-"

"They just abandoned me out there!" Kai waved a hand out the gate, barely keeping his voice down. "I'm supposed to just ignore that?"

"Think about why. Yangil, the Lantrian brat, the others... they don't like what you remind them of."

"What?"

"Your power is already equal to many older hunters, in a matter of months. Think about what that means to them." Gunjin tapped the side of his own head. "Most of them reached their limits and told themselves that they'd done everything they could with their Class. But you've pushed so far, so fast, with a Class far worse than theirs - that's both intimidating and threatening to the way they see the world. You see now?"

"Yeah, I get it." Kai took a deep breath and let go of his anger. "If it wasn't about that, what's so important that you came out to meet me?"

"We need to discuss your future in the Granfian clan. Because you exceeded all expectations, I have arranged an opportunity for you, but the window is somewhat limited."

"Oh." Kai tried to keep his heart from rising, after being disappointed so many times. "Thank you, sir. But is it necessary to leave at exactly this moment? I just got back, and there were a number of things I needed to do, including tasks relevant to my training."

Gunjin's eyebrows rose incrementally and Kai could feel his spiritual sight, then the older man shrugged. "Your opportunity will be lost within five days. I would prefer to leave tomorrow. Whatever you do, clean up. There's a guest we can't afford to offend."

"I'll be ready tomorrow," Kai promised. "But sir, I have to ask... is everything alright with Irun now? I don't have anything against them, but they implicitly lied, and lives were lost..."

"It's unfortunate, but so is the existence of international politics. In my opinion, this outcome is probably for the best, and Irun will be more tightly allied with us. I don't like that my clan was forced to get involved, but I can play the aggrieved ally and get concessions from them. I told you, Kai, I don't care about your mission. Be ready tomorrow at noon."

His mentor turned away and was gone in an instant. Kai briefly wondered if he had used magic or an invisible portal, but decided that he had just moved that quickly. No matter how Kai strained his spiritual sight, he still couldn't get a sense of his mentor. He was beginning to believe that the true elites, those who had fought on the Frontier, were much further beyond him than he had known.

In any case, he had less time than he thought, so his plans needed to change. Kai wanted to rush to Juray to get his flask as quickly as possible, but talking to Gunjin had made him realize just how filthy he was after his trip. Juray wouldn't appreciate him showing up looking and smelling like a vagabond, so he would get himself cleaned up first.

Back home, Kai checked if anyone had left messages for him and was disappointed that there wasn't even one. He'd hoped that at least Inafay was back and wanted to train. Once he'd secured his items back in his quarters, Kai asked one of the Granfian staff for a shave and a haircut, then took a thorough bath.

Not smelling foul was good, but otherwise he felt no different, just more impatient. Despite everything else he had to do, he trotted across the city to talk to Juray again after most of a month away.

"Kai!" She smiled as soon as she saw him and embraced him warmly. He was briefly awkward at her softness, but she pulled back and gestured toward the door. "Come in, I have a lot of things to show you."

While she closed up the shop window, Kai stepped inside. The inside of her home was completely occupied by bottles, pans, and strange filtration devices. Some of them filled with potions, others apparently empty or carrying only residue. Clearly she had been busy, so while she finished he glanced at her with his spiritual sight again.

<

Name: Juray Phrissan

Total Power: 30

Herbalist Class: 12 (22)

Physique Level: G-1 (4)

Soul Level: 2 (4)

>

Apparently all her work had substantially improved her Class... Kai remembered that he had made a number of requests as if from a past life. That had been before the trip, before Curaina died, before his attempt at the Path of Steel...

"I know you're probably here for your flask," Juray said as she returned to him, "but I hope you have time for some of my experiments. It's been an exciting month for me."

"I can make time." Kai smiled back and sat down on one of the only chairs that wasn't piled with glassware.

"First, the bad news: I made a potion from your Class essence and it turned out to have the limits I'd feared." She set a small vial, a sphere except for the flat base and lip, down in front of him. It burbled with a dull brown mana. "I'm going to just give this one to you, though I doubt it will do you much good. This is the sort of thing some do to improve their Class, but..."

"I understand. But you seem excited about it?"

"These techniques are usually restricted to powerful Classes, but working on yours made me realize that there was no reason I couldn't use my own!" Juray swept a hand from behind her back and proudly revealed another potion, identical except that the liquid within was dark blue. "This is an Herbalist potion! Is it useful to anyone else? No, not really. But it's let me practice with some new skills, so... hmm, where did I put that?"

She began puttering around the house, searching through the small forest of glass. While she looked, Kai picked up the second potion and examined it. "So what happens if I drink this?"

"You won't be able to become an Herbalist, if that's what you're thinking. Your spirit would temporarily have some fragments of my Class within it, but they wouldn't help you much. Perhaps you could put a little more mana into techniques. The main application is for me to use on myself so I can manage more complex work, such as... wait, never mind, here we are!"

Juray spun back to face him and triumphantly planted another potion on the table. Though it used the same bottle, the mana in this one pulsed with crimson power. Kai couldn't help but pick it up, searching the strength he felt there. His spiritual sight couldn't pick up any symbols, yet he felt a strong intuition that this represented a familiar Class.

"This sort of potion might not be useful to you," Juray said as she sat down opposite him, "but they're extremely valuable. That's derived from a Warrior Class, if you didn't figure it out. Drinking this one really will make you a bit stronger for a while."

"Why wouldn't that be useful to me?" Kai asked. He wanted to take the potion, but restrained himself.

"Well... has your spiritual sight advanced enough that you're seeing people with numbers?"

He'd passed that point long ago, so Kai just nodded.

"Then you know that most mature hunters have a Power around 50. The strong ones are closer to 100, and the scale goes a lot higher than that. This potion will temporarily add... maybe 1 or 2." Juray took the vial from him and sighed. "As I improve my technique, I might be able to increase that slightly, but likely never above single digits."

"So... it's no long term solution, but you could make a lot of money selling it to people who want an extra edge."

"Well, I could in theory." Juray shrugged sheepishly. "I'm having trouble actually selling this one, because I guess customers aren't used to this sort of thing from me. So right now I'm just out a lot of resources."

"I'll buy it from you." Kai hadn't been planning to say that, the words just tumbled out of his mouth. When he saw Juray's face light up, he decided to stick with it. "I just finished a long assignment and I'm due to be paid. And maybe I can talk to some of the Granfian hunters? I'm sure they'd be willing to give you some mana in return for potions."

"That would be wonderful!"

The potion cost almost fifty Eagles, but the hug Juray gave him erased his regrets. Besides, he had plenty of good things coming to him, not the least the flask she'd been saving for him. Juray took it out of storage and, seeing how eager he was to use it, didn't hold him back any longer.

Even though Kai wanted to rush straight back home to try to improve his Physique ranking, he forced himself to remain calm. Instead he finished a few other errands, such as selling his share of the monster cores from the journey and buying a tunic that wasn't in such awful shape. After that, he ventured to the Hunters Guild, dodged Fhazi Lantrian and his entourage, and received payment for the long Irunian mission.

Two hundred Eagles for his work, twenty-one from his cores, combined with those he had left over... Kai returned home with two hundred and thirty-three Goralian Eagles in his pouch. A significant amount for someone like him, but it paled in comparison to the flask containing the potion Juray had created from the Direboar's core and his own blood.

As he got back to his room, Kai realized that he should have sold the jeweled dagger or talked to the others about the potions. He was too excited for any of it. Even though he was getting hungry, he kept that tension in his stomach. It would keep him on edge.

Kai set the flask down in front of him and just stared at it for a while. He'd been at G-9 for some time, so he had to be pressing up the limits of the barrier. Before the night was over, he'd either have advanced to F rank or he'd have failed.