"Did he find something?" Leto couldn't help asking.
Though the apprentice said nothing, his footsteps followed the direction Vesemir had indicated, heading east along the riverbank.
He had clearly noticed something.
"Don't know." Vesemir lifted the brim of his wide-brimmed hat, his gaze never leaving Ailin.
"After all, it's common knowledge that drowners live near water. Even without tracking traces, following the river would surely lead to these drowners."
Leto smiled at that. "Want to make a bet? I bet Ailin found the tra—"
"No bet."
Vesemir rolled his eyes and swiftly crushed Leto's wishful thinking.
A Witcher Master wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
Elsa was still swaying on Ailin's back.
Ignoring Leto's regretful expression, Vesemir walked over to Ailin and asked,
"Well? Did you find anything?"
"They should have headed east along the river."
Vesemir neither agreed nor disagreed, only asking, "How did you determine that?"
Ailin pondered for a moment.
Seeing the apprentice fall silent, Vesemir assumed he had merely guessed based on intuition.
Little did he know that Ailin's field of vision contained so much useful information that he didn't know where to begin.
The instant he approached the trace, the red light forming the claw print began to dance, turning into tiny red specks.
The specks formed a pair of webbed red legs, visible only below the knees.
A few seconds later, the legs began to move.
Red claws descended from midair and stepped onto the grass.
Some of the specks shook loose, scattering across the grass around the claws.
The main body, meanwhile, gathered back into the claw print the instant it touched the ground, like ants returning to their nest.
This was practically spoon-feeding him the answer.
Ailin bent down and pointed at the blades of grass where red specks had fallen. "The droplets on these blades are slime from a drowner."
After taking a look, Vesemir brushed his right hand over the grass and held it beneath his nose for a sniff.
"That's right. It smells of foul mud. It came from a drowner."
He brushed over several more blades of grass.
Vesemir rose to his feet, looking at Ailin with uncertainty as he asked,
"How could you tell with the naked eye that this was slime from a drowner?"
I have a cheat! Ailin put on Huus's standard innocent expression. "I just looked at it. Isn't it simple?"
"Can't Master Vesemir do it?"
Vesemir froze for a moment, then quickly shook his head.
"Of course I can track a drowner's trail, it's just..."
"Forget it. Keep going. This only confirms that the drowner passed through here. How did you determine the direction it left in?"
The Witcher Master's way of changing the subject was as stiff as ever.
Naturally, Ailin didn't press the issue. He went along with it and said confidently,
"Once you know how the slime is distributed, the answer is obvious."
He stood and mimed the slime falling from his fingertips as he explained to the curious Vesemir and Leto,
"Because of its speed, the slime landed on the grass at an angle, splashing outward."
"Between the angle and the way the plants blocked it, it's easy to determine."
"This drowner headed east along the stream."
Vesemir thought for a while after hearing that.
The direction Ailin had deduced matched the answer Vesemir had reached in his own mind.
However, the apprentice's method differed from his.
Vesemir was silent for a moment before sighing. "Your judgment is correct. But now I'll teach you another method. Listen carefully..."
Tracking was the most important part of the knowledge a School of the Wolf mentor passed down to an apprentice.
It was often the closely guarded secret of every witcher, the means by which they made their living.
In the past, only apprentices who survived the Trial of the Mountains had the chance to learn such knowledge.
After the spring equinox of the second year following the Trial of the Mountains, the school would assign apprentices to witchers heading down the mountain.
For five years, these apprentices would travel the continent with the witchers. Only when a witcher felt that an apprentice was ready to "graduate" would that apprentice become independent and a true witcher.
School of the Wolf witchers jokingly called this the Trial of Wandering.
The relationship between a witcher mentor and apprentice also gradually grew close during those travels, through the constant passing down of skills and experience, and through facing life and death together on contracts.
In the end, they formed a master-apprentice bond unique to the School of the Wolf.
Leto had once been Vesemir's wandering apprentice.
Vesemir himself had once been the Headmaster's wandering apprentice.
Of course, most witcher master-apprentice relationships could be traced back to the Headmaster.
"Sight, smell, hearing, touch... a witcher's senses have no weak points." Vesemir walked over to the patch of grass Ailin had analyzed. "For example, what drew my attention to this patch wasn't sight, but smell."
"Smell?" Ailin sniffed.
Although the Green Grass potion had altered his body, all he could smell was the freshness of plants and the faint fishy stench of earth.
"Yes. When I entered this area, my sense of smell warned me that something was wrong here."
Vesemir tilted his head and noticed the apprentice's nostrils flaring more and more. The corners of his mouth rose slightly.
"It isn't better just because you inhale more air. You need to learn how to distinguish scents."
Vesemir stood, pressing his index finger against the right side of the apprentice's nose.
"Close your eyes and control the Mutated Organ here."
Ailin closed his eyes at Vesemir's words, but he couldn't sense any Mutated Organ where Vesemir was pressing.
"Discard human understanding. You're a witcher. You can control your body far better than you imagine."
As Vesemir's index finger pressed down, Ailin truly seemed to feel something different.
His heart pounded rapidly, blood carrying energy throughout his body.
"I feel it!"
Ailin cried out in delight.
There really were "doors" on both sides of his nose!
Unfortunately.
Those two doors had nearly opened, but because of Ailin's emotional fluctuation, they concealed themselves once more.
But that was all right.
"Ding. One clue for the skill Tracking has been discovered." "Spend 1 Lesser Experience Orb to unlock the skill?"
Ailin:?
Ailin quickly opened his character panel.
"Tracking LV1" was still listed under Special Skills.
Two Trackings?
Ailin was somewhat surprised, but he still spent a skill point to unlock it.
At that moment.
Vesemir sensed that the Mutated Organ beneath his index finger had hidden itself again due to Ailin's emotional fluctuation, and comforted him.
"Don't force it. It's normal not to succeed on your first try. Try again tomorrow, but remember, you can only try once a day."
This training was originally meant to begin only after the Trial of the Mountains. Ailin hadn't even completed the potion modification of the "main course," so perhaps the Mutated Organ beside his nose had yet to adjust properly.
"Master Vesemir."
Ailin kept his eyes closed, yet those two words carried the delight of discovering a new continent.
"What is it?" Vesemir asked in confusion.
"I... smelled it!"
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