Pitter-patter—pitter-patter—pitter-patter—
Another torrential downpour had arrived on a quiet autumn day in the Hidden Borderlands.
Raindrops falling from the sky struck the roof, waking the sleeping botanist.
Finn opened his eyes and felt an ache in his bones. Now old and frail, he could no longer endure a spell of cold rain. He only hoped solar energy would emerge soon and bake some warmth back into his body.
"..."
"Today is the day Linsey is supposed to come."
Thinking of what he had to do today, Finn got out of bed.
He caught his breath and rested for a while before pulling on his robe and rising to his feet.
Finn could not help sighing again.
Three years ago, when his student Linsey had first come to this town,
this old body of his could still muster enough strength to walk to the Lord's Manor on the other side of town.
But now, the marks left by time had seeped deep into his bones.
Without someone to help him, Finn found it immensely difficult even to walk five hundred meters to inspect the more distant Farmland.
"Volcano City Plant Guide (4)—Linsey has already studied that. Empathy of Life—that one too. Source Material Cultivation Secret Manual—he seems to have borrowed and finished that last year. Mo Wen's Annotations—oh, right, this one..."
After getting up, the botanist entered his study.
He organized his bookshelf, searching for something to teach Linsey today.
Whenever he thought of his student, a smile appeared on Finn's lips.
Linsey was a very clever child—though perhaps he should be called a young man now.
During the three years the boy had spent in Border Town, he had studied knowledge and skills under the town's Awakened. With Finn, Linsey had done exceptionally well, always completing his lessons both quickly and thoroughly.
And from what the botanist had heard, Linsey had performed just as excellently while studying under the other Awakened.
"If this child weren't in the Hidden Borderlands, he really ought to go to Volcano City."
Finn murmured softly as he finished preparing today's study materials.
By then, he was having trouble walking.
So he sat directly down in the study to recover his strength, which drained quickly and returned slowly.
After half an hour had passed,
his breathing had steadied again. He got up and returned to the front hall by the main door. Listening to the rain striking the eaves, his gaze naturally fell on the rain hat by the entrance.
"Time to feed Xuan Cao..."
Xuan Cao was the name of a hen.
Finn had not originally kept poultry, but two years ago, Linsey had helped him build a chicken coop outside the house. Ever since, being able to collect a few eggs now and then had made Finn's life much easier.
It was something Finn, who had once focused entirely on plants, would never have considered or done.
Slowly picking up the rain hat, Finn walked outside.
At the edge of the small yard, beneath a sky where the rain was beginning to ease, he stepped through the muddy ground and scattered a handful of millet and carrot bits for Xuan Cao.
He wanted to check the chicken coop.
But the damp chill of the rainy day made Finn's waist ache unbearably, and he could not even bend down to see whether there were eggs inside the coop.
"Xuan Cao, you're getting on in years too. Be careful in this rainy weather."
Finn murmured a few words toward the coop.
Only after seeing the hen come over to peck at the food did he adjust his rain hat and return indoors.
"Cough, cough—"
Finn set down the rain hat and coughed twice.
He lit the fireplace, and as soon as the firelight fell upon him, he felt much better.
Taking advantage of the warmth, Finn went to the side, scooped up some water into the kettle, and hung it over the fireplace.
Watching the flames in the hearth, Finn thought of his experiment again.
The winters had grown colder and colder over the past two years, and even the average temperatures of the other seasons had dropped somewhat.
Such slight changes were not readily noticeable to people.
But for crops planted in the fields, the situation was becoming increasingly severe.
Finn's knowledge had allowed him to foresee this in advance, so even though age had drained his strength, he continued his research.
Because Linsey occasionally went hunting with the Hunting Team,
Finn had asked his student to find several wild cold-resistant plants. He cultivated them at home and tried crossbreeding them with several existing food crops.
It was a long-term undertaking.
If it went smoothly, then combined with Finn's Life School techniques, perhaps he could cultivate entirely new cold-resistant crops in seven or eight years.
But that amount of time seemed far too long to Finn.
He could feel that his life was nearing its end.
This winter... perhaps even this autumn, would be the last river this old ship of his could sail upon.
"In the end, I am a man without talent."
Finn shook his head with a sigh.
"If I could elevate my techniques one more time and touch the boundary of life, perhaps I could accomplish it."
In this distant frontier, everyone knew Finn as a botanist.
But in Volcano City, the headquarters of the Life School, that was actually a title one could find everywhere, because it was the basic designation held by those beneath a Life Scholar.
Within the Life School, one had to elevate one's techniques five times before earning the title of Life Scholar in Volcano City.
Those in the first four stages could only be identified by the direction of their research.
Like Finn's title of botanist.
Whooo—
Amid his long contemplation, the kettle over the fireplace began to whistle.
Finn was roused from his thoughts. He hurriedly lifted the kettle with trembling hands and poured himself a cup of hot water.
His withered hands held the cup before him, while his gaze fell upon the faintly rippling surface of the water.
The old man, whose life was nearing its end, thought of something else.
His Essence.
Finn's Essence was the most common and versatile Basic Essence among Awakened.
Yet among the other types of Essence, there was one particularly unusual path.
—The Essence used by traveling merchants.
By walking the path of a traveling merchant, an Awakened would extract the Essence from within their body and lodge it in an external object.
This was akin to placing an energy core outside the body, yet it did not hinder their own use of techniques.
At the same time, it allowed the object housing the Essence to gain certain miraculous effects.
Then, long ago, one day, things changed.
A powerful Awakened of advanced age, on the verge of death, abandoned his techniques and abilities, using a traveling merchant's methods to infuse a vessel with the Essence he had accumulated over his lifetime. He forged it into a treasure and passed it down to his descendants.
That treasure possessed the power to discern lies.
Even treasures crafted by fairly skilled smiths rarely possessed such an effect.
At this moment, Finn was considering whether he could accomplish something similar.
And as far as he knew, the only people in the Hidden Borderlands who possessed such a technique were at the church outside town.
"Perhaps I should seek out the Red Moon Lady..."
Bang, bang, bang—
"Teacher Finn, I'm here."
Just then, someone knocked on the door of Finn's wooden house from outside.
Hearing that familiar voice, he looked up with a smile. "Linsey, you're here."
"The door isn't locked. Come in quickly—the rain's still falling outside."