The first ones Roge tried was the three boosts he had, pulling out the coins to look at them briefly. The strength one was a slight tan color with no logo on it, though it felt a good bit heavier than the normal coin. The wisdom one was more of a dark brown with what looked to be roots growing on its surface. Finally, the constitution coin looked almost exactly like the acorn he got it from in color, the top an earthy brown with the bottom being a light tan color. ‘Wonder if they’d look different if I got them from other sources…’ Roge wondered, swapping out the [Healing] ability in the potions and comparing them.

  Roge immediately flipped to the recipes that were added to his book while Hops looked over the potions, detailing to the others what their effects were. Unfortunately, he found that to use the branches, roots, and acorns to make the potion, he’d have to grind them up first. The book mentioned a mortar and pestle, which just sounded exhausting to him.

  “What’s up?” Sean asked, causing the others to look at the dragon.

  “Need to grind up things for these potions. Just not looking forward to that extra step. The recipe’s otherwise the same.”

  “I mean… we should be able to get you a magic grinder,” Hops muttered, Roge looking at him in surprise. “It’s nothing more than a metal plate that you put a bowl on top of, but it should work.”

  “That’s a relief,” Roge muttered, pulling over four more of the healing potions and swapping them out with the elemental coins.

  “Pretty basic, but not bad.” Surprisingly, Marge was the one who commented that, huffing when Roge gave her an odd look. “Don’t give me that. I have skills that help with *ranged* weapons, and these are under that category. Besides, if you get a recipe for magic arrows, you could totally put these potions on the end instead of a normal arrowhead.”

  “Besides, I can put timed triggers on the bottles,” Hops interjected, taking the four bombs and putting them into his inventory. “That way they can go off no matter what. And Marge has a timing skill that lets her know when to most effectively throw things.”

  “Then… why do you throw runed rocks?” the dragon asked, causing Hops to blush.

  “He doesn’t like feeling useless,” Sean muttered, leading Roge to blush as well.

  “The inscription wand will do fine now for ranged attacks,” the elf waved off, pulling out said wand and giving the bottle on the end a frown. “Though… can you…”

  “I got it.” Since he’d made the wand, his buffs apparently still considered it ‘his’, which let him transform it into the glass grip version that apparently was more efficient. Once Roge was done, he handed the wand back to a grinning Hops, who immediately went to work on putting runes on the bombs. “So… should I also try the [Thunder] ability?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Hops muttered, still focused on inscribing. “Sound bombs tend to have greater ranges. So it’s more likely we’d get hit by it too.”

  “Fair enough,” Roge chuckled, getting up from the couch and stretching as he dismissed his [Magic Tool Creation] ranking up. “Well the last three potions are yours to take. I have my enhanced healing wand, so they shouldn’t be needed, but-“

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  “Better safe than sorry,” Sean said, giving Roge a pat on the back. “Time to head out for training.”

  ~~~

  During the training sessions, the group had constantly told him that training by itself would make ranking up skills slow. Even then, Roge still felt happy when a bunch of his skills ranked up at the end of the training, even earning him a much needed level up.

  After their training, Sean decided to go with Roge back to the farms, just in case the gruff man with the intimidation skill was still there. He wanted more trees to experiment with and he wouldn’t be deterred this time, walking up the fields with the lion right behind him and snow crunching under his boots. Thankfully, there was another person in charge that day, though she was just as tall as the previous giant. She looked the most inhuman to Roge, her face almost bat-like with sharp teeth that showed when she smiled. Even her voice was very gravely, though her kind tone shone through.

  “Good afternoon young ones. What can we do for you today?”

  Thankfully, Roge was starting to feel more and more comfortable with the inhuman people in town, giving her a bright smile. “I’m here to see about getting some tree seeds. I stopped by yesterday and only got a few…”

  The woman’s expression soured at that, letting out a sigh and waving for the two to follow her. “I’m assuming you met my husband. Tall guy? Grey skin?” At Roge’s nod, she let out another sigh. “Yeah, he can be… rough with some people. I’m glad you came back at least.” The more Roge listened to her speak, the more he found he liked it. She spoke with perfect diction and poise, most likely to be understood with her odd mouth shape. It let him relax even more as they were lead to one of the orchards.

  “Thankfully it wasn’t too bad. I have resistances to mental effects,” the dragon commented, earning another toothy grin from the woman. “Name’s Roge, by the way.”

  “You can call me Lesa, young one. Now,” she stated, the group having reached the trees. She patted one of the trunks. “What trees do you have? And may I ask where you’re planting them?”

  “Well I… I have blueoak, Lime Pine, Gold Apple, and Yellow Cherry, so I don’t need those… but…” Roge felt his face warming up, unsure how to respond to the other question.

  “He has plant magic,” Sean interjected, giving Roge a kind smile. “And Draconic magic.”

  “Ah. You keep them in your inventory?” she asked, her face souring.

  “A specific portion. My oaks asked for a grassy field, which I can somewhat recreate in there to give them the best opportunities.”

  “That’s… very good, actually,” she said, her face softening as she looked to the trees. “Too bad you don’t need more apple trees. This baby is not long for this world. But if someone with plant magic…”

  Roge frowned at that, looking to the tree and noticing a good portion of its leaves seemed blackened and burnt. “A fire?”

  “Unfortunately no. [Inspect] it if you please.”

  “Fire Blight?” Roge asked, earning him a sigh from the farmer.

  “Precisely. It is a common disease, but still devastating to our fruit trees. We’re going to have to burn this one to keep it from spreading in the spring.” Roge felt a pinprick of loss at that, placing a claw on the tree as well and feeling for what was inside.

  He immediately recoiled at the emotions he could feel from the dying tree, pain, nausea, and exhaustion rolling through his body. But that wasn’t what he recoiled from, having felt his [Druidic Touch] land upon a second organism in the tree. An organism that wanted to consume and spread. It didn’t feel evil or anything to Roge, but felt like the sense of a predator devouring its prey.

  Feeling like he had to do something, his heart pounding as adrenaline rushed through his veins, Roge touched the tree again, focusing on the second entity in the tree. He wanted to pull it out, but not infect his own trees, having felt the first hints of the plants waking up all day. Thankfully, while he couldn’t make another environment, he could make a separate space like the old ones he used for his plants. He just needed to make sure he didn’t kill the tree with what he was doing.

  Nature mana poured out of his mouth as he went to work, taking care to go slow with the extraction process. Any hint that the tree was hurting more, and he slowed down, slowly clearing the infection even as his mana dipped to just above half. Once the infection was cleared, he looked up at the leaves of the tree, finding them not fully healthy, but at least back to how he assumed they should look in the winter. He found it curious for a moment why the apple tree even still had leaves in the winter, but that was soon overshadowed by a wave of exhaustion that pulled him to the ground.

  Thankfully, Sean was there to catch the dragon, giving him a worried look that cleared when Roge gave him a smile.

  “How did you… the tree is healthy…” For once, the farmer’s voice was muffled and mumbled, shock at the healthy tree softening her careful diction.

  “I pulled the disease into my hoard,” Roge commented, feeling around in his hoard and finding the disease still separate from his other plants. He even found that he had bound it in the process of extracting it, feeling its exuberance of getting a chance to feed on his mana. It also had more of a hive mind instead of a single mind, Roge suspecting the disease was a colony of bacteria from the way it felt.

  “That’s… can you do it more with other diseased plants?” She sounded excited at that, though her energy dampened when she noticed how tired the dragon looked. “Took a lot out of you?”

  “Just give me a minute. I can do one other tree, but after training with my magic earlier…”

  The farmer nodded at that, her sharp teeth coming back with a vengeance as she looked over the apple tree. “I’ll pay you for it if you-“

  “No need. I can already see some uses for the disease, and that’s payment enough,” Roge rebutted, a tired grin on his face as he looked over the Fire Blight’s description.

  ~~~

  Thankfully, there was only one other sick apple tree, the Fire Blight having gotten to it later than the first tree, leading to Roge not feeling as tired after extracting it.

  “Expect me back tomorrow,” Roge stated, shaking a hand with the large bugbear woman, learning her species from a whispered comment from Sean. “I’m only going to be able to hoard a max of ten of each disease, but if it causes less plants to be harmed, I’ll do it.” He didn’t mention the other benefits for himself, ignoring the rank and level up notifications at that moment.

  “We’re happy for that young one,” the farmer, Lesa, stated, looking over her fields and orchards with a sad look. “We lose so many of our babies to diseases every year. Even a little bit can help.”

  Roge gave her a nod and a smile, waving as he walked back into the city with even more tree seeds in his hoard.