Over the next four days the hired rangers and woodsman managed to clear out the path ahead of the campsite, carving their way through the thick bramble and trees that had populated the region for some time.

  The original plan had been to only stay in place for three days. Merrick had reverified that on the morning of the fourth day.

  Well, he should probably say the evening since he’d been retiring to the carriage for his allocated rest time after breakfast was served each day.

  It was only then, on their fifth day since arriving at the campsite, that they were finally setting out.

  The powers that be were apparently unwilling to allocate any more time for the last two caravans to catch up with them, having already had every other group straggle in over the previous few days, one from each of the major human strongholds and a few more from the smaller surrounding cities. The latter had apparently been on the road for some time already and the stress they carried in their shoulders reflected that.

  Ten of the twelve major human strongholds were now represented in the caravan’s make-up, each bringing their own cast and crew of would-be settlers of various occupations. There was even another alchemist, or so Merrick heard.

  He hadn’t seen them yet and wasn’t convinced it wasn’t just the innkeeper’s attempts at making a light jest at Merrick’s expense. If they really did convince another alchemist to abandon their lifestyle and risk life and limb on the frontlines it had a chance to significantly impact his future bottom-line.

  Though, the more that he thought about it the more he was okay with it. He’d never really dreamed of being a potion man and now that he’d finally started making in-roads with his innate ability he’d likely welcome the reduced responsibility. Another potion supplier meant that he’d have to work less to meet demand and leave more time to experiment with his ability.

  Most importantly, the straggling caravans had instantly sent their own rangers and woodsmen forward to assist in clearing the path, something Merrick was sure was sorely needed.

  Even with skills and expertise, he wasn’t sure how they planned to stay ahead of the carriages and carts once they finally started moving. The two-day extra headstart would likely be a key player in that calculation.

  Then again, there were now a few thousand bodies milling around the camp every morning before Merrick went to sleep. There was no way their group would be moving at maximum speed considering the fact that the vast majority of them were on foot.

  He knew the recruiter said that they were planning on establishing their own stronghold, trying to compete for the title of the 13th stronghold, but he’d assumed it was mostly bluster.

  He’d thought that, at most, he was headed out to help establish another large village. One with walls, of that he’d been assured, and a population low enough that it wouldn’t gather too much attention from the surrounding races and beasts.

  A quiet and cozy life for him to bunker down for a few years, grow out his facial hair, and return to human civilization with a new name and lease on life. Perhaps, he’d thought, he’d even move to the stronghold his mother and siblings had relocated to.

  He didn’t think he’d be that lucky now, though. The campsite had gotten to the point that the population already surpassed most villages, and Merrick was forced to admit that they had a solid chance of success.

  The only real question of viability at that point was whether they’d be able to develop the land or identify an export expensive enough to justify getting connected to the Nexus Portal Network. That was largely the biggest hurdle between being designated a Stronghold or just a large city since the NPN offered quick response times between Strongholds, causing them to garrison strong armies and adventurers in case of emergency.

  Without that link, or powerful enough wizards to open their own gates, their prospective town would almost certainly be dead in the water upon the advent of their first beast wave.

  ‘Then again…’ Merrick thought about the plants he had squirreled away in his satchel. If they were still viable for planting or cloning then they could, perhaps, become enough of a cash crop to take them a long way toward that goal.

  Assuming that they had use and he was willing to share his bounty and ignoring the fact that they may not grow at all without being in their native dungeon environment.

  He really didn’t want to draw attention to himself before he had the political capital or personal power to ensure his own continued freedom.

  Merrick found that he didn’t really appreciate having to make assumptions about the future. He preferred making decisioned based off observable phenomenon.

  Which is exactly what he’d been doing with his bountiful free time over the past few days.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He awoken in the evening, just in time for camp dinner to be passed out and collected his contractually guaranteed bowl of gruel each day.

  He’d then spent time pouring over the previous entries in his [Skill Log] to make sure he wasn’t missing any information.

  At some point each day he’d even make time to have a casual conversation with a few of the acquaintances he’d met, namely Gerald, head of the Wild Clover mercenary band, Hugh, the future-innkeeper and father of the huntress daughter Merrick still hadn’t met, and Jasmine, the scholar who’s carriage he occupied during daylight hours.

  Three more conversations per day than he’d grown accustomed to over the previous year.

  After the sun set each day, he’d make his rounds with the night watch and let them know he was out and about.

  The first couple of hours were dedicated to collecting miscellaneous plants and matter to fail [Merge] into the dusts he used for his alchemy. He’d left his stores in his workshop back in the Steelhearth Stronghold and not had time to collect them before leaving.

  Thankfully, he’d looted a few jars and other glass containers from the dungeon that had caused that dilemma so he needed only to rebuild his stores.

  That was made difficult by the lack of light in the night forest and his apparent inability to get a night-vision related skill but Pinesol was more than willing to share the light from her horn so he could sort each dust into the correct container.

  After that, he’d activate his new portion of his innate ability [Conjure Goodberry] and suffer through the burning sensation that followed.

  Thankfully, no day was as bad as the first and it was rapidly getting less painful as the metaphysical channels for the ability’s activation were carved into his soul. The channel burn from the previous night had barely even registered above a broken toe on his pain scale.

  Less than ideal, but tolerable.

  The previous night, Merrick had even activated his [Merge] skill on the conjured goodberries, which showed no signs of deterioration even after days, and had successful results.

  [Merge Successful. One Tier 1 Goodberry Merged]

  [SML: ::100%, GRW Mod: 0%, GTR Mod: 0%, RFN Mod: 0%, CFT Mod: 0%]

  [Total 100% Potential. No Excess Detected. No Personal Blessings Detected. Variant Change +/- 0%. Standard Output]

  Just thinking about the successful experiment still brought a smile to Merrick’s face. Experiments, really.

  Not only had he confirmed that the conjured goodberries were able to be combined, something that shouldn’t really be possible with most conjured goods considering their usual limited lifespan, but he’d even gotten the name to change.

  Gone was ‘gooderberry’, the silly recommendation from Rod that seemed obnoxiously difficult to rebrand. His [Skill Log] didn’t even return them as tier 2 anymore, having finally convinced himself and therefore the skill that any starting items were technically tier 0 and the first successful [Merge] output should be considered tier 1.

  A massive win for his notetaking considering how much less confusing it’d be, able to now look at the number and not have to mentally adjust the noted numbers up 1 for placement on the merge chain, which is how he’d started to refer to consecutive merges of a single type of object.

  He’d have to re-write large portions of the notebook he’d been filling while he was trapped in the Mulberry Grove with his new metrics after being able to source affordable, quality parchment.

  He would have had to rewrite most of anyways considering how filth-smeared the pages were and the terrible handwriting due to poor light sources and stress.

  He also intended to change any reference of [Critical Success]es to ‘CritS’ or ‘crits’ for shorthand purposes. Writing the whole thing out was slightly unwieldy and using a shorthand abbreviation would make it more difficult for any would-be spies if they ever started paging through his private notebooks.

  Not that he intended to give any the chance, making a point to keep his private texts on him until he had a secure space to leave them in.

  Fool him once.

  Apart from that, his remaining free time each day had been split between helping the various groups with camp chores, such as assisting in lugging clean water from the nearby river back to camp for cooking and cleaning, and practicing his actual potioneering.

  After getting a taste for brewing with reagents in the dungeon, Merrick found himself craving the chance to push his craft with the more powerful recipes. Unfortunately, the campsite was less than sterile and there was no supply of magically active ingredients for him to test.

  It was lucky, then, that most of his proprietary recipes for potions required only the dusts created from his failed [Merges].

  He’d even worked out a few under-the-table deals with people like Hugh, where he would trade swelling and pain reduction draughts for extra rations or services.

  Merrick found it amazing how much easier it was for him to gather materials to dust now that he wasn’t living in a Stronghold. It was as easy as picking up sticks and stones, literally, as opposed to having to purchase goods to [Merge] with coin pain-snakingly earned by hawking his wares without an alchemist’s license.

  He was still short on a few of the dusts he’d grown used to, which was both good and bad. Bad because he used them in a few brews he’d like to cook up, such as his wood polish, and good because that helped him narrow down exactly how he got them.

  His [Merge] lexicon was slowly filling in as he was able to narrow down what each work likely meant and he looked forward to the day that a new message in his [Skill Log] would be as simple as referring to his own notes to translate.

  “Tss,” Merrick hissed to himself as he, once again, cut his finger.

  It wasn’t a deep cut, but the small nicks on his hands were starting to add up.

  As it turned out, fletching your own arrow shafts wasn’t nearly as easy as James had made it seem. He didn’t have much else to do at that moment though and was in need of a few dusts that seemed exclusive to human-crafted or modified goods.

  The sun slowly rose over the horizon and Merrick tucked the mostly straight branch away into a bundle of other vaguely arrow-shaped shafts and hoped they’d give him what he needed. He took a long sip of a personal healing potion to start healing the scabbed-over cuts from the night's efforts before tucking that away into his cloak, which quickly changed its properties to safeguard the glass.

  A quick glance around showed that the hustle and bustle of the morning routine was subtly different than the past few days. There was an undercurrent of worry and anticipation that hadn’t been present before.

  Merrick picked up his belongings and wandered over to Hugh, ready to fill his stomach and help pack up to get the show on the road.