A New Star Chapter 27

I led us back down through the common room, getting nods from a couple of Pietr's strongest enforcers. The others might not really understand my power, but the strongest knew, both my overall strength as well as my particularly swift growth. I noted that the materials I had dropped off had all been moved, and I grabbed my empty backpack from beside the door, double-checking that nothing else had been inserted before throwing both straps over a shoulder. I walked out the front door, the count following along behind me still, a relative non-participant in these affairs.  

"That was well done," the count said. "But you are in a bit of a precarious position." 

"How so?" I asked, glancing back over my shoulder to see the count placidly walking along behind me.  

"They're stronger than you," he said, and I don't know if he had more to add, as I let loose a great snort that more than interrupted him. 

"Emmanuel-may I call you Emmanuel?-Emmanuel, ninety percent of the people working for Pietr, which is not that many, all things considered, couldn't wipe their own asses with a whole regiments’ assistance. I highly doubt they pose me a threat," I said caustically. 

"You may call me Emmanuel," he replied with a tone of weary frustration. "However, I do not believe your conclusion that they could not defeat you. And you must be wary of becoming overconfident; that is a path to ruin." 

I turned around, looking at him calmly as he stopped and looked down at me, though he did not have very far down to look. After staring at him for a few moments, just as he was about to speak, I said, "Emmanuel, that whole crew couldn't hurt me if I was blind drunk and had both hands tied behind my back. You seem to be under a few mistaken notions right now, so let me disabuse you of a few of them. After our training duel, you seem to think you have a good grasp of my strength. You do not. Further, you seem to believe that a few mangy dogs barking loudly would be enough to overwhelm me. I have fought battles where the blood and gore, the remains of powerful warriors and guardians, was piled waist-deep farther than the eye could see. I have killed man and monster alike that no other dare even face in open combat. I have survived wounds and depravity that are almost beyond the scope of mortal comprehension. The little crew of misfit doofuses that Pietr wields like a shoddy cudgel would find me a very different beast if they attempted to seriously battle with me. I assure you; I treat them as a joke because they are." 

"I repeat my warning about overconfidence," the count said as I turned and resumed my journey back to the walls of the town. 

"Let me ask you a question, Emmanuel," I said as we moved through an alley to the wall.  

"Okay," he replied, and I could picture him stroking his beard without having to turn and glance at him.  

"How skilled with weapons do you believe those men and women are?" I said quietly. 

"Hmm," was his response, very clearly stroking his beard. I let him ponder it a moment, walking through the wall with the power of The Dark while he thought. It didn't interrupt his processes at all, a gentle breeze signaling the count's arrival beside me as I started walking back to the estate.  

"I would rate them rather low," he said eventually, a bit reluctant. "I simply do not believe they have anybody there of greater skill than Expert, and I would say none of them are at Peak in the grade. Not even close, really." 

"And you worry they would…what? Overwhelm me?" I asked as we walked toward the estate.  

"Even a great warrior can be cornered by superior numbers," the count insisted. "Just because your skills are a bit above their level doesn't mean that you are immune to the weight of their numbers." 

"If a skilled warrior can be brought down by a pile of trash, he isn't a skilled warrior," I retorted sarcastically. "Besides, who ever said my skills were just a bit above theirs?" 

"Just to be clear, are you saying you haven't shown everything? Is that what these hints you are dropping are alluding to?" the count asked me, his tone a bit grumpy. 

"Emmanuel, do you often go about showing off your full strength and the full range of your capabilities? Please do not tell me my new tutor is someone of such…lacking discretion," I said calmly. 

"I understand what you're saying, but at your level, a little bit of difference isn’t going to be that much," he replied. 

"A little bit," I said with a sigh as we approached the estate. "How do you rate my skills with the blade, currently?" 

The count blinked a bit as I glanced over my shoulder at him as we came up to the front gate before answering, "I would say you are a very competent Expert. If I were to hazard a further guess, which is what you seem to be leading me to do, I would say you might truly be, or have been, a Master." 

"A Master, is it?" I asked him as the guards passed us through.  

"Surely not a Grandmaster?" he said in some evident surprise. 

"Surely not," I said airily as I led the way up the drive to the front doors, pushing the right door open and stepping into the foyer.  

"Hmm, well, even were that your skill in the past, it is not your present skill," he said in a warning tone.  

"If you think a little bit of time has dulled my skill, you and many others are going to find themselves sorely mistaken," I replied coldly, heading back to my lab to drop the bag off. The count followed me down into the basement, making no comment as we traveled through an area normally only frequented by the servants and guards. I opened the door to my lab to a slight creak of the hinges, putting oiling them on my list of things to do at some point this month, and held the door a second so it didn't swing shut in the count's face. The doors for the workshops in the basement were all weighted to swing closed when not held, which seemed a sensible safety measure to me.  

"An impressive setup," the count said. 

"Don't patronize me," I replied with a small roll of my eyes. "I understand exactly what I am working with." 

"You must take frame of reference into account," Emmanuel replied, stroking his beard. "You are six and researching a profession nobody much cares for anymore. To have a full laboratory set up and functioning is rather surprising to see." 

"You are well aware I am not an ordinary six-year-old," I replied coolly, taking out the last few things from my belt pouch that had not been for sale with Pietr's gang. 

"Still, it should be said," the count said, his cane tapping as he walked about the room, examining the items I had made and the ingredients, some in various stages of preparation, that were scattered about the many shelves and tables. He leaned rather close to a bottle of a mild acid, but I wasn't going to go warning him off sticking his nose into something he shouldn't be. He was supposed to be the adult in this situation, and I let him wander while I cleaned a few things and got some preparation work done.  

"Are you going to brew now?" he asked. 

"That was the plan," I said calmly. "Since I have no idea, now, what my schedule going forward will be, I need to try to stock up on supplies for Pietr's operation." 

"I assure you; you will have plenty of time," Emmanuel said. "I don't think your parents realize the full gravity of what…who you are, but I understand there is very little I truly need teach you. We will likely cover a few lessons on history and economics, but I more envision having to bring you up to speed on certain matters rather than teach you from scratch. If it were some other child of about your age, I would be laying plans for several years of basic reading and writing training, coupled with a few years of basics in weapons and fighting. Considering you have a very firm grasp of many subjects and are a rather skilled warrior, I do not see our schedule over the next few years to be particularly onerous." 

"All well and good, but you hope for the best and plan for the worst," I responded to him, getting ready to concoct the first batch of pills of the day. 

The count stuck around for the rest of the afternoon as I did my concoctions, watching my alchemy work with some apparent interest. He asked few questions, thankfully, but they were all incisive and to the point, getting the most information for the least effort on his part. I explained what I felt I could with some skill, though he did ask a few questions on the basics of mana manipulation that I didn't want to delve too deeply into. I had my own understandings, from my previous life primarily, and I saw no reason to share what could very likely be extremely valuable insights for free. There was also the problem that I really didn't have a very masterful grasp of the way mana was handled in this world and didn't want to dive deep into some highly technical discussions while I was trying to brew a large batch of pills.  

The count dismissed himself for the day as I stated I was done with alchemy, telling me he would see me the following morning before disappearing through the closed door with a puff of wind. A neat trick, that, but it was not quite as powerful as my ability to walk the Dark Paths, in all likelihood, though our difference in grade likely made up for that somewhat. I finished cleaning my lab, having two rather decent-sized jars of pills to show for the efforts of a few hours. It was a lot of product to have made so quickly, but I wasn't trying for some perfect, Z-grade pill of immortality, instead just brewing up C-grade pills to dump into Pietr's ever-hungry supply chain.  

The cleanup complete and the jars left on a shelf, I closed up my lab and headed to the kitchen, wherein I had a perfectly fine dinner before heading back to my room. I took a long bath, an indolent luxury and the one indulgence I allowed myself thanks to my socioeconomic status in this new world. After bathing it was time for bed, and my maids had appeared at some point, helping me dry and dress in nightclothes before tucking me in. I had simply gotten used to their behavior at this point, finding it far easier to go along with them than to fight their ministrations. I would, however, countermand their orders or dismiss them from the room if they tried to dress me or detain me in a way I found intolerable.  

Emmanuel, true to his word, popped up the next morning, observing my training in the yard. He watched the rest of the recruits, watching them a rather lot more than he watched me, I noticed, but he did keep an eye on me. He made no comment on my blade work as I went through the forms of the art I had practiced for centuries, merely observing me with keen interest. When I was done for the morning, we ate together, the count not appearing bothered by my choice of dining in the kitchen itself. He shared a large plate of freshly cut fruit and we each had a section of roast with gravy and chunks of a tuber that had been pan fried.  

After lunch, he took me to the library, where we spent a couple hours going over history, though he did say he was still just trying to get a handle on what I knew and didn't know. After that, he again attended me in my lab as I concocted some more pills for Pietr, though I wouldn't be making more without going out, as I was out of readily available ingredients for any of the recipes I knew. I had two full jars and part of a third, though I was not set on immediately running to Pietr with them, as I operated on my schedule, not his demands. I cleaned up for the day, the count disappearing right before it was time to get some actual work done, a pattern I was already noticing.  

The next week or so proceeded in much the same fashion. I continued to work on my physical training in the yard in the mornings, the count would quiz me about this or that, often teaching me just a bit to fill in some gaps, and then I would either conduct some alchemy experiments or train my affinities in the late afternoon into the evening. Despite having no more materials to make pills, I still had the materials to create certain potions as well as to experiment with certain recipes.  

The way that new things were discovered in alchemy was very much a process of degrees of trial-and-error, with people iterating on the same recipe for decades to find better combinations of ingredients to produce the same effect. Another high art of alchemy was finding substitutes, in much the same vein, as old recipes could have ingredients that were extinct, or varied from what they were hundreds of years ago, or even that were simply called something different now. Old recipes had been revived from the dead in several cases by long periods of experimenting discovering either a substitute for one herb or, in such cases, the herb was not named or referenced the same way anymore.  

The routine changed slightly after the first week or so as the count disregarded the discussion of my knowledge and began giving some general lessons in history. Otherwise, the rest remained the same for a couple weeks, the lessons on history the only real difference. I journeyed out to the Wilds twice in that time, under the count's watchful eye, and gathered quite a few ingredients solely for my own use. On such occasions, I largely avoided any beast or monster that was present, sticking mainly to a stealthy approach to gather herbs and minerals before returning home. I did kill a few beasts for their cores and other valuable parts, but dismantling beasts was time-consuming, and to get real value out of them without being wasteful, I had to venture into town and deal with Pietr's gang, which I was never eager to do. I must not make it seem like I operated at Pietr's mercy; it must always be clear to the man that he had the business and connections he gained through me at my pleasure. I was not one of his subordinates. 

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