Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

"Illyan, as you should already know, your theoretical knowledge of herbalism and medicine is already on par with mine. I taught you everything I knew in this profession. Now, you just need to practice, and one day, the day that will be soon here, you will surpass me. However, as a shaman, you must get to learn many other abilities than just healing and a little of spiritual manipulation. Unfortunately, your master is a sham himself and cannot say he is a full-fledged shaman, hehe."

Kaoran, who was taking pieces of wood from his pouches, was explaining to Illyan the meaning of being a shaman.

Illyan was listening with interest, as Kaoran was the strongest human, possibly even being, he had ever seen. Yet he calls himself a sham.

"The strongest shamans are whisperers of nature who can tame all animals with just a voice; they can shapeshift, travel the Spirit World at will while commanding all of the spirits, peer into destiny and see the path of the world itself, heal with the touch of their hands, and create artifacts that can protect their tribes. But the most powerful of all their abilities is the ability to create and set up the Totem. Totems connect the entire lineage of shamans and can use the power of ancestral spirits to create a ‘domain’. Our domain can just make a warm wind and hide us before the danger, but the best Totem can allow you to control this domain as if you were a god...."

The Bakur Tribe traveled across the Frozen Valas Tundra with all their might while trying to cover their tracks as much as possible so no animals or humans sensed their march.

Of course, that was impossible as they had simply too many people. Fortunately, only some weak tribes tried to rob them of food but were slain instead.

No normal animals were seen during these times as all escaped or got eaten by winter beasts.

Degres ordered others to preserve tribesmen's bodies as soon as they fell. Not for consumption. They weren’t cannibals to do such a thing. But they needed to get rid of the bodies as it would entice the winter beasts.

But since it was like this, it was better to keep them to use as bait when in need. Thanks to the cold, it would take a long time before they start to get spoiled. Even if they get a little rotten, those mindless beasts wouldn’t mind.

They were much stronger than normal animals, and their instincts were also much bigger and wilder. Because of that, they will eat any meat that gets under their fangs.

Thanks to this, the tribe learned to use any kind of meat as bait to entice away those beasts from the valley. Even now, the scouts use the meat when there is a need to get out of the way of some strong creature or entire herd.

When possible, they would just avoid confrontation, but sometimes avoiding is more difficult than just going straight. In that case, using the bait was the best option.

The problem is when they meet a smarter individual or make a mistake...

"As I said, most of those abilities were not recorded in the heritage that honored Bakur has stolen. Even going to the Spirit World is difficult for us. However, there are still things that you didn’t learn. Here..."

Kaoran handed Illyan a piece of wood. It was pinewood, wood that is almost everywhere in this place. But before he could ask, he got a second hand knife. Not a hunting one but one made for carving.

"To learn how to create Totems and amulets, you must learn crafts like carpentry and gemcraft and other kinds based on which materials you will use. Amulets can be created from anything, be it metal, gem, crystal, herb, feather, etc. What is really important is to make a design, cleanse it from negative energy and mortal dust, and make symbols on it based on your intention. We usually use the letters from the Bakur alphabet, but since it is a normal language, it is weaker than its full potential. The most important part is the attunement with the amulet, subsequent infusion of spiritual energy together with the intent why you are creating the amulet, be it protection, luck, or anything else.

Totems are similar, but for them, the simple infusion of energy won’t be enough. The spirit must be infused. But thanks to that, it is stronger than normal amulets and has active abilities instead of just passive ones like amulets."

With this explanation, he started to teach Illyan how to carve wood with a knife. Wood was the best for beginners and was the most used when it came to Totems, as wood is also part of life and can withstand for a very long time.

It wasn’t important to learn how to refine all kinds of materials. One was enough for Illyan. Once he gets better, he can go to learn the next steps and make his first amulet.

Of course, he doesn’t plan to stick with wood, but he can learn the rest of that later.

And so he carved every day.

A lot of the wood got wasted since he wasn’t good at it and was blind, but as time passed, he started to get the knack of it.

He had days of free time where he could only sit, so carving became his hobby at this point.

Firstly, he carved some simple shapes, but as he progressed, he started to carve some statues of animals that lived in the area. Snow foxes. Bears. Deers and mooses.

It was crude, but when he showed it to Kaoran, he said that it looked as good as it could be considering the time to learn.

"Actually, the animal statues are also a type of Totems. You trap the spirit of the animal within and can use it any time as a fighting force. I never tried it, though. It is extremely difficult to trap the spirit for this tribe. When done so, everyone with the affinity for spiritual energy helps, and it is usually when the ancestral spirit of the eagle in the Totem needed to be relocated to another Totem. Yet it takes almost all of the resources of that generation. But without it, our tribe wouldn’t be here already, so it is an acceptable sacrifice.

“I see. That means we will learn only the theoretical part about it, huh? In that case, learning about amulets first is better since I could take it to practice immediately. The feather amulet you created for me saved my life back then, after all."

Illyan gave up on totems since he couldn’t utilize them at this moment and instead focused on the amulets.

Kaoran also agreed with this and taught him how to make wooden amulets.

It took him another few days to completely familiarize himself with carving until he thought he was at an acceptable level.

"We will start with a bigger one. That way, you will have an easier time when scribbling the letters on it. Try to carve the word ‘Protection’ into it. Put your intent into it too."

The next step was carving. It was one of the easiest ones as the wood was soft, and he needed to just think about what the words meant so the intent came across properly.

The difficult step came after that. He needed to meditate to attune with the amulets, so they are compatible and connected. This was important, as the amulet wouldn’t work otherwise.

Illyan was quite confident in his meditation as his ‘Nature Breath’ method was already advanced. Thanks to it, he could feel the surroundings even without eyes. He needed extreme concentration for that, though.

And so he took his meditative posture with the carved wood in his arms, trying to attune it with himself.

Two Weeks Later.

He finally got the result and could go to the next step.

What he didn’t expect was that it would take such a long time. He was bewildered at this slow pace.

Fortunately, since he was making an amulet from simple wood, he didn’t need to cleanse it. This attunement was enough for any traces of bad energy to disappear as the wood got Illyan’s aura...

"Hahaha, if it was so easy to make amulets, then wouldn’t I create them in large quantities? It was always a pain in the ass to make even one, so I usually make one only when I come across very good material." Kaoran was amused by his face as he laughed heartily.

It was really unexpected that it would take so long. And he still wasn’t done!

The last step was to infuse energy.

"For how long do I do it?"

"This depends on you. The longer you do, the more energy it has. Of course, wood won’t withstand much, so you can stop one hour later. You should usually infuse energy within you, but since you don’t have any, the energy in the atmosphere will be enough. That will make the connection weaker, and the amulet would be more unstable, but it doesn’t matter." He waved his hand as if it was just a minor problem.

‘To you, it doesn’t matter, but for me, it would be a waste of several weeks…’

Illyan scrunched his face a little when he heard him, but instead of answering, he started to stir the energy around him.

It was much more difficult when he was in a sitting position since he couldn’t move his entire body to guide the spiritual energy. He could only wave with his hand which ultimately made the movement of energy around him much weaker than when he was fighting.

Furthermore, some of the tribesmen were staring at him with weird expressions as he looked as if he was striking something with his hand for hours straight…

"Finally..."

After two weeks, he finally made his first amulet. It was just a piece of wood, but he was holding it as if it was treasure.

"Not too bad, I guess. The fact that you made it on your first try is really delightful. Making amulets out of wood is the easiest, but still many fail on the first try. Now let’s try it out."

As Kaoran said that, he reached out his hand and pointed at him.

Before Illyan could say anything, a wind coalesced on the finger that was pointed at him and shot at him as an arrow.

His first instinct was to dodge it but it was too quick for him.

The second option was to block it so he reached out for his weapons only to realize they were gone from their place!

So the last option was to block it with his body while trying to not hurt any of the important organs or bones.

But as the air arrow reached him, a small invisible film of energy blocked it for a split second before bursting. The amulet in his arms brightened as the word ‘Protection’ pulsed with light until it cracked.

Boom

At the last moment, the air arrow dodged him and flew somewhere else.

Others panicked when they saw it, but when Kaoran waved his hand, they started to ignore it.

Illyan, on other hand, was touching the cracked amulet in his arms. His brows were incessantly twitching as he was frowning.

It took him several seconds to calm down, and his face turned expressionless right after.

Then he turned his head at Kaoran.

"As you can see, it couldn’t block even such a weak attack. So, for the amulets you make to be useful, you need to train and create a lot of them to be skilled. Now that you have learned the basics, I will be able to teach you only some tips and theoretical knowledge about materials and such."

"But you didn’t need to-"

"As such, we can start to teach you something else. Learning divination is essential for adventures where you do not know what kind of catastrophe will come out the next day."

‘I was ignored, huh.’

"So, Illyan, listen carefully. To learn divination to the level where it becomes useful, you need to devote a lot of time and effort. Future is blurry, and destiny is uncertain. Divination is one of the hardest arts in the world. It is a blessing that our tribe actually has some art that even has a chance to make a real divination. Not to mention, our arts are probably one of the easiest and least talent-demanding types. Divination is divided into active and passive ways of observation. I don’t know if the active one is real or not, but the passive way of observation is the mainstream way to divine something."