The Self Evolver.

Seeing him not as a cartoon character but as a real live person of flesh and blood was truly shocking for Turyn. However, he still managed to control his expressions and emotions as he didn’t want to give himself away as Trader Johann was known to be extremely perceptive of his surroundings which is how he detected that Viggo Grimborn had betrayed him.

“Trader Johann, it is a pleasure to meet you” Turyn said as he offered both a smile and a handshake.

“The pleasure is all mine” said Trader Johann as he shook Turyn’s hand weakly.

‘Truly an incredible actor’ thought Turyn as he felt Johann’s weak grip. ‘Every aspect of him screams a weak coward and I’m sure that if I didn’t already know that he was an incredible fighter and schemer from the films, I wouldn’t have been able to associate this timid man as the leader of a large dragon hunting organization.’

“So, what is it that you wanted from me young chieftain?” asked Johann as he took back his hand.

“Well, I heard that merchants tend to possess vast sources of information and so I was wondering if you might possess certain information about a certain village on a certain island”

“You heard well, merchants especially ones such as myself possess a vast source of information obtained through our travels including information of the places we visit and their residents.” Said Johann proudly as he lifted his exaggeratedly lifted his chest in pride.

“What place would you like to know about?”

“An island called Berk.”

“Oh” uttered Johann in surprise “if its Berk then you are in for a treat as I know everything there is to know about Berk, what would you like to know about Berk?”

“Everything, tell me everything you know about Berk and its people.”

*************

Turyn left the dock three hours later just in time for the ships to begin their journey across the vast Archipelago Sea.

He walked towards his house with a smile on his face as he had obtained a lot of useful information today for free about Berk and its residents. He had wanted to pay for the information of course but Johann had insisted on there being no charge as he justified that he rather enjoyed talking to him.

He opened his door to find his mother who was currently cooking dinner.

“You seem to be in a happy mood” she said as she looked at a grinning Turyn.

“Is it that obvious?” asked Turyn with a bit of embarrassment.

“As obvious as the sun rising and setting over the horizon”

“So what Is it that has got you so happy?”

Turyn walked towards his mother Helga and showed her the item he was carrying under his left arm.

It was a book with the image of a dragon skull with a spear running through each eye on its front cover. The cover itself was made of a tough coarse material that Turyn couldn’t even identity as it was not familiar to any of the leather he had ever seen, dragon or otherwise.

‘It must be leather curated from an entirely different and new dragon species’

The book was thick filled with hundreds of thick pages that made the book quite bulky and heavy.

With his mother watching, he opened the book to the first page which contained the title

A dragon hunters guide to hunting dragons, new edition.

He flipped the page one by one with each page showing the image of a different dragon each with their own abilities and features. Some had three claws others had four, some had long laws five times the length of a long sword. Some had rare metal for scales, hideous hides as tough as steel, poison and venom capable of killing an adult man in mere seconds, spines and spikes sharper than the sharpest blade and bodies as large as mountains.

Both mother and son looked in amazement at the numerous information displayed in the book. From dragons they were familiar with to dragons they had never even heard of.

Under each dragon was a detailed description of their looks, dietary needs, known habitats, their abilities in correlation to what body part, their weaknesses be it allergies or general weak points on their bodies and so much more.

It was much more detailed and informative than the book of dragons he currently possessed.

‘So this is how the hunters were able to stay ahead of Hiccup when it came to finding dragons.’ Thought Turyn as he glanced at the incredible book in his hands.

It made sense though as while Hiccup had began his journey of exploring the outer regions of the Archipelago in search of new dragons with no one to assist him, dragon hunters on the other hand were more united sharing knowledge of how to deal with various dragons accumulated over generations of trial and error with their fellow dragon hunters. It was what made them so difficult to deal with despite Hiccup having a huge advantage in terms of having a crew of flying death machines and the obvious air advantage. Granted Hiccup and his friends desire to only use non-lethal force and save every dragon also served as something that evened the odds for the Hunters who couldn’t fly.

 “This Is truly an incredible book Turyn, where did you get it?” asked Helga incredulously.

“I got it from Trader Johann as gift. He said it was something worth studying for those who wish to become great dragon hunters. He said that it would be especially helpful for me.”

“That I don’t doubt” said Helga as she ruffed his hair before returning to her cooking.

*****

That night, after everyone had already eaten and gone to sleep, Turyn snuck out and headed off towards the North where the training grounds and entrance to the northern forest was. He walked for a quite a while until he arrived in a clearing with no trees only a few stumps showing that the trees in this area had been cut down to be used by villagers.

He quickly searched the surrounding areas in case there was any wild animal or dragon hiding nearby as he didn’t want any unwanted interruption with what he was about to.