“Are you certain this is the best use of your abilities?”

  Nest proudly walked to the riverbank, fiddling with his newest carving. The sealant he’d covered it in was barely dry enough to finally test. “Yes, actually.” The dwarf hadn’t stopped considering this application of his abilities for two months.

  “Let him be, Rachel.” Joe slowly trailed behind the arguing duo.

  “It just seems wasteful,” Rachel replied. “Three days of cultivation time and he makes that? He only gets a limited number of uses out of what he makes. Even the stag was useful against weaker mobs while it lasted. He should be carving more combat creatures, not this!”

  “Yes, that would be very useful.” Nest continued to fiddle with the string attached to his carving. “But if this works, imagine what someone would pay for it? We live in Greed for heavenlies’ sake. There’s hundreds of merchants who would kill to get their hands on something like this!”

  Rachel stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t considered that fact. “Can other people use it?” she asked.

  Nest shrugged. “I don’t see why not.” As he reached the water, his smile doubled. It was time.

  With a heave, he whipped the long shaft of bamboo. The spool of string spun up and his carving went flying through the air to *plunk* into the water. He watched the slowly sinking wood for a moment. As it submerged fully, it began to twitch. A moment later, a lightly glowing bait fish began to twitch in the water like an injured and panicked meal.

  “Yes!” Nest shouted. “It worked! I wasn’t sure my intentions to make it injured would come through, but it did!”

  In an instant, nearly faster than Nest could track-the surface where the lure had been splashed into the air. His fishing pole doubled over as a catfish fought against the hooks and line he’d build into the small carving.

  Nest was no stranger to carving fishing lures. It was actually one of the first things he’d carved when he’d taken up the hobby, though the lure he was using now was of a much higher quality. When he’d found tupelo near the dungeon, a perfect wood for carving lures, he hadn’t thought twice about the opportunity.

  “Hells, did it actually work?” Rachel ran up to stand by Nest.

  Joe continued his walk. “That was fast.” The gnome had mostly recovered from the attack a couple months before, but outside of the dungeon and cultivating, he still took things slow.

  Nest fought against the fish that was by no means a monster, but would easily feed their trio after being cut up and fried. The evening was beginning to give way to dusk and it was nearly time for dinner. “I told you,” Nest struggled the words out as he fought the fish. “Any merchant would pay handsomely for something like this.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  ***

  Bellies full and laughter dying down, Nest and his new companions settled into silence.

  Nest reached into his bag, pushing aside the soul wood within and grabbing his rolled carving kit. He pulled out his knives and began sharpening the mundane carving tools against the edge of his perfectly honed ardite blade.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask-” Rachel pointed to his bag. “Why don’t you ever carve that wood in your bag?”

  Nest placed a hand on the bag as if to protect the secret of the soul wood he kept inside. He looked around at the other sinners in the room. He trusted Joe and Rachel at this point, but laws that protected sinners from having their soul items stolen, only protected in cases of soul steel. Even if he trusted sinners to follow the laws, soul wood didn’t fall into those protections. “Let’s find a private place to talk about it.”

  Rachel and Joe shared a look before Rachel nodded in agreement. “Okay. My room?” she asked.

  Nest nodded and the trio stood and retreated to seclusion for their conversation.

  ***

  “So, this piece of wood is part of your soul item?” Joe asked as he turned the mahogany over in his hands. “Set soul items are rare. I met a guy with a pair of ardite shin guards once on a big joint raid. Could kick through a dungeon boss’ skull but I nearly broke his hand when I shook it.”

  “We’re ignoring that it’s wood?” Rachel asked. “Not to mention that it’s unfinished? In this state, it would be like a dungeon boss dropping a chunk of raw ardite and it instantly binding to someone without being crafted.”

  Joe rocked his head side to side at that. “That is strange. What are you carving from it?” He tossed the hunk of wood back to Nest.

  The dwarf shrugged. “As it stands? Nothing. I’ve put hours of carving into this thing and I’ve barely scored the surface of the bark. My normal blades won't even scratch it, so I have to work at it with my ardite blade.” Nest looked the wood over. “Outside of that, I don’t know what I’ll carve. A part of me feels like I won’t really have a choice. Like the wood itself will tell me what it needs to be.”

  “Like the pull?” Joe asked.

  “Nest thought about that for a long moment. “Yeah,” he replied. “I think it’s something like that. It will tell me what it needs to be when the time comes. For now-” He dug his blade into the bark and the others watched as a fine sliver was slowly removed. Taking a deep breath, he looked back up. “I need to get the bark off.

  “Have you tried cultivating with it?” Rachel asked. “You’ve been doing really well so far and you said you can feel spirit energy collecting in the wood when you carve. Maybe that’s the key?”

  “Plus, you’re getting close to finishing your brain. Another week or two and you’ll be D-Rank One. That will make carving easier at least.” He shook his head with a smile. “Fucking dwarves.”

  Nest smiled back at him. “Not my fault gnomes couldn’t feel spirit energy if you whacked them over the head with it.”

  “I’ve been whacked over the head with it, I’ll have you know, and I definitely felt it,” Joe replied through laughter.

  Nest smiled back at his friend as he took the new shavings from the soul wood and placed them in a pouch he’d been using for that purpose. “Alright-” he nodded. “I’ll try it out tomorrow in the dungeon.”

  “About that,” Joe interjected. “You’re doing well enough that initial training is over. It’s time we move on to something a little more challenging. We aren’t going to the training dungeon tomorrow. We’re going after the real thing.”