Chapter 328: Lonely Shadow in the Wilderness

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"Shut up already, this is getting tiring," Aether said, wiping the blood from his face.

Lying down near the dead bodies of another gang of bandits, he couldn’t help but feel tired. This place was hell; the number of bandits in this place was actually exaggerated, and he wasn’t. He hadn’t seen that many before, so this was probably why. They all reigned here, in the Lowlands.

"But damn, is it annoying, and the worst part is that they don’t even have anything on them." He said, poking out of their dead bodies with Voidpiercer, before letting the blade retreat back into his arm.

Looking at the compass, he was still going in the right direction; nothing had changed, which probably meant that he was still far from the shard. It made him wonder just how big this place was... and how one got to the Highlands, since if he had to say, it was probably where the shard resided, if he had to guess.

"I’m probably going to have to find a way to get food. I’ve seen some animals around, but they’re fast, really fast. I’m not sure if chasing them with my blade in the mist is a great idea, even more in a place like this, filled with bandits."

Aether looked around, noticing a string on one of the bandits’ dead bodies. Grabbing it, he examined it. It looked pretty strong.

’But is it strong enough, and is this even a good idea?’

Was there a reason not to try?

Putting the string in his pocket, Aether got up and started wandering around, searching for something, and not long after, a while, he found it. A tree, well, not one like the others, after all, he had passed by many fir trees, but they wouldn’t work that well for what he had in mind. Instead, what he had found now, and the thing he had been searching for, was a young sapling.

Aether quickly broke off all the branches connected to the sapling before using the muscles in his arms to take it out of the ground, taking off all the roots. Lifting it up in the air, it looked big enough.

So he summoned voidpiercer, and at both ends, he cut in a bit, that way, bending the wood, he could wrap the rope more easily.

A bow, that was what he had wanted to make.

"Not bad, I guess, for my first time. It’s not like I’ve had anyone teach me how to make one."

Grabbing the rope and pulling it back, he tested the bow. And so far, it seemed to work, of course, that wouldn’t mean anything without arrows. But since he didn’t have those either, he was going to have to make those also. The thing is, he really didn’t know how he was going to do that. With the bow, he had a rough idea, but for arrows...

After a while of thinking, Aether’s eyes went back to the branches that he had pulled off earlier.

"They aren’t the best, but they will do." With the wooden part of the arrow done, the next time he was going to need was the arrowhead. And this was probably going to be the easier part, but the one that took more time.

Taking a rock big enough from the ground, Aether sat down and started to chop at it with Voidpiercer. He was lucky he had a Seeker blade to help him instead of a small knife, since he wouldn’t have been able to cut straight stone with a knife, but Voidpiercer, even if it could, but he was going to have to use the tip. Which is why it was going to take a long time and precision.

Aether took a deep breath as he started to shape the rock.

And after around an hour. He saw done.

But lifting it up in the sky and examining it...

"It’s... not as close to an arrowhead at all..." It was safe to say he wasn’t the best at crafting them, but it was his first time. The stone’s tip was in no way sharp; it was pretty dull, plus, the sides were not the same; one was bigger, closer to the shape of a square than a triangle, and the other was too thin.

"...Let’s try again..."

Taking another rock from the ground, Aether resumed his work, this time he put more thought into it, not rushing to finish it. After all, he needed to be really precise to be able to actually create one that was good enough to kill something, and hopefully, on the first try, since he really didn’t want to make more than one arrow.

It had taken him more than double this time... and even now it wasn’t the best, he had made it more symmetrical, and the tip was sharp, but barely.

"It’s... good enough."

Ironic, for someone who says surviving is his strong suit, basic survival was pretty hard.

Aether went back to the bandits he had killed earlier, looking for more string, and luckily, there was more.

He sighed, relieved he wasn’t going to have to search for it.

Taking out the wood and the stone arrowhead, he used the rope to connect the two of them. Though he had to hope that it was going to be enough, after all, he had to leave some rope for later.

Speaking of it... How was he going to get feathers?

He hadn’t seen any chickens so far, and even then, it would be the same problem of having to wander in the mist while there was a high chance of being attacked.

But then he got an idea.

Walking through the Lowlands, he looked around at the trees around him until he found a bird nest. "Jackpot." Climbing onto the tree, Aether picked up all the feathers that were in the nest. Connecting them to the arrow.

"Finally done." He said, relieved, as he looked at his own handmade arrow. If he were to bring it to an archer or a professional at making them, they would laugh in his face, but after all, he was someone who fought with a blade, not a bow. How was he supposed to know how to make a bow and an arrow?

Though even if now he had the equipment to hunt, he was in no way done... after all, he had never used a boy in his life, he would be stupid if he just went to hunt without having any idea of how it worked.

So he went to a rock, and using his paint brush, the one he had bought from the marketplace in the Withered, he painted a target.

Stepping back, he took a deep breath, aligning the arrow with the rope of the bow, and squinting his eye, as he slowly pulled the rope, aiming for the target. But before he let go of the string, he quickly realized something.

"I should probably use the other arrowhead... I don’t want to ruin this one."

Slowly moving the string back into its natural place, he took out the arrow, took out the arrowhead, and replaced it with the other one, the first one he had made. If he were to fire the arrowhead into a stone wall, it was bound that its barely sharp tip was going to flatten quite quickly, maybe after just one try, so it was better to use the other one for training, it’s not like an arrow could ever pierce through a stone wall.

Well, maybe if you have a bow relic of a high class, and some strong arrows too, and by strong, he meant also relics of a high class.

Putting the arrow back in once more, he took a deep breath again, as he pulled the string back. He had to say, keeping the balance of the bow was pretty hard; who knew that keeping a steady form was so hard, even for a Reader.

Aiming directly towards the center of the target, he let go of the string, watching as the arrow launched itself...

Straight into the ground.

Aether blinked twice, staring at the arrow in embarrassment.

"I should probably pull the string more next time." He chuckled to himself nervously.

Speaking of it, only now had he noticed that he had started to talk to himself more; well, he did that a lot before, but not out loud. Maybe because he had gotten used to people being around him?

Still, it was unimportant, putting the arrow back into place for the third time, he pulled the string yet again, this time further back than before, so that it could travel further.

He waited and then fired the arrow.

Yet when he looked at the target, the arrow was nowhere in sight; he had hit the wall, just not close to the target at all.

"How did Avrie make it look so easy?"

He sighed.

"Looks like I’m going to have to try again."