After an hour on the market Valthar went back to the Inn.
In his left hand a small pack of charred lizard meat and on his right the brown cane.
Entering the Inn he saw there were still people at the restaurant.
"Hey Little Jack, do you know if Marcos is awake?" Valthar asked at the reception.
"He is in the back Mister Valthar, you can just come in. " Little Jack nodded and pointed out to the door behind him.
Moments later Valthar walked in and found Marcos reading a book on the sofa.
"I just went to the night market and it looked as nice as you mentioned." Valthar said, putting the lizard meat on the table. "Care for a bite?"
"Lizard? That's a pricey one, not many of those around these parts." Marcos sniffed the air as he put the book down.
"It was around 5 silver, that shouldn't be a lot right? Just now I saw a story teller make a ton of silver in a few minutes." Valthar said as the old man went to get plates and cutlery for them.
"Must be a damn good story teller." Marcos scoffed as he brought the items and a bottle of cheap wine.
"I'd say he was alright, though he told a crazy story, he said…" Valthar confirmed before going on to retell the small tale.
"What do you think about it? Is this Thieve's Guild real?" Valthar asked at the end.
"The organization is real, they take protection money from the businesses at the edge of town." Old Marcos shook his head. "I'll tell ya this, no good thing comes out from that area, I blame the recent demon incident was caused by the terror they propagate around there."
"Really? I've walked at the edge of the forest everyday for a while and haven't seen anything crazy." Valthar glanced with doubt.
Not only that he had not seen anything, but he had not sensed it either.
And his life sense range was measured in kilometers.
"With the Church of Burning Light recent demon extermination of course things are calm for now." The old man scoffed, before adding with a serious tone. "But be careful mate, at any moment you might find a body out there."
"No need to worry friend, I can see trouble from a mile away." Valthar patted his chest and chuckled at his own words.
And while his words did sound like boasting only Valthar knew how true they were.
For the rest of the night they chatted a lot about what could the thieves be after.
A rare beast egg.
Maybe a strange magical stone.
Or even a bastard child from the emperor himself!
Much of what they spoke might have cost them their heads in the Capital.
However the Empire was large and the Emperor was far away.
*
The morning was still cold when Valthar walked out of the Inn.
Brown cane in hand and a pep in his step he was eager to progress in his ring formation.
At a normal pace it would take two more days to solidify his first ring, but if he collected life force both in the morning and the afternoon he could finalize it today.
So that was his plan.
In less than half an hour Valthar reached the treeline at the edge of the city.
That was less than half of the time compared to a week ago.
Through the days that passed his body was adapting to the scarce and chaotic internal mana.
Physically he felt far from good but overall he was a lot better than before.
As Valthar approached the first tree in his collection a dried branch caught his attention.
On it, a batch of grayed out leaves barely clung to it.
Carefully looking around he found other trees nearby also had graying out branches… The same trees he had collected life force in the last few days.
Quietly Valthar walks a bit deeper into the forest, picking other trees to syphon life force.
Slowly he walked from tree to tree, but Valthar's attention trailed the life energy from people at the edge of the city.
Last night as he was about to go up to his room the old man had reinforced his warning about the edge of the city.
Something about criminals being in bed with the nobles.
Honestly Valthar was already too drunk to care about the details and even now wasn't too worried about it.
Still, since he was already here taking some precautions made sense.
Soon minutes turned into hours as Valthar kept going until he felt the people underground enter his senses.
From here he normally would turn around and go back to the Inn.
The least he wanted was to encounter that ignorant guard again, lest he get a heart attack from her annoying words.
Today however he found a bush and hid himself.
Meditation lost effect with his mana veins broken, so now he could only wait as his body assimilated the life energy by itself.
With a last check of his life energy sense Valthar slowly fell into a nap.
*
In his sleep Valthar dreamed of a white room.
Tied to a wall by all limbs staring at a mirror right in front of him.
Valthar had had this dream ever since the purification and in his heart he felt this was far from the last time he would have it.
There is no terror, no fear, no happiness and no joy.
Only him, the white room and the mirror.
There Valthar was stuck staring at himself, powerless.
At some point small mumbles echoed in his ear and his consciousness stirs.
He had this dream before, there was no noise.
Nothing would change that, even himself was powerless in the white room of his own mind.
But if the sound wasn't an illusion that meant the voices were coming from the real world.
Valthar awoke quietly, in his life sense two people walked and talked neraby.