With a satisfied grin, like a feline who had just stolen a fish, he played with the Clear Spiritual Pill between his fingers for a while before placing it into a clear jade pot. With a yawn, he noticed that the warm spot above his navel had cooled considerably and thought he best leave the making of pills for the next day. Not only was his energy required to temper fires when pills making, he then had to use it to ensure the ingredients within the cauldron merged together and shaped into a pill. Now he had made one, he hopefully could create more. For now, all he wanted was a bath and his dinner.

He didn't linger for long in the cold lake water and fortune favoured him for his was quick to catch a fish. Better yet, he found a growth of mushrooms. He wasn't sure if they were edible, but he took a few to see if they were recorded in the diaries before noting where the rotten stump was, so he could later collect more if they were of some use.

He cooked the fish and threw another tuber into the embers, before watering the flower beds. There was the odd tiny shoot growing in the dirt, but he wasn't sure if these were herbs or weeds! He researched the mushrooms, but couldn't find details on them and didn't want to take the risk, so for now he left them in the tiny open shed beside the hut. He could always check the library.

As his spiritual energy still felt weak, he settled down to cultivate for a while until the heat rose happily throughout his body, before curling back into his stomach. Yawning, he checked the fire to make sure that the embers were secure in the pit (he didn't want to burn down the forest due to a petty mistake!) before returning to his bed and soundlessly sleeping the night away.

****

Leon created a total of ten Clear Spiritual Pills and two Burning Energy Pills before he ran out of Moth Tails and was unable to create any more. Actually he could have made four Burning Energy Pills, but the first attempt had ended up in much the same way as the Clear Spiritual Pill and the last pill, he had become too overconfident and poured too much of his spiritual power in both fire and cauldron and lost control. The resulting explosion had sent the cauldron flying ten feet and its contents poured out onto the ground.

He carefully placed the pills into clear jade jars, five Clear Spiritual Pills in each of the first two jars and the two Burning Energy Pills into a third. He couldn't help but wonder if it would be enough. With a sigh, he reached for his knife and found himself nervously carving a new talisman.

It's not that he hadn't experienced bullying in his past life, he had. He had always been a bit of a soft touch, paying for snacks and not getting compensated, helping with others homework until he might as well have placed his own name on the work... he had especially put up with such antics from his ex-boyfriend. But he had never been beaten. Though if you looked at it another way, Leo had been the one to suffer the beating, Leon had simply suffered the aftermath.

Ah, he hadn't thought about his ex for years, though it was debatable if you could really claim that their relations.h.i.+p was as boyfriends. Eddie had asked him out not long after his cla.s.smates had found out he was gay. It was a girl who had found him out; "I mean, seriously, are you gay or something?" were her actual words and he had not answered, instead turning red. Before they had become a 'couple', there had been taunts, words of disgust and naive a.s.sumptions, but Eddie was popular, not to mention rich. No one dared say anything about his s.e.xuality.

But as for them.. well they maybe held hands once? By the time Eddie had graduated, Leon had already realised that there was nothing more between them than a guy close to failing grades and naive boy willing to make study guides, do homework, even go through loads of test papers in order to predict the most likely exam questions.... Eddie had pa.s.sed, maybe not with flying colours, but either way, Leon had received a 'thanks' and 'I'll call you later.' The later never came and he'd already lost hope that it ever would.

"Ah Leo," he muttered to the former owner of his body. "W-We were destined to be someone else's s-stepping stone."