I Found a Door to the Elven Realm

Chapter 182: Shopping for the Farm

The portal snapped shut behind him and he was back in the farmhouse hallway.

He checked his mana. 296 left in the Dungeon Heart Fragment’s reserve. His personal pool was empty from the portal but it would regenerate naturally over the next few hours. The Fragment though, that battery was his lifeline for inter-dimensional travel and he’d just spent over 700 points on a twelve-minute trip to make out with his business partner.

Worth it though.

But the Fragment’s remaining 296 mana meant he needed to be careful. Crossing to Evon required a hundred mana per second. Three seconds of portal would cost 300. He had 296 which was four mana short of a three-second crossing.

I need to recharge this thing in Evon. The Dungeon Heart Fragment absorbs ambient mana from the Evon atmosphere.. If I go over tomorrow morning and spend a few hours near the Totem or in the forest the battery should fill back up.

But that brought up the real issue.

The Totem.

It was probably burned and destroyed without a sudden miracle happening on that side.

He hadn’t seen it since the evacuation and the last image burned into his memory was that small tree with its yellowing leaves and the middle area of the village, they were all surrounded by fire.

The village elders, Galadrim specifically, had told him once that the Totem was tied to every elf born under its protection. If the tree died every elf from that village would lose something. Nobody knew exactly what because it hadn’t happened in living memory but the words Galadrim used translated roughly to "the roots of the soul go quiet."

Whatever that means it doesn’t sound good.

The Totem was also their anchor point. The village existed because the Totem’s barrier kept the worst creatures out. Without it there was nothing stopping the Orcs, the centaurs, the armored turtles, the bus-sized centipedes and everything else in the Jade Forest from walking straight through the village square. And even the skills of elves were tied to it.

There were so many enemies, like the new boss of the Kobolds, Orc Tribe, Wyverns, Drakes and much more.

And speaking of the Jade Forest.. the clone’s memories included something important he didn’t have time to investigate before.

About forty kilometers northeast of the village, past the swamp where the Clone had died, there was a region of old-growth forest where strange fruit grew. The transparent colorless fruits that boosted Perception stats. And somewhere deeper in the same area the ones protected by centaurs, those golden fruits that gave fifty Luck points each.

The universe was literally bending probability to keep him alive and giving him extraordinary things one after another.

And then his luck ran out just after he boosted his luck.

It was a bit..

Eren walked through the farmhouse and out the back door and sighed.

The afternoon sun was warm on his face and the olive grove stretched out in rows toward the south. Elves were moving between the trees as some were exploring the property boundaries while others were already pulling weeds from the old mushroom beds.

"I need to go back.." he whispered while watching them. "Not just for the Totem. There’s fruit in that forest that could change everything."

Fifty Luck points would put his Luck stat to work in wonders on Earth missions Kalina was cooking even right now. And the Perception fruits could push his awareness to levels that might actually let him detect the dragon before it was on top of him or help him here for spy acts.

But the centaurs guarding those fruits had killed five shadow-teleporting foxes or even worse things according to his Clone’s memories. Those were creatures that could literally teleport through shadows but still had been crushed by centaurs.

Eren tried to a short "what to do in Jade Forest list" in his head.

First of all, center of the Clone’s entire five-week survival strategy had been built on one simple rule: take the fruits or magical shit and run!

Second of it all was never fight things you don’t know what magical shit they can pull off from their ass. Never!

Third and the last one was speed! Just be faster than everything and all no matter what.

So I will check the totem then go into the forest and see the places clone lived while hanging around in his night spot to spend time for mana recharging.

Then before using the portal, I have to grab some things and come back.

I won’t fight or hunt things for levels or skill upgrades. At least tomorrow will be just exploration.

He could do that. Maybe..

Actuallt with Kinetic Flux Runner at Evolution League 2 and his 71 Agility stat he was faster than most things in that forest. Probably the dragon was a hard exception but apart from that and Drakes, Eren convisted himself that even wyverns couldn’t catch him.

The centaurs were faster than Clone in some things but Eren was a monster of his own league. The monkeys that guard the physical durability fruits were a must go location after thingking about his travel path. And some of the small fruit guarding locations of other magical animals were actually might be manageable if he went at the right times.

His brain didn’t stop for planning for tomorrow and the list was getting longer with every thought. He needed to stop planning and start doing something useful today.

Like shopping!

..

The nearest town was about twenty kilometers from his farm property. A small place on the coastal road with a hardware store, a general market, a couple of restaurants and a livestock feed shop.

Eren took the old pickup truck that Rosa had been renting for the last two months then finally offered to buy it last week and happened three days ago and Rosa bargained like crazy to lower it’s price.

This was the first car they owned. Both didn’t have enough money to move on together before so even Eren’s motorcycle was a miracle in their budget. Then he went to the Evon Universe and things happened.

This truck was a white Ford Ranger from probably 2008, dented on both sides with a check engine light that never turned off.

Rosa said she’d gotten it for dirt cheap from a guy in Canakkale who was "happy to get rid of it" which in Turkish usually meant the thing was one bad pothole away from exploding and needed fixes in repair shops too many times. But strangely it worked and never made her life hard in this time. Maybe she was lucky but the car looked solid as a rock.

Eren smiled with seeing this old car. It was the first time he owned a car even though he used many for his work with Kalina before. He wasn’t an expert on these things obviously but still this area had thin empty roads.

The inside of the car was messy but smelled like tobacco and old leathery things, but it had a flatbed on the back big enough to carry lumber and supplies.

In fifteen minutes he got used to using it. There was an old usb stuck in the radio panel which had old country Turkish songs from 90’s.

"You got to be kidding with me..!" The songs were from a different era. His family still got their tv and old music channels and listened these songs. They didn’t know youtube or smart phones and this car reminded him his family.

Maybe I should get them here..

Driving through the Turkish west coastel countryside in autumn, it felt bizarre after six months of walking everywhere on foot in a medieval fantasy forest.

The thin and crooked asphalt road was as smooth as it can be in these village areas. The steering wheel vibrated in his hands and he was sometimes singing songs without realizing he knew most of the lyrics of this old songs.

It was one of the most refreshing experieneces he got in the last stressful month.

The town was quiet when he reacted there. A few shops open, some old men drinking tea outside a cafe, a stray cat sleeping on a wall. Normal Turkish coastal town energy.

Eren parked the truck and walked into the hardware store first. He needed lumber for bed frames, basic shelving and repairs. The guy behind the counter was a heavy-set man in his fifties with a mustache that deserved its own zip code.

This guy had a wild west energy with this style.

"What are you building?" The man eyed Eren’s size and height. Almost two meters tall and built like someone who punched trolls for exercise. Not exactly the typical customer in a small town hardware store.

"Animal shelters and some places will be fixed in the barracks." Eren kept his voice casual. "Just bought a farm property on the coast side. Got some livestock that need proper housing before winter."

"Which property?"

"The old mushroom place."

The man’s eyebrows went up. "Hahahaha.. I remember that. I was a young boy and needed some cash, so my big brother and I worked for that place for a week. Then they didn’t pay us and we left. Good for their failure by the way. Fuck em...You aren’t related to them right?" His face was geniune when he said fuck them- so Eren smiled and shook his head. "No. We just bought it with government incentives and some help."

"You bought that whole thing or hust a part of it?" Eren learned that government incentives would sometimes split apart a giant territory for a proper use if there are different ways for it. For example his new territory had a olive trees area and also a big farming section which was empty or herding territory on the side of the sea with a cool view.

"No all of it. But we bought it as a family." Eren loaded lumber planks onto the counter after asking which ones were the best for the job and tried not to make eye contact with the old man drinking tea who was staring at him from the corner.

He muttered something like "Must be a big family."

The hardware store guy nodded but he had that look. The "this guy doesn’t quite look Turkish but he speaks like he grew up on the same block as me" look. Eren’s features were sharper now, his frame too big, his jaw too defined. The half-elf transformation had made him handsome enough to be memorable and it was the last thing he wanted to be in a small town.

He didn’t look local, hell- he didn’t look like his nationality anymore. Elf genes ruined his average look.