Alaric decided to take a little rest for the remaining portion of the day.
"Man, I already want to go back to the city. Isolation is the killer of humanity. When I come back I should see if I could hire someone to work with me. Depending on how much money I can drag out of this increased luck period, I might be able to scale up pretty quickly." Alaric was being affected by the luck greatly. Now that he had a general idea about what the curse entailed, he could use it to his advantage.
"Plus, the luck resets on transferral. So if l can find a likeminded person that would want to use the rod, then I can just do what Tiberius did and sell it. But I don't want to do the pound of flesh thing, that was weird… Getting money would definitely be a more ethical manner to trade. But depending on who I trade it to I could get information or resources. If they are an already established Esoteric Fisherman then I could work with them too." Alaric decided on his path for selling it.
"No matter what, I'm glad I have it. I might not even get rid of it depending on how the luck mechanic works. I still don't know if it can go into the negatives, or if it just rests at neutral luck." Alaric didn't truly understand the mechanic of luck.
"I don't even know how this thing has any enchantment. Whether it's traditional magic, or something Esoteric Fishing related I don't know. Don't really need to now for now. I just want to figure out how the practical mechanics work."
Alaric now wanted to go see the rat. It was already midway through the day and he hadn't seen the rat yet.
He went back into the crummy house to look for the rat.
The rat had already awoken.
"What's up rat?" Alaric found the rat crawling around some random gear that he had let fall on the floor.
He put his hand out for the rat to go on. He wanted to get the rat on his shoulder before he would exit the immediate premises of the house.
"You never know, you might help me like you did that one time. You're a useful weapon!" Alaric thought.
The rat couldn't exactly understand what Alaric was saying, but it would undoubtedly be elated at being referred to as a weapon.
The change in eyes was too obvious for Alaric to not notice. The rat was the closest living thing to him, so he was observant regarding him.
"Nice eye! Now we both have strange eyes." Alaric said to the rat that was unable to comprehend him.
Alaric pointed to his eyes and then the rats, and then the rat got a very vague idea about the conversation.
Squeak Squeak
The rat squeaked, trying to convey something that Alaric couldn't understand.
"Let me see it a little closer." Alaric took the rat closer to his face so he could get a good look.
"Huh, I feel like I've seen this kind of eye somewhere. It looks like a flesh monkey eye…" Alaric got his fishy eyes close to the rat.
"Definitely is. Don't get mind controlled by it." Alaric told the rat. He was thinking about the possibility of the fleshmonkey maintaining sentience through the transference of the eyeball.
"I'll keep a watch on you. If you start acting strange I'll help you out. Alaric said to the rat. Alaric had already seen the rat as a useful ally, but if it were to be able to gain power from the new eye, it would increase the rat's value as well.
There was definitely something to the eye of the rat. If anyone knew how much having strange eyes affected your life, it would be Alaric. For the past couple weeks, he had been transformed through his eyes. Although he was ignoring it, he would have to acknowledge his transformation eventually.
"Rat, I've been with you for a sec, and I consider you a friend. I need to think of a name for you now. It's getting tiring having to refer to you as rat. There are plenty of rats I could be talking about." Alaric switched gears now to thinking about a possible name for the rat.
"I'll go with Absalom. Good powerful name." Alaric decided on calling the rat this.
So the rats name is given.
The rat heard the name, and somewhat understood.
"You're Absalom. You're Absalom." Alaric continuously pointed to the rat to try to solidify in its mind the name. Alaric was generally aware that the rat had some intellect to it.
The rat understood what was happening.
He was now Absalom.
Due to the naming, Alaric and Absalom's relationship had ascended another level. Both of them saw each other as equals personally, and they both mutually respected each other.
They had ascended beyond the level of human and animal, reaching a new stage.
The fish in Alaric's eyes began swimming around in happiness.
Having a strong connection with others was a sure fire way to become more powerful. Having this mutual connection would likely be extremely useful for both of them.
They would be able to compliment each other's abilities more as well.
For the rest of the day, Alaric just relaxed. He walked around the house and surrounding area, and stretched out. He took a nice cleaning and practiced with his machete for a little. After seeing the battle, he wanted to increase his physical power by a little.
It would always be hard to decide whether economic and political power is stronger than physical power. In a world where magic and strange supernatural phenomena exist, there was an increased emphasis on martial might.
One would have to have an increased physical backing in order to advance politically and economically.
Meanwhile, Absalom was getting used to his new eye. He had gone for a large portion of his life without an eye, and he needed to be used to seeing the world through an enhanced lens.
Absalom also found a new drive inside of them. The drive to become one who doesn't lose.
Absalom twitched his leg, understanding the cells of his body on a deeper level.