Brom couldn’t help but gawk in surprise. Where were the earth golems? Why wasn’t the dryad attacking? These humans and elf seem to have a preexisting, telepathic relationship with the giant tree of the clearing, but the dryad had just spawned a few days ago, so how on Vir is that possible? The longer that Brom watched, the more confused he became. It felt like everything he should know about the situation was wrong.
As Brom watched, the trio collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. It seems like the tree became extremely agitated, as the vines and branches up in the air started to creak and groan and whip about. That lasted for all of eight seconds, until the shirtless man wiped his bloody nose and sat up. As he started talking, six red berries fell from the sky, and the dryad finally made its move. It picked the berries up and brought them over to the group on the ground. It seems they suffered an unintentional mental attack. Something Brom was keenly aware of and took vigorous notes about.
“So,” Brom whispered to himself, “the tree in the middle of the clearing is either telepathic, or the dryad spawned from it was hiding itself and only reformed a few days before the group was expected to come back and also has telepathy. Regardless, I need to investigate this group when I get back. It’s times like this that I wish I had upgraded Identify to get more information.”
As Brom listened, he learned their names were Ragnar, Taryn, and Aspen. Ragnar being the barbarian and possible leader of the group, Taryn the archer and possible scout of the group, and Aspen looking to be a magician and researcher, given her tendency to go quiet at times and ramble on for quite some time once she got started talking.
Magicians were an odd bunch. He could never get a hold of magic, other than his ability to sense it. Speaking of which, he sensed more mana coming from the dryad as it moved. The amount of mana in it was enough to rival court magicians, so he had no doubts that it could be responsible for causing the tornado from before.
But dryads are typically protectors of the forest. What could have been here that was strong enough to warrant such an extreme showcasing of magic? Don’t tell me… Was the dryad showing its dominance over the earth elementals in order to make them not harm this group?
Brom’s head was racing with possibilities, but in the end, he decided that he had heard enough. His eavesdropping had confirmed that the giant was in fact here, or at least that this ‘Willow’ character knew where it was. He also confirmed that it was alive, but that this group was going to try and kill it using Fire Magic. He could respect the hustle, but he also needed to get this information back to his employer as soon as possible. If done fast enough, it’s possible he might be hired for a rescue mission instead of just a recon mission.
“No, no, you need to rotate the air and mana. Once it’s going fast enough and has enough force, fire will appear! Imagine the air combusting into a ball of flame!”
“I’M ROTATING THE DAMN AIR, ASPEN! I’VE BEEN ROTATING IT! THERE’S STILL NO FIRE!”
Aspen recoiled at my mental outburst, and I disconnected from her long enough to regain control of my emotions. We had been going at this for hours, and she kept saying the same thing over and over. I just wasn’t getting the concept she was trying to get through to me.
From what I knew, fire needs three things: fuel, heat, and oxygen. Aspen was eliminating both fuel and heat and trying to get me to make fire through just spinning air around.
I reconnected to her and gave a half assed apology before also connecting to Axel and Archy. “Look, I’m sorry for my reaction, but you’ve been telling me the same things over and over. It’s not helping. At this point, you all might as well go hunting for Orcs while the sun is still up, and we can pick this back up when you return. I just need a break; this is stressing me out too much.”
Axel picked up his weapon and spoke up. “I agree. I’m sure you must be getting low on mana as well, so it’ll be a good chance for you to replenish it before trying again. Aspen, grab your staff and let’s head out. I’m getting hungry, and I’m in the mood for some pork belly!”
I chuckled a little at that, as I still had 95% of my mana left. I was just getting bored of hearing the same thing over and over.
Archy and Aspen both grabbed their gear and headed out. With them finally out of the picture, I decided it was time to try figuring out Fire Magic on my own. I mean, I figured out Air Magic, Water Magic, and Earth Magic pretty much on my own, so this shouldn’t be so hard, right?
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What Aspen had been suggesting sounded pretty much like a rasengan from Naruto using Air Magic. Now don’t get me wrong, I would love to figure out how to get one of those going, but it wasn’t what I was looking for right now. I needed actual Fire Magic.
To continue my personal path to true avatar-ness, I imagined a flammable gas collecting in one specific spot, like propane. I kept it to a small area, around 1 inch in diameter, to minimize the amount of explosion for if I messed up.
Next, I Imagined every molecule of gas bouncing into each other, exciting each other, and using that excitement to increase their speed, all while staying in the confined bubble. Once they picked up enough speed, I imagined them getting warmer, like on a hot day. Then I picked up the imagery from warm to hot like an oven.
When I increased the imagined temperature, the gas started to react. At first, it started to almost steam a little, but then it actually ignited! I had fire!
I was waiting to get the notification for it, but I guess that little, short-lived flame wasn’t enough to warrant getting the skill for it. I guess my next step is to increase the size of the ball of gas.
I increased the diameter of my imagined bubble from one inch to three inches. I’m sure this will be enough. I started the vibrating process again, this time using a bit more mana. I got a larger ball of flame and a very small fwooshing noise as it erupted, but still no system notification.
“Alright, damn it. I guess it’s time to go big or go home!”
I started the process over again, jumping from three inches all the way to three feet! Let’s see if the damn system ignores this!
The resulting fireball was hot enough to actually singe a couple of my closer vines. I guess Fire Resistance doesn’t make me fireproof. I’d hate to see what the damage would have been without it, though. That little stunt cost me 1% of my health. Which is already regenerated. Hah.
The resulting bang was apparently loud enough to draw the Laughing Viper trio back, because I soon heard the shouts of Aspen and Archy asking if I was alright. As soon as they were within range of my Telepathy skill, I connected to Aspen and replayed the memory of what I did to her and emphasized my extreme disappointment at the continued lack of a system message showing I had learned Fire Magic.
Aspen smirked at me before explaining, “So, what you’re doing isn’t technically Fire Magic. Technically, you’re just making the air explode. The key is to sustain the explosion at a much lower intensity for a longer time. The only thing you’re missing is the longevity of the mana work. Once you get the fire to feed off your mana instead of the explosive air – which is a WILD concept, might I add – you will have achieved Fire Magic. Just switch your focus from the air to your mana, and you’ll be fine!”
“Why couldn’t you have explained that in the first place! What I was doing had nothing to do with rotating air!” I felt so exasperated with her that I just dismissed the group again to try to get some peace. I needed to calm down before trying again, so I decided to check out my neighboring trees again. It has been a while since I tried contacting them.
I reached a tendril of thought out from one of my roots and connected to the tree I had first made contact with.
“Hello there, cousin. How have you been lately? Seen any interesting squirrels lately?”
I knew the answer of course. My Domain of Awareness now fully encompassed this tree, roots and all. I could see everything that was going on around it, even underground. Its roots were intertwined with my own, making me feel oddly close to this tree. Honestly, it felt like it was me, just an extension that I had no control over. Kind of like a hand that had gone numb from leaning against a desk for too long in my old life.
I miss having hands.
I shook myself out of my spiral and went back to checking out my neighbor.
I had damaged it partially a few days ago with my little tornado stunt, but it has since then fully healed. That was also in part because of me, since I had reattached the limb using my Health Berries. I still felt a bit bad about that though. Maybe I should try giving it a bit more of my resources to fully make up for it?
I took direct control over the root that was closest to it and started directing it to grow around the tree’s roots. I wouldn’t encase it completely, but I wanted to ensure that it received some nutrients straight from me. I redirected some of the sugars flowing through my roots to this one in particular, and forced my root to grow inside of the other tree’s root. Then I used a combination of Water Magic and Body Manipulation to force some of my nutrients into its body.
I didn’t have to use much force though, as the tree seemed to willingly accept my offering. In fact, it seemed to be drinking readily from my root. It was weird, as I still had some consciousness in the nutrients, so my mind started extending into the foreign tree with it, but only a small part though.
As the tree drank more and more from me, I started to gain some semblance of awareness in it. I tried contacting its mind to see if it cared at all, but it seemed to want to meld with my mind. I was extremely against this, but it seems to be outside of my control at the moment.
The tree eventually became solely reliant on my nutrients, and its entire body was full of my sap. My blood. My mind. I was the tree. And the tree was me. We are now one. But now there is only me?
My trance was broken by a notification.
Through unsettling means, a new skill [Parasitic Takeover (R)] has been learned!
Oh God. What have I done?!
What should I do for the 500 follower mark?
