Chapter 204: Heroic Trees

It is the evening after my training with the golems, and Kayafe and I have returned to the dungeon village to take a bath. The bathhouse is made of stone and has a constant fire under it to heat the water. It is very large as it is only one of three bath houses. The water is not as hot as I am used to, but we have to make do with what we have, right?

“Hmm,” I hum. If I can make an endless healing water source, can’t I make an always hot bath?

“Hey, Kayafe. With [Manipulate Magic], I can make it so mana can’t leave a location, right?” I use a clone to help apply bathing oil to my long hair.

“Yes,” Kayafe nods, relaxing neck deep in the water.

I transform the mana in the bathhouse into fire mana to heat the water to Nexus temperatures and imbue it with magic so it can’t leave the bathhouse.

Warmth seeps into my body now that the water is at a proper temperature, helping me relax.

“So, if I understand right, I can make it so mana can’t leave a location, but I can’t make it so mana will transform when entering a location with [Manipulate Magic]?”

“Correct” Kayafe nods with an approving smile. “The latter requires using [Manipulate Magic] on a location, not the mana itself, even though it affects the mana.”

“So the magic has to be applied to the mana, but can that affect things that are not mana?” I ask, my clone moving on to my tails.

“No, but in a way, kinda,” Kayafe answers. “The magic has to affect mana, but it can power and empower enchantments. So you can make an enchantment that does not require an influx of reserved mana, and you can make the enchanting effect far stronger. So it is through the effect of the Enchantments that you can affect non-mana things.”

So I can make more Entylamos, but Kayafe or I will have to renew the magic on it every now and then. That’s actually incredibly powerful; it’s essentially making a temporary magic item! The only thing it won’t get, though, is the tier bonus, so it will only be as powerful as I can make it.

“You never mentioned how long the magic lasts. Do you happen to know?” I say as I shift my tails to allow my clone to work on the next one, having finished with the one before it.

If it’s too short, then it’s not worth the effort to make things for commercial use.

“It’s about one day per skill level, long enough to matter, but not long enough for crafting purposes,” Kayafe says.

So just over two years. Kayafe’s right, two years is not long enough for crafting, which aims for longevity. It can change the course of a war by supplying an army with magical weapons, but it won’t keep the kingdom in power without renewal. For my personal uses, however, It’s almost perfect; I can renew the magic whenever I want.

I should take this time to practice making things with my newfound abilities, but what should I make? Item bonuses don’t stack; only the strongest one applies, so it’d be a waste to make something that empowers my beauty spells since my Dryad’s Grace staff does that. It didn’t have much use since my Kyhosa was better, but… Anyway! My Diadem empowers my minds, so I can’t do anything there. Perhaps I can upgrade my spear and dagger? It’s fairly weak to what I can make now. Plus, my armor. It never saw any use, and I hope I am never in a position where I need it, but maybe I can make it resist mental attacks and other things that I am likely to be hurt by.

I summon my spear from a storage ring to begin the upgrade process; however, I suddenly have an Idea! I put the spear away, much to Kayafe’s confusion.

Now that my manipulation abilities are vastly improved, I should be able to help grow the star tree, at least to the point that I might be able to harvest enough wood to upgrade my spear and dagger. I will have to replace the spear shaft and dagger hilt, but that’s easy to do, and the benefit should be well worth it; the star tree is heroic tier, after all.

I should also consider testing out my ritual ability from my title, and if I am going that far, I might as well try to upgrade my Diadem. If I can combine the tree items, I might be able to make the Diadem clones more powerful. Both Items have an ability relating to my clones, so it’s only natural that I try to empower them at the same time.

I get out of the bath after rinsing myself, and redress myself while Kayafe follows suit.

“Are you going to explain your sudden idea?” Kayafe asks, correctly guessing my thought patterns.

“Just had a sudden realization on how to improve some of my items,” I say, “You’ll see.”

We leave the dungeon and fly to the pond where I planted the star tree seed, where it is still germinating.

I reach out over the entire Nexus with [Manipulate Magic], and with a mental command, all the mana starts drifting toward the seed, transforming to nature and beauty essence to help grow the tree. Just like how mana sustains me, the plants of this world can grow with mana, usually nature essence.

Millions of mana, perhaps billions, are consumed by the seed over an hour, and the seed is unable to consume the sheer amount of mana quickly enough, yet still, it doesn’t grow! It gobbles up more and more mana until I start feeling tired.

“Need me to take over?” Kayafe offers. “This is why most plant life isn’t above major tier; for some reason, the higher their tier, the longer they take to grow. Heroic tier plants can take over a thousand years to sprout, but once they do, their growth speeds up. Almost all plants that are Heroic or above received help like what you are doing.”

Well, that explains why it is taking so long!

“Thank you, I had no idea,” I say, letting Kayafe take over.

“Trees like this one are very valuable as a source of renewable resources. Normally, one would need a timeless-tier material that regenerates even if it isn’t living. I once brought with me a seed for a crystal tree that was Heroic tier, but I guess it’s been lost to time.”

Hang on, a crystal tree? One is buried under the sea. There’s also one in the Lunaleyan lands, although that one seems suspicious.

“What did that tree do?” I ask. “There’s a topaz one on an island outside of the Nexus, but it has mind-effecting abilities, I think. There’s also a crystal one buried under the seas here.”

“It was a crystal tree that always shone with light,” Kayafe answers. “It must be the buried one.”

“I’m not sure how we can get it out, though; it would be very helpful if we had access to it.”

We don’t have a dredger, and it will be a monumental task to relocate the huge crystal tree. Papuyo only managed to get into the ruins by going in through a very tall tower. Well, it’s not ruins anymore since that cursed being rose the city out of the earth and restored it. Everyone should be moved out of it by now, which is a little surprising, even though Safyr suggested not to live there permanently.

But the fact that the city was raised by magic gives me the idea that perhaps my rituals can do something similar.

“Actually,” I say, “I might have a way to retrieve the crystal tree.”

“Rituals?” Kayafe guesses, her tail playfully dancing behind her as she smirks.

“How’d you guess?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Magic can do anything, and you’re the only one who can reliably cast a ritual spell, a magic spell.”

“Yes, but, we can do that once we figure out a good ritual to make it work,” I say with a shrug.

We continue to banter as the hours pass while we accelerate the growth of the star tree. Eventually, as the sun has passed the horizon and twilight arrives – at least that is my guess going off the feel of the sun’s light – the seed suddenly sprouts, rapidly growing before our eyes. The more the tree grows, the more mana it sucks up until we can’t feed it fast enough.

“I see…” Kayafe mutters, “It’s one of those that will only grow under certain conditions; I was starting to wonder why it was taking so much mana without even a hint of growth.”

Once the tree has reached a matured height, it starts to flower and fruit, shining star-like fruit, bathing the basin in soft starlight.

I wish I could see it like a normal person. I still have my own spectacle with colors of mana, but I really feel like I am missing out on the experience everyone else would have.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kayafe is enraptured by the mana being given off in beautiful patterns by the tree, like clouds of twinkling stars, showering the entire area with its beauty and nature essence as if to claim its domain.

What would it look like if she had her old body? Would there be motes of light floating about? Would it look like they are standing like giants among stars?

She can’t feel the softness of the chair she made, she can’t feel the warmth of the bath, and she can’t taste the savouriness of food. There is so much she is missing out on; it’s almost painful. Her memories torment her with everything she took for granted.

Am I going to be stuck like this forever? Kayafe wonders. Will her evolutions be able to give her the sensations she once had? How long will that take? Is it going to be one sense at a time?

She needs to know more about mana; perhaps there is another way to regain her senses, a way to change her current body to simulate what she once had. Perhaps Alysara knows something from her past life that can help her, even though that is a stretch.

“...Alysara,” Kayafe hesitantly says. “Is there anything you know that can simulate s— Uhh, touch?” She almost said ‘sight’, but that would have been very inconsiderate.

Alysara tilts her head in confusion but then opens her mouth in an ‘Ah ha!’ moment.

“Hmm…” Alysara puts a hand to her chin in thought. “While I know why a body’s sensation of touch works, I don’t know how it works. Or rather, I don’t know how to replicate the same thing with mana…” Alysara shifts her weight as her tails move expressively according to her thoughts.

Her people are very expressive with their tails, much more than even what she is used to. It makes it easy to read her body language, but that’s not always a good thing. Perhaps she should teach her how to hide her body language in case she needs to hide it?”

“Simply put, the body feels through… Information relaying… body functions… Like roads for messengers!” Alysara says, trying to find the right words to explain. “But the most important part is the brain that interprets the information into many different types of sensations like touch, pain, heat, cold, and so many more. The most difficult part would be trying to make the brain; I doubt that even if we had a hundred years, it still wouldn’t be as good as a real brain.”

“What about other senses?” Kayafe asks, trying to keep her disappointment to herself. “Are they any easier?”

But Alysara shakes her head.

“They all rely on the brain, everything the body needs or does ultimately relies on the brain, to put it simply. But we may have a shortcut! Maybe we can make a ritual to complete your body!”

A ritual spell for the tree, and now one for her body; they really need to figure out how to make them work.