Chapter Twelve

Arden stared down at the snake, tempted to just step on it, but it’s aggressive posturing looked too cute to kill. Instead, he turned and walked along the tree line, hoping to leave the snake alone. However, his ears twitched as they picked up a quiet slithering at the edge of the forest.

A glance to his left showed the tiny dark green snake slithering along, keeping pace with Arden’s stride.

Not wanting to deal with the snake as he trained, Arden took off in a run. Immediately, he noticed a difference. While his mana acted like it did previously, each stride felt effortless, as if each burst of mana housed much more energy.

Not only that, but his heart barely strained as he kept the blistering pace. Still, just because his body improved, that didn’t mean he could go on forever. Soon he was heaving for breath, prompting him to slow down to a walk, not wanting to push himself too hard in case something else ambushed him.

He glanced back, but with the grass and tree line looking almost the same, it was hard to tell how far he went. Before deciding what to do next, Arden stopped and strained his ears to listen for anything, but his surroundings were silent. Almost eerily silent as there wasn’t any wind in the cavern.

Still, he scanned the tree line with a critical eye, especially along the ground, looking for anything that stood out, but he appeared to be alone.

Before returning to his training, he opened up his Ortus menu, eyes catching the flashing Accelerated Growth card prompting him to slide it forward.

Accelerated Growth (Common) Level 3

Type: Ability Card

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Plant

Effect 1: Use mana to accelerate the growth of any plant. Rate of growth dependent on the amount of mana used and plant. Must have a seed or plant to cast accelerated growth. Card must be in the user’s active hand to function.

Effect 2: Use mana to prime a seed for future growth. The more mana you prime the seed with, the more explosive the growth. Warning! If you input too much mana, the seed may explode.

Effect 3: Use ambient mana to link a plant with the natural environment, allowing you to sustain it without your own mana. Warning! If the plant’s required mana outpaces the ambient mana, it may drain the area dry, causing adverse effects.

As he thought, he reached level three. He wasn’t sure why the third effect counted, though. When he did it, his bracelets were on cooldown. Not that he would complain about a level up.

He wondered what other effects a level up had besides adding more functionality. As far as he could tell, the card wasn’t any easier to use, though that might be because he wasn’t using his own mana from his core.

While it’s combat ability was pretty much nonexistent, he could see a ton of uses for the card. It would definitely be a mainstay in his deck.

Hopefully, he found time to experiment with it a little more before he left the cavern, as nature affinity ambient mana was going to be at a premium outside.

At the thought of time, Arden flicked away his Accelerated Growth card and pulled up his quest description.

An era long past (Legacy).

Survive the ancient forest below a forgotten civilization and uncover its secrets.

Time limit: 5 days, 8 hours.

He stiffened as he stared at the time left, then turned his attention to the forest. With a flick of his left hand, he closed the menu and stepped into the forest, a clock ticking in his mind.

Despite his urgency, he kept his senses trained on his surroundings as his body heated. His eyes scanned the grassy ground, looking for any small creatures, while his ears twitched, ready to alert him at the slightest sound.

Instead of moving, which could increase his chances of running into something, he took several strides deeper into the forest, then sat down and leaned against a tree.

When his body began to burn with mana, he gritted his teeth and persevered. He couldn’t take it easy any longer. If he retreated when it became too much, he would never reach deeper into the forest in time.

Despite his thoughts, his body screamed for him to leave, but his mind smashed down the urge as he rode the waves of lava. Even with the agony, he kept his senses trained outward in case something ambushed him, not that his body would react in time in its current state.

It was a risk he had to take. He had five days to reach the deepest sections of the forest. Playing it safe wouldn’t achieve his goals.

Soon his body grew numb, causing a niggle of worry. He glanced inward to find mana was still rushing in, though only into his body as his bracelets went into cooldown mode. His veins were strained almost to the point of bursting, but they held on valiantly.

Upon seeing the state of his veins, he tried to retreat out of the forest, but to his horror, his body refused to respond. All he could do was watch his veins stretch to accommodate a growing amount of mana rushing in faster than his body could absorb it.

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Just as he thought he would explode, something popped within him. Then the mana emptied from his veins into his body, reigniting the waves of lava. At the same time, his bracelets opened up, allowing mana to flow through them to his core once more.

Upon looking deeper, he found the tether deep within him reach a little further. It had an almost vine like appearance, though it was hard to tell as it was still blurry and malformed.

He could now tell where it was heading, though. Not that he didn’t already know. He couldn’t see its source and wouldn’t even after it reached its destination, but he knew the tether was for connecting his soul and mana core. Its connection would be the first step into grade one. With the connection, he would gain the ability to control and generate his own mana.

Suddenly the mana stopped rushing in as if the pressure equalized. With the equalization, his body cooled rapidly, returning control. Though his body felt like it was made of lead. He doubted he could move as he was, but he hoped it would be a temporary problem as mana rushed out from his core, soothing his rung out body.

His senses snapped back to attention just realizing he focused all his attention inward. A chill ran through his still warm body as his eyes landed on a familiar scaled creature staring at him while hanging from a branch, allowing it to reach his eye level. It’s emerald slitted eyes stared unblinkingly into his. He thought he saw a hint of curiosity, but he had to be imagining it.

So close to his face there was no way he could dodge its strike, and the snake knew it. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t try. His abused body protested as he sprang to his feet.

Just as he righted himself the snake lashed out, sinking it’s fangs into his shoulder, easily puncturing through the thick robe into the skin below. Before he could even take a step, his entire right arm was numb, hanging limply at his side.

His mana lashed out on its own accord, pushing back at the numbness however, unlike last time, the snake didn’t let go. It trusted its venom to win as it hung on its prey while pumping more and more in.

By the second step, he couldn’t feel half his torso and part of his neck, but that didn’t stop him from dashing toward the edge of the forest. His mind grew sluggish as the venom worked its way up his neck, but with one last push, he broke through the tree line into the grassy clearing.

A pained hiss announced the departure of the snake as he couldn’t feel half his body. Fortunately, without the snake replenishing the venom, his poison resistance card did its job, returning feeling to his body seconds later.

He spun back to the tree line, ready to stomp on the snake. Any goodwill gone only to find the snake was nowhere to be seen.

Not taking any chances, he shot off in a sprint, trying to put some distance between him and the persistent reptile, though he had a feeling he didn’t see the last of it.

Next time he would be ready, though. It was only a small snake. He hunted many larger snakes in the desert with his parents.

Unfortunately, his stressed body forced him to stop soon after. His legs buckled, sending him to the grass, refusing to go any further. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the crystal ceiling hundreds of meters above.

At least he found out why nothing bothered him outside of the forest. His theory they couldn’t leave it seemed to be true. Not that he wanted to push it.

It was odd the snake was the only thing he encountered since entering the forest. Maybe the mana density was too thin for anything larger. That didn’t explain why there weren’t more creatures similar sized to the snake.

Unless the snake hunted everything it could. It seemed aggressive enough. He found it hard to believe such a small snake could cover that large of area though.

Whatever the reason, he needed some way to defend himself. If he wasn’t so close to the forest boundary, the snake would’ve taken him down. Its venom was really potent. In seconds, half his body was numb, and that was with his poison resistance card resisting it. That snake made for a terrifying ambush predator.

He couldn’t leave himself vulnerable in the forest again. If the snake was that deadly what else was lurking deeper?

His eyes narrowed in determination as his fists clenched. He needed a plan to defend himself.

Body still recovering, he opened his Ortus menu and flicked through his cards, trying to think up a way to better arm himself. His Accelerated Growth, Convert Seed, and Vine Extension cards were out. While their synergy could open up avenues later on, he didn’t know any deadly seeds to convert or other types of vines. If only he kept some seeds from those plants on the ledge.

His eyes widened in realization. Maybe he didn’t need to. Was it possible for him to convert the vine seeds back? He wasn’t sure if he knew enough about the plants to convert a seed, but it might be easier to revert the seeds.

The plants weren’t deadly on their own, but he wondered if his spore card had a synergy with them. If it did, he had a viable solution, though not something he could deploy in the heat of battle.

Eager to test his theory, he pushed himself to an upright, seated position. A groan escaped him as his body flared in pain, but it was nothing compared to his cultivation earlier.

His trembling hand dug into his shorts pocket, where he stashed the seeds and retrieved all four of them. Afraid to ruin all of them at once, he set three on the grass in front of him, then focused on the remaining one.

With practiced ease, he diverted the stream of mana constantly pumping through his bracelets into his mana core and tasked it with powering his Convert Seed card.

As the mana filled his hand and then absorbed into the seed, he focused his mind on reverting it back to its original form. Almost comically easy, the seed snapped back to the small black seed as if he unraveled whatever kept it a vine seed.

His heart fluttered in excitement as he dug his finger into the ground in front of them and dropped the seed in. After covering it up, he pressed his hand against the ground while activating his Accelerated Growth card. It jumped to action without effort, causing him to revise his thoughts on if the level up had other effects.

Within seconds, a familiar flowering plant sprouted out of the ground, then grew a couple dozen centimeters in height. He continued to pump mana into it, causing the plant to fill out, revealing the patch of flowers he thought were separate plants were really a bush.

His eyes landed on a pod like the one he extracted last time, causing him to smile with a vicious gleam in his eyes. He stopped the flow of mana into the plant, then fed the surrounding ambient mana until he felt the plant absorb the mana on its own.

Still unsure if the plant was poisonous to the touch, he unsheathed his knife and swiped it through the stem holding the pod, then forced his exhausted body to jump back.

Unfortunately, he was far too slow to dodge the spores. He cringed, waiting for the effects to hit him, but after a few moments he relaxed as, despite standing in the cloud of spores, nothing happened to him.

Curious, he activated his Dispense Spore card for the first time, wondering if it would work even though the plant wasn’t a fungus. The moment his Dispense Spore card attuned mana contacted the cloud, the spores exploded outward

A frown formed as he found the explosion far less impressive than what the plant could pull off. What was the point of exploding a spore cloud a second time? He was sure there were more uses to the card like his grow card, but he didn’t have time to experiment.

Still, he had a workable solution to protecting himself while he cultivated. He just had to trigger the explosion of spores. At the very least, it should buy him enough time to retreat.

His mind flashed to the last card remaining unused in his deck. Maybe his Wood Manipulation card held another solution. He was right next to a massive forest, after all.