Chapter Thirty-Seven
All around him, he felt the effects on the equilibrium of nature. Most of them were so minimal that it was pretty much non-existent, but some, like the fairies, were disastrous.
If he were to kill even one of them, he would get slammed by a punishment. Not that he knew what that punishment was, but it couldn’t be good.
Many questions and worries he had about the class vanished, as he wouldn’t randomly earn himself a punishment. He would need to make a conscious decision, but he had a feeling some tough decisions would come in the future.
Now, for the other reason, a class was essential. He opened his Ortus menu and checked his expanded personal information.
Name: Arden
Age: 25
Affinity: Nature
Current Attunements: Wood, Poison, Plant, Fungi, Biological
Attunement Balance: 72/100
Wood: 26
Poison: 22
Plant: 20
Fungi: 16
Biological: 36
Deck:
Accelerated Growth (Common) Level 3.
Convert Seed (Uncommon) Level 2.
Vine Extension (Uncommon) Level 2.
Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 3.
Creeping Itch (Uncommon) Level 1.
Crawling Boils (Uncommon) Level 1.
Lurking Heart Attack (Uncommon) Level 1.
Melody of the body (Epic) Level 1.
Stitch Wound (Uncommon) Level 1.
Rotting Wound (Uncommon) Level 1.
Passive Heal (Rare) Level 1.
Biological Boost (Rare) Level 1.
Nature Manipulation (Epic) Level 1.
Nature Resistance (Epic) Level 1.
Melody of the Forest (Epic) Level 1.
Wood Boost (Rare) Level 1.
Conjure roots (Rare) Level 1.
Active Hand: 8/10
Nature Manipulation (Epic) Level 1.
Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 3.
Melody of Growth (Epic) Level 1.
Stitch Wound (Uncommon) Level 1.
Rotting Wound (Uncommon) Level 1.
Melody of the Body (Epic) Level 1.
Melody of the Forest (Epic) Level 1.
Conjure Roots (Rare) Level 1.
Passive Hand: 4/5
Nature Resistance (Epic) Level 1.
Passive Heal (Rare) Level 1.
Biological Boost (Rare) Level 1.
Wood Boost (Rare) Level 1.
Attribute Boosts
Body: 0%
Soul: 20%
Mind: 0%
Mana: 50%
Attunement Boosts
Wood: 10%
Poison: 0%
Plant: 0%
Fungi: 0%
Biological: 10%
Shouldn’t he only zero percent in all attributes? As far as he knew, he didn’t have any augmentations or enchanted items.
His eyes gravitated to the staff still grasped in his right hand. Did the staff count as an enchanted item? It made sense, though it could just be the material. He felt a connection to it, though.
As a test, he let go of the staff, letting it fall to the ground. Well, tried to let it fall as a dozen fairies swooped in and caught the staff, then glared at him as if he committed a taboo.
Despite the flash of guilt, he glanced at his attributes, but they remained the same. Also, another thing he noticed was he still felt a connection to the staff. Did the tree spirit soul bond the staff to him? That was both terrifying and amazing. He wasn’t sure which one he should feel.
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Any further thoughts paused as fairies whirled around him. The dozen who caught his staff forced the staff back into his hand while the others circled faster and faster. A dizzy spell hit him, then his heart went into his throat as a force shot him upward.
A blink later, he was souring over the treetops near the green crystal ceiling, which he absent-mindedly noted was a weaker version of the life crystal at the center of the forest.
From his new vantage point, he found the clearing was, in fact, the center of the forest. There was a sizeable chunk of the forest he didn’t explore.
Many more clearings dotted the forest, making a swirl pattern too perfect to be natural. It seemed no matter what direction he went, he would stumble upon a trial, though he doubted many of them would accept him.
Whatever force that propelled him upward vanished within arm’s reach of the ceiling. That was when his mind kicked into gear. His mind shifted between dozens of thoughts in rapid fire before the panic set in as he plummeted to downward.
However, before genuine panic set in, an instinctive desire to fly hit him.
A flash of mana shot down his soul tether from his mana core, triggering something deep within.
In the next moment, his body shrunk, and his vision sharpened. Suddenly, his fall slowed as momentum stalled. That was only a momentary respite, though, as gravity acted on his new, smaller form.
Panic sparked again, but the impulse to flap his arms or wings hit. With no desire to go splat, he listened to the instinct and flapped his arms as fast as he could.
At first nothing happened, but soon his fall slowed. He flapped faster, wincing at the strain as if he was on the verge of pulling a muscle, but fortunately before that happened, his downward momentum stalled once more. This time it wasn’t momentary. He hovered just above the treetops while flapping his arms as fast as he could.
Only then did he realize what had happened. He peered down his now much smaller black feathery body. A bird? Did he transform into the black bird he saw on the island?
Yes, he did. The bird was him. He just needed to connect to him, which was now possible with his anchored tether.
What was he? The fairies and tree spirit mentioned Fae. Was that what he was? Or at least partially. If he could transform into a bird did that mean he was the same as the snake?
More questions. Questions that needed answers, but first he needed to test out his new body.
Fortunately, he had plenty of time now to practice. At least he hoped so. Dungeons didn’t usually reset until after the challengers left, but this didn’t seem like a regular dungeon. He had a feeling his time in the dungeon wasn’t unlimited, but at least he didn’t have a timer counting down anymore.
Still, if his time was limited in the dungeon, a better use of his time was to strip the dungeon clean of everything he could.
First, he needed to teach himself how to fly. Frantically flapping his wings only stopped him from going splat.
Arden peered down, finding his body going that direction on its own. That gave him an idea. He tilted his head upward and flapped his wings faster.
As he guessed, he ascended, but it wasn’t a smooth process. After a bit of experimentation, he found he was flapping too fast. He wasn’t a hummingbird, so he didn’t need to flap as fast as he could.
Now that he knew how to save himself from falling, the fear dimmed, allowing him to slow his flapping. He dropped a few meters, but after correcting his body positioning, he leveled out and glided forward.
Some instincts must help him. No way could he control a completely different body so easily. That didn’t mean it held his hand. The instincts gave him the tools he needed, but he needed to put them together.
Arden glided over the forest, varying his flapping speed and moving parts of his body, testing their effects on his flight, gradually fine tuning his flight.
It wasn’t effortless like the birds he saw when his parents brought him to the nearest city, but he wasn’t in danger of falling or losing control if he was careful.
He found as long as he kept his head orientated in the direction he wanted to go, the rest of his body followed. Kind of like when he tried riding a bike. Never look down unless one wanted to go down and in the case of a bike, that meant crashing.
Arden had a feeling he wouldn’t need another mode of transportation now, though. Who needed to struggle to pedal a bike through sand or spend a fortune getting a mana powered vehicle when one could fly?
Despite his thoughts about looking down, he couldn’t help but to take glances down at the forest below. His breath hitched at the beauty and the sheer size of it.
Now that he had completed his class quest, he could truly admire the beauty of it and thank his parents for the opportunity. No matter the methods they used to dump him in the dungeon, he couldn’t fault them, as he made out like a bandit and he wasn’t done with his gains.
From his vantage point, he spotted several creatures he could hunt. The best part was his new sense of equilibrium was neutral on everything below. Only when he looked toward the central clearing did he feel there would be consequences for his actions.
That meant he could hunt to his heart’s content and considering he doubted he would find such a large abundance of nature attuned creatures for a while, he needed to harvest as many cards as he could.
A gasp escaped him as he focused on an insectoid creature minding its own business in a clearing below him. The cards he thought he lost fired to life, or at least the effects of it. A melody reached his ears neither light nor dark, more neutral.
That discovery prompted him to scan his body, looking for his Ortus bracelets, but like the snake, they were nowhere to be found. Even when he peered inward, he couldn’t find the connection.
Instead, a completely different mana vein network spider-webbed through his body. Somehow, he was doing magic without Ortus. Or was he? He wasn’t affecting the outside world, only listening to a melody like it was an extra sense.
Suddenly, he stilled as the realization hit. He didn’t lose the cards. He integrated them into his body. Did he have a bloodline? That was the only way he knew of to gain extra senses outside of the norm.
If he could, he would whack himself. Of course, he had some sort of bloodline. How else would he turn into a bird? Unless that was an aspect of his purified race? Still even then, he could hear the melody and also sense the equilibrium of nature.
Actually, how did he still have the equilibrium sense? He didn’t have access to his bracelets unless the class affected him deeper than he thought.
Whatever the reason, he had it. He couldn’t use cards in this form, but gained other benefits.
The lack of bracelets explained why the snake carried the cards around, though he wasn’t sure why she didn’t transform and put them in her deck unless she couldn’t.
Another thought came to him soon after. Where did his staff go? He remembered holding it when the fairies sent him flying.
That impromptu flight was probably their way of kicking him out of the nest to force him to learn how to fly, but why would they force him to hold the staff if he would lose it once he transformed?
Unless he didn’t lose it. If he lost it, he would have noticed clothes hanging from branches as well. Maybe the transformation froze his body in its last state.
Something to test later, but he thought he was right as he still felt the staff nearby as if it still touched him.
So many sudden changes it would take him a while to figure them all out. Only a few days ago, he thought he was a normal elf, though a bit of a mixed one.
Was he still an elf at all? The tree spirit seemed to think it would magnify this Fae race, but if it needed a card to bring out, it had to be a low percentage of his overall heritage.
Yet another question. He knew where to find some answers. It was just a matter of if they would answer and how hard it would be to understand them.
On that thought, he oriented himself to toward the center clearing. He circled around the clearing at lower and lower altitudes, finding the clearing wide enough to fly in a circle, but it was a close thing. More practice would mean finer control, but for now, he had limits on his flight dexterity.
As he neared the ground, he slowed himself as much as he could while still maintaining flight. This turned out to be more difficult than actually flying, but he didn’t want to test the durability of his bird body, so he put all his focus into it.
The fairies seemed to ignore him, busy flying in random directions, mostly around the glowing green crystal that gave him a familial feeling.
One thing he noticed the closer he got to the ground was the ambient mana felt almost perfectly equalized with him. He doubted he would make much more progress in his cultivation in the dungeon, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still things to be gained.
Besides, he didn’t even know how to leave yet.
Not willing to hurt his new bird form, he slowed as much as he could when he was a meter from the ground. Then, like how he transformed into his bird form, he sent a spike of mana down his soul tether, hoping that was the key.
Fortunately, now that he reached grade one, he had access to his own mana. He wasn’t sure captured ambient mana would work.
In the next moment, almost too fast to register, he enlarged to his normal form. Then, since he didn’t have wings, he crashed to the ground with a thud, rolling through the impact as his parents taught him.
When he stood found he still had his staff in his hand. In fact, everything was just like it was before his impromptu bird transformation, including the ruffled robes from the flight.
He turned his attention to the fairies, but they seemed to ignore him. Even when he approached, they flew around the crystal in their own world, oblivious to his presence.
The temptation to whack a fairy presented itself, but one peek at his equilibrium sense told him that would be a terrible idea.
That meant all he could do was wait or find a less violent way to get their attention.