Instead of mimicking a tree's Kyrilian Field, the two began resonating, causing Adamu’s focus usage to spike, although not from the resonance.

No, that part actually occurred in the opposite direction, as if the tree took over the expenditure.

No, what actually happened was Adamu began receiving external sensory input directly to his Spirit, causing an overflow of information gathering and information processing. And as if that was not enough, the spike increased even further when Adamu’s awareness finally realized that the additional input came not just from the tree itself but from the very earth it stood upon.

Realizing what exactly he had connected to inadvertently, Adamu instantly urged his Spirit to cancel the Waking Trance. With its dismissal, Adamu lost awareness of his Kyrilian Field, causing it to switch back to automatic mode from manual. Thus, almost instantly, the Kyrilian field changed back to its standard vibrational resonance frequency.

As a side effect, Adamu lost connection to the great and vast mycelial root network, or as Nature Mages liked to call it, The Root Mind.

Dismissing all thoughts of the Root Mind, Adamu rubbed his forehead as his mind slightly throbbed. Ultimately, however, this just served him as another reminder of what he had figured out last night about this Realm. “Anyway… Now that I have a rough feeling of what it meant to be a tree, I should be able to mimic and hide my Bloodline Aural Imprint.” Adamu said before adding this unexpected discovery to his repertoire of possibilities.

“Hmm… Will still have to sit in the river, though.”

Down the river, Adamu went.

Down where the river depth itself was shallow but deep enough to wade in up to one's hips, Adamu stood and tested out the bedrock to find the best footing for himself to not only be able to withstand the river current passing around him but also to not be pushed or rocked around from the turbulence his body would create.

As such, every few moments, he would fix his place.

In the end, when Adamu found the right place to stand, he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and staring at the river water passing by him. Like that, Adamu stayed for a while before his vision blurred and cleared at the same time.

Following that, Adamu imagined himself contracting once again to sense his Kyrilian Field. Once he had it, he tried to mimic the resonance of the tree he had picked up. Only things were not as easy with the obvious example missing from the surroundings. As such, when no changes occurred on their own, Adamu knew he had to change his tactic.

After a moment of pondering, Adamu’s left hand began massaging his vocal cords before they eventually generated single-tone vibrations inside his throat.

“Aaa… Eee… Ooo…”

At first, it was deep sounds before slowly transforming into high vibrational notes before eventually going between the two.

At the same time, Adamu sang within his body because letting the sound escape from the body would dilute the reverberations caused on his flesh. On top of that, Adamu tried to identify the behavior of the Kyrilian Field under different vibrational resonance frequency settings because vibrations and frequency were two of five key elements to basically everything Magic related.

Once Adamu had the right feel for shifting his Kyrilian Field, he overlapped the impressions of the tree onto his Kyrilian Field.

Of course, all of this was done through his Spirit as an intermediary, thus causing stress upon it. And since the Mind and Spirit were synchronized, that stress translated into mental focus since no Mana, or other profound power, existed within Adamu to lubricate the process.

Hence, it was no wonder that Adamu grew rapidly tired mentally. When he did, he gave up on his approach for a break.

Stepping out of the water, he went for the river bank. There, he found a decently leveled stone and rested his mind by blankly gazing at the blue sky. That was when he noticed the strength of the Sun’s illumination, with noon yet to come because his Oath had not manifested to remind him.

It was a neat little trick to tie an alarm into the Oath and make his Spirit remind him of the designated time when it came. Ultimately, that was all it was because the Oath was made with Free Will as the conduit, and as such, Adamu could not be forced to pray to the Source of the True Light.

However, because the Oath was made with positive emotions as the bedrock, it would magnify the negative ones when the appointed time was missed. As such, Adamu awaited the moment and went on one knee with his hands grasping before his chest.

“Praise be to Ina, The Light of the World.” Adamu almost sang the Noon Prayer. “May her Presence in the Sky Shine bright upon this World to Protect and Provide for those who need her Glory the most.” As if acknowledging the prayer, the True Light thickened around Adamu for a few seconds before receding.

Having completed the Noon Prayer, Adamu returned to lazing around for about half an hour before returning to the river and attempting another Aura masking through pure effort.

Then, just as his feet touched the river bottom, a tingling in his head reached his awareness. It came from out of nowhere, but since it emerged, Adamu paid great attention to what thought manifested it.

“Aura masking?” Adamu wondered when the tingling became a buzzing effect behind his ears. “Aura?... Masking?... Aura?... Masking?” After a moment of examining the strength of the buzzing, Adamu nodded. “So something about the word Aura is causing it. Aura?… Aura?… Aura?”

“Hmm… Should be quite important considering the pitch of the buzzing I hear.” Tilting his head here and there, Adamu considered everything for a moment when it reached him. “Oh… Essence Awakening?... I see… If I play my cards right, I can channel the excess Essence Outburst into my Aura or Kyrilian Field, in this case, since Aura is out of the question. Hmm… Would this not mean that an actual Aura would manifest right at Essence Awakening? I wonder how that will turn out.”

“Anyway, that still leaves me with the actual containment once the Outburst gets done realigning the attunement of every cell in my body.”

Noticing the buzzing settling down, Adamu focused on the goal of the day, food.

In the end, it had taken two half-hour breaks before Adamu managed to attune his voice box, and therefore, the vibration of his Kyrilian Field into mimicking a tree stuck in the middle of a river, such that the fish would come to him, instead of him to them.

The only problem was the time needed, as he had no idea how long that would take, and his body was running out of energy to maintain his homeostasis, especially on the temperature side. After all, it did not matter if it was midsummer. A river was much colder than his body. Thus, his body would spend energy maintaining a steady temperature to keep itself at optimal performance levels.

Still, with no other options and running out of energy, Adamu began his Aural Mimicry experiment and waited as patiently as a starving man could. Unfortunately, while Adamu waited for the fish to relax and return, his focus dribbled away. As a result, he tried his best to minimize the amount of focus spent, which meant improving the mimicry.

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Overall, it was easy to understand that Adamu would never be a tree, but something did occur when he mimicked one.

When his focus expenditure lowered as much as he could with his current capabilities, Adamu noticed that his focus actually slightly recovered. Not by much, but when everything got used up to do something, it was much easier to notice when something recovered.

Not quite understanding why that was so, Adamu prodded his Kyrilian Field with his Spirit, and that's when he discovered it.

In fact, it was so glaringly obvious that it was a wonder why he had not thought of it before.

A tree’s mass mainly comes from the Material Element - Carbon, present in the air, with nutrients and minerals from the earth covering everything else. This implies that trees are always linked between the sky and the earth. As such, a tree’s natural Kyrilian Field was always in a state of conduction between the charged sky and the discharged earth. It was why the highest trees were much more likely to be struck by lightning during thunderstorms.

Wait… That means that by mimicking a tree's Kyrilia Field vibrational resonance frequency, I am actively drawing on the electrical potential in the air and the ground through my own Kyrilian Field, thus strengthening the mimicked field and resonance, thus allowing me to maintain a net-positive gain on focus recovery while the process self-sustains itself.

Makes sense. This means I won't be limited by focus but by the Sun’s presence since I don't dare stay here during the night. Although. I do wonder if the field is strong enough to conceal me through the Night.

Will have to test it out when I've fixed the issue with the little boy in my mind.

Come here, little fishies!!!

This Daddy needs some protein!!!

Immersed, Adamu soon forgot about the passage of time, but his attempt provided results when he recognized bumps in foreign Kyrilian Fields appear beside him. Strangely, as he recognized this, he noticed that the fish not only did not run away from him but actually began to swim around him.

Ignoring the fishes for a second, Adamu noted that almost no strain on his Spirit existed. At the same time, the Kyrilian Field grew stronger with time as it fed itself. With its growth, the range of its effect increased, which was something new to him. On the other hand, a hunch told him that the strength of the field would return to normal if he stopped his current Waking Trance.

Still, as was with biological bodies, they adapted to new circumstances all the time, therefore, it was easy for Adamu to understand that the baseline natural range of his Kyrilian Field would grow if he repeated this… Tree Field Resonance Waking Trance.

What was not easy to understand was the speed.

There has to be some kind of Profound Law doing overtime, because a biological body mimicking a tree's natural state is far too extreme under normal circumstances, especially without a Profound Power fueling the process. Adamu noted in his head. On the other hand, I do have quite a dense Spirit, plus a body holding the Bloodline of the First of Man, even if it's not awakened.

Hmm, I wonder how much further I can take this? Anyway, let's get those fishies.

Not breaking his current state, Adamu opened his golden eyes to gaze at the water before him with his Waking Trance of seeing yet not seeing, observing yet not observing.

Almost immediately, Adamu felt his mouth water at the possibility.

If not for his Waking Trance diffusing his intent, the fishes would have long ago vanished.

Either way, with the food there, all Adamu had to do was catch it. However, as with everything in this world, this was harder than it seemed because the fish were not exactly beside him. No, they kept their distance, of about one meter, away from him as they naturally swam around him.

Almost as if he was a natural magnetic north around which to navigate around.

Ignoring the why as it was obvious, Adamu observed the fishes themselves. They were small, much smaller than he would have liked, but any food was better than none. Nonetheless, it was not the size that alerted him of the difficulty. Just like the squirrel colony, these fishes had golden patterns, only in their case, it was inlaid on dark silver scales.

The water refraction made it hard to discern if it was the same pattern as that of the squirrels, but somehow Adamu knew it was, and if it was not, then it was extremely similar. Which could have any random effects if he was honest.

Still, patterns were the key to anything if you could decipher them.

That being the case, Adamu quickly reviewed his knowledge just in case.

Animals, if infused with Mana inside a Mana Zone, usually develop a pattern that naturally suits their physiology. Nevertheless, there is one pattern that is the most common out of all of them, Growth.

The Growth Pattern is both a passive and active pattern, with the former infusing Mana into the bodies, thus making them naturally stronger, faster, tougher, bigger, and most importantly, smarter, although to a much lesser degree than the rest of their bodies, while the latter carried the namesake of the pattern and for a reason, as it made Beast double or triple their sizes during combat.

On their hand, the second most common pattern is the Elemental Body, where the Mana of one flavor heavily unbalanced the other colors, thus becoming the primary pattern. As such, there were quite a few variations, all while remaining faithful to the original pattern for Elemental Body.

Hmm, if it's Growth, then these little fishes will grow very big the moment they realize they are in danger. However, if it is an Elemental Body, I have no choice but to be skeptical of the possibilities, especially when the Illusion is involved since it rewards Essence for killing its spawns.

Actually,.. Now that I am thinking about it, I've never even heard of Essence Beasts. The closest equivalent would be Qi Beasts. But those are only found in Realms with Cultivators at the helm. Even then, because Qi is part Essence and part Mana, a Qi Beast remains quite faithful to the model of Mana Beasts.

After all, why change something when it works wonderfully?

Done recalling things, Adamu centered his eyes on the fishes on his right side as that was where the river bank lay.

Because of that fact and his pondering about the possibilities, Adamu made a bet with himself. It was a simple bet that relied on the fact that Pure Essence had no Elemental Affinity, at least if one discounted the Life Element, only that one just gave insane recovery abilities.

As such, the bet was that the first pattern of these Essence Beasts, if that was indeed what they were, would be Growth.

That being the case, Adamu crouched lower, slowly, of course, until only his head remained above the head. Then, he twisted his body somewhat in the direction of the river bank because he refused to break the grounding effect manifested by his feet. No, that would instantly break the Kyrilain Field strengthening effect, with the eventual cascade resulting in his standard vibrational pattern returning.

And what followed that one, Adamu desperately needed to avoid.

Hence, with his upper body submerged and facing the river bank, Adamu slowly twisted the lower body without breaking the foot-to-ground effect. Once he was ready, his hands inched forward but somewhere below the fish’s swimming line.

Then, when ready, Adamu slowly used his Spirit to contract his Kyrilian Field back to what it was before the enhancing effect of the Tree Field Resonance Waking Trance. Consequently, the fishes tightened their cruise around him, and it took but seconds for Adamu to feel their bodies brush against his fingers.

Adjusting his hands a bit lower, Adamu tested the fish's response by rubbing their bellies. When almost no response appeared, he sidelined the puzzling desire to know why that was so because he had to achieve a groundbreaker for his continued survival.

What followed was him grasping two unbelievably docile fishes with one in each hand before slowly lifting them out of the water. Then, Adamu’s plan slowly derailed as he tried to throw the two fishies onto the rocky river bank.

The reason? The instant the fishes left the water, they turned very heavy compared to the sizes they professed. Luckily, Adamu’s instant response was to power through the weight and throw them far from the water and onto the rocky river bank.

However, as lucky as Adamu had been so far, it seemed to run out because midflight, the golden pattern on the two fishes began to glow.

Recognizing what that meant, Adamu had two choices before him. Ultimately, he picked the one where he had definitely something to nibble on, even if small, over something he might or might not have.

“THERE WILL BE NO TRANSFORMATION FOR YOU!!!” Adamu shouted while rushing out of the river and grabbing the first big stone to fit his right hand.