Once he approached the area he was greeted with the familiar message.

[You have entered The Ancestral Tree]

It was scary how quickly nature reclaimed the city, it was impossible to tell that elves once lived here.

“Hello, Ancestral Tree!” He shouted into the air hoping to get its attention.

A wisp manifested out of thin air.

“King of Spiders, welcome!” It shouted equally loud.

“I need help with something!”

“What is it!? And why are we shouting?!”

“I thought you might be sleeping, like the trees do.” He recovered the allegedly demonic rune paper.

“Who told you that? Trees don’t sleep, neither do they dream.” The wisp flew towards the paper. “I know that," it pulsed, "Why are you showing me this?”

“So, you can read it?” He wanted to jump in the air.

“Of course. Ever since we became Ancestral Tree I can read all which is magic.”

“Try reading it out loud.”

The wisp pulsed a few times as if bewildered by the request. “I am the King of Spiders.” The paper burst into flames. “Most peculiar.”

“Right? I’ve been told this is demonic language, is this why it caught fire?”

“Demonic? Who keeps telling you these lies? The person needs to be stripped naked and shamed!” The wisp pulsed in anger. “This is just a very ancient and obscure runic language. We wouldn't expect anyone to know it, or even use it. As to why it caught fire…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t write it using magical ink.” The wisp pulsed. “In magical languages, be it enchantments, scripts, formulas, glyphs or even runes – each word is more than just a word. If formulated properly and then imbued with magic it will want to manifest once invoked. Drop the magical ink. Don’t imbue magic. The words will stay inert.” The wisp pulsed again.

“Wow, you do know your stuff…” All the puzzle pieces fell into place, well, not really. “I still don’t understand why I know this language.”

The wisp pulsed a few times but didn’t say anything, probably because it had nothing to say.

“Well, since I know magic now… can you like, teach me more about it?” He asked but still expected a no.

“Magic can only be gained. We can show you how to [Heal], but I doubt you could ever learn it. You absorbed Dark Essence, did you not?”

“Yes, and I got three spells.” He named them including the mysterious [???].

“Then you must know, that nature magic is out of your reach. King of Spiders, you’re a dark mage now.” The wisp sounded ominous all of the sudden.

“And this [???] stuff?”

The wisp shrunk. “I must admit that I am not too sure, but It might be that you haven't reached the requirement yet.”

“You mentioned enchantments and runic languages, can you teach me those?”

The wisp pulsed rapidly. “I can read them, but even I can’t make or formulate something we don’t know. My knowledge is limited to what Forest Spirit has bestowed. However, there are rituals we know of. Those I could teach you…”

He looked at the wisp with high expectations.

“…when we are not busy. With looming human threat, we are preoccupied.”

“I see. There is one more thing.” He pulled out [Living Wood Seed]. “This came to my possession. I believe it’s yours.” He told it in a very roundabout way because he didn’t want to tattle-tell on the High Chief.

The wisp spun circles around his head. “If it found you, then it wanted to be found. The seeds like to be spread. Plant it and grow it.”

“But then I might wish to cut it.” He implied the inevitable.

“Then you cut it. Just replant it again.”

He didn’t expect that. Was this nepotism? The wisp definitely treated him differently than humans. Dare they come and cut the forest!

“I didn’t expect that.”

The wisp stopped making rounds around his head. “I protect only this forest. Your forest your rules.”

“Technically it’s a jungle, well now it’s a farm.” It was complicated, because he pretty much devastated it and turned it into something else.

“We know. The place with no life, once a Dreaded Place, and here you are... Destruction can be good. Sometimes the old forest needs to burn so that new life can be born from its ashes.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“That’s very wise of you, Great Ancestral Tree.”

The wisp expanded into a very large orb. “It’s in my nature.”

The conversation died down a little for a moment but he remembered one more thing.

“How is the frontier doing? Did the humans return?”

“Good. The Spiky Vine took hold making a perfect barrier as you said. There were some curious humans eyeing my innocent trees but the sight of your spiders was enough to spook them.” It pulsed rapidly. “Very Good. No need to worry, the squirrels keep a good watch, they tell me everything.”

“And the mages?”

The wisp shrunk. “They collected your gifts, in the clearing as agreed, and then, a few days later there was this strange bird with no soul. A messenger? We tried talking with it, told the forest’s wishes and commands, asked about the truce. We are not sure it understood me.”

“Faux Phoenix. Did it leave a message?”

“It did drop some human parchment, very much like the trash humans tend to leave. I turned it to compost.” The wisp expanded with pride.

“Yeah, that was a message for me. Hopefully nothing too important, but please don’t do that next time.”

“Oh, I apologise then.”

He needed a way to contact the mages or tell them to send the messenger bird right to his home. But first, he will need to tell them that the first message was lost.

“I will write them a new message; will you be able to leave it in the clearing?”

“Yes, King of Spiders, I will amend my mistake.”

The conversation was short but he had to urge back to the farm and find the human scribes for it.

…

He sent a messenger spider with a new message, it will go to Ancestral Tree, and hopefully, the wisp will be able to fly it for the rest of the way. He explained the situation, apologising for the lost message, but also he mentioned that he will be sending some of his products to the mages as samples, and asked them to give their honest opinion of how much it was worth. In the package he was sending he packed Red Cloth, TomGrape, PurpleM and Slug Jelly, four items, three of which he had quite a large storage of. He also expressed interest in magical tools and devices of such nature, asking if they would be willing to trade some for the cloth or other products.

He would ask for books, but as it is now, he still couldn’t read human language. However, he did ask for a map.

However, not all was resolved, he still had the situation regarding the runes on his mind. Just as the wisp said, it turned out to be some obscure or even forgotten language almost no one could read or speak. He wondered if he should make it the official language of his kingdom.

Well, he could read it with no problem, but teaching the spiders was it even possible? One can only know after trying, so he invited a few friends.

He and three spiders gathered inside his workshop. There was a warrior leader, a trusted advisor, and a small crafter helper. For some reason, the crafter helper brought a hammer with him.

“You won’t be needing that.” He told the bad news to the spider.

“We. Don’t. Know. It. Yet. I. Just. Might.” It chirped in optimism.

On the rough paper, he wrote. ‘Hello, World.’ It was just two runes.

“You see these runes.”

“Hello, World.” The trusted advisor spoke and the paper turned to ash.

“Eh?”

“Eh.”

The small spider hammered the ash pile by his feet. “Bad. Paper!”

“I’m not sure what just happened. A lucky guess?”

Next, he wrote ‘APPLE’ “You see, this rune, I want to teach you my language. Teach you to read it.”

“What. Is. APPLE?” The warrior leader asked and the paper caught fire.

“No. Must. Punish. Paper!” A small spider hammered the flame out saving a small corner of white paper. “Victory!” It chirped happily.

He blinked once, he blinked twice. “Can you read my runes?”

“Of. Course.” Warrior leader reaffirmed.

“It only makes sense.” Trusted advisor added.

He looked at the small crafter.

“Can you read?”

“Read?”

He wrote ‘On the floor’, but this time not on paper but on the floor. The spider raised his hammer high.

“Oh, no you don’t. Just try reading it.”

“On. The. Floor.” Spider read it tilting its head. “What. Is?”

The floor caught fire. Yeah, magic ink could be quite dangerous. Good thing the spider brought the hammer to beat the flames out.

“So, you all can read. Wonderful!” He just shrugged, there was no point in deliberating on how or why. “Then it settles it. This is our official langue: Spider Runes.” He gave it a name.

“King?” The trusted advisor had a peculiar look in the eye.

“Yes?”

“Spider Chirp.”

“Hmm… Even better!”

…

The Great Ancestral Tree mentioned that the Spider Chirp runes carry power with them and The High Chief implied something similar. So, he had to give it a go and try to craft a Magic Scroll. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to know that the plain paper was the first hurdle to overcome. Luckily he already had a solution, in the form of [Enchanted Boar Leather]. It was a bit impractical to write on the thick leather so instead, with the help of spider crafters, he turned it into thin pieces of vellum, [Enchanted Vellum]. The naming was still somewhat peculiar, he turned the pale-yellow vellum around his fingers inspecting it: it didn’t appear to be enchanted in any way, not yet.

He wrote various words and combinations on the vellum, like Magic Arrow, Fire Bolt and the like; hoping that something will work. Once he read the words the ink would glow and slowly dissipated into the air, with nothing interesting happening. At least the velum didn’t burn this time, making it reusable, so he kept practising various combinations.

“Darkness.”

The blue ink, like usual, glowed in blue, but this time the scroll also glowed and began to burn in equally blue flames. Something different happened, he felt excited. As it was burning it filled the nearby area with a small cloud of smoke, no, it wasn’t smoke it had no smell, it was a cloud of darkness.

“Interesting.” He tried to disperse the small cloud with his hands. It refused to be dispersed but after a few seconds, it disappeared on its own. He also felt somewhat drained, unlike other attempts it consumed a significant amount of his of his mana, well not too much, only enough to feel it tickle down.

[You have crafted Magic Scroll of poor quality. Crafting +100exp.]

[Magic Scroll: -10% mana cost.]

He couldn't understand why was the system message lagging. If anything, it should come as soon as he finished inscribing not after the used up the scroll. He repeated the process and this time, the message came on time, he deposited the scroll into his inventory.

[Magic Scroll: Darkness] x 1.

He wondered if his spiders could make them because just like him they knew the language. However, as disheartening as it was, the scroll just failed to work properly manifesting no spells. There was only one conclusion, a mage had to craft it, or even worse, a dark mage could only craft dark scrolls while the fire mage fire scrolls, etc. However, he was very pleased to find that his spiders could use the scrolls he had made, although, more experimentation was needed.

The Drow might be able to help him with that, the High Chief knew about Magic Scrolls so he must know how to make one as well. However, there was no need to run back to High Chief just yet. If he went there he also wanted to explore the deeper caves because he was interested in fire spirit stones. After all, he found this world's magic so fascinating, but it was notoriously hard to figure out. And for the exploration mission he needed to get the gear ready.

In other words, there was much crafting which needed to be done.