In front of the stone statue of the lady of the lake, an elderly woman dressed in a completely white robe made of an unknown material delicately places a kind of cord made with metal and jewels from the region, then slowly moves away to join hands with several other members similar to her. All the people present wore the same clothes as the goat lady, some members had belts, brooches or necklaces with shiny blue jewels while the goat woman herself carried with her a brass-colored bracelet encrusted with several small blue jewels that emitted a faint blue light.

Everyone soon began to recite some type of magical spell that caused a current of air to mysteriously begin to flow through the place. Soon a bright blue magic circle appeared on the metal cord on the altar, the water in the lake around the spell casters soon began to vibrate and ripple with magical power in the rhythm of they spell.

Then a large amount of magical energy began to rush from the roots all over the place directly towards the statue of the lady of the lake, causing it to glow with light blue cracks which caused a single drop of a strange liquid to flow from inside the jar she was holding onto the magical cord.

Then in a great festival of lights, the item bathed in the magical liquid began to mysteriously fly into the air, the magical circle that was beneath it now began to fragment into several rings that orbited the item in various directions as thsey speed up without stopping.

Whispers and a heavy fog soon began to appear from various places, some people began to falter in the cast of the spell, and soon fell to the ground with their hands shaking. Without hesitation, one by one it began to fall as the item's magic rings began to spin faster and faster. Until in the end only the elderly woman who had started it all was standing, without showing fatigue, she soon raised her strangely shaped staff which caused her eyes and a mysterious mark on her forehead to begin to glow with the same shade of light blue from the cracks of the statue.

Soon the item's magical rings broke, and drawings of letters and magical symbols began flying all over the place while a large amount of magical energy and witchy light emanated from the item. Without hesitation, the goat woman then waves her magic staff, causing letters to fly and mysteriously disappear inside the item that was floating in the epicenter of a sphere of energy.

As time passed, more and more energy was burned, and more and more the goat woman showed clear signs of exhaustion, but even after a lot of hard work, the goat woman was barely able to inject all the letters and energy into the sphere into the item.

Soon she falters, and the entire magical formation starts to shake violently, so the goat woman decides to finish, waving her hand and causing all the energy to start running everywhere without direction, soon just a strange bluish item is on a small altar at the feet of the statue of the lady of the fountain.

Coming close the goat woman wipes the sweat from her forehead and picks up the item in question, previously it was a necklace made of black iron and lake jewels, but now it had taken on a blue copper color, a smooth texture and elegant shape, and its jewel that before was just glued in place, had now definitively fused to the necklace, the jewel seemed to contain some type of water tornado inside it, as when looking at it it was possible to see it moving slowly in a small whirlpool that it emitted a vibrant, pulsating blue light at all times.

Satisfied with her work, the woman soon puts the necklace inside a small wooden box, and turns to start helping her allies who had fainted as a result of the ritual. Soon several other people began to arrive and carry the fallen people. to a tent in the distance.

Looking at the people in the group, it is possible to see that everyone has a single similarity, everyone carries at least one item or clothing that contains a blue jewel identical to the jewel on the newly created cord, the difference is that some have larger, smaller, or in greater quantities, but all carry the exact same type of pretty ornaments or strange pendants.

Whether it's a hairpin, a felt clasp, a brooch or necklace, everyone is wearing something made from the lake's enchanted jewels.

----------------------------------------

Lotus Year 82

I guess I'm some kind of deity now? Or at least a guardian or sponsor? The horned men started to get a little bold, and one day Silver tried to pull the lake's energy toward her again. I obviously suppressed this action, which is quite easy to tell the truth, it's as if the lake's energy "wanted" to help Silver, but I'm the "Master" of this energy, so it doesn't go anywhere without my approval.

Silver was frustrated for a long time, and in the meantime the people in the village discovered a new technology, the lotus silk, when cutting my stems, the horned men discovered a fine fiber contained within my stems, and soon a dedicated group of grandmothers and grandfathers with nothing to do began the arduous work of trying to weave this silk.

At first it was a big failure, but soon they began to be able to extract silk from my stems, the silk produced is very fragile and delicate, but if used to produce clothes the result is a highly durable luxury item, which will not be damaged if is wet.

And that's what they did, they created some kind of strange loom and started sewing whole sheets of fabric together, then they used bones and iron scissors to create more "complex" clothes and now they had access to the weaving industry.

Since I can create stalks non-stop day and night at a negligible cost, so i just ignore the pain and create several stalks for the horned men every day, which helped them gain dozens of clothes, tents, cloths, and traps.

Another great thing was that I've been observing all of them for a long time, and trying to understand their language by observation. There are some newborn babies in the village, and some babies at the ideal age to learn to talk, so I just watch whenever someone is trying to teach something to a child near the lake.

With that I think I understood a few words, like "please", "Baby", "Now", "Eat", "Sleep", and things like that. It's not perfect, but it's still something, I still need to fill in the gaps and find the right way to learn their language.

If they had books with explanatory pictures, or a translator, that would be a piece of cake, but I'm just trying to learn things by association, when someone bumps into someone the first word out of their mouth sounds like an apology, so I I think it's "Sorry", but I could be wrong, or they could have a special word for this specific type of situation.

I have no way of knowing, and only time will tell, but what concerns me now is Silver's insistence on tapping into the energy of my lake. She had returned, and was now carrying one of the lake's jewels, she held the jewel in one hand and soon began to speak.

"Әгәр... Help.... дә сез моны...Me... укыйсыз...Night.... икән, сез...Magic.... ахмак, котлыйбыз...Us?"

I had no idea what she meant, but at this point it seemed obvious to me.

"Why don't you help us?"

I think that's basically what she said, her intentions don't seem ill-intentioned, but she's still too suspicious for me to accept her actions, soon while i was thinking, Silver closes the stone between her fists in a prayer pose, and i start to feel the small tug of energy coming from this act.

This time I decide to let it go, just to see what happens, and soon I can feel my sanctuary strengthening whatever she was doing, then her expression turns from fear to surprise, but it only lasts a second before she comes back into focus and start focusing on the jewelry.

Soon a small amount of energy was drawn from the lake, and Silver's blessing mark began to glow faintly with a shade of mythical blue, then Silver opened his eyes to reveal pupils glowing the same shade of blue, and with the opening of his hand the magic stone begins to float lightly over her palm.

Silver then starts reciting some kind of incantation in a strange kind of language, which causes a small magic circle to appear underneath the magic stone. Soon the circle fragments and becomes 2 small rings of magical symbols that slowly orbit the floating magical stone.

Then I can feel another tug, like some kind of calling from the magic stone, like whispers of energy that seem to come from nowhere. Amidst the mana melody, I ended up getting distracted and soon I could feel something being pulled from me, like a memory or an intention, at least something along those lines.

'What was this?'

Without giving me time to wonder, the strange spell seemed to have achieved what it wanted, because soon the rings began to orbit the stone quickly, until they turned into strange symbols that floated lightly in the air before slowly entering inside the magical jewel.

Notice The item [Tear of Serenity] was created by [Selene Tsunoko] when using you as a channel.

Warning The individual [Selene Tsunoko] is channeling you.

'Am I being channeled? What does that mean... is it like borrowing my powers?'

Looking at the situation, I could soon feel a great familiarity with the jewel in Sil-Selene's hand, something like a whisper of magic or magical sixth sense that told me that the jewel belonged to me.

'Interesting... This item is burning my own energy to stay active, but I can turn it off at any time, and I can even feel the exact location of the item...'

A magical item created by Selene that uses me as a channel to supply energy, I don't know if it's a fair exchange, as I don't gain anything from it, I just lose energy and resources.

'I think we're done here... I won't allow Selene to create any more of these things... At least I found out Silver's real name out of all this.'

As I watched Selene super excited with the strange jewel in her hand, soon she starts to pour energy into the jewel, and I can feel the item "turning on", soon a small blue witchy light starts to emanate from the magical jewel, and a strange kind of of aura begins to emanate from the jewel.

Soon things go wrong, and the jewel that was pure blue begins to be dyed blood red, an action that caused Selene to drop the stone into the lake, once inside the waters of the lake I can see the now red jewel emitting a distorted aura of energy that emits the sound of a baby crying.

Stretching my roots towards the thing, I feel a strange sensation of extreme discomfort as I get close to the jewel, looking at its facets I can see what appear to be distorted and broken images of a human screaming frantically at the "camera" while the baby's crying continued in the background, then the human who was screaming runs towards the "camera" and starts punching and hitting, until things start to spin and the vision falls to a dirty floor filled with old toys while a pool of blood forms as the vision becomes more and more cloudy, so at the end of it the jewel abruptly cracks and loses all magic while all the broken pieces fall on the bottom of the lake.

'What was that?... A bad memorie... A bad memorie from...me?'

When Selene created the jewel, I felt the spell pull something from me, and apparently the spell grabbed a bad memory or feeling, creating a "cursed" jewel that contains a bad memory or story.

'Damn... What was that? Who were those people... Who's was the baby crying? Who's the human punching the.... Who am I?... Who was I?'

----------------------------------------

Lotus Year 82

A few months passed, and in the meantime Selene ended up creating more items similar to the previous failure. Did I say I wouldn't help you? Well yes, but things have changed now.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I wasn't willing to help them because there was nothing to gain from it, plus it had a significant cost that I couldn't afford to spend, unlike the bouquets of leaves that I create endlessly, magical energy is difficult to be produced, especially when my access to the sky is blocked by demonic clouds.

But everything changed when Selene came with a group of wizards, they gathered in a half circle around the statue in the lake, and began to recite some kind of magical incantation that caused little by little a substantial amount of magical energy to be released and pumped into the lake waters.

This new energy is chaotic and disordered, like ink mixed with water, but using my skills and powers of purification and absorption, I managed to slowly turn this energy into a totally pure form free of "variants", and all I had to do was remove everything that I considered harmful within this foreign energy and put it into potatoes!

With this I got a new source of energy that is very renewable and reliable, this new source of energy is not constant like generating my own MP, but the amount is high compared to the drops of MP that I get through celestial absorption.

Celestial absorption provides me with a constant and direct generation, drop by drop, but never stopping to fall. But generation by... "Fees", is like a great wave of energy that arrives between large periods of time.

Thanks to that I decided to let Selene use the lake's energy to create her colorful items, but this time I don't let the spells catch me off guard and rip out memories that I don't want to remember.

The result of this was the spell being "incomplete", giving extra work to Selene, who now had to add the intention to the item manually, it seems like just another task on the list, but this part is quite complicated, and if Selene doesn't do everything Of course, it will end up creating "failures", which are useless items that consume a lot of energy but have no purpose.

All of the "failures" ended up in the lake, or at least those who didn't escape Selene's rage due to their failure. Whenever she failed to create a magical item she became so frustrated with the loss of energy, resources and time that she ended up throwing it all into the lake or crushing it with her staff.

The result of this was that now I have a lot of magical junk between my roots, this magical junk has no real use, but it is nice to look at, so I ended up dragging everything I could into my little secret cave and putting it at the bottom of my house lake.

In the meantime I've also been observing the horned men more and more, and I'm always trying to learn their language, but other than simple words that I "guessed", I haven't been able to learn anything else for a long time.

Words are just a way of expressing something, I may not understand what they say, but over time I was able to distinguish their reactions, actions and responses to each other.

The horned men don't respect the village's children, not even the children's parents show "Affection" for them, but that doesn't mean they don't take care of them, the children have priority when it comes to eating, they go through rigorous training every days without fail, and everyone need's to effectively help in village society after the age of 7.

Whether carrying buckets or sharpening knives, no one can remain calm, the only ones who seem to have a little peace are the babies and the elderly, 2 groups that lived side by side, the babies keeping company for the very old members, and the old taking care of all the needs of babies, even those who are not part of their respective families.

This is not a rule written in stone, but most children are raised together, the exceptions being the "nobles", the homes of more "important" people were looked after by their wives, so while a man was away the women took care of the home, kids and chores. While it was a man's obligation to educate children when they were older, protect his wife and children, and provide food and resources for his home.

A very common thing I think, but the most impressive thing for me is the fact that roles can be reversed in this society. If a woman is a warrior, and only knows how to fight, she probably won't be able to get married due to the village's customs, but in the rare cases where this actually happens, the person who takes care of the house and the babies is the weakest of the two on the couple, which usually ends up being the one who's not used to fight.

I learned this by seeing the poor violet eyes creepy, he was unlucky one day to meet the red demon, initially she didn't pay attention to him, but then after getting bored she started harassing him, and soon she brushed his curls hair aside to reveal a soft and delicate expression.

Even with the thinness and the dark circles under his eyes, the beauty underneath "all that" was still evident, and this sparked the interest of the demon woman, who impressively had a 180° change in her actions, going from a harassing slut to a kind of drama heartthrob.

She started bringing food, giving gifts to the man and even threatening anyone who came close to him, soon the poor guy was isolated from the rest of the village and his only option was the red demon. After trying a lot, and failing miserably, the man gave up trying to escape, and just tried to adapt to this new scenario, starting to accept gifts and treats from the red woman, until his disheveled and frightening appearance ended up becoming a delicate ikumen who's really was a exotic beauty.

After that the giant woman basically dragged him to the altar, and married him, quickly getting pregnant and after giving birth she just walked out and left her husband with a girl with milky white skin and blood red eyes behind.

The man looked miserable, sad, confused, angry, scared all together and mixed at once, but he ended up doing his best and now lives peacefully in one of the best houses in the village, since no one here want to mess with the "Little Princess" of the red demon.

Another action I noticed about the horned men was the worship of idols, in this case me. They seem to have a very strong faith directed towards something they consider sacred, the whole village had people wearing clothes with water waves, or lotus flowers lace on their clothes, as well as having small wooden or stone statues of "me" in some public places, they also show a lot of respect for the lake, refusing to throw trash into it, or take water directly from the lake.

The only exception is Selene, who openly takes water and throws her failed trinkets into the lake, but the rest of the village openly demonstrates her displeasure with this, even though I don't really care.

The people of the village also quickly realized that no matter how much water they take from the lake, it is always filled to the brim, but never overflows, which made them create several water channels that feed the entire village, from latrines and kitchens to infirmaries and farms, everything passed through canals made with small stone bricks that were covered by wooden grates.

The dirty water flowed into the black river far from the village, and these water channels were one of the main reasons I was able to learn so much about the horned men.

My roots are very good at purifying and producing water, but they are not good at digging through hard ground, so I can only grow roots on the surface of soft earth, or in bodies of water.

The first option is not viable because the soft earth in the village is almost always being disturbed to build stone pits, so I can't use that method, but the water channels allowed me to create roots everywhere the canals passed, and I can create small roots that can grow between the cracks in the stone floor, so it was only a matter of time before I spread my roots throughout the village.

The people in the village seem oblivious to my existence, as if they don't realize that there are roots growing all over the place, maybe they think it's normal, maybe they don't care about it, or maybe they think it's a "blessing from the lake", whatever it is, they don't seem to care about the mysterious plant in the lake that grows non-stop day and night.

----------------------------------------

Lotus Year 84

Notice The heroine [Emily Ashllen] has been chosen.

Notice The hero [Jonny Aister] has been chosen.

Notice The hero [Kevin Loopen] has been chosen.

Notice The saint [Grace Maifen] has been chosen.

A year had passed, and one day I was bombarded with information that I didn't need to know, the birth of 3 heroes and a.... Saint? I thought there was only one hero, but apparently there could be more.

'They even brought a saint as extra help? What does a saint do?'

Looking at the horned men, I could see that everyone had stopped what they were doing and whispered to each other, meaning that everyone had received the same notification as me.

'So it's not something that only I know about... Everyone receives this information, so is it important? It's not like knowing the hero's name would help me, what am I going to do? Offer them a glass of water and ask for an autograph?'

The information at least helped me know that at least help was on the way, if the heroes were born then it means that this apocalypse would soon end.

'What if the demon lord wins? The last one died to a single hero, so I think it's difficult for this new demon lord to win in a 4 x 1 fight.'

Soon life continued for me and the horned men, now there was a pregnant woman teaching something to a group of children in the grass fild near the lake, and I was trying to learn a bit more too.

I'm not very good with their language, but I can manage with time, I may not understand exactly what they are saying, but at least I can understand the "feeling" behind what they are saying.

I can know if they are fighting, cursing, praising, arguing, arguing or being sarcastic with each other, which is very important to understand them better.

Looking at the girl I soon lose attention and start looking at the children around the girl, there are several of them, but there is a small specific group that catches my attention the most.

The first one I like to call Coal, he is a boy of about 2 years old with the appearance of a 4 year old child, since it seems that horned men are "born ready", unlike humans, horned men have a longer gestation period, But as soon as babies come out, they can crawl, open their eyes and even babble.

And their growth is also rapid, until the age of 5 they would grow until they had the appearance of 9-11 year old children, then they would freeze there for a few years until they started growing again around the age of 10-11. true for their most adolescent form, then at 15-17 years old they would begin to assume adult forms which would remain frozen for several years without changing much.

The boy in question has coal-black skin full of red cracks, eyes with black irises and red pupils and 2 white horns curled into the beginning of a spiral.

The boy is the son of the town's blacksmith, who I call Smith, and the busty woman with the power to incinerate things. The couple's result was a boy who appears to contain the same "curse" as his mother, but in a different and more unstable form.

Unlike his mother, who only has flaming hands, the boy can heat any part of his body, but unlike his mother, he can control this "curse", his body only heats up when he is angry or furious, andsince he is a tantrum child, he has already caused many fires around the village "not on purpose".

The boy's only weakness is, unfortunately, water. If you throw water on him he goes out like a hot coal, but doing this is very dangerous for him, because the water can literally kill him, if he "goes out" he dies, which made him kind of frowned upon in a village that pray to the "saint of the lake".

Another child is a girl with menacing red eyes, milk-white skin, and short, roughly cut, basalt-black hair.

She is the daughter of the red demon and the violet princess, the girl was basically forced by her mother to become a warrior, and even at such a young age that even her horns are still soft at the tip, her mom had cut her hair sealing her fate as a "warrior" and dragged her to the battlefield to learn in a young age.

The girl goes through brutal training and constant beatings from her mother while all the rest of the children play and learn from their elders, and now she was in one of the rare moments where her mother had "more important things to do" and she was left under the supervision of her father, who was very docile with her, and basically used every opportunity he had to let her have "a normal childhood".

The girl doesn't seem to have any special powers that come to mind, but she can use some of the shadow magic she inherited from her father, creating small orbs of shadows that she can throw at zombies.

She is also very good at hiding, possibly thanks to her father's help, and when she is not enjoying time helping her father with household chores, she is spending her entire day trying to escape from her mother.

But unfortunately for her, the red demon is a great sniffer, especially if she is looking for her own daughter, the red demon seems to be able to use blood magic, so I think she is using her own blood to find her daughter, because no matter how well hidden she is, her mother always finds her and drags her to the battlefield.

The next child is a girl who only needs to have "noble" written on her forehead, as she has hair curled in pigtails with jeweled silk bows, a beautiful dress with lotus flower embroidery and ruffles, and a little face like someone who has never raised something heavier than a book in her entire life.

The girl has freckles all over her body, pink skin and violet hair, her eyes are a shade of red and pink, and her horns are jet black.

The girl is the eldest daughter of the couple with the crying woman and the man with a sour personality, the two quickly got married and had children quickly, her firstborn is the pink girl and her other son is a newborn with green hair with white streaks and beige skin full of freckles everywhere.

The girl doesn't seem to have inherited her mother's strange powers, but it seems too early to say for sure yet, her only special ability is being a bookworm, annoying everyone to provide all the books she can find, on any subject.

She also has a sweet and cheerful personality, which differs greatly from her reclusive and strict parents, in addition to being very innocent and friendly with everyone, always wanting to make friends with other children and teach them about the world of books.

And lastly, we have the son of the golden princess and the humble farmer. A cute little boy with beige-yellow hair, tanned skin like tan and milk-white eyes.

The problem with him is that the boy is blind, it seems like some kind of illness or curse, because even though his mother is the best healer in the village she can't cure him no matter what she tried, maybe it's not possible to cure birth illnesses, or maybe she's just not good enough.

But something I know, the boy, he is special.

No matter how I look at him, I feel like he has something special, his vision may be broken, but I can still see him "staring" at the lake whenever he passes by, and unlike most he doesn't look at the lake statue of the lady of the lake, but rather to the bottom of the lake, to a very special place where 2 mud crustaceans are disguised as rocks that camouflage the entrance to my secret cave, looking directly at my main body.

The boy has some kind of vision, it's just not conventional vision, but it's something that allows him to see "The true shape of things", so he could be walking calmly and run into a wall, but if I spilled some of energy in the air his attention would be instantly triggered like insects looking at a light bulb.

'I must keep an eye on this boy... he might end up getting me in trouble...'