John was ready to activate the Ritual of Cleansing by early afternoon. He set it up and dumped the bodies inside, then activated it, watching once more as the glow of mana overtook the ritual as it began its task. He then headed directly for the Gateway of Worlds only to stop as he noticed the now extensive compound that sat next to it.

The squires had, apparently, been working non-stop and John could see a half-dozen different buildings all made of stone with windows that appeared to be filled with some form of clear substance, possibly glass or… maybe quartz? That was a pretty nifty idea, quartz windows, he’d have to try that. The buildings were all situated around a central yard which had several large sand pits spaced evenly about. Judging by the people sparring in them, they were used for training.

“What did they do with all the displaced dirt?” John muttered to himself.

“Used Dirt to Stone on most of it,” someone said next to him.

John looked over to find the orc woman he’d spoken with yesterday. She was standing on one side of the bridge, there was another of the knights on the other side.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there. Dirt to Stone? I don’t think I’ve heard of that one,” he admitted.

“It’s a first-tier spell, pretty easy to learn,” she said, sounding a little short.

“I’m sorry, have I offended you somehow?” John asked, baffled.

The woman made to reply, but visibly stopped herself, she spoke a moment later, her tone almost emotionless. “No, you haven’t. I merely didn’t expect my first assignment to be guarding a farmer and his tree.”

“Oh,” John said, unsure of how he should respond to that. “Well, I appreciate it, for what that’s worth?” he said after another beat of silence.

The orcish woman just huffed out a breath and her partner, a wolfkin, simply avoided John’s gaze.

“Alright then,” John said and headed into the shrine.

Once more he parted the wall so he could get inside, and once more he was dismayed that the tree had grown. It was almost a foot tall now. He sealed the wall behind him and then Pulled a bit of it in to form a seat. Sitting himself down he looked at the tree and sighed.

“What do I do with you?” He muttered, then reached out and touched one of the leaves.

The leaf had a strange, almost slippery texture, and it felt cool against his fingertips. Slowly he extruded a thread of mana and ran it down his arm toward the tree. As he formed it, he began to impress upon it the concept of space until the strand of mana was void black with little flashes of white and color. He began feeding the strand of mana into the tree, slowly so as not to hurt it.

John watched the tendril of mana as it leapt from his hand to the tree, passing from his fingertips into the leaf and spreading through the sapling like blood through capillaries. He could feel the tree in a way he’d never felt another being before. It was like having a second body, but made of leaves and branches. He could feel the air on his stem and leaves, the gentle pressure of his own hand on his leaf, the joy of water and nutrients around his roots, the beauty of sunlight as it gave him vital energy. And above it all he could feel a desire, a longing, but for what he didn’t know or understand.

He could feel the magic inside himself, all tangled up in void and space, but with barely any direction of which to speak. There were tiny hints of organization, of instructions, but there was no unifying cause. This was wrong, it was frustrating, it was unacceptable. He wanted to be more, to have unity and purpose for his magic, not this jumbled jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.

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John pulled away in shock and looked around. The sun had changed position, and his reserves of mana were empty. According to his clock almost seventy-eight minutes had passed. What had that been? He’d felt like he was the tree. Those experiences, they hadn’t been thinking, not strictly, more like that was how his mind interpreted it, since he had no other frame of reference. He slowly exhaled. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do now. He understood that the magic in the tree was only partially formed, right now it wasn’t anything.

If the tree were left alone, with nothing else added, its magic would be wild and unformed, it could become almost anything so long as it related to space magic. But that wasn’t what he wanted, he needed a portal, a way to connect to the rest of the world. The auction was good, but empire wide distribution was better. He took a few minutes to use Mana Drawing, and then he began feeding space mana into the tree once more.

He was the tree, a calm, blissful experience, marred only by the uncertainty of his own magic. How he wished to understand it, to have direction and purpose. He was… he was… he was John, his name was John, and he was not a tree. He was the large hairy thing that had planted the seed, that had given it such rich food and good magic. But he hadn’t given it enough, it didn’t know what to do, who to be!

John came to sitting next to the tree once more. The sun had moved again, and once more he’d lost over an hour. It had felt like only minutes. Whenever he connected like this it was as if his thoughts became glacially slow. How was he supposed to get anything done? He’d barely come to an awareness of himself when he’d run out of mana!

Hesitating, he decided to try something he’d never done before. He actively used Mana Drawing at the Novice level to create a single loop, doubling his mana regeneration, putting him over one mana per second. He then concentrated and created another tendril of space mana. It was difficult, holding the two skills at once, but not as difficult as making mana stones. He once more touched the sapling, sending his mana, and consciousness, into it.

The sun was nice on his leaves, he could use some more water though, the growth was so fast it was making him thirsty. He felt vibrant though, alive! He soaked in the magic that was being fed to him from all around, and the direct line from the hairy one. John! I am John! He broke away from the pseudo-consciousness of the plant. He was not a tree. He was John, and he had a mission.

Shifting his mind he could feel the core of the tree, the place its magic converged. It was chaotic, a jumble of concepts and half formed ideas all mashed together, vying for dominance. Left alone it’d ossify into something strange and likely useless. He could already see the chaotic tides slowly settling. That was unacceptable.

At first he tried finding a single piece of a concept, the idea of portals, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack made of similar needles. There was nothing he could latch onto and start building around. He needed to change his approach. He had told Helen that he was going to simply try talking to it, telling it what he wanted. So, he’d start there.

John focused on the idea of a portal. A gateway that led from one place to another. He felt a resonance within the roiling mass of magic, but it was faint, and hard to find. He considered for a few moments and started describing different types of portals. The first that came to mind was the ever-popular wormholes used in sci-fi books and movies since long before John had been born. The idea of a fold in space that connected two distant locations did seem to have some resonance in the magic, and he pushed on, imagining the simple illustration of a flat plane folded in on itself with a hole punched through. The resonance grew stronger, but was still weak.

The next portal that came to mind was one from legend, the Bifrost of old Norse mythology, once again popularized by modern media. John ruminated on the idea, a rainbow bridge that carried people from one place to another, even across worlds. The resonance was building, he could almost find it now, so he continued, drawing an idea from popular media. There was the Castle Perilous with its many magic doors, each leading to a parallel world. That found less resonance, but it was still there. He could feel the idea of portals emerging, but he was running out of examples. Finally he gave up and released his contact with the tree.

Looking around he found that it was late evening. Twilight was setting in and his clock told him it was almost time to log out for the night. He stood up, willing the stone he’d been using as a seat back into the wall. Looking around he saw that the guard on the shrine had been changed. He watered the tree, then opened a hole in the wall and walked out, closing it up behind him. Nodding to the two knights on duty (who studiously ignored him) he made his way back to the storm cellar, and logged out.