After experimenting with the feeling a little more, Licht shook himself out of the distraction and got back to work. He had gathered up enough seeds by now, and they were plenty small enough to be transferred quickly by ‘kissing’ roots together and feeding them through. It was basically a hand-off system, all the way until they reached the main body.
Once there, he quickly started planting the seeds in rows. He had brought more than enough to get started as he wanted to be sure he would have enough later down the line. Once the seeds were visibly planted in the space between his main body and the first line of trees he contemplated.
“Once these are planted, it’s going to be awfully crowded around here. Even the stone shelf I made for the blossoms is going to have to move if I want those seeds around it to grow.”
He wasn’t looking to spend a few years waiting for the seeds to grow though, so he moved his roots from the outer trees to connect to them. He had debated briefly doing a test of four methods like he had for the blossom orbs, but as he already found there was no problem with the tree’s natural processes once he was connected, he disregarded that troublesome step.
Pumping nutrients and water into twelve of the seeds to start off with, he watched them rise and break the dirt. Forming into saplings then into mature trees blooming with fresh moon-like bulbs.
[Skill Upgraded: Passive Nutrient Absorption (E) -> Passive Nutrient Absorption (E+)]
[Skill Upgraded: Passive Withe Body (E) -> Passive Withe Body (E+)]
“Oh? A little beneficial consequence of my work? Well that’s not too bad at all.”
It seemed by pushing several trees from their seedling state all the way through maturity he had hit some kind of threshold, letting him upgrade the two related skills at the same time.
“These two will definitely make transferring nutrients much easier, but that’s probably it for now. I should find more ways to use the withe body skill.”
Licht made that a mental note. It seemed that when he had evolved to a Woodland Ego, the withe body skill was a staple of the race, so there should be other ways in which it was useful. So far it had proved to be a great logistical tool.
Now that the bulbs were grown on the freshly-minted Imperial Delia’s, he could get to work. Slowly raising a root, he constricted one of the bulbs and tore it from its tree. He then grabbed a blossom and set the two alongside each other.
“Alright, how should I do this?”
The blossom needed a convenient surface to grow on, so he got that first, putting them on the surface of a flat stone. He then squeezed the bulb, letting it pop and spray juice onto the petals of the blossom. He was careful to not touch the surface of the bulb to the blossom for fear of poisoning it. It seemed fine against his roots though, so maybe it only affected animals?
“Given how this is not merely normal fruit, that juice should be much more than just nutritious, but extremely concentrated with what the blossom needs.”
His hope was that the infusion of a surplus of energy would allow the blossom to grow the ‘hairs’ that it needed to stick to the stone and start growing stability. Alas his brilliant foray into the botany world didn’t go as expected.
The Manacle Blossom sample just lay there on the stone, now slightly wet.
“Okay, well what about placing it on the ground for the same test? No? Okay that didn’t work, what about growing it against the fruit itself? No, okay. What about…”
After a few hours of trial and error he had expended over twenty bulbs and the lives of three Manacle Blossoms. He felt as if he had gotten no closer to his goal than before he started.
“Surely Giving Tree isn’t just fucking with me? Are these bulbs really the answer to this?”
One wouldn’t think that growing moss was that hard, but the description really hadn’t been lying when it said they can’t be cultivated artificially. For some reason beyond what the generous giant had said though, Licht did feel that there was something about the bulbs that he could use.
…
“I hope Licht is doing well. Actually, now that things have calmed down here, I should go check on him!”
Racheal had such a thought a few days after their talk, prompting her to leave the clearing to search for the main body of the talking-tree collective. She had her responsibilities in the group, namely the elf children and helping to care for those three who had been wounded, but at the moment she could afford to leave. The injured were now recovering and in a much better way, although still had trouble getting around.
The two black-haired elf children, she had decided, would be more than fine being left to themselves for a few days. There were plenty of adults to help them if they really needed it, although most were busy setting up real buildings and hunting for food.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Out of everyone here, the children were likely the least affected by the torment of the past few weeks, and strangely enough, were already asking to help out around the place. Elves aged a lot slower than most other races, and although they behaved like children, Racheal assumed the boy and girl were in their thirties, if not forties.
As for why Racheal hadn’t just tapped on one of the trees in the vicinity to talk to Licht, she couldn’t. She had tried, but the tree was simply silent, no cloak of darkness had engulfed her to prompt mental conversation. This had worried her at first, but she realized Licht was probably focused on something else and hadn’t noticed her.
When they had spoken, he had mentioned his control over his connected trees wasn’t omnipotent, and sometimes he caught stuff a little late or missed things altogether. He also said some days it was just slow-going.
Although he had used the word “laggy”, which Racheal hadn’t understood.
So not being able to contact him directly, she moved into the forest. She walked roughly from the point where the past leader of the caravan, Chuck, had disappeared from. Licht hadn’t discussed exactly where his main body was, still probably a little hesitant of her, Racheal realized. However, she could guess well enough.
For all the ways in which Licht was an outlier to Nature Spirits, he also followed their habits in many ways. If he had a physical body, he was bound to put himself at the very center point of wherever he was funneling nutrients to. Racheal had been trained as an alchemist, but she had a spattering of all sorts of nature-related knowledge as an occupational necessity.
Nature Spirits were often hoarders of natural resources, as it was widely agreed upon across many academic texts. Her first-hand experience from back home could verify it too.
After walking for a while, taking a break to eat, and then continuing, Racheal stopped. The trees here had become…strange. As Racheal looked left and right she could see the tree line that was no longer randomized, bending forward before her.
“Concentric circles of trees? This must be where he is.”
But why would he arrange the trees in this way? Licht’s existence was obviously special, but in her opinion it didn’t seem like it would naturally shape the environment like this. Therefore Licht had to have done this himself. Didn’t he want to hide his existence for now? It made it pretty clear something was here based on these artificial rings of trees.
Racheal walked with a mouth full of questions through the trees. Before long, she exited the density of the tree rings and came across a clearing filled with numerous small dirt mounds. In the center was a twisting, hideous amalgamation of a tree. It was as if an inept had sculpted the shape of a tree from memory while being stabbed in the brain.
“Are these mounds all buried seeds? Holy! What is with that tree?!”
To the side of the tree was a clumping of large stones. They had been set on top of each other to resemble a shelf. Though primitive, Racheal could see it would weather the seasons well given its size. Though it was currently empty of any contents.
To the side of the stone shelf was a cluster of luminescent trees, about a dozen from her count. Each had several bulbs dangling from them, bright and luminescent. A rare, undiscovered type of tree, she figured.
Then blackness came.
“Racheal! I’m so glad to see you again!”
Racheal’s eyes opened wide at the sudden welcoming. A cacophonous mixture of sounds forming a single voice greeted her with much more enthusiasm than she had ever felt before.
“Hello Licht, what is it you’re uh, doing here?”
Racheal had wanted to talk with him more about growing stronger. The idea of his capacity for spells being much higher than most exceptions to the one-spell rule was exciting. So Racheal had wanted to outline a plan for that today. But it seemed like Licht had not been idling when she was away. How unlike a tree.
“Here! It is the fruit of my labor. Well of course minus a few upgrades to skill and the like and the discovery of a possibly virtue and the way forth to farm it, oh and of course if you discount further communication and establishing a front with the Giving Tr…”
“Woah, woah. You’ve lost me. Is that the flower from before?”
Licht was rambling manically, like an alchemist overworked and sleepless for several nights. Racheal’s focus was on the bright azure flower with a sparkling yellow center orb though. A root had extended such a flower toward her amid Licht’s explanation. Against the contrast of the inky background, the flower contrasted well.
“Oh this? Well, the Manacle Blossom is technically a flowering moss, but yes. I’ve connected this one to my main body, as you can see. It’s what I’ve been trying to cultivate for the past few days, and lo and behold! I did it! It took using the reserve stock I found by that cave, but eventually, everything worked out. The secret was to plant them within the Imperial Delia bulbs, not just use the fruit! Honestly, if I hadn’t scooped out the fruit from frustration and jammed the two together, I’d never know, hahaha!”
Licht’s voice was going about a mile a minute. Racheal could barely keep up. At that point she realized Licht was having trouble focusing, as the black background of the skill vanished along with the voices of her conversation partner.
For a few seconds she was able to see out of the corner of her eye, the dozen or so trees. The bioluminescent trees, perhaps the Imperial Delias, turned toward her to show off their bulbs. Multiple blossoms could be seen gestating in the translucent hanging pods.
The darkness came back and Licht’s voice returned shortly after, triumphant.
“I finally did it! That lying description be damned!”
Racheal frowned. If those blossoms being grown really were the same ones that had saved her friend’s lives, then this was a major achievement. Before she could celebrate that however, her focus turned back to the manically laughing Licht. She didn’t know how long nature spirits could go without rest or if they even did, but this one in front of her definitely needed to take a nap.
“Licht!”
“Yeah! Wait, what?”
“Go to sleep!”