Hemlock stood and stared as he watched the work of Licht. His eyes were wide with curiosity and amazement as the hands of the giant seemed to guide the threads as if they were alive and following his will. The threads themselves turned and locked together while Licht stood calmly like a shepherd herding sheep.

Hemlock could not discern by sight alone what was happening, but he had a guess that Licht was changing the walls of the grove somehow. He appeared to be feeding into the walls a new material, a darker and sturdier thread of wood was cast like water into a pond. Flowing from the seemingly infinite well of the giant’s wood body.

Hemlock peered forward, trying to absorb every movement of the being’s wooden hands.

“Was I too loud?”

Hemlock’s thoughts were broken by the deep voice that spoke Silver. The priest looked up from his lasered-in stare and gaped at the question.

”O-oh! No, no. I was just, uh, walking and I heard your work.”

Hemlock choked over his words. His voice came out scratchy and unsure due to his nervousness. In truth, he was a little intimidated by the presence of the nature spirit, even if he was curious about his ability. Having heard things from the elf children and having lived the past few days in the curated space of the grove, the presence of its guardian had grown taller in his mind with each day. The rarity of times that Licht could even be seen around the grove supported this mysticism greatly.

Hemlock hadn’t meant to approach so closely, but it seemed that Licht had still heard him nonetheless.

”Ah, well it’s no problem if you want to watch. I don’t mind an audience.”

There seemed to be a bit of humor in the spirit’s words, but Hemlock was too on edge to reciprocate the same.

…

As soon as he had finished the sapling, Licht had carried it over the grove’s walls and into the forest. Rooting it into the ground, the next step had been to make it grow and see how well it would thrive in the forest.

Before, in the past years he had used [Arboreal Sense] to vaguely ‘speak’ to trees and give them directions that would expedite their growth. It had been more cost-effective than [Biogenical Growth], but that was no longer the case now.

Licht simply planted the sapling down and waved his hand, and in an instant, the tree began to rise and sprout like a magic beanstalk.

”Oh-hoh! Nice!”

Who ever said I wasn’t the master gardener? Licht thought happily. He stepped back and watched as the tree grew to a humongous height, surpassing the height of his own body by more than two times, and sprouting above the canopy of surrounding trees. Licht beheld the tree.

Despite being derived from the Imperial Delia tree species, the new tree didn’t resemble them much at all. Its canopy of leaves were clumped together and spread out in a flatter pattern, and the branches weaved together in a spiraling circular pattern before fanning out. Where there would have been hanging bulbs, a different type of fruit grew. One that looked far more edible and regular, but sported the same luminescence as before.

Whereas the bulbs of the Imperial Delia appeared as glowing orbs hanging in the pouches of net-like membranes, the fruit of his new tree was pear-shaped and solid. They resembled colored glass with faint red pulses of illumination from within.

The new fruit served only to collect the excess nutrients of the tree and express it as bioluminescence. As Licht’s use of his skills was nowhere near the level of technicality required to change the type of fruit yet or its attributes, it was a miracle that this much had changed to the tree’s organic yield. It was a product solely of his skills messing with the tree’s DNA, nothing he could claim any credit for.

Although getting this far was an incredible achievement for Licht, he still intended to edit the function of the tree’s fruit in the future before he spread it en masse. Though that would require more experimenting in the workshop.

But even though the fruit could still be improved, nothing had been taken away from the development of the tree’s material, which had been easier to reinforce in the development stage. Licht intended to use it for the fortification of the grove, which would be easier to do now that he could connect to it in the same way he had been able to do with his withe fibers.

Licht placed his hand on the surface of the tree and drew the bark into himself. The outer material of the tree around his hand twisted and slithered into the openings in his hand, filling a small portion of the cavity within his body.

“This tree being made with [Construct Body] makes this process a lot easier. Now that I’ve stored its material within my body, I can reconstruct a near limitless supply of it without using that much of my body’s inner storage. So long as I keep the bare minimum of relevant material, and the plant is connected to my body skill, I’m only limited by my reserve of AF!”

So now Licht could create replicas of the tree before him from the material he had stored. What good that would do for now was limited, as he still had plans to improve this species. At least for now Licht had a “mk1” version of the tree that he could spread at any time.

Licht retracted his hand and looked at it in satisfaction. Disregarding the hand print he left on the tree, he pulled himself over the grove’s wall by manipulating the surrounding roots and thought about his plan.

“Hmm, threading the new tree’s material between the existing fence of roots should work. As the existing wall was made from the native trees and their roots, introducing my own strain of tree should overpower them, eventually replacing their material with its own.”

The new material he would be introducing was a lot stronger than the existing wall, and would make the grove much safer. The problem was, like oil and water each material was of differing densities and composition. While this wouldn’t matter if the wall was just made of ordinary building materials, Licht had constructed it so that it could self-heal. The wall of the grove, having been made out of a conglomeration of multiple trees and bushes, was akin to a giant living organism.

Stolen novel; please report.

Him introducing a stronger element would either disrupt the natural organic cycle of the wall, or take it over, infecting its host and replacing it with its own material. The latter sounded sinister but it was the preferred option, and Licht was currently weaving in the new wood so that the transition would be smooth. Doing it this way would be more cost effective than replacing the whole wall or taking it down and putting up a new one, and the grove wouldn’t risk exposure during the process.

It was during this process that Licht sensed movement from across the grove’s field.

Licht furrowed his brow, trying to figure out what time it was with his internal clock.

“It should be close to three in the morning? What is that guy doing?”

Even though Licht didn’t need to sleep, he used to do so anyway up until two years ago. But he knew at least that the kids and Muan were always asleep around this time, so he hadn’t expected to be approached by their visitor either.

Ehhhh. How long is he going to keep doing that?

Licht, slightly uncomfortable by the creepy staring of the priest, stayed on task despite the enamored eyes boring holes into his back.

After a few more minutes, Licht needed to break the tension.

“Was I too loud?”

Licht then listened to the priest’s awkward reply. It was obvious that the priest hadn’t noticed that he was basically leering. Shame! Well, Licht didn’t want to totally put the guy off. Though it was early morning, if the guy wanted to stay and watch he could stay and watch.

Licht hadn’t totally cut himself off from the rest of the world over the past few days of experiments and had noticed that he seemed to be rather helpful around the grove. Plus the kids seemed to like him.

And Licht supposed it wouldn’t be as bad having this guy watch him as long as he wasn’t so creepy about it. An expectation that Licht was happy to see fulfilled as Hemlock walked closer and sat down on the flat grass.

Licht nodded and continued to silently weave the wood together.

But Licht could multitask, and after another few minutes he felt it was weird to not speak at all.

“...Hemlock, was it?”

It was Hemlock right? Wasn’t that a poison? Licht disregarded the irony and hoped he didn’t just flub the guy’s name on their first one-on-one interaction.

The priest’s eyes perked up, focusing where Licht’s eyes would have been.

“How has your experience here been so far? Have you been healing well?”

Hemlock nodded.

“Yes, sire. I have been healing at an extraordinary pace thanks to the daily salves Siya and Arjun have provided. I have learned a lot in my short time here, and am incredibly fortunate to have come under your protection.”

Licht noticed the priest’s manner of speaking was practically servile. And ‘sire’? What is this, the medieval ages? Oh, I guess it kind of is.

Anyway, do people here hold that much reverence for their doctors?

Probably not. From his tone Licht guessed the man saw him more as a savior and the grove as salvation than simply a place for refuge. Licht internally frowned. Whatever situation he was running from must be dire indeed. Perhaps to the priest, this residence was not as temporary as Licht had assumed.

Whatever the case, Licht would accept the help. It had been hard to get an extra pair of hands in the past few years, and some things that needed to be done weren’t tasks suited to the kids or Muan.

“That’s good. It seems that the kids both like you, and that’s good enough for me. If you have long term plans to stay here, I might call on you to help with their development.”

“Of course!”

Hemlock’s eyes sparkled for a moment, but then he paused.

“I’m more than willing to do anything to help around here, sire, but…could I ask something?”

Licht’s curiosity was piqued.

“Of course, what doubts of yours can I resolve?”

“Sire, of what variety of spirit are you?”

Licht too, paused. His expression darkened imperceptibly as he was reminded of past conversations with Racheal. She too had been curious of the nature of his existence and its seeming discordance with historic examples of nature spirits. Licht had come to the conclusion that his evolutionary path was removed from nature spirits, but based on his knowledge of them, they bore the greatest resemblance to whatever species he actually was.

But with the past in mind, Licht wasn’t going to so easily give information out about himself anymore. He knew that his core was a coveted resource, even if hunters hadn’t been set after him in a while, there was no reason to test whoever sent them.

“No variety of consequence,” Licht said plainly, “Is that all?”

Hemlock gulped.

…

Though he couldn’t read the expression of Licht’s wooden face well, Hemlock knew he had messed up. The icy tone with which the spirit denied the priest any information about itself made him realize he was provoking a tiger. Hemlock had reminded himself that even if Licht wasn’t a nature spirit, he was at least some kind of spectral, a being that far outclassed Hemlock’s worldview.

Artos’ sake Hemlock! Your questions don’t matter! Just ask how you can be useful!

The priest screamed within his mind. While continuing to put a level of respect into his speech that he felt conveyed his appreciation while not being too excessive, he answered Licht.

“Actually, I had another, sire. How would you like me to help out with Arjun and Siya?”

The attitude of Licht turned lighter with that question.

“I’m planning a surprise for them, their birthdays are coming up soon you know? It’s a big deal for elves, from what I understand. I’d like to borrow your knowledge on any techniques you might know?”

He’s planning something to celebrate their dates of birth? For elves? Hemlock had heard of this custom for beastfolk, but never for elves. But who was he to argue with a being that was obviously far more knowledgeable and long-lived than him?

“Techniques? Like martial arts?”

“Exactly. Surely you have some basic relevant knowledge?”

Hemlock nodded. He did, but…it wasn’t what he was expecting when Licht mentioned their ‘development’. It also didn’t make sense to Hemlock that Licht would seek his knowledge for such a task. As to Hemlock, asking an ‘inferior’ for their opinion on a thing of relative importance seemed meaningless.

Unless…he wants the opinion of the common man? Hemlock suddenly had a thought.

Is that why I was allowed into the grove?

The voice of Licht continued.

“Good, here’s what I want you to do…”