{Mycelium Network}.
That was the name of Andrew’s new skill, and from what he explained, the skill basically allowed him to tap into existing underground fungal networks of mycelium, allowing him to form a hive-like communication system with a vast network of plants at the same time. It was a great skill; however, it didn’t explain the utterly maniacal grin Andrew was wearing.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Andrew asked, still grinning, and Daruk hazarded a guess. “You can, uhm, teleport through this network?”
“Well, no.” Andrew frowned. “Although that would have been nice.”
“So, what is it?” Aodhán asked, growing a little impatient.
Andrew laughed again, utterly giddy with excitement. “You guys are missing the key word here. Hive-like communication! Imagine me in a forest full of trees and connected to all of them at the same time. Imagine the flow of information!”
Aodhán’s eyes widened as the image unfolded in his mind. He focused on the word communication and imagined hundreds of streams of information flowing between Andrew and the trees. He came to the realization a little later than Daruk, but he echoed it nonetheless.
“Enlightenment!”
Andrew laughed again, this time even falling on his back as he echoed their words. “Astounding Enlightenment! How many seals do you think I can gain if I do this in a large forest filled with awakened plants of every rank?”
Aodhán sputtered as his mind raced. That much influx of information was bound to expand Andrew’s mind and yield an enlightenment so large that Aodhán doubted a single seal would be able to contain it. He processed the thought for a moment before responding. “You’ll gain more than one seal at the very least, but can we just talk about the fact that you no longer have to search for awakened plants anymore; you can just connect to a forest and tell where they are!”
Andrew took a moment to process that before bursting out with laughter once again. His laughter was so infectious that Aodhán and Daruk soon found themselves joining in. The skill was an amazing skill. It was essentially the perfect skill, in Aodhán’s opinion. It was combat-effective, informative, and most of all, lucrative. What could top that?
Daruk suggested they test the skill out, but Andrew refused. “I don’t want to use it yet. I want the first time I use the skill to be in a large forest; that way the overwhelming influx of information and sensation will probably shock me into gaining a dozen seals all at once.”
It was highly unlikely that Andrew would gain that much, but the fact that he would even gain more than one at all was astounding.
They spent the next half hour discussing the other possible uses of Andrew’s new skill, after which Aodhán remembered that he still had a skill to experiment with. Andrew suggested they go to the nature laboratory before the sun dipped behind the horizon, and a few minutes later, Aodhán and Andrew exited the training hall, leaving Daruk to work on his cultivation with a promise to meet at the cafeteria after an hour.
Without wasting much time, Aodhán and Andrew made their way to the nature laboratory, which was a tall, oval building located not too far from the runic laboratory. It was essentially a green house the size of a mansion, crafted from rune scripted, clear glass walls, and as they walked towards it, Aodhán was reminded of the city of Willowsburgh in the 8th sector. The air was dense with verdant energy, a phenomenon that only increased the closer they got to the laboratory.
When they got to the entrance, Andrew pushed the door open, and Aodhán’s eyes widened as he took in the expansive laboratory for the first time. Sunlight streamed in from above, bathing a mind-boggling amount of plants in vibrant beams of color and light. The air was thick with the scent of exotic plants, more than half of which were awakened, and if he had thought the verdant energy outside the building was dense, then he was practically drowning in this one.
Aodhán’s legs buckled as an intense feeling of peace and contentment overwhelmed him. Memories of his time within the unknown forest back on earth flashed across his mind, urging him to make a storm cloud right this instant and sleep. The feeling of peace was so strong that it took Aodhán a moment to push through it and focus on staying awake.
White tiled tables lined the edges of the laboratory, and students, mostly second years—almost all of them, plant or nature awakeneds ambled about, tending to plants in various stages of growth. Some hovered over glowing specimens, hurriedly writing out their observations, while others carefully stirred concoctions from awakened herbs.
A few students glanced at them when they came in, and Aodhán greeted them with a nod. Some acknowledged his greeting with a nod of their own, while others simply glanced away, either uninterested in his presence or too busy to care. Before Aodhán could delve too deeply into the reasons why some of the students hadn’t returned his courtesy, Andrew nudged him gently and pointed to the front of the lab where Gwendolyn Blackwood stood, surrounded by a group of second-year students. They waited until she was done speaking before moving forward.
When she saw them, she smiled. “Mr. Willowood, Mr. Brystion. How can I help you?”
Andrew shrugged and gestured towards Aodhán. “He’s the one who needs your assistance. I’ll just busy myself with an experiment.”
Gwendolyn nodded, and when Andrew left, she said to Aodhán. “You weren’t in my last class.”
Aodhán scratched his neck awkwardly. “Yes, I was sort of paying for my crimes.”
Gwendolyn smirked, obviously aware of what crimes he had been paying for. “Well, we’re glad to have you back. What do you need my assistance with?”
“A skill.” Aodhán replied and then referred her to the text he had sent during the break. Gwendolyn frowned, and her eyes glazed over as she went through her messages. A few seconds later, her eyes widened slightly in surprise, and she apologized. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brystion. I get a lot of messages, and sometimes a message can get lost in the mess. Can you give me a brief summary of the skill and what you know about it?”
Aodhán told her the name of the skill and continued. “I’m not exactly sure what the skill does nor whether it is life, vitality, or nature aspected, but I’m leaning towards vitality because it not only worked on plants but on my parents too.” Gwendolyn’s gaze widened, but before she could speak, Aodhán shook his head. "No, I did not experiment on my parents, but they were present when I created the mutated plants and inhaled the essence cloud that formed as a result. Also, I’ve channeled it into myself at times, and although I haven’t exactly noticed increased healing or regeneration, it seems to be working.”
Gwendolyn frowned in thought and asked. “Is it a class-scaling skill?”
Aodhán had avoided mentioning that little titbit so she didn’t tell him the same thing Fortuna had done, but now that she had asked him directly, he didn’t want to lie to lie, so he nodded. “It is. It’s only in it’s first stage, though.”
Gwendolyn sighed and led him to a series of flowerpots at one corner of the laboratory. “Teaching people about class scaling skills is doing them a disservice, so I really can’t tell you anything about this skill. What I can do, however, is create situations for you to draw your own conclusions from.”
Aodhán nodded in acceptance, and with a flick of her wrists, Gwendolyn produced a trio of ornately decorated flower pots from her spatial storage. The three pots were filled with what seemed to be the purest of soil and were even inscribed with soil-enhancing runes.
When Aodhán raised an eyebrow in question, Gwendolyn smiled and said. “Perks of dating an earth awakened, I guess. Infinite amount of good soil.”
Aodhán chuckled, and with another small wave, Gwendolyn created a trio of perfectly identical seeds and placed one into each pot. She infused threads of verdant energy into each pot, and a few seconds later, three identical rose stalks, only a few inches in height, grew out of each pot.
Gwendolyn pointed to the first pot and said, “Let's see what you can do.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Aodhán nodded and raised his hands; however, just as he was about to activate the skill, he suddenly noticed the attention of several students on him. Many of those who had been busy with their experiments now stood with their gazes turned in his direction, blatantly studying him. Even Andrew, who had been observing a sentient fungus at one corner of the laboratory, now had his attention trained squarely on Aodhán.
Aodhán took a deep breath, ignored their curious stares, and activated {Lightning Beam—Green}. He controlled the intensity of the beam, reducing it from a raging beam to a mild torrent of lightning, barely two fingers wide.
The small beam of green lightning flowed into the soil, and two seconds later, the rose began to grow rapidly. After so many days of practice in his mother’s garden, Aodhán could somewhat tell when a seed was reaching the point of oversaturation, so he tried to cut the skill off before reaching that point; however, Gwendolyn shook her head and said. “Keep going.”
So Aodhán did, and a minute later, he crossed the oversaturation point. The rose, which had been growing steadily before, suddenly jerked and began flickering with green lightning. The stalk expanded, growing much wider than should have been possible, and the once bright red flowers turned a vivid green. The thorns on its stalk turned into thorny branches, each one as wide as his thumb, and a few seconds later, hundreds of tiny green roses began to appear on them.
Aodhán glanced at Gwendolyn, but she shook her head again and said, “Continue. Let’s see where this will lead to.”
Aodhán complied with a nod, incredibly curious himself. The rose stalk expanded until it strained against the pot, and although Aodhán expected the pot to shatter, the runic inscriptions must have prevented that, so the rose shot upwards instead. Its branches curved sharply as if reaching for the sun shining above, and in less than a minute, the rose stalk grew to over 4 feet in height. It had transformed into its own rose bush, which more resembled a very deformed banana plant with a lot of thorns than an actual rose bush.
Its leaves crackled erratically with green electricity, and its stem began leaking vivid green pus as it split open in multiple areas. At this point, Aodhán had crossed the point of oversaturation hundred times over, and already he could tell that the plant's entire molecular structure had crumbled.
The moment the infusion of lightning stopped, Aodhán was certain that it would explode. However, the rose didn’t bother waiting till he stopped; instead, the moment it crossed the 6 ft mark, it exploded in a shower of energy, thick green sap, and soggy stem tissues.
Aodhán stopped channeling and hastily wiped his face in disgust. He was about to make a funny joke when he suddenly noticed that more than a few students were crying. Those who weren’t crying stared at him in contempt, even Andrew, who cradled the sentient fungus tightly as if to protect the plant from him.
Gwendolyn, on the other hand, remained unaffected by the plant’s gruesome death and asked. “So, what did you learn?”
“Err, I’m not quite sure.” He replied awkwardly, trying to ignore the judgmental looks that bored into him from every angle. Okay, maybe he had ‘accidentally’ killed the plant, but it wasn’t his fault. Gwendolyn had been the one urging him to continue!
Gwendolyn raised an eyebrow in dissatisfaction, and Aodhán turned his gaze to the disgusting remains of the plant. “I’ve never pushed this far before, so this whole thing is a first for me.” Whether his words calmed the students, Aodhán couldn’t be sure, but at least he had cleared himself of being a serial plant killer.
He cleared his throat and continued, “I’d say the main thing I’ve learned is that the plant will explode after a certain point, which rules out vitality as a likely aspect.”
Gwendolyn chuckled. “Good, what else did you learn?”
Aodhán glanced back at the plant’s carcass and frowned. All plants had energy nodes, even unawakened plants, and after this little experiment, he’d definitely gained more insight into the whole oversaturation thing. Even after oversaturation, the plant had kept growing, although with so many bizarre mutations, until it couldn’t take the influx of energy any more.
A good analogy to explain the oversaturation thing was a cup. Take, for instance, that the energy nodes of a plant were a cup and his green lightning was water. Oversaturation was the point where the cup now filled with energy began to overflow and spill all that excess energy out into the physical and genetic make-up of the plant, which led to the formation of mutations. The more energy spilled into the “gene pool,” the more corrupted or twisted it became, and hence the more mutations manifested. This was Aodhán’s theory, and although it seemed to make perfect sense at first, it had a lot of holes, one of which was the fact that it didn’t explain why the plant had suddenly exploded.
He shared his theory with Gwendolyn, and she nodded, neither approving nor disproving his ideas; instead, she waved a hand, and the second rose grew to an height of almost 3 feet in an instant. She glanced at him and ordered. “Do it again.”
A girl burst into tears at the promise of more plant torture, and Aodhán grimaced, not particularly enjoying it either, but it was definitely better than practicing on human beings, so yeah, he chose the lesser evil.
An orange-haired boy, whose bloodline manifestation reminded Aodhán of a sunflower, came forward and gently scooped the corpse of the first plant from the table, all while glaring dagger at him. When the boy left, Aodhán sighed and focused on the second plant before activating {Lightning Beam—Green} again.
The entire process repeated itself, although, this time, much slowly. It took a much longer time for the plant to reach oversaturation and even longer before it exploded, having gone through a much more bizarre mutation than the previous plant. This time it was Andrew that choked back a cry, and even Gwendolyn looked uncomfortable when the rose exploded with so much force that it drenched the entire table and closest wall in green blood sap.
Aodhán felt like a huge douchebag, and before Gwendolyn even asked, he quickly offered what he’d learned to make sure to make sure the students knew that this was purely academic and that he wasn’t in any way taking any pleasure in torturing and killing these plants.
“The second plant, aptly named #rose2, took a much longer time than #rose1 to reach oversaturation and eventual explosion. This observation aligns with my previous theory, and I’ve learned that the energy nodes of plants grow larger with time. #rose2 had a much larger ‘cup’ compared to #rose1 and thus took much longer to reach oversaturation. From the intensity of the mutations observed in #rose2, it can be concluded that the older the plant, the more room it allows for genetic and physiological manipulations, which is weird because I expected it to be the other way around. Lastly, we can finally eliminate life, nature, and vitality as the possible aspects because none of those beautiful affinities would have led to such a gruesome death. I sympathize deeply with this plant.”
Yes, he was buttering the students up, but to be fair, he was in a greenhouse filled with nearly a dozen advanced-class individuals. If anyone were to attack him right here and now, his chances of survival were less than 0, and he’d rather not have to fight a losing battle for his life.
When he finished speaking, Gwendolyn nodded, and after the corpse of the second plant was packed away, she waved to the third plant. This time, she didn’t ask Aodhán to activate his skill; instead, she channeled verdant energy directly into the plant. The verdant energy bathed the last rose lovingly, and in only a few minutes, the rose stalk grew to nearly 6 feet in height. The rose itself had a vibrant red color, and the stalk was covered in a host of lush leaves. No mutations appeared, and when it reached 10 feet, Gwendolyn finally cut off the infusion of energy and said. “I just channeled more verdant energy into this plant than what you channeled into the previous two, yet there are no mutations in sight. This plant will, however, not survive for long as its natural growth cycle has been severely altered. It has grown months ahead in the span of a few minutes and is unaccustomed to depending on sunlight, soil, and water for its nutrients; therefore, it cannot survive for long without verdant energy to nurture it. What did you learn from this?”
Aodhán frowned, and any lingering hope he’d had that the skill was a healing skill evaporated. The third rose somehow avoided oversaturation despite the insane amount of energy that had been infused into it; instead, it just continued to grow and grow without mutations. That meant that the plant's energy nodes had either continuously expanded to avoid the spill of energy, thereby eliminating the formation of any mutations, or Gwendolyn’s energy had blended seamlessly with the plant’s genetic make-up, a feat that his green lightning was just incapable of.
In essence, {Elemental Lightning—Green} was good and harmless as long as it remained within the energy nodes of plants, but the moment it exited the nodes and spilled into the body, it became devastating.
He shared his thoughts with Gwendolyn, and when he was done, he added. “It’s like corrupted vitality. Good in small doses, but terrible in any serious amount.” Gwendolyn nodded again, and Aodhán leaned back to think. There were still a few unexplained things about the skill, like how it had basically made Unrid and Synové multiple years younger or how it had relaxed his and Daruk’s muscles when inhaled. Those could be explained away by the fact that they’d only inhaled the energy in small doses, but until he carried out experiments on an animal, he couldn’t be sure.
After a few minutes of contemplation, he asked. “So, if it’s not vitality or life-aspected lightning, what is it?”
“Sylvael energy.” It was the orange-haired boy who responded, his hands still stained with green sap. He glared at Aodhán for a moment before proceeding. “Sylvael is the energy formed from the corruption of verdant energy with lightning.” In a lower tone, he muttered. “It should be an abomination.”
Aodhán took that as his cue to leave, and after thanking Gwendolyn for her time and help, he walked out of the laboratory, wondering just what effect direct infusion of this Sylvael energy into a person would have. From what the healer had said earlier, it seemed if used in small quantities, it might heal him like it had been doing before, but when something else like the poison was introduced, the lightning became confused, unsure whether to fight the toxin or strengthen it.
It was an intriguing concept, and Aodhán began making plans on how to experiment with animals. If he channeled a torrent of this Sylvael lightning into an animal, would the animal erupt with bizarre plant-like mutations and eventually explode, or would the energy be completely harmless to humans like the energy from the plague wraiths had been? For more reasons than one, Aodhán doubted the latter.