Before my farming spree, I had a date with a group of animals. At least, I hoped I did. When Sharon saw me walk up to her, she smiled slightly. “Ready to go, John? It’s been a while since you were in there, right?”

I nodded my head. The last time I had been in her grove was… I can’t even remember anymore. It was quite a while ago! “Yeah. Got anyone interesting waiting for me?”

She laughed brightly for a moment, before nodding. “Priscilla agreed to handle the introductions, since they aren’t all fully evolved yet. Just remember that most of them are evolved to handle magic, so try not to be disappointed.”

I nodded again, smiling to her. Soon, there was a ray of light shining from me as she wrapped me in her mana, and I was transported into her grove. The area I appeared in seemed much larger than what I was used to. If I had to guess, this one planetoid was about the size of all of the objects from my grove pushed together. Behind me was a large stone monolith, upon which was a single sentence inscribed.

‘John wants to come visit and study anyone willing.’

This must be how she can communicate with the creatures in her grove without the need to bring them out. Just teach one how to read, and then they can relay any of the information to the others. I was a bit curious how she had the information spread between the different grove planets, but I would probably find that out soon.

“Welcome, sir.” I heard a familiar female voice speaking up behind me. Turning, I found Priscilla, the maid I had met in Hascion. From what Sharon had told me, she was an evolved rabbit that was in charge of the magical rabbits, but I did not know her exact race. She had the horns and ears, so I thought that she might be a demi.

“Ah… hey, Priscilla. How’re you?”

“Well…” She gave a tired sigh, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I was expecting this to be a normal day, until we got that message. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have you around, but this added some extra workload.”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “Sorry, but I needed to pay a visit sooner or later. Part of my class, and all that.”

She nodded her head, her ears flopping back and forth. “I know, I know. Mistress told me about it before. I’ve gathered the ones willing nearby. Before I take you to them, I want to make sure. This study you do, it isn’t dangerous or anything, right? Even if she’s alright with it, I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting them in needless danger.”

“It’s fine. Nobody’s been hurt yet by these scans, so unless something really weird happens, it shouldn’t be possible. I just basically have to stare at them for a little while. There’s more danger from them being shy than anything else.”

She nodded again. “Alright then… you can start with me.” After saying that, she suddenly shifted, her body becoming smaller. Since her clothes weren’t enchanted, they did not follow her, and she ended up as a tiny white rabbit sitting in the neck of a maid outfit. Her nose twitched cutely, and her horn shone with a prismatic light. “I’m a mirage rabbit. I have the ability to create illusions by manipulating the light.”

I smiled a bit wider at that. I hadn’t studied many active abilities yet, so this would be a good chance to do so. “Alright… in order to study your ability, I need you to use it while I’m studying your aura. Would that be alright?”

The little rabbit gave a brief, twitchy nod. As soon as I extended my Mana Sense over her to study her aura, she seemed to feel it, because that was when she started using her power. Her horn shone with a purple light for a moment, blinding me before I saw that there were now five identical rabbits standing in front of me. If I wasn’t concentrating on studying her aura, I might not be able to tell which is which.

“This is my mirage clone.” The one on the furthest left says, and the one on the right continues. “I can make up to ten copies like this, but it is only an illusion. Do you need me to keep going?”

I was studying the slight changes in her aura when she spoke and had them move, but I nodded nonetheless. I needed more information to be able to determine what exactly caused the ability to activate. Well, if I wanted I could just copy the whole aura, and then experiment myself like I did with the cliff tigers. But this way was a bit easier for the lazy me.

Next, there was another brief flash, and she seemed to have grown ten feet tall. Thankfully, there was now only one rabbit. “This is my size mirage, I can make myself appear to be as big or small as I like.”

It was at this point that I had noticed something in the shifts from her aura, so I decided to ask. “Are these spells that you are using, or are they innate abilities?”

The giant rabbit tilted its head, before slowly shrinking down to normal size. “These are spells, why.”

I nodded my head in understanding at that. “Was figuring out how it worked.” Her horn was acting as a focus for spellcasting, like a wand would. She injects a spell into it, and the horn activates it. Doing this probably either reduces the strain on the horn, or increases the effect. “And this only works with illusion magic?”

She nodded her head again. “That’s right. Sharon had me try other types of magic, but when I used Nature Magic this way, nothing happened.”

That made sense, since it would mean her horn was attuned specifically for one school of magic. “Just curious, but do you know what were the requirements for this evolution?”

She tilted her head again. “I think it had something to do with the Water and Light affinities. They were my highest before I had my final evolution. Is there anything else?” When I shook my head, she shifted slightly. “Then, can you turn around?”

It took me a moment to realize what she meant, but when I did, I immediately turned around. Again, her outfit was not adaptive, so when she changed back into her humanoid form, she would appear naked. “Just curious, again… but why do you look like that? I thought you would be a demi, since you still have some animal traits.”

“I was given a choice of what I wanted my humanoid form to look like. We all were, when we got our last evolution. The only ones that didn’t were those that turned into a demi. Otherwise, everyone was allowed to choose for themselves.” I could almost hear the shrug as she finished changing. “Alright, I’m done. Let’s head over to meet the others.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Following behind her, we went and found a group of about fifteen creatures waiting for us. None of them were in their human forms, so it was quite easy to tell the difference between them. Among them were six rabbits, four wolves, two snakes, two birds, and a creature that looked like it came out of an old video game. It reminded me of the turtle rex animals we found on one of the planets where Sharon did her quest, but its skin was thicker, and it had spikes coming out of its back.

Because introductions would take way too long, and most of them couldn’t speak anyways, I’ll just say that there was quite the lineup of abilities. After studying them all, I made sure to try each one out. Doing so gave me the following messages.

New Spell Unlocked!

Aspect of the Mage - Nature Magic -★★★★

By studying a magic-aligned creature, you have discovered a means of creating a natural focus for a school of magic.

I got this from both Priscilla, and two other creatures. The other creatures were a rabbit and wolf that had their foci set for Nature Magic and Divination respectively. The wolf’s focus was actually his right eye, which let me study the changes between normal body parts and ones that had been converted into a focus. Though, I still wasn’t able to tell what part designated what field of magic the focus applied to.

New Spell Unlocked!

Aspect of the Attuned - Nature Magic -★★★★

By studying an elementally-aligned creature, you have discovered a means of temporarily altering your own affinities. Doing so will reduce all affinities except the chosen one.

I got this from studying several of the creatures, and was a bit surprised by it. If I understood it right, then eventually I should be able to use this aspect to become an elemental. But unfortunately, the downside means that I will only be able to easily use one element at a time when I did this. When I tried it out, it took me over ten seconds to complete the shift, raising my Light Affinity up to 40%, while all of my others dropped below 15%. Time Affinity became completely unusable in that form.

I also received an upgrade to other aspects, including Bird, Hunter, Tracker, Armored Beast, Magic Breath, even Mana Leech. The Magic Breath upgrade surprisingly came from the spiked giant turtle, who was capable of breathing out torrents of water and fire. When I studied his ability, I found that it was stronger and more efficient than the one I had learned from the Lesser Orthrus in NeoLife.

Unfortunately, while the turtle’s shell was far stronger than the snake scales, it did not cover my entire body. However, one of the snakes that were present was surprisingly a Great Boa, just like the one I had hunted in the future. Using it, I was able to get the full aura, which also gave me an upgrade to the hunter aspect that gave me increased strength.

Out of the other creatures, the most interesting one was definitely… one of the rabbits. It was the creature that gave me the Mana Leech upgrade. This was a form of vampire rabbit, who sucked out mana through tiny little claws it had on its paws. After scratching someone with them, it injected a sort of magic poison into the victim’s body that began transferring magic to the rabbit. From what Priscilla said, this worked up to a distance of twenty meters. However, unlike the Mana Leech ability I had, it could only steal from living things. It was unable to absorb from the environment. Though, the two together compliment each other rather well.

Out of curiosity, I formed my slime bokken, and tried to apply some of the abilities I had learned to that slime. Naturally, things like increased strength wouldn’t work on something without muscles. However, it was surprisingly able to accept the magical abilities, such as Mana Leech, Magic Breath, and the Aspect of the Mage. Although it only accepted one aspect at a time, that still gave it a lot of extra possibility as a weapon.

“Is there anything else, sir?” Priscilla asked me after I finished scanning the last animal. Even though only a small number of her animals chose to participate in this gathering, I was still able to make a large improvement in my shifting abilities.

Thinking about it, I nodded my head. “There is one more thing, if you’re interested in it.”

Priscilla raised a curious brow. “I was told to tell you that if you tried to ‘make a move on me’, that Mistress would throw you through a wall.”

I shivered slightly at that. “No, no, nothing like that, don’t worry.” I shook my head quickly. “I was going to see if you were willing to learn Enchanting from me. Sharon doesn’t have enough plants for me to teach Alchemy, but if it’s Enchanting, that is still pretty easy.”

“Enchanting… what is that?”

I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t heard about it. After all, Sharon was not an enchanter, and Celeste likely hadn’t had the time to come in and teach them. “It’s a skill that lets you give magic to items. For instance, my clothes are enchanted so that they adapt whenever I change shape. You can also enchant things to unleash spells, and so on.”

By the time I was done explaining, Priscilla’s sceptic expression was gone, and her eyes were practically shining. Wait, no, they were shining. That’s a blatant abuse of your powers! “Please, teach me. I’ll do my best to learn.” She nodded her head rapidly.

“Alright… but, we don’t really have the time to do this the normal way.” I sighed slightly, getting ready for what I was about to do. “Try not to resist this.” I said as I focused on my aura, isolating and copying the elements containing knowledge on runes and enchanting, then transferred them over to Priscilla. Doing this took practically my entire buffer, but I was able to use my Soul Arts to grant her my skill with Enchanting.

As she received the skill, she blinked rapidly. Then, looking over to me, she gave a deep bow. “Thank you very much, Master!”

….Master?! Did I just get another Yang?!