Author’s Corner: So, bit more of an update up here for you guys this time, so pay attention if you could. And try not to raise the pitchforks until you have read the entire thing. Recently, I’ve been working on copying my story over to a Wordpress site, in the hopes to have it hosted in both locations. Now, the perk of this(for me) would be that it would be possible to include a donations button so that readers with too much money might be able to help support my writing hobby. However, try as I may and try as I might, I could not get the button to work. If you guys would still like to have this story on Wordpress, then I will go ahead and finish copying it over. Will still try to get the button to work somehow(because poor author is poor), but the priority is being able to push out chapters that people enjoy.

With that said, you may now pick up your pitchforks, but first enjoy the chapter!

After watching the ground literally consume my escape pod, I couldn’t help but gulping slightly. In my mind, I was very thankful for the fact that I had grabbed the beacon before leaving the pod, or else I would be well and truly stranded here. “Okay… let’s just hope that not every plant is hungry… I can’t keep flying for two days straight.”

Saying that, I flew down closer to the ground, but refused to land on it. Instead, I used my Aura Sight and Mana Sense to scan the nearby trees, making sure to watch for any that might attack me. In all the games I’ve played before, I can honestly say I’ve never had to be afraid of a forest because of its trees.

Flight has increased to Basic!

As my Mana Sense swept over them, a few plants reacted by throwing their branches at me, or vines sweeping out. However, none responded except for the ones I scanned. So, I simply dealt with the branches and vines that attacked by withdrawing my Mana Sense and dodging away. Near as I could tell, the plants had two methods of sensing ‘prey’. The first, and also the way it found the pod, would be through a form of tremorsense. Something big and metal landing on the ground likely alerted all the big baddies in the neighborhood to come to a dinner party.

Said big baddies were probably still lurking underground, so I most definitely was not going to land on the grass. Instead, I kept scanning trees until I began to notice a pattern. All of the trees that decided to attack me had a far more complex aura than the ‘docile’ trees. Though, not all of the docile trees had the same simple auras, making me think that some were waiting to trap me.

At least it gave me something to go off of, and it was something that I could easily scan with my Aura Sight without wasting mana. Moving over to one of the simpler trees, I did my best to gently land on it, my eyes darting around me to watch for a possible attack. After a full minute of waiting, there was no sign of an attack, so I sighed lightly and got to work. It would be great if I could just spend my time on this one tree for two days, as my sense of adventure was entirely used up by now.

After I landed, I began cultivating a Seed of Plants. Not surprisingly, I found a very dense plant mana permeating the atmosphere of this planet, so much that it was even carried on the wind. Part of me worried that this might be the planet’s form of Mana Sense, but if that were the case I’d be pretty much dead already. With the density of the plant mana, I managed to finish refining the seed in barely two hours, after which I began work on a Seed of Darkness, which took considerably longer.

I was tempted to go to a lower branch and refine a Seed of Earth to complete my set, but found that my legs refused to move in order to comply with the request. The scene of the escape pod being ripped to shreds repeated itself in my mind, except it was me instead of the pod. Sometimes, having an upgraded memory is more of a burden than a help. Instead, I sat on the branch and decided to try something new. “Celeste, pull up the energy combination needed to charge the energy weapons again.”

“What are you thinking, Falenel? You don’t have nearly enough mana to burn down the jungle, if that’s what you had in mind…”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “No, I just wanted to have you see if the combination matched a possible affinity.” A mixture of fire and lightning mana was far enough away from either to possibly be considered its own affinity, such as the difference between earth and magma, or steam and ice.

Celeste paused for a moment, before smiling slightly and nodding her head. “Yes, it is in fact. It is known as the Plasma Affinity, of which you currently have a single percent of proficiency.”

I smiled, nodding back to the AI. “Figured as much.” After spending so much time using my Technomancy on the weapons, I was able to tell that they directed some form of energy charge through a magnetic current. and the only energy I could think of that was controlled in such a manner and had the same effects was plasma.

“You’re going to try and learn the Plasma Affinity now, aren’t you?” Celeste asked with a tired expression, making me laugh lightly. Sadly, that laugh seemed to be loud enough to cause the vibrations necessary for the plants to detect me, as I had vines piercing towards me from the nearest tree. Rather than dodging them this time, I used my Fire Manipulation to burn the vines with a thin screen of flame between us, which caused them to recoil, apparently in fear.

With a sigh, I moved from this tree to another one that my Aura Sight registered as safe. “Yeah. I think it’d be a good idea to do so. If I get good enough with it, I should be able to use the control skill to deflect energy weapons.”

After a moment, Celeste gave a nod. “In that case, I’d suggest also studying the Magnetism Affinity. I am unsure if the manipulation ability you gain with plasma will be sufficient to control it, and if not it would be a good idea to have a backup.”

I thought about it, but had to agree she was right. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any magnets on me to practice that affinity. Then again, the only plasma sources I had were my weapons, and I’d rather not drain them to get the affinity. After all, I might need to shoot something in this planet where the entire jungle wants me for lunch. “I can work on those after we get rescued. Until then, I’ve got other things to worry about.”

Celeste went quiet for a few moments, before speaking up. “Do you think it’s possible to copy the traits of these plants? I think the hostile trees should either be the plant form of a magical beast, or a monster. Your Nature Magic should be able to replicate it, right?”

“Maybe…” Jarl had said that it was possible to turn blood into a potion, so copying the traits of plants was certainly possible. The question is, what would I get from doing so? Flexible bark armor? The snake’s scales should be far stronger. I could maybe learn their tremorsense and mana detection abilities. So far, none of the plants had displayed a particularly useful ability for me aside from that. “Keep an eye out for any plants that have useful abilities. For now, I’m going to focus on training.”

Pulling out my enchanting staff that I received at Hascion, I decided to experiment a bit. The staff itself had no magical properties, and merely served to hold the mana gem. But that also meant that it was still, for the most part, unaltered wood. With my Plant Manipulation, I made a series of hollow sockets in the wood, and in each one I placed an elemental seed.

Fire, water, wind, light, dark, lightning, void, and plant. Eight affinities, and eight seeds to go with them. If I had my Seed of Earth, I could have completed the set. Once each seed was socketed into the staff, I used Plant Manipulation again to close it up, hiding them inside the wood of the staff. Although they weren’t plainly visible, Aura Sight still showed the eight different sources of mana hidden in the staff.

With that taken care of, I began to cultivate my Plant Affinity, as I highly doubted I would ever find a more suitable environment to do so than a world full of plants, without a single animal in side. Doing it this way also had an added effect, I soon discovered. Since cultivation required me to match my aura to match plant mana, it made me all but invisible to the local species. And no, I did not discover this by walking up and poking a plant, or using my Mana Sense on it…

…

I fell out of the tree while cultivating. Thankfully, though, my aura seemed to match well enough, because the grass(yes even the grass had the complex aura of a plant waiting to attack) did not do anything to me. If I had to guess, this was likely a planet where only a druid would be able to survive peacefully, as anyone else would be attacked constantly by the plants.

Of course, now that I knew I could hide myself by simply cultivating Plant Affinity, I was free to move around as I liked. It seemed like the plants that detected me with tremorsense also read my aura as a plant, and did not attack. With the lack of any kind of animal on this planet, I began to wonder how the plants sustained themselves, but they likely fed on the abundant plant mana in the air.

Naturally, there was no way I was taking Yin and Yang out while I was here. Neither of them were able to cultivate Plant Affinity, so there was no chance of them being safe. Every now and then, I would scan one of the plants that I passed, assessing its aura and seeing if it had any uses in alchemy. Since I kept my aura attuned to plant mana, this didn’t cause any ‘misunderstandings’ with the locals.

I wouldn’t be dumb enough to take a carnivorous plant into my grove, but I did find a few plants that were docile and had some medicinal properties. One, a large tree that bore a fruit in the form of a five pointed star, had a sap that seemed to contain a powerful medicine aura. However, the fruit itself had the aura of an equally potent poison. Using my Plant Manipulation, I plucked one of the fruits and stored it in my inventory. Once I could make a second grove, I would plant this tree there. Wouldn’t want the birds to eat it by mistake.

The next herb I found was actually a weed, which looked very similar to blood weed. However, the medicinal aura it held felt different, so it likely held a different use. Using the same trick as before, I gathered a few of these weeds for my inventory as well. This went on for a few hours, until my inventory was too full to accept anything else. In that time, my Plant Affinity had also risen sharply, from 7% to 9% in one go, and I felt like it would soon break through to 10%.

Honestly, I was getting to the point where I really wanted to sleep, but I knew that if I did, my cultivation would lapse and the jungle would attack again. Looking over to the plants, I decided that there was in fact something I could get from them, and began studying the aura for the tallest tree I could find. Specifically, I wanted to study its leaves, and how they fed energy to the tree.

As I suspected, I noticed that the leaves on the tree absorbed the plant mana in the air, and transmitted it through the tree as sustenance. This was true for both the docile and hostile trees, so I copied from the former. If the hostile trees qualified as a monster, than it would be far harder to copy their version of the ability.

Closing my eyes, I focused on copying this ability onto myself. For some reasons that I’m sure nobody could possibly guess, I didn’t want leaves growing out of my head. So, instead, I turned the feathers on my wings into leaves, giving me a rather interesting plant wing appearance. At the same time, I also received a handy new spell.

New Spell Unlocked!Aspect of the Mana Leech - Nature Magic - ★★

By copying the ability to absorb mana and putting it on your own body, you have gained the powerful skill to sustain yourself purely on mana.

Mana Cost: 200

The cost and rank of the spell surprised me, but then I considered just how strong this could be. If I changed the mana it absorbed, I could siphon off the energy of spells, and use it to fuel myself. When I opened up my status window, I also saw that my mana regeneration had multiplied by four simply by having these leaves absorbing the abundant plant mana in the air. Thankfully, it also served the purpose to relieve my exhaustion, which was the main point.

“See? Knew they’d be good for something.” Celeste said from my wrist, sounding slightly smug.

“Yes, yes. Don’t worry, I appreciate it.” I smirked down to her, and she smiled happily before vanishing. With this, I’d be able to train faster than ever before, at least until help arrived. And no, before you ask, there was no way I was abandoning the beacon to stay here longer. If I did that, then I’d never be able to leave.

That night, I easily managed to get to Plant Affinity 10%, which let me simply have it work as a background process while I refined a Seed of Earth. I could feel myself still absorbing the mana and cultivating like normal, but it was as if it had become a second nature, as easy as breathing. I could focus on it to increase its effects, but otherwise it was just a constant thing.

Once I had the Seed of Earth refined, I put it into the staff like the other seeds, before returning my staff to my inventory. With that taken care of, I spent the rest of the night cultivating Earth and Dark Affinities.