Author’s Corner: I doubt anyone actually reads this part, so enjoy the chapter! Current stardate: 12/30/3015, Day 35 of Falenel’s journey where no man has gone before.

The night passed without much in the way of special events happening. Since the plants here fed off of mana rather than sunlight, there was no sign of them hibernating during the night. Though perhaps, I should instead be thankful that the day and night cycles resemble what I am used to so much? Either way, I managed to get through the night while cultivating my Earth and Dark Affinities, bringing them both up to 9% by the time morning came around. I could feel that just a bit more work on Earth Affinity, and it would make a breakthrough.

However, I had other things to worry about. Shortly after the sun came up, I saw something that I hadn’t seen the entire day I was here already. I saw movement beyond the trees. Using my Cybernetic eye, I had Celeste play the scene again with some visual editing. I saw a… naked green woman walking casually through the jungle. And before you ask, no, I did not get a peep show. Celeste took the liberty of adding black censor bars over the important bits.

Still, now I knew that there was actually someone living in this place! Even if they might be a plant person… still a plus. Standing up, I cycled through vision modes on my eye, giving it X-Ray and Zoom so that I could find the person again. From that, I could vaguely see her figure walking a few hundred meters ahead of me. Thankfully she was still just walking casually, so I would be able to catch up if I flew between the trees.

Thinking that, I launched myself into the air, finding that the leaf feathers were surprisingly capable as I flew towards the slowly advancing woman. In hindsight, I really should have thought this through before charging in. But, as we’ve determined, that’s not really my style, is it?

In under two minutes, I was already swooping down towards the woman, who seemed to notice my presence and let out a scared shriek. She knelt down in a defensive position, using her hands to cover her head when I landed in front of her. “Hello, don’t be scared? I come in peace?” I held my hands up as I spoke, hoping to calm her down.

At some point, I should have realized that she wouldn’t speak my language. I mean, this is a non-listed world, why would whatever creatures inhabit it speak wood elf? After a moment, she looked up at me, her eyes wet with unshed tears. Or maybe it was water, or both. Seeing that I didn’t intend on attacking, she slowly lowered her arms.

Who are you? I heard the voice, like a thought in my head, and felt a slight increase in plant mana I took in. It was a gentle, high pitched voice, like a scared little girl. What do you want?

I blinked slightly, suddenly realizing the language barrier, and thinking about how she is communicating with me. Gathering a bit of plant mana, I sent it to her with the intention of relaying the message, I’m Falenel.

New Ability Unlocked!Treespeaker - Plant Affinity - ☆

By carrying a message through plant mana, you are able to communicate with plants and plant-based beings.

Thankfully, Arcane magic like this works mostly based on intention, since she seemed to react to it positively. ’I am Arianne. You do not look familiar… what species are you?’

I looked myself over, thinking that was a very good question. ’I guess you could call me an elf? I fell from the sky yesterday, and you are the first person I’ve seen with… well… legs.

Suddenly, Celeste appeared at my wrist, looking between myself and Arianne as the latter giggled from my comment. “Something wrong? You two are just staring at each other…”

Looking down to her, I was a bit surprised. “You can’t hear her? Guess it’s not something shared in the link, sorry…” Though I said that, there was really nothing I could do about that if she couldn’t interpret the plant mana communication method.

“Aww…” She pouted cutely, making me smile. Meanwhile, Arianne just stared at the holographic woman with wide yellow eyes.

’You have a wrist ghost.’ She said simply, seeming to misinterpret what Celeste was.

’Kind of. She’s really nice, but she can’t speak like we are. Are there more people like you around here?’

She thought about it for a moment, and nodded. ’I am surrounded by my family, above and below, day and night.’ With a wave of her arms, she indicates the trees around her, making me sigh slightly.

’Anyone with legs?’ Legs were an important characteristic, in my mind. They seemed to be a key difference between Arianne and the rest of the jungle.

The plant woman looked down to her legs, thinking, before shaking her head. ’Not for several hours walk. It is not often that the dryads meet, as they tend their own family.’

Ooh, a dryad. ’Ahh, I see… well… can you ask your family to not try to attack me?’

She tilted her head curiously, though maintained the magical communication. Perhaps it was thanks to my wings absorbing the mana, but I was not running out of energy from this. ’Why would they attack you?’

I tried to think of a way to say this without either scaring her or making her want to eat me. I’m not sure if dryads would eat people like the trees do, but still… ’I am not of this world. I fell from the sky in a metal pod, and then the ground opened up and swallowed it. I have been attacked repeatedly since then, until I learned to match my aura to that of this world.’

’Ohh.. you are not plant-kin. Your ‘pod’ as you call it, likely landed on grandfather. As for the others..’ She turned her head away and seemed to be communicating with the trees. ’They thought you were an invader, come to destroy us as others have before.’

I shook my head at that. ’No, I am simply waiting to be rescued. Some time tomorrow, I will be pulled from this world and return to my own.’

She thought about it for a moment, and nodded. ’I understand. The family shall continue watching you, Flanel, to ensure that you keep your word.’

...Flanel? My name is not Flanel…. Oh well… not like we’d meet again anyways. ’Thank you. It’s never good to think that everything around you sees you as dinner..’

She smiled slightly, looking to one of the nearby fruit trees. ’No, it is not, is it?’

Okay, I deserved that one. Pretty much any animal ever deserved that one. ’Is it alright if I gather some of the plants here? I am a druid, you see…. or, you might not know that term… Some call us guardians of nature?’

She looked surprised at that, glancing to the trees again before looking back to me. ’You may take what you wish, but only from those without a will of their own.’ I nodded to her condition, having no intention of putting intelligent plants in my grove.

’If possible… could I get you to help me? I am looking for plants that can be used to produce medicines.’ Saying such, I plucked a stalk of blood weed from my grove and materialized it in my hand. ’This is one such plant, although its effects are only of the lowest grade.’ Well, even though I say that, I feel like it is significantly more powerful than the ones I gathered on Hascion.

Again she thought about it for a moment before nodding. ’I can help you. I know the qualities of everyone in my family. Although I may not be able to tell you their effects on your kind, I can show you which ones possess a form of healing factor.’

With that, she turned around and walked off. While following behind her, I planted a could of the less deadly plants in my grove, which had grown significantly since I started cultivating here. After I leave, I should focus on gathering enough void mana to make the second grove.

“Where are we going?” Celeste asks again, appearing from my wrist.

I smiled down to her. “The nice dryad lady is going to help us gather herbs.”

Celeste pouted again. “You only like her because she’s naked.”

“That is entirely not true.” I casually rejected her claim. “I like her because she’s naked and hasn’t tried to eat us.”

That earned me a tiny giggle from Celeste, who quickly returned to her fake pouting. After a moment though, she sighed and shook her head. “You could probably take her with us, you know? There should be room in the grove for her to hitch a ride.”

I smirked bitterly, having already thought of that. “Something tells me she wouldn’t enjoy the idea of leaving her ‘family’...”

“Yeah… probably right.” Celeste turned to watch as Arianne gently picked a fairly common flower from near a tree, bringing it to me.

’This is known as a heartbroken rose. Its quality is similar to the one you showed me before, though more powerful.’

I gently took the flower, and swept over it with my Mana Sense. Indeed, the medicinal parts of the aura felt much like the blood weed, though more complex. Without wasting any time, I absorbed it into my grove, planting it alongside the blood weed. It’s a good thing that I managed to get 10% Plant Affinity, because I’m not sure if the plants here would be able to survive suddenly being transplanted into an area without dense plant mana. Likely, they’d be absorbing it constantly, just like the bird had done when she cultivated wind mana.

Through all of this, I made sure to continue cycling earth and dark mana, and eventually made the breakthrough in Earth Affinity to 10%. Like with my Plant Affinity, it was now a constant thing in the background. Though, instead of taking advantage of this to increase the speed of cycling dark mana, I added wind to replace earth. Now I was cultivating both Wind Affinity and Dark Affinity. Inwardly, I had determined that before I started focusing on gathering new affinities, I would at least train the primary seven all up to that point.

Arianne led me around to find several more herbs, all of which I either placed in my inventory or in my grove. Surprisingly, she only gave me one poisonous plant, and that was because it also had a strong medicinal aura. From what I could tell, the pollen of this flower was good for medicine, but the petals of it contained a strong poison. According to Arianne, it would grab anything the touched its petals, and hold them there until the poison was done. After that, the petals extracted its life force and used it to produce more pollen.

Definitely a plant going in the ‘second grove’. I thought as I carefully placed it in my inventory. From there, Arianne led me to get a total of two more plants, before she said that I had now received all of the ‘healing plants’ in this family.

’Thank you very much, Arianne. I would try to compensate you in some way, but I really don’t know what you would like?’ I smiled to the naked green lady, and did my best to keep my little soldier from saluting. It was a difficult task, let me tell you.

She smiled gently to me, shaking her head. ’That is not needed. It is good to have someone new to talk to, if even for only a short time.’ She looked around discretely, and then sent a message in a particularly quiet tone. ’The family is not usually very good for conversation.’

I laughed when I heard that, having to hold my stomach. Again, Celeste appeared at my wrist. “Come on? What’s so funny?! Don’t leave me out like this, man!”

“Sorry, sorry. You know I don’t mean to. How about this, once we get rescued I’ll let you see my world for a little while?” I smiled down to Celeste, who was quickly placated by the bribe.

“Okay… fine. But you better keep your promise!” She huffed out before disappearing into the metal wristband again.

After that, I decided to say goodbye to Arriane, who seemed somewhat reluctant to part. Though, as she said before, it was merely because she liked having someone to talk to. When I offered to let her come with me, she firmly refused, saying that she would not leave her family behind. Only if I could take her entire family would she come with me. And naturally, my grove was not nearly big enough to accommodate all of the plants she considered her family. Especially that ‘grandfather’ that ate my pod… Though, now I couldn’t help but seeing that massive hungry plant as an old man shaking his cane at people and yelling for them to get off his yard.