Author’s Corner: Rejoice! For I have been unable to fight the desire to write an extra chapter tonight.

The cultivation went fairly smoothly, especially since there weren’t any plants trying to eat me. My cultivation showed only a bit of progress, with my Lightning Affinity increasing to 7% after the first few hours. None of the other elements I was practicing showed a noticeable increase, though. On the other hand, the Plant Affinity that I was only passive training increased to 11%, which surprised me. This was likely only due to the dense plant mana this planet offered, and I wouldn’t see such increases after leaving for a while.

Anyways, after a few hours of cultivating, I got rather bored and wanted to do some experiments. Specifically, I wanted to see if I could alter my wings to be able to take in mana types other than plant. Like I had done with the lesser orthrus, I focused on a single leaf of my wings. Having studied this aspect, I naturally knew which part it was that absorbed the plant mana, so I tried changing that single part of the aura to wind.

To my surprise, this seemed to trigger a chain reaction throughout the entire aura, with every piece of plant mana in the aura changing into wind mana. Naturally, I suspected this meant my feather leaf would fade away, but when I looked there was simply a small gap between the feathers. According to my Aura Sight, it was still there, but had been rendered invisible due to becoming one with the wind. I did another quick change and switched it back to plant mana, and the leaf returned.

Over the course of the next hour, I experimented with changing the leaves into every element I was currently capable of wielding. Earth had the leaf turn to stone, which unbalanced me a little due to the extra weight. Water had the leaf turn into a large drop of water just hanging off my wing, which I quickly turned back in case it fell off. Fire had the leaf burst into flames, which hurt a bit as it burnt the surrounding leaves.

Lightning had the leaf crackling with electricity, which shot off of my wing into the ground. That one actually hurt more because I felt the feather forcefully plucking itself from my wing. Light and dark turned the leaf into a stationary mass of light and shadow respectively. Finally, void was interesting, as it turned into a black feather similar to how it reacted to dark mana. However, there were tiny specks of light on it, which looked like shining stars. Out of curiosity, I expanded this effect to an entire wing.

It actually looked like a scene of a starry sky, like one would find in space. Though, there was hardly any void mana to be found in this planet’s atmosphere, except for the Seed of Void I brought with me. After that experiment, I did one more. This time, I changed all of my leaves into light feathers, and actively absorbed the light mana around me. It was still a couple of hours before the sun will set, or else I would have done this with darkness instead.

I could see the light warping around me as it gathered in my wings. Rather than letting myself take it in like I had been with plant mana, I held the light mana in my wings for two or three minutes, until it felt like I couldn’t hold anymore. This caused my wings to continue growing brighter and brighter, until I finally let them release.

Not wanting to be the enemy of the forest again, I directed the release upwards to the sky. Immediately, a thick beam of light emerged from each of my wings, shooting off where I had directed until my wings had exhausted the stored energy.

New Ability Unlocked!Element Burst - Elemental Affinities - ★★★

By absorbing pure mana of a given element and storing it up without allowing it to circulate through your body, you are able to release a blast of that element at its full potential of power.

Well… that would be an epic attack, if I had the time to gather the mana like that… I shook my head, knowing that expecting two or three seconds in a heated battle to charge an attack is hoping for a miracle, let alone two or three minutes. Maybe when my affinity increases I’ll be able to take the mana in faster and use the attack in combat.

Still… the power of that attack. I should have gathered somewhere around three hundred mana, but it was all pure light mana. That means it would have been a 100% affinity, rather than my 8%, so it should have been the equivalent of me firing a light blast with over 3500 mana. I’ll have to remember that trick in the future, because it could come in handy.

“What was that?” Celeste suddenly spoke up from my wrist, staring in the direction that the light had gone.

“Ah… guess you could call it an ultimate attack?” I smiled slightly.

“Huh… Well, it was certainly interesting. But, if there were any creatures that were still hostile towards you… you just sent them an invitation.” She smirked to me as my face paled. She was right, Arriane had assured the cooperation of this section of the jungle, but a blast like that might have been seen or sensed by others.

Immediately, I changed my feathers back to leaves, and flew into the sky. In the distance, from four different directions I could see the trees shaking, some moving aside while others advanced forward. When I focused my X-Ray and Zoom combo, I found massive plants burrowing closer from underground as well.

No time to sit around! I shook my head and flew off, cultivating Plant Affinity again to help me blend in with the forest. Between the big trees above, and the giant squid-like roots below, I had no hopes of winning an all out battle. And even less desire to try!

My body continued to fly farther and higher, because the further away I was from the ground, the better right now. I had yet to see a flying plant, and I doubted I would see one now--

RWAAAAAA!!!

Ohfuck, was that a roar? Looking in the direction it came from, thankfully behind me, I saw what looked like a massive tangle of vines flying through the sky. Its body was in the shape of a giant serpent, with two wings made of wood and leaves that spread out dozens of meters in each direction. Its teeth were like giant thorns, and it had two front claws, each made of twisted branches. I was no longer happy to have such an effective zoom feature on my eye.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part… was that this one had eyes. Eyes that could quite clearly see the only creature on this planet that was not in some way born of plants. Unlike all of the other plant monsters, this dragon(because there is really no better name for it, seriously) came flying straight towards me.

“Come on, come on, not going to be dragon fertilizer!” I flew as fast as I could, and when that wasn’t enough, I cast a series of runes on myself to increase my flight speed even more. Even with all of that, I was still just barely as fast as the hungry hungry plant. I could fight it. I would almost certainly lose, but I really don’t have a lot of options at this point. Wanting to probe its ability, I stored my magic staff in my inventory and instead retrieved my rifle. “Celeste, need some aiming help!”

“I’m on it!” Immediately, a red line was drawn in my vision, emitting out from the tip of my rifle. Doing a quick spin, I activated my Record function on my eye for a split second as I lined up the shot. Since this made me instinctively know everything caught in my vision, I was able to pull the trigger the instant the shot lined up. 360 no scope, bitch! I grinned to myself and resumed flying, cancelling the Record. After a moment there was a sharp roar, and I turned my head to see that the plant dragon was missing a chunk of its face. Maybe with a half dozen more shots like that, I could even bring it down!

Unfortunately, my rifle was the one weapon I hadn’t focused on charging. There was enough energy in it for two more shots at most, but after that it would be empty. And that dragon did not look like it would wait for me to charge it up. I might be able to finish it off if I empty my pistol into it, but every time I do a spin to take a shot I’d lose a bit of space between myself and the dragon. A hundred shots… I’d get eaten first.

I might be able to do an Element Burst, if I can live long enough to charge up the mana. The only question is what element? A blast of plant mana would likely heal the dragon like it had done for the slime before. The only other abundant mana types in the air were wind and light. I didn’t really trust a light blast to finish it off, and wind even less so. “Dammit, if only…”

I looked around quickly, until I saw somewhat dark clouds off to my left. I’ll lose a bit of distance, but it’s my only choice. Refreshing the speed buffs, I shot off towards the small storm clouds. I just had to be thankful that this was not a true dragon. If it was, it would probably have magic or a breath weapon to fire at me, instead of simply charging.

“Faster, Falenel, faster!” Celeste spoke up from my wrist, looking behind me with a worried expression. If she was actually able to see through her hologram, I’d just have her guide my shots without having to turn back. It was a bit of a waste of mana, but I urged wind mana to push my wings further and harder, letting me gain a bit of distance.

By the way, I should go ahead and state just how dumb I think this is, with my flying TOWARDS a storm cloud with the INTENTION to get struck by lightning multiple times. On the off chance I survive this, I then plan to FIRE said lightning at a fucking DRAGON. Taking a quick glance back, I did not like how close those teeth were getting. I almost didn’t have to use the zoom feature to see how angry it was.

Just a few more minutes till the cloud… I thought to myself as I kept flying as fast as I possibly could. “Celeste, mind if I put you away for a moment? Don’t want you to get fried if this falls through, or worse yet, if this works.”

“Uh huh, sure…” She said, nodding her head quickly. Being stuck between a dragon and a lightning storm, she didn’t seem to have too much hesitation towards hiding in my grove. If it were possible, I’d have been right there with her.

It took most of my mana to send her into the grove, but the dense plant mana was steadily increasing it back up. Not only that, but I was just now arriving at the edge of the storm cloud. With my Aura Sight, I was able to see where the densest mass of lightning mana was, and flew straight towards it. At the same time, I changed all of the leaves on my wings to match the lightning element, and did my best to control them so as to stop them from flying to the ground again. “Come on, you big ugly storm. Show me who’s boss!” I yelled at the cloud. Why not, everything else here wants a piece of me.

After a few moments, the first bolt of lightning struck. I could already feel it gathering at my wings, overloading them and running through my entire body.

Lost an argument with lightning.-60 HP

As soon as the bolt hit, I hurriedly cast my Alchemic Heal spell in preparation for the next one. By the time I had cast the second time, a third bolt of lightning struck me, further charging my wings. By now, sparks were flying everywhere from my body, and it looked as if I was the center of the storm. However, I simply continued casting Alchemic Heal, again and again. The small bit of lightning that I allowed myself to absorb to fuel that spell was quickly replaced a hundred fold by more bolts.

Finally, I turned back to face the dragon, who was now mere seconds from eating my face(and the rest of me in the same bite, if I was lucky). Fully extending my four wings, I felt myself losing altitude with my new posture. If this works, I’d be able to recover in time to land, and if not then I just wouldn’t really need to worry about that rescue anymore.

The eighth grader inside of me couldn’t help but yell out as I released the lightning in a single massive bolt. “Lightning Burst!” I would like to point out at this point, that my 7% lightning affinity gave me next to no control over 100% pure lightning. As such, I could merely give it a direction to go, and pray to god it moved in a straight line.

For the most part, the lightning did indeed move straight. About a third of it branched off and spread in pretty much every direction. However, that also left two thirds pure lightning moving straight towards the dragon. And fun fact, lightning moves at a third of the speed of light, over one hundred million meters per second. By my estimation, the dragon was less than a thousand meters away from me, giving it… less than one percent of one percent of a second to avoid the blast.

Another fun fact, this dragon is not that fast. If it was, I’d have been dead long ago. After the blast was fired, I was left blinded for a while, correcting my wings and returning them to normal as I used the wind currents to right myself. Note to self, next time you fire a mega blast of lightning, DON’T LOOK AT IT! It took several long minutes before my eyes were able to make out anything. The mere fact that I survived that long would seem to indicate that the dragon had been defeated.

When I was finally able to see, I found that I was only a few dozen meters from the tops of the nearby trees, and quickly changed as much of my aura as I could to plant mana, by cultivating Plant Affinity and making the leaf wings. Ahead of me, I saw a large path of collapsed trees, and smoke rising from the front of the path. I had barely a sliver of health remaining after the repeated lightning strikes, but it was worth it since I killed the dragon!

…

Wait, why didn’t I level up? I did kill the dragon, right? Oh god, I really hope I didn’t just make it mad. Flying over, I saw the massive body of the flying plant serpent being wrapped up by vines, and with my Aura Sight I saw plant mana being injected into it. Oh, you have to be kidding me… they’re healing it?! I looked back to the shrinking storm cloud, wondering if I would be able to get one last blast in. I quickly decided that I probably couldn’t, and that I should instead use this time to make like a tree and leaf.

Almost defeated a Nature Wyrm. Almost, but have a reward anyways.You have leveled up(x5)

Inventory space increased to 5x5

Luck increased by 5

Wild Luck has increased to Basic

Wow, five levels at once, from only a partial defeat…. and does this god have a fetish for the number five? I turned around and flew away as fast as I could, not wanting to be anywhere nearby when that ‘nature wyrm’ woke up. At the same time, I took a chance to look at my status and spend my points, because I may be needing them soon.

NameFalenel HulettRaceHalf-Elf(Woodland)TitlesVengeful HeartFame0Level 2035%ClassDruidSub-ClassWild ShaperDeityMalthanHealth150/150Health Regen0.25Mana770/770Mana Regen1.02Strength12Wisdom80Agility20Intelligence77Dexterity20Charisma10Vitality15Luck20Points Remaining0Earth 10%Fire 8%Wind 8%Water 8%Lightning 8%Light 8%Dark 10%Plant 11%Void 5%Luck 2%

SkillsMana Manipulation - Novice Level 4: 3%Nature Magic - Basic Level 4: 20%Wind Magic - Beginner Level 6: 41.5%Archery - Beginner Level 3: 12.9%Dagger Mastery - Beginner Level 3: 14.1%Wild Luck - Basic Level 1: 0%Sketching - Basic Level 6: 50%Herbology - Beginner Level 9: 2%Gathering - Beginner Level 6: 6%Alchemy - Basic Level 1: 0%Mana Signatures - Basic Level 9: 11%Cooking - Basic Level 3: 52%Flight - Beginner Level 6: 12.3%Aura Sight - Basic Level 6: 0%Technomancy - Basic Level 5: 19%Programming - Intermediate Level 3: 10%Runic Language - Intermediate Level 1: 0%Enchanting - Beginner Level 7: 8%Engineering - Basic Level 1: 18%Maintenance - Basic Level 3: 2%Dodge - Beginner Level 1: 19%Swordsmanship - Beginner Level 2: 13%Marksmanship - Beginner Level 7: 0%Energy Weapons - Beginner Level 2: 42%