— POV Rose —

It looks like Cirili is still grumpy at me for making her use that wand. I can’t wait for her to realize how good it is and come groveling to me, thanking me for my kindness. Ah, I can’t wait!!!!!! “Oh, Rose. You always do right by me. I can feel myself getting stronger every day! Thank you so much! Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

“Rose, this wand sucks! My fireball can’t even fully kill a deer!”

… That little shit!!!!!

“Hey everyone, we are approaching the elf’s territory. We can’t hunt without the locals permission in this area. Of course, they probably won’t mind, but can we stop shooting fireballs at every being of nature for now?” - Liza

“Is that true Liza? You know so much!” - Alice

“Of course I do! The King let me into his library and asked his chancellor to teach me everything I might need for this trip. It took me awhile to understand the basics, so the chancellor also gave me a shorter version to study on my way around.”

“Ah, so cool! Can I read it too?”

“Of course! But we can;t let it distract us from our duties. Make sure to only read it after we swap positions.”

…

Sigh, those two get along really well. I guess it’s for the best though, because since they’ve gotten mixed up with me their fate strings may have been tampered with hehe. From average to great! I bet these two will be thankful to me in the future, unlike someone! I’m going to grope her more tonight! Hmmph!

— POV High Elf —

It is a hard life being a normal elf. I’ve studied, trained, and expanded my mana capactiy for years, but eventually I hit a peak. I was lauded as a top-class sorceror, and I grew complacent. Eventually, I also grew tired. The next thing I knew, I was old and had started to gain wrinkles all over my body.

I finally noticed my age when my dearest friend, a dryad that I met on one of my adventures, grew sadder and sadder as the days went on. When I asked her why, she wordlessly brought up a water curtain that reflected my visage. That’s when it hit me. I’m old. And I’m going to die soon.

It hit me hard, the knowledge of impending death. However, instead of dwelling on it, I thought to somehow reduce the pain my friend was feeling. I started to visit her as often as I could, bringing her little treats and telling her stories.

Until last week. I was making my way carefully over to her, when she came rushing over to me smiling.

“My me, little Apple. What’s got you excited?” I wondered aloud.

She grabbed my hand and drew me to her tree, and she told me that she might be able to help me out! She feels a potential in me that wasn’t there before, and thinks she knows how to draw it out. I myself don’t feel much different, but since she seems happier and more energetic than ever, I’ll play along and have fun with her.

Apple every day would take me to a spot away from her influence to teach me how to interact with the energy in nature. It took a few days, but with Apple’s help, and my experience in magic, I was able to influence nature energy around me. Deary me, when that happened, my heart nearly stopped. Only plants should be able to influence nature energy directly, as far as I knew the only way previously was to use our own mana to guie the nature mana around. A very tedious and difficult experience, as the energy fought against any other types of energy.

That’s when it fit me, I could feel an untapped potential deep within me, asking me a question. A simple question. Do you want to become more?

And I said yes to the tempting voice.

Instantly a bright, white light rose like a pillar around me. I was wrapped in a leafy cocoon, and roots came from nowhere and plunged deep into the earth below me, searching for and bringing me something. It was painful, and euphoric at the same time. But finally it was over, my leafy cocoon withered and disappeared, and I stepped out. I felt stronger, faster, and younger. And to top it all off, while I still look aged, I only look older, not decrepit.

Now I feel a pulling, something guiding me to go a certain direction. But I know the way is dangerous. Hopefully I can find a strong party to team up with to go to where I’m being called.

Maybe this caravan that just entered the city would help. They look quite strong, and I won’t be a big burden. My need for food seems to have gone away from some mystical reason, but I do find myself tasting a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have thought of before. Just yesterday I licked a rock and thought it tasted good. I must need some mineral present in the rock, I don’t know what it is though.

The party is composed of all females, so hopefully they won’t reject just because I’m a male. I’m old, so that should help put their worries at ease. And I know my way around, and have a lot of contacts. Let’s see if they’ll take me along, a sort of give and take.

While it pains me to leave Apple, both of us know we’ll see each other again. And this pull won’t go away until I make it to where it’s pointing.

— POV Cirili —

While I was lamenting the loss of human civilization, an old elf approached our caravan. He appeared pretty strong, he has a lot of magic leaking out of him. He must have just recently upgraded his power somehow. We had just entered the city and the guards were off buying goods and food. I could see Rose pointedly looking away, while motioning me with her hand to take care of it.

Sigh.

“Hi there elder, is there anything we can do for you?”

“Good afternoon young lady. I came to inquire about joining your caravan depending on the way you’ll be heading. I am a really strong mage, and I have a lot of connections in this Kingdom. I know the safe routes, wherethe corrupt and the clean cities are, and I can facilitate our movement through any of them.”

“Ah, that would be most helpful. May I ask why you want to join us on our journey?” Damnit, what the fuck is this. He must be someone really important. If I play this wrong we could become ostracized. Damnit.

“That is an astute question, my dear. I am on a journey to find my roots, so to speak. I need to go West, I do not know where, but I have a feeling that is where I should go. Naturally I will pay my own way, I just would like some traveling companions for safety and company. Hiring guards isn’t easy, as the location is unknown and the journey is also unknown.”

“Let me discuss it with - “

— POV Rose —

It’s a shame humans don’t evolve naturally, we only gain classes. My experiments back in the days freed me from this restriction, but I’m pretty sure I’m at an apex / unique in that regards. I though elves were in a similar boat, but then this thing shows up. I can feel it, an evolved form. I can see an extremely strong fate string attached to him. It has a shiny gold layer around it, and it resists me seeing into it.

Is this the dawn of a new species? I’ve never seen something like this, I can’t let Ciri mess this up!

“What she was trying to say was that we would be delighted to have your company on our trip. My name is Rose, a great magician from the human Kingdom. I’m leading an expedition into the unknown as well. Let’s join hands and discover what hasn’t been discovered before!”

“Oh, thank you Rose. I’ve heard tales of your magical abilities! Thank you for accepting my humble request.”

Good. Study specimen acquired! This high elf is weird, I can sense he’s strong, I’d say slightly weaker than Cirili, and can use magic, but there’s also something else that I’ve only seen in plant life. He has green in him. I need to further study him, time to kidna- I mean guide him to where he goes. That way if I need any subjects in the future I know where to go.

— POV Mathias —

Making all of these mana stones is taking quite a long time. But My mana capacity is going bonkers! Now that I have the resources, I need to start figuring out magic in more detail. I need to get to the stage where I have enough power and defenses where I won’t be scared anymore, where the curse of [Destined to Die] can no longer can harm me.

Along with magic, I also need to get the upgrade of Tree Growth Energy so I can rapidly build defenses and transport it inwards from greater than 20 feet. I don’t know how much further I can transport my GP around. The furthest I can remember is a redwood getting to something like 380 ft tall and a fig tree having roots 400 feet down. So max is probably around 700-800 ft total in a sphere, I work mostly in area though… Wow, If I get the max range, I could have access to 5000 TIMES more GP! The conversion rate may change though, because of how dense it is compared to my own. But still, this change is another massive boost in power that I desperately need. Using 100,000 GP is a drop in the bucket compared to how much more powerful I can become.

Hmmm, speaking of magic, I bet I could learn more about magic in general from that mage in the elf village. Terrible people, but they qualify as a resource I guess. And first rule of survival: make use of any available resource.

Moving on over to… A burning hellscape?!?! What the hell!? Shit, the village looks decimated, and my shoots that were grown over here are dead. Damnit, how did I not notice this? I guess I should pay more attention to my mind-threads from . I’ve mostly left them to their own devices, and it’s been working for the most part. Then again, it’s one of the main reasons that I am able to think clearly with my main mind. If I had to deal with each little thing more often than now, I feel like my progress will be delayed. And progress, for now, must be pushed forward.

But I will spend some time in the next few days reviewing my threads and resetting any alert parameters I have in there. Now, back to my hopes and dreams being dashed due to black flames engulfing the elf village.

They look exactly like the flames I saw earlier on that large fire-breathing scaled wolf-beast thing, aka, Jard and Torgue’s father. BTW, what happened to their mother? I should ask them tomorrow.

It’s hard to see what’s happening with all that fire around. But I’m not exactly sure I want to go and touch it. I remember the people who killed that beast had a special receptacle to store the excised flames. Also, the flame I have hidden underground still hasn’t stopped burning, but neither has it grown. Really weird-acting flames. I’ll just scout the exterior, see what’s going on. I’ll probably jsut have to cut my costs and hope I encounter another city or village as I expand.

Village house 1: destroyed and burnt to the ground. House 2: same. …

Mage’s quarters: Looks like a fight broke out from where I am. House’s wall’s look torn down, but again, ditto, looks destroyed and burnt to the ground. What’s weird is that it looks like the majority of the bodies are inside thier houses, near their beds. Not a lot of fight, like they were killed in their sleep. Maybe it was a night raid by an enemy? Nah, doesn’t fit the stereotype. They wouldn’t have burnt everything to the ground after. And why would a group attack the wolf-beast, when the group that was fighting the beast didn’t use it at all?

From the damage to everything, I can only guess some type of dragon came in and used some sort of wide-area of attack spell or ability and killed most everyone, Then covered the area in their dragon breath. Maybe it grew irritated at their village for some reason?

Anyways, this is BAD FUCKING NEWS. I need a fire protection plan, stat!