— POV Mathias —

The dryad and I have come to an agreement. I will help her monitor the forest through my roots while she will help teach Taeya about Nature magic. Meanwhile, hopefully her teaching will grant me some more abilities as I listen in.

Livily decided to move into one of the nearby trees, much to my chagrin. She kept bothering me to let her into my tree, saying things like “It’s too beautiful to not live in it! I mean you!” I had to shut that down, it will take awhile longer before I would trust someone out of the blue. Besides, I don’t know what kind of situation it might become if she entered my trunk.

The whole mind invasion thing is still fresh in my mind. I could tell she wasn’t being false in her words. It IS a mutualistic relationship when a dryad goes into a tree, I could visualize that the tree’s growth speeds up and it’s energy is more robust. However, it is currently impossible for me. Maybe once we’ve become friends, and I can be sure of her nature. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to. Plant scientist, plant Dryad, we did/do similar things.

For another day, I suppose.

She seems to have picked the tree nearest to my decoy tree with the best view. It also happens to be the tree where that owl lives in. He seems fine with it, at least he hasn’t left yet. Another point for team dryad then. Everyone seems to love her. Even Taeya, who I though would be super against new people and distrustful to new people, looks at her with sparkling eyes.

Sigh.

Before this whole kerfluffle started, I was peacefully planning against fires, both natural and monster based. I *believe* I have the ability to successfully resist any *natural* fire, but I should see if I can speed up the drawing of water from the spring faster to moisten the ground and maybe even put out a small fire. My roots might be too small to do that though. But I can make a pipe out of roots, and use my ability to quickly flex them to create a surge of water from the bottom. Ok, might as well try that. I can also use earth magic to instead of having the creek from the spring running in only one direction, to come and cover my main body or spread evenly around the glade.

Mana crystals are now automated, and I have a ton of mana to use now, and can move the crystals to areas that need it at a moment’s notice. I guess magic is next on my list of training.

— POV Taeya —

This is amazing! I am talking to a dryad, a protector of the forest! And she’s teaching me how to use magic! Well, I guess I already knew a little bit by trying to copy what Jard and Torgue were doing, but this is something totally different! I’ve felt this weird, calm power within me, but no matter what I did I wasn’t able to use it to do anything with it.

This might be the mana Papa used when he said he fixed me. He explaind the different types of mana as:

“First Water, to signify the body, or container. Then fire, to signify the energy in the body. Then Earth, for that is where our bodies are born from. Then air, for it sustains you. Light and Dark to signify the soul, and finally the spark of life, in lightening.”

With Water I can soothe anything that hurts, and can control water a bit from the stream. With Fire I can make myself faster, as well as make some sparks and start a fire. Mathias instantly put it out and scolded me though. Apparently he can make it warmer or colder if needed around here, and to just ask him. Also, if you want to cook something use fire magic and a hot rock. For Earth I can become really strong and can move rocks and dirt around. Air lets me jump higher and climb faster, as well as create a refreshing breeze. Light lets me create beautiful globes of light to guides us around while Dark helps me hide better when playing. I don’t really understand Lightning very well, when I use it everything seems to be going slow around me. When I try to push it out like the other types, all I can get is my hair standing on end and if I touch Papa I get shocked as he said.

After I told Taeya all about what I can do, she seemed really surprised! She said most elves can only use one type of magic usually, and anything more than that was super awesome!

I’m super awesome!

I used to not be though… I thanked Papa again for taking care of me and cried a bit. I feel so happy, but is this really alright? It all feels like a dream.

Anyways! I need to focus! Liv is teaching me how to pull on that nature energy and use it. Apparently it works like mana, but slightly different. I have to get the mood right and coax it to come out. I think I’ve been doing that subconciously as I learned the other types because I learned some about them before. But to use it, I have to calm myself, and slowly pull instead of grap.

“Nature energy is guided. It takes the easiest route from one point to another. Just think of a root extending from your pool and coming into your blood vessels, wrapping you up.”

I… I can feel it! I very calm, slow feeling is coming over me. I feel limber, and can sense the different life around me. Jard and Torgue are coming up to me to snuggle too.

“I think I did it Liv! Yay! Thank you!!!”

— POV Mathias —

… That is useless to me. It looks like I’ll need private lessons. So much for magic lessons on nature energy - or is it mana?

“So Liviliy, why is it called nature energy?”

“I really don’t know. Everything used to be called energy and their types, but I guess people have just started using mana for some and energy for others.”

“Let’s just call nature energy nature mana then. I think the reason for the different names is that humans/elves could only use some but not all. So once they were able to, it became nature energy and fire mana. Now that we can use it, we should call it mana.”

“Fine fine, I can do that. Sheez. By the way, do you know where Taeya came from? She’s not an elf, and I feel a connection to her. Also, she can use nature en-mana. It’s weird.”

“Well…”

It took awhile to explain that I accidentally created a newer evolution for elves called High Elves before Livily accepted why Taeya was different.

“Still, it’s odd. Usually anything humanoid can’t evolve anymore. For instance, I don’t have a higher evolution, and I don’t think humans do either. When new evolutions are formed, it’s usually plants or insects. Sapient creatures rarely get a new evolution. Hopefully it turns out fine.”

“Well, what’s done is done. It should be really hard to become a high elf. An elf will need to have a very high aptitude with magic, and will need the help of a being like you to awaken some nature mane within them.”

“True. This glade might get busy here pretty soon though.”

…

“What? Why?”

“Well, because this is where the original was born at. A new species should start grouping together rather quick, no matter how few there are.”

Drat. Shit. I thought I’d have more time to prepare.

“By the way, can you help me with my nature magic? I don’t really know how to do it well. I have all of this mana, but no way to use it effectively.”

“Well, that might be an issue. I have no idea how to teach you out here. I need to meld with you to understand your structure and teach you from there. Plants don’t have a “pool” of magic. It’s more about the flow of energy. If you’d reconsider-”

“Nope. At least, not yet. Maybe in the future, but not right now.”

“Well, hmmph. Then you’ll have to wait. I suggest not messing with it too much on your own. There’s a reason that it usually takes a dryad working with a tree to get it to understand how to do most of it.”

Sigh.

****RRRIIIINNNGGGG****

Oh shit, has it finally happened!? I’ve found an actual elven city!!! Well, traces of a lot of humanoids and a road. Yes! I’ve found civilization! Also shit! I’ve found civilization!

Should I continue, or hold back for now? Learning more about elven society will be useful, but with a higher density of people, a higher likelyhood of detection increases as well. Also it’d be bad if this was the capital. I’d be better off not even getting close to it. A small city would be best.

The capital would have royalty or governing faction, with strong mages. Even if you think that something would be too troublesome or expensive to create, more than likely it’d be here. Something like “I love plants, I wonder what types are growing around the city? Wouldn’t want anything weird around here!” And so they build a plant detection spell matrix or something. Or they’ve come across a mana vampire plant before, and people died, of course the capital will have the training/ability to eradicate it.

Then there are the people themselves. There’s just too damn many of them. Sneaking in would be really troublesome.

Sigh.

For now, I’ll extend a single tendril about 100 ft away from the road and try to follow it in the direction of heaviest foot traffic. That should lead me to the town. From their it might get tricky though. I might have to go underground to

“Hello? Anyone there? Where’d you go?”

Mmmm? “What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to ask you a question for like 20 minutes! But you weren’t answering.”

“Oh, sorry about that. I was just feeling my furthest roots. When I focus I lose track of things.”

“It’s like you were dead or something. It was weird.”

Dang, I haven’t thought of it that way. I know I move my consciousness around, but I didn’t think I was that ignorant of things happening around my original body. Or maybe I’m just feeling more comfortable around my current comrades? It’s almost making me feel bad how I’ve conned them a little bit to be here. But to be fair, I feel I’m giving way more than I receive. They get a figurative utopia area where any injury they get is healed, I provide infinite fruits, and I take care of them.

Sigh.

Oh well, maybe later I’ll tell them. Or I’ll take the secrets to my grave. Which should happen somewhere in 30-40 years. Sigh, the pain of being a living being. I’ll need to somehow change that, but that’s a distant danger. Not worrying about that for now.

“Hey Livily, what kind of monsters are around here? I’ve seen some really strong ones, like a giant fire wolf, but is there anything stronger?”

“Of course! I don’t know all of them, but I do know a dragon used to live in this glade. In fact, I remember that it was a favorite spot of theirs due to the natural spring to clean themselves and the natural elevation. But it’s been centuries since the last time that dragon was seen. And even longer since they’ve been here.”

…

That explains why only grass was growing here. Grass is the first invader on any acidic land, as larger plants can’t deal with the ash from fires that well.

Also, siiiiiiiiiigh.

I hope dragons don’t come here anymore. And the favorite “locale” doesn’t seem as good because of the tree in the middle.

“Don’t worry though! If a dragon does come, I’ll try to convince it to leave you alone and be peaceful! I have at least a 1 in 100 chance of it working! Even though dragons don’t really listen to us!”

…

…

…

Welp. Guess I need to train my defensive magic even more so now. I wonder if I can create a massive mana circle that will extend my fire shield across my whole glade? Or a camoflouge spell, or earthen shield. Fog. Lightning. It’s time to practice!