— POV Mathias —

I’ve been discussing with Livily on my fire defense plan. She’s curious about how I plan to cover the whole glade with my magic.

‘Plop’

“You see here, I start with a basic magic circle that I create with my roots or draw with my mana. Here, I’m using mana so it’s easier for you to tell how I draw my lines.”

“You can use your roots? I guess it makes sense, just like how a mage will use an amulet to power certain spells. The permanence makes it near instantaneous to use, however you lose adaptability with the spell. The only thing you control at that point is the amount of mana you put into the spell.”

“Ah, I didn’t think of that. Well, I did, but I have so much mana and I can always move my roots around. But that’s a good point, in a dangerous situation I won’t have the luxury to be able to change the spell. But I want this to be semi-automatic and easy to use. If I need to draw out a spell this big, I’ll definitely have to concentrate a lot on the spell, which might make me vulnerable somewhere else.”

“Hmmm, well it depends on what you prioritize I guess. There’s also a few flaws here in your magic circle. The lines are rigid and straight, with sharp corners and tight bends. Think of the lines as channels, or guides for the mana to flow through. Curve those angles where they meet. A better way is to make a circle and slowly, slowly put in your mana. Follow the mana as it goes through the circle, feel where the mana gets turbulent, and make it smooth. Unless it’s where it’s supposed to be turbulent, of course. There’s a lot of wastage of mana, not a big deal for you, but the big loss is of power. If you fix those flaws in your circle, it should both activate faster and be more powerful.”

“I see. I understand now.” I should treat the lines like a water pipe to efficiently spread the mana, and meet at the middle at the same time to amplify the effect. Thankfully I had to do this a lot with nutrient solutions before. I… remember doing it, but not what for really other then tending plants. Damn, I really curse those gods. I won’t forget that pain, the feeling of loss. I remember facts, places, things. But I can’t remember faces, memories, or names really. The only real memory I have is of a single person, but only her name. Rose. Sigh. I don’t have time to reminesce! Focus! Survive! Get Stronger. Then remember. Then get revenge.

“Livily, does the symbols in the circle need to be something specific?”

“No, not really. But having a clear image, without mixing conceptual ideas, is the most efficient way of starting out building. Later, you can use these mixed ideas to create spells that are more difficult to imagine. For instance, think of a spell that you want to water an area. You’d normally need to draw a circle that contains a symbol for mist, water, size identifier, and strength modifications. Or you could draw just a raincloud with a size modifier. To be honest, I can’t say you’re ready for this. I’m surprised you haven’t faced magic backlash, but with your immense mana, you might have and the spell worked anyways. The mana’s inertia and might would have pushed the backlash forwards anyways.”

“Well, it’s lucky I met you before I implemented this glade-wide spell. Will this work as a basic water-veil?”

“Well, it should work, however, it won’t be good. Your mana type is fire-based. You lose 50% efficiency right there. Then you lose some more because there isn’t really water mana floating around because of your mana pushing out the other elements. So amplification will be small. I see you’re planning on linking your magic to the spring, but it’s too small to make a water veil around everything. Of course, you could overpower it with mana and make it work, but you’ll find that even you will run out of mana pretty quickly and/or overuse your mana capabilities.”

It looks like in the future I’m going to need to balance out my mana types for spells, the health of my glade, and for my future people and protectors. I might also scare away the High Elves if I don’t correct this somehow. I’ll need to go back to breading mana reactors and see what I can do. I’ve been muting my mana release lately thanks to creating mana stones, but I do still have one more type of energy I can utilize.

“Livily, what about using my nature mana to fuel a spell? I’ve never been able to get it to work - I can only really use it to regenerate and grow.”

“Well, for the most part that is what it’s best at. It can’t really be used to fuel normal spells, as it is much slower moving and again, needs to be guided. It’s best to use it within you, so maybe use it to fuel regeneration in case you’re hurt? Infusing it into wood or fruit to create something or empower someone is how trees have used it in the past. But for some reason, even though you have a ton of nature energy, it’s quality is really low. So at most it will be able to slowly regenerate, or used locally to make new parts. It’s unfortunate, I can feel so much leaking into the air. However, that is good for anything living in the area. They’ll naturally get stronger by absorbing and living within your radius.”

Guess that’s why that owl and all my bug guards are staying in the glade or around it. My decision to upgrade my energy has been cemented in my mind now. Even if my mana is limited, my attack is puny, and my spells weak, as long as my defense and regeneration exceeds anything they can throw at me, I will be invincible. It will probably hurt like a mother fucker, but I will survive at least. Sigh, it’s so pitiful to be grass.

— POV Dragon (Sheal) —

A quick nap in my old glade and I’ll try flying as far as I can. Maybe I can make it back to the Dragon Summit and hide in there. One of the old ancestors should be able to free me from the tracking magic. From then, I’ll keep flying until I’m on the opposite side of the world and start anew. I can have friends, a mate, children! Ah, future, here I come!

Oof, I over-indulged myself. My stomache and magic reserves are definitely bloated. I guess I got too excited being able to fly and hunt again! I couldn’t hold back.

I feel like I’m dreaming! But the satisfying fullness in my stomache isn’t a hallucination. So far I’ve hunted and ate 3 goats, a chimera, griffin, 2 deer (dang how fast they run - I lose them in the trees), tigers (who never look up hehe), some large rainbow fish, the leader of the water wolf pack, an air elemental that was disturbing my flight, and to top it off, desert in the form of a giant magical peach.

Ah, how I miss the days of being totally free! But even then, I don’t remember being able to eat so much nor hold so much magic. Maybe the long period of rest and relative starvation have made me leaner and increased my capacity. Totally….. STILL NOT WORTH IT! Even though my dragon fire does seem to be at least twice as strong as before, it still can’t hurt Rose…

I hope I didn’t waste too much time hunting, and now I need to land and digest this food. Uggh! My self-control! I had this all figured out. First, eat a little and regain the ability to fly in the upper atmosphere. Then, make a beeline to Dragon mountain. Once there, find an ancestor and wake him up quickly. Hopefully I can hide there for a few days and get one of the oldies to remove the tracking curse, or at least hide it or something. Then, I fly to the opposite side of the world and live there forever! I can make new friends, find a new glade to nap in, a new mountain-top to create a nest in. And maybe, even, find love! It’s been so lonely, and it’s making me frustrated in more than one meaning.

I know Rose - she can be extremely lazy. If I fly far enough, and and quick enough, she probably won’t bother trying to find me! I pity the next creature to pique her fancy though. Welcome to centuries of being trapped. But don’t worry! If I can make it out, so can you!

Now, my old resting spot was over this way. It’s been a long time, but it shouldn’t have changed much. My dragon fire usually makes it really hard to for other things to grow there. Ahhh, I can’t wait! That wonderfully cool spring where I can dip my tail in to cool down, the slimes that climb all over my body and polish my scales to a luminous luster! It feels so good to be that clean! I’m getting tingly just thinking about it!

Ah, there it is!

…

Is that a tree in the middle? Weird. Seems to have a lot of magic in it, maybe it has some nice fruit in it.

…

Uggh, it looks diseased. It has white and black leaves, gonna have to burn it down. Just gotta make sure that I don’t kill my sl-….

Where are my slimes!?

DAMNIT! What happened here! Okay, everything burns. Then nap. Then fly away. Using my dragon fire should help digestion too!

I’ll even be doing a service for the dryad over there, she must be worried that about the disease on the tree too. Hmmph, I have the quickest way to heal a disease - burn it to death!

— POV Mathias —

Livily went with the kids and are roaming about on the side of the glade. This gives me time to work on how I’m going to implement my defenses.

Okay, since a permanent magic circle doesn’t allow flexibility, and a mana-drawn circle causes a lot of mental strain, I should do one of those mosiac things. Create a ton of different symbols and images in the ground, along with connections and circles that make everything connected. Then I just activate and deactivate gates, make sure everything is correct, then I can quickly utilize the spell. A good compromise. Short creation time, medium-high adaptability, lowish efficiency - I can’t combine them all expecting they will be correctly spaced apart. I’ll have to space out the ones I know I want to use for a spell first, then go from there.

First spell, water veil. Creates a thick watery mist around the edges and above my glade. Blocks heat, and keeps the moisture content high all around.

Second spell, fire shield. The one that trades mana for protection, just in case. I learned how to modify it after I learned to use it, but the efficiency is still low. I’ll need to modify and research this spell further.

Third spell… Hmmm? What is that? A large magical power is coming this way, better enter stealth mode. In the mean time I’ll warn the others to be careful.

…

…

Oh. That’s a dragon.

…

…

And that’s a fire breath being created and being shot at my tree. Neat.

…

…

Everything’s fine.

…

…

FUCK! Water Veil, you useless spell, activate! And also let’s go ahead and create a tiny fire shield over my body, along with a little mound of earth that covers me mostly, and prepare for the agonizing pain that’s about to hit.

Oh yea. I have my fire blankets too. But they’re shiny. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT