POV - Celestia

We continued charging through the forest for a few minutes now. We had to stop once when I trip and scuffed my elbow, however, that was a quick fix with a simple heal spell. So far, our run has been uneventful, with nothing going on except that. But it does look like our luck is about to end because Arthur seems to have stopped and is signifying us to stop. Slowing down from our run, I stop behind Noel as she is currently peaking around Arthur.

“Why did you stop? It's only a lake.” Noel asks, with one eyebrow raised and in a questioning tone.

“It is not the lake that I am stopping for. But the fact that there are no signs of animals near the lake. There also is some type of plant floating on the lake which is giving me the feeling that we should turn around and leave,” Arthur replies to Noel's inquiry.

“Huh, why do the plants bother you, they look normal to me,” Noels says, looking skeptically past Arthur and to whatever he is also looking at.

“The plants just feel dangerous to me, I can’t explain it,” Arthur says, trying to justify what he had said.

“You have danger sense, why didn’t you tell us,” Noel says, releasing out to the public one of the skills that Arthur has.

“No, I don’t have Danger sense, it's a skill I developed outside the system,” Arthur says, trying to get out of the direction Noel is taking this conversation.

“Oh I see, you saw that in your available skill list that you can learn danger sense, and you tried to develop it on your own without the help of the system. So you don’t have to waste a skill slot on it.” Noel observes by analyzing what Arthur has said previously.

While Noel and Arthur are continuing their fruitless conversation, I whisper to Simmons, “What does Noel mean by learning a skill without using a skill slot.”

“That’s simple, learning a skill without a skill slot is learning without assistance from the system. Most people think they have infinite skills slots, but that is a myth, the skill slots are determined by a person's talent. That's why most high-level people don’t waste skill slots on skills that they can learn without the help of the system. One word of caution, there are skills out there that only the system can give.” Simmons also whispers back to me, with deep breathing. Though Simmons is exhausted, he has this look in his eyes as if he wants to investigate whatever Arthur and Noel are still arguing about.

“Celestia can you come up here and use your Mana Vision on the plants,” Arthur says, seeming to be tired of his conversation.

“Yeah sure, what do you want me to use my Mana Vision on,” I say walking up to Arthur and Noel.

“I want you to use your [Mana Sight] on the Lotus and the surrounding area of the clearing,” Arthur replies in a direct tone, getting back into the groove of commanding.

I turn my sight to the clearing that Arthur and Noel have been looking out to. The area is the biggest clearing we have seen, with a lake sitting about 6-7 meters away from trees on each side. The lake is crystal clear, without a single ripple to indicate that there is life in the lake. Floating on the lake there are lotuses, each lotus was pink-tipped leading to white at the base of the lotus. In the center of the lotus sat small strands of gold pointing out to the world.

While I was admiring the beautiful spectacle, I remembered my goal and activated my Mana Sight, and what I saw shook me. It was a wall, a wall of energy being sucked in and expelled. The energy constantly changing, each lotus flower was just a small part of a whole that made up this wall. The wall dominated my sight, making me unable to see the Mana that everything else held. All I could see was the wall in front of me. The wall of constantly pulsing green intertwined with blue was all I could see from this scene, and nothing else. All I could do was stare, my mouth agape, the rest of the world passing by without a second thought.

For… well, I don’t know, I was knocked out of my constant staring at the wall of energy. This also had the unintended side effect of causing me to deactivate my Mana Vision. After a few seconds, the world started to return to me and all I could hear is, “Celestia are you okay.” With me also being shaken with the clear intent of bringing me back to the world. I let out a confused sound that didn’t sound like anything.

“Oh, thank Apollo, you're okay,” Arthur says in a scared caring tone, worried about my safety.

“So what did you see.” Noel comes in at the side of my view, with a wide grin on her face.

“What do you mean, what did you see? Celestia has been enraptured by whatever she saw, and all you're going to do is ask, so what did you see.” Arthur says with a death glare and venom seeping out of his words, all directed towards Noel. It is the first time I have seen Arthur like this, and from what I can tell, Noel also did not expect this reaction from Arthur.

“Woh woh woh,” Noel backs off both her hand raised in the air, “I was just asking, sorry if I sounded insensitive, but come on you can’t say you didn’t overreact.”

“Maybe I was overreacting, but are you not worried about Celestia,” Arthur says, trying to justify his action in the eyes of everyone here.

“Now that's settled, what did you see,” Noel ask far better in the terms of speech, leading Arthur along.

“Well, it was a wall. A wall of green and blue energy being sucked and expelled in a rhythmic pattern.” I say trying my best to describe what I have seen.

“I knew it, they aren't Magical herbs, they're Mystic herbs,” Noel says, far more excited than I thought she would be after hearing my description.

“But aren't Magical herbs and Mystic herbs the same thing,” I ask Noel, honestly confused about her excitement.

“No, they're different,” Arthur says while standing me up because it seemed that I have fallen over during my view of the lake and its plants. “Magical herbs are common, and they can only hold one element. Mystic herbs can hold up to four elements, there are higher ranks of herbs, but it is not worth it to delve into them now.”

“I can’t wait to pick them, I can only imagine what effects they have stored in them,” Noel says, almost drooling.

“You're going to have to continue to wait,” Arthur says, breaking the imaginary world Noel has painted for herself.

“But-But, why,” Noel says, giving Arthur puppy dog eyes.

“That is because mystical herbs usually have a strong guardian or a beast that's eating them for power. Either way, we are too outmatch to even attempt to fight a mystical herb guardian.” Simmons says, cutting off Noel’s puppy dog eyes.

“Simmons, do you have a notebook or something else to write and note this down? While you're at it can you note down what else we have seen here, and our observations and theories,” Arthur says trying to get down as much information before we could even begin to forget about it.

“Yes, I can do that,” Simmons says, getting out a notebook from his satchel and starting to write in it.

“Alright while Simmons is writing stuff down let us get ready to run again, I want to be out of here asap before it gets dark. I would say we have about 3 hours before it gets truly dark.” Arthur says, rounding us up to get back to jogging out of here.