Chương 37: Trees

In the ancient whispers of leaves, the Tree reveals the language of mana. As I rest in the embrace of bark and sap, I bear witness to the silent communion between the roots that delve deep into the soil's embrace and the branches that reach for the heavens. Mana flows through the very sap of the heartwood, drawing in tales of the world's creation, echoes and stories, eons of wisdom etching themselves into the rings of my age-old companions.

Each leaf, a delicate vessel, breathes the mana back into the forest, thus completing the cycle of rebirth. The balance of nature. A river of mystic energy that flows through the moonlit Grove to sustain our realm. - Lirasia, Dryad, Great Mother of the Deep Woods. Aliandra As Malika flipped up the sewer grate, Ali's Kobold rogue appeared from the shadows, startling her – even though she knew he had been nearby.

"Jumpy much?" Malika asked.

"Yes, I guess," Ali said, forcing herself to relax. In truth, midnight-black rogues jumping out at her from the darkness had been plaguing her nightmares ever since her misadventure with Mato down in the ruins, and it hadn't been nearly long enough for her to recover. Ali dropped down onto the damp, crumbling brick of the sewers, grimacing at the now-familiar stench, and summoned a small disk of her barrier magic to light their way.

Her Kobold rogue landed beside her with barely a sound and instantly vanished into the shadows, a trick that was both terrifying and impressive all at once. At least she could still sense his mana connection nearby. All in all, a productive day, she reflected – the rudeness of the blacksmiths, and the need to walk through the sewer to get home, notwithstanding. After a busy day in town, the relative silence of the underground tunnels felt almost peaceful.

At least they had taken the time to change out of their finery and into adventuring gear before dropping into the sewers. She and Malika chatted easily until they descended into the cavern via the rope Calen had left tied at the rockfall. They began the trek back to the Grove, scanning their surroundings for danger, but as they went, Ali couldn't help but notice the changes to the pervasive mana that perfused through the cavern, hanging about like a thick, dark cloying fog.

Arcane Insight had leveled up and her perception seemed substantially more refined. The ambient dark mana was not as uniform as she had initially thought, instead, there seemed to be areas of significantly increased density, where the mana gushed out like mini-geysers or fountains, and the color seemed to vary from dark gray to pitch black. So, this is a dungeon, she thought. At least, Calen had identified it as one.

Dungeons were widely understood to be terrifying phenomena that consumed the unwary, ate adventurers, attracted monsters, and sometimes destroyed the countryside with a dungeon-break. Ali moved a little closer to Malika. Knowing the theory and being in a dungeon were two vastly different experiences. For one thing, she could see the immense amount of mana being generated by the dungeon – something they were known for.

For another, even though she had lost the aptitude for Mana Sense when she had taken Arcane Insight, the skill had subsumed the ability allowing her to still feel mana in the same way, and her skin was crawling just like it had down in the ruins. Why dungeons emitted so much excess mana was anyone's guess, but it affected the land in powerful ways, subtly altering everything, even people.

Dungeons attracted monsters – and sometimes adventurers – luring them in with the heady promise of dense mana, only to kill and consume them, growing powerful off the energy and experience they brought. This has to be the reason why the Kobolds are drawn to Myrin's Keep. There was, after all, a huge well of mana being generated right below it. How did no one figure this out before – at no time during the last three thousand years? Am I missing something?

It was just as she figured out that the denser dark gray mana was being emitted from the piles of bone, while the pitch-black mana flowed out from the gills of the Deathcap mushrooms, that Malika suddenly pulled up short.

"Wolves," she whispered. Ali whipped her head around, forgetting her mana research in an instant. Distracted in a dungeon! What are you thinking, Ali? Right up ahead, blocking their path to the Grove, was a pack of four starving wolves and a large Alpha lurking right behind.

"What do we do?" Ali whispered. She had removed her Grasping Roots skill, and she could no longer pin any of the wolves down. They would need to tackle all of them at the same time.

"I'll tank," Malika said.

"You have a rogue somewhere nearby, right? Give him a couple of good daggers." Oh, right. With a quick mental command, she called her rogue and retrieved two of her new Masterwork steel daggers, handing them to him. He didn't say a word, but when he bowed his thanks, he wore a wicked grin showing a mouth full of razor-sharp canines. Moments later, he vanished, returning to the shadows.

"Target the Alpha first. Put the rogue on the smaller ones," Malika said, and with that, she sprinted toward the pack without any hesitation. Ali's heart skipped a beat in surprise at Malika's sudden attack and the unexpected departure from their usual plan. With a heavy pounding in her chest, she had to remind herself to stick to the new plan, directing her rogue with her mental connection and securing the Alpha in her mind as her focus.

As soon as Malika's magic flickered in the distance, she opened fire, lighting up the battlefield with the brilliant glowing streaks of her golden Arcane Bolts. The shadows shifted, and a flicker of light reflected off a gleaming blade. A flurry of stabbing and spraying blood accented the rapid flashing of soul magic and the thumps of kicks and punches. Suddenly her chimes rang out in silence. Your group has defeated Starving Alpha – Wolf – level 5. Your group has defeated Starving Wolf – level 1-3 x4.

"Err, what just happened?" Ali stared at the unmoving corpses on the battlefield, the entire pack of wolves dead in seconds.

"We got stronger," Malika answered, her broad grin shining through the blood splattered on her cheeks. As Ali approached to deconstruct the wolves, she saw her Kobold rogue carefully cleaning his new blades on a pelt.

"Thank you, Ancient Mistress. These are worthy weapons," he chirped.

"I guess the better daggers make a big difference," Ali said. It certainly seemed that way. At level nine, her rogue wasn't the highest level she had ever summoned, but he had been fighting level one and two wolves, and the masterwork daggers had made the battle even more one-sided. Not to mention, her arcane magic and Malika's punches had demolished the Alpha wolf in seconds. After a few moments they continued, and the full impact of what had just happened began to sink in.

She had been fighting hard against challenging monsters almost constantly, and she hadn't been able to truly appreciate the growth she had achieved. Other than the skeleton of poor Armand back in the cave, none of the monsters in this cavern had been over level five, and they had just destroyed a group of them. She suddenly felt a lot safer even in the darkness of this strange dungeon cavern. I might be able to do this myself – uh, but not today, she hastily corrected her errant thoughts.

The rest of the way to the shrine was uneventful, and as Ali stepped out onto her moss carpet and into the balm of her domain, she felt the pain of her withdrawal begin to ease. She let out a sigh of relief and sat down, enjoying the sensation of tension flowing out of her body and mind.

"I'm going to Meditate for a bit," Malika said, settling down onto the moss and taking a cross-legged pose.

"Hasn't your mana fully regenerated by now?" Ali asked.

"Yes, but I find Meditation is good for calming the mind too, and it improves my focus for training."

"What kind of skill is it?" Ali asked. It still amazed her just how quickly Malika had regenerated to fill the Mana Battery in the Novaspark Academy of Magic.

"Is it difficult to learn?"

"It's a wisdom-trait general skill," Malika said.

"Here, take a look." The glowing blue-white text appeared as a shared notification in her mind – colors Ali had learned to associate with anything Malika shared – revealing the details of her skill. Meditation Focus: Enter a meditative state during which mana and stamina regeneration is increased by + [35 + skill x 15] %. Movement or using an active skill cancels your focus. Wisdom"Is it… hard to learn?"

Ali had her Deconstruction to regenerate mana, but having something like this as another option would be extremely useful. Not to mention it helped regenerate stamina. When she was exhausted, she had no option other than to rest.

"I can teach you if you like," Malika said.

"It's pretty simple; you have a high wisdom attribute so you should be able to learn it with a little practice."

"Ok," Ali said, grinning at the prospect of learning such a useful new skill.

"What do I do?"

"Sit down next to me," Malika said, patting the moss beside her.

"Should I cross my legs too?" Ali asked, settling herself onto the moss.

"I like it, but anything comfortable works. It helps to sort of form a habit, like your own ritual, so to speak." Ali carefully folded her legs and straightened her back, glancing over at Malika to check if she had copied the pose correctly. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Now close your eyes. There are many methods for meditating. The one I was taught begins by focusing the mind on your breathing. Why don't we start by taking three or four long slow breaths?" Ali closed her eyes and began to breathe. Just by the soft sounds beside her, she could tell Malika was breathing slower, so she tried to match that.

"Now let your breathing return to normal, and just notice it." Malika's voice had taken on a calm soothing tone. Am I doing it right? Is she going to hypnotize me and turn me into a frog?

"Don't worry if you're doing it right, just observe your breathing. Where do you feel the breathing in the body?" How did she know?

"Whenever you have a thought, simply acknowledge it, and return your attention to the breath. There is time for those thoughts later." Crap, I'm thinking constantly. And so it went. Time passed slowly to the sounds of Malika's calm instruction, and yet, for such a simple idea, Ali wrestled with it furiously. Every time Malika suggested she bring her attention back to her breath, she startled, realizing she had become distracted by some thought or another.

And then, when she grew frustrated with her struggles, Malika simply reminded her not to judge her progress.

"Ok, why don't you open your eyes?" Malika suggested. Ali opened her eyes to see the moss and mana before her.

"How did it go?"

"Why is it so hard?" Ali asked.

"Every time I was distracted, you had to remind me to focus on breathing. It's impossible!" Malika chuckled.

"The mind is like a muscle. You have probably never trained focus in this way, so it might be hard at the beginning. But think about reading or studying. How difficult is it to focus when you do those activities?"

"Not so hard," Ali said. When she read a good story, she could become lost in it for hours.

"You've practiced that kind of focus. This is just a different way to focus, and it trains mental discipline. Keep at it, and you will see improvements. Just remember, deal with your emotions the same way as thoughts – acknowledge them and let them pass. There's no point in judging and getting upset because you don't progress fast enough."

"Ok," Ali said. She had always believed her mind was strong, and yet this simple exercise had left her humbled.

"Why don't you try a little more on your own to get the feel for it, and then take a break? No point in overdoing it, either. I'm going to practice some drills to get used to my new skill," Malika said, getting to her feet. While her friend loosened up and began moving through a sequence of mock attacks and blocks that had her ranging widely across the mossy carpet, Ali closed her eyes and tried to be kinder to herself as she tackled the frustrating breathing exercises.

Without Malika's voice guiding her, it was far harder to notice her distractions before they took her on long journeys of imagination, but she persisted for as long as she could. The worst was when she noticed herself thinking and got sidetracked by thinking about how she shouldn't be thinking. Argh! So frustrating! By the end, though, she was certain she had managed to keep an unbroken focus through at least a couple of consecutive breaths.

I do feel a little more relaxed, Ali thought as she opened her eyes once more. She got to her feet, and all those thoughts she had been putting off till later crashed into her mind. She was back in her own domain, and she had an exciting new imprint! She pulled out her Grimoire and began to explore the extent of her domain, circling it while studying the mana it was emitting. There was something rather curious going on, and she needed to confirm it.

Under her Arcane Insight, her domain appeared as a vibrant green aurora that welled up from the Verdant Moss. Punctuating the carpet of green, her Glowcap mushrooms were glittering fountains of gold gushing out to weave together into a complex mesh of nature and arcane mana with a structure and pattern far too fine for her to properly perceive. It extended about a meter beyond her moss before fading out.

Past that, she perceived a broad border with nothing more than ordinary ambient mana, almost too dim to see against her domain, and only further out could she see the wall of black and gray that was the mana of the dungeon. It seemed as if something were holding it back. Ali circled her entire domain, which by now was a sort of oblong blob with the shrine off to one side. I wasn't exactly going for aesthetics, she thought. Except for the pretty mushrooms.

It took her walking more than two-thirds of the way around before she confirmed that the dark cloud of dungeon mana was being held back at a uniform distance from the shrine itself. The dungeon mana looked as ominous and dense as a bank of storm clouds pressing in. Within the eye of the storm, her domain glittered and sparkled, seemingly protected by the ancient shrine. What happens if I go outside of that?

She hoped that she wasn't confined to this space, big as it was, because it wasn't nearly large enough to support the kind of mana growth she had imagined when she had understood her domain aptitude and its advantages – and, compared to her Dad's domain, hers felt utterly puny. Ali put the problem of the dungeon mana aside for now and searched for a suitable spot to experiment. I guess this is as good a spot as any, she thought, picking a nearby stretch of dirt.

She stood at the edge of her moss studying the domain mana as it extended a little beyond, reaching towards the bank of a murky stream of sluggishly flowing greenish-black water trickling by. She wrinkled her nose – it smelled none too fresh. She was certain it was all that remained of the beautiful lake that had once rippled beside the Grove. She turned to her floating Grimoire and paged quickly to the last chapter, finding her newest imprint.

She trickled her mana into the chapter, causing the runes to begin to glow and float off the pages in a swirl. Increasing her mana, she began to pour it in non-stop, accelerating to a torrent. The runes exploded out in glowing streamers of magic, swirling and binding together as they cascaded down into the area she had chosen, building and colliding in an ever-increasing storm of magical energy.

She pressed her lips together and doubled down on her focus, concentrating on what was suddenly the largest magical work she had ever attempted. Her energy drained, but she held on, determined to see what her new imprint could do. Flowing up from the circle of magic projected onto the ground, the shape of a tree began to take form made from millions of tiny glowing runic symbols.

As the magic flowed the symbols began to interlock, forming branches, bark, and leaves but her mundane vision was completely oblivious to the intricate construction taking place. After several minutes, and almost her entire remaining mana pool, the spell suddenly completed with an audible thump. Ali stared up in awe at the gigantic white oak that had suddenly materialized – her recorded imprint made real by the power of her mana.

It had to be over twenty-five meters tall, with wide branches extending outward from a broad trunk, and thick gnarled roots strongly embedded into the ground.

"Woah, Ali, that's impressive!" Malika had stopped her drills and come over to see.

"Do you think it will grow down here?" She reached out to touch the trunk as if to check it was real.

"I… hope so," Ali whispered. The enormous tree appeared dark to her mana vision, in stark contrast to her domain and the moss that helped create it. She waited, hoping against hope. There! Seen against the darkness of the trunk, the change was blindingly clear to her augmented sight. The roots of the tree drew in mana from the surroundings, long, thin green and golden streamers could be seen shooting up from the ground inside the trunk of the tree.

Slowly, the streamers were joined by more and more of the same, creating thicker upward-pouring mana flows. It's the mana of my domain. As she stared in rapt fascination, the mana streamed up and out through the branches and, as it reached the leaves, the entire tree was suddenly outlined in a glow of fresh mana as they all lit with magical energy and began to emit it as a glowing cloud that slowly fell back to the ground.

"I wish you could see this," Ali breathed, awestruck.

"It's like the entire tree lit up with mana."

"Sounds incredible." She simply stood and watched for ages while the mana flows deepened and thickened. Ali was certain she wouldn't have been able to even see the top of the tree in the darkness if it wasn't for the enormous flow of mana rising through the trunk and gently pouring out from the leaves to surround the entire tree with a brilliant glow. I need to make more of these. The thought appeared and instantly it felt right. Ali looked around and risked stepping out of her domain for a moment.

Even though she had not fully recovered from her domain withdrawal yet, she needed mana to summon another tree. And so, she deconstructed an entire pile of bones. Imprint: Bone completed. Ali dismissed the imprint, deciding she didn't want to make piles of bone for any reason. But she did take note of the mana. Her deconstruction of the pile of bones caused a dramatic ripple in the pervasive dark mana around her.

A large area of dark gray mana slowly began to recede, causing a gap to appear in the wall of mana in front of her exactly as if a bite had been taken out of it. The bone piles seem to support the dark mana. It seemed much clearer now that she could see what was going on. As soon as she had deconstructed the pile, the mana began to withdraw. Ali returned to her domain, welcoming the refreshing sensation of her domain withdrawal being slowly healed once again.

With her newly filled mana pool, she decided to grow a few more trees. Her memories of the Grove were crystal clear – she could see the shrine standing proudly in its center, the beautiful lake, and the trees surrounding the clearing. I'm going to restore it all, she thought with a determination that spurred her to action. My parents' memory will live on here. She spent the better part of the next couple of hours patiently growing trees around the perimeter of her moss.

Her Grimoire made black or white oaks, or sugar maples at random, and each time her spell finished, and a giant tree appeared, she experienced anew the same sense of awe and excitement rushing through her. It was the scent of delicious cooking that finally broke her concentration, making her stomach rumble with the anticipation of food. Ali glanced back toward the shrine, and to her surprise, she found a small camp had been pitched beside it – three tents and a cookfire with a small spiral of smoke rising from it.

Mato was busy with a pot at the fire, and Calen seemed to be examining his bow, talking with Malika. Oh, they're back. She had been so focused on her trees and her magic that she hadn't even noticed Mato and Calen returning from town.

"Hi, Ali," Mato greeted her when she rejoined the group, picking up a bowl and filling it with a ladle full of what looked like a stew.

"Your trees look great."

"Thanks. I didn't expect them to be so huge."

"Well, you must be pleased. Here." He handed her the small wooden bowl.

"I am." Ali licked her lips. The spicy aromas made her mouth water, and she suddenly realized just how hungry she was. All that mana use must have taken a lot of energy. She blew on it quickly to cool it and then took a bite, filling her mouth with an explosion of flavor.

"This is amazing, Mato, I didn't know you could cook so well." Her voice came out muffled as she tried to talk and eat at the same time.

"I always enjoyed cooking at home," Mato said, acting embarrassed by her praise. Ali didn't care how embarrassed she made him; it was delicious!

"What's in here? It's divine."

"Well, the butcher had a good cut of Bristletusk Boar today, and I threw in some onions, potatoes, carrots, assorted mushrooms – you know, the usual stuff," he said.

"And a dash of red wine and spices to bring out the flavor of the meat."

"No there's something more in here," Ali said, waving her spoon at him.

"Hah, you got me," he said.

"I got a fantastic deal on dungeon-harvested shallots. Dungeon-grown ingredients always have incredible flavors – it's something to do with the mana – but they're usually far too expensive for mere mortals like us."

"I think you should give up this fighting business and open a restaurant." Before she knew it, Ali was scraping the remains of her dinner from the bowl with her fingers and licking them in a way that would have made her mother scold her when she was younger.

"Is there any more?" Mato gave her a teasing once-over, clearly intended to measure her height.

"Where'd all that appetite come from?" Turning pink as the others chuckled, Ali said, "Watch out, Mato, with your cooking I'm sure I'll be at least a quarter-inch taller by tomorrow." After dinner, the conversation ranged widely as they chatted about the day; the guild and its intense Guildmaster, and the impending invasion of Goblins.

As the conversation touched on the trip to the blacksmith, and Malika gave a colorful description of some of their trials, Ali remembered she still hadn't learned to make the new daggers. She had simply been too distracted with her domain, recovery, and making trees.

"Come here", she instructed, pushing the mental command to the connection she had with her Kobold rogue, and he instantly appeared at her side, making her heart race just a little once again.

"Give me the daggers, please," she said. The Kobold was pretty obviously unhappy with her request, but he gave up the two steel daggers promptly. Ali retrieved the other two from her storage ring and deconstructed all four. Imprint: Crude Dagger updated to Imprint: Dagger. Variant: Steel Dagger added to Imprint: Dagger.

"You learned Thuli's daggers?" Malika asked, glancing her way curiously as the Grimoire shone.

"Yes – the variants seem to come easier than the original imprints, I feel. I'm going to refer to him as the grump-smith from now on." Ali had been rather annoyed with his behavior, but that had mostly passed now, leaving only curiosity about the strange book, but she felt she couldn't just let him off so easily. At least Thuli's work was excellent and the upgrade to her imprint was going to make all her rogues far stronger – even the one she had left back in the forest, at least when he returned.

She could tell he was still alive because she could still sense his mana reservation – and Martial Insight told her roughly where he was, but it wasn't close. Sitting by the warm fire and her friends, she summoned daggers using her Grimoire. It produced three crude daggers before she finally completed the pair of steel daggers she wanted. She set the poor-quality ones to the side, picking up the two shining steel daggers and examining them carefully, turning them over in her hands.

It would be nice if I could remove the crude dagger part of the imprint. Well, it's still a step forward.

"Here you go," she said, turning to her waiting Kobold and handing him the daggers. She was rewarded with his disturbing, toothy grin once more before he vanished into the shadows to keep guard. Then, she retrieved her tent and sleeping bag from her storage.

"Calen, can you show me how to set this up?" she asked.

"Sure," he said.

"See this rune? Just channel a little mana into that." She did as he suggested, and she was rewarded with the tent suddenly inflating on its own and clamping itself down into the moss with anchor pins.

"Wow, that's convenient!"

"Only for the glamorous adventurer," he grinned.

"It's a time-saver for sure." As she laid her sleeping bag out inside her new tent, she decided her friends had been onto something good – it looked vastly more comfortable than sleeping on the ground – even ground covered in springy moss.

"Hey, Ali, I … can I ask you a favor?" Calen seemed a little hesitant.

"Sure, what do you need?"

"Someone has been buying up all the arrows in town. I was only able to buy one quiver – at four times the normal price, would you believe? And that was cheap, some merchants were trying to get a gold for twenty arrows!" Nearby, Malika whistled through her teeth.

"Nice racket."

"Do you think it's Kieran Mori?" Ali asked, recalling the story Calen had shared about seeing them and their nefarious plans for the town.

"I'm certain it is," he answered.

"Thing is, I will be useless in a fight without arrows. And, well… I saw you learned to make those daggers… can you make arrows, too?"

"I don't have a free imprint," she said, seeing disappointment on his face. I wonder, though… She pulled out her Grimoire again, a little surprised at how big it had grown, and she opened it, paging through the chapters and the imprints she had learned.

"I have this one for wood that I've never used," she said after a few moments.

"It should be easy enough to relearn something like that after I level my skill up. How many arrows do you have?"

"I have twenty, but are you sure this is ok?"

"Yes," she answered with a smile and sat down next to him, beginning to deconstruct his arrows one by one. His chagrin was priceless as he watched her systematically destroy all the arrows he had spent so much of his money on. Imprint: Arrow completed.

"Step one completed," she murmured. Ali paged through her Grimoire to the imprint for wood and selected it. She had never used the imprint, except for basic testing. And wood is plentiful. Ali watched her Grimoire replace the imprint and update to read 'Imprint: Arrow'.

"How many do you think you'll need?"

"A couple of hundred for a long battle," he answered. He was still looking anxiously at the five arrows that were all that remained in his quiver. Ali channeled her mana into the imprint, which, of all the ones she had learned so far, was one of the simpler ones. And with little fuss, she created an arrow. Calen's face broke into a joyful smile as she handed it to him and began to make another, happy to discover they were pretty quick to make, at least compared to Kobolds or trees.

And, with just a little experimentation, she discovered she was able to even make two or three at a time.

"How much gold for all those, Ali?" Mato chortled. Calen held up his hand.

"No tattling, or the Town Watch will have her making arrows for the rest of her life. Nice work, Ali. How's about you learn gold coins next?"

"Eek?"