World Seed: Game Start (25 page)

Standing
up, I walked over closer to the pond and sat down, setting my hand
just at the edge of the pond to let my fingers be submerged. Even
though I had Aura Sight now, and it allowed me to see the mana of the
different elements, I wasn’t sure it would let me make a
connection over a distance. So instead, I made the link the same way
I had before, through a physical connection.

After
that, time passed much in the same way as when I trained my other
affinities… slowly. It took nearly three full days to get the
Water Manipulation ability, and then another three days each for
Light Manipulation and Fire Manipulation. On the bright side, I
managed to figure out a recipe for alchemy to cure burns…
Though, that was only because I foolishly stuck my hand inside a fire
to establish the connection to that type of mana, before I realized
that living creatures(like myself) naturally emit a small amount of
fire mana.

In
the end, I managed to raise all three to 5% after nearly ten full
days of training. During that time, Sharon has been practicing even
harder than I was. Not only did she get the Beast Manipulation, but
she also got the abilities for water, earth, and wind in that same
amount of time. If I didn’t already have a head start of two
affinities, she would have easily beaten me to it.

Also,
I should mention that I finally got around to testing the Earth
Manipulation skill. It reminded me of an old anime, where a person
had to use sharp movements to move the earth. While I didn’t
really need to make any movements, it took quite a bit more mana than
the other affinities. However, the effects made by manipulating the
earth were permanent, so it could make up for it.

If
you’re wondering how I managed to feed myself for these nine
days, it’s really simple. Every day or two one of my meals
would be taking care of in the real world, but other than that
we(Jarl) roasted the wolf, and the rest of my meals came from Yin and
Yang. No, I didn’t eat them, too. I was tempted, after I had
gone several days without any meat, but they kept bringing me fruits
instead.

But
anyways, I had finally cultivated all five affinities needed for my
inner grove, so after I received the last one I smiled towards Jarl.
“Think you could teach me how to get started on my ‘inner
world’ now?”

He
looked me over, and smirked. “Alright, just don’t think
I’ll be going easy on you. This is a big step for druids, so
try to take your time. Once you have it established, it is much
easier to expand it in the future.”

I
nodded and sat down on the ground, crossing my legs to wait for his
instruction. Seeing that, he chuckled lightly, before nodding his
head. “Okay, first of all, you need to make magic seeds of each
of the five base elements. Don’t worry about darkness for now,
you can add it in later. In order to create the seeds, you need to
cultivate each element and condense the energy into a small shape.
Then, using your Nature Magic to give it form, you turn it into a
seed. Be careful of how much mana you put in each one. The quality of
your inner world will depend on the balance between the different
mana types, and can only be slowly shifted over time if a mistake is
made at the start.”

Again,
I nodded, and decided to start with water mana. I chose this one,
because out of all five mana types it was the easiest to shape, with
light being the hardest. So I used my Water Manipulation to pull some
of the water over from the pond to me, and used it to cultivate. I’m
not really sure how long it took, but in order to not have to pause
to refresh my mana, I only skimmed from the top of the water mana
that I took in. It was just enough that it didn’t cause my mana
to drop faster than it was restored.

I
had started in the evening, and when I opened my eyes next, the sky
was already dark. However, I could feel that I was coming closer and
closer to completing this seed. I was packing the water mana into a
single spot as much as I could, until I felt it couldn’t hold
any more. Then, once I felt it was at the breaking point, I used my
Nature Magic as instructed, to convert it into a physical object.

The
object created was a pure blue orb, about a third the size of my
fist. Jarl, having seen that I was finally done, smiled lightly.
“That is the first one, a Seed of Water. It’s actually a
fairly valuable object by itself, since they can be used in the
process of creating an item to give them an elemental ability. They
are condensed essences of magic, and produced almost exclusively by
druids, or mages capable of creating an enchantment that causes the
same effect. The only other way to obtain them is by killing a
magical beast or monster with a high affinity towards an element.”

I
smiled, looking down at the orb in my hand. If I could mass produce
this thing, then wouldn’t I be able to make money even without
alchemy? I decided that I’d check the prices of these seeds
once I journeyed to the big city.

Next,
I slept until morning. What, you didn’t think I’d been
cultivating and training for nine days without bothering to sleep,
did you? I am not some kind of training monster that could pull that
off! When I woke up, I ate, and then started on the next element.
This one would be earth, since like water was fairly easy to get a
desired shape.

The
process was very similar to what I had gone through with water, so
there’s not much point in going in detail. Same with wind and
fire. Only light had a bit of a difference, because I had to wait
until the following morning or else I might get interrupted and lose
all my work. Also, each pellet took nearly five hours to create, and
by the time I was done, Sharon had gotten the Light Manipulation
ability, leaving only one more before she was ready to do what I had
just done. I really felt like she was training too fast. Or was I
just going slower than normal?

After
I was done with all five seeds, Jared told me to use my Nature Magic
to fuse them together, by siphoning all of their mana into a single
pellet. This was apparently the most complicated part of the process,
and failure meant I would have to refine all five seeds again from
scratch. So naturally, I wasn’t allowed to fail!

…
.Yeah,
I wish. About halfway through the process, my focus slipped, and the
pellet I was working on shattered. So… naturally, I had to go
through the entire seed refinement again. By the time I was done with
making the seeds this time, Sharon was starting on her first one. It
really felt bad being outdone by someone that started later, so I
tried to rush through the process of creating the pellet the second
time… which made it fail again.

Of
course, by the time I was ready to try again, Sharon had refined all
five seeds and already succeeded in combining them her first try. I
even asked her how she had done so as quickly as she did, and she
just said it was easy. That annoyed me more than anything else, since
it seemed she was really telling the truth, and not trying to brag.

So,
for the third time, I put all of my focus on creating this pellet.
Sharon, being the kindhearted soul that she is, even decided to wait
for me to finish before moving to the next step. Thankfully, I
managed to create the pellet on my third try, the energies all
falling into place and fusing into a single sphere. Although the orb
was about the same size as the seeds had been, it was no longer a
single color. There were patches of brown, blue, swirling red and
white, it even emitted a soft glow.

Seeing
that I had finally finished, after a total of four days of trying to
make this pellet, Jarl let out a relieved sigh. “Okay, now that
you’re both ready to move on, the next step is the easiest.
What you have in your hands right now is called an Essence of Nature.
Simply place it in your mouth, and dissolve it with Nature Magic, and
it will be taken care of.”

I
smiled slightly, glad to know that this stage was so easy. Looking
over to Sharon, we met each other’s gaze and nodded, before we
both put the pellets in our mouths and began the final process.
Thankfully, the pellet just barely fit in our mouths, or this would
be a very awkward training attempt.

Once
in our mouths, each of us began draining it with Nature Magic, much
in the same way that we had created the pellet in the first place.
Except, this time, instead of five different types of mana, there was
just one strong combined type flowing into our bodies. After about
ten minutes of this, the pellet had already completely dissolved.

Opening
my eyes, I saw that Sharon was just finishing up as well, and we both
looked at Jarl, confused. I certainly couldn’t detect anything
different about myself right away, and my mana signature appeared the
same as I remembered it. Noticing our gazes, Jarl only smiled at us
for a moment before speaking. “Congratulations, it seems both
of you have already successfully created your inner world. To explore
it, simply meditate like you would when cultivating mana, but direct
your senses inside yourself. You should be able to find it.”

I
had already basically done that, hadn’t I? Well, without the
meditation. Shrugging my shoulders, I closed my eyes and tried
meditating like I would when cultivating mana. However, like he said
I focused on myself rather than an element. Soon, I understood what
he meant, and it was like I was floating above a small patch of soil,
about ten meters wide and long. If this was my inner grove, I was
really disappointed in myself.

I
felt very disappointed in myself.

Chapter 23: A
Single Blade

After
a few moments of regret for my tiny plot of land, I allowed my
consciousness to emerge again and looked around. Jarl was looking at
the two of us expectantly, and when he saw that we had both ‘woken
up’, he spoke. “Your grove will always present itself in
the form of a sphere. Roughly a third of the innermost part of the
sphere will be used for the ground, while the rest will be the
atmosphere. So, how big are your inner worlds?”

I
answered first, saying that it was six meters radius. Next, Sharon
spoke up, and somewhat shyly said that hers was almost a ten meter
radius. Somehow, I feel like she is just a better druid than me, even
though she’ll have trouble leveling up the normal way. Jarl
nodded his head, having somewhat expected these numbers. “They’re
both a bit below average. But, like I said before, the hardest part
is establishing your grove. From now on, whenever you cultivate, any
excess elemental energy will be absorbed by your grove to help it
grow larger. The only time it will stop growing is if the elements
are too out of balance. At that point, you’ll need to absorb a
large amount of the missing elements in order to make up the
difference.”

He
then looked over to Sharon. “For you, your grove needs to be at
least an acre of ‘ground’ to support a budding colony.
Right now, you’d only be able to house one or two animals at
most.” Afterwards, he directed his attention to me. “As
for you, the size of your grove isn’t really that important,
since you are just planting herbs. A ten meter cubed space is
sufficient for you to plant a few items. Once it grows more, you’ll
need to change the layout to match the herbs you’re planting.
For instance, if you get something that only grows underwater, or in
a desert, you’ll need an environment that matches it.”

With
that said, he clapped his hands together once and looked at both of
us. “Either way, first you’ll need to learn how to move
things into and out of your grove. Since food is not magically
provided, Sharon will have to grow her own plants and establish an
ecosystem.”

I
winced a bit, as I understood what that meant sooner than she would.
In other words, her wolves will eat her rabbits… Jarl, seeing
my reaction, nodded slightly to it. “For that reason, Sharon,
you’ll need to get both males and females of any species that
you want to keep in your grove. Don’t worry, if they are born
and raised inside your grove, they will have an automatic loyalty
towards you.”

It
took a few more moments for Sharon to process what had been implied,
but then she immediately looked down to the rabbit in her arms and
became saddened. “So… they’ll fight each other
like normal, then..?”

Jarl
nodded his head, but said nothing, so she eventually gave a bitter
smile. “Well.. I suppose it is the natural order of things…
right?” She looked up at him, but it was easy to see that she
was still reluctant.

“
Exactly,
Sharon. We are not druids because we seek to preserve life in all its
forms. Trying to do so will only lead to more pain. The spider eats
the butterfly to live, and so nature will go on. If we tried to save
the butterfly, the spider would instead starve. What we, as druids,
must do is instead seek to preserve nature itself. That is why we
cultivate our inner grove. A single druid can save a species from
going extinct by sheltering it until they are strong enough to emerge
again. Just one of us can create a vast forest for people to call
their home. We do not provide the technologic advance of the mages,
or the defensive strength of the fighters, or the cunning of the
rogues.