Wraithwood Botanist

I accepted it. "What’s this?"

"Channel recovery elixir."

"Oh…" It was like maralune syrup, but it was a liquid. I drank it, and my battered channels healed instantly, leaving me gasping with relief. I wasn’t going to ask how valuable the resource was. I didn’t want to owe a major debt unless it was determined as one. "Thank you," I said.

"You’re welcome. Let’s go."

Nethralis and I exited the spring and toweled off my and Kline’s body with Desiccation. Then I purified my clothes and pulled them over my body and returned to the home where Kyro was waiting, head in his hands, shielding his body, mind, and soul from the sun. The hangover looked legendary—

—and his healing and detoxification magic couldn’t help him.

"What’s he doing here?" I asked.

"He’s here to bear witness to your soul weapon."

"Oh… he’s not gonna like that."

"Oh no," he groaned. "I wanna see it."

"Then take me somewhere isolated… that can take damage." Nethralis and Zyphrael led us to an isolated meadow that looked gorgeous and serene.

I frowned. "I don’t think we should be messing with something this powerful in a place like…"

Kyro flicked his hand, and a massive barrier swept through the area, surrounding everything but a single tree. Then Nethralis looked at Kline. "Let’s get you a soul core."

Kline’s eyes widened, and he looked at me like he was betraying me, but I wasn’t worried about it. I had pulled out my soul weapon and Nethralis paused and decided to stay as well.

"It’s a bow," I said as I aimed at a tree. "But… you’re gonna wanna shield your eyes."

I put my fingers on the invisible string and pulled. As I did, it lit up with blinding light, and Kyro screamed, "Stop!" at the top of his lungs.

I smirked and put down the bow. "What? Hurtin’ your hangover?" I turned and found Kyro, Nethralis, and Zyphrael glaring at me with an intensity that I had yet to see. "What?"

"You’re the one that sent that beam of light up?" Nethralis asked.

I panicked. "Yes. But… I was fighting a third evolution and—"

"And you wanted to use it here?" Zyphrael asked chillingly. "To reveal our location, too?"

My body’s panic turned to anger. "Hey, you asked! You didn’t ask what it did. You insisted on seeing it. I’m sorry I don’t disclose everything about myself."

"Exercise some common sense! Are you—"

"Enough," Nethralis said. "We’re both at fault. What’s important is that we fix it." Nethralis pulled a tiny bottle from her breast pocket and dumped the green elixir over Kyro’s head. The drunkard sobered in an instant and groaned in relief—but it came at a cost. "Teach her mana control."

"Great." He raised his eyebrows and pulled out a flask. "I’ll teach her our language while I’m at it. I’m sure she’ll pick it—"

Nethralis whipped her hand, and the flask flew to her hand. "Results first."

His face turned grave. "I can’t think without that, let alone teach."

She floated it back. "Drain a fourth. Then you won’t get any more until you show me results."

"She’s trying to kill me," he grumbled as he unscrewed the lid. Then he took a drink. "Fine." He chugged at least half and then handed it back to her.

She accepted it and turned to Kline. "Soul core."

Kline meowed and sauntered off with Zyphrael, who protested that they shouldn’t let me practice at all before disappearing.

Once they left, I turned and found Kyro glaring at me with crazed eyes. "You’re going to become a god in thirty minutes or less, or I’m going to beat the joy and nuance of mana control into you," he said. Then he thought about it and added, "Savagely."

I rolled my eyes at his empty threats and turned back to the tree and lifted the bow.

"Pull, don’t shoot."

I nodded. The arrow lit up with scorching light. Then I released it without firing and turned to Kyro, whose hands were over his eyes as he grumbled, "I’m never going to drink again," under his breath.

I scoffed. "Or, you can teach me."

"Teach you what…? How to use mana? I thought you’d at least have a little control because you’re using alchemy, but you’re pouring all your mana into it like a broken dam. Do you scream every word you say to people?"

I frowned. "So… use less?"

"That’d be a start," he chuckled insanely.

I tried again, and it halved in size, but it was still blinding. I tried it a third time with even less and a fourth. But no matter how many times I did it, the forest kept lighting up, and Kyro kept getting more frustrated.

"Give it up," Kyro said.

"No," I said coldly.

"No… we need to do something else." His face turned serious, and he fluttered up to a branch and broke off a twig. Then he brought it to me like he was wielding a tiny sword. "I saw you use Mana Sharpening during our fight, yes?"

I eyed it suspiciously. "Yes."

"Then watch." He activated Mana Sharpening and turned the tiny twig into a combat knife. Then, he lowered it until there was a nearly invisible film over the stick. Despite that, when he swung at a thick branch, it sliced straight through it. He returned and handed it to me. "It’s about control."

I chuckled and looked at the ground, shaking my head in amusement.

"This isn’t funny," he said.

"It’s… no, it’s pretty funny because…" I picked up the twig and turned it into a machete and then turned it into a tiny pocket knife with Mana Sharpening. It wasn’t nearly as refined, but it still left his eyes wide. "I skin all my beasts with sticks for practice," I said. "Been doing it for the last few months."

He looked up with a flabbergasted expression. "And you can’t use a soul weapon?"

All the pride I had disappeared.

"Okay, we can work with this. Aim your soul weapon and use this stick as an arrow. Then about creating a big blade of mana, then make it as tiny as possible."

I did, and to my shock, the arrow turned big, and this shrunk so thin that I felt like I was shooting a bar of iron that came from a forge rather than an angelic ray of god.

"Oh thank Yakana," Kyro said. "Practice that. I’m going to get something."

My excitement grew as I continued to practice, expecting him to bring me a new resource or a fancy artifact, but what he brought me instead was Zyphrael.

"Show him," Kyro instructed.

My face slackened into a frown, and I almost told him to go fuck himself, but I chose not to. I took a deep breath and used Moxle Dilation to slow the world, using pinpoint precision to create the tiniest arrow of mana I could. It was far smaller than the rest. Then I released it and turned to Zyphrael.

The guard stared at me like he was staring down a ghost. "How?"

"I’m a god, obviously." Kyro declared.

I frowned. "Kyro’s tutelage."

"See?" Kyro turned Zyphrael and put out his hands. The guard didn’t break, so the degenerate fairy wiggled his little fingers until the blonde-haired stickler scoffed and thrust Kyro’s flask into his hands and stared at me. "If he taught you this much this fast… we’ll be expecting more."

"Yeah, yeah." Kyro took a deep gulp of the flask like he was stuck in the desert for two days without water and then fluttered backward aimlessly as Zyphrael turned and flew away. Once the guard was gone, I glared daggers at Kyro.

"What?" he asked.

"You owe me."

"I do not."

"You do." I pulled the bow and sharpened the mana until it was thin. Not nearly as much with Moxle Dilation, but I couldn’t become complacent with that. I needed more power.

Kyro begrudgingly came up and started giving me tips and tricks and visualization exercises and soon I was holding an arrow so thin it barely radiated with light. He flicked his hand, and the barrier got stronger.

"Now fire it," he said.

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah."

I nodded and aimed and released an arrow at the tree. It hit the tree and flew right through it, crashing into the barrier on the other side.

Kyro released a protracted whistle and raised his flask. "I’ll drink to that." He did.

I felt a pang of pride but also felt apprehension.

"What’s that look for?" he asked. "You won."

"But I can’t aim this thing. It took all my concentration to hit the tree—and it didn’t even land where I wanted it to."

"Oh… that?" Kyro snapped his fingers, and a flame lit up on his index. Then, he waved it like a conductor, and the flame got further and further from his finger until it was flying in the air, doing circles and eights and loops before it broke off from his finger movements and flew around his neck and head.

I watched in wonder.

"That’s the difference between magic and physical weapons," Kyro said. "Magic isn’t bound by normal physics. It’s only bound by your imagination." He flicked his hand, and the flame turned into an arrow and shot at the tree like a weaving snake before hitting the hole I left, passing straight through it and curving around.

He turned to me with narrowed eyes. "That’s why having an amplifier like that is so dangerous."

I swallowed and looked at Nymbral in a new light.

"So… how do I do that?"

Kyro laughed. "Today? You have a better chance of achieving world peace." he took a drink.

"Sure. But how… for later?"

"There’s a lot of things. Levitation is one of them." He motioned his fingers, and a rock flew off the ground.

I used Levisphere to pull up dozens of rocks and made them fly around in a spherical pattern.

He turned to me with a frown. "And you couldn’t use a soul weapon?"

"Let it go!"

He rolled his eyes. "It’s like that, but you need to control them." He picked up a sphere and started moving all the pebbles in different directions. My brain nearly cracked thinking about controlling so many trajectories—

—but it wasn’t the first time I saw it.

Elana did the same with ingredients, having a lot more form in not only controlling them but using them. I also had experience using the technique—I needed to learn it to make the Ilyndra elixir.

Separation.

I thought about all the times that I had separated different materials and organized them and did the same with the pebbles, spreading them into two different directions. I thought about moving half to one tree and half to the other and shooting them out. It was weak, but one set hit the tree, and another hit the barrier.

Kyro’s face turned grave. "You know this’s making you look like a spy, right?"

I nodded. "Elana taught me this. I needed it to make an Ilyndra elixir."

"What’s that?"

"It’s an elixir that automatically closes wounds. To make it, you need a domain and to remove oxygen. I also use it regularly to separate ingredients and remove waste in elixirs."

"Okay… okay…" Kyro’s lips curved into a grin. "Maybe this’ll be fun after all."

Hours pass with Kyro teaching me how to control mana. I created water balls, and he had me use telekinesis to spread them around and reshape them. Every individual part seemed easy, but by the time I was creating a ball, making it into a hovering sphere, shaping it, and moving it, my brain had burned out. Then, he put me through mental exercises and loops and soon I needed to activate Mental Shielding just to protect my brain from overheating, but slowly yet surely, I was able to curve a water ball.

Kyro developed a near-sinister smile and said, "Well then. Now that we’ve learned how to control trajectory… Let’s throw that out the window. This’s what I want you to do instead. Aim at that tree and create an arrow. Then, create a water ball around it and rotate it. Capture that steam and momentum… and then fire."

My heart fluttered, and I looked at the tree with a wild smile and nodded. "Okay."